Christmas Morning at The Rock House

Wow - Christmas already. Lots of traveling, and lots of snow on the ground here in Bethesda. I'm off this afternoon for Istanbul for a week.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year to everyone!

Tuesday Morning at The Rock House - United 767 Planes

Just returned from Rome, Riyadh, and Jeddah. I flew from Dulles to Rome and back on United, on one of their new 767 jets. It was really nice! I upgraded to Business Class, where the seats recline into fully flat beds, there is on-demand video, power for your PC, and a USB plug to charge your mobile devices.

I actually flew to Rome in Economy Plus, and returned in B-Class. There's a real difference!! For me, well worth the system-wide upgrade certificate I had earned for being a 1K member. Even for a 30,000 mile award, it would be worth it!

Friday afternoon at The Rock House

Well, I guess this is my monthly blog entry. That seems to be the level of activity. I'm much more active on Twitter - there I update Twitter, Facebook and Plaxo with where I am, so that if I disappear somewhere in the world, someone would know where to start looking for me.

I am home now, then going to WV to see the Shelties. They've been there a couple of weeks, and looks like they wont come home until mid-November. I'm off Sunday to Rome and Riyadh and Jeddah. Maybe also to Dubai, but that's up in the air still. I hope also that I'll get to dive in the Red Sea off Jeddah. Right now, it looks like there will be time, and I'll be in the water there Nov 6-8. But, that could change.

After this trip, I'm home a week or so then I'm on the road again - Isn't that a Willie Nelson song??

Wednesday Morning at The Rock House

Hello blog - It's been another month, and still I am tweeting instead of blogging! Maybe I'll do better soon! I'm at TRH for a couple of weeks, then off to Abu Dhabi, Dallas, Austin, Rome, Riyadh, Bahrain, Hawaii and Istanbul (at least) before yearend. Many weeks on the road after this spell at home.

Tuesday Morning at The Rock House

Hey blog - I've been ignoring you again. Updating my status via Twitter, and showing it on Facebook and Plaxo fits my style much better. I think I'm a 140 character writer instead of the more lengthy kind.

I'm back from Bonaire, and off to Palm Beach and Toronto over the next several weeks.

Saturday Evening at TRH

Hello Blog! It's been a while - but then again this is a travel blog, and I have not been traveling. I don't count all those trips to WV to deliver and pickup the Shelties, or those to Cumberland to fix PC's as trips.

But, coming up are San Francisco, Winston-Salem, Bonaire, Palm Beach, then Toronto -- between now and mid-September.

Even though the Cumberland trips aren't overseas, they still provide good scenery pictures!! I think I have this same picture from at least 5 different trips! In fact, Cumberland trips have their own separate directory on my PC!!

Thursday at the Submarine Races

These are held every 2 years at David Taylor Research Center, right across the street from The Rock House. It's a really neat event, to see and to dive at. The website is International Submarine Races.

NYC is Really a Great City

Ya know, of all the cities in the world, NYC is just a pretty great place! Even an IPhone camera phone picture looks good from there.

Maybe that's why I go there three or four times a year!

Wednesday Morning, Back at TRH

OK, so all those overseas places were nice. But, there are also some pretty, and nice, places just around the corner here right at home. Like this, on the way home from West Virginia today.

Thursday Evening in Sofia Bulgaria

What a beautiful country Bulgaria is! I know everyone wont believe that, but I've seen the southern part of it, near Greece, now and I can say first hand how pretty it is.

I visited Plovdiv, then the Vucha Lakes area, where the weather was great and the scenery was even better.

I'd certainly do that again - but there's a whole country out there to see! Maybe starting with the Black Sea coast next time. I dove in the Red Sea a couple of weeks ago, so why not the Black Sea, too!

Thursday Morning in Istanbul

This pic is looking out my window at the Hyatt Regency in Istanbul. Not bad! It's located across street from the Intercontinental Hotel, where I've usually stayed, in Taksim Square area.

The 2am to 6am flight from Riyadh was no fun, but business class helped. Now, we'll see if I can stay awake all day. Getting off the plane in 60 degree weather helps though - that's different than the 90 degrees at 7am for the past two weeks in Saudi.

Favorite Things in Saudi Arabia

Here are pics of my favorite things here: Kingdom Center and the Red Sea!

Sunday Morning at the Radisson in Aqaba

I'm finished with 3 days of work here, and off this evening to Riyadh. The Radisson Hotel here is way south of the city, so a long bus ride into town if you want to go. I didn't - thought I'd likely seen enough cities recently.

And, finally, after almost three weeks (from back in Beirut) I've kicked off the cold I had. Finally had to go to clinic here at resort and get some antibiotics and stronger stuff than the drug stores had. But, good news is, I can talk in a normal voice again!

Tuesday, Leaving Rome

Wow - what a place Rome is - it's like a big, outdoor museum. In fact, I think that's in their tourist literature somewhere. Every block has old stuff on it or in it - amazing. It would take forever to see all this place - because I guess it's been here almost forever. Something about being the eternal city, I think.

Wednesday Afternoon at Dubai Meridien

People this week asked if this was my 1st time to Dubai. When I said it was about the 10th time, they were surprised. I guess that does sound like a lot. Lets see, 10*15 hours of flying each way is about 300 hours in an airplane. Wish I got paid to fly!

This Meridien is close to the airport and has lots of waiting space.

Monday afternoon on the corniche in Beirut

I made it thru Saudi Arabia, and am now in Beirut -- what a beautiful city! And the weather is super - 70 degrees and blue skys. I walked along the sea front corniche today for about 4 hours. Lots of miles (tracking my route all the way on my Iphone, of course!!)

Lots of great looking swimming/club's were along the area nearby the lighthouse point, but mostly they were closed. Not due to the weather or the season, I dont think though. I think it was that they suffered damages over the past several years here.

Thursday Night at Steineke Hall

Tonight was going to be an overnight in the desert night. But, these non-Texans here decided it was too windy and sandy, so we were blown out!! So instead of a nice quiet night in the starry desert, I'm back in Steineke. Or, maybe they were right and it wouldnt have really been nice and starry tonight in the desert ...

Thursday morning at Steineke Hall

Ahhh - I'm back in good ole Steineke Hall at Saudi Aramco. Almost like like a university dorm. But, there are improvements this time: an HD TV in the room, and a desktop computer. It took a while to get the computer to work, but now all is OK (for a while).

They have bought thousands of new PC's, monitors, keyboards, etc here. That's good. But all the monitors and PC's have digital video ports only - so my little tablet PC does not get to hook into the beautiful 19inch LCD monitor in the room. And, by the way, none of the existing data projector units work with the new PC's, because they only have analog video ports. That caused a problem in class, but we solved it with a conversion cable. I was the PC tech guy, not the IT guys.

Now, I need one of those cables for by room at Steineke. Sounds like a trip to an electronics store. But that means going off camp (campus), and I have no wheels. So, more logistical planning!

Tuesday Evening in Aruba

I'm here at the Paradise Found B&B in Aruba again, just like this time last year. Next week I'm off to Bonaire for scuba diving. Weather is a bit better here than at home right now!

Not so many Blogs

There's not so many Blogs now, because I've found I live better in the 140 character world of Twitter!

You can follow me on Twitter much more frequently than here on the Travel Blog.