A day in the life

Hello Friends and Family

Well it has happened, later this month I turn sixty!  That landmark will result in retiring from Saudi Aramco and returning to The Woodlands Texas. Back in the States we are gearing up for retirement by refleeting the cars (Jane got a new BMW X3 and I got a new Mercedes GLE 350) as well as updating the kitchen and bathrooms. This will keep us happy for some time and keep the large item spending to a minimum!

Every time I head back to the States I get the same question a lot -- what is life like over there.  So I developed this post to give you a good idea of what the world is like. It's a day in my life, which I hope you don't find too boring, but you need to make your own excitement over here!

Every good day begins with a hot, strong cup of coffee.  I use mugs that have good memories associated with them.  This makes for a great start in the Middle East. This mug was purchased during one our visits to see Lauren in New York City when she was attending Joffrey Dance School. Those visits were always a lot of fun.  

The next step is checking for messages. The world has definitely changed over the past five years.  Early on I could only get e mail, but now I can get Internet texts in I message, what's app or a multitude of other providers. Besides, it's always nice to hear from friends and family. 

Well it's that time again, aka zero dark thirty.  Off to my morning workout.  Some days it's Pilates, some days it's a walk / jog around the 6K path on camp, some days it's a bike ride (but I already sold my bike in preparation of the move so no more of that ). Today it's 2100 meters at the lap pool.  after that it's cleaning up and getting ready for work. 

There is one tradition that I really like, every day begins with a cup of coffee when you get to work (0700 no exceptions).  I like the Starbucks with Benjie my favorite bartista,  typically there are people sitting at all the tables but it's about fifty degrees this morning....too cold to sit out. BTW this is the best office I had in all the years at Aramco!

One of the highlights of the day is lunch, as I am sure is the case in many places.  We all head off to the dining hall (that we lovingly call the slop hall for obvious reasons). The food isn't that bad, I typically get a make your own salad, lentil soup, some bread and water. 15 Saudi Reals (about four bucks). Best deal on camp ( except for the hair cut which is also 15 Saudi Reals, but downside is everyone gets the exact same haircut). Any way, after work (4:00 pm no exceptions) it's back to the old townhouse. 

This evening's excitement will be a trip to the driving range.  A few points of interest along the way include the golf clubhouse, the Chicos Mexican Grill overlooking the ninth green and a few shots at the driving range.  Tonight's it's the  six, eight iron and wedge work. 

Well the day is coming to an end.....  dinner is a leftover grilled salad. I have a great recipe I made up myself. You grill up some peppers, mushrooms, kale, lettuce, fennel, avocados and endive. You do have do do some prep work of cleaning the veggies, spraying lightly with olive oil and seasoning with Tony's.  tonight there is a sliced steak topping to add interest. OH WAIT, there's the phone.  Oh good, it's Jane, time to hear about her day. 

Now that dinner is done it's time to relax and watch some television. It's a Wednesday night so we have a replay of one of the American football games on the satellite (you need to specify the type of football over here). After that perhaps an episode of one of my favorite tv shows (who doesn't like a saga that includes fights, sex and dragons). 

Well that's pretty much the typical day, hope you enjoyed it!  To all my Houston friends, hope to see y'all in February. Others later in the year!

Yep we will be back in the USA

Len 2014 Jan

Hello Friends and Family

I wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten about the blog, but 2013 was a busy year. Now that we are in 2014 I made a resolution to do some more blogging and keep y'all up to date. Besides that it is raining in Saudi today and too sloppy to swim, bike, run or play golf.  So it must be a good day to get the blog started again.

One thing of interest, I was elected President of our Rolling Hills Golf Club here on the Saudi Aramco camp. We have about 500 members and organize 2 tournaments per month and several social activities. The position has nothing to do with golf ability as I still manage a 14 handicap and am actually too busy at work this year to focus on my game. The photo is actually my election photo!

