September 23, 2014

I came home from the gym this morning only to find out that the heater was turned on. Apparently, the weather was low enough that the heat kicked in. It was nice coming home to a warm apartment. One thing that I have to contend with every year is the constant blast of heat even when it is not so cold out. This morning's bike ride to work was simply perfect. All of the traffic lights lined up. The bike had one of the newer seats installed. My jacket was flowing in the wind as I biked along 4th Ave. There were plenty of slots to dock the bike. I wish there was a photographer taking photos of me biking. They could have used the image on CitiBike's website.

September 22, 2014

Happy belated, Khoi! It was good seeing you as always. Next year, I'll be sure not to forget. My brunch with Khoi turned out to be quite messy. I walked away with three separate stain spots on my tshirt. I wanted to continue wearing the tshirt throughout the day but it just wasn't in the stars. We stopped for some doughnuts after brunch. We shared one. You don't feel so guilty for sharing one big doughnut as opposed to eating one for yourself. I walked home and tried to nap. After Sheryl's birthday brunch, I biked back home and experienced two failed attempts to dock my bike. The open slots were not working. I tried the third and last docking station on Elizabeth Street. That one was perfectly fine with plenty of open slots to dock multiple bikes. I ran into Dat. He has buffed up quite tremendously over a short period of time. I asked what he did differently to gain the muscle mass. He said he upped his weights. The first thing I ate upon coming back was the #1 special banh mi from Banh Mi Saigon. I also picked up goi cuon and chien tom. I baked cookies and had Nicole and Patrick over to taste test. It was a very relaxing weekend and a pleasant welcome home.

September 21, 2014

Happy Birthday, Sheryl!

September 18, 2014

Last day on the beautiful Arabian peninsula...finally. It's been a month long adventure that is ending on a high note. I am looking forward to the beautiful autumn weather.

September 14, 2014

It's back to the grind this week. It's our last week in Abu Dhabi. Gene gets in tomorrow night. So our awesome plan to do a heavy drinking brunch on Friday did not take place. I guess the hot weather just puts people in a "I don't want to do anything" mood. I did, however, go to Spinney's and stocked up on last minute snacks and imported fruit. Australian cantaloupe is by far the best than all others. It is super sweet right down to the last centimeter next to the peel. I was told that American fruit and vegetables are laced with beaucoup pesticides while fruits and veggies sourced from every where else around the world are 100% organic. I'm not sure if this is true. I don't discriminate on the source. Maybe I'll pay for it later on when I am diagnosed with cancer. The only fruit I am picky about is the pineapple. Pineapples have to come from Costa Rica and no where else. I find that if it is from Costa Rica no matter the brand, the pineapple is always sweet. If you get ones from Hawaii or the Philippines, they are not sweet. Look for the labels to see where you are getting your food. You'll be surprised to see that tuna comes from Thailand where they are big on packing tuna into cans. It's a huge industry in Thailand for some reason. Companies ship tuna to Thailand to be packed into cans. I devoured a Shake Shack burger last night for dinner. It was definitely fresh and delicious. Kyle convinced me to try one of their shakes. It was also right on point. For the rest of this week, it will be nothing but healthy eating. No more cheating.

September 11, 2014

It's the weekend and what am I doing? My laundry...

September 8, 2014

What do you do when your internet goes out and stays out for quite some time? Luckily, it was towards the end of my night. I was watching "The Good Wife" and the wifi connectivity just disappeared. I figured it was a brief outage as in the past. However, this one continued on and persisted through the end of the night. I ended up reading old newspaper articles on my iPad. I woke up this morning and the internet was still out. I thought the problem was limited to my building but the outage was for the entire island. Every resident on the island carried on without internet connectivity since last night. People were told to work from home instead of coming in. The estimated time to get service back up was around noon time. Well, service actually came up right before 9AM, just in time to start the day. The girl behind me was just about to leave to go home when our internet came back online. She grumbled about having to stay instead of going home. I had no where else to go but stay where I was. Back home in my building, there is no internet. Here in the office, it's the same deal. It's better to be in the office because I can speak to people. I told another colleague that at least our a/c is working with no interruptions whatsoever. Speaking of which, I have to move out into a hotel this weekend because the campus is switching from temporary generators to permanent power. This will require my building to be offline for a good 24 hours. Facilities will provide transport to a hotel where we will stay for a night or two nights. They also said food will be provided. I am anxious to see how this will pan out logistically. More to come...

