CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark III

It’s been raining here for several days. It’s rather gloomy, though rain is so unusual, the Emerati students think all this rain is fun and wonderful. However we’re in the Arabian desert and so they don’t really plan on getting more than a few drops, and as a result there is no drainage, and the whole town is flooded, particularly my neighborhood. Thankfully our apartment is on a hill, so we are dry.

Apparently today the sheikh of RAK gave an official commitment to establish the new university, which will be the “University of RAK”. They took the “American University of…” out because the couldn’t reach an agreement for collaboration with GMU, I guess. Anyway fairly soon the faculty should know if they’re fired or if they’re being offered a position at U-RAK.

I went to talk with the finance lady. She’s a GMU staffer who is still here miraculously, and she also has a PhD from Harvard on the wall of her office, so I am inclined to think she knows what she’s doing. I asked her specifically about what will happen with our contracts. It seems an agreement has been reached that our contracts will be honored in full. This is good. For me it means 6 months pay, a shipping container, and air tickets. It also means, even if I don’t have a position at the new university, I will have this apartment until the end of September, and health insurance as well. We were particularly concerned about the health insurance because Van will give birth in July, and we suspect she will need a cesarian. The fact that the contracts will be honored is a weight off my mind.

We drove to Abu Dhabi today for my interview at Zayed University. The interview went well, I think. The university seems like a very nice place to work, actually. I want the job. Abu Dhabi seems like a nice place to live, also. It’s a very large city but it seems much more livable than Dubai. Dubai is really a big monkey-pit, with insane traffic and even more insane urban planning. Abu Dhabi in contrast is laid out in a sane and rational grid formation, like how any normal person with an ounce of intelligence would design a city. Van and I think we would be happy there.

We passed the Dubai motor speedway, where they do Formula One racing. Van and I are excited, we both like car racing, and we didn’t realize there was F1 racing here.

So I was in Abu Dhabi and missed the big meeting today. Apparently George Mason University is severing all ties with RAK. Apparently there will be the new American University of Ras al Khaima starting in its place and also apparently we will be given the option of taking a new contract there.

So the cat’s out of the bag and I will make a few blunt comments that I’ve been wanting to say for a few months now.

My big concern here is that my current contract is honored. The people at EDRAK have made it clear they will not honor contracts if they can possibly get out of it. Now, the UAE is not Somalia, there are laws here and they can be enforced, indeed, the business laws are largely modeled on Europe. So I believe I could take legal action in court here, indeed I am told that GMU-Fairfax undertook a class action suit against EDRAK on behalf of the admin staff who were fired earlier this year, to force EDRAK to honor the contracts. Because of this, hopefully there will be no difficulty for me. I imagine arrangements have already been made. My contract actually says I am employed by George Mason University, not EDRAK. Apparently most people have contracts with EDRAK, and I don’t know why I’m different. So if my contract is not honored, I will hold GMU-Fairfax responsible and, I suppose, hire a lawyer in the USA. I doubt this will be necessary because the terms of the contract are quite clear and unambiguous, and I imagine the people at GMU-Fairfax are aware of the possibility of legal action. I’m not a letigious person and want to avoid this, but the terms of termination in my contract are a matter of about $35,000 all told, and I’m not going to let that pass. Hell no.

I have no details about the new AU-RAK and no offer of a contract yet, so as yet I have no plans, though I will say I am less than impressed with how the situation has been handled, from both sides. Indeed that’s putting it too politely. I have never seen a more unprofessional series of events in my life, literally. As teachers our first concern should be students, for example. This might seem obvious but they were never taken into consideration. Also I am less than impressed with an organization (EDRAK) that doesn’t honor its contracts.

Yep, that’s my two cents.

Today we went to the hawk farm. This was actually a university field trip. I had initially been keen on it because I thought I wouldn’t have to go to work and could sleep in. Then I got drafted into coming and my enthusiasm fell dramatically. I muttered under my breath a bit about it. The thing is, I have seen hawks. Indeed when I worked as a ranger at the UW Arboretum, I once rescued a hawk with a broken wing. But then it occurred to me I could bring the Bug, who likes hawks. One of the Dora the Explorer episodes features Jorje the Hawk, so Bug knows all about hawks. Anyway Bug was very popular with everybody. Van took a million pictures. Bug got to hold some baby eagles. I held a small hawk and a giant owl. Bug liked the owls the best. It turned out to be a fun field trip and I feel a little guilty that I was a kill-joy about it.

There is apparently going to be an announcement tomorrow about GMU. This is annoying because tomorrow I’m supposed to drive to Abu Dhabi to interview at Zayed University. Maybe they’ll be kind enough to make the announcement first thing in the morning so I can know whether or not to go through with the interview.

Vanessa will be posting pictures of the hawk farm on Facebook.

Incidentally there was a little revolt in RAK yesterday in one of the villages up by Mussandam. Apparently they were going to build a chemical plant there and the locals decided they didn’t want it in their backyard and they dusted off their guns and started shooting!

#1, the rumor is that Sheikh Saqr, the sheikh of Ras Al Khaimah, has either died or is on the verge. RAK is a small town that’s a more-or-less independent country. It’s smaller than Madison WI. Sheikh Saqr has apparently been dwindling for a long time. And also little known fact, apparently his son staged a coup d’etat a few years ago and Saqr has basically been confined to his house. The coup is little publicized apparently because the UAE central government doesn’t want to set a president of recognizing a coup. Anyway when I came into the uni today, the Emerati students were all a-buzz with the gossip about Sheikh Saqr. This is only gossip incidentally, I haven’t taken the trouble to confirm it.

