Kuwait FTW!

This blog is no longer operating

2010-11-03T12:37:00.001+03:00

Just a reminder, if you want to keep following along with our posts look here:

http://jkcadd.blogspot.com

We will not be updating the Kuwait FTW blog anymore.

Last day at work

2010-10-19T09:27:00.003+03:00

Since this is my last day at work and we'll be canceling our Internet service tonight, I figured I'd better make that "longer" post I spoke of earlier.

So...leaving Kuwait...the final chapter.

It's been 3 years, almost to they day, since I arrived here. It's been quite the adventure! I recommend the experience to anyone. Kuwait is a great place to live in the middle east, and it's centrally located for lots of additional travel opportunities.

Once I began my interview in earnest with my new employer (Northrup Grumman), I notified my superiors that I might be leaving soon. I began to arrange everything to ensure that departure could occur speedily once I had the final details in place. First, we needed to cancel Kerri and Rowan's dependent visas as ITT/KRH couldn't cancel mine until that was done. As posted earlier, this was pretty easy.

Next, we began to check into closing down local accounts. Our bank account would be simple, just have them transfer the money to our US account (bring blank check to help out) and then they close it right down. We changed our post-paid cell phone plan to pre-paid (cost less then canceling the post-paid account and we can leave anytime). Our internet needs to be cancelled at the last minute.

We also sorted through our stuff and decided what we were taking and what we weren't. We decided we wouldn't take advantage of the relocation service from my new company and opted to ship base-to-base (MPS) which is free for us. We bought 6 or so "tough" boxes from the PX at $25 a pop and packed them up to 65lbs. I brought one in each day for the last week and mailed them on base. Keep in mind all mail must be inspected at the mail room before it is shipped, so you can't fully pack it up. Batteries are not allowed, along with unfinished wood and miscellaneous weapons/ammo. They have a list of the stuff you can't ship. The rest of our items have been slowly sold off to friends and last night we pulled the plug on our main computer system (last to go!).

Meanwhile at work, once I officially resigned and gave notice I was given a de-mob packet which has all of the stuff I'm supposed to do before I leave. It's a checklist and pretty easy to follow. Of course my passport and civil ID were taken and I got the passport back in about 1 1/2 weeks.

I'll be heading to Ali Al Salem (yuck) one last time (yay!) on Thursday where my passport will be stamped out for the last time. We hopefully fly out sometime Saturday and will be back at Ft Benning for CRC again. This time it should only take about 1 1/2 days to turn in my gear and sign out.

Then I will hopefully make my way to Atlanta GA and fly out to Frankfurt. We'll be put up at a hotel with a rental car while we search for a place to stay (up to our total relocation package). Kerri and Rowan will be joining me a day or so after I arrive, flying direct from Kuwait.

Well, that's pretty much it...I've mailed the last package, officially turned in my base access badge so when I leave I can't come back.

This marks the end of this blog, as our time in Kuwait is over. We will miss it, but are glad to be moving on.

We are moving to Mannheim, Germany!

2010-10-05T22:01:00.002+03:00

...in 3 weeks!

We accepted a position at the Europe TNOSC doing the same thing we are doing here!

The gig will be for 2 or 3 years, depending on how long til they shut down the base (eek!).

Still, we are really looking forward to it and hoping it will be an enjoyable time in Europe.

For friends and family reading (all 2 of you), we are hoping to be back in the US for the first two weeks of December (Kerri will be coming back sooner and returning with me).

I'll write up a more detailed post about the process of leaving Kuwait as a contractor later.

-JC

How to cancel Kuwaiti Family Visa/Residency

2010-09-29T20:30:00.002+03:00

I discovered recently that before I can be out processed from Kuwait, I must first cancel Kerri and Rowan's dependent (family) visas. As we are not certain of when this might occur, we figured we had better get it done. This was the process:

Went down to the local immigration department (in our case Ahmadi) and to the copy/application area. Paid a few KD to get copies made and the applications filled out in Arabic. Then to the reception area and we were told to go into the office in the back where a gentleman asked us how long until they left. I asked for 60 days and he gave it to us. A few circles and stamps and then proceeded into the labyrinth of the Immigration office and located the civil ID cancellation office. Here the civil IDs were taken and not given back. Then it was upstairs to the visa area where we waited for quite some time before our number was called. 2 x 2 KD stamps needed to be purchased from a machine (bring lots of 1 KD notes!) one for each passport. These were given to the lady behind the counter along with passports, then I signed two forms and dated them.

Voila, residencies cancelled. It took a couple of hours.

Finding a new apartment

2010-09-29T20:15:00.002+03:00

We decided a while back that if we are to stay in Kuwait for a while longer we needed to change things up a bit. This meant basically finding a new apartment. We've been living in Mangaf at the lovely Warba Beach Resort (not really a resort), but it's gotten a bit old, the area that is. Anything of interest is further down town, so we thought we might find a place in Salwa to be nearer all the stuff. It would mean about 15 minutes longer of a drive for me, but hey, no big deal.

Anyway we spent several weekends driving around Salwa looking for "for rent" signs, but came up with nothing. There was one apartment complex but it reminded us too much of the same situation we had in Warba and we didn't want to repeat it. Also, we couldn't find anything for cheaper rent than we are already paying (500 KD) and we felt we really wanted to save some money especially as we are now renting a car. Since we couldn't find what we wanted in Salwa, we decided it would be good enough to find a place in Mahboula which has tons of apartments and is a little closer to town.

We found some good candidates online at Justlanded.com and called the agents. We made arrangements for a couple of viewings the next day and were very pleased to locate a two bedroom unfurnished apartment for only 260 KD. In addition it did not require a deposit and there was no penalty for breaking the lease. This is quite unusual in general in Kuwait. We put our money down and were told the contract would be drawn up the next day. BTW, the usual fee for an agent is half one month's rent.

Unfortunately due to some other news we decided we had made a mistake the next day. We are still attempting to get our money back, but I'm told Kuwaiti law is on the side of the landlord in this type of matter. If we get our money back it will be a surprise.

Sayounara, Satoshi Kon

2010-09-13T17:56:00.004+03:00

One of my favorite anime directors recently died.

His last blogpost has been translated here. It's a good read and I'm impressed with the way in which he met death.

Antidote to Despair

2010-05-23T19:19:00.003+03:00

Wrote this the other day for some reason. It's my personal exploration on this issue of hope and despair, not really meant to convince anyone, just express what I think on the subject. Maybe it will be useful, maybe not, figured I'd better put it out there just in case it is.

****

I was thinking today about why I have so much hope.

I've never been one to despair. Even during the most trying
circumstances of my life (thus far) it has been nearly impossible for
me to release myself to the flood of blackness that seems to lurk
outside the hatch of every human heart, just waiting for the dweller
to open the hatch and let the icy darkness swallow them whole. I'm
not necessarily talking about suicide (one possible conclusion), but
the belief in the overwhelming emptiness of a life apart from God's
goodness, and the acceptance of that belief as reality. Of course,
I'm only speaking from my experience, but it is that kind of despair
that I fear more than any other, and I believe it is the root of all
of its forms.

Obviously, the opposite of despair is hope, and if there is a root of
despair, then there must be a root of hope. People hope in all kinds
of things, and it seems to work for a while, but then the hope fails
and all you are left with is contemplating the embrace of despair.
This leads to another futile hope, and another, and another. In other
words, addiction. It is no wonder that addicts begin their recovery
by facing their own despair head on and accepting it. Once you accept
the despair as real (i.e. I *am* an alcoholic), then you can begin to
hope that there is another way to deal with it, and you can begin to
recover. But this is man made, and useful only in so much as the
human continues to find other "hopes" to keep them going. But deep
down is the truth, the root of all their despair, that has not been
truly faced. They may be able to lead what passes for "normal" lives,
but it will just be a more socially acceptable form of addiction.
Religion, relationships, sex, success, money, fame, honor, family,
entertainment, power, violence. All of these can become socially
acceptable forms of hope that people use to keep themselves from
facing the gaping truth they suspect...that life is meaningless and
God (if He exists) is fickle at best or evil at worst, and powerless
to help. The fools who believe they can face this truth down
eventually find that the human heart cannot survive in this vacuum.
They use the same "hopes" to tell themselves they have something to
live for, but when these hopes vanish, the have nothing left but their
own will to live, and it is ultimately powerless to protect them.

So what is the root of all hope? The Hope that when properly
understood under girds all other "hopes" and gives them meaning? I
believe it is this: God is good, faithful and in control. A good God
loves me. A faithful God does not abandon me. And a sovereign God is
omnipotent. Of course, resolving this belief with our own experience
is the difficulty. Some would call it wishful or magical thinking.
If I believe hard enough...I can make my problems vanish in a puff of
logic! Well, that is the problem isn't it? How can we possibly
believe hard enough...how can we apply ourselves to this problem and
*make it go away*? We lose track so quickly of who really matters in
this picture...is it us, or is it God?

What I am talking about here is faith in the biblical God and His Son
Jesus. This God gives us the faith to believe what he tells us is
true. You cannot force it. I believe AA is right in one sense. You
do have to face the truth. You need to confront the fear of emptiness
of a universe without a loving, omnipotent and faithful God. Allow
the despair to begin to fill up your heart and then cry out to the God
you don't even know if you can believe in to give you the faith you
need. This is a visceral experience that cannot be forced. And you
may not be ready for it yet. But I believe that this deep sense of
helplessness before your situation is necessary to enter into a
genuine life of dependence on God instead of substituting "hopes" for
Him.

But you may not believe. Not yet. That's ok...there is time before
you die. My advice is...try not to act out in your despair too
destructively. Common grace is given to the world that somehow
prevents it from imploding or exploding daily from its own critical
mass of despair. And pray. Even if you don't believe...if you wish
you *could* believe...then that is (I believe) enough faith to pray
on. Tell God you don't believe, but you really want to...no...you
*need* to. You aren't sure how long you can hold on to the splinters
of wood left in the sea before you slip under. Send a lifeline now!
If you have enough faith to pray that prayer, then I know God will
answer it. If you don't...then keep an eye out for it...it may be
there sooner than you know. Ask any friends you have to pray on your
behalf, even if you can't bring yourself to do so.

When you do believe that God is good, faithful and sovereign, it
changes everything. It becomes impossible...unthinkable to despair.
Despair is recognized as the great act of disbelief that it is. A
sin. Yes...it is. I didn't start with that because it wouldn't mean
anything to someone in despair to hear it called a sin.
Great...another reason to despair!

But I would be remiss if I didn't mention sin and repentance. For
those who come to faith later in life, you've had plenty of time to
become aware of your own sinfulness. It is built into our souls, and
often part of what leads us to despair in the first place. It makes
belief in a good, faithful and sovereign God a bit difficult in the
first place, and we often find ourselves believing despite our innate
knowledge of our own repugnance to such a being. That He could love
us, die for us, remove the stain of sin and give us his own goodness
in return...can be a bit of a shock. Some refuse to believe it...and
end up back in despair. Some don't think about it much, get used to
the shock, even complacent, and need to be shaken up now and
then...reminded of how much they were forgiven of. But ultimately
what is needed is repentance. Acknowledgment of our sinfulness, and
dependence on God for ongoing strength to be good. Ultimate
dependence is hard, and it takes a lifetime of practice. Good thing
He doesn't wait for us to get it right first!

There are also those of us who were never shocked by God's grace for
us in the first place. This was my problem. Growing up as a
Christian, I was always aware that God had forgiven me...and you would
think that would be a good thing! Turns out for me it wasn't. Grace
is meaningless unless you have something that needs forgiving. And if
you don't have a sense of your own sinfulness, why do you need grace?
I think this is becoming more of a problem for Western Culture
generally as more people are raised without reference to values or
morality. If there is no such thing as "wrong" then you hardly feel
the need for forgiveness. But usually even those of us with this
problem live long enough to screw up badly enough to start to get the
picture. We are all evil...deep down inside...and we need help. That
help is only found in Christ.

Back to how this faith makes despair impossible...think about it...if
you genuinely believed that God is good...really, deeply, a bit
scarily...Good...what would that imply? That all things, no matter
how painful, nonsensical, or evil...*can* be used for good. How? I
don't know. That's where the faith bit comes in. Sometimes it is
given to us to see the how of a real life situation unfold and we can
say things like "That experience prepared me for this and I praise God
for it!". But often, it remains only for us to say "I don't
understand how God can use that for his glory, but I believe that He
will." Of course, God's goodness without Faithfulness would be
pointless. A fickle God who is sometimes good, but often distracted
wouldn't be much help. And a powerless God might have the best of
intentions, but be unable to deal with all these crazy free agents he
created. No...all 3 qualities become absolutely necessary to
re-orienting our minds such that despair is impossible: Goodness,
Faithfulness, Sovereignty.

But what about our free will? Won't this lead to fatalism? What
happens happens, and that's all there is to it. It would if that's
what God told us to be like. But that's not the impression I get from
the Bible. God simultaneously claims his absolute power and authority
but then tells us to go out and evangelize, or to believe, or to feed
the poor. This is the simple truth. We are the agents of His change
in a fallen world, but it is His power that changes, not ours. Even
in the hearts of those who believe or do not, if we are honest...
When I am tempted to think I am responsible for my faith...I think
back to the despair...to the hopelessness...and my anguished cry to
God to give me the faith I needed to believe in Him. And He answered.

But what about those who do not believe? However God chooses to deal
with those who do not believe, He will be good, faithful and
sovereign. The Bible says those who do not believe will be condemned
for their unbelief. Some people cannot reconcile this with a good,
faithful and sovereign God, but that's where faith comes in. For
me...primarily in the "good" part, even if I can't understand it
sometimes, I still have to believe it. Regardless, I think this is
usually a distraction from the real issue. What matters here is not
other people. What matters is you. Are you going to act on what
faith you have or not?

So that's it I guess. That's the gist of what I was thinking about.
None of it original of course, but I was just re-thinking it
again...almost as if for the first time. And it just makes so much
*sense* to me from this side of despair. I don't know if it will help
anyone, but I felt like I had to write it all down right now for some
reason. So here it is.

Failaka Island

2010-04-10T09:47:00.003+03:00

Apologies about the lack of pictures, but our battery ran out rather quickly.

At last! We visited Failaka Island about a month ago. Finding info on the ferry schedule proved quite difficult. The public ferry is run by KPTC and costs 3KD per person for a round trip. If you want to bring your vehicle it is 17KD. However, it's a small ferry so you might not be able to get on (it was full coming back for us). There is a private ferry that leaves from Marina Crescent, but it's much more expensive (includes a meal and access to the "resort"), faster, and you can't bring your car.

The public ferry schedule is variable because it depends on the tide, so your best bet is to go to the ferry office (it's at the very tip of the Salmiya pointy bit aka Ras al Salmiya) and ask for a schedule. As usual, it's hit or miss if they are open, but if you go during normal hours (9-11am probably) there will probably be someone there. Once you know the schedule, plan to be there 30 - 60 minutes early to be sure of getting on. During good seasons, maybe 1 - 2 hours early.

We were lucky as we arrived about 1 hour prior to it leaving and so we bought our tickets and got on. The ferry isn't super nice, but decent. There are a few indoor sitting areas, but they are tiny and cramped. Most everyone stayed outside for the trip as it was a nice cloudy day. Coming back it was much more oppressive, but got better once we got under way.

The island itself is...well...small, dusty, dirty, composed mostly of bombed out, bullet riddled buildings. There are a few small nice-ish areas, one major hotel/resort with some rather sad facilities. I'm not trying to poo-poo the place, just being honest. We had an ok biryani meal at a restaurant and then tried to walk the open grounds of the resort, but were turned away because we came on the public ferry. Then we met someone we knew who talked to someone in charge and presto...we could walk around. We tried to go to the horse stables to have Rowan ride a horse (he's ridden a camel and an elephant, but never a horse) but they were closed. (at 11am...didn't open til 4pm, but the ferry left @ 3pm????) So we went to the "zoo" which consisted of several enclosures with sad looking, half crazy animals. Then we tried to have some shisha and tea...the shisha was terrible. Rowan played at the post-apocalyptic run-down playground and then we decided to head for the port.

Alexandrian Ruins: So...there are supposed to be some greek ruins from Alexander's time on the island. It's advertised as one of the main things to see on this island, and we were excited to see them. However, turns out the ruins are fenced off and you need a letter from the Museum of Kuwait to be able to access them. Needless to say, we saw nothing.

Got back on the crowded return boat and made it home in time for dinner.

All in all, it was worth going one time, but unless you've got some sort of special event planned (i.e. Paintballing or a covert luau {don't ask}, or enjoy the limited recreational activities offered by the resort) I'd say it's only worth one visit.

Car rentals in Kuwait

2010-02-23T12:39:00.002+03:00

We are considering selling our car and renting for the remainder of our time in Kuwait (about 8 months). To get ready for this, today we drove to the Airport where the greatest concentration of car rental companies exists, and obtained the following information:

Budget: KD168/month, several small car options
Araba: KD165/month, lancer
National: KD 162/month, corolla
Hertz: KD160/month, Hyundai getz/accent
Eurocar: KD180/month, chevy optra
Behbani: KD170, corolla
Dollar/Thrifty: KD165, lancer
Rekab: KD150 (partial insurance), lancer/sunny

All prices above are inclusive of basic and 3rd party insurance (accidents in parking lots etc...), except the last one. The partial coverage usually means the insurance covers between 25%-50% of the 3rd party accident.

We also checked at the no-name place across the street from us and they were around KD150/month, but we were not impressed with their fleet.

Most leases are for 1 year minimum to 2 years, so that's not an option for us right now.

We have one guy interested in our car so far, which I bought for KD1750 and am selling now for KD1500. It's a bit high, but we don't really need to sell it right now. so we can afford to wait and maybe get more out of it.

New post

2010-02-21T16:24:00.003+03:00

Just a reminder that we are posting our trip info on our new blog http://jkcadd.blogspot.com

There is a new post up on our trip to Beirut.

Cultural Associative Dissonance Disorder

2010-02-02T14:17:00.003+03:00

We started Kuwait FTW with 2 primary intents:

- Provide a way for family and friends to keep up with our lives so we didn't have to send out mass emails (or join demonic websites such as Facebook).
- Record our experiences working as contractors in Kuwait for others who might benefit from the knowledge.

Since we've been here now 2 1/2 years, it seems most of our recent posts are more about our travels outside of Kuwait than anything to do with actually living here. This is natural I'm sure as we've grown so used to it that nothing really seems unusual and there are no really new experiences to relate. It's not that we don't like it, it's just not new anymore.

Enter the new blog: Cultural Associative Dissonance Disorder

The URL is http://jkcadd.blogspot.com/

This will be primarily a travel blog, though it's generic enough I think we'll transition everything not specifically about Kuwait to it. I've copied over all of our trip posts from the past couple of years and will new travel posts will go there. So feel free to bookmark or subscribe to the RSS feed if you want to keep up with us.

Eventually, we will phase out the Kuwait FTW site completely when we leave. We haven't decided whether or not to create a new on for each new country we end up living in, but we'll figure that out later.

Ethiopia Trip

2010-01-26T15:49:00.004+03:00

Hello! We are not dead, just traveling. We hit Ethiopia for 8 days and had a great time! Kerri knew some folks from the Sonlight homeschool user forums who live in Addis Ababa, so we brought over some stuff that might be hard to get over there. We travel light, so were able to cram a lot of extra stuff into the additional baggage allowance that we usually never take advantage of. They were really nice and took us to lunch and we got to experience taking public transportation back to our hotel (Adot Tina again).

The next day we found a travel agent and asked about flights to local destinations. Ethiopia is twice the size of Texas, so you really need to fly around. Luckily flights were easily booked in the standard tourist triangle: Addis to Lalibella, Lalibella to Gonder, bus to Bahir Dar, and flight back to Addis.

Lalibella was our favorite I think, very pretty and clean, and just seemed very real. Not the crazy tourism of Bahir Dar or the icky pollution in Gonder. Anyway, the rock hewn churches were neat, but I just liked the feel of the place. We were only there for one night, then on to Gonder. Gonder has some old castles and a "swimming pool" which is a big bath that was used by an old king, but is now used for a baptism ceremony during the festival of Timkat. We were there the week before and so got to see it filling with water. The castles are oddly european looking and nicely kept. We splurged and stayed at the nicest hotel up on a hill over looking the city.

Our taxi driver convinced us to take a minivan instead of the bus to Bahir Dar, which was a good choice I think. A little more expensive, but not much. The trip was a nice way to see the country-side some more. Kerri and Rowan were lucky enough to sit up front, although they did attract a lot of attention as we drove, and especially when we stopped! Poor Rowan was constantly being pinched, petted and prodded, something he is not very used to. I didn't like it either much. I guess tourists don't travel with their kids much in Ethiopia, so he was an unusual site. Even worse when the local word for "kid" translates to "baby" in english. He was not a happy camper with that stuff.

Bahir Dar was the most disappointing. It was partially our fault, we were done being tourists and just wanted to walk around town, but it's not a very nice town and we were constantly being pestered by men wanting to take us on the lake and beggars. On our last evening there we stumbled upon a very nice path that stretches for some kilometers around the lake and found some nice views and pleasant places, but it was too late to really enjoy it.

Our flight left that evening, so that morning we happened to walk past the local Ethiopian Airlines office and we thought we should check on it. Well...turns out there was a schedule change. So we got called later and told it was canceled! We were not happy as we had only enough cash to last out our time there and unlike more remote areas like Lalibella and Gonder, our hotel did not take visa. Luckily Ethiopian paid for another night and dinner, which was appreciated. That night we got a call from the front desk saying that our check-in time at the airport would be 5:30am the next morning, so the hotel shuttle would leave at 5am. Our shuttle driver was late and kept saying, "too early". We agreed that it was way too early, but what can you do. When we got to the gates of the airport, cars were lined up and a bunch of other "westerners" were standing around looking foolish. Turns out the airport doesn't open until 6am and our driver was trying to tell us that we were too early. We had to get out and wait by the side of the road for the guards to let us in the airport. It was pitch black out and really cold, so the guards had made a fire for those of us "too early".

We made it back to Addis and had one more night and day to kill. Not wanting to spend more money, we pretty much stayed close to our hotel (had to move to a different one as Adot Tina was full).

Forgot to mention, I got sick 2 days before we left and was under the weather pretty much until we got back to Addis. Then Kerri started getting sick. We were pretty pathetic. Most know I am a very adventurous eater, but I really didn't feel like it this time (I blame the sickness!!!!). So we ate very conservatively when we could, which didn't stop a couple of interesting surprises from sneaking through, like the time I ordered a club sandwich and got a 4-layer surprise with egg, fried fish, processed meat and heavily spiced cooked chicken on the bottom. The best thing though was that last couple of days, I went walking up the main road and came across Peony Garden, a gen-u-wine Chinese restaurant, complete with nearly incomprehensible menu and plenty of local Chinese patrons who were there to eat good food and smoke continuously. We ate twice there (no I did not eat the pork pizzle).

Ethiopia has some ok beer and pretty good local wine. We ended up liking the Meta beer best. The absolute best though was the coffee. Everywhere there are cafes with cheap but excellent coffee (50c per cup). It's all espresso in tiny cups and very very good. We loaded up our now empty luggage with coffee for the return trip.

