We're back!

An Abu Dhabi Sunset. It's the clouds that make it novel.

The Burj Al Arab

If you don't blog about it did it actually happen. Is a love untwittered a love worth having? Is it really possible to have many friends...on Facebook.

So many of our recent experiences have been filtered through the lens of, 'Is the blog worthy?' that I've felt like I've actually lost a bit of the experience in the questioning. It's Like the parent who can't enjoy their child's first steps because the battery on the video camera is dead. Obviously, I want to document our experiences here, but so often I find myself anticipating how I will right about an event while thing's still happening. Which, of course, takes me out of the event. I wonder if historians experience present catastrophes or revolutions in the same way.

Yup, that's me with some famous guy.
The things I do for this blog.

This would have looked so much better on the Nikon.

As a writer, I've always done this to a certain extant, filing away experiences and people to be used in stories at some future time, but it's worse with the blog. Maybe it's the pressure of not only having interesting anecdotes, but also having the photos to accompany them.


A couple of weeks ago we all went to a water park in Dubai with some good friends of ours. Obviously, I wasn't going to take my DSLR with me, but our little waterproof Fuji camera takes pretty lousy pictures especially when the light is delicate. So, even though we had a blast on the slides and in the wave pool, I didn't really feel like we got our money's worth because the pictures we came away with were less than ideal.

We had a few experiences where no camera was present, and the fact that we wouldn't be able to blog with photographic evidence of our joy and excited rendered the experience somewhat muted.

Miranda and Grace.

Julie on The Tantrum Alley at Wild Wadi.

On the other hand, A few weeks ago I met the French Spider-Man who's climbed some of the tallest buildings in the world. He was in Dubai to climb the Burj Khalifa and speak at a conference hosted by the college I work for. I really wasn't all that interested in him as a person, but I knew that if I got my picture with him, I have something to put up on the blog to prove that my life is indeed interesting and exciting over here in the Middle East.




Then there's the whole problem of instant information. In the Internet age where stories develop by the hour, I feel that if I don't digitally document as it happens, then I've missed the window of relevance. Who wants to read about something that happened a whole week ago. Even yesterday can feel like the distant past.

In the interest of record keeping I will list the events of significance that happened to us over the past month and a half since my last posting. In no particular order, the following has happened to us:

-Liam advanced from a white belt to orange in Kobudo.

-Miranda earned her yellow belt in Karate.

-Elder Holland visited our stake a few weeks ago and all the kids got to shake his hand and Liam was able to play the piano in a fireside.

-Our stake was split, and then, the next week our ward was split.

-Our house in Canada finally sold and we're grateful it went to a family who will appreciate its proximity to the temple.

-We've all read lots of books and watched our share of movies.

-They've installed parking meters in our block of the city and have been pretty strict about enforcing the no parking in the middle of the street rule (you might think this wouldn't have much of an impact on our lives, but it's made our nights so much quieter).

-The kids visited a great exhibition on Mesopotamia.

-There have a number a awesome beach visits where the kids saw some cool sculptures and Lucy saw dolphins on of her outings.

-Lest you think it's all fun, the kids have been working overtime to finish their schoolwork so we can make the most of our summer.

-Also, Liam wanted to make sure I blogged about Thor before everyone else got a chance to see it. It was great comic book fun, but our only option was to spend the extra coin and watch the thing in 3D. The 3D added absolutely nothing to the experience other than a dimmer picture and a headache. I never thought I could be discouraged from watching superhero movies on opening weekend, but I feel like Hollywood is pressuring me to delay gratification until the movies show up in 2D or on home video. I suppose I should be grateful for this. I'm saving money and learning an important lesson about happiness.

There you go. I'm going to try and get back into the rhythm of things regardless of whether or not anything interesting happens to us. If all else fails I can always spout my opinions on society and popular media because if anyone misses anything about me, it's my opinions.

Miranda and her friend Grace at
Grace's Baptim

James braving the twists and turns at Wild Wadi

James and his friend Hazel..

Lucy and Dad

DSC_0035 a photo by franksyness on Flickr.

I love it when stuff happens!

Before reading any further, check this out. This is from the www.orientalkarate.com Hall of Fame Page!

