My Own Personal Psychic....

One year ago, I was sleeping in Nick and Mimi's guest room while my apartment was being finished. What a year it has been. November 30th was Bob's last day at Transmed, and I was just a weekend away from making a new friend, as Steve replaced Bob. I moved into my nice little "flat" here at Sandoval Gardens just after Christmas, and in the spring, I decided that maybe I was giving my all to a company that was just giving me a job to finish...I guess I finished first.
Speaking of my new place of employment, many changes are happening there also. I am spending a little time each week at our new food service warehouse construction site. I have become fairly close with the engineer that works full time planning and building Barakat facilities.

The above photo of Mahesh was taken yesterday afternoon inside of the plant. Mahesh says that next week all of the concrete will be done pouring, and then rapid progress to building will happen. He still swears to me that the building will be complete by the 1st of March, and our opening should happen around the 1st of April. Some of our co-workers have noted Mahesh's and my closeness, and I have affectionately anointed him as my "side-kick". His office is three doors down from mine, and we almost always spend 5 minuted in the morning every day catching up and sharing our plans for the coming day. Mahesh has just started working on our new Corporate facility that will break ground this spring and be completed by the fall of 2014.My sidekick and I were discussing his ambitious building schedule this week, and he asked me why I thought he was good at predictions. I was of course puzzled by his question, so he shared that I wouldn't call him my "psychic" unless I had confidence in his abilities to predict the future. I had been calling Mahesh my "side-kick" for 4 months, and now I find out that Mahesh thought I had anointed him as Kreskin...sigh, My English is tough to understand. The good news is Mahesh likes being my "side-kick" as much or more than being my "psychic."
In other good news, Juan Lopez was promoted yesterday at Transmed to Area Sales Manager of Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. I was fortunate enough to hire and bring Juan over from SYSCO Atlanta in the spring of 2011. He has done an awesome job, and I couldn't be happier for him or his family. I try and see Juan as often as I can, he is just a great guy. In other extremely happy news from the past week,  I got my hair cut! In the UAE, some things are made accessible for Westerners that aren't as easy or are forbidden from the locals (usually is related to things available for Non-Muslims and Muslims). The best example of this is pork. I can go to my Spinney's grocery store and enter the "pork room" in the back, and buy my fresh American bacon, or Kenyon pork ribs. I can also go to  a few select 5 star hotels, that feature pork on their menu. It is all in a  nice gesture that the Muslim government is quite tolerant of other religions for the benefit of tourist and Western businessman like myself. Alcohal is another one of these things. If your employer allows you, they can sponsor you to allow you to buy an "alcohol license". There are a few regulated and heavily taxed stores that if you hold a license you are allowed to buy a six pack of beer at. Just like the pork room, Muslims are forbidden from entering these establishments. The same is true if you want a libation during dinner. To serve alcohol in a restaurant, it has to be attached to a hotel with a special license. During Ramadan, when almost all dining establishments are closed during daylight hours, you can find eateries in hotels that once again with a special license cater to Westerners. This got me to thinking, in my Holiday Inn Al Barsha there is a beauty salon just off the lobby. It is a "Vidal Salon" and is filled with Philipina's cutting and styling ladies hair. I had dinner with Steve on Tuesday at the infamous Thai restaurant "Royal Buddah" (my favorite server E E waited on us) just off the lobby in the Holiday Inn Al Barsha. Next door the Vidal Salon caught my eye. I inquired and yes, the can cut men's hair. They steered me into a little room in the back (too funny) past the ladies getting their hair done, and Mylene became my newest stylest.

It's not all good news, clipping my sparsely covered head, cost me about $50 with a tip, but I feel like its money well spent. I am happy that I have a new friend (Mylene) that can pretend to care about me and my life as she snips away dangerously close to my ears (do they really get bigger as I grow older?) and now it's one less thing for me to dread here in Dubai.
The bad news of the week, is that there was a big disagreement over whether that the people that report to me can have the National Holiday (UAE Independence Day) off from work, well I pushed it, and in the end I lost...It wasn't pretty, and I probably need to mend some fences...So I will see you next week, from here...Have a great weekend!