I did spend some time traveling this year. Some photos include a famous tire icon, Paris, views from the Alps in a Corporate jet, Ghent (which is a picturesque place) and Dubai which is building like crazy.

Jane and I also built our second home in WV (two miles from PA line and about 20 minutes from Jane's mother). The house is on a steep hill and one street from Cheat Lake. The plan is to be in WV in summer and The Woodlands in the winter during retirement. (For any of you who may be Mountaineer fans, we are 15 minutes from the stadium. Most people in are neighborhood are not going to like my VA Tech flag, I am sure they won't understand a CMU flag!)

On the work side, I am now part of a Chemicals Strategy Group. My boss (a US guy named Pat Rooney, formerly of CMAI) reports to the VP and we are also Chartered to execute the company's inorganic growth strategy (e.g. M&A). Last year we made our first acquisition of a technology company Novomer. Wish us luck!

Well that's what's new for now from the Middle East.

Len makes it for 12 paychecks!

Dear Friends and Family

Yep, it has been a full year that I have been employed here in the Middle East by Saudi Aramco.  There haven't been any major celebrations in the office or anything, but I thought I would mention it in my blog.  Other than going to the office, I thought I would share some of the photos  (that you haven't seen yet) through the year.

As you know, I have a townhouse on the 'Dhahran Saudi Aramco Camp'.  Inside of camp it is a lot like small town USA.  Except there are people from many other nations throughout the Middle East, South East Asia, Europe and of course the good old USA.  We have a couple grocery stores, small restaurants, work out gyms (with pool) and my favorite place -- the golf course.  We have one of the three grass courses in Saudi Arabia located on camp, and yes I get to play it a lot!

Of course, any time we want to go off camp we can.  For those of you concerned with security, it takes two gates to get off of camp.  Each gate has armed security and there is a concrete wall / barbed fence that goes all around camp.  On camp is fairly well protected, off camp it is most dangerous for the bad driving habits here.  As an example, I am not the slowest driver in the world, but I've been passed by cars on the right and left side at the same time of a one lane entrance ramp to a highway.  Anyway, the local town is called Khobar and looks a lot like you really are in the Middle East:

As you may be aware, the Middle East is know for gold (of course, in addition to oil).  22 and 24 carat gold is available in anything you want, at the per ounce cost of gold.  There are about 15 goldsmiths in Khobar and it is a lot of fun to shop in the little local shops.

Just to compare, I have traveled to Dubai, and it is really a fast growing city.  They claim to have 2 million people living there, 1.8 million are expats.  It is another man-made oasis in the desert, and has the most high rises I have ever seen.  Here is a good example:

The other big news in our family is Lauren going to Joffrey in NYC next year.  (I probably mentioned, but we do like to brag about her!)  Jane and Lauren have been very busy over the past month or so getting ready for this big deal -- setting up an apartment in the Pittsburgh area for Jane (she will go back and forth between The Woodlands, Pittsburgh - where our family is, and NYC).    Special thanks to my brother Dan for helping out.  Anyway, we went to NYC on one of my repat trips back to the States to visit the Joffrey.  We also visited the building shown below.  IF ANYONE CAN EXPLAIN WHAT IS HAPPENING AT THIS PLACE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

Take care and keep in touch!

Hello Friends and Family

I recall that many of you have asked for photos of the desert in Saudi Arabia.  Well the desert around Dhahran (where I am located) is not that interesting.  You do see some camels walking around every here and there, but its a lot of sand with some grubby plants growing here and there.

Well a friend of mine went to visit the real desert and took some nice photos.  I asked him if it would be OK to share with my friends, and he said he is more than happy.  His name is Steve, so everyone say 'Thank you Steve'!

These three photos were taken late in the day and show off some of the desert color against the blue sky, quite a contrast!

Take care!

Len goes to Europe

Dear Friends and Family

I was in Europe last week on a business trip.  It was rather busy, a different city / appointment each day Monday through Friday.  Naturally I found some time to take some photos to share with you, hope you enjoy them!