Congrats..! Congrats...! Congrats....! We are proud to congratulate our student who acheived A GRADE during the grading test held on 25/02/2011 under the supervision of ALI MUHAMMED (KYOSHI)
		Name :   Liam Isaac Frank Roll No :   14013 DOJO :   Khalidiya Nationality :   Canadian Promoted From :   9-KYU To 7-KYU Instructor :   Sensei Shakir, Sensei Fayad

Liam received his green belt in karate (a double promotion) and Lucy her yellow (a colour she much prefers over green she'll have you know).It's not that I'm boasting about my children. It's not that I take pride in the fact that my kid could could probably kick your kid's butt. It that something different happened this past week which gives me fodder for blog, and how I love fodder. My life has been consumed with work and with a couple of books I'm reading which ain't too exciting and Julie's been managing the routines of the household, which, as you might imagine, ain't too exciting. So that leaves us to live vicariously through our children, something I swore I'd never do. I mean, really, I had always planned on having a life sufficiently interesting to not have to depend on the accomplishments of my children. Alas, I must admit that my life has turned out to be considerably less interesting than planned. I think that's a mark of growing up, admitting how much you bore yourself.

Best Kids Ever!

Lucy and Liam anticipating yet another cramped cab ride

When I was eleven or twelve, my Mom suggested that we might have to move from our home in Dartmouth to Halifax, a distance of about twenty kilometers (miles for my American readers). I remember how devastated I was at the prospect of leaving the neighborhood and friends that my life seemed to revolve around. As far as I was concerned, it was the end of the world. Ultimately we didn't make the move (and I'm pretty sure my whining factored into the decision).

You can imagine why I announced our possible move to the other side of the world with some trepidation. There was a lot to leave behind in order to come here. We all gave up family and friends to come here, but my kids willingly gave up the only life they really knew. And they gave it up willingly.

Yes, they do celebrate birthdays in Abu Dhabi

We exchanged a great home with a spacious yard for a three bedroom apartment and the constant din of city living. Lucy gave up many of her precious stuffed animals to come here, a sacrifice that I didn't fully appreciate until I blubbered my way through the last twenty minutes of Toy Story 3. Liam left a great young men's program. Miranda lost new friends that had just moved in across the street, and James gave up regular play dates with Chaim Pilling. Our existence here hasn't been complaint free, but none of my kids has complained about the big stuff. None of them has said that they wanted to give up and go back to Canada. They have all shown a resilience that I could have only hoped for at their age. They've taken it all in stride, the cramped cab rides, the constant barrage of foreign languages and smells, and the incessant sunlight (I guess that last thing isn't such a hardship).

Me playing around with shutter speed.

I often write about what my kids are doing, but I don't write enough about how absolutely amazing they are. So, just in case there's any question about where I stand on my kids, I think they are the bees knees and the cat's pyjamas all rolled up into one.

My kids are not shy about sharing their joy.

New on Franksyness!
We're going to start a new feature on the franksyness blog. Because I worry that I have not been giving the whole picture of our experience here, I'm going to turn over some of the blogging duties to Liam, Lucy and Miranda (not that I've told them yet). If you have any questions about our experiences here and you're looking for the real scoop, you can post a question in the comments section and either Liam or Lucy or Miranda will answer it (one of the nice things about homeschooling is that you can turn anything into homework).

Finding Home in a Land of Constant Distraction

And there's a roller coaster inside this mall too!

I’ve posted pictures of the city skyline and the beaches just minutes from our apartment. What I haven’t written about is how much there is to do on any given weekend. It’s hard to convey just how much is going on in this city on any given day. This is a city that is serious about establishing itself as a world class destination. It’s like we’re faced with a constant barrage of once in a life time opportunities. It’s hard not to feel a little guilt for just wanting to sit at home on the weekend and watch a DVD or read a book.

A few weeks ago Julie and the kids attended a performance by yet another visiting world class orchestra. Liam was having some difficulty making up his mind as to whether or not he was going to go. For as much as I believe in the principle of free agency, as soon as he expressed his indifference, I promptly took the choice away from him. I believe the words I used were, “I don’t care whether you want to go or not. You are going to have this once in a lifetime experience. I don’t want to have to deal with the consequences of your regret.” In the end he was extremely grateful to have gone. And I only felt mind regret over the guilt trip I laid down on him.

Just last week, Eric Clapton was in town to play, Tony Hawk was also here along with some other famous X-athletes to put on an exhibition. We chose to visit a ship that was traveling around the world as an ambassador for literacy and other, less explicit messages. It basically functioned as a floating bookstore, and in the end, I would have preferred to see Tony Hawk, but hindsight’s always 20/20.

