radio free kuwait

2006-08-13T14:50:00.000+03:00

Apple of My Eye

Back home in NYC for a little while and loving life. I managed to be in the air when the big terrorist scare was happening so I completely missed out on all the horrible airport delays that everyone else had to go through. Was also upgraded to business class on my flight so all in all a pretty good start to the trip.

My first night here it absolutely poured rain and Monica and I got soaked. A very stark and sudden reminder that I wasn't in the desert anymore. Since then the weather has been amazing, sunny and pleasantly warm in the day, cool at night. I've been trying to spend as much time outside as possible and again it's a sea change from the dash between air conditioned environments that is summer in Kuwait.

It's also perfect weather for hanging out in the Slope. Mon and I grabbed brunch yesterday and the went for a wander down by the park and through the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Absolutely gorgeous and a reminder once again that these sorts of public works projects just don't exist in the MIddle East. It's a real shame because I think they enhance everyone's quality of life and help to create a community spirit. Inshallah, like most things in the MENA region it's gradually changing.

Spiritually, it's also nice to be away from a conflict ridden region for a few days. Although, Kuwait is one of the most stable countries in the Middle East, there is definitely an awareness that war is raging all around it. Everyone feel that things can change in a moment and there's a group collective nervousness that pervades the zeitgeist. It doesn't impact on day to day life but there's definitely a tension always present. Of course part of this comes from Bush's "we have to fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them here" mentality. Great for those of us in the Western world, not so great if your house and life happens to be "over there".

For now, I'm just going to kick back and enjoy the rest of the weekend. The sun's up, the coffee's on and there's a street hockey game with my name on it later on today. What more could I guy ask for?

2006-08-06T18:18:00.000+03:00

It's Quiet ... Too Quiet

Actually it's kind of nice to be able to catch up on work. But Kuwait is so dead right now it's lading blogger has been reduced to posts like this.

What really gives you a sense of the doldrums is that 21 people commented on that post!

I'm off to Dubai, New York and Ottawa for three weeks starting Wednesday so I'm sure I'll have some more exciting things to post about then.

2006-08-03T14:31:00.000+03:00

Safe as Houses

Thanks to everybody who has made enquiries about my safety over the last few weeks. Recent years have shown us that nowhere in the world is particularly safe but if you're talking about the Middle East, there aren't many better places to be than Kuwait. There are 15,000 US troops stationed here so no one who isn't as loony as Saddam wants to mess with the place. Just to be safe, I live as far away from the US bases as possible and tell everyone I meet that I'm Canadian (well I do that when I'm in the US, too).

Geography wise, we're on the other side of the peninsula from Israel and the West Bank and about a 1000 milesaway from Lebanon (with Saudi Arabia in between). As Bill Murray said, "So I've got that going for me."

Don't get me wrong. Everyone in Kuwait (and throughout the Gulf) is very focussed on what's happening in Lebanon and Gaza. But no one is worried about dodging rockets just yet.

2006-08-02T09:06:00.000+03:00

I Wish My Passport Looked Like This ...

I just got an extension on my Kuwaiti visa and it caused something that I've been anticipating for a while. I now have no more room in my passport. This would have happened long ago if I hadn't used my British passport a lot when I was living in the UK. I also lost my Canadian passport a few years back so this is the replacement passport.

I went to get pages added in but "due to security concerns" they don't do that anymore. So I have to get a new passport, even though this one doesn't expire for another year. And of course my Canadian citizenship certificate is sitting at the bottom of a storage locker in New York. So I'll probably get a temporary passport. The Americans will love that.

Think I'm going to take along my Irish passport just in case. It's brand new and very pretty. At least for now ...

2006-07-29T13:16:00.000+03:00

The Roadside Job Interview

Every morning, Majed and I drive by the sheep Souk on the way to work. And every morning, there is a man sitting by the side of the road who waves to us. This man became a regular part of our morning conversation as we speculated about what he was doing, sitting by the side of the road. Majed correctly concluded that he was looking for a job but we still didn't know what type of worki he might be seeking. Finally one morning, curiosity got the better of Majed and he pulled over the car to talk to the guy. it turns out his name is Salim and he is a butcher for hire. Apparently, he waits there every morning for someone to bring a herd of sheep in and then he makes himself available to cut and dress the animals for anyone purchasing one.

I never knew that there were freelance butchers for hire, here in Kuwait. But it's good to know that if we ever need one, we'll know where to look.

2006-07-26T19:37:00.000+03:00

Taking Kuwait's Temperature

How hot is it here right now? It's hard to tell. You see, there are laws that state if the temperature exceeds a certain amount, manual laborers have to be given the day off. However, it's also peak construction season here. So official sources may be reluctant to provide accurate information.

Right now, it's 7:30 pm and my little weather widget is telling me that it's 117 degrees Fahrenheit. It's also telling me that tomorrow's high is 122. Now if you think there is only a 5 degree shift in temperature between midday and early evening in the desert ... I've got some beautiful lakefront property to sell you right here in Kuwait.

2006-07-25T19:37:00.000+03:00

Kuwait This Week

Couple of random observations since my last post:

- Went for a haircut the other day and got to experience the practice of "candling". This is a Middle eastern barbershop technique where q-tips are dipped in hot wax and then inserted in your ears. The wax dries and the barber rips it off your ear removing any hair that was on the ear. You know it's been removed because the barber shows this to you. For any women I know who wax their legs, I feel your pain. They also do this to remove nostril hair but luckily my barber didn't offer that particular service. Like a lot of things in the Middle east, you don't have to ask for this. It's just assumed you want it.

-No one in Kuwait that I know has a cat as a pet. Yet there are tons of stray cats roaming the streets. They're all thin and pretty mangy looking but there seem to be more of them every day. Where do they come from?

- I was walking out of physio therapy today and they were bringing in a young girl who looked like she suffered from Muscular Dystrophy. On the one hand, I thought this is a good part of the world for people who suffer from conditions like this since nursing help (like most manpower) is relatively cheap. This girl had four nurses with her which was great. On the other hand, I realized that she was the first young person I've seen in a wheelchair since I came here. You really don't see anyone with any physical handicaps here except older people. I wonder why that is? perhaps it's because they don't need to go out since they can hire help to do a lot of the menial tasks. But it's strange that you don't see more of them.

It's eight o'clock at night and it's 115 degrees outside. All you North Americans can shut up about your heatwave now.

2006-07-22T09:19:00.000+03:00

The Loose Moose

... is no longer just a bar in Toronto. My friend Heather sent me some pictures of a bunch of moose who wandered in to the East Ottawa suburb of Orleans. I don't know if the warm weather got them confused (it's unseasonably hot this summer in Canada) but this is definitely not a regular occurrence. When I was a kid we would get the occasional bear or wolf in the springtime that had woken up from hibernation and was looking for food but I don't ever recall moose coming in to town. All very NORTHERN EXPOSURE.

I love the look on the face of the girl in this picture. You can tell she's thinking, "Nothing interesting ever happens around here."

2006-07-21T18:35:00.000+03:00

How to Shop in the Middle East

Ever see that episode of THE SIMPSONS where Homer wants to buy some hammocks for his new job? His Bond villain boss advises him to go down to the Hammock district. In the Middle east he would have sent him to the Hammock Souk. Souk can roughly be translated to mean market and there is one for anything you might look for. Kuwait is famous for its gold souk. I got suits made at the fabric souk. The fish souk is brand new, next to a very modern shopping mall and listed as a tourist attraction. There's even a woman's souk, staffed entirely by women.

I haven't made it to that one or to the one I really want to get to, the big Friday souk. That souk is out by my office in Shuwaikh and it's actually made up of many different souks. I drove by the sheep souk a couple of times this week and that's part of the larger animal souk which is part of the Friday souk. As I told Monica, i have a fantasy about buying a monkey and bringing him back with me to New York. I dream that there's a monkey souk where all shapes and sizes of primate are just waiting for me to come looking and all the monkeys are tastefully dressed like the evil monkey in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Sadly, I know the reality is probably far different. Still, I wouldn't mind doing a little window shopping in the monkey souk someday. Who knows what else I might find there?

2006-07-19T21:52:00.000+03:00

Why I Haven't Blogged the Last Couple of Days

The Middle East is undergoing technical difficulties. Please stand by ...

The link between Fujairah and Jeddah is undergoing upgrades; hence the internet slow downs and disconnections. The link should be fully operational by 2pm (Kuwait Time). The majority of Gulf ISPs are connected to the Falcon Underdsea Cable (Flag Telecom); when they go do down .. we all go down.

2006-07-16T08:51:00.000+03:00

Working 5 to 9

I often jokingly refer to Kuwait as the Construction Site. But these days that name seems to be more and more true. Apparently, the summer is the ideal time to do building works. I guess the feeling is anyone who is important enough to worry about inconveniencing is already out of the country. As a result, it's full speed ahead on anything that needs to get done.

Right now, they're rebuilding the parking lot of my building, finishing off the new complex they're building next door, and doing major work on the road out front. I noticed the last one when some guy started running a jackhammer at 11:30 pm on Friday night. I guess the guy thought it was just too hot to work during the day. He's right but it definitely brought home the fact that there are no noise pollution laws in this country either.

I can't even get mad at these guys because I can't think of many jobs that would be worse than being a manual laborer in the Middle East. But I'm definitely thinking that getting out of the country for a weeks isn't a bad idea at all.

2006-07-14T12:09:00.000+03:00

Wedding Tips from Kerala

So I've got a few weddings to go to in a short period of time. Thought some of my friends could learn from the weddings I'm attending earlier in the season. Yesterday was my friend Nabeel's wedding. Here's what I learned:

- at Indian weddings they hand out flower petals for you to throw at the bride and groom. Not only does this create a beautiful effect but if its safer than rice (which pigeons can choke on) and easier to clean up than confetti.

- Check what the priest is going to say in his sermon ahead of time. If you're in a dry country (i.e. Kuwait) you might ask him to rethink talking for a lengthy period of time about how Christ turned water in to wine. Just makes the wedding guests surly.

-Don't hire the DJ pictured above (to be fair Nabeel didn't but it's a message that just needed to be put out there).

2006-07-12T19:25:00.000+03:00

No Go, San Diego

For about eight years of my career, I had to attend the San Diego Comicon every year. San Diego is a beautiful city and it used to be a lot of fun to attend Comicon. There was a sort of gypsy community of comic book business professionals who would do all the distributor shows and conventions. The nice thing about SDCC was it was usually the last show of the season. We had some great traditions - distributor vs. publisher softball (I think Denis Kitchen kicked that one off), brunch at the Hotel del Coronado and the Graphitti party on Sunday night (probably the hardest party to be invited too since it really was for those show gypsies who hung out with Bob Chapman on the road). After comic books, the Frankfurt Book Fair became my yearly show. Much more business like but I still remember a lot of fun nights at the Casablanca Bar.

A lot of people have been asking me if I'm headed to San Diego this year now that I'm back in comics. But I think I've outgrown san Diego and it has certainly outgrown me. I went to the New York comic convention in February for about two hours. It was a poorly run show but I still found myself feeling like a stranger in a strange land. American comics are for extremely serious 30 year old men now and I that's a type of reader I was always a little uncomfortable talking too. And Comicon is this huge Hollywood thing now, a tough place for a small publisher to get business done, let alone get a message out that penetrates the white noise surrounding the place.

I'm sure next year I'll attend, just to help Teshkeel find some talent. But for now I'm happy to see people on their own home turf and to not have a million five minute conversations. If I had my way I would never be in Frankfurt again either.

But if they ever start having distributor meetings in New Orleans again I'm totally there :)

2006-07-11T14:01:00.000+03:00

Top Sports Story of the Week

It's not that Italy won the World Cup (Yeah!). It's not the Zidane headbutt (boo). Or that the idiot's at FIFA still made him player of the tournament (double boo). Or even that Martin Havlat and Bryan Smolinski are now Chicago Blackhawks (triple boo. Muckler better sign me up Mike Peca real soon).

No, the big story is that I finally went to see a physiotherapist about my knee. I injured it pretty badly last year playing street hockey and it's been giving me problems ever since. I had resigned myself to not doing anything about it while in Kuwait because I was suspicious of the level of healthcare here. But Naif mentioned that he was seeing a Canadian physiotherapist and suggested I come along. Turns out that Chris is a University of Toronto grad from Bells Corners (suburb of Ottawa where I lived when I was five years old). When you find a PT in Kuwait who is from your university and your home town, well, I just don't think it's wise to ignore the message.

So it turns out I have a torn meniscus. This is the fifth time in my life I've had this injury but only the second time on this knee. I think one more and I get a free cartilage change. Anyway, it's back to excercises, ice and ultrasound for me. Hopefully, I'll be 100% for next ice hockey season.

