Think ahead. Be prepared. Always have a plan B. These are the kind of concepts that my dad tried to pound in my head, and probably your parents too. How hard could it be to remember them? The first two consist of only two words. Pithy, sound advice, except that when you are 17 who needs advice?
From expanded culinary options to refurbished facilities, members of the Dhahran community are starting to see a number of upgrades and new additions throughout the community.
I’m surrounded by date palms. Around them run dry watercourses that look like ones I find not far from my home in Tucson, Arizona. The traditional architecture in town would not be out of place in Tucson, either—or almost anywhere from southern Spain to Mexico and up into the southwest us.
At the conclusion of the previous installment in this series, our Aramcons adventurers had floated past armed Turkish sentries guarding the construction site of a new dam, ignoring their orders to stop. We pick up their story there...
Jordan is a place that everyone must visit at least once. It hosts one of the seven ancient wonders in the magnificent Petra, and there’s so much else to see. We traveled directly to Amman from Dammam and rented a car to explore the country. Its many archeological sites offer an excellent opportunity to relive a magnificent past.
Half Moon Bay! What can I say? Living in 1950s Aramco, it was paradise. Not as much for the Ras Tanurans who lived at the beach, but for those of us in Dhahran living on the rocky jabal or the citizens of Abqaiq, planted deep within a vast sand dune field thirty miles from the coast, Half Moon Bay spelled happiness.
When Najla Binmahfoodh first became a Loss Prevention Department (LPD) engineer in the Jiddah area, she knew that her main responsibilities would be focused on ensuring compliance with safety standards and work procedures, and verifying design implementation to protect assets and the lives of employees and contractors.
In this edition: leading a hand to save a rare bird: a joint effort between the Saudi Wildlife Authority, the Smithsonian Institution, and Saudi Aramco.
In AXP’s recently-concluded series, The Seven Wonders of Arabia, readers were taken on monthly visits to seven of the most outstanding historical sites in the Kingdom. The tour began in November of last year with a stop at the rock...
It was a sleepy afternoon in Saudi Arabia, just days before the end of the school vacation, and Saudis had their eyes glued to their TV sets as they waited for live coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Readers of my various stories will know by now that I have a fondness for special techniques. The planning and tactics I applied at the age of six to procure grape-flavored Jello from the highest cabinet in the kitchen was perfectly executed only to end in ruin.
Jean Gibran poses in her Boston apartment alongside a bust of writer and artist Kahlil Gibran sculpted and cast by her late husband, sculptor Kahlil George Gibran. The couple’s research into Gibran’s life story has led to three editions of biographies.
A wonder-filled gathering place on the world-wide-web for bibliophiles interested in the history of the Middle East is the website of Konstantinopel Rare and Fine Books. Readers may recognize the name, as Konstantinopel has been a loyal supporter of this website for some time.
With a brief stopover in Riyadh, the Tabuk region can be reached easily by a domestic flight. The roads that lead to the coast are dotted with variegated mountain ranges, the colors of the desert evolving through myriad hues, from the rocks on the ground to the red toward the more defined mountain peaks — all of this providing a strong contrast to the blue sky.
A couple of weeks ago I first saw this photograph of me standing with my two grandchildren. Bea is six and Theo is three. They are lively, bright, funny and, unlike most of society, actually enjoy my company. They are positive proof of the wise old adage, “If I knew how much fun my grandkids would be, I would have had them first.”
King Salman Energy Park (SPARK) and Dubai-based Oilfields Supply Center Ltd. (OSC) today signed an agreement to establish OSC as an anchor tenant at SPARK, an energy city megaproject which will cement Saudi Arabia’s position as a global energy, industrial and technology hub.
The monthly progress meeting of Saudi Aramco Ex-Employees Association (SAEEA) was held on July 06, 2019 at Faran Club, Karachi.
At the conclusion of the previous installment in this series, our doughty band of Aramcons had just made camp for the night after completing a spine-tingling run through the most treacherous stretch of the Grand Canyon...
The Shaybah Media Club, within the Shaybah Producing Department (SyPD), recently held an award ceremony for the winners of a photography competition conducted over three weeks earlier this year.
Growing up in Dhahran in the 1950s without television and barely radio the movies were everything, our only link with the outside world. Three movies a week with a rerun on Thursday, as kids we’d go to pretty much anything that was playing. Even if the feature was some unfathomable drama about thwarted love, boundless ambition or existential trauma in 1950s America, we’d go just for the pre-show filler.