All in all a fun but fast run through Ethiopia. I think we could live in Addis someday. It's definitely a big stinky city, but has character and isn't totally homogenized with the Western industrial hegemony yet (i.e. no chain restaurants, period). The history of the country provides a strong cultural glue that seems to knit its people together closely. Who knows, we may be back this way sometime.

Edited to add: The pictures at the end of the slide show are some of the offerings on sale at one of the "duty free" shops at the Addis Ababa International Airport. Maybe you had to be there, but we laughed and laughed.

Jordan Trip

2009-12-27T10:50:00.003+03:00

We went to Jordan a few weeks ago for a 4 day weekend. It was a lot of fun! We rented a car in Amman and drove down to the Dead Sea. There was a sign just to the north pointing towards the supposed baptism site of Jesus (by John). We figured we could check it out. A pleasant hour and a half walk later and we had seen the spot that early christians believed was where Jesus was baptised, and also visited the Jordan river, directly across from the big Israeli visit site. Very interesting.

Then we headed back south as originally planned and found a the publicly accessible Amman Beach (costs to get in, but not too much). This has showers and towels and a changing area. We dipped in the Dead Sea for an hour or so, which was a blast (though personally, I couldn't stay in long...certain orifices began to burn....). It's like sitting on a basket ball in a regular pool, your feet keep wanting to float up more than usual. They recommend staying on your back and not trying to swim normally because lots of people drown when they can't turn back over. We didn't have any trouble with that though.

After that we drove back through Amman to get on the Desert Highway and drive south to Petra. Arriving in the evening, we took our time checking out hotels, both our usual backpacker types and the ultra nice Movenpick and such. We were willing to pay more for a nice stay, but when we saw the rooms at the "nice" hotels we just couldn't justify the price they were asking. Instead we found a really nice medium sized place called the Silk Road Hotel. It was walking distance from the entrance to Petra, right down on the main road where all the restaurants and things are. There was even a Turkish bath in the same building that Kerri visited. Our room was a very reasonable price and much larger than the expensive hotels. Free breakfast upstairs and the bathroom was good too. We did check out some other "cheap" hotels in town and were shocked at how expensive and nasty they were. Silk Road was a good compromise (at least, the room we stayed in was).

Next day we got up early and walked down to the Petra entrance, got a day pass and started in. Wow...we were all blown away by how incredible it was. The geological formations alone are stunningly beautiful, but the amazing part was of course just thinking about how people made this area into a fortress and had thriving civilization for several hundred years, holding off the Romans as long as they could. The Nabateans were their name I believe. It was pleasantly cloudy in the morning and we walked the several kilometers in just fine, making our way through the kilometer long canyon and then investigating the many rock-hewn dwellings that came after. About noon we found ourselves as far in as we were willing to go...and there was plenty more to see! We ate lunch and made our way back, thinking to take an alternative route back through a gully that the Nabateans had redirected the local flash flood waters into. When we inquired of the locals as to the direction to take, they warned us not to go that way as it was likely to rain that day. Seeing the dark heavy clouds above, we took their advice and were glad of it as it began to rain very soon after. We walked all the way back in a light drizzle, which turned into a downpour that lasted all afternoon. It was still going strong that evening when we went out to find a restaurant that served local Jordanian food. Mind you, we were not put out in the least as we don't get rain like that in Kuwait ever. As most people here say, it doesn't really rain here...it "muds." Literally, when the drops of rain dry up, there is left behind a splotch of dust. Ick. Anyway, the restaurant was quite cozy and we had a yummy Jordanian stew-like dish that was perfect for the weather.

The next day we slept in and then departed back for Amman, this time taking the road heading west of Petra towards the southern part of the Dead Sea. The road was really windy and there were incredible views as we wound through the hills and eventually found the Dead Sea and headed north. It is an incredible site. There is a Dead Sea Center built on the top of one of the cliffs by the road that we were able to stop at and peruse for an hour or so. Then it was all the way back to Amman to our hotel (finding it was kind of fun!). We spent one more night there, didn't really see anything though as we had turned our car in. Then it was back to Kuwait the next day.

All in all one of our favorite trips that we've taken, I would recommend Jordan to anyone looking for a pleasant short trip with some amazing sites. And there were tons more things to see and do that we didn't have time for, so multiple trips are certainly a possibility.

Christmas was a few days ago, but as I was working we decided to postpone our celebration til the weekend which is now. Today is Christmas Eve, tomorrow Christmas Day, and the day after is...well...the day after Christmas!

Our next trip will be 10 days in Ethoipia, starting Jan 10th. That should be fun!

Pictures of Yvonne

2009-12-18T20:30:00.003+03:00

A little while back my aunt Yvonne died. She had been fighting breast cancer for the last several years, and when I said goodbye to come to Kuwait, I knew it was unlikely that I would ever see her again in this life. Kerri and Rowan were blessed to be able to visit with her one last time in the U.S. this summer (the pictures with Rowan in the hospital beds with her are included above). She was surrounded by family and I know she is very happy right now to be rid of her body (at least until she gets her new model). We are all going to miss her until we are able to meet up again in a few years.

Above is a collection of every photo we have with her in it, in case someone doesn't have one of them. I particularly like the one of her looking in LuAnne's ear with Grandma and Carolyn looking on.

Here the whole world (stars, water, air,
And field, and forest, as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hopes that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In lenten lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day.

- Joy's Epitaph, by C.S. Lewis

United Arab Emirates

2009-12-01T10:18:00.006+03:00

About a month ago we visited UAE. We haven't posted about it because I lost the cable for my camera to transfer pictures to my laptop. Also, our left fan on the macbook pro started making horrible noises and then stopped spinning in general. I managed to fix it using the website ifixit.com and ordering the parts from them (though I made a mistake on the first fan and had to re-order). Now it's up and running and I have a card reader, so we finally got the pictures loaded and synced to the web.

We had to go to Dubai anyway as I needed to take a test for work, so we figured we'd make a trip of it. Abu Khaled, my Kuwaiti friend who I met way back when I first arrived, has always wanted to show us around UAE, so we let him know we were going to be there for 5 days or so. He proceeded to bargain us up to 10 days.

Arriving in Dubai, we stayed at a hotel that was on the campus of the school where I needed to take my test. We spent about 2 nights there, not really seeing much. We did manage to take one day and go down to the new mall that is right below the Burj Dubai (freaking tall tower). They have a gorgeous aquarium in the mall, absolutely huge tank full of large fish and sharks. Also, we paid to go through the other aquarium section which has some amazing freshwater fish from around the world. While in the tunnel under the big shark tank, Rowan so impressed the local expert with his knowledge and enthusiasm that she gave him a tooth from a Ragged-toothed Shark (much to his delight).

A couple of days later, Abu Khaled and a friend of his arrived and picked us up in a rented (small) car. We then drove north along the coast, passing through rapidly changing landscapes (City to yellow sand desert, to red sand desert, to rocky desert) til we arrived at Ras al Khaimah. RAK is one of the poorest and least developed emirates in the UAE, but it's where Abu Khaled likes to base out of. We found a hotel there and from then on we went out on day trips and ended up back at the hotel at night. The next 5 or so days were spent driving around northern UAE and Oman (which has an odd separated section at the northern tip of the horn of land that forms one pincher of the entrance to the Arabian/Persian Gulf. We traveled through Al Fujeira, Sharjah, Umm al Quawain and of course Ras al Khaimah. Sometimes it was just with Muhammed, sometimes with some of his local friends.

Some of the more memorable moments:

- Sharjah has some wonderful museums and we went to the Natural History and Wildlife museums. Rowan was in heaven.
- Al Fujeira is on the Indian ocean side and it was a very pretty nicely laid out town. Kind of wish we had more time there.
- Oman was beautiful. We stopped at a resort called the Golden Tulip for lunch and a swim in the ocean. Lovely spot that we might return to some day. There are lots of things to do in the area including taking boat trips into areas you can't get otherwise, swimming with dolphins, great diving and snorkeling, etc... It's definitely a bit out of the way though.
- Some interesting cultural incidents that were mostly interesting for me, but rather difficult on Kerri and Rowan as we were hanging out with Arab men mostly and it was a bit uncomfortable at times. Mainly as we kept stopping and having shisha and leaving them in the car. They kept inviting her to come in, but she just wasn't comfortable with it. We were invited to a meal at one of Abu Khaled's friend's farms, and I went along. It was an incredible meal of 2 boiled baby goats on a literal bed (Rowan could have laid down on it, head to toe) of saffron rice. Abu Maen was kind enough to crack open the skull so I could have some brain and the eyeballs.
- The crazy crowning moment occurred after the full day of driving through Oman. We arrived back at RAK and Abu Khaled mentioned there was a wedding going on that evening and we should stop by and shake some hands just to see the culture and the singing and dancing. Of course, Kerri couldn't come in to the area proper as she was a woman and they do their thing separately, but Abu Khaled wanted her to stay in the car so she could at least see it. We went along thinking this would be a short affair, say hello, and then leave. Ummm...no. After arriving and going down the line shaking hands, we sat down and became part of the line, shaking the hands of every arriving visitor. My legs were very sore the next day from standing up and sitting down. I was not at all dressed for this as I hadn't planned on going to any *weddings* on my trip! I told Abu Khaled that I really needed to go see about Kerri and at least take her back to the hotel. He said ok, but just wait for Abu Maen to arrive and then I could slip out. Just as Abu Maen arrived...so did the Sheikh of RAK! Well...now I couldn't just leave. I had to be sent directly up to shake his hand and mumble some kind of "hi there". Then we had to sit about for a while longer. Finally Abu Khaled told me to follow Abu Maen, which I did thinking now was the time to escape, but instead we ended up following the crowd into the banquet hall where we ate more delicious goat and camel and other yummy stuff. Finally we came out and then couldn't find Kerri or Abu Khaled. At last, he showed up and said he'd gone over to see about Kerri and that she had taken the car back to the hotel. We hung about a bit more listening to the incredibly loud music and singing and dancing (lines of men, holding canes, doing a kind of head-bob), and then left. Luckily, Kerri wasn't exactly furious, but certainly not happy about the whole event, which from her point of view and been one of the most miserable waiting experiences of the day (following on from 4 or 5 other times of being left in the car to wait that very day). Rowan was about to lose it. But we were safely ensconced back in the hotel and could decompress.

Events like that and others prompted us to cut the stay in northern UAE short a bit and head back to Dubai to have some "just us" time. We are very grateful to Mohammed for all he's done for us and shown us, but there is a point at which we just need to do our own thing.

We found a hotel in an older section of Dubai (Deira) right next to an underground stop. From there we discovered we were near several *real* chinese restaurants and had some fabulous food (Kuwaiti chinese food is not real chinese food). We wandered down to the Gold Souk area and were impressed. Next day we took the underground/lightrail all the way to the mall with Ski Dubai and were impressed again (no, we did not partake).

I think we found Dubai more fun than we thought we would, so who knows, maybe we'll go back again some day to take more of it in.

We are leaving next weekend for a short trip to Jordan, not going anywhere else til the second week of January when we'll be going to Ethiopia for 8 days. We're hoping to hit Beirut also. Next year we may go to South Africa for summer (somewhere cold!!!!). We're trying to hit those areas of the world that it will be difficult to come back to when we move on.

Speaking of which, we are hoping to finish this final year in Kuwait and find something somewhere else. Our preferences right now are Japan or South Korea (in that order), something in Eastern Asia. We've also been thinking about getting into the DoD employee system, which I'm told is easy to do in Washington D.C. Someone at work recommended doing a year in DC and then moving on to other international options from there. We're not exactly thrilled about going back to the states so soon, but it might be better for the long term. Also, Rowan would be about to start US history in homeschool and I hear DC might be a good place for that.

Ok...finally got that post out of the way. I'll try not to take so long to get the Jordan post up.

New Delhi Trip

2009-10-06T15:47:00.003+03:00

Ok, I have been meaning to get this post up for months now, but for some reason just haven't been inspired or something.

While Kerri and Rowan were in the States I got word that my aunt Luanne would be in India doing a crazy trekking trip in the mountains. She was going to be in New Delhi for last few days, so I thought it would be fun to hop over there and hang with her for a while.

I ended up able to take about 10 days off for this, which was my first mistake. It would have been better in retrospect to just spend a few days, but somehow it's always hard to think of flying some long distance and only spend 3 days...when I *could* spend 10...I mean, why not? Anyway...

We stayed downtown near the train station in an area with lots of tourist hotels (the cheaper kind). Ours was quite nice which we were grateful for, as the sweltering heat made going out a short-lived proposition. The Hotel Grand Godwin was the name, and if you do have to stay in that area, I can recommend it.

So, I guess the bottom line was that it wasn't a very enjoyable trip from a typical travel perspective. It was miserably hot and humid, absolutely stunningly dirty, and the "touristy" things to see in New Delhi are not all that interesting (in my opinion). That isn't to say I wasn't glad I went...the experiences I had may not have been "fun" but they were good to have had. The poverty there is simply unbelievable...and this coming from a person who grew up in and around Manila. Lu and I both felt somewhat chagrined at our reactions to the heat, poverty and dirtiness of it all given our past experiences. But truly, it is beyond anything either of us had ever seen before. Sure, there were pockets in Manila that bad, but the general presence of it *that bad* everywhere you went? Not so much.

We did take the train out to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, which was...y'know...what you have to do, was kind of fun. Nice to see something other than unrelenting downtown. Requisite photos will be posted.

I think when we go back (Kerri and Rowan also), we will spend one night in Delhi to experience the sheer reality of it, then take the train to Agra, see the Taj, maybe spend the night, then take the train to Jaipur (which I hear is nice), then back to Delhi, then fly to the southern tip of India where Kerala is (which I hear is nice also). Then fly back to Kuwait. If we go while here. I know Rowan is dying to see the Taj and has been since he was a toddler.

Anyway, it's been too long now to give any scintillating descriptions, so I'm afraid the crummy photos will have to do. If Lu let's me know the URL, I'll link to hers also.

Netflix Blu-ray Service: Hello goodbye

2009-08-06T19:15:00.002+03:00

With the advent of the aforementioned PS3, I enabled blu-ray access on our netflix queue, which by the way has worked great for us the entire time we have been over here. After a phone call to set up our APO address, and bumping up to the 8 at a time plan to balance the long shipping times, we've had no complaints about Netflix's regular DVD service (streaming is another matter...we can't stream because our IP address comes from Kuwait...stupid movie studios and their stupid licensing rules). I can't remember the last damaged DVD we got from them.

Blu-ray, however, is another matter. Since I started blu-ray access about a month ago, I have received 3 cracked blu-ray disks. The first one wasn't noticeable til it got to a certain point on the disk, then it refused to play. I then looked closely and could discern the hairline fracture starting on the edge of the disc and running about a quarter of an inch directly towards the center.

Since then, I started checking each blu-ray disc as it comes in, and I have found and returned 2 more. The latest one was the worst: the crack was so pronounced that there is no way it could even have attempted to play.

I have returned the previous 2, but this 3rd one made up my mind: no more blu-ray from Netflix til they figure out a safer way to ship them. I cancelled the blu-ray access and called to politely complain (very nice customer service btw, located in Oregon!). I was informed they are working on a solution.

The long dark night of the blog

2009-07-24T16:15:00.003+03:00

Wow...it's been a long time! The main reason for that is there hasn't been much to report. I'll try to summarize things that have happened since our trip to Turkey:

- I got LASIK surgery and can now see pretty darn good without glasses (still occasionally need reading glasses, but that just goes with getting older I guess). The experience was fine, though filled with the occasional hilarity that goes along with doing things in a different country. Total cost: 400KD (about $1500). About the cost of a new computer...not bad really. The procedure went without a hitch, though it did take about a month for the full healing to take place and my eyes to start learning how to use their muscles to "auto-focus" which I've never had to use before because I had glasses.

- Got a PS3 in preparation for Kerri and Rowan leaving. I figured even I would need a break from WoW now and then, so it's been good to have other options. Much as I am a Sony hater, I have to say I've been pleasantly surprised by the PS3, especially the online store which is sooooo much more responsive than Nintendo's. Even in the US with cable internet, the Nintendo store was like molasses. The PS3 store is zippy and best of all does queued background downloading. Been playing Bioshock, which is something of a sci-fi horror game, and it does its job well! I have to play with the lights on, and even then I can only handle it for short bursts. Started Resistance and it's very enjoyable. In WoW news I finally got all 4 of my characters to 80 and am working on gearing up my hunter to join my rogue in epic awesomeness.

- Kerri and Rowan (as mentioned earlier) are in the US for 2 months. They are visiting friends and family for the first time since they came out here in Jan 2008. It's been almost 1 month since they left and they'll be back in about 1 more. They are doing well, though very busy with everything. They did get to visit Kentucky where my father-in-law is now living and went to the Mammoth Caves which are going to be the highlight of the entire trip for Rowan I'm sure. He regaled me the other night on Skype about it.

- Night shift begins! As of right now, I'm switching to night shift again for 2 months, 1 of which while Kerri and Rowan are gone, which is good. Also, I believe I'll get at least a few weeks of Ramadan while on nights, which is excellent. Much better to be in sync with the rest of the populace.

- Towards the end of next month, I'll be heading to New Delhi to hang out with my aunt Luanne for a week and half or so. She'll be wrapping up a trekking trip in the mountains and I'll have some time to kill, so we're just going to hang around New Delhi and maybe make a trip out to the country side or two, nothing fancy. Getting the visa was interesting though. You have to purchase tickets first, then go to a private company here in Fahaheel (link from the embassy's website) which processes visa applications to India. You photocopy your passport, residency, and itinerary, fill out a form, provide two passport style pictures, and pay around 12KD to start applying. It takes around 10 business days to process total. Then they call you back to submit your passport and pay the rest (another 20KD or so), then another 3 business days and you can come pick up your passport with your new visa to travel to India. What a pain! But hey, now I know.

Well, that's it really. I'm going to head out now, it's around 4:30pm, so everything is just opening up for the evening after the heat of the day. I might head down to IKEA and see about finding some kind of darker curtain backing for keeping things nice and dark during the day.

Istanbul

2009-05-29T09:29:00.003+03:00

What did you do for Memorial Day weekend? We went to Istanbul! We made a vow that we would never again spend a holiday weekend in Kuwait when we have so many places to visit close by. There is a discount airline that runs out of Kuwait and they have some pretty good deals for places in the region. The one problem with traveling around the Middle East this time of year is, well, it's hot. Lucky for us they also fly to Istanbul where the weather is fine.

We left early on a Wednesday and came back Sunday afternoon. It's only a three hour flight with no time change. When we landed the sky was cloudy and the air was cool. It was like landing in heaven. We saw green trees and real grass and cows! And that was just on the ride from the airport. We rode a public bus into town and the people on it must have wondered what cave we've been living in as we exclaimed about all the green (and I yelled "COWS" really loud before I could stop myself). The public transit system was wonderful. We took it everywhere and it worked great.

The first thing that struck me was how clean everything was. There was no litter, no trash heaps, no nasty smells, no dust. The second thing that stood out was hills! I know that sort of sounds silly, but the desert is really, really flat and Istanbul is really, really hilly. Then, of course, it was the amazing buildings everywhere you look. They truly don't make them like they use to. The first picture is of the Blue Mosque and all the other mosques are patterned after it.

We did a lot of walking and, while we did sightsee, we didn't have a big schedule to follow. That made it a lot more relaxing than our Egypt trip. It was fun just wandering up a street to see what was there. We ate a lot of street food and sat in a lot of beautiful parks.

We took one day trip out of the city. We went to Nicea (now called Iznik). We got to take a ferry and then a local mini bus. The drive took us through olive orchards and then beside a lake. Nicea is a little town now but it use to be the capitol so there are a lot of historic sites. The main reason for going there was to see the place that the Nicean Creed was writen. Rowan memorized the creed this year so it was really great to be able to take him to the place that it came from.

Another thing we did a lot of was drink tea. Turkish tea is really strong and really good. It seems to be a national obsession and there are tea gardens everywhere. They drink it out of small glass cups with no milk but lots of sugar.

We came away from the trip with a real sense of discovery and excitement. We really didn't know what to expect and we ended up falling in love with the place. It had a really nice feel about it that made us want to stay a while. If the chance ever presents itself, Turkey would be high on the list of place we would like to live. Since we only saw a little part of it, we have a lot more to go back for.

Kerri

Wafra Trip

2009-04-09T08:13:00.004+03:00

Yesterday afternoon our friend Muhammed (abu Khaled) Failakawi (the guy in the yellow shirt in the pictures) dropped by to pick us up for a trip south to Wafra. Wafra is in the southwestern corner of Kuwait, just north of the Saudi border. It contains mostly farms that use the brackish water in that area to raise a surprising number of different crops. If it says "from Kuwait" in the grocery store, then it probably came from Wafra.

Muhammed's friend Mubarrak has a small grass farm down there, along with some camels and goats that he raises primarily for milk. We were privileged to spend some time in his tent (next to his house) lounging on the ground, drinking coffee, tea and eating dates. Then he showed us his camels, and proceeded to milk one of them. Apparently, you can't milk a camel directly...you have to fool it by letting one of its babies drink, and then you can milk it simultaneously. We then took the huge bowl of warm milk into the tent and each had a bowl...well...Rowan had 3 bowls. He digs the camel milk.

Afterwards, we walked around his property, which is lovely and green due to the grass he grows for sale elsewhere in Kuwait. He also had a pen of many goats, which we had some fun with as you can see in the pictures above. We also had a delicious meal of kebab and shish tawouk afterwards before bidding him good night and heading back to Fahaheel where we live. It's about 1 to 1 1/2 hours depending on which road you take, so we were home in no time, which was good as I had to crash having stayed up way past my usual bedtime (7 or 8pm).

Such a good time had by all, once again Muhammed has shown us a lovely time in Kuwait.

Return of the Sun

2009-04-01T04:17:00.003+03:00

Wow...it's been a loooong time since our last post. Not much has been happening honestly...I've been working the night shift, which has been unpleasant for Kerri as her weekends become pretty meaningless. We've endured and finally, tonight is my last night! I'll be converting over the next 3 days to dayshift and back to work again.

Who knows? Maybe something interesting will start to happen...

Been reading John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion on my ipod and enjoying it immensely. Best 99c I've ever spent. It's easier to understand than I thought it would be and every other line is packed with profundity.

So we did try going to church during this night shift, and I have to say I was disappointed. The service we went to is trying really hard to be...I dunno..."hip" or something. Pretty typical worship time, then the pastor and another pastor (younger guy) sits up on stools and everyone else sits around tables. The preaching was very shallow and many times cringe inducing. And I *hate* being told to share my deepest personal feelings/secrets/experiences during a 5 minute window with total strangers. There's a very anti-intellectual bent in this church, lots of "don't think about it, just go with the spirit" mentality that I don't agree with. Once a "team" visited from another church somewhere in the middle east to do some sort of spiritual ministry and there were several individuals that night who did the whole "word from the lord" thing which in this case I was pretty sure was just intuitive guesses about people. I've been around the block many times with these types of churches and finally it got too much and I just couldn't stand it anymore. In addition, there are some fundamental doctrinal differences we have with them that would be difficult to ignore.