Who knows? Muckler might need me by then.

2006-07-09T20:16:00.000+03:00

FORZA AZZURI!!

Off to watch the World Cup final at a friend's restaurant. I'm telling everybody I'm cheering for Italy because Monica's Italian. This is only partly true. Those of you who know me well know that the only time I've ever cheered for France is when it meant Ireland might win something.

Forza Italia! Les Bleues est finis!

2006-07-07T20:12:00.000+03:00

Kuwait 2.0

So it's been ages since I put up a new post here. There are all sorts of reasons (travel, busy work schedule, etc.) but that's not really important. What's important is the sort of sea change that's occurred since the last post.

I was in New York the last two weeks of Juneand everyone was saying "Oh, you don't have long to go now." That's a bit of an exaggeration. I've still got another five months here (well actually 143 days but who's counting). However, it is true that the end is closer than the beginning. i was also excited to come back and see that my staff had produced books and got a lot done without me. Every week we're still tackling something new (right now I'm getting clued up on animation and mobile phone technology and online gaming) but a lot of the big hurdles have been crossed. We've produced our first original comics. We've signed a lot of licensing deals (Marvel, Archie and DC with more to come) and everyone (including me) is starting to feel some degree of comfort in the process.

There's also not a lot in Kuwait that surprises me these days. Part of that is because the summer is relatively quiet here (due to a combination of people travelling and the weather). And part of that is because I've been here long enough to be used to things. it's never going to feel like home but it certainly feels familiar. As a result, I don't have the same reaction when I see sheep in the back of a hatchback or I get an e-mail at home saying the internet is out at the office (six months ago I would have been all "if the internet's out how are people going to read the e-mail about it being out?). Par for the course now.

Hopefully, I'll get my camera fixed this week and be able to share some images with you again. I'm still going to do my best to show you guys some of the things that make this part of the world unique. It just won't be so "Gosh!Wow!" anymore. But it should still be fun.

2006-06-13T21:14:00.000+03:00

Wouldn't It be Great if the World Always Worked This Way?

I've spent a lot of my week writing, reviewing and negotiating contracts. This means working with a lot of contract lawyers which is never fun.

I prefer Akira Kurosawa's methods explained here by my old pal, Warren Ellis.

2006-06-11T21:19:00.000+03:00

This Desert Life

When I went to work this morning the sky was blue and the sun was blinding. In other words, a normal Kuwaiti day. Like living in California, I had gotten used to the perfect (heat aside) weather that Kuwaitis enjoy for most of the summer. So imagine my surprise when I left work today.

The heat was still there. But the sky was hazy and there was a blast furnace wind roaring. "What the hell kind of weather is this?" I asked one of my co-workers, genuinely confused about what was going on. "Sandstorm,"he calmly replied.

This is the first one of the summer and the first one I've been here for. The locals tell me it's quite a mild one but it's still a little freaky. The sky ends up taking on the same pallor it gets just before a really humidity driven rain storm but there's not a drop of moisture in the air. And after 9/11 whenever I see this much dust blowing around I get a little creeped out (oddly picture perfect days in NYC do the same thing to me).

Just goes to show, when you start taking the desert for granted it comes up with something new. Summer here is like winter in Canada. Nature calls the shots and we all just get by as best we can.

2006-06-09T08:24:00.000+03:00

Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer

That last post was meant to go up last night but there was a glitch in the blogger software so you get two doses of RFK in one day. Which is rare these days because I haven't been blogging much. Mainly because outside of work nothing much has been happening.

As the summer starts, most affluent Kuwaitis leave the country for Lebanon, Europe or America. Out of Kuwait's total population of 2.2 - 2.5 million it's estimated that about 500,000 people leave the country in the summer. So things become very quiet. This will be exacerbated by the start of the World Cup today which will send a lot of the country in to a football coma for the next month. The shish cafes will probably be full since the pay per view package for Cup coverage is horrifically expensive (170 KD = US$500+). I doubt I'll pay much attention though, even with the seemingly miraculous return of Wayne Rooney to the England side. ireland aren't in the World Cup this year and England never seem to get past the round of 16. If they do, maybe I'll break down and watch a game or two.

The other thing occupying the country right now is the upcoming election. It's an interesting scenario as parliament was dissolved over a dispute between the government and MPs regarding the addition of more seats/redrawing of electoral districts. There is actually a growing reform movement that had been nprotesting daily at the National Assembly and the Emir decideed to have an election rather than have to keep dealing with the protests. The Emir is meant to be very forward thinking so no one seems sure if he is looking for a more pro-government parliament to be elected or if this is his way of covertly encouraging change.

Of course, only Kuwaitis can vote so really only 20% of the country's population has any stake in the election. However, it is cool to see the huge diwaniyas (sort of large group discussions hosted by individuals) that the various candidates are holding and it emphasizes the fact that Kuwait is the most advanced democracy in the region. There are even 32 female candidates running. Of course, one conservative sheikh has publicly stated that women should obey their husbands when it comes to voting but not everyone is going to change overnight!

Meanwhile, with all the press Dubai gets for its progressive ways, they have nothing like this. And when I sent a link to my Flickr site to a colleague in the UAE he told me that the site was blocked by their (monopoly owned) ISP.

So politics and football. That's what's going on in Kuwait these days. In the meantime, I'll be working hard and staying glued to the Internet for news on the Stanley Cup finals.

You can take the boy out of Canada ...

2006-06-08T21:43:00.000+03:00

4 Out of 5 Dentists Recommend

So I was at the gym today and a commercial came on the TV for Close Up toothpaste. My parents used to use Close Up when I was a kid and I rember it being distinctly better tasting than the Colgate or Crest me and my brother had to brush with.

Now Close Up has three new flavors (at least for the Middle East) - Tangerine, lychee and chocolate.

Chocolate flavored toothpaste. I'm not sure if it's one of the greatest discoveries ever made by science or a sign of the end times.

But I am curiously compelled to give it a try.

2006-06-03T19:21:00.000+03:00

Turning in to a Farmer

Of all the things I knew I would miss this year, I really didn't think Daylight Savings Time would be one of them. Kuwait (and in fact the entire Middle East) doesn't have DST for two main reasons:

1) No one here is terribly worried about saving energy
2) No one wants the day to be any longer when it's a 120 degrees outside. They prefer the cooler nightime temperatures where it dip in to the 90's and sometimes even the 80's.

Kuwaitis also don't seem to believe in a straight eight hours of sleep. I'm not just talking about the afternoon nap they share with most Mediterranean cultures. I'm talking about appointments at the weirdest times and flights in the middle of the night. My internal clock gets so confused some times it doesn't know if it's lunchtime or bedtime.

Right now sunrise happens a little before 5 am. And I don't have very good curtains. So if you're wondering why this entry is a little incoherent you have your answer. It's 7:30 and dark outside (being this close to the equator even summer days don't run much more than 14 hours) and I expect I'll be in bed by ten.

Early to bed, early to rise, no booze. Give me some goats to milk and the transition would be complete.

Did I mention I'm heading to New York in a few days?

2006-06-01T22:20:00.000+03:00

Are You Ready for the Summer?

For all of you just gearing up after Victoria or Memorial Day in North America, the forecast for tomorrow is 117 degrees farhenheit.

So if you see me in New York this June and you're wondering why I'm not sporting a bitchin' tan you now know the reason.

I think once it hits 125 fair skinned Irish boys like me spontaneously combust.

2006-05-29T08:26:00.000+03:00

Do You Want Fries With That?

We have our own version of this in Kuwait. It's the nice young Filippino behind the counter going "How about a bottle of water, sir?" And nine times out of ten they get me. Of course I want a bottle of water. We're in the middle of the desert and it's hot outside. Of course, if my brain was working properly I would be drinking the bottle from my house that cost me 85 fils instead of paying 250 fils to the girl at Starbucks. And I'm in Starbucks a lot more often than I'm in MacDonald's. Still it's a great scam and if I could ever figure out the Canadian equivalent, I could probably make a lot of money. The winters are cold up north. How does "Would you like some warm maple syrup with that?" sound?

2006-05-26T20:53:00.000+03:00

Not Enough Hours

Was off in Dubai for a couple of days (Yesterday and Wednesday). I keep kidding Naif that we can't keep going there because everytime we do we come back with more work. I can only imagine what it's like to live there. Dubai is a boomtown in every sense of the word and a real 21st century city. One of the largest ethnic groups is Eastern European and Russian is right up there with English and Arabic as a commonly spoken language. I read somewhere that only 22% of Dubai residents actually do speak Arabic and I'm sure that number will only go down.

Everyone is scrambling in the UAE. The other emirates have seen Dubai's success and they want their piece of the pie. And Dubai is trying to transform itself from Las Vegas in the early '90s to Las Vegas in the late '90s (or better yet Orlando). There's all sorts of theme park building going on and hotel after hotel being built. If they pull it off their city really will be the "Gateway to the East" that they envision. Meanwhile, the Indians are also watching this closely and looking to clone the Emirati success.

Kuwaitis watch too but there is a real struggle here between tradition and the desire for change. There has been a bit of a political crisis here and the Emir dissolved parliament. Elections are going to be held on June 22nd. Women will be ab le to vote so this could be a real watershed moment for politics in the Middle East. Right now the direction the country goes in is anyone's guess. A lot of rich Kuwaitis will have already left for the summer when the election is held (about 500,000 of the 2.2 million who live here leave every summer). i wonder if the Emir took this in to account when naming the election date?

I'd like to follow this more closely but our first original book comes out next week and we have a press event on Thursday then a big event in Dubai the following weekend (and the weekend after that). Then it's licensing show. Then the Superman Returns movie premiere. Could be a long time before I'm in the Middle East and get a weekend off.

Oh well, if I go missing on the blog front again at least you'll all know why. Who would have thought I would have to leave "sleepy" Kuwait and head back to New York in order to get a day off?

2006-05-21T16:05:00.000+03:00

Last Taste of Bahrain

I can't believe I'm still writing about a trip that took place almost a month ago.

But we packed so much in to it. Forts, museums, all sorts of culture. Crystal wanted to make sure that we didn't leave without trying one of the most talked about restaurants on the island. She was particularly interested in a dish the locals called "the peanut buster parfait". Apparently, the reputation of this desert had stretched all the way to Canada and Crystal had dreamed of trying it often while she was growing up in Eastern Ontario.

Luckily, we were able to reach the restaurant shortly before we were able to depart and Crystal was able to enjoy this last little bit of Bahraini culture.

Truly, we had done it all.

2006-05-19T13:05:00.000+03:00

All Work and No Play

Was off the blog radar again for a couple of days this week as we're about to raise a second round of funding for our company. That meant that I had to rewrite our original 50 page business plan in to an all-new, updated 40 page business plan for our new investment bank. So while the rest of my staff are out at a volleyball tournament on a beautiful day, I've been slaving over a hot computer.

Am I worried that I'm slaving away and I'll look back and wish that I had stopped and smelled the roses a little more?

I would be but I know I've still got plenty of good years left. That's because I've been to the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is sort of Bahrain's version of the Loch Ness Monster. it's this tree in the middle of the desert that continues to grow year after year without any recognizable water source. There's no vegetation around it either. The locals claim it's the original Tree of Life and proof that Bahrain was the Garden of Eden. I'm pretty sure God didn't intend for paradise to have so much sand but just in case I chewed on a twig from the tree. That ought to be good for at least 50 years right?

Seriously, it is quite amazing. The tree is almost impossible to find since like all Arabs, the Bahrainis aren't big believers in road signs. And there is no actual road that goes up to it. But when you're sitting in the branches of the tree looking at a camel farm in the distance and the desert all around, it does stop and make you wonder about the paths you've taken and how they would lead you to such a place.

2006-05-16T20:57:00.000+03:00

This is Where We Meant to Go

Crys and I were actually trying to find this handicraft village when we almost ended up in Saudi. This basketweaver (who's name I've forgotten) was the most chilled guy on the planet. He wove Crystal a camel and basically just hung out and chatted with anyone who came in his shop. Didn't seem especially bothered if anyone bought anything.

The whole village was really nicely set up and we saw an array of stuff the local craftsmen did. Barely felt touristy at all.

We went back and I bought a basket from the guy just because I liked him so much. he wove me a snake that was a finger trap as well but four Iranian ladies came in while he was doing it and they were all so impressed by it they kept passing it around. So I decided to leave it with them. Hopefully, it generated some more good will for my weaving friend and they showered him with dinars.

2006-05-15T21:30:00.000+03:00

I Meant Your Other Right

Of course, if you're night careful you can end up on the Causeway yourself. Crys and I missed a turnoff and were almost halfway to KSA. Unmarried Saudi women aren't allowed to be in cars with someone they aren't married to or related to. Guess I could've lied and said I was Crystal's brother. I think we all look alike to security guards anyway.

