Ich bin ein Mac

I'm typing this on our new Macbook Pro.   Yes, I have finally made the switch.  It was a long time coming really, dating back to a couple of years ago.  I had become tired of dealing with the exact same types of issues at home as I do at work, and thought that learning a new OS would be more fun.  Also, I have been trying to wean myself of my Microsoft dependency for quite some time, starting with Office and things of that sort.  Shedding the entire OS was the only remaining item.  I have to say that so far I am having a good time with it.  One of my greatest complaints about the Mac OS version I used previously (9.x) was that you couldn't get "behind" it if necessary.  Not true at all with OS X.  Since it is built on a unix flavour, there are all kinds of possibilities with the command line.  One of the first things I had to do after installing World of Warcraft was edit the hosts file and add a static name to IP address mapping as for some reason the authentication server wouldn't resolve.  Yesterday I used rsync, a unix command line tool to copy all the music over from my PC to the mac.  As for the OS itself, the GUI is lovely, and mostly intuitive.  I haven't had trouble finding things when I need to, and there have only been a few irritating things that I'm just going to have to get used to (i.e. inconsitent maximization behaviours in windows, and the very annoying mouse acceleration behaviour that I haven't been able to figure out how to disable).  I've been able to find various free apps to do everything we consider essential these days (VLC for media, opera/firefox for browsing, NeoOffice for office apps).

I'm now working days again, and I've started my new position at the TNOSC for a few days now.  Actually, I had a 3 day weekend for transition from nights to days, then worked 3 days, and am now on my first 3 day weekend.  These 3 day weekends are awesome, I could get used to it for sure!  So far the new job is fine, the people are nice, and the possibilities for the future are exciting.  I'm really looking forward to planning and deploying Exchange 2007 and Windows 2008, which is currently looking like first part of next year, though the way things move around here, I won't be surprised if we don't really get started til the middle of next year.  Nonetheless, it's great to be in on this at the ground floor.

We are all still getting used to the new schedule, and luckily Rowan's first grade curriculum arrived just the other day, so Kerri and Rowan won't be going nuts with nothing to do during the heat of the day which they are now going to have to endure more than they did when they could stay up late at night.  The material is really exciting and definitely more substantial than the kindergarten stuff.  However, Rowan is still having trouble with writing which is more important this year, so I think Kerri is going to work mainly on that before really diving into the rest of the material.  The emphasis is on ancient history, up to the fall of the Roman empire I believe.  We are in such a great spot right now to visit a lot of these historical sites, so we are going to try to plan many trips over the next year or so.

I Am Woman, See Me Drive!

I did it!  I finally did it!  Me, my little self (and my arabic speaking taxi driver), actully managed to get a Kuwaiti driver's licence.  I really had my doubts that this day would ever come, but here I am, a legal driver.  It only took me three months, blood, sweat, tears, and a mere 105KD.  For those of you who don't have the exchange rates right in front of you, 105KD is $400.  This could possibly be the most expensive driver's licence in the history of mankind.  I am seriously considering contacting Guiness about it.  It is good for ten years, so I shouldn't be having to renew (thank God).  

The actual process of getting the licence is really so mind-boggling that I can't even explain why it took so long and was so expensive.  Some of the money was in taxi fees because I kept having to go all the way across the city (which is really going all the way across the country) to deliver more papers that they forgot to ask for the last time I was there.  My only advice to anyone wanting to do this themselves is: hire someone.  I should have had the same guy who did our residency do this too, but people had told me it was easy.  Then once I got far enough along and realized I was in over my head, it was too late to do anything except forge on ahead.  And forge I did.  I penetrated the bureaucracy , I cut the red tape.  No one can take the sweet taste of victory away from me!

Hello again Zain!

Well, we are back with Zain as our internet provider. We tried so hard to get a land line so we could get DSL, but to cut a long, long, long story short, it's just not going to happen.

We decided to give Zain another try, this time paying for the 15KD plan which is just like the 30KD plan, just slower maximum speeds. Since we never got the purported max speeds of the 30KD plan anyway, we figured this was a good deal. We're just going to have to forego the torrents for a while.

In other news, we are playing World of Warcraft again, which offsets the lack of TV some what!

Speaking of TV, we just finished season 2 of the Tudors, which was quite a fun, if lascivious, romp through Henry VIII's first 2 wives. The sex is unbelievably gratuitous, so if you can't stomach that, stay away. And there are some liberties taken with historical accuracy for the sake of drama, but otherwise it's quit addictive even though you know what happens in the end. At least you will after you've gone and read more about it which was precisely what I did when we started watching it. It's also a fascinating look at the English reformation, something that one wouldn't have thought would be so relevant, except for the troubles that our Anglican brethren are undergoing at the moment.

I've been working nights for the last couple of months, which has been a mixed bag, with the positives mostly outweighing the negatives. It's good to miss out on the heat of the days, and I enjoy the pattern of waking up at 2pm, hanging out with Kerri and Rowan til around 3pm, then getting ready for work, working 5pm to 5am, coming home around 6am, maybe checking auctions, then going to bed about 6:30am. Kerri has some issues with the looooong evenings sometimes, but overall seems to like it too.

Things may be changing however, as it looks like I'll be getting a position at a different area, but still in the camp. Basically I'll be doing the same kinds of things, just at a higher level in the network (Theater-wide vs. camp-wide). That means I'll be getting to help out with all the up and coming deployments such as Exchange 2007 and all that. Should be a good time. But the best part is 48 hour weeks instead of 60 hours, 12 hours a day, so that gives me 3 day weekends! Needless to say, we are quite excited at the prospect. It's not all wrapped up yet, but seems like a pretty sure thing.

Well, that pretty much brings me up to date.