My Blog is Up!

Today, I woke up at 5:30am after starting to get tired at 3:30pm and being in bed by 9pm. So far, I've hit the batting cages to hone my softball swing, lifted some waits, had breakfast, and finally, most importantly, set up my blog!

I'm looking forward to blogging. I'm trying very hard to keep my posts short and somewhat interesting. Though it's more of a journal than anything else, if the posts are short enough, some of you may actually suffer through it. Today is Thursday like a Saturday (the weekend is Thur/Fri here). Now that this is up, I'll try to post more, and as I get settled, my posts will hopefully get more intersting.

This Post was Black Markered

Not for the reasons you think. I'm on facebook.

First Day

I woke up at 6:45am with the sun shining threw. It's much brighter much earlier here. I got up at 7:15am and showered and made scrambled eggs and strips of something I'm afraid to say for legal reasons. Gene woke up shortly after, so I made him some too.

The weather is amazing right now. I'd think I was in Florida—just warm enough for short sleeves and shorts, but not hot. It'll be interesting to see how warm it gets as the day goes on. We are going to check out the facilities today and scan my visa stamp at a friend's house so my aunt can get me a badge to go on the military base. Then Uncle Gene is going to show me around. I can't wait to see downtown. We'll be spending the next couple of days outside the city in a compound in the countryside, so hopefully I'll get this blog up and running then.

I Have Arrived

The Air France flight was uneventful; it wasn't quite as nice as the delta flight. Everything went pretty smoothly, until I got to Riyadh and had to go through customs. Customs took two hours. They were finger printing and taking pictures of every person, something they apparently don't always do. I met a cool German guy in line who was standing just in front of me. He was a chemical engineer on a short trip, also his first time in the country. I asked him if he had ever been to Texas, and he told me about how he'd driven route 66 down from Chicago to L.A. down through west Texas on a motorcycle. Later he told me about hitchhiking from NYC to the Pacific Ocean in the 70s; so far he's done a lot more interesting things in the U.S. than I have. I was lucky to be standing next to him, because they started a new line and grabbed him to be the first person. I'm pretty sure it's because he was an older well dressed white guy, and they didn't want him to have to keep waiting. It honestly probably saved me another two hours of waiting, which is fortunate because Air France had told my aunt and uncle that no one from the flight was still waiting (how would they know?), which freaked them out a bit. It's 1am here, so I'm going to bed. Hopefully, I'll feel ok in the morning.

Bleary Eyes

I guess I got some sleep on the plane, because I just woke up and they served breakfast. I got maybe three hours or so. It's 3:43am in Dallas; we land in Paris at 4:29am and I'll embark again 6:50am. I'll be in Riyadh at 12:55pm (God willing), so about 9 hours left. I thought I was a kick ass road warrior when I wrote the last post, then shortly after I felt pretty terrible before I went to sleep. I am back to feeling pretty good again, hopefully it lasts.

First blog post ever, not even on a blog

I'm writing this first post from a plane leaving North America somewhere over Canada and the Atlantic Ocean. And while I'm writing this on word, rather than on a blog, it still amazes me that I'm sitting on a chair 35k feet above the ground with my computer plugged into an outlet. It's 10:45 pm Dallas time, and I arrived to DFW at 9am Sunday projected to be landing in Riyadh at 1pm CST Monday. So after another glass of wine and a couple of poker instructional videos, I'll be half way.

Highlights so far:

1.Free Delta Sky Lounge: I went into the lounge with the intention of paying $ 50 for a lounge pass this morning. Thinking I might as well buy it at the beginning, since it's a flat rate for my whole trip and I'll probably want it later. And I figured, at least in expected value I could make up the cost playing poker and kill some time on my layover. Well, the guy saw how far I was going and invited me as his guest, "Save your money. You can use this pass in Atlanta to get in the lounge there too. "Hat tip Delta.

2.Won $ 180 playing internet poker against the softy Euros in the morning games and $ 50 playing the early evening games in Atlanta. So that's nice, since I may not be able to play in the kingdom.

3.Reading Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone. It is a book filled with insight and advice of a practical nature that I sorely need. The beginning focuses on goal setting and even dreaming and was one of the things that inspired me to try to move abroad. It took a long time, but I accomplished a goal-I'm on a plane pursuing a new adventure, whatever mistakes I've made, that's something. I'm sure I'll use the book as a jumping off point for many future posts.