We had forgotten to get a map from the car rental place so ended up using a couple of guide book maps for navigation. Somehow that meant that we always ended up at the back entrance to whatever we were supposed to be seeing. We definitely saw pretty much everything there is to see in Bahrain. Just not necessarily in the order we had originally planned!

2006-05-14T18:25:00.000+03:00

Beerhain

Yeah, I know nice hair.

Bahrain is the Middle East's version of PEI, a small island joined to the mainland by a causeway. Except in this case, the causeway connects to Saudi Arabia.

What's that mean? Happy times for Saudis because their country may be dry but Bahrain isn't. Happy times for yours truly as well since we were able to have a beer or two with dinner the first night we were there. Bahrain is a lot more humid than Kuwait so these pints were especially tasty.

Bahrain isn't quite Dubai as only certain restaurants and bars serve alcohol and they tend to keep them confined to one particular quarter of the city. I think this is meant to minimize the risk from drunk Saudis heading back to SA. it may also be why you find signs for the causeway all over the island. Since there is technically no drinking in Saudi, the Saudi police never breathalyze anyone on the way back. The result is a lot of DWI and a lot of scared pedestrians in Bahrain.

me, I was just happy to have a cold beer on a hot night. Big props to Crystal who was so hardcore that she didn't even put her beer down to take this picture. She may deny it but she's totally Canadian!

2006-05-14T18:10:00.000+03:00

Sens of Loss

I know you all want me to write about the Middle East and I promise I'll post some more Bahrain stuff today. But it wouldn't be my blog if I didn't talk about the Sens going out to the Sabres last night.

To me this was almost inevitable and now that there's nothing left to jinx, all Sens can finally admit it. Ray Emery was a standout goalie and grew up tremendously over the course of the season but every Sens fan knew that he wasn't going to take us all the way to the cup.

A lot of people will point to Hasek going down as the end of the Sens season but I think the seeds were sown a lot earlier. All the way back at the Heatley-Hossa trade. Muckler certainly had to trade Hossa (who disappeared during previous playoff runs) and replacing him with a gritty offensive star probably made a lot of sense at the time. Unfortunately, Mucks didn't realize he already had Hossa's replacement in Jason Spezza. As a result, he gave up Greg De Vries, a top four defenceman who played every game for Atlanta this year and still finished the season +1 (a pretty remarkable feat considering Atlanta's goaltending). Having another top tier defenceman might have made a big difference in those one goal games eh John?

I can't feel too bad. The Sens were one of the most entertaining teams in the league this year, they made my Mom some money (Happy Mother's day, Mom!) and my family got to go to one of the playoff games.

Next year, we'll trade some offensive talent for some solid D and a top level netminder, beat the hated Leafs, and I'll go back to Ottawa for a week and spend some hard earned Kuwaiti cash watching the boys raise the Cup.

Could be worse. We could have been swept by the Mighty Ducks.

2006-05-13T06:51:00.000+03:00

Breaking Radio Silence

Yes, I'm back from the dead. How exciting for the five of you who pointed out it's been ages since there was a new blog entry from me.

What happened? Well I would like to blame it all on the Ottawa Senators enthralling race to the Stanley Cup but we all know that's a lie. I managed to see one Sens game this playoffs, the thrilling (???) OT loss in Game 1 to the Sabres (C'mon Ray. I could have stopped that shot!). Still, I'm faithful that my boys will be third team in history to come back from being 3-0 down. Of course, I also believed in the curse of the Bambino and look where that got me.

So where have I been? Well shortly after my last blog entry my friend Crystal came to visit from London. She was here for 10 days and we bopped off to Bahrain for a couple of days so that kept me busy. Then it was off to Dubai for three days for business. Then to New York for a supposed vacation that tuned in to a 9 day business trip. The upside of that being that I got to play a lot of street hockey and hang out with my beautiful girlfriend, Monica. the downside being even she noticed I hadn't blogged in a while. Then back to Dubai for two days then finally back to Kuwait last Wednesday. I would like to say I'm finally over jet lag but I wok up at 5:30 this morning and thought it was 6:30 so I may not be quite there yet.

Anyway, Crystal took a bunch of photos while she was here (including the one at the top of this post) so I'll be posting a few over the next few days and giving you a time lagged play by play of our trip to Bahrain. Otherwise, it would be pictures of brunch places in Brooklyn.

So did you miss me?

2006-04-16T18:07:00.000+03:00

Leaf Me Alone

Well, that didn't turn out like I hoped. The Leafs smoked the Sens 5-1 last night. Despite that they wer eliminated from the playoffs. So at least the Sens don't have to face the prospect of being eliminated by the Leafs in the post season. Still, we're limping in to the playoffs having lost 4 of our last 5. Hopefully, the return of Hasek and Havlat will fire up the guys. I'm also hoping we don't run in to the red hot Habs in the first round. Thanks to Toronto, The Sens now have to beat the Rangers for a shot at home ice throughout the playoffs. That's a lose-lose proposition for me as I wanted to see the Rangers win the Atlantic as well (instead of the hated Flyers).

Guess I should just be happy that both my teams had good seasons and are firmly in the playoffs. Between performing so poorly in the Olympics and Toronto not making the post season I think Pat Quinn is probably out of a job (assuming the Leafs could find anyone to replace him).

Hopefully, Sens fans will be eating a lot of pizza during the playoffs (people from Ottawa will get that).

In other news, our heatwave has abated and we'll be down to the mid-90's tomorrow. That will have us more in the hockey mood, right?

2006-04-15T10:42:00.000+03:00

Fire and Ice

Well, it's happened. My first day here where the temp has gone over 100 degrees. My little weather widget has turned from a sunshine symbol to a thrmometer giving off heat waves. Thanks for that.

Luckily, it's a holiday here (The Prophet's Birthday- PBUH) so me an my friend Crystal (who's visiting from London) are just going to head to the beach. Sure we won't be the only ones. We both got slightly sunburned just walking around outside for 45 minutes yesterday so time to break out the SPF 30. I don't want sunburned knees again!

Strangely enough, my thoughts aren't filled with cold beers and swimming pools (well not completely). I'm pre-occupied with tonight's big game between the Ottawa Senators and the hated Toronto Maple Leafs. Carolina tied us for top of the Eastern Conference last night so we need to win this game to keep pace for home ice advantage. Plus it's a chance to squelch the Leafs razor thin playoff hopes. Given what the Leafs have done to us the last few years that seems only fitting.

So while I'm baking in the sun my prayers will be going up to the hockey gods at Scotiabank Place. My skin may be turning brown (or more likely red) but my heart will remain black, white red and gold. Go Sens Go!

2006-04-13T14:14:00.001+03:00

Endless Summer

The picture above comes from http://q8pictures.wordpress.com/ and as you can see we're in the full throes of summer here. The temperature is averaging between 85-90 degrees right now and Kuwaitis are heading out to their "chalets" for the long weekend here. Not so well off folks will be hanging out on the beaches and along the Gulf road. By Friday morning these grounds will be swarming with people.

I've already braved the sun once a couple of weeks ago and got sunburned knees for my trouble. If your a fair skinned Nordic-Irish guy like myself you have to be supoer careful in this weather. I missed a couple of spots with the suntan lotion and was burnt in less than 2 hours.

The other thing we have to watch out for is dehydration. Ever see the movie JARHEAD? That's reality when you live ikn the desert. When you're not outside in the dry desert air, you're in equally dry air conditioned air. I reckon I drink at least two and a half litres of water a day. Of course, the coffee culture in this country is really prevalent and you're considered rude if you don't accept an offer of coffe or tea in a business meeting. So that's another thing to watch out for.

Again, it's an example of how this country can fool you. It looks totally tame, even fun, but if you don't watch yourself it can really do a number on you.

It also makes you realize how much lof the religous beliefs here are based on common sense for the environment. Well meaning Westerners may take wearing of the hijab as a sign of ignorance or repression but I can't think of anything smarter than wearing a covering on your head as you walk around in the desert sun.

Boy I miss grass.

2006-04-13T14:14:00.000+03:00

2006-04-08T19:22:00.000+03:00

You Better Be Good for Goodness Sake

Okay, so it's not uncommon for Easter and Passover to fall on the same dates. After all, Passover is why Jesus went to Jerusalem in the first place, right?

However, this year they fall uncannily near the prophet Mohammed's birthday. The actual holiday is Tuesday the 11th but in Kuwait the official holiday will take place on Saturday the 15th. Right between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The more devout Christians in my office (i.e. everyone but me and my American colleague) are making a long, long weekend of it. I probably would've too if I wasn't off to Bahrain, Dubai and New York in the next few weeks.

Still, not a week too be causing any trouble. Otherwise, the only people you won't offend are the Buddhists. And even they might make you be reincarnated as a camel.

Be good.

2006-04-05T20:33:00.000+03:00

Thunder Road

We've had rain a couple of times while I was here but today we had an honest to gosh thunderstorm. We even got a bit of hail. It was strange to see people's reaction to the sound of thunder. It was like watching Canadians during the middle of a huge snowstorm. Good thing there wasn't any lightning.

Driving back to the office in Naif's Humvee we had to navigate a number of flooded streets (why design drainage systems when it only rains a few times a year?). We went by one poor Indian guy who was trying to drive his 150 cc motorcycle through this mess and was being totally soaked by the passing cars.

Wonder what would happen if it ever snowed here?

2006-04-03T19:07:00.000+03:00

You Want Her Life ... I Just Want Next Week

We sent my good friend Marie Javins off back to Jersey City today. Of course, Marie being Marie, she's going by way of Barcelona. I wouldn't mind being her next week.

Marie came to Kuwait in January to a much different company. We hadn't published anything, had no artists assigned for our main book, and were working out of a couple of serviced offices in downtown Kuwait. At her leaving lunch yesterday, there were twenty people working on things as diverse as the website (that didn't exist when she arrived), our newspaper supplement (ditto) our translated comics and our original material. It's amazing how much has changed in twelve weeks and what a big part Marie has played in all of it.

These days are biggest problem is taking the time to stop and smell the roses. We got in a lot of terrific work today but no one had more than a few minutes to stop and admire it. And I missed Marie's final present, a traditional Kuwaiti lunch that Naif had brought in. Of course, Marie's not exactly taking it easy either. She still had coloring and writing to do before she leaves tomorrow and I'm sure I'll be getting e-mails from her at the airport.

In the end, it was kind of like one of those Vietnam movies where one of the guys finally gets to go home. All that was missing was the squad of young recruits for MJ to look at and smile wistfully for the viewer.

So now Marie is off home. Done with all her globetrotting and finally setting in for a stretch at home, right? When we said goodbye, I was all "I'll see you in New York in a few weeks." She replied, "Just don't forget I'm in Kenya for part of May".

Plus ca change.

2006-03-31T15:58:00.000+03:00

Flickr & Skype

If you're on either let me know, ok?

2006-03-31T14:11:00.000+03:00

Life's A Beach

Today, for the first time since I joined, I'm spending practically the whole day at the Palms. I joined this club for it's gym but that's no reason not to take advantage of its other amenities. It's 84 degrees and sunny right now so I figured it would be a good morning to spend working by the pool. Caught up on a bunch of reading, did some work, listened to some great music (the beach/poolside has to be one of the best environments for the ipod. Now, I have to put together some new playlists. Bruce Springsteen's The Rising is not what I want to a day like today).

Can tell I'm getting a little smarter as I get older. I actually left my computer in my locker and took a break after three hours in the sun. That's about all my Irish complexion can take at one time. And I definitely want to avoid sunburn this summer.

What's up for the rest of the day? Some more work. Gym workout. Meeting Marie for dinner (part of my membership package was a free dinner at the Palms). Try to catch up on my Daily Show viewing on iTunes (They have Scrubs now! I love that show.) Sleep.

Hey that sounds almost like a real day off!

2006-03-30T20:16:00.000+03:00

Worth a Thousand Words

Some of you may have noticed the Flickr badge in the sidebar of this blog. It lets you see some of the pictures in my Flickr photostream so click on a picture if you see something interesting and it will take you right there.

By the way, I also added about a hundred photos to Flickr today so the stream is worth looking at (if only to see just how cheesy Eric Cole can look after a few beers).

I realize I haven't been taking enough Kuwait pictures lately so I'll try and rectify that over the weekend.

2006-03-30T20:05:00.000+03:00

You Goa, Girl

A few years back I was lucky enough to go to Goa in India. it's a former Portugese colony and a really special place. I'll always remember walking down the beach with my pal, Peter, racing the light to make it to a restaurant as the hulk of a beached oil tanker loomed in the distance. It was very Conradesque with it's mix of appeal and menace. The people in Goa were fantastic and I was even blessed by a Hindu nun (do they have nuns?) on Ganeshka.

