The perilous streets of Riyadh!

Riyadh is "modernizing" (the reason I'm here making money) and a big part of that is extensive infrastructure projects throughout the city. Most of the major streets are torn up as part of the construction of the new Metro. This, of course, is causing traffic paralysis throughout the city, which I expect will last the next 5 years.
The smaller streets not torn up for the Metro project have their own perils. A network of fiberoptic cables is being installed throughout the city. On the smaller streets they cut a trench in the asphalt about 3 feet away from the curb. This trench is about 6-8 inches wide and 2 feet deep. Once they've cut it and before they lay the cables they let it sit for about a week. Of course, the trench is uncovered, with no protection. (Contractors are rather lax about things like fall protection on scaffolding, hardhats, etc.) It's also fairly easy to overlook if you're not staring at the ground in front of you while crossing the street (not a good idea since cars are liable to come at any moment from any direction, even on one way streets and you should be looking in all directions at once). The trench is just the right width to allow a foot to slip well into it. I try not to think too much about the resulting effect on the knee... Little things like safety precautions on construction sites don't seem to be a part of the "modernization" concept.
Since every blog post should have a few photos here are a couple that show how a scaffold was secured to the building I work in when we had some repairs done to the exterior a few months back.

The Weather Is Changing

Today at 1am King Abdullah died.
I am told by some in the know that his successor, King Salman, is in sympathy with and will likely continue with the gradual reforms King Abdullah launched over his 10 year reign.

King Abdullah and Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. Crown Prince Salman has succeeded to the throne following King Abdullah’s death. Photograph: Hassan Ammar/AFP/Getty Images

In 2002, when extremist-religious terrorism reared its ugly head here in Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah did more than just launch a major crackdown on terrorist networks inside the country. He created a new type of prison that was also a madrassa, a Quranic school. Terrorists were not imprisoned and forgotten. They were re-educated in a peaceful understanding and interpretation of Islam, by highly respected scholars, people whose qualifications they could not ignore.
When women's rights advocates pointed out the absurdity of not allowing women to work, "for their own protection", which then put them in the embarrassing situation of having to deal with male shop clerks when buying such things as underwear, King Abdullah used this as a foot in the door to get women the right to work in all settings. 
In the last 3 years female employment in Saudi Arabia has risen from 50,000 to 250,000.
Revenues from the state controlled oil industry pay to support virtually free healthcare for all Saudi citizens. Schools are free. Universities are free. The scale of infrastructure projects and improvements in this country is surprising. New towns are being built. New telecom networks are being put in. New hospitals are being built. New rail and road networks are being laid out.
One of King Abdullah's early actions upon becoming crowned was to create a program for university students that pays for all their expenses to go to universities in foreign countries. This program exposes these intelligent, impressionable young adults who will later run this country, to Western influences, both social and intellectual. They come back to Saudi Arabia with the benefits of Western education in the sciences, and having experienced first hand the values of inclusiveness, democracy, tolerance, and personal freedom the we enjoy in the West.
The weather is changing.
The cold nights and cool days of the high desert Winter are giving way to warm Spring days.
Cats laze in the shade of acacia trees, oblivious.

Profits blowing in the wind

After writing the first installment, "Death", in my Death, Destruction, Poverty and Addiction series I had intended to write 3 more installments, Destruction, Poverty and Addiction. I'll still try to get to that before the year is out. Meanwhile, today I'll share an interesting alternate investment I stumbled onto.
It all began, as the story goes, when I read an article in the LA Times about alleged pollution of a river by Duke Energy. That got me curious about how much money was to be made in energy stocks that make their profits while despoiling the environment.
So I logged onto my favorite stock analysis site, the Google finance site. It's intuitively designed and simple, only as complicated as necessary to perform the task.
I looked into Duke Energy and found that it is not doing so well. It offers a healthy dividend of almost 4 percent but has been trailing the S&P500 significantly over the last 5 years.

One of the nice things about the Google site is that below the data for the company in question it provides a list of related companies. These would also be American energy companies of similar size. I clicked through the list and this is what I found.
Scana Corporation - also trailing the S&P
Southern company - trailing even further
American Electric Power Company - trailing
PG&E - trailing very badly
Teco Energy - awful
Intergrys Energy Group - (do people get paid to come up with awful names like "Integrys"?) still trailing
Dominion Resources - still trailing, though not by much
Starting to see a pattern here? It's looking like Energy is not the place to have been investing for the last five years. In fact, I was beginning to get bored at this point. But then I saw the name of the next energy company and thought, "What the hell, give it a shot and look at one more. After all it's got a nice progressive sounding name."
NextEraEnergy - What do you know! It's pretty consistently stayed a step ahead of the S&P and offers a dividend yield of almost 3% to boot.

