Knocked up
Well we have just informed our families, and now we’ll tell all the Cheetahhhhhhhh’s loyal readers over the globe, especially our most devoted reader Jingay in Cagayan De Oro. Here’s the scoop. Van’s pregnant. Just double-confirmed. We’re very pleased. Vanessa is tremendously excited. We want a girl. She will be Claire Alexandra.
I suppose we won’t be doing any real traveling for the next year or so. This puts a jinx in our plan to go to Peru in the summer, Van will be much too pregnant for Machu Picchu. I suppose we will go to Boracay and Manila for the summer vacation. I think we will look for an apartment to rent in Makati. 2 years ago we rented a condo in Pasig, but the traffic was so terrible it got to be totally ridiculous, so this time we will stay right in the thick of things in Makati. My summer vacation is 3 months, June-Aug, and Van wants to be close to the Makati Clinic.
Some predictions
Here are some predictions for you, since I seem to be on a roll:
1. I anticipate a healthy rise in the US stock market over the next several months, starting probably right now. There are a number of reasons behind my prediction, a big one being a change in US administration, another being that the market usually has a good rise over Christmas, but the biggest reason is that it’s highly unlikely we will fall below 2001-2 levels, and so that means the market is very unlikely to decline further.
2. I think we will not regain the stock index levels for Dec 2007 for several years, maybe 4 or 5 years.
3. I think the real estate market will take about 10 years to recover. The full extent of the crash isn’t even known yet, nor has the market completely crashed globally. The Dubai market is declining, for example, and many apartment buildings are unoccupied.
Just for the record
Just for the record, I’d like to point out that this blog has correctly predicted:
- the real estate market crash
- the rebound of the $ in 2008
- the biggest Wall Street decline in history, Aug 2008-now
Also for the record, note that I predicted these events well in advance. I’m not saying I’m a brain trust. I’m just saying I was right.
In predicting the biggest Wall Street decline in history, Aug 2008-now, note my exact words were “I anticipate substantial decline in world markets”. This is indeed what has occurred.
When we look back at these financial events, sometime in the future, this will probably go down as one of the bigger redistributions of wealth in history. I’m not sure who was the real loser in this. With any financial event, somebody is making money and somebody is losing. I suppose banks who gave mortgages, and investors in long-term assets ie retirement funds, were probably the big losers. Undoubtedly much of this wealth was redistributed to speculators. If I would have followed my own advice, I would have sold a future in the RUT, and probably could retire now. Shame I didn’t. Anyway I’m not sure who else benefited from this, all this money didn’t just go to speculators, who actually are a small percentage of assets at play.
Van’s modeling campaign with Mango
Blogging
The CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark I, which was on AOL, seems to have disappeared, and so it seems that those knuckleheads at AOL have lost about 3 years of history. Might be for the best, I might have written a bunch of nonsense. I remember I complained a lot about Korea for example.
My wife laughed at the opening comment of the previous post, where I mentioned “this award-winning blog”. As a matter of fact, the CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark I was an “AOL Editor’s Choice” or something like that about 5 years ago. So yes indeed Van it’s true, this is an award-winning blog. There is a link on the sidebar “What the critics are saying” and that link is actually there so I can mention the award. I have just been too lazy to write anything yet.
Though we didn’t win a Tony for it or anything, the suits on the 3rd floor, in the advertising department, want me to remind you that the CheetahhhhhhhhBlog Mark I was also saw the coining of now well-beloved phrases such as “Cheetopia” and “the CheetahhhhhhhDome”.
My mom in Muscat and my sister in Milwaukee have both recently taken up blogging. Their links are on the sidebar to the right. With my sister the catalyst seems to have been having a baby. With my mom it appears that going abroad prompted her. The #@$&! suits from the 15th floor at Cheetahhhhhhhh Media Enterprises (CME) LLC, want me to inform you that their blogs are in no way affiliated with, or endorsed by, CME LLC or its subsidiaries.
weekly update
The Cheetahhhhhhh is starting a new feature of this award-winning blog. The weekly update.
A lot of people in the expat racket would describe Saudi as a hardship posting, and thus requiring significantly higher pay. Such was my experience. Now, the Cheetahhhhhh was pleased with his salary in Saudi, so he was willing to overlook a lot of things. The heat, for example; Saudi is extremely hot. In comparison, the Emirates here have a very mild and pleasant climate. Like southern California. Anyway Cheetahhhhhhh’s point: I’m pleased we made the move here to the Emirates. I was almost willing to endure Saudi a bit more, but Van was getting really bored, and in truth so was I. So we made the move, and first of all, our life here is pleasant. The Emirates is a nice place to live. I can understand now why expats have been flocking here for the last 10 years or so. And the thing is, in Saudi, you just get used to the place and you stop noticing the deprivations. In contrast, the Emirates has everything. I could be living in Southern California right now, and indeed I basically am, except there are a lot of Arabs and Indians and Bengalis instead of Mexicans. The place even has a vibe similar to Southern Cali, if you can believe it. If Dubai is Los Angeles, which is does resemble in many ways, then us out here in the Top of the Tent are Santa Monica. Following this Cali metaphor, you could say Muscat is San Fran.