The good news though is that when I switch to days my weekend will now be Wed, Thurs, Fri, so we'll be able to check out all the services on Friday which are much more common, since Friday is "sunday" here. I'm hoping we can find a fellowship with which we can agree doctrinally, and that we can really try to stick with however long this schedule lasts. Barring that, maybe we can find a home group nearby, or perhaps start one for others in our complex. We know several families that have given up finding a church that they can consistently go to for various reasons.

The ongoing saga to get good Internet

2009-01-31T23:14:00.004+03:00

When last we saw our trusy adventurers, they had attempted to get a phone line about 8 months ago so they could get DSL and therefore some decent internet. Having been told it wasn't going to happen, they resigned themselves to paying 15KD for the not very good Zain cellular internet service. In the evenings, this service is practically unuseable, so they occasionally mooch off a neighbor's unsecured wireless access point.

As it was a new year, and recent changes to telephone numbers gave us some hope of change, they decided to try again for a phone line. After several tries, and a trip downtown, we were once again told that there was simply not enough "room" and we would need to put a work order in. Trouble is, there is a labor dispute and no knowing how long til it will be resolved. And it will cost 150KD. Not counting the actual phone line activation which is 65KD. Well, they put the application in, and then called the local WiMax provider and decided to plunk down the 600KD for WiMax. They were told it would be possible where they lived. Until the technician came out and tried to set it up, and they found out our building was too low.

Once again, they are back where they started, getting more and more desperate. Neighbor's doors might get knocked on and offered money to double their bandwidth in exchange for use. Emails have been sent to satellite internet providers...

What will happen next in the ongoing saga!

A perfect summary

2009-01-30T18:45:00.002+03:00

One of the blogs I follow is Challies and he has a hilarious posting up today about how he converted to Mac. It's a great summary and reflects my own experience as well:

http://www.challies.com/archives/general-news/personal/my-ipology.php

Back in Kuwait

2009-01-21T01:45:00.003+03:00

Actually, I never really left. They've had some trouble getting me on a flight and I've been back and forth to Ali Al Salem airbase 4+ times in the past week and a half. After the 3rd attempt I told them I'd really rather not go as this limbo is really causing issues with Kerri and Rowan getting back into a schedule. I've said goodbye 3 times now, then returned home. I've also switched my schedule to nights and would really like to have a time of stability. Anyway, tonight was the last try and it failed, so here I am for a while.

Kenya/Uganda Pictures

2009-01-17T14:20:00.005+03:00

Sorry it took us so long to get this post out. Things have been a bit crazy around here since we got back. We broke the pictures up into , hopefully, manageable chunks so you don't get too overwhelmed. Just to recap, we spent three weeks in Kenya/Uganda over Christmas and New Years. It was Jesse and Rowan's first trip to Sub-Saharan Africa and I hadn't been to Kenya for 10 years. Uganda was a first for all of us. We were visiting Jesse's cousin Josh and his wife Audra (and kids Raeleigh and Gabriel) in Nairobi. They work with Wycliffe Associates. In Uganda we were with Jesse's Aunt and Uncle (Josh's Mom and Dad) who live in Kampala and work with Mission Aviation Fellowship.

This first set of pictures is of the Giraffe Center in Nairobi. The first week we were in Kenya, we just stayed around Nairobi as Raeleigh was still in school and Josh was still working. But as soon as Saturday rolled around . . .

We drove to Uganda! What fun! No really, it was pretty fun. This first pic is of Rowan and Raeleigh at the boarder crossing. The drive there was about 13 hours, but the roads were not too bad. We only hit a few patches of rough road so we were pleased. We also had a portable movie player so that helped the kids out a lot. It was so great to be with Jon and Cher for Christmas and see where they live . The house is beautiful! Rowan has started calling Cher "his" grandma. Why not?

Jon took us on a plane ride! We flew over Lake Victoria and all the kids got a turn at pilot. So did Jesse. What an experience for a little kid (or an adult) to fly an airplane. We are so spoiled.

Another day we went on a canoe trip through the marshlands on the edge of Lake Victoria. It is mainly a birdwatching expedition and it was so breathtakingly beautiful. The main attraction is the Shoebill. A bizarre looking bird that can only be found in tropical East Africa. There are only about 5-8,000 individuals left. Did we see one? Nope, we saw TWO! There was a group in another boat that had come just to see the shoebill and paid through the nose to do it, and here we were. Again, we are so spoiled.

The telling of our time at Jon and Cher's would not be complete without monkey stories. Jon brought home a little baby monkey one day last spring and now it is running the house. His name is Sheeda, which means "trouble" and he is very well named. Having a monkey in your midst sure does keep things interesting. He was hard to photograph because he moved so fast. It was funny how the kids we all over him at first trying to hold him and catch him. A few days later they were shooing him away. Every now and then you would hear an exasperated child yell and you knew that Sheeda had just stolen something. I have never seen anything move as fast as this guy. You could be sitting down with something IN YOUR HAND and he could snatch it from you and be in the next room before you realized it was gone. The funniest had to be when he would swing by and take a handful of your drink (yes, dip his tiny monkey hand into you glass) and be off before you knew what happened. He is adorable , sweet, and a ton of fun, but now I know for sure that I do NOT want a monkey for a pet. You can never really be sure until you try it out, so I'm grateful to have had the chance to try it out.

We stayed in Uganda for one week and then drove back to Kenya. The way back only took about 10 hours and we were thrilled. We had a few days to unwind and then we all headed to Tsavo National Park for some animal watching. It was about 4 hours drive on a mixed bag of roads (some good some bad). Josh and Audra rented this great guesthouse with a watering hole just out front. So all we had to do was sit around and let the animals come to us. It was fantastic! We did do some driving around and a few of the pictures are from Mzima Springs where we saw hippos and a crocodile, but he was too far to get a photo of. We didn't get to see any cats (lions, leopards, cheetahs), but I think we did pretty good for just sitting out on the porch. The great part about that was having a chance to really observe the behaviors and antics of the animals instead of just driving by and taking pictures. I really enjoyed Tsavo!

We came back for our last few days in Nairobi. We went out to a tea farm where a lady does a presentation about tea and you get a tour of the area and a really nice lunch. It was a beautiful place. Tea fields are amazingly green. They almost looked fake. The lady has this wonderful garden and the kids could just run around and play. The weather was perfect. I really could have just moved in and stayed forever. I have decided that I want to retire on a tea plantation. With someone else doing all the work, of course. Jesse says that's fine as long as there's good internet.

Here is where we finally found chameleons. We had been looking the whole time. One of them was just a tiny baby and so cute.

The last place we went was a place where they make glass by hand out of recycled bottles. It is a really funky, artsy place that is decorated with all kinds of glass objects and art (check out the toilets). The stuff they make is fantastic.

We had such a wonderful trip. We can't thank Josh and Audra and Jon and Cher enough for everything they did for us.

Back from Kenya and off again

2009-01-08T12:29:00.002+03:00

We got in this morning from Kenya and I then proceeded to get several texts from my boss to call him immediately. Just got off the phone and it looks like I'll be heading to Afghanistan on Monday for about a month. Kind of a bummer...but oh well...we've got a few days to sort stuff out at least. We'll try to make a detailed post with pictures before then.

Off to Kenya for Christmas

2008-12-13T18:22:00.003+03:00

It's 6:30pm and I'm starting the first night of my first stint on nightshift at my new position. I've been lucky in that each time I was up for nights, some big shake up happened and I got passed over. Well...it's now time...and I'm putting one night in before leaving for Kenya for 3 weeks! Oh well, maybe they'll keep me on nights longer than usual to make up for it.

Actually, I don't mind nights too much, so long as I have a project to keep me busy. I plan on hitting the books for Windows Server 2008 so I can upgrade my MCSE to whatever it is called now. BTW, I passed all 3 Exchange 2007 exams over the last few months also, so after the MCSE upgrade, I'll be done with Microsoft exams for a while...though there is some kind of massive security exam I'm supposed to take too for my job...well I'll get to that when I get to it. And of course, during my weekends I'll have *tons* of time in the early mornings to myself, some of which will be spent levelling my 4 World of Warcraft characters up to 80 (they are all 4 70 now, woot!), and hopefully some doing other projects like maybe actually learning some Arabic!

Last night, I finished my 12 hour day shift, headed home and managed to stay up til 4am before crashing and sleeping til 11am. Not feeling very good atm as I've got a nasty cough, but I'm here and will be procuring excessive amounts of supplementary caffeine to help me through the night. Tomorrow I will sleeeeeeeep...then get up and pack for our trip to Kenya/Uganda! We leave 4am on Monday the 15th and will be back on Jan 8. Should be lots of fun and we are really looking forward to staying with Josh and Audra and their parents. It'll be my first time to the "real" Africa (somehow Djibouti and Egypt don't seem to count) and Kerri's 3rd time back to Kenya.

Rowan will be turning 7 on the 18th, so that'll be fun too.

The Story of our Trip (It's a long one)

2008-11-29T08:21:00.003+03:00

You can find the pictures from our recent trip to Egypt in the post below. This post will be the story portion. So we decided kind of on the spur of the moment to take a trip to Egypt. In November Jesse has Veteren's Day and Thanksgiving Day off and he can take those holidays anytime during the month. Two holidays plus the three day weekends he gets normally is already five days. He took two vacation days and we had a ten day holiday!

Now the main reason we chose Egypt for this holiday was Rowan and his total obsession with ancient Egypt. He had a whole list of sites he wanted to see but, of course, they were all rather spread out. We ended up flying into Luxor (down south) and out of Cairo. We stayed two days in Luxor, two days in Aswan (even farther south), and four days in Cairo. Not exactly a relaxing schedule, but we sure did see a lot.

I am happy to report that Rowan is turning into a really good traveler. We only took carry-on luggage and he had his own backpack he was in charge of. He never complained about it and he lugged it all over the place. He also got the whole security procedure (take backpack off, lay it on the belt, pick it up on the other side, put it back on) down pat. He didn't complain about the flight, didn't keep asking when we would be there, was able to make his ears pop, etc. He also doesn't seem to have trouble with walking for long distances in the hot sun. His parents, however, struggled with this part a bit.

Luxor:

Major sites - Temple of Karnak, Luxor Temple, The Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut's Temple

Luxor was a bit dissapointing for us. It was a pretty busy city and quite dirty. Not so much garbage dirty, but more horse poo dirty, which brings the flies. Oh the flies! It was also a lot hotter than we had expected. It was in the 90s everyday without much shade. Our hotel was not great either, the worst one of the trip. All these things combined led us to leave a day earlier than planned. The sites, however, were amazing. The Valley of the Kings was a huge highlight for Rowan. It was one of his "must see" places. We saw the mummy of King Tut still there in the tomb.

Aswan:

Major sites - Aswan Dam, the Nile itself, Nubian Museum

We took a train from Luxor to Aswan. The train was 1 1/2 hours late. We got started, stopped at a station down the tracks a bit and sat there for an hour. The ride is only suppose to be a couple of hours but it ended up taking most of the day. We didn't really care because it was air conditioned and we were sitting down. The scenery was just gourgeous. I had no idea how green and tropical looking the Nile area is. After being in Kuwait most of the year, the green was almost dazzling. The vegitables were really great as well. So much fresh (picked this morning) stuff was available.

Aswan itself was a nicer town than Luxor. It had it's share of horse poo and flies, but it just wasn't as bad some how. We also had a more relaxing time as we didn't "sitesee" quite as much. The origional plan was to go to Abu Simbel (even farther south). However, you have to go with a convoy that leaves at 3am and it's two or three hours away. After wearing ourselves out in Luxor, that did not sound so appealing so we decided not to go. That helped our schedule and we decided to go to Cairo one day early. In Aswan we took a boat ride on the Nile (a three hour tour) that stopped at a few islands around. Sailing the Nile was great and we decided if we do it again, we will bite the bullet and take the Nile cruise.

The Night Train to Cairo:

We learned a lot on this trip. One of the most important things that we came to realize is that we are now adults. We don't have to take the cheapest (most horrible) option available to us anymore. We have enough money for the sleeper train or even (gasp!) to fly. We should have known, I realize, but we did take the night train from Aswan to Cairo. It was suppose to be about 10 hours but it turned into 15. The misery really can't be descibed. It was filthy, the bathrooms I still can't really talk about, and again the flies. In order to try to sleep we had to cover our faces or else your face would be covered in flies.

Cairo:

Major sites - Pyramids, Museum

We finally made it to Cairo. We had a lot of trouble finding our hotel (because I lost the paper that had the address on it). When we finally did, it was fantastic. It's called Hotel Osiris and I would stay there anytime. After we got there, we took turns scrubbing every inch of our bodies with soap so we could feel human again (not to mention getting our clothes laundered). You know it was bad when Rowan asked if he could please be first in the shower! The rest of the day we spent sleeping. We woke up for dinner and went back to sleep.

The next day was spent at the Museum. It truely was amazing. The suprising thing is that it seems like they have more artifacts that they know what to do with. Stuff is everywhere. In corners, in hallways. Most things don't even have cards telling you what it is. Some of the notes in some cases are hand written. All of the other info is on index cards that were typed on a typewriter and are yellowing with age. The display cases are made of wood and glass, looking like something out of the thrities. But the stuff in the museum is just spectacular. All of King Tut's treasure is there so Rowan loved that. His attention span for this stuff is just crazy. We adults started getting bored and he was the one urging us along. Not just at the museum, but everywhere we went.

The next day was the pyramids. Our hotel contracts with some drivers so we were able to arrange for a driver to come pick us up and take us to three different sites. I knew there were some older pyramids, but I didn't realize how many are still standing. We were able to go inside one called the "red" pyramid at a site called Dashur. That was a major highlight for all of us. You first have to climb up a lot of very steep steps to get to the opening. Then you go down a VERY steep ramp inside a small tunnel. It was just about Rowan's hight so he didn't have to crouch. The rest of us had to bend over to get down the 65 meter ramp! Once all the way down, there wasn't much to see but the idea of being deep inside a huge pyramid was really fun. There were some stairs and a cavern that had it's light burnt out. It was pitch black, but Rowan had packed a flashlight, so we were able to go in and see it. We felt like true explorers. The climb back up was easier than going down, but we were so sore the next day (or two).

Cairo itself is just crazy, busy, dirty, but totally interesting. Rowan found a new obsession in Cairo, pollution. We actually had to ban talk of pollution for fear of offending people (and because it was driving us crazy). I just don't care to discuss all of the contributing factors to Cairo's photochemical smog.

General Impressions:

Egypt is a lot greener and also a lot less conservative than Kuwait. That was nice. I was constantly suprised by the hordes of tourists. The place is packed with them. And I have been in the Middle East too long, I guess, because I was constantly horrified by the clothing (or lack of it) worn by the toursits. It's a Muslim country, cover your shoulders people! Many of the tourists were retired people. Egypt is really not set up for people who aren't in good shape. Even if you are staying on a boat and are bussed everywhere, there is a lot of walking and climbing involved and we saw a lot of miserable people.

One of the most bothersome things is everyone wanting to sell you something. We didn't have it too bad, but there were a few times when we had people following us down the street. I really don't think many families with young kids go to Egypt so Rowan was quite the show piece. He took it really well and he did get a lot of free stuff, but it did get tiring. Rowan did learn some lessons in retail, however. We went into a coffee shop and Jesse was ordering while Rowan and I found a table. There were sugar packets on the table and Rowan picked one up and asked if I needed one for my coffee. I said, no thanks. He said, in a rather hurt voice, but why not, it's good sugar? It's only five pounds (Egyptian pounds, about five to the dollar so everything was five pounds). I started laughing and asked if he was really trying to sell me a sugar packet for five pounds. He said, oh fine I'll give it to you for one pound. That's a very good price.

We flew Qatar Airways. Very, very nice. I highly recommend it. We were almost dissapointed that the flight was so short. We had a layover in Doha and that is a very nice airport with an awsome kids play area. Jesse said all he would need was a job inside it and we would never have to leave the airport.

All in all it was a great trip. It is, however, really nice to be home. Since it was my first time to leave Kuwait since moving here, it was my first time to have the feeling that I was coming home. It turns out that I really like it here. That's a good feeling.

We are only here for three weeks before going to Kenya!

Back from Egypt

2008-11-27T14:19:00.005+03:00

We're back! Arrived at 3am this morning, slept for a few hours and up again to try and stay awake til nightfall. I'm not going to write much as that's going to be Kerri's job. I'm just uploading the slideshows and such. The picture above is of Rowan at Halloween. He's been so into all things Egyptian lately that he decided to dress up as Pharaoh. In fact, he has declared that when he turns 7 in December, he's going to return to Egypt to establish his new reign, as that's how old Tutankhaman was when he took the throne. I guess some kids want to be Superman while some want to be Pharaoh.

I'm going to just upload each of the slideshows in phases and attach to this post.

New news

2008-10-30T18:22:00.002+03:00

I've been back in Kuwait for about a week now, getting into the swing of things again. Which is going to be interrupted in about 2 weeks when we leave for Egypt. We'll spend around 8 days there, then back for 2 weeks, then off to Kenya to visit Josh and Audra for Christmas. So things are hardly settling back to normal for quite some time. Anyway, the weather has turned lovely again, cool, breezy and sunny. It rained the other day very normally (not the dust rain that sometimes comes down) and we had a good thunderstorm last night.

My time in Djibouti has made me appreciate Kuwait much more and I'm pretty sure I don't need to go back there again if I can avoid it. I did get to see the outside for a bit on the last day I was there and it is profoundly poor and desperate. The people are very down and drugged out most of the time on khat (a plant they chew). There is no sense of industry or purpose...it is the most dirty, trashed place I have ever seen. The landscape is utterly dreary with rocky desert littered with plastic bags and trash in every direction. There are some older interesting looking buildings down town, but the entire economy of the place seems centered around feeding the debased appetites of the foreigners who frequent them most frequently. Admittedly it was probably a poor impression with little to go on, but such as it was, that was all I got.

Addis Ababa was a totally different place with greenery and bustle, people who seemed more hopeful and like they had a possible future. I know it's totally different in the lowlands where people are starving, but at least in Addis things seem to be going well over all. Even the very poor looked like they had something to do and weren't lying about drugged out all the time. Anyway, it was much more enjoyable and I really want to bring Kerri and Rowan back and spend a week or two exploring the country (Ethiopia).

Djibouti Call

2008-10-05T10:48:00.006+03:00

Edit: Here are some photos.

These are of my living quarters in Djibouti, and the rest are from the day we spent in Addis Ababa on the way back to Kuwait.

Sorry for the bad pun...

I've been in Djibouti for the past week or so working on a project. Hopefully I'll be heading back home on the 15th if all goes well.

Camp Lemonier is interesting...more homey feeling than Arifjan. The weather is horrible though, very hot and humid all the time. Your clothes never feel dry, and crawling into bed each night under damp sheets is no fun. I'm living in a half of a connex which has been retrofitted into an apartment for 2 people. I say "apartment" but really it's just 2 beds, a locker, a small desk area, and some hooks on the wall. Shared bathrooms of course that are always soaked.

On the positive side...the food here is excellent, much much better than Arifjan. There are many Filipinos working in the food area, so when they make Adobo it's the real thing! And rice and egg for breakfast, woohoo!

Been working pretty much nonstop since I got here and today is the first day off I've had in a little over a week. 12 hour days. Should make some good money on the overtime. I'm about to head off base for the first time in a few minutes, so I can get some actual impressions of this place other than the base.

Well, that's it for now.

-edit: Unfortunately, no vehicle could be found, so I did not get to see off base...

Philosophy of IT

2008-09-15T07:53:00.002+03:00

Just got done having an interesting conversation with some co-workers here. The discussion boils down to this: given that you do not know the competency level of the people who will follow you in your position, is it preferable to keep the IT solutions implemented to as "vanilla" a flavor as possible, or should you take advantage of the solutions available to you if implementing them will improve the solution for the customer? The argument against boils down to the fact that if you implement a solution that the next admin is not likely to know about or have experience with, then you are being selfish because you know they won't be able to manage it or fix it if it breaks. The argument for boils down to the idea that you can't be responsible for other people's competence or lack thereof, but are hired to do your job which is to implement solutions and improve on existing ones...refusing to do this will paralyze you into doing the bare minimum and nothing more out of a nebulous fear of what might happen.

Personally, I'm for the latter argument. Any opinions out there?

}-]

The problem with Chesterton

2008-09-08T17:37:00.003+03:00

I've been reading a lot of G. K. Chesterton lately and thoroughly enjoying him. Father Brown Mysteries, Orthodoxy, Heretics, Everlasting Man, The Man Who Was Thursday, and Manalive. I've just started into one I've been waiting with great anticipation: The Catholic Church and Conversion.

See, Chesterton eventually converted to Catholicism after moving from a hollow form of Unitarian Protestantism to Anglicanism. Throughout his books there are little jabs at Protestantism in general and Calvinism in particular. He even has some amusingly harsh words for the tradition my family historically came from (Quakerism). Personally, I have come to believe in a modified reformed calvinism and believe that this represents the most faithful approach to the biblical witness available. That doesn't mean I fully understand all nuances of all facets of all issues, but I know enough to satisfy the big issues and I am quite solid in my own faith concerning my position.

Chesterton is so brilliant and such a joy to read that at first I felt positively joyous when I discovered him. Indeed I still do, for it was like finding out that there was another C.S. Lewis in existence, and indeed Chesterton has written more than Lewis ever did. I suppose it has been my experience of learning from Lewis that has helped me deal with some of the disappointments I've found in Chesterton along the way. For though it may come as a surprise to some, I think C.S. Lewis was wrong on some points! But I stil love him and his books and think that where he was right, he was very, very right.

Of course, the elephant in the room while reading Chesterton was his eventual conversion to Catholicism. In my mind I couldn't help but wonder how such an intelligent man could be so incredibly wrong about something so important. Not that I believe no Catholic can be saved, but that the points at which Chesterton chose to believe the Reformation was in error were the very points that mattered so very much (i.e. salvation by faith through grace alone). I have only just started the short book in which he recounts his reasons for conversion, and already I started to get an inkling in my mind that might begin to explain this to myself. It appears that Chesterton was in many ways railing against forms of Protestantism which were innaccurate representations of the positions he rejected. Straw men do tend to fall down pretty quick when shoved. Of course I'm simplifying things, but I was grateful to find a much more comprehensive explanation of this position on the Internet today. James Sauer has written an excellent summary of a well reasoned Protestant appreciation of Chesterton called Chesterton Reformed: A Protestant Interpretation. It is well worth the read and I do recommend it.

Some other interesting concerns I've had while reading Chesterton which I have not yet found good discussions on are his treatment of other cultures. Some is excusable as indicative of the times, but others are important underpinnings of major arguments in works such as Heretics, Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. His characterizations of "oriental" cultures seem very provincial and out of touch with reality, and yet he uses the contrast between West and East in many ways to show why West is so very much better than East. Yet it is this misunderstanding of what he describes as Eastern "pessimism" that destroys his arguments even as he makes them. I recall those feelings of unease as I read those sections and the same feeling returns when I read his arguments against Protestantism.

Nonetheless, as with Lewis, when Chesterton is right, he is really really right, and I definitely recommend him to all. I have rarely experienced a more visceral delight than when reading Manalive. That book screams to be made into a play.

