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 |  My second blog. Enter at your own peril. |
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This is my second blog on writing.com and I thank my loyal legion of fans (thanks mom) for leading me to this. Enjoy the banter, join in when needed, and send all the people who need a little abnormal dose of reality my way. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Because I work with so many different nationalities, the conversations we have are usually not quite what I’m used to. This morning though, we were talking over tea about the things we have done for our families, or more specifically, our mothers. Hakeem is very close to his mother, like all Indians are. He glows when he talks about her and was mentioning this morning how he used to find seashells and bring them home to her. Thankfully, I have one of my own stories about bringing my mom home a gift that I could share. As some of you are aware I spent a lot of time in my youth out fishing and camping with my dad. Every summer we’d take off for weeks on end just to get away. Mom wasn’t much of a camper, and that is cool, but that didn’t stop us from going. Dad would play his music on the drives, we’d cover thousands of miles, and sometimes we even caught a fish or two. It didn’t matter though. We were out and about and life was easy. Well, probably harder for dad as he had to set up camp, cook the food, drive all the miles, pretty much do everything. I was probably about 10 or 11 years old when I decided that we needed to bring something back for mom on one of our camping trips. I believe we were at the Brazeau Reservoir, one of our favorite spots as the campsite was always clean, had lots of wood, and you could fish from the shores just as easily as from a boat. While dad was busy setting up camp, as per normal, I was busy being a boy – playing with toy soldiers or finding a stick that resembled a machine gun and chasing after Germans! In our campsite this particular time was a little fir tree, a budding evergreen that I just had to take home to mom. I wouldn’t take no for an answer either. Mom needed that tree, I reckoned, and I watched as dad dug it out of the ground with a hunting knife, carefully pulled up enough roots to survive, packed it in dirt and a box, and put it in the Suburban SUV to take home. At home, I watched as dad planted it in the location that mom wanted and was proud that mom liked her gift as much as I, her only son and favorite child, liked giving it to her. The years passed and the tree sat out front of our house blossoming in the Alberta rain and care that was shown to it. Our other trees showed stunted growth, the claws of old cat Marnier taking their toll on the bark and lifeline. The fir tree grew tall though, perhaps a beacon of the love I have for my mother and my family. That tree doesn’t just symbolize my youth; that tree symbolizes the respect and attitude I have towards my mom. It’s about growth, well-being, and trust. That tree was me telling her that no matter where I am, I am thinking about her as only a son can towards his mother. I’m going home this Christmas for the first time since I moved out to Saudi Arabia. Kirsty will be coming with me and we’re hoping to experience a White Christmas. It’ll be cold, most likely, but I’m hoping for some snow as well. I’m also looking forward to going to a local store and buying some decorations so Kirsty and I can pretend we’re kids again and go outside and decorate that tree I brought back from a camping trip all those years ago. The fake tree in the living room will already be up and decorated. I think my mom will leave me with the decorating of the tree outside. It’s funny because I wasn’t much for decorating a tree before. Take that chance away and it’s not surprising that it is missed. And I guess it doesn’t matter where you are from in this world... the things we do for our moms will always unite us. Cheers, The Penguin |
| I know most of you don’t like my sports blogs but this one will be a little different than normal. The other day I was reading how the agent of a Russian international who just signed this past January for Arsenal Football Club in England has insisted that after only 6 months the contract of his client should be renegotiated because of the new tax laws that the UK is about to enforce. He said, and I’m not quoting directly of course, that when his client signed the tax bracket for his salary was somewhere near 40% and it was now set to be raised to 50%. He is stating that his client agreed to the contract knowing he would be taking home a certain amount and now he would be taking home less. He wants the contract renegotiated to get it back up to the value his client originally signed for. The player in question, Andrei Arshavin, has kept quiet. This might be because he speaks little to no English and is only playing in England because his salary for the year is more than he’d make in his career in Russia. He’s