My co-worker and friend Hector, one of the sweetest people you will ever meet surprised me with a series of gifts from Goa earlier on this week (his parents had just come back from there). So now I'm eating delicious cashews and spicy sausage and later on I'm going to enjoy some Goan port wine (which conveniently comes in a juice pack like bag so it's not picked up by the airport's x-ray machines). It turns out Goa is pretty much right across the Arabian Gulf from Kuwait so there is a lot of traffic back and forth between the two regions.

Me, I'm just enjoying the flashback courtesy of some exotic cuisine and a kind hearted Indian.

2006-03-27T21:47:00.000+03:00

Camel Racing Pictures

Right now blogger won't let me post pictures so go look at all the pictures on Marie's site.

2006-03-27T21:18:00.000+03:00

Go, Camel Racer, Go

So last Thursday, Marie, Frankie and our guest Larry Durocher finally made it to the camel races. Marie and I had wanted to go for months but the races are pretty deep in the desert and we're both carless. Luckily, Larry's visit and Marie's impending departure convinced Frankie to drive us out in search of exciting camel action.

The trip started inauspiciously when we missed the first turn and spent 40 minutes trying to double back. By this point we had been driving for about an hour and I was regretting not bringing a bottle of water with us. After finally getting back on track, we drove for another twenty minutes until we saw another sign. We drove some more. Started to see tents, herds of sheep and goats, even a few camels (in what I guess you would call camel stables) but no race track. We kept driving and saw a sign about every 15 minutes. We were deep in the heart of nowhere and I started to wonder if Frankie had any water in his trunk. I wasn't so much worried about thirst as I was about the car overheating. We were in a souped up Subaru not a hearty four wheel drive and I had visions of a long walk to the nearest Bedouin tent.

Finally, we arrived at a fence and Frankie looked at it bemusedly. "I'm not sure, this may be the border". Aaargh! i wanted to go to the camel races not Iraq and was starting to get really perturbed. Luckily, Larry is an experienced horse guy and he told Frankie to follow the fence. Ten minutes later we were off to the races.

We arrived and went in to a very comfortable viewing area. They had special sections for "Press", "VIP" and "Ambassadors" and a large group of Westerners sitting in one section. We started speaking with an English speaking Kuwaiti who explained that he was the Westeners guide (he belonged to a center promoting Western-Arab relations) and we were welcome to tag along with them. I considered this our first piece of luck for the day.

Our first race looked like something out of MAD MAX. In addition to the camels, there were numerous SUVs racing down the track. Madness. It turns out that the jockey have been replaced by "robots" and the camel owners now drive along beside the robots controlling the "jockeys" by remote control. Notoriously, the jockeys used to be small children but, as our guide explained, "due to human rights issues" the machines have taken over.

By the way, ask any Arab about this and they will explain it in the same tone as an Englishman explaining you used to be able to walk right up to Stonehenge i.e. it's not like the good old days.

Larry wanted to get a picture of one of the robots to scare his jockeys back home (i.e. "You can be replaced, you know!') so our guide took us down to the paddock after the second race and we got a quick face to face with the camels and their robot pals.

We all had to get back to the city after that. Our extremely gracious guide offered to let us ride a couple of the camels but we had all done that before so we thanked him and headed back to the car.

A fun afternoon and one to cross off the list of things to do in Kuwait. Now I want to go out and try the other popular Kuwaiti desert sport (no, not illicit drinking) ... falconry.

PS: If you want to see more pictures, go check out Marie's blog. She took all the photos anyway (since I was so tired that morning I forgot my camera). Yeah Marie!

2006-03-26T13:22:00.000+03:00

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

Probably not the best way to start off a Kuwaiti based blog but I do owe all you guys an apology for not posting up here in so long. I literally have been through 5 countries in the last 10 days and it hasn't left much time for this little journal.

Here's the chronology/flight path of the last two weeks:

March 14th - Rome - Flew over on Kuwait Airways, not the worst airline in the world but far from the best. Stood and waited for my luggage with a bunch of Indian Nuns and a Buddhist Monk. The Nuns were all frantic about getting their luggage while the monk just stood there serenely with a smile on his face. Maybe I picked the wrong religion.

March 15th - Modena, Italy - I've blogged about Modena before so all I really have to say this time is yum, yum, yum. Balsamic vinegar is the main ingredient of almost every dish here and every dish is amazingly delicous. How do Italians manage to stay thin? Met our Panini colleague, Annie Dauphin a fellow Canuck, so of course we talked hockey over lunch. Our Italian hosts looked on bemusedly. I would've felt more sympathy if I didn't still blame them for the Olympics.

March 16th - somewhere outside of Amsterdam - I've been to Amsterdam about six times without ever going to Amsterdam. I always end up in suburbs like this one which is called Weesp. Get to see big windmills and Schipol airport. Ah, the romance of business travel.

March 17th - London - after business meetings met up with old pal and current artist colleague John McCrea. had a couple of pints of Guinness before meeting up with the old hockey team. O'Neill's, London's official plastic Paddy bar seems to think that playing U2 constitutes an official St. Patrick's Day celebration. We move on to a different pub. Goodnight but not very Irish.

March 18th - Revenge. Me and my pal John Waters watch Ireland beat England in Rugby and almost win the Six Nations championship. There are only four people in the pub cheering for the Boyz in Green. The French guys next to us are cheering for England. The world is getting stranger every day.

March 19th - Back to Kuwait.

March 20th - I need sleep.

March 21st - I still need sleep

March 22nd - Up at 5 am to fly to Jordan for the day. Beautiful country and good business meetings. Have some surprisingly good Mexican food. Drive by Mount Nebo. What's that famopus for? it's where Moses looked lout and saw the promised land. Jordan is that kind of country. Can't wait to come back. We land back in Kuwait at 12:30 pm. I have a cold.

March 23rd - Half day but then we go off on a desert excursion (more details later). Eat business dinner in a restaurant that's also a dhow (ship). We're given long iron nails as souvenir. Naif's son Hammed thinks it's fun to stab me in the chest with them. I really need sleep.

March 24th - I literally sleep all day.

March 25th - Catching up on everything.

And now you're caught up too. Probably not the most compelling blog entry you guys have ever read but the whole point of this thing is to keep everyone up to date on what I'm doing. How's this for a reward? the desert excurion I mentioned? It was a trip to the camel races. Some of you may have already read about this on Marie's blog but if you haven't, this is what you've been waiting for. Full description and pictures tomorrow!

2006-03-15T09:32:00.000+03:00

Animal Crackers

One of the weirder things about Kuwaiti life is very few people have pets. I guess it’s not that weird when you think that up until 40 years ago this country was chronically short of water and no one would own animals they couldn’t ride or eat.

Somehow though we now have a lot of wild cats. They roam the alleyways and some even live on the beach. I guess they eat the garbage that picnickers leave behind. It’s strange too because you only ever see full grown cats, no kittens. Don’t ask me what’s up with that.

Kuwaitis don’t like dogs and consider them unclean. Don’t know why. Maybe it’s a religious thing or maybe they were exposed to the wild dogs in India (which carry more disease than Typhoid Mary on her best day). From what I can gather almost all of the dogs here are owned by ex-pats. They have a big charity called PAWS that my colleague Claire volunteers for. No matter where they are in the world, Brits love to give money to dog charities so I’m sure PAWS is well funded.

As the seasons change, I’m seeing more animals. We passed by a station wagon whose back hatch was full of sheep the other day. And last night we saw a man walking a pigeon.

I want to go the Animal Souk. I hear they have monkeys for sale there. Haven’t you always wanted a monkey?

2006-03-15T09:31:00.000+03:00

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Kuwait airport has free Internet access which is terrific. However, Kuwait has no broadband connections, which isn’t so terrific.

What happens when you put an entire airport’s worth of people on a DSL connection?

Slow, slow uploads and downloads. It’s like being back on dial-up in the days of 28.8 bps.

Applaud the thought but it’s time the government here caved in and installed some T3 lines.

2006-03-10T13:42:00.000+03:00

I Know Leonard Needs the Royalties But ...

... could we all stop covering "Hallelujah" already? Same goes for "Wonderwall".

The most interesting cover version I've hear in the last few months came from petra Haden who covered the entire Who album, "The Who Sell Out". I would also recommend the Last Town Chorus' cover of Bowie's "Modern Love" which turns it in to a country torch song.It looks like there may be a little bit of a Billy Bragg revival going on soon so some punk band should cover "New England" (much like Billy covered the Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love").

Ask Monica and her friend Chuck, I can talk about this subject for hours.

2006-03-09T18:05:00.000+03:00

I Call on the Kuwaiti People ...

What's the one message I would send to Kuwaitis if I was given the chance. Pass a freakin' car seat law, please! I don't care if young Kuwaitis want to pretend their Al Unser. I don't even mind that half the taxi drivers and minibus guys feel the same way. Hey, it's my decision to get in the car with you.

But a far too frequent sight in this country is a kid (or kids) hanging out the window or jumping up and down on the passenger seat or something similar. Not only do are they not wearing seatbelts but they're not even sitting down. I was ranting about this to Marie and Nabeel yesterday, when we passed a guy driving with his one year old sitting on his lap. The kicker? He was also talking on his mobile at the same time!! That's not just an accident waiting to happen, that's someone saying "C'Mon, fate I dare ya!"

Every day we see at least five wrecks by the side of the road. It kills me to think what has happened to the little kids who are unfortunate enough to be riding in any of those cars.

So get with the program guys. There's no excuse for this no matter what culture you belong to.

2006-03-09T09:59:00.000+03:00

RANDOM KUWAITI THOUGHTS

Kuwaitis don't use voice mail. I asked a couple of them why this is and they said it was embarassing talking to a machine. There's no such hesitation about sending text messages. The upside of this is that you don't have to deal with robot switchboards here. The downside is it feels worse being ignored by a real customer service person :)

Homosexuality is illegal here and the party line is that it doesn't exist here. As a result men are free to embrace their feminine sides. Arab men regularly kiss each other when they meet (though, of course, they woiuld never do this to a woman) and it isn't unusual to see men holding hands as they walk along the beach (although this is more common among Indian men). Yesterday one of my male co-workers told me that I should wear the colour I had on more often as it "empahsizes the fact that your eyes are hazel". Nice to know he cared.

In the world of rich Kuwaitis everything is for sale. My friend Frankie drives a nice sports car and when he pulls up at traffic lights young Kuwaitis make hand gestures at him. At first I thought they were challenging him to a race but then I learnt they were actually asking if his car was for sale. I wonder what they would do if he ever said yes. Would they negotiate the deal right there at the traffic lights?

Sunblock is incredibly expensive here. I looked at it in the local grocery store and it was 6 KD (about $20 US). At the Palms it was only 5 KD (I expected a resort hotel to have much higher prices). Obviously, 90% of Kuwaitis don't need sunblock and the grocery store thinks ex-pats can afford to pay for protection from skin cancer. It's just weird to think that I can get a steak dinner for less than the cost of Coppertone at the Sultan Center.

Bottom line? The longer I stay here the stranger it gets :)

2006-03-08T19:50:00.000+03:00

How Cool!

I'm typing this in my newly discovered Blogger widget. It doesn't have all the formatting options of the full site but it is pretty neat.

This is now officialy my favorite widget. It used to be the one that gave me a daily CALVIN AND HOBBES feed but that doesn't seem to be working anymore :(

Today was more international day than most. I ended up e-mailing a guy about licensing in Pakistan, sent out a proposal to our distribution company in Algeria, met with a consortium (cool word) of Egyptian companies, finalized our Italian meetings and made plans to get drunk in England on St. Patrick's Day. Oh what an age we live in!

Of course none of this (including this blog) would be possible without the Internet. I just read that Ontario Hydro is going to turn Toronto in to a free wireless city. They're doing it so they can get rid of meter readers and this is a pleasant byproduct. Sucks if that was your job but what a boon for everyone else. They're putting wireless hubs on top of every street light so the coverage should be fantastic. Makes me wonder why other utility companies aren't looking at doing the same thing.

Sooner or later, we will get to the point where I'll be able to watch hockey anywhere in the world and all the information you ever need will be online (like bus schedules and take out menus). Google just announced plans to store everything online. What will life be like then? I have no idea but I'm really interested in what comes next.

2006-03-07T19:54:00.000+03:00

This World Will Break Your Heart If You Let It

Just read the news on Warren Ellis' site that Dana Reeve has died of cancer. I met her once at a New York Rangers charity game for the Christopher Reeve foundation. A really nice and really classy lady who stuck by her husband when others would have gone running and helped turn a tragic accident in to a chance to do good for literally thousands of people. You could tell she ordered Chris Reeve and her life even with all the hardship that went with it.

