New Job, New Location

Hello all, I know it’s been a long time since I last posted. It’s been a busy several months, so let me bring you up to date.

As you may have surmised from previous readings I’ve spent the past 3 years working as a technical writer in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia for Saudi Aramco – the Kingdom’s oil company. For a variety of reasons it was becoming clear that it was time for a change. Then an opportunity showed up right after Thanksgiving when a friend emailed me a job listing and insisted I look at it because it was meant for me.

I looked, I agreed, and that set into motion events that led me to leave Saudi Aramco early in February, spend a lovely month at home with Dana, and then arrive last week in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, right after the worst thunderstorm ever here.

An auspicious start, right?  At least I saw a rainbow afterward, something I never saw in Saudi Arabia, so I’ll take that as a good sign.  For the past week I’ve been getting started at work, also a technical writing job. I’ll be creating flight manual documentation for the UAE Air Force C-130s, an airplane I spent many years flying. It should be very interesting work!

For now, I’m staying in the very nice Crowne Plaza hotel on Yas Island, just a few miles from my work. Staying in a resort hotel has its up and down sides but all in all it beats the heck out of the place I spent my first 1.5 years in Saudi Arabia, so I’ll try to make do. I’m about 20 miles from the main city of Abu Dhabi.

The day after I arrived I needed to get in some activity after my long flights, so I went for a walk toward the mall and Ferrari World. I haven’t been inside the place, but it is somewhat eye catching, and appears to be part museum and part adult amusement park - with roller coaster! More on this later, I'm sure.

In Saudi a group of us built and flew quadcopters and raced them for fun – pretty cool hobby! The second day after I arrived here one of my team members invited me to go with him to Dubai for an international quad racing event. 

 

A most-of-the-day trip to one of the biggest cities in the Gulf area was not really how I thought I’d start off here, and the “race” was kind of a bust (although most of the finalists went home with some serious prize money, so great for them!) but I had fun, got to see some very cool quad flying, and got some great iPhone shots of the place. Note, this is the very southern part of Dubai, and these beautiful tall residential buildings are not the any of the giant ones in the main city. Hopefully I'll be able get some photos of them while I'm here.

 

I’ve been asked what it’s like to be in Abu Dhabi, and while it’s too early to give you a really good answer on that, let me describe a short outing yesterday afternoon. I went for a walk, about 1.5 miles round trip from my hotel, and these are a few things I saw.  Boys and girls and men and women in normal swimming attire at the pool.  An Arabic couple lounging by the pool – him in white robe (thobe) and head cover (Keffiyeh), her in black gown (abayah) and face veil (hijab).  In addition there are dozens of physically impaired men and women here for a hand-powered race, and they have some of the coolest machines I've ever seen - like recumbent racing bicycles but with a hand-crank.  

I saw these car brands going by on the street: Honda, Hyundai, Chevrolet, Toyota, Dodge, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Ferrari, Jaguar, Bentley, Maserati, and McLaren, to name a few. Just normal traffic.

I saw an auto race taking place at the Yas Marine Circuit Formula 1 racetrack across the street – not a formula 1 race, but they use the track for everything they can think of, including the hand-powered race.  I didn’t attend the race, but from an overpass I could watch and listen as what I can guess were modified street cars raced around a short segment of the track.   

The overpass I was on crossed over a segment of the raceway to reach a giant luxury hotel right in the middle of the race track grounds. This place is beyond words to describe here – I will provide some images soon. But accessible from the hotel grounds, also within the raceway compound, is a marina where I saw everything from a 15-foot skiff with dual outboard Mercury engines, to motor yachts that would cost more than your house just to operate for a month, to a lovely two mast schooner, to a UK flagged, 110-ft (estimated) ocean faring yacht that my whole house would fit into.

On the walk back I passed an Arabic family going the other way – all in normal everyday clothes, and a 6 year old boy in a brilliantly colored American flat shirt!  Welcome to Abu Dhabi!   

One of the coolest things about being here is that, unlike in Saudi Arabia, my wonderful bride will get to join me sometimes, and that will be a blast! More to come soon, best to all, Mark

#worlddroneprixdubai, #yasmarinacircuit, #ferrariworld, #yasisland