on a salary of 80,000 pounds (about $120,000 US) per week. Not per year, not per month, but per week! He is hardly the highest paid player in the league or the world, but he’s in proximity to the poverty line nonetheless. Even at 40% tax, he’s paying more in taxes on one week’s salary than most people in the UK earn in a year. The difference between 40% and 50% is 8,000 pounds per month. Over the course of the year it is nearly 100,000 pounds. He’s on a 4 and a half-year contract so we’re talking a sum of close to 450,000 pounds difference with the increased tax rate. The staggering thing about all of this is that someone can make that much to lose that much in earnings with a 10% hike in taxes and complain about it. Surely, when you are banking 40,000 pounds per month you should be able to save at least 2,000 of that for your retirement! Yes, athletes get paid an obscene amount of money for what they do, and so do actors, singers, and even some writers. I’m hoping that I can claw my way into the 50% tax bracket one day. I don’t think I’ll complain that much about it while I’m sipping champagne on my yacht in the Med and my G5 airplane sitting in my private hanger in Monte Carlo. If I do, shoot me. Seriously. Shoot me. Did the agent and the player really think the public would give a shit that his client was losing money when the taxes go up? Did they not stop to think that the public, the ones who fill the stadiums to ensure the club has money to pay the players obscene wages would be getting hit with higher taxes as well? Of course they didn’t. If they did, they wouldn’t have said a word. I remember when the National Hockey League went on strike a few years back and the players all had to make do with their contingency money, about $17,000 US a month and one of the players came out and said, “I can’t even feed my dogs for that.” How many people do you think were rushing out to buy his jersey? The lines between superstardom and reality really do get blurred. I hope that never happens to me. Since this story came out a couple of days ago the agent has now gone on record to say that he has no idea where the story came from and Arshavin is completely where he is. Saying it was bad enough; denying it is worse. Man up puss nuts. Do the right thing. Or you could just infuriate people even more. Cheers, The penny-pinching Penguin |
| I was over in Bahrain yesterday with Kirsty, Chris, and our friend Veronique and we went for brunch at one of the better hotels there. For a set price (180 Riyals or 30 quid, or $45 US [about]) it is all you can eat and all you can drink champagne. Granted, it’s not high quality champagne but when you don’t drink real booze that often, even the cheap stuff goes down pretty nice. Our waiter, Alan, made sure we didn’t know what the bottom of our glasses looked like so I can’t begin to tell you how many glasses we went through. Needless to say, our man got a sizable tip for his efforts. I started with some cold seafood – shrimp, mussels, lobster, crab, etc., and decided to let that sit in my belly to soak up the champagne. After about an hour, this is a 3-hour ordeal after all, I headed for the cooked foods and came away with chicken, steak, some roast pork, prime rib, and probably a vegetable or two. I hear you all out there going, “big deal Penguin, you went to a buffet and stuffed yourself and had some booze – boring!” Tsk, Tsk I say to you. The best part of this event is that they have a live band. And not one of those bands that consist of two synthesizer players and a couple of Filipinas singing. This was an actual 5-piece band with electric guitars and a real drum kit. The singer, a wee Scottish lass was one of those people you would describe as “good from afar, but far from good.” She could sing though. Oh, and she made sure to have what were probably her best assets up front and accounted for. And yes, I did say this to Kirsty! For three hours you get to rock out, dine on great food, and get pretty blitzed. We headed downstairs to the pub because Chris had been trying to get the attention of a couple people all day and our group followed their group to the pub. This was your usual pub I’m afraid. Well, maybe not so usual as smoking is still very trendy in the Middle East. But, we clumped on the dance floor as Chris was off being a social piranha and here is where the fun kicks in. Kirsty is about a year removed from university so she should be accustomed to the pub scene. After about 30 minutes we’re both bored silly. Yes, we’re dancing with each other and Vero, and everyone else who seems to want to talk to me (which is usually most people. I guess I have one of those faces). Kirsty is getting checked out, as is Vero, and apparently Kirsty was close to gouging out the eyes of one girl who sort of hung out with us because she couldn’t take her eyes off the Penguin’s ass! Must have been wearing my pants with inserts! And we’re in this bar in the Middle East, in the middle of the afternoon, and we could