#2, also on the Emerati gossip grapevine, apparently everything will be settleed with the university this week. This was the gossip last week also so I’ll believe it when I see it.

#3, the Cheetahhhhhhh has 2 more interviews coming up and so I wish they would make up their fraggin minds at GMU-RAK about what’s going on, because I’m not particularly keen on going through all the trouble of interviewing if I still have a contract in place here.

#4 the Cheetahhhhhhh’s doing some trading, see link on the right sidebar.

A few people have asked me where and how to get Linux. This was a big riddle to me for several years actually. I’ve known about Linux for a long time; in grad school the scientist-types all ran Linux. However not being a total nerd, I had no idea how to install it or run it. Anyway the Presto install of Linux is easy as pie: http://lifehacker.com/5175680/presto-loads-a-streamlined-desktop-in-15-seconds

So I have wanted to get rid of all Microsoft products for a long time. This is mostly because they’re very crappy and annoying. I’m sure if you think about it, you’ll agree (if you use windows) that you spend more time trying to fix problems than you do actually using the computer. Or at least it sure seems like that sometimes. I mentioned in a previous post that I had finally replaced MS Office. Now I’ve replaced windows. I’m typing this from a Linux machine. I love it because it’s super fast.

I was actually on the “internet is the computer” ie JAVA bandwagon a long time ago. I started saving all data on the net, not the machine, almost 10 years ago. If you follow this approach then your adrress book, calendar, etc are already on Yahoo or Google. My documents started shifting to Google Docs a while ago.

Whenever I buy a new laptop, I’m actually going to get a Mac Air. I was a Mac user for a long time and actually a bit radical about it, ie I refused to use Windows. The only reason I switched is I went abraod, and while Apple products are available outside the USA, they’re ridiculously expensive. So switching to Windows was a cost-saving measure. Anyway I’m making enough money now so F that, I’m switching back. In the meantime, however, I’m converting to Linux.

I guess I’m a fair-weather supporter of the Obama administration’s efforts at economic stimulus. I’m feeling much more positive because things look to be improving on the stock market and I’m making money. I don’t know whethr this really makes me a fai-weather supporter because your profits are, of course, the acid test of economic policy. And I’m a firm believer in action, not talk. Saying you’re going to stimulate the economy doesn’t impress me. However now I’ve started to see action, so philosophically Obama’s economic plans are starting to win me over. He just might pull it off.
Obama pledged to spend $800 billion on stimulating the economy. Interestingly, I read yesterday that there are $400 billion in current construction projects in the UAE, which is smaller than Florida. Puts things in perspective.

We went to Dubai for Van’s prenatal checkup. Bug somehow sabotaged the sonogram machine, playing around with the dials, and the doctor didn’t know how to fix it. She didn’t seem pleased. Anyway Van and baby Tristan are doing fine.

There is apparently going to be an announcement tomorrow or sometime very soon about the fate of the university. The sheikh’s businessman who caused all the bru-ha-ha was apparently fired by the sheikh. I don’t have an actual confirmation about this, I get most of my gossip from my emirati students, who generally seem to know more than us about the situation. I will actually be happy for any decision at all. It’s the indicision, forcing me to live in limbo, that is starting to make me crazy.

Active day today. First we went to visit the ostrich farm. It’s about 5 minutes outside of RAK on the airport road. It’s cool. Bug loved it. There’s nothing there but a fence and a bunch of trees and about 50 ostriches, but ostriches are kind cool because they’re intimidating close up. Then can kill you quite easily with their big claw. When I was in South Africa, people warned me repeatedly to not get too friendly with them. Bug called them “big birds.”

Then on the way back we discovered an old dilapidated amusement park which has a miniature railroad. This was really a lucky find because of Bug’s obsession with Thomas the Train. He was pleased as punch, making “toot toot” sounds as we rode the thing around the park. They also had a miniature race track and Bug and I rode in a red F1 miniature car. This was cool. Bug insisted on then trying out the green race car also. Then Bug had his first cotton candy.

Yesterday we went to church and it was pretty troublesome, for example Bug insisted on “na na” (breast feeding) repeatedly and the only way we can keep him a little quiet is to feed him candy. Van and I could barely concentrate on the mass. I was surprised to discover it’s the 3rd week of Lent, which means it’s Easter soon.

My investment in Citibank has me pleased as punch. I discuss it in my “trade commentary” on the link to the right. Anyway 10 days ago it seemed like a ridiculous risk, and now I’ve made 100% and I think I will continue to gain. Unfortunately I only bought 5 options. It seemed very risky at the time. The thing about risk is you hedge it by investing proportionally in (unrelated) other things. So yeah only 5 options, I wish I would have bought 30 or 40, but the options expire Jan 2011 and while this will not make me rich, it could potentially make me several grand. Actually there are several companies I know pretty well from an investment perspective, Google is another for example. Citibank has always been a good money-maker for me.

This blog inadvertently began to replace my web page (teggatz.com) a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve updated my web page in 3-4 years. And I have little desire to do so, it’s a lot of work. I’m thinking of just taking the whole shebang down. This is partly because my students read my web page and then send me emails and ask me questions. They don’t seem to read my blog much, maybe it’s boring for them (I’d think it would be anyway) or maybe it’s difficult because I am colloquial here.

I started out this morning with the ambition of working on T2 but after an hour or so I saw what a huuuuuugggggggeeee task it would be and my motivation went out the door. Maybe I might take an easy route and hire a web designer in Manila (couldn’t cost much and they would almost assuredly do a better job than me).

Anyway this is the last day of my vacation, it’s back to the salt mines tomorrow.