Traveling from the Middle East to Europe is different from US business travel.  All the flights leave about mid-night or shortly thereafter and arrive early in the morning in major European airports.  The flights back are just the same.  So on a 5 day business trip, I only spent 4 nights in hotels and the rest in lounges / airplanes.  Well at least it was Business Class travel!

First stop was in Germany, where I was able to take some photos of Dusseldorf.  I learned that Dusseldorf was much like Pittsburgh in that it had a heavy coal mining and steel industry that are serviced by the Rhine river.  Unfortunately, much of WW II activities took away that industry and Dusseldorf has been rebuilding since.  They have hired some unique architects!

First a photo of the rebuilt areas along the Rhine (including my hotel at the end on the right)

you may notice one of the buildings in the middle has come colored things on it, here is a close up!

and if that isn't strange enough, they have hired some very famous architect to develop 3 buildings that look like they are falling in on each other.  One is red brick, one is white brick and one looks like it is made out of aluminum foil!

We then went to France to visit a few other companies.  Most of the time was spent in Lyon with a bit of travel to a small town in the mountains that had a fabulous restaurant (called The Radio, named as such because people gathered around the radio to hear news during WWII).

A view of a snow capped mountain near Cleremont- Ferrot in France

Lyon is the second largest city in France and wants to remind Paris of that.  They have built a version of the Eiffel Tower on top of the closest hill

Lyon had some very pretty older buildings along the 2 rivers that come together there (the Soane and Roan), I particularly liked this church scene

an old statue in the town square

and a river scene in Lyon

We finished the trip in London for 1/2 day meeting and dinner and then a mid-night flight back to Saudi.  I didn't really have enough time for photos, but I've also been to London enough times.  (I just had to say that, to sound like a real world traveler!)

Take care and keep in touch!

April in Saudi

Hi Friends and Family

It's April now and time for the weather to start to turn back to high heat in the Middle East.  The past couple of days have been in the high 80's and lots of sun.  As it turns out, one of the departments I work with at Saudi Aramco has their picnic this past weekend (remember weekends here are on Thursday and Friday).  So we drove down the coast about 10 miles to the Saudi Aramco Beach for a picnic.

We were able to hold the picnic at the sailing beach, which seems to have the least number of visitors.  Just to let you know, there is also a beach / dock for motor boats and then a separate 'family' beach.  A family beach means just that, it is only for Aramco families to come and enjoy the surf and sun.

The sailing beach is used only by Saudi Aramco employees who have a small one or two person sailboat (sunfish or laser) and all boats are stored and maintained at the beach.  The photo below shows the sailboats that were out that day.  The dolphin you see in the near ground is actually a shower that you can use to wash the sand off.

Soccer is the primary sport of choice for most of the Middle East, and Saudi is no exception.  Children of all ages engage in the game at any chance they can get.  The photo below has several of my colleagues enjoying a game on the beach.  It was all for fun, until they decided that a championship game would be held between the VP's team and the Finance team.  You would think those Finance guys would have learned who should have won that game by now!

Picnic had all kinds of kids games and tents to eat and smoke / drink coffee.  Just to give you an idea I took a photo of the smaller tent.  Note that there are carpets on the ground to allow folks to rest and feel at home!

Interestingly, one of the entertainment items was a falcon trainer.  This Saudi apparently trains dozens of these types of falcons at a time.  They fly across the Arabian Sea from Iran, Pakistan, even Russia as part of their annual migration process.  Apparently they can fetch several hundred thousand dollars for a well trained bird.

Last, but not least, I mentioned that I traveled home to Houston for spring break with Lauren and Jane.  One of the keys to the trip was to visit NYC.  Lauren has been accepted into the Joffrey dance school.  The three of us visited the school to decide that yes, she will go there next year for her Junior and probably Senior years.  Lauren will receive a vocational degree in dance and complete here high school requirements in an on-line program.   Naturally, like any good woman, she did some shopping in NYC...

Hope that you are enjoying the blog!  Take care and hope to see everyone soon.