have been in any bar in any part of the world. Then men, fueled on by alcohol and ignorant buddies, mingle and look for any opportunity to pounce. Vero, dancing with Kirsty and I but alone, is an obvious target. For the most part, men get the hint that she’s not interested as she has a boyfriend (who, by the way, has just returned to Canada after a successful summit of Mt McKinley in Alaska!). And they the men move on and look for another girl who might want a piece of no-strings attached action. I’m guessing there are plenty. I’m guessing both Kirsty and I could have found some elsewhere as well if we were so inclined. This guys I don’t mind so much. They take the hint, stammer and stumble off, and go and make a fool of themselves elsewhere. But when Kirsty and I hear Vero shouting, looking at a inbred fuckwit with a stupid hat and a glazed look on his face like he just swallowed a dozen donuts to help his increasing girth increase, the mood changes. The guy and his buddies are laughing. Bahrain is full of US military personnel as there is a naval base there. And some of them, like all military personnel of a certain age, are just pricks who think they can get away with anything. Whether or not you’re in the military or not, nothing, and I repeat nothing, gives you the right to grab a complete stranger’s ass and squeeze it. Understandably, Vero is pissed off. Kirsty and I front up, the three morons laughing, shrugging their shoulders like they didn’t do it or are going to tell us it was someone else. By this time I was already bored of the place; this just made me want to leave sooner. I think I’m a fun guy. I’ve spent many hours in nightclubs and pubs. I’ve even pulled in a few of them. But never once have I walked up behind a complete stranger and grabbed her ass. We didn’t even know those guys were there. Vero, Kirsty, and I had never spoken to them at all that day or any other day. This was just some prick thinking it would be funny to grab the ass of a girl who is way too beautiful and smart to even think about sharing a taxi with this guy, let alone a kiss! No, this was just another example of how men completely embarrass me by being childish fucking perverts. You think it’s brave grabbing a woman by the ass when she isn’t looking? You want brave! Walk up to her when you’re sober and say “hello.” That’s brave. Ask her is she wants to dance or offer to buy her a drink. Groping her and then going home to jack off to your collection of American Eagle catalogues isn’t brave. It’s pathetic. He’s probably the type of guy that would have a premature ejaculation thinking about his sister. Congratulations for re-affirming my belief that although monkeys eat their own shit, I’d rather have them over for a dinner party than some fuckwit who thinks he wonderful. God. Why did I ever go to the bar in the first place? Cheers, The Penguin |
| Someone on this site said I should work on my “grammer” and that I made many mistakes with punctuation, especially commas, she thinks. Okay. She thinks my punctuation errors revolve around commas but she isn’t entirely sure. I can live that one. What I can’t live with is somebody telling me I should work on my “grammer” when they can’t even spell the fucking word “grammar” right! This was a long time, I think I had just joined the site, and I’m pretty sure I deleted the comment as I found it asinine. Something at work just triggered this memory today and I thought today might be a good day to rant and vent and just get to use expletives and colorful descriptions of the fucking morons who couldn’t beat Stevie Wonder in an eye exam. Okay, now I’m ready to begin. I appreciate that we are all amateurs on this site. And I will never tell anyone to stop writing. Never. I think it is a noble pursuit and if someone is passionate about it I’m not going to tell them to stop. I probably won’t read the drivel they’re spewing, but I won’t deny them the right and sense of satisfaction they get from dumping a bag of dog shit on the page and spreading it around a little. Hey, not everyone is my cup of tea and I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I’m fine with that. They should be too. What I’m not fine with is someone who can’t spell “grammar” correctly telling me my “grammer” sucks. You know what sucks? Your little sister. She swallows too. Don’t you dare come and criticize my work if you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about. I can handle criticism. I’ve had teachers, published authors all of them, rip my work apart so badly I wanted to crawl inside my own ass crack and pray I never saw the light of day again. And I dealt with it. I’ve had classmates review my work at school and come in with more red ink on their pages than Chewbacca has hair on his body and I was fine with it. I’ve had classmates I wouldn’t trade a warm bucket of gerbil semen for tell me my work needed to be fine-tuned before it could be considered good and I was fine with it. The principal factor in this was that