If we still lived in Southern California, I might feel differently. But not only do I not mind the San Francisco Giants winning a World Series … I prefer it to the Kansas City Royals winning it. How I arrived at this place:

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The beach? October 18? In Abu Dhabi. Probably not a good idea. But we gave it try, anyway, and aside from the part where we ate dinner on the terrace, mildly sweating the entire time … it went quite well.

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It was on October 16, 2009, that we arrived in Abu Dhabi. Five years ago today. It seems longer. Not in a bad way. More in a “hard to remember life before” kind of way. A rule of thumb, among expats, is that if you do five years out of your home country, you never […]

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And I know a hare-brained sports scheme when I see one, having inflicted several dozen on myself over the past 30-some years. This one is crazy enough not even I would have done it in my youth. Probably not. Well, maybe not. And it involves 48 kids from the ages of 10 to 16. Check […]

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The national soccer team, easily the most popular and most professional of sports teams in the UAE, literally the only sport most Emiratis care about … played tonight. How did it turn out? Well, the UAE lost 4-0, at home, to Uzbekistan. Which is not what this current group of guys who, collectively, probably make […]

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  The Volvo Ocean Race may not be well known in the U.S. It is worth knowing. It’s the greatest race in the world. Nothing else involves sailboats circling the planet as fast as they possibly can be driven. The sailors will touch every continent except Antarctica and Australia. They will sail over every ocean […]

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On the same night Landon Donovan bid adieu (check the video at the bottom of the link) to international soccer in an emotional evening in Hartford, we were Australia fans for a few hours in Abu Dhabi. The UAE was playing host to the Aussies (or Socceroos, as they sometimes are known, back in the […]

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After about a 10-minute wait tonight, an open cab pulled over. The passenger-side window went down, and the driver leaned over and semi-shouted at me, so I could hear him over the noise of the street. “You know where you are going? I am new!” I said, “Yes, I know,” and climbed in. New cabbies […]

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It is abundantly clear on which days the UAE domestic soccer league should play. Thursday night and Friday night. Yet, over the first nine weeks of the current season, only once did the league actually plan for a Thursday-Friday schedule. Which is crazy, and here is why.

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I have mentioned this here before, a time or two, in the nearly five years we have been based in Abu Dhabi. How I have never seen a coin on the street, or the sidewalk. Not one. Not in nearly five years. Not even when I used to walk outside more than a little. When […]

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