}-]

Our first Ramadan

2008-09-06T16:05:00.002+03:00

Hi all, I know it's been some time, but sometimes life just seems too mundane to warrant a post. But if enough mundane days go by, eventually it all adds up to something that just might be of interest to someone out there.

Casting back a bit, Kerri and I celebrated our 8th anniversary in August by going to the Kuwait Towers restaurant. We had seen that they had a restaurant inside one of the big balls during our last visit and decided that it would make a fine special outing when next we had an excuse. I don't know if we have mentioned it, but it has been unbelievably humid lately. Very hot, and very humid. This isn't usually a problem for me as I move from my air conditioned home, to air conditioned car, to air conditioned bus, to air conditioned office, etc... Now and then, however, I do venture forth into the real atmosphere, and before we went up the tower, since we had some time to kill, we thought we'd try and find a shisha spot for a little hubble bubble before dinner. We asked and were told there was one just around the back side of the towers. So we set off in the darkening evening, thinking a short walk would be fine. We weren't exactly dressed to the hilt, but we had on slightly better than our usual casual finery. Around the back side of the towers, there was no shisha...but we were told by enthusiastic informers that we had but to go down the road just a short way to locate what we were after. Since we'd come this far, we figured we'd give it a shot. About 15 minutes later, we finally decided that the phantom shisa did not exist, and we were victims of the local cultural phenomenon of "not wanting to disappoint" when being asked a question. By this time, we were dripping with sweat, soaked through and not looking forward to the walk back. Luckily, there was a new Trader Vic's restaurant (far to hoity toity for our taste) that was only too pleased to welcome us into their delicious air-conditioned interior so we could peruse their menu for about 5 minutes while we steeled ourselves for the journey back to the Towers. Handing the menus back to the jilted watiress, we ventured forth again and arrived at the base of the towers thoroughly soaked and miserable, and still way too early for dinner. However, we were pleased to be able to lounge about for half an hour or so and mostly dry off from our soaking.

The meal itself was enjoyable enough, mainly due to the location, though I think I enjoyed the salad bar most. Especially the cheese...and the mushroom dish. Fresh mushrooms are very unusual here, most mushrooms come from a can. Of the main dishes, the fish was excellent, very creamy. Other than that, the food wasn't all that great, particularly the "kebab" (hardly deserving of the name) and the "cordon bleu" (deep fried, dried out meat, processed cheese, and you know that wasn't ham!). We both felt that while it was worth doing it once for the experience and the view, we don't feel the need to go back. Compared with the Moroccan restaurant (which I can't stop think about going back to) it was way down the list of excellent places we have eaten at.

Speaking of food, it's Ramadan in Kuwait! Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam where observant muslims fast during the day and eat at night. All consumption of food and water is forbidden in public during the day here, though it is understood that foreigners can and will continue to eat in private. There are exceptions for young children and those with medical conditions, but still, this means that all restaurants are pretty much shut down during the day. The grocery stores, however, are open and crazy busy! Apparently, one of the things to do during the day is to buy all the groceries you'll be needing that night to have feast after feast, as the remedy for not eating all day, is to eat all night. I'm not sure that this exactly fulfills the intention of the fast, but culturally speaking the same could be said of the gluttony and greed displayed during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

One thing we thought odd at the grocery store the other day was the big griddle frying up tons of small pancakes during the middle of the day. As we inched our way through the packed grocery store, the smell of frying pancakes wafted about and certainly caused much salivating in all the adults nearby. Later, Kerri discovered the purpose of this special torture: it's for the kids! You can buy a big bag of little pancakes for about 750 fils and feed your little munchkin for several meals.

I happened to have a day off for Labor Day last weekend, so I combined it and got 4 straight days (during Ramadan) to figure out how this was all going to work. Our first night was no problem as typically we stay home anyway. The next night, Kerri and I went out around 6pm (the maid is coming later for Ramadan) to our favorite local restaurant Tanureen. We weren't sure exactly what time it is allowed to eat, as technically you are supposed to wait til Maghrib (the sunset call to prayer) before digging in to iftar (the new "break-fast"). We asked if it was ok to order food and they said sure, but it was about 5 more minutes til we could start eating. There was a plate of dates on the table, which is the traditional food to start with. They also asked if we wanted lentil soup, apparently another traditional starting dish. This sounded good to us...then we surreptitiously observed our neighbhors and began to eat once they did. We don't want to give the impression we are observing the fast ourselves, but then again we don't want to make it unnecessarily tough for those that are doing so.

Personally, coming from the Christian traditions of water only fasts for as long as 40 days (I have only ever made it about 1 1/2 weeks myself), Ramadan doesn't really seem all that tough, but it definitely has a celebratory feel to it and we are enjoying the cultural experience. It does make the weekend days a bit difficult as one of our primary sources of entertainment is finding new and interesting food to eat, but we can survive for a month. And it does make the evening meal more special. We are hoping that Mohammed (Abu Khaled) will be back in the country at some point during Ramadan as he had told us he hoped to invite us to Iftar at some point, but it looks like he may be in India for some time. We really would like to meet his extended family someday. He did drop by a week or so back and gave us some special Ramadan sweets (tahini based goupy non-Newtonian fluid and another similiar dish that was a bit harder and crumblier) to "fortify" us for the fast. He is always doing cool things like that...last time it was a batch of "very special fish" that he had charbroiled and showed us how to eat by crunching on the heads and sucking the juices out before carefully stripping the skin off and eating the meat without choking on the tiny tiny bones. Along with the sweets he droppped of what felt like a kilo of fresh shrimp which are a "little bit cheap now." He is very cool. Did I mention the trip to the downtown souks where he took me to the shisha area and plied me with 10 or so sweet lemon teas? Like I said, very fun guy.

Speaking of friends, Jeremy is here! Jeremy is a former co-worker of mine who had expressed interest in working over here a while back. When an opportunity came up, I let him know about it and forwarded his resume to the right guys. After what seemed like an eternity, he has finally made it and is gradually getting used to this craziness. He has a blog too which I will link to once I track it down. We've taken him down to Avenues and IKEA, showed him our place, and went to Friday Market. He's only been here a couple of weeks so far. It's good to have someone around who I have some history in common with, I hope he likes it enough to stay.

Well, aside from all that, and the baby bunny rabbit we are likely to acquire soon, not much else has been going on. Been playing World of Warcraft, trying to level my toons to 70 before the expansion comes out. I'll be going to nights in October, so that'll be more time to play.

Oh, we bought our tickets to Kenya this christmas! Whoohoo! We'll be leaving around Dec. 15 and return sometime first week of January. We'll be staying with Josh and Audra and having a fabulous time! It'll by my first time to Africa, and Kerri's third time to Kenya. Rowan will be turning 7 there!

Ok, that's it for now, laterz...

New Kuwait blog with good info

2008-08-25T17:38:00.002+03:00

In the comments of the previous entry someone left a link to a new blog that is dedicated to information useful to Americans living in Kuwait. It's really good info and I wanted to make a post about it for anyone who finds this blog looking for good Kuwait info.

http://americaninkuwait.blogspot.com/

Thanks for leaving the comment AIK!

Ich bin ein Mac

2008-07-23T13:01:00.002+03:00

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!

2008-07-08T10:12:00.002+03:00

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!

2008-07-04T02:01:00.002+03:00

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.

The Lazy Days of Summer

2008-06-29T11:03:00.003+03:00

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. So I guess we took a nice long break from blogging. Sorry about that. I get in this cycle of taking pictures, forgetting to transfer them to the computer, thinking about blogging but realizing that I have no pictures to post, bagging the whole idea and doing something else. So here is a post sans pics, but at least it's a post.

The most interesting thing we have been doing lately is snorkeling. I must tell about this great gear we found. Snorkel Bob's is a shop in Hawaii that sells everything you can imagine for snorkeling and it's gear they have made specifically for them. We ordered gear for the whole family. The major thing that attracted us to Snorkel Bob is the program they have for kids. When a kid grows out of one size, you send it back (if it's in decent shape) and you can get the next size for 50% off. You can do this as many times as you need to as the kids grow up. The gear is top quality, the customer service exellent, and the humor irreverent. My kind of place. So now we are snorkeling right outside our door. We have seen zillions of fish of all different kinds, cuttlefish (which are like squid), crabs, and even a stingray! We did just get a waterproof camera case so I hope to get out there this weekend and take some shots.

It's hot in Kuwait now. I think today is suppose to be our first 120F day. The funny thing is we still spend hours outside every day, we just do it later in the evening and we move from one body of water to the next. It feels a lot like being in a dry sauna, but it does cool down at night and the evenings can still be quite nice. Apparently July will be a lot like it is now, hot and dry, but August is suppose to be terrible because the humidity moves in.

Most people (especially moms and kids) are gone for the summer. There are only a few kids left around here and even fewer moms who don't work. As a result, I am official compound dog walker. I am so grateful that we don't have a dog of our own to have to worry about when we travel. I think that next summer, we will pass the leash (and poop sacks) on to someone else.

That's pretty much all that is going on around here. Day after day, we lounge by the pool, snorkel in the sea, walk dogs, while the maid cleans our house and prepares our dinner. It's really not a bad life . . .

Going Native

2008-06-03T22:46:00.000+03:00

Here are the promised pictures of me in my dishdash and Kerri in her abaya. Rowan has not yet been fitted, but rest assured...he is next.

Rowan Update

2008-05-23T10:32:00.005+03:00

I thought it was about time to give an update on how Rowan is getting along. The pictures are all a few months old but I haven't had a chance to get new ones transfered. Picture him in swimming trunks, tan and blond. He looks just like a little California surfer.

Rowan is doing just great here in Kuwait. He has so much more of a social life than he did in the States and he is loving it. Just the other day he told me how much he loves Kuwait. Of course that was just after he had been in the sea and got within two feet of a good sized stingray, saw two cuttlefish, and loads and loads of "regular" fish. Not a bad day if you ask me. Having the sea out our front door is just amazing.

Homeschooling is also going really well. Much better than I expected. With the way Jesse's schedule changes every other week, I can't imagine how hard it would be if we had Rowan's school schedule to worry about too. He is technically in Kindergarten and we didn't even start it until January. I was planning to go all summer long and be ready to start 1st grade in the fall. Rowan is burning through the Kindergarten material so fast that I think we are going to be done sometime in July. It would be nice to have a little break before starting up again.

I have mentioned before his love for science and having the sea to "do" science with is really great. What he is really into right now, though, is space. I know that most boys (and many girls) go through a space phase, but with Rowan's obsessive personality he has to know everything there is to know about something before he can let it rest. Luckily we got our hands on this really great show called "The Universe" put out by the History Channel. It's not made for kids, but he just loves it and it gives him more answers than his Kindergarten books.

Right now, of course, any moment not spent doing something else is spent swimming. He has really come a long way in a short time. He swims compeletly independantly with no floatation devices. He can dive quite well and is starting to do flips. He can spend around four hours in the pool and still have energy left over!

All in all Rowan is doing great. He has a good group of friends who all love the sea ( and the creatures in it) and is having much more of a "life" than he has ever had before. Who knew that Kuwait would be the place for him?

Marrakesh, dishdash, and nightshift

2008-05-12T03:54:00.002+03:00

Kerri and I went to a nearby Morroccan restaurant called Marrakesh for Mother's Day. I had checked it out once before and put it on our list of "special occasion" spots as it was quite pricey (average main dish was around 5KD). Wow...it was one of the best meals we've had since being here. We went for the "feast" which was 9KD per person, but was really a great deal if you are checking out what they have to offer. It's a soup, prescribed appetizer plus one additional of your choice, main dish, and dessert with tea. As we both got it, we got to try what seemed like more than half the menu! I have to say my favourite dish was the appetizer I ordered: Pieces of tongue. I hadn't had tongue since the States, where it is my favourite burrito meat (la lengua, por favor!) and I really missed that succulent tenderness. I had to pass up the brain, which though I have no trouble with the taste and texture, I do have this curious desire to avoid ever contracting Mad Cow disease, so I do avoid brain generally. The main dish was not very large, but they do bring rice with it (first time I haven't had to pay separate for the rice) and with everything else, you should be royally stuffed by the end (I know we were). The ambience of the place was spectacular, with intricately carved and decorated walls, ceiling, you name it. The dishes were all in the same morrocan theme as well. Service was excellent, and overall the best $70+ I've spent on food in a long time (it hurts less to think of it in KD). I do want to go back again sometime and try the couscous dishes...

Last weekend, me and another guy who works in the same area I do, and who lives here in the same compound, went down to the Fahaheel souks and got measured for our dishdashes. It's about 8KD to get one tailor made (most necessary with our frames), and there are several places where you can get it done. You pick your fabric and they jot down some measurements, then you come back in a week. The other day I picked mine up, and today I wore it out for the first time. I don't have the knack of the full headgear yet, so I just wore the dishdash itself, along with the long underpants and undershirt. I have to say, it was incredibly comfortable and suits leisurely walking along the beachfront very nicely. We ended up going to nice Lebanese restaurant in Fahaheel called Tanureen where we finished up our evening out. I did get some odd looks, more looks than I've ever had since being here (Kerri says "welcome to my world"), but on the whole I'm willing to put up with that for the comfort. Jeans are just too hot for walking about in here.

After that evening, we started into the next one, as I am in the process of shifting my schedule to night shift (wake up at 2pm, go to work at 4pm, come home and go to bed around 6am), and the rest of the family is trying to shift theirs later as well. So we kept Rowan up til 11pm tonight by starting into the Chronicles of Narnia with the Magicians Nephew. We are about half way through the first book now. The 3rd evening started after that, with Kerri and I finishing up Season 2 of Heroes and starting into Season 1 of The Tudors. Then Kerri went to bed, and I decided to run out to see what's open at 2:30am and get some food (lunch? I think...). Pretty much the only type of restaurant open at this time of the morning is the arabic food type, which is fine, but I was hankering for some indian...guess that'll have to wait til tomorrow. I have a long weekend, as I got a transition day, my weekend, plus I'm taking my Memorial Day holiday too, so I should be good to go by the time I have to go back to work. It's 4:10am now and I'm counting the minutes. Figured I could do a quick update while I'm waiting.

I'll try to get some pictures of me in my dishdash tomorrow.

One Great Headline

2008-04-29T07:04:00.002+03:00

I was doing my usual morning perusal of the Arab Times and came upon this headline. It was just too good and I had to share.

"3 camels die, 3 men hurt; Crossdressers arrested

Kuwait : A truck transporting camels overturned on the Seventh Ring Road, killing three camels and injuring three Asian men, reports Al-Anba daily. Traffic was blocked for three hours on the road.

Crossdressers arrested: Securitymen arrested three cross-dressers in a café in Salmiya and referred them to authorities, reports Arrouiah daily. "

Apparently the crossdressing and the camels were two seperate incindents but, my oh my, I got a good laugh out of that one. If anyone is worried that we are living in a dangerous place, take a look at the Arab Times Crime News sometime.

Goodbye Zain!

2008-04-28T10:09:00.002+03:00

The ongoing saga of our quest to find a good Internet provider in Kuwait has a new episode.

We have not had the greatest time with Zain. Reasons:

- 30gb limit (hit that in about 1 1/2 weeks)
- iffy connectivity (downgrades speed if not using connection actively, you have to reconnect to get fast speeds again)
- Blocks torrent ports (slows it down)
- Bad tech support (had 2 calls in to help with port issues...never got the promised call back)
- Dongle takes up 2 USB slots (minor, but irritating)

The monthly cost for all of this? 30KD. Not worth it in our books.

We've decided to pay the 15KD per month for the service provided by our apartments until we've saved up enough to get a real land line (telephone) so we can get DSL.

To cancel your Zain service you need to go to an official Zain office/outpost. These are not terribly common. And of course they close from 2pm to 4pm, so when I found out about this requirement and it was 12:30, I thought no problem, I should be able to locate the nearest one in time.... Uh...no. Couldn't find it. So I tried the next one. Was able to get a guy to drive there and follow him, but I arrived at 1:40pm...and *this* office closed at 1:30pm (contrary to what the pamphlet says).

So it was off to the airport office which is the only 24 hour Zain office. Finally got it cancelled (no termination fees luckily).

Now that I know better, I think I'd have preferred to save a lot of money and go with DSL from the beginning...but oh well. Live and learn.

Aqua Park

2008-04-20T09:39:00.001+03:00

Abu Khaled had promised us last week that he wanted to show us some fun times in Kuwait this weekend, so on Friday he rang us up and told us to meet him at the Kuwait International Fairgrounds, where we met his bevy of nieces and nephews (Saud, Sheikhra, Abdul Messen, Khaled, Deema) who were already racing around a go kart track. Rowan got to ride around a few times with Sheikhra, but was not yet able to reach the pedals and steer at the same time. After this he took us to a nearby amusement park where the kids all got to ride on some smallish but fun rides. Then we went to a small restaurant and got take out (shawarma, falafel, sandwiches, etc...) and ate it at the adjacent Burger King playground (heh).

The kids all begged to go to the Aqua Park by the Kuwait Towers on Saturday, so we said we'd see and if Abu Khaled called us in the morning we'd be up for it. Next morning, 10am passed by and we decided to run out to Ace Hardware and buy some items for our porch that we've been meaning to purchase. While there we got the call and headed over to the Aqua Park. It was incredibly fun, with a wave pool, constantly moving river to float on, and of course, the slides! We all (except for Abu Khaled) swam and slid for hours. They had a shisha place in the middle of the park, so Abu Khaled and I partook and discussed metaphysical theories of whether or not we would need our "asses" in heaven (seriously...I don't know how these conversations get started, I swear the shisha is just tobacco!). Then we left the nieces and nephews at the park and Abu Khaled took us down to the heritage souks where he wanted to buy us some dates to be had later with tahini, and insisted on buying some Iranian laban at a little restaurant there (served in metal bowls to be drunk out of...very refreshing on a hot day) and of course he couldn't resist buying some bread and a kebab as he was quite concerned by the fact that Rowan doesn't ever seem to eat around him. Later he bought us some candy like substances (not sure what they are called, but seem to be made out of sesame and are incredibly sweet, a paste-like substance), and some sesame balls. I do try to pay for things periodically, but if I'm not sneaky he won't let me.

After this it was back to the water park to round the kids up, which took about an hour as they weren't keen to leave. It was around 6pm by the time we got everyone out, and we managed to assemble for a quick photo with the Kuwait Towers behind us. Then it was time for dinner, which ended up being a Palestinian restaurant (basically the same delicious assortment of arabic food we've come to love), with mostly dippnig dishes of hummous, fool, moutabel, yogurt salad, garbanzo beans, french fries, and eggplant fries. "Light" food so he says. We also tried a new desert, made of a light white cheese base, topped with crunchy orange noodle-like substances. Quite good, and not too sweet.

By this time it was 7:30pm or so, and we bid everyone adieu and headed home, in bed by 9pm. Lots of fun, and enjoyable conversation. The kids are incredibly nice, polite, and well behaved, though they know their uncle is a soft-touch and some of them do try to manipulate him to get things they probably normally don't get. Still they are all very pleasant and eager to talk about things. They all spent several years in the US and have been back in Kuwait for about a year. They have had some difficulty adjusting to life back here, but seem to be doing ok now.

We are planning on taking it easy today (Sunday) and not go out too much. I have shaved my beard off and must get a haircut to go with it. And Rowan will need to blow some steam off...I'm thinking more swimming later.

I may be going to night shift at the end of the month, which we are thinking will actually be good for being able to stay out later on weekends when all the fun stuff goes on. We'll be sure and post about that if it happens.

Game recommendations (DS and Wii)

2008-04-18T06:33:00.003+03:00

Just a short note to recommend some Wii and DS titles, some coming out soon or at the end of the month.

Okami is a port of a PS2 game that garnered critical acclaim, and seems made to be implemented on the Wii. It's a mixture of several Japanese legends and is rumoured to feature an interesting story line and innovative game mechanics. I've been looking forward to it for quite some time.

Mario Kart for the Wii finally comes out at the end of the month. Ever since I played the DS version for the first time, I've been looking forward to the full Wii version and most of the reviews are quite positive. If anything, the only negative is that if you've played previous iterations (I haven't) then you might be bored. But there are motorcycles now!

Smash Brothers is another Wii title that we've had for a month or so. At first I wasn't too impressed, but I have to say it has grown on me. There is something viscerally fun about the gameplay: mash buttons til someone goes flying! There is a "single" player game that 2 people can play together that Rowan and I are working our way through.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a DS title that I had been hearing about long before it came out. Combining Miyazaki style animation with a mystery storyline (it's silly, but keeps you interested), and lots and lots of puzzles, it kept me occupied on the bus to and from work for several weeks in a row. I still haven't finished all the puzzles.

Lego Star Wars for the Wii (complete saga): A great one to play with Rowan because of how easy it is to drop in and out of, we have been making our way through the Star Wars movies on this one. We had previously owned the Gamecube Original Trilogy version, but this one contains all 6 movie plotlines, combined with the usual humour of the Lego series. The best part is how forgiving it is. When you die you just pop back in again and there are no such things as "lives" to run out of.

Super Mario Galaxy - Finished this one months ago, but Kerri is still working her way through it, and it is still Rowan's favourite. It's just so much fun, it would have to be on any recommended list.

Wii Fit - Looking forward to this, though it's a bit steep in price ($90). But I've been reading some posts out there that indicate if you use it consistently it can help lose some weight, and at least make it fun and interesting. We'll probably snag one when it releases.

Zak and Wiki: I think I've raved about this before, but we recently finished it, so I wanted to reiterate that this may be one of my all time favourite Wii titles. Innovative gameplay, great humour, really fun to play with other people (even though it is a single player game). I really hope they make a sequel.

Well that's it for now, just thought it had been a while since I posted something games related.

Oh, one last thing, Trackmania is my (only) favorite racing game and Nadeo has just made one version of it TrackMania Nations Forever free! You can download it from the sites listed, or if you have Steam, you can just add it to your game list and start the download from there.

So much to say

2008-04-13T09:26:00.003+03:00

Fair warning: this post is going to cover a lot of ground. Lots has happened lately.

Luanne's Visit

Luanne is a professional photographer, so virtually all the photos you will see above are taken by her.

My aunt Luanne is teaching in Saudi Arabia and had a long weekend to come up and visit us about a week ago. She was feeling adventurous and decided to take the bus that runs between here and Dammam. We picked her up downtown Kuwait late Thursday night and then had crazy whirlwind adventures the rest of the weekend, which is pretty par for the course when it comes to Luanne.

On Friday, we lounged around the house for a bit, introducing Lu to our new cat Milo (we hadn't told her we had gotten a cat yet...) but luckily she liked him well enough even though she generally doesn't like cats. We then went to the
Avenues Mall so that we could go grocery shopping at Carrefour for a lamb roast that we were going to cook for dinner as our (late) Easter celebration. Also it gave us an opportunity to show Luanne a typical Kuwaiti past time: going to the mall (whee!). She is also an IKEA fan so we also ran through IKEA while there.