The Bug has been speaking in complete sentences, such as “Grandma get toys” and “It’s daddy’s shoes”. Today he and I were driving around on an errand, but he saw a bulldozer (a digging machine) parked at the neighborhood grocery store and he insisted on checking it out. We spent a good 20 minutes examining the bulldozer, and didn’t actually get the errand accomplished. I remember when I was a small lad, I liked trucks also. I remember one of my earliest imaginary activities was imaging I was working on an oil rig, one of those massive offshore drilling platforms. How in God’s name I got so fascinated by an oil rig, I have no idea. Anyway the Bug digs any large building machine, like cranes and bulldozers and road-flattening machines.
Vanessa has taken up gardening on the balcony. We have a gardenia and some other plants. She wants to drive to Masafi, which is about 45 minutes away, up in the mountains heading to Oman. In Masafi there is a big roadside sook. They sell plants there. I nixed the idea out of sheer laziness, but we will go tomorrow. We’re also going to go golfing tomorrow, and tonight we’re going to the beach and shopping for pork and booze at Spinney’s.
Bug has been spending a lot of time in the evening playing in the compound. We have a cricket court or something, a pool, and a play room with snack bar. It’s not glamorous or anything but Bug enjoys it. The kids come out at night. It’s hot and the sun is very bright so people hide indoors until sunset. The kids start playing at about exactly sunset. Bug seems popular with the local kids, they all greet him. He is too little to actually play yet, however, so he’s kind of the odd kid out. He likes to hang out on the trampoline with the small children. The trampoline is also conveniently close to the Filipino ladies who sell juice and ice cream.
Bug said
Bug said, “Grandma get toys.” It’s remarkable linguistically in that it’s a full English sentence of subject-verb-object. Also he might think grandma can get him toys.
Not a lot going on. Van is concerned about the Bug learning Tagalog. Most of our media here is English, and English is the family language. This was actually a marriage agreement between her and I. So the Bug doesn’t get a lot of Tagalog, although we do have TFC, ie, Filipino satellite TV. My advice was that she should talk to him in Tagalog, and also try to get him interested in watching TFC with her. A baby at age 2 is a language sponge and will soak up anything if you give it a chance.
Not momentous news, but rum and granadilla (passion fruit) juice are not the best combo for the pallate.
Anyway it’s time for pizza dinner, so I’m cutting this short.
Cheers mates.
Trip to Oman
We went to Oman for the weekend to visit my mom. She had a new wooden train set for the Bug, and you’ll recall that Bug’s primary interest in life is trains, so he was tremendously pleased, and he thinks grandma is an OK lady.
I really need to take him to Europe so that he can ride on a real train.
Anyway we had a nice time. This visit was more relaxed, we just did a bit of shopping and went to restaurants. The whole attitude and general vibe of Muscat is so different from the Emirates. The Emirates is all about money and flash. On the other hand, Oman is very casual and people are clearly more interested in having a pleasant life. We found an area in Muscat that was a lot like State Street in Madison, Wisconsin. I could almost picture myself at home. And we also had some good food, which can be difficult to obtain abroad. Sure, you can get Italian food in most places, but well done Italian? Good luck. Well done Italian requires a lot of little touches such as fire-baking your bread, for example. My mother wasn’t so impressed, but I was pleased as punch to find myself eating well-done Italian. Indeed, I’m salivating just thinking about it right now. You’d just never find a restaurant like this in RAK, unfortunately. We have to make do with Chili’s, which is OK, but nothing to get excited about.
The only problem with visiting Muscat like this is it’s a 5 hour drive. That’s a big chunk of your weekend on the road. I actually don’t feel rested at all, and I have to start another week of work. Also, Bug can’t sit still for 5 hours, and he ends up getting a little crazy mid-trip.
pics
So, ever since I bought Van a fancy SLR camera, we have every moment of our lives documented ad nausiem in photos. The only reason I don’t post more pics is because it’s rather a pain on this blog. Takes a lot of time get pics up… got to put them on the server, then size them… I’m not long on patience for this generally. It’s the weekend however and I’m sipping a Bloody Mary (cheers mates, we ain’t in Saudi no more) so I seem to have gained some patience for pic posting:
Van’s new hair and skin
Daddy reading Wallpaper*, Bug enjoying chocolate
Van’s present
Enjoying a banana at our new table
3 yrs
It’s our 3 year wedding anniversary. Van is at the beauty spa getting a whole body skin scrub and hot oil treatment. Bug and I went to Spinney’s to get some fancy food. I have actually never cooked for Vanessa so this will be a treat for her. We got crabs and massive shrimp. They’re actually almost the size of lobsters, I haven’t seen shrimp this big before. Bug and I also popped into the liquor store for champagne. It should be a good dinner.
By some cosmic coincidence, Bug decided to sleep the whole night last night, which means the Cheetahhhhhhhh and Van had our first good sleep in over 2 years. It was sooooooooooooooo delicious. I had actually forgotten what it was like to be well-rested. I have been walking around for two years sleep-deprived. I got a good 10 hours however and feel like a new man. It’s amazing what a little sleep can do.
Vanessa got a Burberry watch which she’s pleased as punch about. I got a Hilfeiger shirt, and actually am surprised at the high quality of tailoring with Tommy, it’s better than Ralph. Van also got me a matching tie.
