CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark III

We made a field trip to Dubai today. It’s about 45 minutes from RAK and not a bad drive at all. Dubai is huge, just huge, and everything is brand new. It is also quite obviously one of the bigger piles of money on the planet. In terms of economics we can identify several places, even several streets, where vast sums of money are concentrated. For example Wall St in New York, La Salle St in Chicago. Well I’m telling you there is a pretty damn big pile of money in Dubai. Indeed, Vanessa and I agreed that we have to dress significantly more fancy the next time we go, we both felt a little ratty. Anyway we spent our time at Ikea, where Vanessa was researching her decorating for the new CheetahhhhhhhhPad. I must have heard 20 different languages being spoken in Ikea. Everyone who wants to make money the expat way is here in Dubai. Throughout recent history, the expats who want to make money have converged in certain places. In the 40s it was Tangier. In the 60s-70s it was Hong Kong. Now it is quite clearly Dubai. Indeed you probably have heard of the world’s most expensive hotel in Dubai, something like $10,000 a night. Anyway the Bug is quite a rascal with endless energy and while Vanessa was planning her decorating, I had to run around after the Bug, and after 4 hours I am simply beat. He’s gotten quite strong and actively resists if you try to take him away from something that interests him. I have a backache and sore arms from grabbing him and carrying a struggling toddler. God help us when we have little Claire.

We arrived in the Emirates last night. The Dubai airport is huge and very modern. We drove through Dubai at night and so I didn’t see much but everything is very modern and the one thing I noted was everything is very clean. Saudi was a very dirty country, trash everywhere. The Philippines isn’t all that clean either, for example the beach in Capoocan is too filthy to actually enjoy. However everything in the Emirates appears to be sparkling clean, which I really appreciate. Even the desert hinterland… no trash laying around. I like things clean if you didn’t guess.

So anyway RAK I thought would be a small town, but it’s actually quite large, with tall buildings and lots of shops. I met with two of my colleagues today and they said the primary problem with working in the Emirates is there’s too much to spend your money on.

The university is putting us up in the Hilton for 10 days, which we certainly appreciate. I’m really surprised at the number of Europeans crawling around the Emirates. There is a sizable German presence here; Hilton signs and brochures are in English and German and I have heard people talking Kraut several times already. I’m not sure why there would be a German community here but apparently so.

We went to the mall and shops just to see what was available, and thank God, all European foods are available. THANK GOD, seriously.

Another thing that’s remarkable after Saudi and Phils is that there is apparently no terrorism here. In both Saudi and Phils, there is high security around malls, hotels, etc. Our favorite mall in Manila, where we spend a lot of time actually, was blown up earlier this year. And in Saudi, there are even tanks etc in front of hotels. But there is literally no security here in the Emirates. That’s nice.

Anyway we haven’t even been here 24 hours yet but Vanessa and I are both quite pleased, though the Bug has already managed to break a lamp which will cost the Cheetahhhhhhh 200 dirhams.

I haven’t blogged much lately because, for one thing, our internet access is not very reliable. We were offline for several days last week. Made us a little crazy. Secondly, haven’t blogged much because there is very little to say. It is a bit surprising how little we actually do here in Capoocan. I suppose life is more eventful here if you are busy trying to earn a living, but for us, there is literally nothing to do, and we spend our time just puttering around.

Anyway I have had Montezuma’s Revenge for 3 weeks. I suppose here I should call it Jose Rizal’s Revenge. I suppose many of my loyal readers don’t know what Montezuma’s Revenge is. That’s what happens when you’re American and you go to Mexico, ie, you get the squirties. The only reason I mention this is because it’s become really chronic and I’m terribly dehydrated and afraid to eat. I have had terrible dehydration headaches for several days now. I’m trying to drink as much Gatorade as possible but I can’t seem to get rehydrated. Yesterday I got frustrated enough to go to a doctor. He gave me a perscription and it seems to be starting to work.

Anyway the nice thing about 3 weeks of Jose Rizal’s revenge is I’ve lost a lot of weight and now fit into my old clothes, including my Zegna pants, which I’m very happy about since I can’t afford to buy new ones. (Zegna’s Italian and it ain’t cheap.)

This doctor was the best friend of Tatay Jesus, Vanessa’s grandfather and a sainted man in these parts. The doc also gave me a perscription for some new stop-smoking pill made by Pfizer. I forget what it’s called. I hope it works. Can’t obtain it here, probably have to wait until we get to Manila to actually fill the perscription. I’m not getting my hopes up because I am very sceptical of any stop-smoking scheme, however, I will give it a shot. I would love to stop buying Commit nicotine gum. It costs me well over $1200 a year to keep chewing nicorette. That’s a lot of cash.

The Bug has also had some heath problems. He has some kinf of bronchial infection and can’t make much noise. This is nice. He does his typical baby tantrums but because of bronchitis, you can barely hear him screaming. I like it. I don’t want him to have bronchitis, I just like looking at the positive side of life.

We’re getting ready to go to the Emirates next Monday. We’ll be flying to Manila on Sunday. I would actually prefer to be in Manila right now, but we’re still waiting for part of our shipment from Saudi. This particular shipment has my work clothes. The shipment is arriving on Saturday in Tacloban, and we’re going to the shipping office on Sunday to fish out my work clothes and then go to Manila.

My new job has lots of nice little perks which really raise my morale about something really tedious (ie toil). They will pay $600 of extra luggage fees and it’s little things like this that make an employee cheerful and loyal.

My liason in the Emirates sends me email via his Blackberry, which means there are Blackberries in the UAE, and I’ve been wanting one for 5 or 6 years now. However the GSM iPhone arrives in Manila on Saturday and I might just have to get me an iPhone instead.

We don’t have our plans for next year fully made, because I don’t have my schedule, and I’m also not sure of our finances. I am an extremely meticulous financial planner and so I can’t budget for our vacations when I don’t really know our cost of living in the UAE yet. Also if you don’t know, the Cheetahhhhhhh took a rather big paycut when he left Saudi and so we won’t have as much cash floating around.

So our plans for the holidays aren’t made and since my mom will be in Muscat, and since we will be in a new country, we may well just spend our time looking around the UAE and Oman. Our plan for next summer is to go to the States and then spend a month in Peru or Brazil. The Cheetahhhhhh really misses Peru, it’s one of his favorite places. So anyway we will not be back in Phils for 2 years, probably.

I stopped doing directional trading on the stock market 2 months ago. Directional trading is when you bet a stock will go up or down. I’ve been doing direction-neutral trading now and since I trade options, I make money at option expiration, which is roughly the 15th of each month. Anyway this previous financial month just ended was a good one, I made about 20%. For those of you who might be curious about direction-neutral trading, I do something called the Iron Condor, which you can look up on the internet easily enough. This current month I’m invested in an iron condor on the RUT, 640/650/790/800. Ie, just above/below major support/resistance. I expect to make a good haul this month. The thing I like about direction-neutral trading is that income is much more reliable and secure. I’m not going to make direction-based trades any more, that’s for suckers I’ve concluded. The big boys hedge everything. Basically an iron condor is a form of hedging. I’m never going to do anything on the stock market any more that isn’t hedged.