Now she's dead of lung cancer at 44. Four years older than me. The really sad part? her son is only 13. In his short life this kid has seen his father paralyzed and watched both his parents die. For anyone who complains about their crappy childhood, this has got to be a reality check. You could have had it a lot worse. Hopefully, Will Reeve has inherited some of his parents' courage.

This is probably old news to all of you in the media saturated West but it just struck me as really sad and melancholy. Hopefully, happier posts tomorrow.

2006-03-06T19:06:00.000+03:00

A Paddy in Kiwiland

My cool as beans friend and former flatmate Eyleen is blogging about her life in New Zealand at www.apaddyinkiwiland.blogspot.com.

Here's a sample of her writing:

Tuesday I went to the movies with the girls to see the new New Zealand movie out called No2 and to be honest I can see why it is called that as it was sh*t, I was bored and the acting made the actors on Days of our lives look like Oscar contenders!! That all said its always good to hang out with the girls!

She talks that way in real life, too. Go check out her blog and wonder why you haven't moved to Wellington yet.

2006-03-06T18:32:00.000+03:00

Mourning Becomes Starbucks

So Kuwait continues to conspire against me giving you a daily dose of RFK. As regular readers of this blog (both of you) know I've been having serious problems with the Internet connection in my house. So I've been relying on Internet cards and the connection at Starbucks to keep in touch with all of you.

This was working until last Thursday night when the owner of Starbuck's in the Middle east passed away. As a result, all the Starbucks' (and a lot of other businesses he owned) were closed for a customary three day morning period. This has not only led to a lack of blogging but also to myself and a couple of colleagues eating lunch at the Ikea restaurant on Saturday. If yuou go on Matrie's blog you can see a picture of just how Scandinavian IKEA is in this part of the world. Marie bravely tried the Swedish meatballs and pronounced them "pretty similar to the ones in Elizabeth" (Elizabeth, New Jersey which is known for ... well IKEA and not much else). I tried the shredded beef and vegetables which was food court quality fine and probably the best Chinese meal I've ever had in a Swedish furniture store in the middle of the desert.

It's definitely turned in to spring here which means temperatures in the high 20's to low 30's celsius (70's to 80's farenheit). Hydration is already becoming an issue as I chugged down over a liter and a half of water in the office today. It's going to be an interesting summer.

I would have blogged from the office but we are super busy. If you go to our brand new website, www.teshkeelcomics.com, you can see some of what we're working on. The first issue of Spider-Man in Arabic just shipped and I just saw it on sale in Virgin. Pretty cool.

Starbuck's is open again and I'm starting to catch up. I should almost have things under control by the time I take off on my next business trip on Monday.

The Palms is supposed to have free wireless internet access so I'm hoping that I'll write you all an entry from poolside on Friday. Got to be some upsides to being an RFK correspondent, right?

2006-03-02T16:03:00.000+03:00

Back on the Construction Site

Or at least that's the way Kuwait looks to me after a week away in New York. The loneliest men in Kuwait have to be a landscape gardeners. I picture them like the Maytag repair men in those old commercials, waiting by the phone as their life slowly drains away from them.

New York was brilliant for a ton of reasons both social and business and every time I leave I really do feel like I'm leaving home. I never used to feel that way but as my life both progresses and regresses (in a good way, doing a job close to what I did when I first came to NYC and reconnecting with old friends) the city feels more and more comfortable to me. I think the highlight of this trip was seeing my old friend Rob Tokar. We reminisced about a trip where we had travelled with a famous French fantasy artist who we nicknamed Moeby, much to our PR manager's chagrin. Rob also reminded me that we jumped on his bed as well. It's great to have partners in crime.

NYC also just seems to get better thanks to years of pretty decent civic government. Every time I go back I see some new improvement or something that just makes total sense to me. The new water park they're building on Randall's Island is a good example of that. The government here in Kuwait does so much for the people but I wish they would focus on some less practical stuff. It would be nice to see them build a park or a sports facility as well as giving people a break on their electrical bill. Youth here really need places to go and things to do. Hopefully, the new regime will realize this sooner rather than later.

Ultimately, though, I guess it rests with the people. New Yorkers are tremendously proud of their city. Kuwaitis not so much. Perhaps it's the Mommy state again but I'm struck by how people feel free to litter or behave in other antisocial ways. Maybe not. Dubai seems to not have the same problems. It's puzzling to me as I like Kuwaitis so much. I just wish I liked Kuwait more.

2006-02-25T15:35:00.000+03:00

THE PALMS

In New York this week and have a jammed schedule. So my blogging has turned in to time travel.

Above are pictures of my new gym in Kuwait. The workout culture hasn't really hit Kuwait. As a result gyms are expensive and tend to be attached to hotels or beach clubs. It's probably also not a coincidence that two of the best gyms in the city are in Salwa (which has a high number of ex-pats). I got my membership here on special and it still is costing me about $100 a month. And that's for a gym that isn't as well equipped as your average CRUNCH.

Of course, for most Kuwaitis the gym is a social scene. You definitely don't get a lot of hardcore muscleheads in my facility. They may go to male only gyms with names like THE MUSCLES FACTORY. That's a little too west Village for me. I will say that someone will probably clean up opening a series of affordable gyms in KC in the next few years (and I'm surprised no one has picked up the CURVES franchise). With the amount of time Kuwaitis spend in coffee shops and restaurants a lot of desserts get consumed. So Kuwait is now struggling with obesity just like the US is.

The Palms is terrific though and I'm sure looking forward to using that pool and beach when the weather gets a little warmer (and especially when it gets a lot warmer). Wonder if you can get wireless access poolside?

2006-02-20T17:37:00.000+03:00

Saving it all for 2010?

Aaaargh. Ok, it's not the end of the world but Canada lost Finland last night at the Olympics. We're now 2-2 and have to get past the Czech Republic to make it to the Semis. Guess I should be grateful that they don't have Hasek (though as a Sens fan that's a mixed blessing).

I have to admit that I was worried about Canada's defence going in to the tournament (with Jovanoski and Neidermayer being out) but I'm really surprised at our lack of offensive production. I'm flying to New York tomorrow night and still hoping that I have to get up early on Sunday to watch our guys win gold again.

Maybe they're just trying to create a more dramatic story for Vancouver in 2010.

PS: Notice how I distracted you all from the fact that I forgot to download the pictures from my camera last night?

2006-02-19T19:37:00.000+03:00

Update in Kuwait

Just a quick update for you all on a few of the subjects I've blogged about recently:

Danish cartoons - have sparked a new version of the arms race. The Iranian are doing Holocaust cartoons. The Israelis are doing holocaust cartoons (the smartest response so far). The Germans are publishing cartoons of the Iranian soccer team as suicide bombers. So far I've yet to see one of these cartoons that is actually funny.

Olympic Hockey - Canada lost to Switzerland last night at the Olympics. I thinkn I speak for my fellow countrymen when I hope that this is our SOP bad game in the qualifying round. Last time out it was a tie with Germany. Gold is still in our reach though nobody seems to be particularly worked up about this Olympics. I'll still be up at 8 am next Sunday watching the Gold medal game.

Kuwait Hockey - I've now played with the adults twice. Unfortunately, they have a three team round robin structure here and I'll be away for a game so no hockey for three weeks. Luckliy, I'm still coaching beginners on Monday nights and these kids are awesome. I think the youngest player is 4. So much fun.

Get Back on that Horse - I took the elevator at the satellite office for the first time since getting stuck. Made sure I had someone with me this time so I wouldn't be the sole object of ridicule by the six shoppers in the mall. Luckily we went all the way to the ground floor without incident.

Internet in my house - Like rain in Kuwait. Doesn't happen often and you're always surprised when it does.

Thins I'm still trying to figure out, Part 49 - Every night the cleaners lock up my office for me. With the keys left in the door.

Got to go pack for New York.

If you're all good, pretty pictures tomorrow!

2006-02-18T15:04:00.000+03:00

It's Just Not Funny Anymore ...

Okay, I could take the fact that in the three weeks I've been in my apartment, I've had an internet connection for three days.

I could take the fact that I didn't have TV reception for two weeks either.

I could take the fact that the new office had an on again, off again internet connection that required us renting a satellite office with a stable connection so we can properly launch the website.

I could even take the morning this week when the new office had no running water for six hours.

But now Kuwait is trying to kill me.

Got on the elevator at the satellite office yesterday. Dog tired and looking forward to going home for a nap. Mind wandering. The elevator moved down about two feet and then dropped another four feet and stopped between floors. Ok. That got my attention.

The elevator was one of those glass enclosed jobs so everyone in the (nearly empty) mall attached to the office building could see me and see that I was stuck. Most of them started laughing. About the only two who didn't notice were my co-workers, Marie and Kutub, who had finished shopping and blithely exited the building (maybe they only pretended no to notice). I rang the alarm button and started gesturing towards any security guards I could see. They all pointed to another guard who took about ten minutes to show up. After another five minutes or so he got a couple of janitorial types to show up. Eventually one of them produced a device like the type of thing you would use to unlock your car door if you locked your keys in the car.

This is when I started to get a little scared. I'm not at all claustrophobic and normally the prospect of being stuck in an elevator wouldn't bug me. But I suddenly realized that none of these guys really knew what they were doing. These were just the $1 an hour bodies the mall owners had hired to sweep floors, screw in switchplates, and the like. No one had any knowledge of elevator mechanics and if they started screwing around with things they could just as easily send the elevator plunging three floors to the ground instead of getting the doors open. I called Marie and told her that if she didn't hear back from me in an hour she might want to start notifying my next of kin.

Finally, two management guys in suits showed up and took charge. They managed to get the guys to pull one set of doors open and I wedged the other set open. They pulled me out of the elevator car, crisis averted.

The two management guys were all smiles and laughs. "What more do you want us to do?" The look on my face caused the first guy to hastily explain, "We aren't the owners of the mall, we just own that menswear store over there." I'd been saved by Samaritan tailors.

In the US there would have been angry calls to building management, threats of lawsuits at the like. Here in Kuwait, I walked outside, got a taxi and headed home.

Inshallah, indeed.

2006-02-11T16:55:00.000+03:00

Beta Stage Blues

Launching a website is just as much work as launching a magazine. We're launching one website and four magazines. Is it any wonder I need something to make me laugh?

Luckily, my fellow countrymen are on the case. Click here to see what would happen if Canada ruled the world (link courtesy of boingboing).

2006-02-10T12:25:00.000+03:00

Boy in a Bubble

I've been downloading a lot of music lately, both through various mp3 blogs and through iTunes. Every time I go to the iTunes store I see that James Blunt is on the top of the charts. You all must be sick of hearing "You're Beautiful" by now.

It reinforces something that I already knew. I'm largely cut off from pop culture here. When I first mentioned Blunt on this blog a lot of my British friends were responding with a range of comments that can be summed up as "Ughhh." it wasn't unitl I picked up that months UNCUT, MOJO, etc. that I realized he had already been played to death in his home market. That, of course, doesn't necessarily mean he's bad. He isn't. But like Norah Jones and David Gray b efore him, he has wide enough appeal to be played everywhere and annoy a broad range of people :)

I'm immune to that here. I don't listen to Kuwaiti radio (haven't listened to the radio anywhere in years) and I don't surf the music video channels (even when my TV is working), so my new music is coming to me via the aforementioned blogs or through stuff I hear on airplanes (which is where I discovered Blunt). Surprisingly, even the blogosphere is ready to overexpose artists. If I see one more Sufjan Steven or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah link, I'll scream. But at least I only have to read them, not hear them.

Of course, new tv shows are even less likely to show up on my radar unless they're being sold on iTunes. New movies are easier since we get pirated copies pretty quickly. It's strange for someone who makes his living from pop culture to be so isolated from it and a good argument for returning to the States after my year here is up. It also makes me wonder what new channels will open up to get new material out there. Bit Torrent is threatening to destroy the "two year delay" model of international television sales and Soderbergh's "Bubble" experiment may do the same for non-silmultaneous movie release dates. Ten years from now, people in Kuwait may be watching and listening to all the same stuff that people in the UK and US are and at the same time).

Of course, this cultural isolation isn't always a bad thing. For the four and a half years that I lived ikn England, I had no idea who Hilary Duff was.

2006-02-08T19:42:00.000+03:00

What I Said Except Smarter and Better Written

If you want to read a take similar to mine on the Danish cartoon controversy, Danish born journalis Jytte Klausen has a terrific piece in Salon today:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/02/08/denmark/

Well researched and well argued, it's the intellectual version of my emotional take the other day.

