The Emirates Palace Hotel. Can anyone say 7-star hotel? I will be visiting here before I leave.

So the company’s Marketing Director, Kyle Fisher, asked my permission to publish the URL to this blog in DeSimone's company newsletter. I’m not exactly sure why she asked, but it may have something to do with trying to convince my co-workers to come to Abu Dhabi. Have I made it sound fun here? I do think I need to go back and remove anything which may be slightly controversial or not politically correct since the whole of my company may now read this. But instead, I'll just give the following disclaimer; if I've written anything that offends you.....STOP READING AND GO AWAY! Ha! ;-)

So, the president of the company, Stephen DeSimone, was here this week. What a long week! He got here on Monday, and stayed till Thursday night. We worked 10 hrs/day to start and then I went out to dinner with clients two out of the four nights he was here. I didn't mind too much, we start off going to drinks after work, then to a multi-coarse meal at four and five star restaurants. It isn't all easy-going though, you do have to be "on" when dinning with clients. You kinda feel like your on a first date. You have to tell stories, listen intently, and seem interested. It's kinda exhausting. I have to hand it to Stephen and Mark, they did this four nights in a row.

We had a buisness lunch at this resturant. This is the Yaught Club and turns into a pretty well attended dance club in the evenings. This was my first visit here during the day. Third visit, overall.

So as I mentioned in my last blog, Stephen stayed in the second bedroom upstairs here at the office. He likes to work out, so he actually emailed me the week before to ask me if we we're going to work out when he was here. I had said sure, as I have been trying to workout, and I thought this would be good motivation. Anyway, the first night we were out till 1 AM with clients, and I thought, "no way he wants to get up," only to later find out he was up at 6AM wondering where I was. When I came downstairs fully dressed for work, I felt shameful... :( The second day, I got up a little earlier, but he was working on a presentation with Gorka, and looked like he already worked out. So, here I was on the third and final morning, thinking, "if i don't get up this morning, I'm going to be fired...j/k" and jumped out of bed at 6 AM. I look over at his room and the door is closed, and I'm like, shit....the one day I get up....and he's asleep...snoring away. So I lay down on my bed, in my work-out clothes, and leave my door open, thinking he will see me and say let’s go.... No sooner did I fall back asleep did I hear his shower go on. So I missed it again. I guess it just wasn't meant to be. Now the boss knows first hand how lazy I am. Greeeaaat…..!

So the weekend was nice. Thursday I had a drink at Ocean’s but was in by 11. Friday, I stayed in all day and did nothing. It was great. I slept till 12 noon, and then watched the last four episodes of Heros – the best show ever. I downloaded the episodes from free download sites because streaming video from NBC is blocked here. The company’s IT manager, Shani, hooked me up with some codecs needed to run the videos. Shani has been real nice, doing his best to make me feel at home here….thanks Shani. Then I took a nap from 4 till 6:30. Then at night I went to a BBQ at a Mark’s friend’s house. I helped worked the grill for a bit and we ate lamb, sausage, and chicken burritos. It was a great time. Honestly!

Enjoying a drink at the BBQ. Is my stomach getting bigger? hmmm...

Gorka and Mark hanging out at the BBQ.

Sunday, I slept till noon….again. Very nice. Then went to the beach and swam in the Persian Gulf again. When I got tired of that, I took a little nap on the grass under a palm tree. Spent the rest of the day chillin’ and relaxing in my room.

A whole parade of these sail boats went by when I was at the beach. some sort of race, I think.

Back to work today. Tonight I was talking to Brielle who asked me, “if I had a Starbucks in the city that I am at right now” When I told her it was downstairs she got all excited and laughed. She thought it was so funny. I miss her so much.

Today is Mother’s day in the U.S. So I want to tell Christine that I think you are doing a wonderful job taking care of the kiddos. While I know it must be tiring and frustrating at times, there is no one I know who could do a better job, or who is a good a mom as you are! You are my everything, and I can’t wait to see you.

Last thing, I got my return plane ticket today. I'm flying out at 8:45 AM on Wed. June 3rd and landing at 1:45 PM or so at SFO. It was like a 26 hour flight coming here, but only a 5 hr flight going home. Wouldn't it be great if the flight was really that short.