they could all, each and every one of them, spell “grammar”. Rip my words to shreds, I don’t care, but make sure you have at least a basic grasp of the subject you are preaching. I don’t talk to David Spade about being a twat. I have no idea what it is like to be a twat so I can’t comment to him about it. I don’t tell Bill Gates where I invested my first 2 billion. I would tell him to invest his first 2 billion in my bank account if he ever asked me though. The writers on this site have varying degrees of interest, passion, skill level, and ambition. I understand that. I also understand that they are entitled to comment on anything I make public, such as this blog post. If I can get hate mail from someone after I told them they omitted a word and showed them the sentence; shouldn’t I be allowed to vent a little bit? Maybe I’m just going through delusions of adequacy here. Maybe I think I’m better than I actually am and am coming across as pompous and arrogant. Maybe I have no right to demand that someone actually know the English language before they comment. And no, it wasn’t a typo, they used “grammer” four times in the piece they sent me. I can overlook a typo. I misspell words all the time. But “grammar” isn’t one of them. I hate being passionate about writing. Cheers, The Penguin |
| Aaric is undergoing an editorial evaluation as we speak. The company I am working with has said it will take 3-4 weeks to evaluate it. This is just a cursory edit to see if I have managed to write for my target audience, to find any plot faults, and of course the typical grammatical errors. They will pour over the entire manuscript, but not with a fine-toothed comb, and recommend if I need any extra editorial help or major re-writes. I suppose my feeling of dread is normal. I suppose that every beginning writer who sends his or her work off to an editor expects to receive a document covered in red ink coming back his or her way. I spent a lot of time and hard work on Aaric, to be expected really, but I know it is not perfect. I don’t think perfection really exists but I do believe I got my book as good as I could get it. Hopefully, some professional editors will help me get it much better and something that even the most reluctant of book buyers would want to purchase. Now, I’m not beating myself up or worrying myself sick about what kind of comments I’ll get back on my manuscript, but I do think it is healthy to have concerns. I haven’t gone so far as to try and pinpoint where I think they’ll find the most mistakes, or sections where I think they’ll insist on re-writes, but I’m not going to fool myself into thinking they’ll come back and say, “apart from that misplaced modifier on page 87, this is perfect”. The book will need some work; it has to. Sure I can hammer out a blog entry in 10 minutes some days but that is different. The stream of consciousness mode I write these in allows me to do that. A novel is something entirely different. I started Aaric in October 2004 and I’m hoping to have it for sale by Christmas of this year. That’s 5 years if my rudimentary math skills are correct. A lot can go wrong or be forgotten in 5 years. Five years can also bring you too close to a project and blind you. I might be blinded by the overall satisfaction of completing my first novel to see that sections need work or just don’t fit. I’m fine with that. Well, I’m fine with that right now. Ask me again when they’ve ridiculed my ending or tell me that my central character isn’t strong enough and I might have a different answer for you. When I get the evaluation back in a couple of weeks I’m sure I’ll have to leave it sitting in my inbox for a few hours. I’ll probably need Kirsty to read it first. Anyways, that is the update. I’ll keep you all posted. Cheers, The Penguin |
| I’m finding it somewhat funny how life is imitating art at the moment. More specifically, how my life on writing.com is imitating my life at work in the hospital in Saudi Arabia. They are two altogether different experiences but the underlying core of the experiences is the same – friendship and inspiration. Let me explain. I am told fairly often that the life of an expatriate is a life like no other. Friends will come and go with the passing of contracts, re-structuring, and some people just know when to move on and head home. Some don’t and stay an expatriate far too long. They stay so long that they get complacent and just make up the numbers. We see a lot of on writing.com as well. But this isn’t the true component of this blog. Many of the people on this site who I enjoying reading are leaving in one form or another, for whatever reason (as is their prerogative) and it mirrors the life out here. I can’t help but see similarities and, while it isn’t necessarily frightening, it does have realizing that I should be thankful for whatever time I get with people. Here’s an example for you. At this time last year we had just wrapped up our performance of Aladdin. During the past year, 9 of