September 7, 2014

Now I am obsessed with "The Good Wife". I watched it when it first came out and was immediately hooked. However, I could never remember when the show would come on. I fell behind. I am now caught up. The show has excellent writers and actors. Every second of the show is interesting. The comebacks are quick and the speaking is flawless. Yes, all these lawyers speak very well. They have to...I guess. I had no idea ChumHum was the equivalent to Google. Too bad Alicia's love interest had to die. I heard about him getting killed, but I really didn't expect that particular episode to be his actual "going away". Alicia was sad and depressed for a couple episodes but managed to get back on her feet in no time. She also told Peter to do his own thing, but to stay married because they both needed each other professionally. Alicia made me drink my first glass of red wine in almost two weeks. She would sit on her couch with a glass of red wine and watch these bad detective shows with her daughter. Kyle and I made it into the city and had pizza and pasta at the Beach Rotana. Red wine goes well with cheese pizza. We stopped by a brauhaus after for some beer. Kyle returned home, but I stayed out to do some shopping at the mall. I picked up some items at one store. It's funny how they start selling sweaters and winter clothes now, but it doesn't get cold here at all. Perfect for me though because I can take them all back with me to New York. I am at the halfway marker. Two more weeks and I am home free.

September 3, 2014

The dome is merely a representation of God. If the dome told me to do something, that would be my excuse why I had to kill Angie. So that doctor from the original ER is Junior's mom. It took me a few minutes to figure out why she looked so familiar. Bitch is painting left and right and sending video emails to her son from the outside. Did Lyle take a parachute with him as he jumped off of the cliff? There are way too many questions. Frankly, I am getting a bit tired of all the dome craziness. Julia needs to stop wearing those boots. Does she not have other shoes to wear? So the locker has some significance to the whole thing. The teacher is also annoying. She might be related to Tia and Tamera. The show's is supposed to be a mini series so I am hoping season two is the last and final season. How much more can they go on with all these ridiculous earthly disasters and supernatural events? I have to admit that it is quite addictive when it comes down to the last five seconds of each episode...definite cliffhangers for every episode.

September 1, 2014

It is already September. Where did summer go? Instead of having the day off today, I am working. This country does not recognize the official close to summer. Summer is practically year round here. The good thing about this is that I have a floating holiday. The trip to the mall went very well. I managed to pick up some chocolate covered dates and house slippers. Yes, I've been wanting house slippers for the longest time. The floor in my apartment is quite dusty from all of the construction work. On the first day of my arrival, I swept and mopped the entire apartment. However, my feet still felt dirty and dusty as if I was walking on concrete. The solution was to wear house shoes to separate my bare feet from the concrete floor. I picked up a $5 pair from Carrefour. The store pretty much have everything you can think of. I stocked up on souvenirs among other things. We moved the count to Tuesday to minimize the disruption considering it's the first day of classes. I survived a spinning class and will return to KP for a couple more classes. The gym changed its opening time from 7AM to 6AM. This is exciting news because I have been getting up quite early and waiting for the gym to open. I can get two sessions in before going into work. I need to drink up the almond milk. Everyone seems to be Australians or British here. All of the Australians are personal trainers and instructors in the gym. The British stick to the office work. Plus, they are quite out of shape. Speaking of which, the Melbourne housewives look and feel just like the ones in Beverly Hills. I am almost done with first season of "Under the Dome".