We came home and cooked the lamb roast the rest of the day, while she got more of a tour around our compound and took more photos. After dinner (which was terrible I must say), we drove up to the Kuwait Towers and Kerri, Rowan and Luanne got to see them for the first time. It was a very enjoyable experience as the towers are quite spectacular at night and the lighting was very interesting and made for some great photos as you can see in the slideshow. We also found out that there is a buffet in the restaurant that is pretty reasonable, so Kerri and I will be going back some time for one of our Saturday night outings.

On Saturday, we again slept in and lounged about for the morning, then towards lunch we all walked over to Mangaf and got some juice at our local juice bar, and also got more stew from the Afghani's store, and next door some of the fresh bread that you can get for real cheap. We made a good lunch of all that, and Kerri and Lu went out clothes shopping in the afternoon.

That night we (Kerri, Lu and I) headed down to Fahaheel to walk about and eat dinner. We showed her our seaside shisha spot, walked to the mall and had some coffee by the fountain, and then walked over to the souks so Lu could help Kerri buy an abaya and hijab. Kerri's been wanting the option of wearing one, and Luanne has more experience then any of us with that living in Saudi. I also got to inquire regarding the cost of having a dishdash made and generally we had a great time.

On Sunday morning we walked down to the Al Kout fish market to try and catch the auction before it closed down. We just missed it, but were able to buy 2 fish from one of the stands in the market and then walk down to the Fish Oasis restaurant where our fish were promptly deep fried (grilling is an option too) and we ate fried fish for breakfast (delicious!). Then we walked up to the Al Manshar mall, to the Rotunda Hotel, asking if there was a viewing deck to take some pictures from. We were told to take the elevator to the top, and were stunned to find a swimming pool, restaurant, and shisha bar up there, along with an amazing view of Fahaheel spread out below us. The pictures she got almost don't even look real, more like a model of a proposed development, but they are! Then we went home and swam some. Later Kerri and Lu went to a salon to get a pedicure, while Rowan and I went to the best restaurant in Fahaheel (a hole in the wall) to get a couple of roast chickens, hummous, moutabel, fresh bread and pickles for dinner.

All in all, I think Lu got a really good taste of our lives here, and I think she had a good time. Ok, so it was short on adventure, but there was plenty of fun had all around.

Kuwait's First Hurricane?

On Friday night, we went to a Bible study that meets in our complex, and on our way there, we noticed very dark clouds and some lightening. We never see this kind of weather here, so it was notable, and the thunder continued throughout the night. There were a couple of rain drops, but nothing more.

The next morning, the news on all the Kuwaiti blogs and news sites was quite amazing! Apparently, there was a genuine storm that swept the tip of Kuwait City (Salmiya) that sticks out into the Gulf. There were very powerful winds that shattered glass, hail the size of marbles fell, and rain like we NEVER see here! The damage is quite extensive and one friend estimates 2 weeks of cleanup before things return to normal. Street signs broken, trees uprooted. It's a mess. Anyway, quite a bit of excitement all around. A good blog with lots of pictures and video on it is 248am if you are interested in more information.

Abu Khaled strikes again!

Last night was Saturday, and we began our time without Rowan by walking down to our favorite shisha spot, intending to then find a restaurant, have dinner and head home like usual. I hadn't spoken with Abu Khaled, my Kuwaiti friend, for quite some time, and each time I've called him recently, he's been busy in Ras Al Khaima, one of the Emirate states. I figured it had been a while, so I'd give him a ring and see what was up. This is always a bit dangerous, as you never know what he might end up doing, but it had to be done.

Turns out he was nearby and wanted to stop and have some shisha and tea with us. So he drove his brand new Landrover (he was eager for us to see it) over to where we were, and we sat out by the sea, watching people fishing and enjoying shisha and tea for an hour or so. After this, he said he wanted to show us something he'd been working on, if we could join him. We were concerned that our maid should know we would be late, so we asked if he could drive us home so we could let her know, and asked if we could show him our place. He agreed and came up. He had previously been very concerned when I told him we lived in Mangaf, as it's not a very nice area at all (generally). I had tried to tell him that our place was different, but he didn't get it. Once he saw our place he said he totally understands and thought our place was excellent. We then got back in his car and he drove us a short distance to where is friend's house is being built. Abu Salem (his friend) is very busy these days and can't be in the country to oversee his house being built, so Abu Khaled is covering for him. The house is still being built, and is pretty much just concrete now, but the outlines of it are pretty much done, it just needs finishing touches (i.e. paint, plumbing, electrical, etc...). Oh...my....goodnes....this house is amazing. It's very nice architecturally, apparently Abu Khaled is responsible for the design, the house (er...mansion?) forming a quarter of a half circle, which is then completed by an arch of trees that surround another quarter of land which will be a garden. The house has a sunken courtyard, from which the basement area is accessed. The basement area will have a pool, jacuzzi, sauna, etc..., kitchen, and general family area. The second floor is where the main reception area will be located, the two wings to either side probably for formal hosting and dining. There were 2 more floors above this, so a total of 4 floors. It will be stunning when complete. Abu Khaled has great plans for the lighting and little details of design. He said this is not really his style personally, but since his friend has asked him to oversee it, he definitely has opinions on how to make it as tasteful as possible. The bizarre part of all this being that we were traipsing around this empty construction site, in the dark, alone, dressed nicely (him in his dishdash, Kerri in her skirt), stepping on stones to get over standing water. It was a very surreal experience, but quite fun.

Then he insisted on driving us to where he'd like to take us next weekend which is the Kuwait International Fair, where they have rotating displays, kind of like an Expo center. There is a mini-go kart track there for the kids to enjoy, so hopefully next weekend we'll get to hang out with him and his family again.

After this he took us to a restaurant in Hawally (by the way, this is bouncing all over Kuwait) where he showed us what he described as a "very clean" but nice simple food restaurant, where he insisted on buying us some shawarma and fruit juice that was very good. At this time, we said we *had* to get home so our maid could go home after staying late to watch Rowan.

All in all, a very fun but strange experience. Abu Khaled is a fascinating guy with very interesting opinions on everything. Never a dull moment, that's for sure!

I think that brings us up to date. We'll try and be better about about posting in the future so we don't do monstrous posts like this.

New Family Member

2008-04-01T08:36:00.002+03:00

Meet Milo! We actually got a pet that doesn't have gills. I know in the past we have said that we would never do such a thing, but the time was right and Rowan really wanted a pet. He has always wanted a cat and Jesse likes cats so was easily won over. We got him from a shelter (Kuwiat Animal Friends) at which some people who live in our complex volunteer at. It's a nice place and they take very good care of the animals.

Milo is a little boy kitten of about three months. He is very easy going and doesn't seem bothered by anything. Rowan can sling him over his shoulder and he doesn't even bring out the claws. Not to say he's lethargic! He can tear around the house like crazy. He really loves us to play with him. Actually he really loves being with people in general and is not one of these aloof cats, which is what we wanted.

He has never had an "accident" for which we are very grateful. We are now going to try to toilet train him. I'll let you all know how that goes.

Summary of family visa application process for Kuwait

2008-03-25T08:51:00.000+03:00

I just wrote an email to a new person who arrived and asked about the process of bringing his wife over. After I was done I thought...hey...this is a pretty good summary! This is it pasted verbatim:

Pretty much all of this depends on getting your Civil ID first. That can take 1-2 months from your arrival. After that it may take another 1-2 months depending on many factors (how fast you can get stuff done, government holidays, etc…). We were very blessed to be able to get it all done in about 2 1/2 months total, but I wouldn't expect that in every case.

The following list is overwhelming, I know. Let me give you some pointers before you go through the whole list:

- Concentrate on the next step
- Always double check what you think you need to do next with multiple sources.
- Don't be discouraged if you get conflicting information from different sources, use your best judgement and pick the most reliable one, then continuously check and recheck your choice at every opportunity.
- Things your wife can and should do *now*:
a) Start the authentication process (see below)
b) Contact the consulate (LA) or embassy (DC) to find out what their requirements for getting the visa info stamped into the passport will be.
c) Begin working on those requirements (i.e. medical exam/police background check)
- Things you can do now (without a civil ID):
a) Research cars and decide what you are going to do there (rent/lease/buy)
b) Research apartments/villas/etc… I was lucky and found the place I knew we had to be pretty quick, but I have some pointers on this if I were to do it again.
c) Depending on your requirements, you may decide it is better to hold off on these things and save money up til closer to when your wife gets here. I didn't do this, but others have, it's a personal preference thing.
d) Start saving as much money as you can towards the fees/postage you are going to have to pay at every step of the process.
- As a round figure, I would estimate that we've spent between $15,000 and $20,000 on total move costs. I had to pull a lot of cash over at times and was able to utilize a friend's local bank account and wire the money over. That's a lot of trust…if you have a better solution for moving lots of cash feel free to use it.

Ok, here's the big list. I have not detailed all the fees along the way. I think I do a better job (if haphazard and disorganized) of documenting that part in my blog entries.

1) Buy/lease/rent a car (this can be an adventure in itself)
2) Find your own place and move out
3) Start claiming your housing/car allowance from ITT (Notify Ish)
4) Authenticate marriage cert: Have your wife start on this ASAP.
a) Contact your State Authentication department and ask what is needed for them to authenticate a Marriage cert. They may direct you to a county first.
b) Get your marriage cert authenticated by the State.
c) Get your marriage cert authenticated by the State Department (federal level).
d) Send the authenticated doc to yourself in Kuwait.
e) Get your marriage cert translated (translators listed on kuwait US Embassy website)
f) Get your marriage cert authenticated by the US Embassy in Kuwait.
g) Get your marriage cert authenticated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs authentication department (you need a 5KD stamp before they'll do it)
5) Family Visa Application
a) Take the authenticated documents along with your Salary cert and work permit (just photocopy everything like 10 times) to the Ahmadi Immigration department (closest one). You'll need to go to a little building and ask for a family visa application (keep in mind this is all for the family visa, which means your wife can not work while here, I do not know about the other types of visas…). They'll type it up for you in arabic (make sure the english spelling of your wife's name is correct!). You then take this to a very hard to find office where a lady takes your papers and gives you an idea of when to come back.
b) When you come back, if everything is in order, you'll take these somewhere else in the same warren of buildings to have it stamped for expediting. BTW, you should be able to estimate by this time when you can expect to be able to bring her over, so you should be able to buy her ticket.
6) Send visa to Consulate or Embassy in the US
a) Then back to the same place you got the license authenticated and things got confusing for me, but eventually someone took me up to an office where they stamped something else and sent it as a fax to the Kuwaiti Consulate in LA (you can either send it there or to the Embassy in DC). This is to help speed the process up, otherwise I think you have to wait for them to mail it. Oh wait, I'm reading my blog again and am reminded that I had to get more "prints" of the visa. I ended up getting these somehow from the office in the Liberation Tower, but I think I may have been able to get them from any Immigration office (i.e. Ahmadi). It was just a simple typed up arabic printout of the visa I think. Maybe it was for faxing so it would transmit better? I dunno. Anyway, after I got that I went back to the authentication office and they did their thing and faxed it.
b) Found out that my wife needed to contact the Consulate and send them her passport, a medical checkup and a police background check. You should be sure to contact them ASAP to find out what exactly they need (it may have changed), and get your wife working on anything she can right now (i.e. checkup/background check). We didn't know about this til the last minute and were biting our fingernails to see if we could get it all done by the time she had to leave.
c) They (consulate/embassy) do something magic to the passport and send it back to your wife and she is now legally allowed to travel to Kuwait. Note that the visa provides for I think 2 months to contact the Immigration department and begin application for Residency and Civil ID (iqama). We decided to hire a local guy who works for KRH to do this part for us and are glad we did. It cost about 50KD per person (my son came over too) for his fee. The actual residency/insurance, etc… was much more.

For the Love of Corn

2008-03-19T08:02:00.003+03:00

I mentioned a while back that I would be doing a post about corn and I finally got around to it. Jesse had mentioned something to me about corn stands before I got here, but he didn't describe them in any detail. I was picturing something like in Kenya where they roast maize on little fires by the side of the road. It's delicious and very, very cheap. Imagine my surprise when, come to find out, they are selling frozen corn emptied from a bag into a pot, heated up with butter and salt and a dash of lemon juice served in a small cup. It is also quite delicious but not at all cheap. Apparently, it's "rich kid food" so these stands are everywhere that kids might be and priced accordingly. It's especially shocking coming from a country where they have to invent new foods just to use up all the excess corn.

So just how expensive is this frozen corn? Let's do a little comparison. At IKEA they have the little food stand just beyond the cash registers, just like in the States. There they sell the corn, and also a chicken shwarma sandwich (picture a hot dog bun stuffed with chicken bits and seasoning, soooo good). The sandwich which contains actual meat and is really yummy will set you back 250 fils. The cup of corn? 400 fils! And this is IKEA so you know it's the cheapest corn you can find. 400 fils is about $1.50. The corn we have in the pictures is from the Science Center so I would imagine the price would be above average. It was 750 fils, which is about $2.75! For a cup of corn! I've been here for two months and I still haven't gotten over the shock.

Look! It's IT Joe!

2008-03-17T09:20:00.002+03:00

And his little sidekick!

Jesse had to haul out his gear the other day so we had fun dressing up and taking pictures. Rowan almost couldn't stand under the weight of it.

Dusty Spring

2008-03-06T05:46:00.002+03:00

I have to concur with Kerri, the weather lately has generally been awesome. Perfect temperatures, not too warm, not too cold. Sunny days, but not too bright. Flowers blooming in the desert, generally ebullant populace.

However, there is one aspect to the weather at this time of year that is not pleasant at all: Dust storms. Apparently, it's a bit worse than usual this year with at least 3 or 4 mild to strong dust storms in the past month or so.

Apparently, under the right conditions, the wind picks up the sand (which is very dusty here) and everything gets hazy...you get dust in your eyes, mouth, and any other orifice you care to imagine. The accumulation rate of dust on the floor and everywhere else quadruples. The worst I've seen it, it was so bad that you could barely see enough to drive, not that anyone slows down or anything. I actually stayed in the office during the worst case all day, not wanting to go outside and breath it. We were worried they would shut down the gates of the base and not let us go home (luckily that didn't happen).

But at least it's not hot yet...

In other news, the car had to go into the shop again. This time it was something in the transmission and was another 400 KD to repair. BMW parts are definitely spendy. But we are back up and running now.

Looking forward to this weekend which should be fun. Abu Khaled has invited us to go to Wafrah, a farming community in southern Kuwait to spend Saturday night. He said we'll have fun at a "jungle" and drink fresh camel's milk. This will be our first time out of Kuwait City and it's suburbs!

When It's Good, It's Very, Very Good . . .

2008-03-03T08:34:00.001+03:00

I'm talking about the weather, of course. I need to write this post so I can look back on it in the summer heat and remember that there are times when I truely love the weather. I guess you could say we are now in Spring. They say it lasts from about mid-Feb to mid-March. I am trying to enjoy every moment of this wonderful weather because it really is amazing. It's too cold to swim, but it's perfect for just sitting outside and enjoying ones self. We don't need the air con, but we have all the windows flung open so the sound and smell of the sea is all around.

The pictures in the slideshow are of the walk we take to go into town. From our place we can walk to an area that has a mall (two really), a big grocery store, other department stores, tons of resturants, small shops and markets. We take this walk very often, of course. On the beach they have all kinds of rides and bouncy castles and such. Unfortunately they are only open in the evening so we haven't been able to go on any of them. The walk is very beautiful non the less and with this amazing weather there are lots of people about and the whole area has a nice family, community feeling about it.

I have to get off topic for a moment and relate a funny Rowan story. Our maid comes on Saturday evenings and Jesse and I go out and leave Rowan home with her. This Saturday when we came home, he showed me how she had cleaned his bathroom. I asked him if he had helped her clean and he said, "Well, not excessively. I just helped a little bit." Where does he come up with this stuff? I truely have no idea.

Death and taxes

2008-02-29T16:35:00.002+03:00

Well, taxes at any rate...

I was quite nervous about taxes for 2007 as this is a partial year in Kuwait for us. Well, we just got our taxes done by ExpatCPA and I've mailed them off. So let me give you the breakdown:

First, they filed an exemption request form to extend our *filing* date for 2007 to Dec 2008. This is to make sure we can meet the Bona Fide resident test for the overseas income exclusion for money earned overseas. Interesting thing is, along with this goes the check for our 2007 Federal taxes...because although we can extend the *filing* deadline, you cannot extend the deadline to *pay* taxes. So we *had* to pay taxes before April 15, but we actually *file* in December 2008. Of course, they handle all the timing of this too.

The 1040 was filled out with the stateside work information, and there was an additional foreign income exclusion form with lots of worksheets that made me very glad I didn't have to do it myself.

They also did our state taxes (Oregon), and it is good to know that Oregon will abide by the federal extension and exclusions.

ExpatCPA has been *mostly* good so far, with some exceptions. The number one thing I appreciate about them is that they have been willing to work with my prickly nature, even if they have made some misteps along the way. First, I selected them because they use a 3rd party secure (SSL) website for entering all the needed information. Once done, they download the info and fill out the tax forms. Unfortunately, at one point I had forgotten my password, so I emailed them requesting an account unlock. They then sent me an email telling me my account had been unlocked, as well as my password in plain text. I had used one of my financial tier passwords and this necessitate that I reset all of my financial website passwords. The person who did this accepted my criticism with appropriate contrition and said he wouldn't do that again. Later, when I needed to send scans of my W-2s, they were kind enough to work with me and utilize FilesAnywhere.com to securely transfer the files. All was great, until they sent me the final pdfs...which they emailed to me! Apparently, they don't see the problem with transmitting documents containing private information such as social security numbers and financial information via an insecure medium such as email. Again, they responded well to my issues and worked with me to change the method for sending the updated docs back to me. They charged about $650 total for the Federal and State ($100 or so for state), which is a pretty good median price. I've seen everything from $30 to $1000, so $650 for peace of mind isn't so bad.

In the process, I asked them if because I had to pay some taxes for last year, didn't I have to pay estimated quarterly taxes for 2008? They said, uh...yeah...and made me out some nice coupons. I spent some time figuring out if I could withhold money from my paycheck in lieu of paying quarterly, but eventually just decided to withhold the money myself and pay the estimated taxes. There will be plenty left over in the taxes fund for anything else that I owe at the end of 2008.

So all in all, feeling pretty good about it now, which is great cuz I was quite worried about it before.

In Light of our Recent Trouble . . .

2008-02-29T08:39:00.000+03:00

I thought this billboard was rather hillarious the first time I saw it. Now I realize that they actually meant it. You can only have a tiny taste of that cupcake. Call me a greedy American but, when it comes to the internet, I'd really rather have the whole cupcake.

Wonderful Weekend

2008-02-28T03:50:00.007+03:00

I keep forgetting to post about what an incredible long weekend we recently had.

On Friday, my Kuwaiti friend Muhammed (abu Khaled), who I met in Fahaheel by chance a couple of months back, invited our family out to dinner in Salmiya. Salmiya is the pointy bit of Kuwait City on the map.

He gave us directions to the "3 palms casino" (really the Palm Palace...must be an arabic thing), which we were able to locate finally near Marina Mall. He showed up in his dishdash (first time I've seen him out of a jogging suit) and with 3 nephews in tow. His sister has been living in the US for some years and his nephews all speak English and were eager to see someone from the States after a year or so of being back in Kuwait. The restaurant was a lovely Lebanese place serving the usual assortment of food we tend to classify here as "arabic" but is apparently derivative of Lebanese. Only this stuff was the best to be had around here. After a (typically apparently) confusing little extended seating ritual involving making sure all the brothers were seated in an age appropriate order, Abu Khaled began ordering stuff right and left, quickly filling the table with little dishes of hummous, moutabel (baba ghanouj), salads, tabbouleh, dolmas, etc, etc.... Piping hot fresh pitas were brought out, puffed up into little round balls, which he then used to serve us various samplings of the dishes. It is fairly expected here that you should serve your guests up with various dishes and I tried to pick up on those cues and do my share of serving too. The brothers were all expected to serve the younger brother, and to keep Rowan's plate full. The brothers were between 8 and 14 I believe. Abu Khaled ordered a couple of shisha pipes with saloum (he calls them 'hubbly bubbly') and we puffed on those through out the evening. Of course we talked a lot about various things, and he again insists he must take us all over the place, starting with some spots here in Kuwait, such as the northern areas, and arranging a trip out to Failaka Island (which his family used to own at one time apparently), and eventually the Emirates, Egypt, and lots of other spots he feels we simply must see. He is really incredibly kind and friendly, and we are very grateful to have met him.

Later on, the real dinner arrived...plates of mixed roasted meats with incredible flavour (chicken, lamb, beef, kebab), which we gorged upon until feeling quite full. The meal lasted several hours and it was almost 11 when we decided to leave. Of course, he insisted on paying for the meal, which we anticipated, but still...I believe the total was over 50KD! At any rate we had a fabulous time and plan on hooking up with Mohammed again when we can. He is currently our only (but an exellent!) contact with actual Kuwaiti's and we hope to meet more of his family if we can.

And that was just Friday night!

We had heard from somewhere that Liberation Tower was going to be open to the public on Saturday...part of the local festivities (National Day, Liberation Day and Hala February). So we had planned on taking the bus (first time as a family) downtown to see if we could go in. The last time we tried to park our car in that area we spent about an hour just trying to find a parking spot. We ended up waiting in a line for a full parking garage for about 30 minutes before we were able to park. So we figured that taking the bus, even if it takes a little longer to get there, was well worth it for not having to park. As I've blogged before, the bus fares are very reasonable at 250 fils per person to ride all the way downtown from Fahaheel, and Rowan was free. We were able to catch a bus right outside on our street and it took about an hour to get to our destination, the KPTC bus station right next to Liberation Tower. We were hungry by that time so walked across the street and found a lovely arabic food restaurant, much much cheaper than the Palm Palace, and had way too much to eat of shawarma meat, hummous and moutabel, plus freshly baked flat-bread of two varieties. Heading over to the Tower it was clear that our information was incorrect and it was not open to the public. In fact even the lower sections were closed for the holiday. Ah well, no trouble, we decided to walk around the area and I showed Kerri some of the other malls/souks I had found in my wanderings. Eventually we made our way back to the bus station and headed back for Fahaheel. The only hiccup in our bus outing was that on the return journey, for some reason the same bus line does not go back along our road, but takes a slightly different route that necessitated walking home some distance. Nothing compared to how much we had already walked...but still...we had already walked a lot. We'll have to figure out how to get dropped off closer to home. Aside from that it was a huge success and Kerri's already talking about how nice it is to feel that sense of freedom of having one's transportation options increase. The taxis are nice enough, but very expensive when going long distances, and unfortunately I have to have the car to get to work as there are no other people we know at our compound that I can carpool with. We experienced no strange looks or uncomfortable situations on the bus and she is feeling very confident about being able to use the bus system to get around.