the 16 performers have either left or are leaving within weeks of me writing this. As for the rest of us; rumors abound that some of us could be gone soon too. The economic climate has hit the Middle East (how could it not with the bulk of the money in British banks being from Middle Eastern investors?). For the record – I haven’t heard my name yet. Unfortunately, this is a cloud hanging over us all at the moment. The friends I have made out here are the kinds you want to keep for life. Each and every one of them has enriched my life in ways and brought me happiness and a sense of belonging. Right from day 1, as is usually the case with expatriates, they have welcomed me in and we’ve grown from strength to strength. When each of them leaves, or I leave, I will devote a blog to them all. I’ll even put up pictures and tell my favorite story about each one. And when each one goes, as I’m finding out, my life out here gets a little quieter. The same can be said about Blogville and writing.com with the recent departures I am seeing. In the past few weeks, no fewer than three of the writers whose blogs I look to first have announced that they are taking a hiatus from the blog world – for indefinite amounts of time. These are writers that have me clinging to their words. I don’t always agree with what is said, but I always get a reaction. And isn’t that what writing is supposed to be about? I hope that I can write something that will generate some kind of reaction from my readers. These three did that to me. I have never met any of them: not in person at least. And yet, I would turn to any of them for advice, for a laugh, or just for a way to kill several hours with great conversation and a few beers if accessible. When people come into our lives we have no idea at the outset what their relationship with us will ultimately be. Some people pass in the night, whether it is a heated fling, or just a conversation in the queue at the bank waiting to withdraw money. Some will stay a little longer, perhaps all through school until you finally realize that the only thing you have in common is your disgust at algebra homework on a Friday night. And then there are the ones that you don’t seem to get enough time with. You could spend two lifetimes with them and still end up begging for three more. Some of them you know personally. You have dinner with them, played with their children in the backyard, or perhaps donned a football strip with them and kicked people up and down the field. They could be coworkers, neighbors, roommates at school who understand your every move. But they could also be people you’ve never met and hold close to you fondly. You may wonder at times, “how can this be”, but you know how valued they are to you. You know your life has forever been changed by the few words you’ve shared together, or the insights you have learned from them. And while the time you get to share with them is short, it should never be, and will never be, discounted. They came into your life for a reason, and you theirs, and even though you may never find out the reason your paths crossed, just be thankful that did. Be thankful that for a fleeting moment in time, your life was enriched a little fuller. And when one chapter closes, a new one must naturally begin. Or perhaps a sequel sometime down the road. The chapters where these three are regular and phenomenal contributors to the blog community and community of writers here is drawing to a close. When I move on and draft the next chapters, and there will be next chapters, I’ll have to take time to include at least a few scenes about improving my golf game in the Myrtle Beach region. I’ll have to take time to include my first shopping trip to Rodeo Drive and soaking up some California sun. And I’ll have to take the time to include showing a couple of people in Missouri that I can ride a horse bareback (although I will cry like a school girl for days afterwards). And yes, there will be beer involved in all of these chapters. All things must come to an end, and this is an end of sorts for some. I’m going to wish Nada  , David McClain , and Carolina Blue all the best in their next chapters. Same some paragraphs for me though.Cheers, The Penguin |
| I went grocery shopping on Thursday as I was at the mall with Kirsty and it seemed like the best time to do it. I had last Thursday off work. For my newer readers, the Muslim Holy day is Friday, so Friday is the official day off from work. I have to work every second Thursday as well. So, in essence, my work week is Saturday to Wednesday with the occasional half day Thursday thrown in – 48 hours of bliss per week. But, enough about that. Where was I? Right, shopping on Thursday. Most stores here in the big malls are open for a few hours in the morning, close right before the mid-day prayer call, and then open up again at around 4:30 in the afternoon until about 11 o’clock in the evening. Knowing this, Kirsty and I decided to get up early on Thursday and head over