Have to admit I was quite pissed to read the following in her article:

This all would have been very well if the paper had a long tradition of standing up for fearless artistic expression. But it so happens that three years ago, Jyllands-Posten refused to publish cartoons portraying Jesus, on the grounds that they would offend readers. According to a report in the Guardian, which was provided with a letter from the cartoonist, Christoffer Zieler, the editor explained back then, "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them." When confronted with the old rejection letter, the editor, Jens Kaiser, said, "It is ridiculous to bring this forward now. It has nothing to do with the Muhammed cartoons." But why does it not? Can you offend Muslim readers but not Christian readers? "In the Muhammead drawings case, we asked the illustrators to do it. I did not ask for these cartoons," Kaiser said. "That's the difference."

It's a great article. Go read it.

PS: No the internet still isn't working at home or the office. I'm writing this at the local Second Cup, staring at a tiny Canadian flag and feeling patriotic that I gave my money to them instead of Starbucks.

2006-02-08T12:33:00.000+03:00

Who Knew Google Ads had a Sense of Humor?

The Google ad at the top of my blog today was "Live and Work in Denmark". Guess they're still perfecting the algorithm.

2006-02-03T21:09:00.000+03:00

Busy Week

We moved our offices, launched our website (www.teshkeelcomics.com), dealt with a barrage of media requests (Naif is being interviewed on CNN as I write this), I finally got on the ice here, played my first game of hockey, coached my first youth game and now it's Friday night and I could use a beer.

Good thing it's a three day weekend. The government kindly moved the official celebration of Islamic New Year (which is the same as Chinese New Year since they're both on the lunar calendar) to Saturday so I actually have a day to sleep a little bit and catch up.

Look at the pretty picture of the view from my apartment.

Will write more in the morning.

2006-02-01T22:22:00.000+03:00

Houston, We Have Signal

Well the good to great news is I finally have an Internet connection in my house. Which timed out really well because our office lost it's Internet connection again this afternoon. End result is our newly hired webmaster ended up sitting in my apartment working on our soon to be launched website. Gotta love it.

Of course, I also called my landlord to ask when we might actually get some tv reception again. He told me that the building they're putting up next door is now high enough to block the satellite dishes on our roof and that's what's blocking the signal. "So as you can see this was beyond our control". This reminds me of a running joke my (pseudo Argentinian) pal Fabian and I used to have about the British victory in the Falklands. He always insisted the British only won because they surprised the Argys. I would bring up the fact thata picture of the entire British fleet steaming to the Falklands had been on the cover of TIME magazine the week before the invasion. Fabian said the Argentinians dismissed that as British propaganda. So sure, the reason I have no television reception is because a building snuck up on my landlord.

The word I hear more and more these days is "wastah" (not sure if I spelled that right). It means connections and it's how I finally got a technician to come fix my internet. Not through repeatedly calling customer service but because I had a friend who had a friend who worked for Qualitynet. In some countries connections are important because the system is corrupt. here it's because a lot of times people (whether they're Kuwaiti, Indian or whatever) just can't be bothered. It reminds me of England in a lot of ways.

Anyway, I'm just venting after grappling with technolgy problems all week. We move to our new offices this weekend so I'm sure I've got a few more days of this before things get back to "relatively" normal. In the meantime, maybe my landlord will have found a way to stop anymore construction projects from taking us by surprise.

2006-01-30T13:34:00.000+03:00

White Noise

Not only have I not got Internet access at home but there was a big fire in the Liberation Tower which wiped out Internet service for much of Kuwait for the last day and a half. As a result our state of the art, rented offices have no internet, fax or phone services. The Teshkeel "braintrust" (ok, me, Marie and Nabeel) have been reduced to bouncing around various coffeeshops looking for a signal.

On the home front, the first modem the ISP gave me didn't support Mac OSX. The second modem that I had to buy for $90 more was configured by them and supposed to be plug and play but it also didn't work. So now I'm "negotiating" with them to get a technician to come and sort this out. My colleague is also calling a friend of his at Qualitynet to see if that can move the needle at all. This is called "wastah" or connections by the locals and it's probably the only way anything is going to get done.

In the meantime, I'll try and send out signals from the dark side of the moon and hope that all of you with cable modems and broadband connections and all that wonderful stuff are actually receiving.

2006-01-27T13:52:00.000+03:00

The Things I do for You Kids

Yes, it's Friday and yes it's the Muslim weekeend but here I am making sure you all have something to read when you really should be working. Hope you appreciate it.

Our little trip to the camel races got postponed because it was cold and windy here yesterday. Nobody wants to stand in the middle of the desert during those types of conditions. I'm wondering about summer here, when they actually do get sandstorms. As somebody who wears contact lenses that can't be good news. I've been thinking about LASIK for a while and this may really spur me on as far as that goes.

I'm hoping that my Internet connection will be turned on at home today. it's quite an involved process here and quite expensive. Basically, you pay about $600 for a year of Internet access, you have to fill out four forms, send your Mandhoub to stand in line at the company to get another form and then wait (at least) three days for them to activate your line. I hadn't realised how dependent I had grown on my internet connection. It really is a bit of a lifline to the outside world for me, keeping me in touch with all of my friends, sports scores back home and all sorts of other important info. I can't imagine how lonely the existence of ex-pats must have been before this (Especially in a country with no practical postal system. My friend Marie has been trying to mail a postcard to a friend since she got here and it's now become a Grail like quest for her.). The satellite tv in my building was also out for a couple of days so I felt very out of touch with the world for a couple of days (work doesn't allow me much time for surfing while I'm in the office). Brooke Shields is pregnant again. Who knew?

Meanwhile, in an effort to keep me entertained, one of my colleagues took me to the bootleg DVD store where you can buy new Hollywood movies for 600 fils (about $2). I loaded up on a few things that In expect would never be uncensored over here (e.g. SYRIANA, JARHEAD) and will report back on quality over the next couple of days. I do like that these discs are directly copied from original discs so you get to see the FBI warning play while you're watching your pirate copy.

Off for my first Kuwait haircut. Maybe I'll find out the real reason why Arab men wear those headdresses (could be their version of a baseball cap). More soon ...

2006-01-25T16:29:00.000+03:00

Another Take on the Canadian Election

An old drinking pal from the Marvel days, Warren Ellis has got a pretty funny take on Stephen Harper up at his site.

Check it out:

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=1749

2006-01-25T10:17:00.000+03:00

Prime Minister Harper

Like I said, my internet access is patchy for the next couple of days but I wanted to get a post up on the Canadian election before the topic got too dated.

Am I happy about the results. Absolutely not. I think Paul Martin did an amazing job as Finance Minister arguably giving Canada the healthiest of the G7 economies. With the surge of public wealth that is going to be generated by the maturation of the Athabasca Tar Sands projects having someone with those kinds of skills running the country is going to be vital. I also feel like he was being blamed for a lot of things that were out of his control like the gun registry and the Quebec corruption scandals. Anyone who grew up in the Trudeau years and didn't expect corruption in Quebec under Chretien has to have less of a short term memory than Tommy Chong.

So is this a radical move by Canada to the right as some of the lefties are bemoaning on the web. I don't think so. If you look at the results, the Liberals lost this election, the Conservatives didn't win it. It's kind of like the US election in 2000 where the Nader vote cost Gore the election. All those gains for the NDP drive me crazy. Why people vote for the NDP when they know that they will never win an election is beyond me. All these principled ultra-liberals do is hand over the running of the country to people on the exact opposite end of the political spectrum from them. Jack Layton was crowing how the Conservatives will have to work with them to get things done. The day Harper works with the NDP is the day they start surfing in Nunavut.

To me, the whole thing reminds me of John Turner's defeat in the late 80's. You get a highly qualified Liberal leader replacing and old and corrupt regime, whose campaign is sabotaged by his own inexperience and the factions within his own party. And an electorate that just feels it's time for a change, without having any particularly good reason. I guess it's that innate Canadian sense of fairness that makes them say "let somebody else have a turn".

My personal take on Harper is that he's a wackjob who softened his image to make himself just acceptable enough to traditional Progressive Conservative voters (like my mom). Hopefully, he surrounds himself with some qualified people but I don't expect him to be on the scene for more than a couple of years. I'm more interested in who the next leader of the Liberral party will be. Hopefully, they don't do their traditional two step and nominate another Francophone (though I'm sure they would love to have some seats back in Quebec and the BQ popularity seems to be on the decline). My friend Mark mentioned Michael Ignatieff might be a candidate. That's excciting to me because he's a substantial guy and could make Canada a player on the international stage in a way it hasn't been since the Trudeau days.

So to my Canadian buddies, thanks for the fun election. Let's do this again, real soon.

2006-01-24T15:02:00.000+03:00

Where Salmiya At (Part 2)?

Blogging may be a little erratic the next couple of days as I moved house last night and my DSL connection may not be hooked up until Saturday. It's supposed to be hooked up tomorrow but I've learned to make sure I add a couple of days to any estimates I get here.

I now live on Bagdhad St. in Salmiya. One of the staffers told me that after the invasion and liberation the locals referred to it as "Bush street" but it was never officially changed. Probably not much chance of that happening now!

The new place is great and I'll post some pics once I'm properly jacked in again.

2006-01-22T08:59:00.000+03:00

Sweet!

I know it doesn't mean anything until the playoffs but this kind of result always makes us Ottawa boys smile ...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/recap?gameId=260121014&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

2006-01-21T21:38:00.000+03:00

New Pictures Up at Flickr

I've putr up about a 100 pictures at Flickr over the (Muslim) weekend. i ended up getting a pro account after thinking I lost some pictures from my iPhoto library. Flickr makes a nice backup.

So if you want to see my family, my boss' family or maybe even yourself click on the Flickr feed button elsewhere on this page.

2006-01-21T21:34:00.000+03:00

I Should Play the Lottery, Redux

If they had a lottery in Kuwait I would start playing it.

I was in Sultan Center with Marie last night and what was the headline on the paper?

"Osama Bin Laden offers truce to US"

It can be depressing to be proven right.

On the other hand, the last time I bought raffle tickets my Mum won a shedload of money.

I'm back in the States at the end of February. Powerball here I come!

2006-01-20T11:38:00.000+03:00

It's Good to Talk

I think I mentioned before that we get a lot of American news in Kuwait. I've had it on in the background all morning while I work on some contracts. And, of course, the big story on all the shows is the abduction of Jill Caroll. It's also a big story in the papers here.

Now, before I go any further, let me say that I in no way support Al Quaeda, kidnapping violent acts against innocent civilians or any behavior of that sort. But the phrase that kept hitting me over and over again was "The United States does not negotiate with terrorists". And I wanted to ask the people saying this over and over, "How's that working out for you?" I mean, seriously, is this policy working at all? The sad reality is Jill Carroll's dead body will probably be found in the next couple of weeks and she'll join that poor guy who got his head chopped off with a machete and all the other folks who have been kidnapped in Iraq. So has that policy of not negotiating with terrorists really worked? I'm not saying that the US should free all the female prisoners in Iraq as Carroll's abductors have demanded but shouldn't they at least try and engage in a dialogue? If I were a member of the current administration and I had to meet with Carroll's parents, I would want to be able to tell them that we tried everything to save her. Not "Tough break but you know, the United States doesn't ...".

Maybe because it's my family is Irish (and modern Ireland was founded by men branded as terrorists by the English) but isn't it time to at least try and establish a dialogue with some of these guys? Wouldn't that be better than killing 13 people, alienating Pakistan, and saying we had to do it because we heard a guy might be having dinner in their village? Cheney was just on commenting about the Bin Laden tape and dismissing his truce offer. He said something along the lines of "You can't bargain with these people, you have to destroy them." Well the destroying thing hasn't worked has it? Listen, I don't believe Bin Laden wants a truce for a second but how dumb is it to play right in to his hands? Now all these poor Muslims who don't get to see forty seven different media outlets watch Al Jazeera or read the local paper or hear from their friends that Bin Laden offered a truce and the Americans turned them down. Why not say, "Sure, Osama, let's talk truce." Then he backs off and appears to be the bad guy he is. Or he comes to the bargaining table and you get a little progress. At least you can use it as an opportunity to gather some intelligence.

All I know is that not negotiating with terrorists hasn't stopped the kidnappings or the bombings or anything else that it was supposed to put a halt too. It's about as effective as "Just say no." has been at stopping drug abuse in the US. If these guys are fanatics because they believe there's only one way to do things and that approach is non-negotiable then what does that make us? In any conflict, it's one side (or more often, one person) who makes the first steps toward compromise. Who is going to be the Michael Collins, the Ariel Sharon here? The soldier who realizes that it's time to stop killing and try a different way? And will that person step up before the next Jill Carroll gets sacrificed for our "principles"? Or the next bombing happens in New York because we refused to talk?

