Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Waterskiing in RAK

I'm spending my mornings waterskiing in between my two jobs...

I'm very lucky as I am being coached by Xenia, who is the #1 Russian woman waterskier; indeed, the Russian national team is currently training in RAK.

Gwenaelle came with me 2 days ago and took this short video of me in the slalom. After that, we had lunch by a pool - tough life in between 2 jobs!...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqzH4vSYrvQ

Monday, April 16, 2007

First day out of the office!


So, this was it! My first day out of the office. (I'll be back tomorrow for another meeting, but today was a real day away from AA. )


What did I do?


First I went swimming 2 kilometers for an hour with a coach; I swam the 25m in 15 seconds and the 400m in 6:15 - which is far away from my top times when I was on the swim team in college... but I was still happy with the times.


After that, I drove to RAK to do 2 sets of waterskiing! Then I did a few emails and calls, picked up the kids at school, cooked them dinner and took my wife out for dinner at Pepper Crab (highly recommended!). I guess I could live like that for some time,... but it won't happen! I'll be starting my new job early May, so I only get 10 days of R&R...

Tonight, I'm beat - and it feels good.

Monday, April 2, 2007

Resigning: how does it feel?


Everyone keeps asking me how I feel now that I've resigned. Here's the listof my emotions in priority order:


- relieved that the news is out

- excited to change careers

- energized by my new challenge

- confident that success lies ahead

- sad to leave some good friends and colleagues

- pleased with the professional reaction of my boss and the Bank

- happy to stay in Dubai and in the Middle East

- surprised how easy the whole thing was

- and of course, richer!...