to Dhahran Mall so we could pick up the last pieces of our dinner theater costumes. We got there at 10:30, the mall closed at 11:30. We would have an hour to do what we needed to. Somehow we managed it; grabbing everything we needed. Knowing that the big grocery stores are open all day, we decided that it would be best to pick up the groceries that we needed now rather than going home and walking across the street to the mall by my house. And here’s where it gets terrible folks. That’s right, I’m going to lose my temper. We were wandering around the grocery store when it was closed for prayer (they won’t kick you out of the grocery stores but you can’t pay for anything and there will be no one to weigh your fruits and vegetables for you) and pick up more than originally planned. Why not get it all done at once I say. We pay for the groceries and have to scramble for the cash as debit and credit machines always seem to be inoperable out here. I don’t think you can call yourself an advanced country if you can’t work a debit machine properly. But, that’s just my opinion and I could be wrong... We decide to sit down and have a doughnut and a coffee before taking a taxi home and I notice that all of the stores in the mall are open. I find this odd as the signs at every entrance say the shopping hours are from 9:30-11:30. I start to bubble a little bit. We just think it might be a few random stores open but when we looked down each aisle of the mall all you could see were store lights on and hundreds of people. I almost bubbled over. If we would have known, we wouldn’t have rushed around like fricking idiots trying to get everything down in under an hour. We could have ventured to the new section of the mall where some of the better stores are and browsed through their wares before making a decision. Granted, Kirsty’s costume turned out perfect regardless, but that’s not the point. Is it too hard to put on your doors the time you are actually open? You would think that retailers would like customers to know what time they are available to take your cash, debit, or credit – relying of course on the machines that swipe the plastic to be working. Or for the people behind the tills to know how to operate them. So, we get home a little peeved off but none the worse for wear. We relax on the couch for a few hours before I have to run across to the mall to get Kirsty some nail polish remover that she forgot at home. I do that, and manage to remember that my character for the dinner theater needs a gun. I find one at the mall. Now, I have to tell you something really startling – the toy guns here are all built to scale. And, even worse, they are all black and look frighteningly authentic. You can buy toy assault rifles that look like the ones the Saudi military carry and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from 10 feet away. At least back home the full-size ones are always funny colors. The dinner goes off without a hitch; except for our taxi drive over. We don’t call Mr Alyes and just flag down a taxi at the mall. I ask the driver if he knows the compound we’re going to and he says, in pretty damn good English, “he speaks no English”. I give him directions and we finally get to where we are going. We’re waiting for confirmation that we have been invited onto the compound and the Filipino security guard asks the driver to leave his ID and to pick it up on the way out. The driver doesn’t want to get out of the car expecting the guy to walk out of the booth to hand it to him. The driver looks at him and says, again perfectly, “fuck you buddy.” And then, yesterday. The point to push me over the edge. Kirsty and I are sitting on the couch watching Finding Neverland, a great film. How Johnny Depp didn’t win the Oscar for it I have no idea. When I find out who did win I’m sure I’ll be disappointed. She asks me if I’d like an ice cream sandwich. I say, “Hell yes” and she goes to the freezer to grab a couple. I bought them the day before as a treat. They come in boxes of 6 and combine chocolate and ice cream – how can that be bad? She grabs two from the box and states, “Are there supposed to be 6 in here?” I nod and she says, “there’s only 4 in here!” Malls not posting their hours, taxi drivers who speak perfect English but say they don’t so they can ignore the heathens, and then being ripped off at the supermarket! I’m telling you, it’s rough out here. And I can tell you exactly where the other two ice cream sandwiches went... someone grabbed a couple to eat while walking around the store. You see it all the time, when they’re not smoking of course. Unless of course, this is just further proof that the recession has hit the Middle East? Cheers, The Penguin |