2006-01-19T15:23:00.000+03:00

Uneasy Lies the Head ...

I said in an earlier post that I never thought I would be in a country where I got to say "The King is Dead". Unbelievably, I'm now in a country where a power struggle is taking place (I was in England when the 2000 US elections happened. Probably the closest westerners will get to this kind of situation).

Here's the skinny. The Emir died last Sunday. His named heir was the Crown Prince but the Crown Prince is also pretty sick. Up until today I hadn't realised how sick. Apparently, the guy is in such a bad way he may not be able to take the Kuwaiti version of the oath of office. This has precipitated a bit of a constitutional crisis with one camp claiming that the Crown Prince cannot actually take power. In fact, apparently, the bulk of the royal family believe the Crown Prince should step down as Emir due to his health issues. Of course, that raises the question of who should be the new Emir. And there is no easy answer to that.

How will this all be resolved? I sure can't tell you. Kuwaiti men often gather on weekends at something called a diwaniya. It's a men-only gathering where everybody gets together to smoke and talk sports, business and politics. I doubt there will be any other topic under discussion this week but hopefully the whole thing will be resolved soon. The pillars of Kuwaiti society are tradition, religion and government. When anyone of those are threatened the whole country holds it's collective breath. Nothing bad will happen no matter who takes over but in a country where all change is gradual the man in charge can make all the difference.

Maybe not so different from our own societies after all.

2006-01-17T20:59:00.000+03:00

Background Noise

Remember this picture? The mosque by my temporary apartment? Well for the past three days it has been pumping out a stady stream of prayers and verses from the Koran. I went in to the office today solely to get away from the drone. This is all part of the mourning period for the Emir. It certainly did the job of lowering my spirits for the past couple of days.

The background noise in Kuwait is inevitably prayers and construction noises. I've managed to grow accustomed to the morning call for prayer and sleep through it. Recently, there has been construction going on by the apartment so I wake up to the sound of hammers. Because of early prayers there are no noise pollution laws in Kuwait. So construction starts whenever the workers arrive. It means buildings go up very quickly. It also means I'm not going to be sleeping late for a while.

It's amazing what you can get used to as background noise. When I was back in NYC I was still programmed to sleep through police sirens. heck, I used to live on a block with a firehouse and I got used to that. Ditto my old flat in London which was right underneath the Concorde flight path. I had an old girlfriend who had a cat that howled all night and an apartment right by the LIRR. I would be staring at the ceiling as trains went by at 3 am and the cat sang like Pavarotti. Meanwhile, she would be sleeping like a baby.

It's easy to give you a taste for the look of Kuwait but any foreign country is a multi-sensory experience. There is a smell to the air that immediately says India too me. A spicy taste that is uniquely Singapore. And a sound of prayer that will always say Bneid Al-Gar to me.

2006-01-17T16:54:00.000+03:00

Photographic Proof

Me being interviewed by some Kuwaiti guy regarding the death of the Emir. Photo courtesy of Marie Javins (although how she wasn't convulsing with laughter during this whole incident is beyond me).

2006-01-16T08:48:00.000+03:00

The King is Dead

Not something I thought I would get to say in my lifetime given the longevity of the Windsor women but the King is dead. Or should I say the Emir is dead? It's really quite bizarre as I've never been in a country where the leader passed away like this. My colleague Frankie phoned us all up to tell us that everything would be shut for three days. No work. No restaurants or shops open. And after a while even Kuwaiti TV would just go to a picture of the Emir and reciting verses from the Koran. Even though the Emir was quite beloved by his people, I sort of got the the feeling that there was some government official somewhere going, "You people are going to mourn damnit!". Actually, thats unfair. The three day mourning period is traditional in Arab countries. It did feel strange though.

Marie, Frankie and I went in to the office for a while anyway. Some people in other offices had also come in but we had to keep the lights in reception off to avoid getting in trouble. We have quite the panoramic view from our building and we could see people gathering outside the Damsan Palace waiting for the Emir's funeral procession to depart. One of the people in the office told us the procession would depart after afternoon prayers so Marie and i decided to go check it out. Bizarrely and rather sweetly, two ladies from our kitchen staff decided to come along as well. We all piled in to Frankie's car and got off outside the palace. The kitchen ladies lost interest pretty quickly. There was a section of women only mourners which they wanted to check out so they left Marie and I to wait for the procession.

Things got stranger from there. The government had people handing out different sized posters of the Emir (the official portrait which is about twengty years out of date). In addition to the 4' X 3' wall size, they had smaller sizes for sticking on your back or carrying in yuour hand. I really wanted a wallet sized one but sadly they seemed to be all out. One enterprising man had fashioned an Emir sandwich board out of the larger posters and the stickers. In addition, they were handing out water and juice to the mourners. As Marie pointede out in any other country people would have been selling these things so it was actually quite touching to see the government taking care of the people like this. After a while, the water and juice distribution was taken over by bored kids. Quite impressive.

The bizarreness quotient hit its peak when two men came up with a tape recorder and camera and asked me to say a few words about the Emir (guess being the only white guy in the crowd made me of interest to the media). I said a few words about how Kuwait had always been a good friend to Canada and I wanted to express my condolences on behalf of the Canadian people. The guys seemed happy with that, took my picgture and left. I have no idea who they were working for but hopefully I said the right things and I won't be getting any calls from the Embassy. After that, Marie and I realized that nothing much was happening and we went off to have lunch at a hotel.

The new Emir will be a distant cousin who is also over 80 and has his own health problems. So it may not be too long before this scenario is repeated. As people have explained to me, this is one of the reasons why change happens slower in the Middle East. When a ruler dies, he is replaced by a brother or cousin rather than by a son. So rather than a reform minded 40 year old you will get a "stay the course" 75 year old taking over and as a result reform happens slowly. Still, with Arrafat's death last year, the overthrow of Hussein two years ago, the deaths of the Emirs of the UAE and Kuwait this year, and Sharon's effective removal from power the face of leadership in this part of the world has changed significantly in the last 24 months. Whether the change is positive or not remains to be seen.

In the meantime, the prayers ring from the mosques and everyone in Kuwait has two more days of holiday. The king is dead, long live the king.

2006-01-14T06:44:00.000+03:00

My friend Marie just got to Kuwait two days ago and is already writing incredibly well about the country. Puts me to shame, really.

Check out her great stuff at www.mariejavins.com.

2006-01-14T06:18:00.000+03:00

Ah, the joys of jet lag. Waking up at 4 am in the morning may be good for catching up on e-mail but not for much else.

As you may have guessed by that previous sentence, I'm finally back in KC after three weeks of bouncing around Ottawa and New York City. I arrived yesterday morning after fourteen hours of flying.

The trip was pretty uneventful and I managed to even get some work done but boy is my clock off now. When I lived in London, I had the trans-Atlantic thing down. I had long ago learnt that the best thing to do was leave NYC in the morning so you arrived in London in the evening and went to bed a couple of hours later. What hasn't sunk in yet is that KC is much further away than London and as a result I left NYC at 9 am in the morning and arrived in Kuwait at roughly the same time the following morning. Result? I slept most of the day yesterday and am a mess today. I'll know better for the next trip. I also won't be going through Dubai again as it adds hours on the journey. Coming back my connection was really tight (only 45 minutes between planes) and of course, that meant that the airline lost one of my bags. So it's via London or direct from now on.

I wanted to give you some unique philisophical insight on the difference between East and West again but I find my powers failing me here. Landing yesterday, I was struck by how routine the experience has already become. Go to the visa desk. Get driven home. Count the car wrecks you see on the way (four this time). Here the constant background noise of calls to prayer. It's not that the place isn't still exotic. It's just that my brain has catalogued these experiences and moved on. I had a reality check moment on my trip when Mike Hobson walked in to the Philips Club library to meet me and I was on the phone to someone in Algeria but for the most part I've completely bought in to this bounce around the world lifestyle that is common here.

Or at least bought in to it for a few months. This past trip had me feeling that New York was home in a way I've never experienced before. In London, the pull was back to North America in general and more Canada than the States (maybe because Canada is such an amalgam of the US and UK). But this time, I really felt like NYC was/is my homebase. Which realistically, it has been for almost 17 years now. Hanging out in Park Slope with Monica (the neighborhood I lived in before I started all this international craziness) probably enhanced that feeling even more.

So that's where I start off the next phase of Kuwait and 2006. Without a traditional home, with a feeling of disconnectedness from my current environment, but with a somewhat deeper and enhanced knowledge of where I'm meant to be.

Now, let's get started on Kuwait - phase 2!

2006-01-06T18:26:00.000+03:00

40 is the New ?

Turning 40 tomorrow and thinking about one of the major differences between the Middle East and the West - the attitude towards age.

Here in North America, 40 is a major milestone, "the start of middle age", and something a lot of people dread. By contrast in Kuwait 40 is nothing. people don't really move out of their parents shadow until they're in their 50s. And of course, older memebers of society are revered and respected. The term "sheikh" literally means elder. Perhaps it's a function of the limited freedom Arab youths have compared to their Western counterparts (although the same holds true for other Asian societies). Or maybe it's a function of the New World. Our whole North American society is based on new=good and a rejection of old ways of thinking and behaving. For us the past is prologue. For them the past is destiny. It's why we don't give a damn about the Crusades while for most Arabs it might as well have happened yesterday.

Am I bummed about turning 40? Yes and no. The actual birthday thing doesn't bother me at all. Just another page on the calendar and I long ago realized that my life is too fluid to be defined by numbers on a sheet of paper. I was 17 for about 7 years and these days I fluctuate mentally between 25 and 50 dedpending on the situation. Tomorrow, I plan to play (street) hockey and go out drinking with my friends in the evening. And I have a long plane trip coming up next week. That's pretty typical of my life for the last twenty years and I don't see any reason for it to change anytime soon.

What bums me out is that time keeps slipping away. Every year it seems to go by quicker and quicker. I've been blessed enough to have numerous opportunities for travel, playing sports and all sorts of other unique experiences. I've watched monsoons in the valleys of Northern India, drank champagne out of the Stanley Cup, shared good times with incredible men and amazing women and still I want more. I want to go on safari in Africa and visit Budhhist temples in Tibet. And go whitewater rafting on my hometown river. And have a wife and family and house and all the other stuff that "regular" people have. I don't know if it's possible to have all that. But I do know I wish I had more time to try.

I'm going to stop now before I turn in to King Canute trying to hold back the sea. But I sure hope modern medicine finds a way to give us all a few more years. I'm not nearly done yet.

2006-01-05T21:27:00.000+03:00

Where Have You Gone Joe Dimaggio?

Sorry for the lack of blogging but it's been an incredibly hectic holiday season. What's been going on since I last posted?

- almost 24 hours of travel from Kuwait to NYC
- a Mighty Squirrels reunion
- the Waterfront Ale House ran out of eggnog
- Molly's is the new Openers
- the Blind Tiger shut it's doors (sob)
- Teshkeel closed editorial on its first publication
- I had three Christmas dinners
- the Ottawa Senators continue to rock and to continue to get hurt (get well soon, Alfie)
- my family watched the Sens cream the Rangers 6-2
- because the Senators scored six goals we all got a free slice of pizza
- and my mom won a shedload of money at the hockey game
- Garth & Ruth and Andy and Cathy had rockin' New Year's Eve parties
- I got to play street hockey at Moffo again
- I actually worked most of this week
- got to see my buddy Dan Panosian for the first time in a couple of years, reminded him how he almost got us all arrested in Tiajuana
- have had the time of my life hanging out with Monica in Brooklyn
- and in two days I turn 40

Whew! Will expand on all this when I get a second to catch my breath. Thanks for the patience RFKers!

2005-12-16T21:49:00.000+03:00

The Most Covered Song of 2005 ...

... has to be "Love Will Tear us Apart" by Joy Division. I subscribe to a lot of music blogs and it seems every up and coming band now sees this as a rite of musical passage. For the record, my favorite versions this year were a live Arcade Fire version and the fantastic Bacharach/Mancini like version by Nouvelle Vague. The entire Nouvelle Vague album is brilliant. Everyone should check it out.

Google has just introduced a new music search tool but if you guys want I'll start putting some mp3 links up on the blog (for all ten of you that are reading this!).

Then again you may all be Phillistines. I can't believe I didn't get one comment on the link to the a capella version of "Jesse's Girl"

2005-12-16T10:35:00.000+03:00

Friday is Blogging Day in Kuwait ...

... since the weekend here is Thursday and Friday. That means I'm writing this post on the equivalent of Sunday morning. That's why you're getting extra doses of RFK goodness.