That evening was Saturday and the maid we have employed comes in later on Saturday at 4pm and stays til 8pm. This is so that Kerri and I can go out once a week by ourselves and leave Rowan at home (woot!). After living downtown Portland for several years and not having any regular babysitting options it is really nice to be able to have that one evening a week where we can just get away for a while. So that Saturday we decided to walk directly into Mangaf instead of down to Fahaheel where we have been going, and do some good old fashioned exploring. First I had to show Kerri the Bebo juice place that is so close to us and have some yummy juice. Then we went further afield through the strangely run-down building blocks, past some small butcheries, and eventually stumbled across one of the greatest finds so far! In one small shop was a counter filled with inset large pots with lids on them. Eventually the proprieter appeared, speaking very little English, and he began to lift pot lids revealing various stew-like mixtures made from who knows what, except that they smelled delicious. Also he had fool beans and garbanzo (chickpeas) beans all cooked and ready to buy. A generous container of each item costing only 300 fils. We were very pleased with this find and started back down the road, only to find next door a hot kiln-like oven and men baking fresh large flatbread, somewhat Iranian style, but with a little more thickness. 200 fils buys you a huge stack (10-15) which you then wrap up in a newspaper and take away with you. We immediately resolved to eat from these places as soon as possible. We continued our walk, which was pleasant, all the way to Mekka road and back down to Fahaheel, through the souks there, stopping only to smoke some shisha at a (literally) back alley shisha spot. From there back to the Coast road, and then to our place. We arrived right at 8pm (for the first time staying out the entire time!) knowing our calf muscles would be sore the next few days from all the walking we'd done, but still had a great time. We didn't need dinner due to the huge lunch previously.

Sunday was our jaunt downtown to Wataniya headquarters, and from there to Marina Mall where I needed to buy some new shoes (my old ones being in such a state of disrepair that they are literally coming apart at the seams). I ended up buying some casual Ecco shoes which are a bit tight, but I'm assured they will loosen up eventually. I had been looking around at the cheap stores, but was unable to find the style I like, and when it comes to shoes, I literally wear them til they fall apart, so this is one area where hunting for a bargain is not the best way to do things. Luckily the shoes I got were of last year's set so I got them on a Hala Feb sale for 29KD.

We drove home for lunch as we wanted to try the bread/stew combination from that nearby spot in Mangaf. Rowan and I walked over there this time and I got 3 different stews to try them all, and 200 fils worth of bread. We ate the delicious food for lunch, dinner, and some more the next day.

Monday (which was a holiday for me) we continued our quest to locate a place to buy the benches we want for our porch. Our porch is *huge* and gets lots of shade during the day, so we want to put the type of benches usually found outside the shisha places. These are long, tall benches with wide seats and cushions in a particular red, black and white pattern that appears to be common here. We'd like to get 3 of them and arrange them in a horseshoe on our porch so we have a comfy spot to sit outside that is easy to maintain.

Unfortunately, we have been having a hard time finding out where to buy these benches that appear to be everywhere. We looked a little bit at Friday Market once (not much, we were there for the first time and quite overwhelmed) and have asked a few people in Fahaheel. Most are quite puzzled by the question, but we did get the tip to look at the Fahaheel metalworks area. There are several shops near the auto/mechanics area that make various metal things such as bannisters and tables. We stopped over there and asked around, having to describe what we were looking for. One quite was 40KD per bench, and a carpenter quoted us 50KD per bench. This is a little steeper than we were hoping for. But a guy here at work (Pakistani born, but raised in Kuwait) has told me that if we go back to Friday Market and look around more, we may find some there, perhaps also in the used furniture area. He has told me that the term for these chairs is "outside diwaniya" bench (directly translated), and he wrote the description down for me as well as drew a little picture of the chair for my use in talking to people, which should come in handy when we go back this coming weekend.

Otherwise Monday was pretty uneventful and restful. Nice to veg out a bit in preparation for returning to work. Although it was a 3 day weekend it, it was so much fun it felt more like I got a whole week off!

I'll try to be better about posting more regularly so my posts aren't so freaking long.

I do not think it means what you think it means

2008-02-26T10:41:00.003+03:00

I thought some might appreciate our recent experience with customer service here in Kuwait.

In the US, we have not had a television for years, preferring to download our TV from the Internet. So aside from the usual email, bank sites, and blogs we read regularly, it is also our primary source of at home entertainment and a critical link to everything back in the States.

When I first arrived I tried the options available from our rental office and none of them were worth the money as they were almost unuseable for simple browsing. I finally broke down and went with one of the 2 mobile providers here in Kuwait: Wataniya. Wataniya's aircard service provided speeds of up to 3.2 Mbps, and the plan was unlimited data download, and I explicitly asked concerning limitations and was told there were none. We got a winter special on the sign on fee and hardware costs, so I thought we were set. The downloading began!

A month or so ago, everyone in the Middle East was hit by the cable cuts. We were affected too, and for several weeks had either no service, or very slow service. We were unable to download any TV for that time, but we had plenty stockpiled so were ok. Numbers of friends of ours were dissatisfied with Wataniya's service during this time as they heard from others that the competitor's service (Zain) was up and functional long before Wataniya's stabilized. I believe Zain is actually Vodafone, which may mean they had greater resources for re-routing the traffic.

However we stuck to our guns, not least because Wataniya had us in a 6 month minimum contract which meant paying the difference on our hardware if we broke it. By the way, both services cost approximately the same each month, around 30KD or $110. Zain's maximum speeds are7.2 Mbps, but in reality the Internet connection is much lower, but enough to get things done. After about a month, Wataniya's service returned to its pre-cut levels and we were pleased with our decision to stay with them...until...

About 3 days ago, we received a telephone call from Wataniya telling us that due to customer complaints in the area we live, they were dropping our connection that very night! The person said there was nothing to be done. We could go down to a branch office in a nearby mall and ask tomorrow. We were stunned, but there was nothing we could say that would change this person's mind. Sure enough, 1 hour later, our aircard started getting rejected.

Luckily, it was the start of a long weekend, so the next day we went straight to the Wataniya kiosk in the mall and ask (nicely) WTF is going on? The mall guys were stunned, they had never seen this before. I saw one look up the code on our account and read an internal circular titled "customer abuse", but ultimately they told me I had to go downtown Kuwait and visit the head office. Of course, this was Friday, which is the start of the weekend here, so I had to go on Sunday.

Skip to 2 (internet-less) days later, and we are at Tech Support in the Wataniya head office. They look my account up and chat back and forth in Arabic for several minutes. Much concern is expressed. Finally they tell me that it appears that due to a new internal policy, they have dropped the most heavy users of the unlimited data plan, and that we can return on Wednesday to receive our reimbursement for how much we have paid ahead. I expressed my stunned disbelief, but was met with unbending resolution. The guy said that it appeared around 214 other users had been dropped as well. They just terminated the contract and blacklisted the SIM cards. I told him that this was unnacceptable and did he realize he was basically begging me to go to their competitor, and he said yes, he understood that, but there was nothing to be done.

We were incensed, and resolved immediately to find a Zain outlet and get set up. It took a while as this is a holiday season, but we found one at the Airport Mall and signed on. It cost 60KD for the hardware and 6 KD for the rest of February, but we were able to defray the cost with the saved up 30KD for next month's internet bill and the expected 22KD refund from Wataniya. It was a quick and painless process, but not without some interest. I was very specific about asking if there were any hidden limits in their "super unlimited" package (noting the asterisks and the "Fair usage applies"note). The representative said that Fair Usage means up to 30gb. At which time they clamp down on the bandwidth provided so that it is possible to browse the web, but not practical to download TV and such. I pointed out the brochure description where it said the Super Unlimited package allowed "downloading media all day with no restrictions" and asked if that jived with the "Fair Usage" restrictions, and he admitted that it didn't, but didn't seem concerned by such terms as "false advertising." This is Kuwait after all.... I asked if there was a way to monitor our usage statistics and he said the software provided did have a statistics counter that could be reset each month if we desired. When I asked to see the limitations written down (couldn't find them in the contract) he could not provide them, which seemed...odd, but oh well. At least we were getting internet and wouldn't be cut off permanently when we hit the lijmit on the unlimited plan.

All this reminds me of a quote by Inigo Montoya from A Princess Bride: "You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." The word here being "unlimited." I'd heard of unlimited plans for cell phones containing hidden limits, and the odd story of people running torrent trackers and hub sites being axed due to excessive bandwidth, but while we may be heavy users, we are not in that category. There doesn't appear to be anything to be done about it though, except to tell our story and warn everyone we know away from Wataniya's data service if they plan to download lots of data. When it becomes practical, we plan on switching our cell phone service over to Zain as well. It's the only way we have to express our displeasure in a way they might understand.

The Rules of the Road (with pictures!)

2008-02-26T08:39:00.002+03:00

As Jesse mentioned in an earlier post, I have started driving and I seem to be adjusting to the way things work just fine. I haven't yet had any near death experiences and finding my way around town is much easier than I thought it would be. The pictures in the slideshow might give you some idea of the problems that the Kuwaiti government faces in trying to make people obey the traffic laws. I just hope that some of the suggestions pack a bigger punch in Arabic.

The main problem is, of course, the speed at which people decide to disregard the rules. I have been in a lot of places where no one obeys the "rules" at all. Usually when you have this kind of chaos the traffic is so jammed that it's impossible to go faster than 25mph, so loss of life and limb is greatly reduced. Because we have these nice wide roads going every which way and a small population, you don't usually run into traffic jams, which means that all of the manuvering and competing to get ahead happens at lightning speeds making loss of life and limb very likely. There are a few (ok, maybe one) rules that people do follow (the only one I can think of is stopping at red lights).

Some of our favorite common practices are:
Driving between two lanes. You know, to keep your options open.
Stopping anywhere you darn well please (a round about, the middle of the road, etc.) putting on your hazards and getting out of the car to do whatever it is you need to do. We call these the "magic flashers" because no one ever gets told to move.
Driving inches behind a car flashing your headlights trying to get the car in front to move out of your way.
The list could go on, but you get the idea.

It's more like playing a video game than driving. But like I said, I haven't had any bad experiences and seem to get along just fine. It's all part of the adventure!

We're Doing Science and We're Still Alive

2008-02-14T09:17:00.004+03:00

Rowan loves science. It's definitely his favorite subject and he wants to do experiments all the time. We got a hold of a bunch of old Bill Nye the Science Guy videos and he watches them over and over. So yesterday he was taking a bath and he managed to sneak in a small piece of coral that we had found on the beach. I was curious why he wanted to bath with coral and he told me that he wanted to see if barnacles would grow on it if he left it in the water long enough. What could I do? I let him keep the coral and conduct the experiment. Alas, no barnacles formed and he decided that it might just be something that happens in the ocean. Oh, the things we do in the name of science!

In other news, we finally hired a maid! She is a lovely lady from Sri Lanka. She is coming five days a week in the afternoons. She cleans and also cooks our evening meal. She is an excellent cook and a really hard worker, I couldn't be more pleased. She comes on Saturday evening and stays with Rowan so we can go out! All this for the bargain price of $200 a month! Well worth it since keeping the dust down means cleaning all the floors and dusting everything every day. We were laughing the other day that we can have a maid, but we can't afford Starbucks! Labor is one of the cheap things in this country.

The weather is starting to warm up a bit and being outside is a real pleasure. We go out and play at the beach for hours and people are starting to come out a bit more. I've been meeting more of our neighbors and seeing a lot more kids about. Once it finally gets warm enough to swim I'm sure we will get to know all of the kids around here.

Our internet is slowly but surely getting back to normal. I was afraid it would never be the same, but I think it's getting there. Let's just hope no more cables get cut. That's all the news for now.

Sick, sick and more sick

2008-02-11T03:34:00.000+03:00

It started with Rowan a few weeks back. The day he got his PPD test and another shot, he started coming down with something. Fevers, chills, sleeping all the time. It developed into a nasty cold/cough thing. Fevers went away and we thought we were in the clear...then it came back, went away, came back again.

Finally we took him to the doctor. That day I came home early cuz I wasn't feeling too well and I wanted to be there when we first went to the doctor (German Clinic, nearby us). It was an interesting experience...they don't take our insurance, so we had to pay up front and get reimbursed later (our insurance is pretty awesome about that). The doctor (a woman from Indian I think) managed to poke and prod Rowan a bit, though he was very much not being cooperative. He was very unhappy to be there and was quite worried he might get a shot or something (recent experiences), and in general is a miserable child when sick. Not pleasant to be around at all. She said it was probably just allergies to the dust. After she asked if he had drunk chocolate milk, cuz that sometimes caused allergic reactions in kids. Huh. Not exactly confidence inspiring. Anyway, she prescribed some antibiotics (for dust allergies?) and some expectorant, put him on a nebullizer for a bit, then sent us home.

I went to sleep upon going home and stayed that way the entire afternoon, then went to sleep again that night. Woke up feeling awful, but went to work anyway as I had something important to work on that day. Having completed that, I stayed home the next day (friday) and slept most of it. I had the fever/chills thing going on, coughing, etc... yeehaw.

Saturday I felt a bit better so went out with Kerri and Rowan to IKEA and to try and go grocery shopping. I barely survived that, walking around like a zombie all day. Oh, I forgot...Friday night I woke up in the middle of the night and had to throw up. Dry heaves. No idea why. I suspect the nighttime flu meds I took. Blech.

Sunday I said I wasn't going anywhere and stayed home with Rowan while Kerri got out and did some shopping. She'll have more to say about that I'm sure. Still felt pretty weird all day Sunday, could barely keep my eyes open til bedtime.

Rowan is doing better, no more fever/chills, but still coughing like crazy. My cough is much better, no more fever/chills, just bone weary and sleepy. Well that was yesterday (sunday), today is monday morning, 3:45am, and I'm off to work, so I'm going to say that I'm all better now as I have to be.

The Cable Is Out

2008-02-04T07:08:00.001+03:00

Just a quick note here to explain the lack of posts. It seems as though we are having a little "undersea cable" trouble. In case you haven't heard the news, two cables under the Mediteranian Sea were cut. Apparently another one just off of Dubai in the Gulf was also cut a few days later. This has meant either painfully slow internet or no internet at all. They are esitmating Feb. 12th will be the day we get back to normal, but we'll see about that. So if you don't hear from us and we don't respond to your emails, that is the reason. I'll let you know when we are back to normal.

No Photos, Again.

2008-01-28T08:02:00.000+03:00

I am having a little trouble with putting photos on the blog. It has something to do with this little announcement:

The latest from Blogger Buzz
Three new languages and a whole new direction for Blogger
January 17, 2008 — permalink
We are excited to announce that Blogger is now available in three more languages: Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian!

Now everything in Blogger shows up in Arabic for me. I can make a post because I know where to click, but photos are a whole different story. Now I know you are all thinking, "surely you can change the language settings" and I'm sure I can. I just haven't, so deal. I have, however, taken some pictures so I will put them up as soon as I figure it out.

Speaking of taking pictures, it's not a easy as you would think. People are funny about it and really don't like their pictures taken, even inadvertantly. Photography is discouraged inside most buildings which makes it difficult to take pictures of my favorite thing, funny signs. One of my current favorites is in IKEA. "Ladies toilet and prayer room".

In other news, Rowan has been sick all week so we have been staying home. He is on the mend now and we are both ready to get out of here. Today is Jesse's friday, so we will be going out tonight. We got a couch! A nice one that we love. I will post a picture. Our house is slowly coming together. This weekend it will be time to start searching for curtains and rugs. We are going to go to some of the markets or "souqs" to look for that kind of stuff. I also found out that we have a Sears! Apparantly you can get clothes at decent prices. I was beginning to think that I would have to order all our clothes from the States because the prices here (in the malls at least) are so outragous.

There is a family here in our complex that also homeschools. The guy works with Jesse and they have two kids, 5 and 7. Rowan gets along great with them and they seem to be really nice kids. The 7 year old is a boy! They had a little get together this week and invited all the people from the office that have kids. It was great to meet other people and we had a really nice time. It could become a regular thing, especially as the weather gets warmer and we can use the pools. We catch ourselves complaining about the cold weather, knowing full well that when it's hot, we will long for the days of winter.

That is pretty much everthing that has happened to us this week. If I keep writing, I'll have to go into my battle with the dust, and that just doesn't make for very good reading. I promise I'll work on the picture issue. If any of you (and you know who you are) already know what I should do to solve my language issues, you can feel free to post instructions in the comments.

Medical Exams

2008-01-22T07:38:00.000+03:00

The bureaucracy is far from over. Rowan and I now have two months in which to complete our residency. It's a little disheartening since we just got done with the mad dash to get the visas and dependant status. Now we basically have to start all over again. We have decided to go ahead and hire someone to walk us through the process. He makes all the arrangements, picks us up and takes us where we need to go, does all the translation and generally makes things a whole lot easier. This service does not come cheap, but I do think it's well worth it. The guy we hired works for Jesse's company a lot and others have used him so we know he is trustworthy.

Yesturday he picked us up and took us to the place where they do the medical exams. This was by far the shabbiest building I have seen in Kuwait. It was a government building, so it made perfect sense! Our guy dropped us off, told us to take a seat and that he had to run to the Immigration office and he would be back. What he didn't tell me was that he had to do the immagration thing before we could proceed with the medical exams. So Rowan and I sat there for over an hour not having any clue what was going on. People came and went and no one waited as long as we did. He finally came back and we were able to proceed.

The medical exam only consisted of drawing some blood and a chest x-ray. They wanted to know if Rowan had been vaccinated for TB, but they called it something else. I just kept saying "what" over and over until they finally took off his shirt and looked for the impression that the shot leaves. There was no impression so they had to do the skin test. He was not amused. They didn't take his blood and I'm worried that they will do that when he goes back to get the skin test read. I don't know if I'll be able to hold him down.

They took my blood and then ushered me to a changing room where the lady said "take everything off". She didn't give me a gown to wear or anything. I went in the dressing room and saw a gown hanging there, to my relief. I started to take everything off and someone yells, "not your trousers!" Yes, I do realize that you don't have to take off your pants for a chest x-ray, I was just flustered by the lack of gown, and she did say to take everything off. I put my pants back on the got the gown on. I then realized that those coming back from the x-ray room were changing back into their clothes and hanging the gowns on hooks in the dressing room. Guess where I got my gown? Yes, from a hook. At that point, I didn't really care that I was wearing a used gown, I just wanted to get it over with.

At the end of the day, it all worked out just fine and our medical exams are over. At least the rest is just sitting in boring offices, no needles involved.

First Impressions

2008-01-17T19:02:00.000+03:00

We have been here for about a week now and I thought I should jot down a few of my first impressions of the place. First of all, it's cold! I mean really, really cold. This morning it was below freezing. It's really sunny and beautiful and, of course, dry so we Oregonians think we need to spend as much time outside as possible before it rains. The fact is, it's just too cold. We tried to take Rowan to play at a park the other day and we could only make it for about 10 minutes.

2. The roads are really nice. I don't know why this impressed me so much, but it did. I guess I wasn't expecting really nice roads. There are freeways everywhere. They are wide and nicely paved and clearly marked. Now, more about the driving and all the hilarious stuff you can see while driving on these nice roads will have to be a whole post in itself. I need a whole host of visuals to go with it.

3. I'm sure you are all wondering about the whole "woman" thing. So far I haven't had any trouble. I feel 100% comfortable walking around in my "western" attire with no head covering. There are so many people from all over the world here and, as far as I can tell, only Muslims wear the coverings. I'm sure I'll have more to report on this subject as time goes by.

4. This entire country seems to be all about kids. It's amazing. Everywhere you go there are kid friendly activities. I don't think I've ever seen so many playgrounds (at the grocery store) and carnival rides in my life. It's like one big Fun Land. I have heard people say it's a good place to raise kids, but I didn't know how much they would accommodate children. At least we won't have to worry about never having anything to do.

5. I will leave you with this last thought: Corn. I will do an entire post on corn just as soon as I can take some pictures. Let's just say it's a big deal.

We Are Here! We Are Here!

2008-01-14T07:29:00.000+03:00

We finally made it and all in one piece! I'm sorry we have been so neglectful of the blog recently, but I did want to report that we made it to Kuwait and are so happy to be here. Jesse was able to have a total of five days off, so we are trying to make the most of them. It is so nice to be a family again. Our apartment is amazing. I think we are really going to love living here. The only problem is that we have no furniture to speak of. We are working on this issue but it's not as easy as I thought it would be. Everything is incredibly expensive here. It was a very depressing moment when I realized that $100 dollars is only a measley 28kd. We bought the cheapest stove we could find for around 50kd. That gives you some idea of how hard it is going to be to furnish an entire house. I guess that's why God invented credit cards.

As soon as we get more settled I will give a better account of life so far. Right now I just want a place to sit down!

Have Visa, Will Travel

2008-01-05T20:22:00.000+03:00

I can't even believe it myself, but we are actually going to leave for Kuwait on Jan. 10th as scheduled. On Thursday morning I started getting calls from various agencies that had things I needed. Everything was done! I gathered it all and got ready to send it overnight to the Kuwait Consulate. I called before I sent it to ask if they really could get it done fast enough, or if I should change my ticket.

A brief word about the Consulate of Kuwait in LA. I have never before met more helpful and courteous government officials in all of my life. The first time I called I had expected to be given the run around with the automated answering system and then put on hold forever. Instead, a real person answered the phone and directed me to the appropriate person. Within two sentences, this guy knew who I was (he had the faxes Jesse sent) and what I needed. He gave me his name and told me to contact him anytime I had questions. I did need to call him a few more times and he always knew who I was when I gave my name. He went above and beyond to help me. I do have an idea that the LA branch of the Consulate of Kuwait is not a terribly busy place. Not high tourist season or something . . .

Back to the story. The guy says that if I sent the stuff overnight and he got it all on Friday, he would turn it around and send it back the SAME DAY and I would get it Saturday. Well, it's Saturday and I'm going to Kuwait on Jan. 10th. He called me from the FedEx place to tell me he was sending it and wanted me to call him when it arrived. I'm sure I sound like a blubbering idiot on the phone, but how do you thank a guy enough for saving the day!

Now I guess I need to go pack or something!

Good news/bad news

2008-01-04T05:46:00.000+03:00

The good news is that the police report was done early and Kerri was able to pick it up and mail the whole package to the Kuwaiti Consulate yesterday. So it looks like they may be able to leave on time! We were telling each other that it was possible they might make it without changing the tickets, but it would take a miracle... ;-)

The bad news in the world is of course Kenya... where my cousin Josh and his wife Audra are currently living in Nairobi. Please keep them and the country in your prayers.

Home stretch

2007-12-31T09:36:00.000+03:00

Kerri called the Kuwaiti Consulate in LA as soon as she could to find out what she needed to do. They told her they had received the fax and that all they needed from here was a medical "exam" (any doctor would do, just a general good health check), Rowan's immunization records, and a police report on Kerri.

Others at work told me I needed to send one of the 2 copies of the visa that the immigration office gave me, so I had Kerri call the consulate to ask, and oops, yes, they need that too. I was able to fedex them over pretty cheap (6KD) using 2 day shipping.

The part that may delay things is now the police report, which apparently takes 7-10 days. If it does take longer than Kerri's leaving date, we'll just have to change the tickets which luckily will only cost $25 each.

We're almost there!

My kingdom for a decent Internet connection!

2007-12-26T17:45:00.000+03:00

This morning it was down to the Shuwaikh Authentication department once again, got there 15 minutes early as I was told quite forcefully yesterday that they were only open from 8-9. Then I proceeded to wait til 9:55 when finally the group of us waiting all converged on the guy who showed up. Everyone else handed him their stuff, and then I explained what I needed. He spoke very little english but seemed to understand what needed to be done. He took the stack of papers and beckoned me to follow him upstairs. There he took my papers, made some stamps on them, then copied them, and handed them back to me, keeping the copies. These I am told have been faxed as of 12 noon today to the Los Angeles Kuwaiti Consulate.