So, okay, what's different about Next Era Energy? I quote.
"It is the generator in North America of renewable energy from the wind and sun. It owns and operates approximately 17% of the installed base of United States wind power production capacity and operates approximately 14% of the installed base of United States utility-scale solar power production capacity as of December 31, 2012."
uuggghhhh ... you mean there are bigger profits to be made in solar and wind power than in polluting rivers with coal waste? What's this country coming too?
Caveat - Next Era Energy is also a significant player in the nuclear power industry. So it's not all roses. But of ALL the companies listed above it is the ONLY one with a very significant stake in the renewable energy industry and it is the ONLY one that has consistently outpaced the S&P.
So, if I do end up investing money in a bunch of sin stocks maybe I can assuage some of my guilt by going into some renewable energy too.
Cheers! Thanks a lot!

Lessons from Dashiell Hammett

I'm reading a collection of Dashiell Hammett short stories, "Lost Stories". I highly recommend it. The book is full of jewels. Here's an example of his skill.
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"A shriek, unmistakably feminine, and throbbing with terror, pierced the fog. Phil Truax, hurrying up Washington street, halted in the middle of a stride, and became as motionless as the stone apartment buildings that flanked the street."
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Not only is it a surprise and an exciting way to start a story, he also creates a picture of the setting and the main character, without interrupting the action with disjointed descriptive passages. Phil Truax "strides". He is also alert, able to go from striding to "motionless" in an instant. That tells you something about him already. He doesn't walk. He strides. The setting, an urban street, lined by apartment buildings and enveloped in fog, gets described within the context of active sentences.

Here's how NOT to write it.
"Phil Truax walked up Washington Street. The apartment buildings that lined each side were nearly hidden by fog. He heard a terrified woman shriek and stopped."
The story is called "Laughing Masks".

Death, Destruction, Poverty and Addiction - or - Where to invest a wad of cash.

Death, Destruction, Poverty and Addiction - or - Where to invest  a wad of cash

In the (financial) Spring a middle-aged man's fancy lightly turns to investment returns.

What with Russia invading Ukraine, ISIL spreading like wildfire across at least 2 countries, continuing instability in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, conflicts with the Uighurs in China, Boko Haram in Nigeria ... and the increasing tenor of military crisis and forcefulness in combating these powers, I got to wondering what investment potential currently exists among the arms manufacturers. I started by looking up the 10 largest arms manufacturers.

As it happens, 7 of the top 10 are American companies, as are 5 of the top 6. Starting at the top here is what I found. In each case I compared it to the S&P500, which has risen by 42% since 4 January, 2013.

1. Lockheed Martin, up 96.7%
2. Boeing, up 54%
3. BAE Systems, up 41.5% ... British company
4. Raytheon, up 81%
5. General Dynamics, up 89%
6. Northrop Grumman. up 98.8%
7. Airbus Group, up 67% ... EU company
8. United Technologies Corporation, up 32.4%
9. Finmeccanica, up 71.9% ... Italian company
10. L-3 Communications, up 49.9%

The above returns do not include dividends, which are significant. All but one of the top 10 companies seriously outpaced the S&P500.

Conclusion? War still makes money.

In future research I will look into the profit potential of Casino companies, Alcohol makers, cigarette makers and payday loan companies.

scripturam hanc , et plorate

A Morphology of Arches

My architecture department needs to be shaken up and challenged. I'm going to launch a training program and also get everybody to demonstrate their creativity by posting examples of their favorite work (that they've done themselves) on the walls of our office (which desperately needs to stop being an office and start being a "studio").
To kick this off I've created "A Morphology of Arches", which I'll print out nice and large, and mount in a prominent spot. I'm going to ask a few of my top staff to develop similar morphologies for vaults, domes, minarets and whatever else I can think of that's relevant to the work we do.
Any of you have suggestions?
Here it is... "A Morphology of Arches".

First impressions second time around

Yes, friends, I am back in Saudi Arabia. The forces of the universe seem to have conspired to bring me back here for more...

I was just innocently sitting in the cozy living room of my cottage by the sea, in Brittany, one evening, when I had the thought, "I should probably go back to Saudi and work some more. My finances need the boost."

I didn't act on the thought but 2 weeks later I was contacted by a recruiter who wanted permission to present my CV for a post in Riyadh. I agreed.

And lo and behold, here I am!

I am now the manager of the Architecture group of Dar Al Riyadh, one of the largest Saudi owned Architecture/Engineering firms.

Be careful what you wish for!

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Things here in Riyadh seem a tad bit looser than when I left here 2 years ago. In the shopping malls I see more women, and more of them are not wearing the full face coverings. Women from the large expat community, ranging from Philippines to USA and Australia rarely cover their hair. In the past, there was strict separation between "Family" areas and "Single Men" areas in restaurants. The clear division seems to be fading. There are still areas reserved for families and groups of women. The single men don't go in these sections. But the families and groups of women are free to sit in the "single men" area without question. It seems to be the norm. So, Saudi women who may still be uncomfortable being in public in the presence of men they don't know still have the option of a "safe" place to go, while also having the option to go anywhere else too. It's a significant change, a small step, but in the right direction (in my humble opinion).

Traffic is still nuts ... but perhaps not quite so crazy as before. When I left 2 years ago the city was just beginning to install speed cameras. Now they are everywhere on the main roads and people seem to be calming down.