Blogging will probably be intermittent the next couple of weeks as I'm heading back to NYC and then up to Ottawa for the holidays. So if I'm in places where I can grab a wi fi signal or an Internet connection I'll get something up. Expect a lot of hockey related posts as my obsession tends to come on strong when I've been away from real NHL coverage for this long. Hopefully, you'll all be too busy getting drunk and opening nice presents to be checking in here too often.

On the other hand, I have a four hour layover in Dubai tomorrow night and a fourteen hour flight so I may just right up some stuff in advance to keep you all entertained over the holidays. All depends on how comfortable the Emirates Airlines seats are (and if I can plug the computer in!).

Oh what an age we live in!

2005-12-16T10:26:00.000+03:00

What's in a URL?

I finally took my friend Marie's advice and registered my name as a domain name. So if you have trouble remembering the URL for this site you can always type in www.svenpatricklarsen.com and you will be redirected here. Of course, this requires that you spell both "Sven" and "Larsen" right, something 95% of this planet has a problem doing. At least, I'm offering you alternatives :)

Sorry, Pete. www.swencarson.com was not something I was going to spend $12 bucks on.

2005-12-16T10:22:00.001+03:00

I Should Start Playing the Market

Remember my post about towers and other architectural boondoggles in devloping cities? Abu Dhabi just announced that they're considering buying a monorail.

Today's luck numbers are 6, 14, 22, 37, and 61. Share the love and send me a few bucks if you win the lottery.

2005-12-16T10:22:00.000+03:00

I Should Start Playing the Market

Remember my post about towers and other architectural boondoggles in devloping cities? Abu Dhabi just announced that they're considering buying a monorail.

Today's luck numbers are 6, 14, 22, 37, and 61. Share the love and send me a few bucks if you win the lottery.

2005-12-13T21:52:00.000+03:00

World on Fire

It's amazing the difference in location makes to your news coverage. One day after his assassination, the death of Gibran Tueni doesn't even rate a mention on CNN's website. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Tueni was a Lebanese journalist who was strongly anti-Syrian and got blown to bits yesterday. There is no one in this part of the world who believes the Syrian government wasn't responsible. Tueni's death is the latest in a series of 15 attacks against Christian and anti-Syrian targets. Now the Bush White House is saber rattling and the Un is conducting an ongoing investigation (not in to the death of Tueni but in to the assassination of the former Lebanese PM). Does any of this feel familiar?

I had a meeting yesterday with a Lebanese guy who was a friend of Tueni's. Obviously very shaken by events, he told me that "the war" started when he was 8 and has continued ever since. He's 38 now. Can you imagine an entire lifetime with your country either attacked or occupied by a foreign power? No wonder people in this region get twitchy about an American presence in Iraq. With Bush proudly proclaiming that US troops aren't leaving until the job is done, I'm sure many worry that he's talking about thirty years as well.

Meanwhile, in Australia they're beating Arabs in the streets. Another example of the ugly racism that plagues that country. This is a nation that not too long ago had viable political candidates advocating an end to immigration. ABC news was saying that this was in part a reaction to the Bali bombings. Which occurred three years ago. And were carried out by Malaysian and Indonesian extremists. What this has to do with Arabs is beyond me.

In Iran, the new prime minister is waiting for the second coming of a ninth century Imam.

In Egypt, the President/Dictator Mubarak won another rigged election but he had to let the Muslim Brotherhood (a fundamentalist party) win more seats than usual. Western politicians figure better the devil you know.

Basically, there's a whole lot more going on here than Iraqi elections and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. As Westerners, we need to become more aware and involved in the region in ways other than as consumers of oil. Otherwise non-existent weapons of mass destruction are going to be the least of our problems.

2005-12-11T08:59:00.000+03:00

Blog It Up

Hey if you're blogging (or running a full time website) let me know and I'll add a link on here. I'm looking at you, Marie Javins and you, CB Cebulski. I'm also going to add some links to artists sites like my buddies Dan Panosian and John Estes.

It'll be like Friendster without the pervy middle aged men. Or at least with pervy middle aged men you know.

2005-12-10T21:17:00.000+03:00

CBGBs and Other Passings

So I just read the news that CBGBs is finally going to shut down (at least at it's current location). And it occurred to me that I haven't pissed anybody off with this blog yet so in the words of old Joey, "Hey ho, let's go!" Why am I up for a fight? Mainly because this is one of those great media stories that manages to veer so far off the truth it's laughable. CBGBs is rightly hailed as the birthplace of the New York punk scene and one of the first venues played by outstanding bands like the Talking Heads, Blondie, and the Ramones. That's the reality.

Here's the other reality. It hasn't been irrelevant for twenty years. Most of the Ramones are dead. The Talking Heads split up over a decade ago. And Blondie have joined that undistinguished class of rockers who don't know when to quit. Has anyone under forty bought a new Blondie album this century? Plus the place is a dive. And not in a fun way. It's got bad sound, worse toilets, and the only reason anyone goes there is if they know someone who's playing.

Why do I get upset? Well two reasons. Firstly, Hilly Krystal (the owner of CBGBs) had numerous opportunities to but the building over the years. This is a man who was too dumb to buy real estate in Manhattan. He's also about as true to the club's legacy as a VH1 special. Hilly is currently talking about opening a branch of the club in Las Vegas. Secondly, great clubs like the Bottom Line and the Bitter End have struggled with the same problems over the years and not got half the media attention. Where were all the supporters of the city's musical heritage then?

Meanwhile, New York institutions that people actually go to keep dropping like flies. The latest casualty is the Blind Tiger, the great West Village pub which (arguably) had the best beer selection in the city. The owners of the Blind Tiger really loved their product and their customers, routinely holding parties and tasting nights, memorializing former customers who passed on, and generally creating a sense of community. They're won't be any celebrity fundraisers to delay the Tiger's closing and the Mayor won't get involved. But when it closes it's doors for good on the 27th it will be as vital and important in it's customers lives as ever.

And no ... they're not planning to open The Blind Tiger Las Vegas any time soon.

2005-12-09T19:29:00.000+03:00

American University of Sharjah at Night

2005-12-09T18:56:00.000+03:00

Not The Taj Mahal

This is the main building for the American University at Sharjah (the emirate next to Kuwait). We did a soft launch for Teshkeel in this building. The campus is in the middle of nowhere but it's one of the most beautiful universities I've ever seen. More pictures to follow ...

2005-12-09T18:46:00.000+03:00

Dubai Bai Baby

So I've been absent from blogging because I was off on a short business trip to Dubai. I had heard a lot about this city/country from non-Kuwaiti Kuwaitis, usually in that sort of inferiority complex of "Dubai is so much bigger/better/more Western/fun than Kuwait".

My first impressions? The skyline is dazzling with some really amazing modern architecture. And all the buildings are huge (everything in Dubai is the world's biggest/richest/most exclusive). It's striking but you also notice nothing is more than ten years old. It doesn't have the variance in scale or style that makes a truly memorable skyline like New York's.

I described the city as "Las Vegas" if the main industry was shopping instead of gambling. A nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. It's got energy in the way that a city like Hong Kong does. Not so much a joie de vivre as a "partying on the decks of the Titanic" kind of feel. This probably all makes it sound like I didn't have a good time there. I enjoyed myself but I was also aware that the short amount of time I spent there was probably the exact right amount of time to spend in the city. Good for a quick getaway when Kuwait gets frustratingly remote and small but not for a longer visit.

Probably the way everyone there really feels. After all, the national symbol is a hotel.

2005-12-09T18:15:00.000+03:00

Master of the Universe

Through the magic of blogging, let's travel back to Tuesday, when Kuwait experienced some more freakish weather. We had a weird system go through and as a result we had extremely low cloud cover. The picture above was taken from my office window.

Yes, I am now that important that I have an office above the clouds where I play games with the lives of the mere mortals who toil below me. They are like ants to me!

2005-12-09T18:08:00.000+03:00

Jennifer and Vince Will Experience Baby Joy

Am I prescient or what? I blog about TV on iTunes and all of a sudden NBC joins the party. The geek in me will be happy to buy BATTLESTAR GALACTICA episodes but who in the world will pay for LAW AND ORDER? I mean if you're too cheap to pay for cable you don't own an iPod and if you do have cable the last thing you'll want to see is more LAW AND ORDER. Maybe they're counting on ex-pats like me who miss the "doink doink" sound. or maybe it's just that NBC doesn't have that much else to offer. Would also like to know who is going to be downloading ADAM 12. On the other hand, I'm sure my friend Andrea is delighted about KNIGHT RIDER (yes, she is German).

My old friend, Warren had a theory that alien and/or primitve civilizations would assume Jerry Orbach was the God figure of our main religion given his ubiquitousness in our modern media. Warren lives in a small town in England and drinks far too much but I'm scared he's right.

2005-12-05T22:00:00.000+03:00

I love iTunes!

The happy discovery of the day was that I can access iTunes through the ISP we use at work. So I downloaded the new James Blunt album (which is terrific. Ruth - if you haven't heard the full album yet, you have to check this lout) and even better, two episodes of LOST! Tomorrow I'll download two more (that I can watch on the way to Dubai) and then I'll totally caught up with my North American compadres. There's rumors going around that Apple is planning on an expanded version of iTunes in January with a lot more video content. Sure hope it's true as the only one of the three English language channels that doesn't show movies has gone from 24 reruns to a reality show binge (SUPERNANNY, THE SWAN, AMERICAN PRINCESS, ugh). $1.99 for quality new shos seems cheap after that. Now if only the NHL would get ahead of the curve so I could download the previous night's Senators or Rangers games.

For the music lovers among you, my other great discovery has been Pandora, a streaming internet radio station that is totally cool. You put in the name of an artist you like and they create a radio station for you that plays similar artists and music. I even put in THE BE GOOD TANYAS (a pretty obscure band) and was pretty happy with the results. It's a great way to discover new music.

And the pubs in England are finally open past 11 pm. Ain't progress wonderful?

2005-12-04T22:41:00.000+03:00

2005-12-04T22:38:00.000+03:00

2005-12-04T22:01:00.000+03:00

Forza Italia

Back from the brief business trip to Modena. What a great place and what a nice recharge. Fantastic architecture, food and everyone dressed like they just walked out of a fashion magazine. Whenever I'm in one of the Mediterranean countries I always think that these are the people who've really figured out the whole quality of life thing. As much as I love Canada and NYC, I would really like to spend an extended amount of time in one of these places. That's the problem with life, to many wonderful places and not enough time.

Of course, now I'm paying the price for being away. Today was one of my most hectic work days yet and I'm off to Dubai on Tuesday night. Things are starting to fly as we ramp up and I'm hoping that I'm not going to have to be checking in too much over Christmas. Luckily, the time difference will prevent me from going too nuts but I expect I'll be checking the e-mail pretty frequently.

Not much more to say right now so I'll just put up some pictures of bella Italia for you all to enjoy. Ciao.

2005-11-29T20:57:00.000+03:00

Fly By Night

Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple of days. We're in the process of getting out our first comics/magazines, launching two websites and raising a second round of funding so work has been hectic.

Finally, getting a chance to catch my breath before I take off or a quick business trip to Modena, Italy (don't worry I'll take pictures). Of course, in the desert (or pretty much anywhere in Asia) even flying is different than in the West. We're flyover territory as far as the airlines are concerned so I'm taking off at 2:20 am this morning.

I'm flying through Frankfurt and I've resigned myself that I'll always be flying through Frankfurt at some point in my life. When I was in the book business I would spend a week a year in Frankfurt for the book fair. It's a banking city and doesn't have much to recommend it apart from the caporienas at the Casablanca bar. But somehow I always end up back there. I guess it's the European equivalent of somewhere like Cleveland. Grey and dull and serving a very limited purpose. But a necessary stage to get to where you're going. Maybe it's more like the airport equivalent of Organic Chemistry (or whatever meaningless class you had to take for your major).

On the other hand, I'm totally psyched about Modena. Yes it's a short business trip. But even a short trip to Italy is something special. I have to admit that for the last week I've been doing nothing but fantasizing about my first meal there. Fresh pasta and vegetables. Mmmm, mmm, mmm. It's also coinciding with my first tax free paycheck so I'll probably get some Christmas shopping in.

This is the start of a big travel month for me. I'm back for two days after Italy, then in Dubai for four days, then back here for a week, then New York, then Ottawa, then New York, then back to KC. Looking forward to it all and then looking forward to settling down a little bit when I get back. Should be fun.

Of course, we leave Italy on a 6:30 am flight (and don't get back here till 8 pm at night. We have a long layover in ... you guessed it ... Frankfurt). So if you're coming back home from some bar or tavern over the next few weeks take an extra look at that plane in the sky. I just might be on it, looking down at you too.