I was finally able to get a hold of Kerri and get her the information of the consulate and ask her to contact them and see what can be done while she is in LA. We'll see what comes of that.

Having started the day off so well, I did some sightseeing and drove up north to Doha. I thought I'd drop in on Entertainment City, but it is closed til around 4pm apparently. I kept driving til I ran into the gulf and turned around.

Decided to swing by IKEA so I could buy some mugs (150 fils each) as yesterday I bought some kitchen items including a coffee maker and hot water boiler. Oh and a microwave. Anyway, this morning I made coffee and when it was done I realized I had nothing to drink it in. So I made do with an empty water bottle, but still, mugs are nice. While there of course I picked up a few other things, including a present for Kerri that I know she will like. Of course I was there for the shawarmas which I have to say are some of the best in town. The huge bottles of tahini are what really cinch the deal. Also my free coffee that I get due to my IKEA card is going to run out at the end of the year.

IKEA is attached to the Avenues mall so afterward I went over there to see if there were any movies worth watching. I'd heard a lot about The Golden Compass and wanted to try out the theater experience here, so I bought a ticket (2.5KD). One odd aspect is that the front 5 or 6 rows are reserved for families only. So you have to pick the seat you want when you buy your ticket. Anyone who knows me and movies knows I like to sit about the 4th row back in the center, so I was a bit worried, but the place I ended up sitting was just fine. The theater was immaculate, no smell of popcorn or children (somehow those two things always seem to go together). The seats were quite comfortable too. The movie itself was interesting enough, though very rushed, especially towards the end, and there were just too many improbable occurances that just strained my credulity too much. By the end I was rolling my eyes and any suspension of disbelief was impossible, especially given the main thrust of the movie. The kid with the main role did very well acting wise, though I have to say I didn't actually like her character. Still, I have to compliment the direction for refusing to sweeten it too much, which is all too common these days. There were some great characters throughout the story, but again each got so little time to develop and interact that I felt a bit cheated. As for all the controversy, yes it's clear where all this is headed. I do wish Pullman had kept his attack to general religiosity which I loathe about as much as he probably does. But to associate all Christianity (though he claims it is all religions he opposes) with a very one-dimensional portrayal of some of its worst aspects hardly smacks of a fair fight. Then again, I'm sure that's precisely the point I'm sure. I am interested to read the books someday.

Also finally bought a new internet solution today. The one available through the apartments was not sufficient to hold a skype conversation, let alone download the TV we are accustomed to watching. The cell companies here (ZAIN and Wataniya) both offer aircard solutions, and since I was already with Wataniya and had good coverage in the apartment I went with them. Also there is an end of year deal (everything is on sale at the end of the year) where got the USB aircard for 35KD instead of 65KD, and the monthly rate is 28KD. Pretty spendy, but it's the only option left. It's also a 6 month commitment or we pay back the difference. Oh well...

After I got home I set about setting the thing up, and more importantly figuring out how to get my Wii to utilize the darn thing. They claimied I could not share it out...but they were only half right! For some reason, I cannot share it out when using my wireless card in my computer. But when I disable my wireless card and plug directly in with the wired network card, I can share the aircard out no problem. Weird... So my wii can now use it just fine! And I'm downloading the latest episode of Denno Coil which is almost 3/4 done already. Took me 4 days at Al Manshar.

Can't recall if I mentioned it yesterday, but I also opened a bank account at NBK. I had the rent money on hand so went down to see if I could use it to open an account. Ended up getting a savings account that requires at least 100KD in order to avoid charges (2KD a month). I had 500KD so I put that in there and will get another 100KD in soon so when I pay rent there will still be 100KD in there. The main reasons to do this are 2 fold: 1) The KNET card (debit) that I get will allow me to pay rent without walking around with wads of cash in my pocket, and 2) I will be able to deposit some of my paycheck directly in the account which will be much much easier than doing the withdrawal dance on base which takes many days and is tough to remember to do. Also (3) if we need to transfer a large sum of money from the states it is much easier and faster to do a wire.

Ok, that's all the news. I'm gonna go out on the porch and smoke a cigar before heading to bed. Gnight all!

Vehicle registration renewal and more visa stuff

2007-12-25T13:02:00.000+03:00

This morning I headed back to Ahmadi to see if the visas were ready and to re-register my vehicle which was due to expire on Jan 4. Turns out the visas were ready, so I double checked the info and found a typo on Kerri's last name. The lady had me go back to the typists and pay for another application (in the states I would have protested having to pay for their mistake, but here, 500 fils wasn't worth it at the moment). Also needed more copies of her passport (had them handy) and my civil Id. I took these back and the lady did whatever it is she does and presto...they were ready. I asked again about the "faxing" to the Kuwaiti Embassy in the Us and the lady sent me down the hall to find the cashiers office and ask for "hossein" for a stamp, then to go to the ministry of foreign affairs and they would do it. I eventually found Hossein and he got my visas stamped. After this I got the registration renewed, but more about that later. Eventually I found myself headed back to downtown Kuwait and the Ministry of Foreign affairs, which I did know the way to after finding it last time. Once again, they sent me to the Shuwaikh office where I got the documents authenticated. After some frustrating amount of time getting someone to understand what I needed, I was told that I needed another "print" of both of the visas, and to come back with those tomorrow between 8 and 9am. Where to get these "prints"? They sent me to the passport agency by the airport. Here I was sent to the next building where there were plenty of blank stares all around. One person even said I did not need to send the documents to the Us at all...

I finally called up my friend at work who has helped lots of people do this before, and he said I was supposed to have gone to the ministry of foreign affairs office on the 2nd floor of the Liberation Tower. Since I seemed at a bit of a dead end, I decided to head there next. Finally I got someone who seemed to know something for sure, such as the fact that I had gone to the correct place (i.e. Shuwaikh) which is a recent change explaining why my friend kept saying I shouldn't have to go there. Also, the Liberation Tower office definitely does *not* do the authentication and faxing services. He said I could go back to Ahmadi and get the "prints" I needed. I was not too keen, so he sent me downstairs to the ministry of something I have forgotten, and someone there produced the "prints" which turns out are just arabic printouts of the same information on the visas (which are also in Arabic). He also suggested strongly that I get copies of the visas made as I shouldn't hand the other 2 originals over for the faxing process. He said to go back tomorrow to Shuwaikh as instructed between 8 and 9am for the faxing. I asked him about the medical exam needed in the states and he seemed puzzled, but had no info. He did say that they would offer me a choice of embassies to choose from, and apparently there is one in Los Angeles, which could be very fortuitous as Kerri is down there right now. I plan to call them tonight to wish Merry Christmas an all that humbug, and also to warn Kerri that she might need to make some room to go see a doctor. We'll see...

Back to the car registration. This is as much for my own memory since I'll have to do it again next year as it is for anyone else who may be interested. Fortunately, the traffic department is located in the same group of buildings as the Ahmadi Ministry of Immigration. So I was able to walk right over to the place I'd gotten my eye "exam" for my drivers license and start asking people where to go for registration renewal. I should mention that I had already purchased my liabilty insurance (the minimum required) for the next year. This was done at a little shop right down by the Al Manshar/al Kout area last night, for the amazingly cheap price f 20kd. That's for the *year*! Anyway, after finding the place I needed to be at the traffic department, I was told that I needed to go to he "testing" area to get my car tested. This took some more findng and asking around, but eventually I found I had to drive my car in a line, have somone stamp my insurance forms, then another guy walked around the vehicle (the "test"), stamp my papers again, then one more stamp and presto I was ready to go back to the first office. Now I was told to purchase a 5kd stamp from one of the ubiquitous stamp vending machines (same stamps I bought for the authentication docs) affix it, and hand it all in. I then waited about 5 minutes and was handed my new registration. There was a handy booth outside for laminating it (a custom here apparently) and now my car is registered for another year! Which means I can finally start into the equally bewildering process of getting it registered on base so my co-workers don't have to keep picking me up just outside.

Lots done today so I'm quite pleased, and hope that tomorrow goes equally as well.

Oh, one other thing. The refrigerator was delivered today and it fits perfectly under the counter. If we find the freezer to be inadequate, we can always buy a small one later.

Maligayang Pasko sa inyong lahat!
(that's "merry christmas to you all" in tagalog, at least as well as I can remember)

Company Parties Suck

2007-12-23T18:25:00.000+03:00

Last night was the the official christmas party for my contract's group of people. We were *strongly* urged to attend. Since I had managed to avoid all the other parties, I decided to show up for 1 hour (7-8pm) as I had to get next morning and wanted at least 6 hours of sleep. It was at the Hilton Hotel which is actually very nice here, so my expectations were quite high. It was a pretty big disappointment in terms of food (the only thing to look forward to) and of course I am horrible at these functions. I was the first one there, and after almost 45 minutes some people I knew finally showed up so at least I wasn't standing in a corner looking awkward. 8 o'clock quickly rolled around and I left with only a few nuts and some dorito chips eaten (the rest of the food hadn't been brought out yet). I found out later that they ran out of food and only some people got to eat at all. I don't usually eat dinner on weeknights so I wasn't terribly hungry, but got a small kabab sandwich on the way home. And some moutabal, which I finally found out is baba ghanouj the way I like it! Anyway, after I left I heard there were the usual speeches by management about what a great year it had been and how we were gonna have another great year, blah blah blah. Apparently the party went on til 10pm and they told those who had stayed that they could arrange to come in late the next day if it was ok with the team leads. Bah. Still, glad I left when I did. Since people are getting time off, my boss let me go home early today, and I finally bit the bullet and bought a little fridge which will be delivered in two days on my weekend. It's hard not to buy things right now as there are great sales on for the holiday season. Some items as much as half off.

By the way, I'm writing this post using my Wii. Recently they updated the Opera browser to support USb (weird can't make that last b capital) keyboards, so at last it's practical to check email and do other stuff. Still wish for tabbed browsing and such, but hey, this is still pretty cool.

Kerri and Rowan are off to Disney Land for Christmas so I won't be talking to them for a week or so. This weekend I hope to get the visa thing figured out and also register my car and get it insured.

On a slightly more...delicate subject...I've been experiencing, shall we say...a frequent need to visit the bathroom at work for the last few weeks. I bring this up only to note that when I first got here I had no such trouble, but I *think* I may have figured out why. I was buying the yoghurt drink you can find in all stores here called Laban. It's not salty like the stuff I really love, but still it's basically yoghurt in a drinkable form. Anyway, since I moved into the new apartment, I haven't bought any as I have not had a refrigerator to ensure it doesn't go bad. Well since I've thought of that I'm going back to that habit of drinking one each morning, and I'm hoping it will take care of my "personal problems." I'll be sure to let everyone know...

On that note, gnight...

}-]

Upgrades

2007-12-19T17:14:00.000+03:00

Finally bought a washing machine yesterday. Interesting thing here is that there is an option I've never seen available in the states, called a "semi-automatic" washing machine. I'd seen them before and been very curious. Now I was even more curious as they can have much larger capacities and be nearly half the price of a regular fully automatic washing machine. I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy one new so that I could have it delivered (4 flights of stairs by myself? I don't think so). 56KD for the machine, 10KD for delivery on the day of purchase. That last was unexpected, they usually deliver for free, but not the day of, and the next day was the start of the holiday of Eid. So I forked for it. Anyway, when the guys showed up later, they put it into the kitchen, plugged it in, and said their job was done. I said hold on a minute, how 'bout hooking it up to the water supply? They said they didn't do that part as it wasn't really essential, and anyway, there was no hose attachment that came with the machine. I was a bit torqued by this, and set off back to Al Ghanim to ask where do I get a hose. They said they didn't sell one (naturally), but I shouldn't have any trouble finding one in the nearby souks of Fahaheel. Off I went, from one souk to the next til I finally found something that looked like it might work if I chopped off one end. This I took home and was pleased that at least the one end fit the faucet, and the other end fit inside the tube supplying water to the machine. Unfortunately, I needed a wrench to tighten the faucet connection, so it was not til that evening that I was able to borrow one and get some plumber's tape to finally secure the connection. Thus my first load yesterday was performed by filling up a bucket at the sink and dumping water into the washing machine section til it filled to the appropriate amount...3 times (wash, and 2 rinses). So, by "semi-automatic" I can now say with experience that the 2 things automated are: 1) The agitation of the water and clothes and 2) the spinning of the clothes which gets them about 60% dry. Basically the two actually labour intensive parts of the wash process. All other steps (filling with water, draining, filling again for rinsing, draining again, moving clothes to the spin tub, etc... these all require the intervention of a human being, which has the effect of tying one to the machine for the duration of the wash. It's a much more interactive experience to say the least. While certainly an upgrade from hand washing clothes, it's a far cry from my previous experiences of tossing the clothes and soap in, pushing some buttons and coming back to a finished load. Nonetheless, there is something kind of fun and visceral about it, and overall I'm pleased with it so far. I had already discussed the possibility with Kerri and she had been amenable, to answer the question in everyone's minds at this point.

My other adveture yesterday was going to IKEA and purchasing some needed upgrades to the sleeping situation in preparation for Kerri's arrival (i.e. a mattress). I was disappointed to find that it appears you cannot buy a queen size mattress there for under 60KD, which is quite a lot for what you would be getting at the low end. AS-IS to the rescue! I found a queen size decent mattress with supposed "quality issues" (haven't found anything wrong with it yet) for about 30KD! Also picked up a LACK end table former display model for 2KD which I am using for my new living room setup (moving everything off the kitchen counter). While there I couldn't help picking up a duvet and cover, so I am totally set now! Slept fabulously last night and now I pretty much have everything necessary prior to Kerri and Rowan's arrival.

Except for one thing...a fridge. We have discussed getting a smaller fridge as we never seem to fill the ones we've had previously up. And there is a spot in the kitchen that would be perfect for it (pictured above). Anyway, it's not an urgent item for me at the moment, so I'll put it off til before they get here.

I spent the second day of my weekend cleaning and doing laundry all morning. I still had not done any initial cleaning of the kitchen and cupboards and things. The floors needed swept and mopped (the daily dust collection is amazing), the bathroom cleaned, clothes washed, dried and folded.

I was quite ready for lunch when it rolled around and I wanted my weekly dose of Indian food, so I headed down the road to a nearby place, where my hunger overcame my sense and I ordered way too much food (mmm...chicken cocounut curry...3 kinds of Naan) and ate it all. Whereupon, my body went into shutdown mode and demanded sleep. I managed to pick up some necessaries from the store, came home and fell into the new comfy mattress. I woke up around 4pm...yikes! Hope I can get back to sleep here in a couple of hours or I'm gonna be hurting in the morning.

Family Visa Application...check!

2007-12-17T22:12:00.000+03:00

This morning I went over to Ahmadi and the Immigration Department there to apply for a family visa for Kerri and Rowan. The paperwork I needed from my sponsor here (KRH) finally came in the day before, but too late for me to get it done.

I arrived about an hour earlier than it opened (7:30) and found someone inside to pester. They told me to sit down and wait. So I did.

About an hour later the guy had a look at my papers and directed me to a building outside where I had to pay 500fils each for them to type up an application in arabic and print it out. They sent me to the next building, who sent me to the first building upstairs, who then sent me downstairs and down the hall to the right past all sorts of bewildering arabic signs to the office at the end of the hall, where I found the family visa (dependant) department.

The lady there looked my papers over and sent me back to the typist building to get more copies of my work contract and civil ID (need 2 sets one for each application). Then she told me the papers should be ready for me to pick up around the 24th or 25th. I asked about getting it done sooner and she said it was really not likely because of the holiday (this was the *last* day to do this before it starts). I asked about the "expediting" process and she said something about how when I pick it up, I need to get something and take that to a cashier, who gives me something else, which I have to take to the ministry of foreign affairs, and have them fax the information to the Kuwaiti embassy in the US. I'll be asking again about it when I go pick the papers up on the 25th (which happens to be my weekend thank goodness, oh...and Christmas now that I think of it). Everyone seems to look a bit doubtful when I tell them Kerri and Rowan are coming on the 11th, but hopefully all will work out.

Headed back to work after this (they were nice enough to let me take care of all this on company time) and finally solved a very irritating problem with windows installing on some poweredge 2950 servers we had. Turns out the problem (for those who care) was that the DRAC cards in them had enable the "virtual media" setting which was confusing windows when trying to install. I'd been working on this issue for 4 days now, so was pleased to have it resolved.

Later this evening I took another guy here to the airport for his 2 week vacation, so now I know where that is. It's waaaaay past my bedtime (10:20pm) and I need to go to sleep now.

}-]

Two birds

2007-12-12T13:05:00.000+03:00

Everything went swimmingly today. Headed up to the US Embassy this morning, located it with not much trouble given a friend's directions, went in and waited til 9am when the consulate services opened. They authenticated both documents for 9KD each and sent me on my way.

I gave a call to my friend and asked what to do next and he directed me to the Ministry of Foreign affairs, which took some finding, but once there I went in and asked them for the "stamps" I needed. They told me I was at the wrong place and sent me to the Kuwaiti Consulate which wasn't too far, and it was there that I was able (with much asking about) to figure out that I needed to purchase 2 5KD stamps from the vending machines, then affix them to the back of the Embassy's authentication page, and hand the lot over to someone behind a counter, along with the tracking number I'd received when I walked in. There was about a 10 minute wait, then my number was displayed above a window, and I picked up the further stamped stamps and documents.

Next, I'll need to go to the Immigration office, which is handily in Ahmadi, very close to Fahaheel. Unfortunately, I need more papers that I don't have yet, such as salary certificate from my company and work permit. Also I need passport copies for Kerri and Rowan. All this needs to happen before Wednesday of next week which is the beginning of an islamic holiday called Eid. It's a week long.

Hopefully I'll be able to run up to Ahmadi during the week though, as it appears my superiors are flexible when it comes to dealing with all this legal stuff. They also are not opposed at all to employees bringing family over, as it generally means they are here for at least 2 - 3 years.

Having done all I can for the day, I plan to veg and rest, mostly trying to finish Ocarina of Time. I just finished my lunch, some arabic pizza, sitting out on the porch, which was lovely. Wish it was warm enough to swim (it isn't).

To the Embassy!

2007-12-11T18:15:00.000+03:00

I received the authenticated documents (marriage and birth certificate) from Kerri and Rowan a few days back. I found a translator relatively close by and provided him with the documents to translate a couple of days ago and picked them up this evening. He charged me only 20KD, which is a deal as most places would have charged me about 24KD. And he was able to do it faster...this guy is getting my recommendation for sure.

Tomorrow is the second day of my weekend, so I'll be heading up to the US Embassy to get their authentication done, and then I have to figure out what exactly to do next...

Took the car into the car repair main area in Kuwait today to have it checked out. They plugged a computer into it and apparently it needs the camshaft replaced (ugh). They said it can wait a month but not to wait much longer. Fun fun...oh well.

Otherwise nothing of interest has been going on...my cot is comfy enough...and the only other priority is finding out how to get my laundry done without spending an arm and a leg. May have to buy a washer/dryer sooner than expected.

Yet more pictures

2007-12-05T14:43:00.000+03:00

On my way out this afternoon I took a bunch of pictures of the Warba compound to satisfy any curiousity.

Decided to go on a walkabout my new neighborhood this afternoon. The name of this area is Manqaf (or Mangaf) but I'm really in the southeast corner barely over the road that serves as the border between Fahaheel to the south and Manqaf to the north. I actually walked well past this point on the coast on my first trek, so its really not far at all from Fahaheel. However it feels like a totally different place. The vibe is completely different. Where Fahaheel is abuzz with people and shops and restaurants, this area is more residential, mostly mid to lower end housing. It's pretty filthy, lots of empty sandlots (are there any other kind here?) and everything has the feeling of being half finished. Every now and then you'll run across a very nice building that clearly is intended for upper crust/westerners, covered parking, guards, mirrored windows etc... The other buildings look like normal apartments from a distance, but when you get close you see the state of the construction materials, the broken windows, dirty facades, etc... Luckily there a few restaurants to break the monotony, I came home with half a dozen menus and that doesn't include the places without. Not too many of what you would call "family" places. There is an internet cafe, but it's a bit of a trek.

Had lunch at a chinese place...to break the pattern of Indian/pakistani/arabian food I usually have. Figured I should at least *try* something different. But it was unimpressive and I think I'm just as happy with whatever new form of lamb I can find and scoop into my mouth with freshly baked naan, chapati or roti is available. That or shawarma and hummous... I did find a thai/filipino place that I'll have to check out sometime.

Well, back to work tomorrow. Since my car isn't registered on base, I'll have to park outside and get a ride in with someone from my shop. Next step is to figure all that registration stuff out.

More pictures

2007-12-05T12:11:00.000+03:00

Less words...

For the Ferg.

Return of the slideshow

2007-12-04T15:12:00.000+03:00

Above you will find some pictures...the first two are some sunrise pictures I got this morning. For some reason I woke up about the same time as I do normally (3am) so had plenty of time to go out for breakfast (4am), watch the sunrise (5-6am) and talk to Kerri for a good long time (6-8am). Also managed to get all my laundry done by then. What else *is* there to do on a day off?

Well I watched some Robot Chicken, but finally was able to head off to keep my 10am appointment: pick up my new car! I'll have pictures of that later (after I've had it washed). I wandered around for a few hours before I got the car and registration. Unfortunately, the registration appears to be good only until the 8th of January, so I guess I'll be needing to fix that pretty soon. Oh well. And the car needs washed, and cleaned (what happened to it since I last saw it?!) and the oil needs changed. Well all that could wait til tomorrow, since I finally have the car and was able to move the last of my things over to the new apartment (the rest of the pictures above).

Forgot to mention I've been sick (cold) and am on the 4th day of it. Felt pretty icky after I hauled everything up (including an older TV I'm borrowing from someone). I managed to divest my cot of the many things I had foolishly piled on it and collapse for an hour-long sleepless nap. Felt better though. Another odd thing happened today. By the time I got back to the old apartment to move stuff out, the bottoms of both of my feet both felt sore like I'd done them some damage and bruised them. I was quite annoyed as I had no time for this and had to move stuff. By the time I collapsed into my cot my feet were positively on fire. The source of the discomfort appears to be right in the middle, not the arches, but further towards the toes. As I palpated the areas I noticed to my surprise that they have both swollen almost as if filling with fluid. Very bizarre. I've felt something similar in one or the other foot before, but usually associated it with pulling a tendon or someothing. This is unique. I only hope it goes away cuz I have no idea what to do about it. I'm able to hobble about at least, and good thing my job involves sitting on my arse all day. Not having a chair to sit on at home is a bit of a discomfort, but I'll keep my eyes out for something.

I've been slowly putting stuff in its temporary spots. Figured I'd better make a post and get those pictures up post haste lest Kerri refuse to speak to me til she gets here!