| I know the game was nearly a month ago now but I thought I would put up some pics from the day. I'm doing this mainly because there are some people who doubt that it actually took place. Some people back home are convinced that I have gained weight and I am not partaking in any kind of sports out here. So, for them, I say, "look at these morons!" ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This is just me going through my pre-match ritual of listening to some music while I run a couple of laps and do some stretching. It's a habit that I can't seem to break and it usually ends once the first of many ballads turns up on my iPod. I wish we had more in-game action to show you but my photographers for the day, Kirsty and Chris, aren't really professional photographers so capturing game action without having it all blurry is tough. The best Kirsty could do, and she's delighted by it, was this photo. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** And Chris could only come up with one of me when the ball was at the other end of the field. As a forward, and therefore a lazy bastard, I rarely venture into my own end of the field. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** The defender in that photo was the one who we carried off the field a little later on in the game. By all accounts he's a nice guy but I wouldn't know that because he tried to stop me from scoring goals and therefore I think he's a dick. lol. But I honestly do hope he's feeling better and he isn't too hurt at the minute. My leg is better thank you very much. My coach pulled me off before the end of the game and it proved fitting as I got to have a photo taken with one of my best mates out here Simon, who is leaving the Kingdom soon after being terminated. Well, we thought they'd be gone months ago but they're still here trying to sort out passports and visas and all other such things. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I'll really miss him as we had some great times together. Besides, when he goes I'll have no one to talk to about my beloved Tottenham Hotspurs! It's just not fair. For some reason, probably the weather, once the game is done I have to take my shirt off. Kirsty tried to capture a photo of me doing my Ewok (the small furry creatures from the Star Wars movies} impression but I guess she got a bit too excited and they all turned out blurry. This is the best one of the bunch and she insisted that it goes on the blog. She's hoping you'll see the horse pattern mentioned in a previous blog. I'm only here to entertain you all; it doesn't matter if I embarrass myself in the process. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** So, that's it. A pretty boring blog today but, hopefully, proof that I am indeed trying to take care of myself out here in the desert oasis that is Saudi Arabia. Long time overdue I know. Cheers, The Penguin |
| As most of you know, I don’t drive out here in Saudi Arabia. I’m going to buy a car soon as a friend of mine here has one for sale at a very good price. Until then though, I have to rely on taxi drivers to get me around. I just got off the phone with my favorite driver and, not surprisingly, he has bailed me out yet again. When I first moved in to my apartment here there was no company transport that would come by my apartment to pick me up (as per my contract). I was standing out front of my building waiting for a taxi to come when he pulled up in an unmarked Toyota. He got out, shook my hand, introduced himself and said he was an independent taxi driver. Now, I was warned to stay away from anyone who says this as it is habit to drive people out into the desert and take their possessions. Somehow, I didn’t get this vibe from him. I introduced myself, said where I was going, and off we went. When I got to the hospital I gave him 20 Riyals and he said, “no, no, sir, too much.” He gave me 10 riyals back. He asked me if I needed a ride to work the next day and I said yes and lo and behold, he was outside waiting for me the next day. A few months later a regular bus from the hospital stopped by my building so I didn’t have to use him anymore in the mornings. Thankfully, after that first morning, I kept his mobile number close at hand. Over the course of the next year I would call him whenever I needed to go out at night or run somewhere. Miraculously, he was always available. Cue about 4 months ago and Kirsty’s arrival in the Kingdom. As a woman, finding a good driver is as vital to your safety as anything is out here. I did not hesitate once to send my good friend and driver to pick her up the first day she came over for dinner. Since that time, she has become his favorite customer. I’m always the afterthought it seems. When I call him up now he always asks if he’ll be getting Miss Kirsty from her apartment. On the odd day I say no, he sounds genuinely disappointed. Mr Alyes, and I always call him Mr Alyes (even though he introduced himself as Alyes) is one of the nicest and most genuine men you will ever meet. He’s been in Saudi Arabia for many years, and although he misses his wife and children back in Pakistan terribly, he knows that he can give them more by being here. His eyes light up when he talks about them, and he’s finally stopped bugging me about finding