The problem with chasing down all of these opportunities is that it’s easy to lose the experience of actually being in a place. Even people who have been here for more than a decade don’t refer to Abu Dhabi as home. Home is always some other place. I’ve always tied to live with the philosophy that home is wherever my wife and kids were (and yes, I believed this before I saw the youtube video of the cute kid and here dad singing the song by The Magnetic Zeros). It’s hard not struggle with the feeling of being on a perpetual vacation that’s interrupted occasionally by work and utility bills, but we’re looking for more than the distractions vacation. We want to create real relationships. We want to learn about the cultures the surround us in more than superficial ways. We’re looking to create experiences that will change our lives. And an Eric Clapton concert, for as much fun as that would be, can only change a person’s life so much.

So few pictures of me.

She only fell down twice this time.

The question is, will you find the story of the rolled oats interesting?

We do get quite the sunrises here!

Though many people may find it surprising, I actually don't find myself all that interesting. And posting details about the minutiae of my life, how I'm feeling on a particular day, whether I've actually done the laundry, or all the things I'm currently putting off, has always seemed like a digital plea for attention, so I try to avoid writing about the every day because Facebookitis takes up enough of people's time already. I want to keep people informed, but I'd also like these ramblings to be at least a little bit engaging. I could say that I haven't made an entry because I've been so busy and discombobulated with end of semester loose ends. That would not be true. I've actually been avoiding the blog because I haven't felt like I've had anything really interesting to write about. If wouldn't read it, why would I expect anyone else to want to read it. That would be rather narcissistic, even for me.

There needs to be something interesting happening in one's life, or one needs to find a way to make the tedious interesting (which can be an exhausting prospect). I genuinely believed that life in Abu Dhabi would be one adventure after another, but I just haven't felt very interesting of late until I noticed the stockpile of Quaker Rolled Oats gathering along the tops of our kitchen cupboards.

We live in a good sized apartment, but it is not an apartment conducive to food storage (the rats and cockroaches also tend to discourage one from keeping large quantities of perishable items on the premises). However, Julie has become preoccupied with acquiring large cylinders of Quaker Rolled Oats from a nearby grocery store. Already, you may be starting to ask yourself, How much do those Franks enjoy their rolled oats? It is true that rolled oats have been a staple of our diet since before coming to Abu Dhabi, but in the first four months that we were here, nary a rolled oat could be found, and, trust me, we looked.

To understand the life of the consumer in Abu Dhabi, you need to think of the last time you were in Costco and, while there, perhaps you saw a really good deal on a bulk bag of shredded coconut. You know that the bag will probably last you six months of macaroon madness, but at the end of that six months you have no guarantee of whether or not they'll have that coconut in stock at the end of six months, so you buy two, just in case. That's life here in a nutshell. It feels like you can get anything you want, but if you find something you really like (and it'll keep), you'd better stock up.

As for the state of the family in general, we've all been reading a lot, but listing the books I've been reading feels a little showy (or in the case of a few recent titles, a little embarrassing), and we've been watching a few movies, but if you're looking for something to watch, there are a lot websites on this here Internet that can help you choose. Obviously, if people have questions or interests about our lives, we're more than happy to answer them. Just post them in the comments section.

I guess if I could sum up my governing philosophy for this website, it would be thus: Posts will attempt to be interesting and engaging. Tedium available upon request.

People look happy, right?

Tis the Season, I guess

Another week. As I wracked my brain trying to figure out what actually happened this week, I was drawing a complete blank, and then it occurred to me that Christmas was last Saturday. How could I have missed Christmas you might ask. Well, it turns out that it wasn't that hard even in the land of the world's most expensive Christmas tree. There was something relaxing about it being just like every other day, but there was a bit of loss as well. I've celebrated Christmas in the desert before, so I used to the warmth and the faded browns, but I've never celebrated it somewhere that it's not celebrated. Now, Christmas a holiday that's marketed here as well as its marketed anywhere--there are decorations in the shops and Christmas music playing over the mall speakers, and then there's the presence of all those Christmas trees. But there's a big difference between selling something and celebrating it. After presents and Cinnamon roles, there really wasn't much on the agenda. Liam and I decided to go watch Tron (very cool looking without a hint of depth). Walking down the street, I had to keep reminding myself that it was actually Christmas. People were going about their business like it was any other day, and I guess I was too.Next year, it'll be that much more difficult to conserve that spirit of the holidays, so I guess it'll be up to us to create that feeling if we really want it, but I don't know if having to take more personal responsibility for Christmas spirit is a bad thing.






James got a new star wars cartoon for Christmas.