What a beautiful day in Dubai. This morning when I woke up it was 54 degrees, and the high today will be 70 degrees without even a wisp of a cloud. In the last month, almost 400 people read this blog. I know many of you read regularly, but these numbers would seem to say over a 100 people keep in touch with our little career move through this blog. Rarely a day goes by that something interesting doesn't pass by me, sadly as old age creeps in I forget half of the good things I could blog about and probably 30% of the blog worthy events are self censored out because of Government, work, or friendship concerns...All that being said, this seems like a good week to ramble on about various loose ends.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that one of my most memorable New Years Eve's was a childhood holiday spent with my mother and late grandmother. Well my good friend Lee Croy appealed the judges ruling by reminding me about New Years Eve 1985. I was attending Law School at George Mason University just outside of Washington, DC. Lee Croy and Danny Messimer (two of my life long friends made at King College) had come to visit me at my Arlington, Va apartment. There was a free James Brown concert being held in downtown District of Columbia and Lee and I thought, free why not. Danny was a scarity (Not sure this is a word, but you get it) cat (he was a wise scarity cat) and decided to watch the festivities on TV from my apartment. Well the crowd was immense and you had to push through the jam packed streets to approach the stage. As midnight approached people were throwing empty champagne bottles off the surrounding rooftops into the crowd. Lee and I pushed to about 75 yards from the stage when right in front of us a man was stabbed and collapsed to the ground. As I looked into the crowd, I realized a young white boy from rural Virginia did not appear to be a safe profile. Lee and I looked at each other and immediately acted like two salmon trying to swim upstream against impossible odds. We had ridden in on the metro/subway system and probably had a mile walk to get back to our station. As we scurried back, we saw a gang of teenagers beat and rob a young man. We finally made it to the subway train and watched a guy strung out on drugs repeatedly bang his head into the glass and try to pick a fight with some surprisingly restrained Georgetown students. We made it back safely...Here's Lee's memory from that night...
"I thought for sure I was making your blog again when you headed toward your most
memorable New Year’s Eve. Our night on the town in DC can’t be beat. Leaving our
cop friend at the apartment across from the Iwo Jima memorial, taking the Metro
into town with the guy tripping out punching the walls and others on the train,
seeing James “I feel good” Brown at the US Post Office building, glass bottles
flying through the air striking other partiers in the head, the crowd opening up
to reveal a stabbed guy laying on the ground, heading back to the Metro,
mistakenly walking down a deserted drive between 2 buildings, 2 guys walking
toward us, 2 guys coming from behind us, the 4 of them jumping the drunk
youngster behind us, safely getting back to the apartment to find our brave cop
friend waiting for us in safety. Was that 85 or 86 when you were in DC?"
Lee's right....very memorable night...I was genuinely scared for my life for a good hour. Of course that year in DC, I was generally scared...lol.
Speaking of scary nights, last night one of our Barakat office employees had a going away party. He has gotten an opportunity to relocate to London and we had a goodbye bash at an Indian restaurant. yes, the prearranged menu had me terrified! I sat with Suresh, Murali, and Nidhi and slowly ate my way to a stomach ache. It was a nice night to share with over 30 employees - but it was not Currylicious. Murali and I were suppose to go to Vietnam this coming week with a very important customer, but for reasons mentioned in the first paragraph about self censorship....well, let's just say the trip is cancelled, and sadly, no Vietnam trip for now.
One of the things that has changed the most since my summer of 2010 arrival, is American eateries in Dubai. New to the UAE, Texas Roadhouse (2), IHOP (2), Bennigans, Cheesecake Factory (2), and Shake Shack. These have joined some of my other favorites that beat me to Dubai - PFChangs, Fuddruckers, Chillies, Fridays, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns. I have found Papa John's to be one of my favorite places to eat. I love thin crust pepperoni pizza. Now,I have also found Papa John's to be woefully short on product availability. Almost half of the time (I wish I was exaggerating) they are out of a key item for me. Thin crust is out routinely. The garlic butter sauce is regularly unavailable. This week I went to lunch there and yes, they had no pepperoni. I may have to get busy and figure out how to supply them....lol.
Unfortunately, my upload picture feature is not working on the blog....otherwise you would have gotten pictures of Suresh, Murali, and Nidhi and me with my stomach ache. My football pool sees me in 4th place with this weekend and the Superbowl to go. I think I will finish between 2nd and 9th (in the money for the first time ever) so it has been a better year for me than my Cowboys (If my Cowboys would have won against Washington I would have a chance to win still :-( ) Darn Cowboys....suddenly I am done writing for this week. Have a nice weekend, see you here next Friday!
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