Football and elections

You know, being here and having to get the football news by reading about it is interesting. Not fulfilling but interesting. Looks like Phil Fulmar is toast and probably deserved based on the last few seasons and the increased level of competition. This is kind of the way I am looking at the election. Time for some new direction.

This is like the train wreck of Wall Street, I can sit here and watch but can't do anything about it. I have written all the elected representatives I can find and they seem to be drinking the Kool-Aid of taking care of their Wall Street friends, they were not worried about bailing out my small business when the hard times hit.

I will not vote for either of our Senators or Zack Wamp again, they are not any different than a Tax and Spend Democrat except they want the grandkids to pay for their spending. If these are things we should be doing, then pay for it. If you can't bring yourself to vote for the money to pay for something, then don't spend it.

The 850B bailout for Wall Street would have been better spent on my 401K, but they don't seem to care about what happens to a regular person, just the big campaign contributors. We need to teach the Republicans a lesson during this election, they forgot how to watch over spending and spent more than a Democrat would. I hope when they get their A$$'s kicked by the public, they learn the lesson they forgot when they took over in the 90's. I normally believe in a split government but this one time, I hope the Republican party gets its' tail kicked for not doing the right thing. I plan on voting out the Democrats in 4 years but the GOP has to learn a hard lesson, if you are not going to be different, who needs you. Read read the article WWJD at http://www.frankcagle.com/

Kind of the same thing for Fulmar, if he can't deliver, then replace him.

Life as usual

Back from our trip to Cyprus, overall a good trip but as usual after being in country, we would have done some things differently. First let me say, the Euro is killing any more trips for me to EU countries, the rental car and hotels were not too far out of line on cost BUT food was way over the top. We will normally eat at a chain restaurant (at least once) to compare cost, etc between countries. The hamburger that is $8 in US, is $11 in Doha, was $17 in Cyprus. Nothing was cheap on the Greek side, the Turkish side was a little more reasonable and less developed so we enjoyed that part of the trip, if we did it again, more time on the Turkish side and less in the Greek side. Looks like all future trips will have to be toward the East where the dollar $$$ still has some value. Hello Thailand or Bali.

What is happening?

Yea, I know it has been almost a year since I last posted but in some ways it is the same thing. In a lot of ways this is a boring gig, working in the Gulf. Qatar is a small place (country), it is not as big as East Tennessee and a whole lot less to do and see. Not much history, not much to do besides sand, the beaches are dirty so that is no fun.

We have been back in Doha since July 21st, 2008 and have started a new school year. The ABP has grown from 200 students to 300 for the 2008-2009 school year.

There seems to be more challenges every year with living in Doha, traffic is worst each year, requirements from the country to work here get worst, changes to rules for Expats are getting to be more of a burden, all in all, this is not as easy a place to be as 4 years ago.

That being said, we are still traveling and seeing the world.

Travel again

We have been back about 10 weeks and it is time to go again. This time we are off to Sri Lanka. Looks like seven days of we hope sun, not the rainy season. Will be on the beach at Eden Resort, may even get to see the temple of the tooth.

This is our new housing, 2 bedroom duplex

All the roads were not Interstate highways.

This is what you will be driving in a few years, gas at $5/Gal.

Update on Travel

We have had our Spring Break and the NESA Conference in Athens Greece. The vacation part of the trip was great, saw some very pretty county, met some nice people and had a very good time. The driving was OK but I did not drive in Athens, that place was a zoo. The country side was easy except for the narrow roads and the big tour buses.

The educational conference was a good learning experience and provided me with some ideas to help our program for the next year. It is good to meet with other educators from around the Middle East/South Asia area and see what is happening.

The Education City/ Qatar Foundation has just had a golf tournament and every one's favorite hillbilly was on the winning team. I guess that it shows that lack of practice can be overcome by having good partners. That is the first time I have picked up the clubs since Christmas in the USofA.

We just had Easter, some of the schools were off, some weren't. Some people took off, some didn't so kind of a slow day on Sunday. Some of our students wanted to know if they could be off for Easter like a couple of the Universities, sorry but in most cases you don't get two sets of holidays. Watched a little of the Masters, glad I wasn't freezing my ears off. Nice place to be but it sure looked chilly.

We are now down to the rest of this week plus 2 more and then finals. This time of year gets hard to motivate students, teachers and anyone else in the school business.

The times they are a'changing, at least the weather

Scattered rain forecast for today
Web posted at: 3/15/2007 4:6:43
Source ::: The Peninsula doha • The city and its outskirts are expected to witness scattered rains, along with dusty and hot south-easterly winds today, heralding the arrival of summer.

Yes the weather is changing, the last week has seen a real warm up during the day. We are still having cool breezes at night but that will quit soon, I am afraid.

Like lots of things, not much we can do about the weather except make sure the air cond is working.

One of our friends has just bought the entire 7 seasons of "West Wing" and they are having a "West Wing" party tonight. I will probably stay in the kitchen, near the "punch". Had another go at the Pub Quiz Night, still next to last. We are going to have to find some better questions, ones we know. At least we have now avoided the last place finish, twice in a row.

There will be St Patty Day parties this weekend, Irish singers, etc at most of the hotels and clubs. If we make one, it will be Gravey's Irish Pub, they have a Canadian singer who does Irish songs, yea I know but it is as close as we can get.

Doha now has a Virgin Superstore for books and music, been needed for a while, prices are not bad. Just takes a while for the world to get to Doha.

Dunestock07