a girl because I’m getting too old to not be married. He might be putting undue pressure on Kirsty when I’m not around though. I hadn’t thought of that. And when he sees Miss Kirsty his smile grows so it’s almost too big for the car he is driving. I don’t want this to come across as big headed but the reason, I think, for his behavior when he sees us, is that we have always viewed him as an equal. We don’t care if he drives taxis, is a heart surgeon, or rescues kittens from trees; he’s first and foremost a very nice man. And that’s it. Too many people out here treat people as inferior because of their position or race. Not me, and certainly not Kirsty. I genuinely think Mr Alyes sees that in us as well. This evening he is bailing us again, as I have mentioned. Kirsty wants to adopt a couple of kittens. The people with the kittens for adoption live on the Aramco compound, a huge city to itself just outside of he city limits, and he’s promised to wait with us as we go to the two houses to check out which two kittens Kirsty likes best. So, while we are playing with kittens inside the house, he’ll sit outside in his car and wait for us, not complaining, not cursing us, and he’ll be all smiles when we come out and are ready to go. And here’s the most amazing thing about it – if we don’t have money to pay him he won’t mind because he’s trusts us enough to get him next time. Now, we do have money to pay him; don’t worry about that. And we’ll probably pay him a little more than we’d pay a normal driver because he’s genuine, considerate, thoughtful, and one of the nicest men on the planet. Normally, a taxi from Kirsty’s house to mine would be around 20 Riyals. We give him 30. And we don’t think twice about it. It might not be much, and it might not ease the pain of being separated from his family, but it is our little way of saying that we value him and that he’s more than just a guy with a car. Cheers, The Penguin |
| Taken from the newspapers... “Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania – a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.” “Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000... plus dental expenses.” “Mrs Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit; just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.” Why oh why, for the love of all things Holy, do we have to reward stupid people for their actions? Seriously, why did we decide, or someone who is supposed to be smart enough to know when people aren’t smart enough to wipes their own asses, to offer money for being a dozen steps away from the bottom rung on the evolutionary ladder? The first two examples on this list should just have been held accountable for their actions. Try to sneak into a bar to save $3.50 and you fall and knock out your teeth, you have been held accountable for your actions. Throw a soft drink at your boyfriend and then have the courtesy to wipe it up with your ass; you have been accountable for your actions. Money is not necessary. These women don’t need money; they need to be quarantined from any viable gene pool. I’d like to show them both a game I call, “throw the fucking idiot from the cliff”. Hopefully, it will catch on. As for Mrs. Grazinski, or as I like to call her, “too fucking stupid to be given the responsibility that comes with profiting nearly $2 million for thinking she’s sitting behind the steering column of the UFO that abducted her husband and inserted an anal probe so far up his ass that his eyeballs blinked Morse code”, she doesn’t deserve a fat or skinny penny for what she has done. I’m betting, and this is not a slight against the good people of Oklahoma (Go Sooners!), that the first thing she bought with her money was a 5-CD compilation set of the greatest banjo hits of all time! And you know that either her or her husband has seen a UFO, believes Elvis works in the bowling alley down the street, and wonders why it takes so long to eat soup with a fork. And we go and reward her with 1.75 million smackers? I’m betting she’s been raped by the Sasquatch while we’re at it. God, it just gets me so mad. How stupid do you have to be to do something like this? If locusts, that have a brain about the size of a grain of sand are smart enough to know that flying into each other is bad, surely a human being, no matter how far removed they are from the smart people class, can surely figure out that a steering wheel needs to be handled in order to operate properly. What, you don’t? Forgive me if I never accept your offer to car pool. I just don’t understand this crazy place sometimes. She’s the woman that the no women drivers in Saudi Arabia regulations exist for. And what do we do? We give her money and the keys to a new vehicle! We should be giving her a lobotomy and a dribble cup! Oh well, it wasn’t my tax dollars that went to pay her. Cheers, The Penguin |
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We've all had a moments like that...oh, and variations on the other one you mentioned! 