Long time no blog

2007-11-30T10:42:00.000+03:00

Sorry, I've been holding off til I had something to write about. Recent events include:

1) Got my driver's license and civil ID! W00t! I'm a real person at last.
2) Put money down on a car and apartment! Paid for the apartment, waiting on the last of the money to finish wiring over here to pay for the car.
3) I lost my camera :-( Which is also why I haven't posted. I will see if I can borrow a friend's to get some pictures of the new place and the car up. I am of course glad to have an excuse to buy an updated camera. Our old faithful Fujifilm Finepix 2800 zoom (2.8 megapixels) was purchased in 2001 anticipating the birth of Rowan. It always seemed to take remarkably good pictures for its low megapixel count, and of course a 6x optical zoom was virtually unheard of in digital cameras of the time. Now I'm thinking of a Fujifilm F30 or more recent incarnation. Have to dig around and find the money though.

The apartment is a 2 bedroom place at the Warba Resort, quite a bit more (500KD) than we intended to spend at first, mainly cuz it's got a beach view. But the compound is exactly what Kerri wanted, a safe place with lots of families and kids where she can tell Rowan to "go outside and play" and he'll be safe and have lots to do. That alone is worth paying more especially as we won't be paying for a private school. In any case, ITT pays $900 in car/housing allowance which cuts the rent in half, making it less expensive then where we were living in Portland! Enough of my justifying, once I actually visited the place I knew it was perfect. So I called and asked to be put on the waiting list as I knew there were none available...but the guy said that a 2 bedroom was just coming available if I wanted to come down that evening to see it...I said ok, went down, saw it, and put my money down...skipping about 10 other people on the waiting list! Otherwise who knows how long we would have had to wait. Also, just the week prior I had found the car (2001 BMW wagon) and put money down on that. At first I thought I was maybe rushing things, but then a few days later I was also getting the apartment, so actually its almost as if these coincidences were not so...coincidental. God's providence is really amazing and I'm very grateful for it. I know He's not obligated to make things fall together so nicely, but it sure is nice when it happens! It's also a welcome confirmation that we appear to be where He wants us right now.

With all that money down in such a short time we are going to be tightening the belt for the next few months while we pay back our line of credit and all that stuff. There are still some welcome infusions of cash on the way (second half of the bonus, money from selling our van in the states, tax returns etc...) which should allow us to recoup this initial outlay easily by the end of next year if not sooner. There's no doubt that I would recommend to anyone else looking at doing this to try and save up as much as possible prior to heading over to be able to make these initial outlays without breaking the bank. After you get settled things can become much more handle-able. If you are single over here you have it made! Company housing and vehicle, virtually all meals taken care of, and no time to frivolously waste your money! Highly recommended.

Well I'll try and get some pictures of the (unfurnished) apartment and car in the next few days.

IKEA and abu Khaled

2007-11-21T22:51:00.001+03:00

Whew! Quite a day...

First I decided to take the bus to IKEA and the Avenues Mall. No one could tell me which line would get me closest, so I decided to ride the 102 into Kuwait City to the main office to ask them. Before this I stopped by my favorite little local restaurant for some breakfast of minced meat, hummous and fresh baked flatbread...mmm good. Tomorrow I promised to stop by again so I can try the final dish available for breakfast (some sort of hot dog thing with scrambled eggs), yesterday's was a tomato egg scramble.

Thus fortified I had no troubled hopping a nice air conditioned bus and was downtown in no time. At the KPTC bus station I was *finally* able to procure a bus route map! It was given to me with the warning that it wasn't exactly up to date...but hey, a general idea is better than nothing. They then told me to take bus 51 to go down to the Avenues Mall/IKEA, which I promptly did. This short hop only cost me 100 fils.

I was dropped off (literally, the bus was still in motion) onto a little island in the midst of much traffic, and after walking around the fenced perimeter of IKEA I found a spot where someone had fortuitously ripped an opening in the fence and made my way through (deja vu). It was just after opening time 10am (on a weekday) so the place was nearly deserted. A far cry from the experience most everyone else has had I'm sure. I've never had such a relaxing and fast trip through IKEA before. Some observations: 1) The prices are what you'd expect, about the same for the really cheap stuff, and more expensive then I'll ever spend for everything else. Some items are surprisingly expensive, some are surprisingly cheap, it just depends. 2) They did not have a single covered travel mug, the main item I planned on buying there. 3) IKEA is a great place to practice your Arabic numerals, as each price tag is in Arabic on one side and English on the other, usually with the Arabic facing you first. Flash cards for free! 4) They use *real* LCD TVs in this IKEA...none of those fake plastic ones like in the States. 5) If you get the IKEA card (you get points for shopping) then you can have free coffee from their espresso machine until the end of December! But...you need a civil ID to get one...darn! 6) They have excellent chicken shawarmas at the final food place just after the checkout stands, at 200 fils they even beat the typical street price. I had to have one of course. 7) Yes, the AS-IS section exists! 8) The kids play area is alive and well too, they allow you to check them in for 2 hours. 8) It does get crowded apparently, but only in the evenings and especially on weekends. But if you come early on a weekday, it is heaven.

After that I walked The Avenues, quite a large mall, not done yet as at on end it was blocked off presumably for future growth. It was one of the most pleasant malls I have toured so far, and there were actual stores where I might possibly buy something. There is a very large grocery/electronics/appliance store inside called Carrefour which was quite nice and had some nice surprises like the fact that their butchery only handles meat that has never been frozen or thawed. All processed meats (I think they mean like ground) are from fresh cuts handled there at the store. The meats are even divided up by where they come from, so if you want to pay a premium for locally raised beef...you can. They had an extensive vegetable area, pretty good prices, and hey, you can pick up that semi-automatic clothes washer too if you want (still trying to figure out the whole "semi-automatic" thing). I found a small, easy to carry little book called "The Arabic Language for English Speakers" which looks like a nice compact starter for picking up words and phrases for 1 KD. I also ran across a couple of cigar stores, at one of which I bought a Cuban (my first!) Romeo y Julieta for 2KD.

Then it was time to figure out how to get home. I looked on my newly aquired route map and saw that the 105 looked like it would go south and eventually wind up in Fahaheel. The stop didn't look too far away, so I crossed the busy highway and started walking. It was very dusty and windy today, you could almost feel the sand pelting into your skin. You could look directly at the sun, a pale disk obscured by the cloudy sky. I walked what felt like about a mile and found the bus stop. After waiting about 10 minutes, a 105 stopped and I got on, asking how much to Fahaheel. After a bit of confusion, the driver made me understand I was heading the wrong direction, so he nicely stopped at the next stop going the other way and let me off. I crossed the highway again and waited about 20 minutes for the next 105 going north. This bus was not as nice as the one I came into town on, not bad, but the air con was barely registering, and the seats were pretty hard and uncomfortable for the 2+ hour trip home. Oh yes, the 105 is the loooooong way to get to Fahaheel...it meanders all over the place, taking back roads and barely touching the freeway. I should have taken a bus back to the main station and then taken the 102, but oh well. It was fun to see some new areas and get more of a feel for the lay of the land.

After getting home and dropping stuff off upstairs I washed the dust and grime from my face and contemplated a full-on shower. But then I decided to go have my hair washed and cut instead, which it needed. Then it was up the coast for a short walk to a sheesha place that juts out into the sea between two beaches, where I had a glass of juice and smoked my cigar. Very pleasant.

While there I called Mohammed, the Kuwaiti I met a couple of weeks back at the Persian restaurant near Al Manshar. He had been in the Emirates for a week or so, and I had been busy with my new schedule and work, but he had wanted to show me around and I figured I'd see if he was free tomorrow as I have Thanksgiving off too (this is a 3 day weekend for me). He wondered when I was free tomorrow and I said most of the day until evening around 5pm (I've been invited to a friend's place for Thanksgiving). He laughed and said "5pm is afternoon!" Hah...maybe if you *don't* get up at 3am! So he said he'd drive down and pick me up right now.

About 30 minutes later he picked me up in is small 2 door chevy something or other (very unassuming car) and proceeded to take me up to Salmiya. Actually, he said he wanted me to drive to get a feel for the place so he got out and we swapped places. We discussed cars as I have found a car I'm planning to buy (more on that later) and he tried to pursuade me to buy something like his car new and then sell it in 3 years. He casually mentioned that even though he is a multi-millionaire he prefers to buy these small cheap cars for a few years then buy a new one, as that way he never has to worry about stuff going wrong. I said that was fine for him, but I prefer to pay cash for my cars if possible and not do the whole payment thing, besides only being here for one or two years I didn't want to get into more debt then I was already in.

Anyway, he took me up to the Kuwait Towers which are very interesting architecturally. You go up this elevator in one and there is a viewing deck inside the dome which rotates slowly and you can see all of Kuwait city spread below you. Very nice in the evening with the lights and all. Mohammed was very enthusiastic and pleasant and we talked of many things. I like him quite a lot and he seems to reciprocate.

After this we drove a little more then he got a call from a friend he was going to meet at 8pm, so he asked if I'd like to come along. I said sure, so we drove down to Manqaf (just a little north of Fahaheel) and met his friend abu Salelem. We smoked some sheesha and had some tea, talking of lots of things concerning culture, the states, some about the craziness in the world. Mohammed and abu Salelem talked a little business in Arabic (something about a partner in Dubai who is real schmuck and they are halting the business deal) and otherwise hung out. Turns out abu Salelem is the head of a joint venture between Kuwaiti Oil and the Saudi oil interestes represented by Chevron Saudi. He speaks very good english and seems like a genuinely nice guy. Both of these men are very easy going and kind, polite to everyone around them, and very generous (wouldn't let me pay for a thing of course). The exact opposite of what everyone else around here tells me Kuwaiti's are like. They both want to invite me to meet their families and are of course wanting to meet my family when they arrive. Mohammed in particular is most insistent that he must show us the Emirates. And Egypt. And Oman. Like I said, very enthusiastic.

As we were leaving I found out about the names. Actually both men are named Mohammed, but they call each other abu <son's name> which means "father of <son>". It's a name that denotes a close friend. So Mohammed (the man I met first) could be called abu Khaled (though he has no son, so in his case it's his father's nickname). Abu Salalem is father of Salalem, and I am now to be called Jesse abu Rowan. People here have paragraphs for their full names as there is a personal name, a family name, and usually mentions of ones father and/or son in there too.

I'm kinda bummed as apparently abu Khaled's sister's family had invited him and myself to a barbecue at their getaway in the desert tomorrow evening, but unfortunately I had to decline given my previous engagement and the fact that I have to get up at freaking 3am the next morning. But I offered my deepest apologies and said perhaps another time.

By the way, the sheesha this time was much better. They initially warned me off what they were having (well abu Salelem doesn't smoke) as it was too "strong", but I said I would probably like it better than the froofy stuff I tried before and I was right. It was much more like a good pipe tobacco, and though you do have to pull it in to your lungs to make it work, it is considered fine to just smoke for a little and then set the pipe down when you've had enough.

I haven't had dinner, but I'm not hungry really. That breakfast and the IKEA shawarma have kept me going no problem (and I guess I'm getting used to not eating dinner).

Oh, the car...forgot I hadn't blogged about it. A few days back a guy from work mentioned he was going to look at cars afterwards, and I asked if I could come along. He's already living on his own and has been renting a car (from Budget) while he looks for a car. We went to Al Ghanim which is just up the road from Al Manshar in Fahaheel. They primarily had new chevy's in their showroom, but out in the parking lot had a few used cars. My friend (Josh) had his eyes on a red Saab going for 5000KD. My eye fell on a white 2001 BMW wagon that had recently been sold for 1600KD, but I was given to know that this person was looking to resell it. I asked a bunch of questions like could I buy it without a civil ID (no problem if buying in cash, just have someone else buy it and transfer it later for 9KD) and could I take it for a test drive/mechanic check out. No problem...so the next night I took it for a short drive, and the next day (yesterday) I took it to a mechanic who thoroughly checked it out for 30KD. I was told that they should only charge 10KD, but when I asked why it was 30KD they said that 10KD would be for only one item, like just the engine. 30KD bought me engine, differential, chassis, etc... They really did go over it with a fine toothed comb, and there are some issues, such as leaks that should be fixed, the engine does need a tuneup, and it was in a minor accident. But otherwise they said it was a pretty good deal. The guy wants to sell it to me for 1750KD, which is about $6200. KBB and other sites list the car for between $9000 and $12000, so I figure I'm getting a pretty good deal (at least for the US). It has about 130000 miles on it, lower than any car I've bought yet! Drives very nicely and has all sorts of fun little niceties like separate temperature controls for drivers side and passenger, a full on computer/tv in the dashboard, etc. The airconditioning wasn't working at first, but they seller had that fixed before I took it to the mechanic. Since he's selling it for only 150KD more than he bought it for, I don't think I have any wiggle room for bargaining really. Anyway, I've already put 100KD down as deposit and I've been working on getting the rest of the money over here. He understands it might take a week or two, and I'm hoping by then to have my civil ID and drivers license so we don't have to put it in someone else's name.

Speaking of the money, at first I started pulling as much money as I could out of ATMs, but my bank (wells fargo) doesn't let me pull more than about $350 (100KD) out per day (and slaps me with a $5 fee each time). I can move $350 per day from my checking account to my Eagle Cash card on base, and buy up to 300KD a day at the finance office, but that still puts me at about 200 KD per day total, at which rate it would take quite some time to pull out 1750KD. So I asked a guy from work who has a local checking account if I could wire the money to him and pull it out all at once. He was very kind and agreed to give me his account information, so Kerri just finished doing that. Already my bank has registered the transaction, and just FYI it was a mere $30 charge to wire $6000. Definitely the way to go for large chunks of money, so I may have to open one myself just in case I need it. It might take a week for the money to get here, but I'm confident there will be no problem now.

I was a bit worried about where to put the car, but I spoke with the people at my building and they said they allot 2 cars per apartment, and since we only used 1 company car I could either park my car in our apartment's spot, or park it in visitors parking. Nice that they arebeing accomodating.

Well, that pretty much brings everything up to date.

Oh! I almost forgot, Kerri bought the plane tickets for her and Rowan to come to Kuwait! She got a great deal flying from Portland to Frankfurt and then directly to Kuwait for $1500 total (her and Rowan). They are scheduled to arrive at 5:30pm on January 11th, a Friday. I am hoping to be able to leave work a little early to go pick them up and then take my Christmas/New Year's holidays (3 days) and then have a weekend free (5 days total) to get them settled. I have yet to ask if this is ok, but I'm pretty sure it'll be fine. Most people are taking their vacation days earlier during the season. It's really great to have a hard deadline to shoot for. Now I know I need to have that apartment by the end of December for sure! At least I should have the car in plenty of time, insha'Allah!

Portal is freaking awesome

2007-11-15T20:04:00.000+03:00

I finished Portal tonight because I had to finish it. I started yesterday and got to the final level but didn't quite have time to finish, so naturally... It is an amazing game and I'll be thinking about it for some time. Aside from the ingenious game mechanics and level design, the sheer amount of personality that was imbued into what is essentially a game with only 3 (maybe four if you include the Weighted Companion Cube) characters, only one of which (yourself) is alive, is amazing. Once you finish the game you are treated to the following end credit sequence, which I recommend watching only if you are sure you'll never actually play the game, as the pay off after finishing it yourself will double the pleasure of its viewing.

Odds and Ends

2007-11-14T10:04:00.000+03:00

It's begun... One measure of "new-ness" decay is surely when you discover you have not bothered posting about several things because they are too trivial, only to find after a week of no posts all you have is this bundle of trivial items, and then you realize that life is mostly a collection of trivial incidents punctuated by brief moments of panic, joy or grief. That's not meant to be depressing, though I'm sure it will be to some people. Part of growing up is probably learning to accept that life can't always be exciting, new or profound. Our (american) culture tends to celebrate the child and to villify growing up, which is a mistake I think. Childhood was meant to be brief in the big picture of a human life, and prolonging it only leads to perversion and ultimate misery.

Sorry, didn't mean to go off like that, I was just going to fill this post with the trivial little things that have been happening in the past week.

First, I am *not* going to be going to nights as originally told. Things are "fluid" here to say the least. In my first 2 weeks at work I've seen 6 people (possibly 7) leave...many of them unexpectedly. Needless to say this makes manning a 24 hour schedule difficult especially when much of the vacation was already approved 6 months ago. My weekend is going to be Tues/Wed for the foreseeable future.

While on the subject of work, I have experienced my first real negative feelings about the situation I'm in. Let's just say the politics and unreasonable working environment I was working in has been exponentially increased. The feeling of helplessness in the face of remorseless and unblinking stupidity is profound. I am left to contemplate if I can survive one or two years of this idiocy with my sanity (or at least, passion) intact. I'm probably over reacting, but its quite the smackdown. I need to remember that this is temporary, a stepping stone hopefully to continuing to work overseas for a long time in other locations, possibly with this company, possibly with another. One can't blame the company particularly, as it is huge, and the issues reside fundamentally with the nature of contracting work (i.e. you are there to perform a service for another entity, and ultimately do whatever they want even if it makes no sense). The leadership of the contract is great from what I've seen, and hopefully that means things are changing. I've been told things used to be worse...

In the realm of mundanity, I washed my new cell phone the other day. I had spent quite some time and energy procuring a decent price (14KD) for my very basic Nokia with no frills and especially no camera (work issues). Then I did some laundry and forgot to remove the tiny thing from my jeans pocket. My room mate said I should try drying it out in the oven. Apparently Nokia phones are designed to withstand temperatures of up to 150 F. So I tried, for several days, but never got anything other than "contact service" when booting it up. Well, I decided to go out and find a rare item around here: the Motorola F3 I was told by someone else here who had one not to accept more than 10 KD as a price, so I wandered around looking for anyone who had one. Finally I found a place very close to Al Manshar, a little cellphone/computer accessories store. I met Mustafa who was helping is kid brother (also Mustafa) with a homework project. He had one that he wanted to sell me for 14 KD, but I stuck to my guns. Finally he acceded though said that 10KD was a good price a few weeks back due to a manufacturer's special...and though it was his loss he hoped to gain a customer. I said I needed a pair of computer speakers anyway and since he really was very nice I would be sure to check with him first. A few days later I went back and took my Nokia to ask if it could be repaired. He said it might not be worth it, but he'd look into it. While there I bought a set of 2.1 Creative speakers for 10KD (music in my room at last!), and looked at his beard trimmers which I think I will go back for. Anyway...good fun.

I find it difficult to not eat Indian food every time I have the chance to eat out. There are soooo many good Indian restaurants around and they tend to be pretty cheap in comparison. Freshly baked naan and mutton in 10 different varieties...what else could you ask for? I did go back to my favorite shawarma/chicken hole in the wall last night. Hard to pass up half a chicken, hummous and freshly baked puffed flatbread for 1.050 KD.

Oh, yesterday my room mate and I drove up to Kuawit City in one of the company's provided cars (Mitsubishi Nativa - a horrible example of an SUV I'm sure...as if I didn't hate the SUV enough). I drove the whole time as he didn't want to and I didn't mind. Our first goal was to go to Salmiya and take the ferry over to Failaka Island where there are supposed to be some cool archeological digs from when there was a Greek ouptost on the island. Unfortunately, after finding the place, we found the ferry closed for the day, but they would be open tomorrow. After that we drove to Marina Mall, which was underwhelming to say the least. There is nothing there to ever see again IMO. We then drove into Kuwait City proper, taking Gulf Road around the coastline. Saw the Kuwait Water Tower from a distance, and then tried to find a place to park and get out to find some cheap lunch in the Sarq souk area, but missed the area and then found ourselves on the outskirts of town near where Camp Doha used to be. We headed back in, and then got a call from KRH Logistics, the local company that works with ITT to sponsor people over and take care of things like lodging, transportation and things. They said they were ready to pickup the car. We said "huh?" Apparently someone had told them the car we were using was free today for maintenance. Oh great...so we headed back to Fahaheel (took about 30 minutes after we got out of downtown traffic), dropped the car off and ate Indian across the street for lunch. Not much of a day out, but oh well.

Spent the rest of the day playing more of Metroid Prime (gamecube version) which frustratingly stopped working just as I was getting to a good part. I've had trouble with the disc before but this was different as it totally crashed the game and I couldn't get it to start up again. Bummer. I moved on to the sequel Metroid Prime: Echoes (still gamecube version) for a while, then popped in Metroid Prime: Corruption (the latest Wii version) which was very fun. Don't know if I can stop myself from playing it now...I can always go back to Echoes later. In other game news I think I'm getting close to being done with Legend of Zelda:Phantom Hourglass on the DS. It's fabulous game and I'm glad I still have the N64 Ocarina of Time to get through on the Wii, as well as WindWaker (gamecube) to provide more zelda goodness while we wait for the sequel to the Wii's Twilight Princess. Looking forward to the first Zelda game designed for the Wii (Twilight Princess was really a gamecube game ported at the last minute to Wii...it was good, but not designed for the Wii really). I realized that Super Mario Galaxy was out in the states, so I went ahead and ordered it. Rowan should be pleased to finally be able to play it when he arrives. He's been asking about it ever since he saw some scans in a magazine.

In other computer news, I have been restraining myself from buying a new Macbook. This piece of junk I'm using right now is so painfully slow I want to through it out of the window. Some of that is the pathetic internet connection here, but some is the machine itself. That and with the new Macbook hardware upgrades there isn't really any reason to wait any more. Except for the following reasons: I don't really need it yet, huge amounts of money will need to be spent when Kerri and Rowan come over, there may be some new announcements in January when Apple usually does their announcing, and lastly the apple store doesn't ship to APO addresses. So I'm going to force myself to wait. The one thing is that since they don't ship to APO, I might order it just before Kerri and Rowan leave so they can bring it over here and avoid shipping charges.

On the getting Kerri and Rowan over here front, there isn't anything to report. No news on my civil ID yet, and Kerri is working on getting the documents authenticated over in the States.

Kerri ordered next year's homeschool curriculum from Sonlight about a week ago, and it arrived just about 3 days back! Amazingly fast. Definitely grateful that Sonlight ships to APO. We most likely won't get really started until after we have well and truly settled into our new digs, whatever those might be.

I did some looking at cars yesterday at q8car.com, and it looks like we should be able to find a pretty decent used car (honda or toyota) for 1000 - 2000KD ($3500 - $7000).

Today I slept in waaaaaay too long. I was supposed to get up at 6am, which I did. Then I started the computer and lay back down to wait the 10 minutes it takes to boot up. Next time I opened my eyes it was 9:30! Whoops....hopefully I can get to sleep by 7pm tonight to be ready for tomorrows 3am call time.

I'm planning on a leisurely day of not doing much really...should be fun!

Noora Complex

2007-11-09T12:43:00.000+03:00

This set of pictures is mainly for Kerri. I met an Egyptian named Muda who does some real estate on the side (he's a lawyer). Anyway, I answered an ad on the internet for an apartment and that's how we met. He recommended a place here in Fahaheel, actually he lives there himself. Said there was an unfurnished 2 bedroom flat for 250KD. Lots of "westerners" lived there he said, including families. I asked to meet him today on a day I have off so he could show it to me. Pictures are above.

Anyway, it's small, but still 2 bedrooms and nice place. And 250KD is much better than the 450KD my current place goes for. I can't get in yet as I don't have a car, so he said he'll let me know if any other flats open up over there. He also said he'd help me buy a car, or get anything else we need (as unfurnished really means unfurnished). So that's cool. He said his "finders fee" for the apartment is usually about 25% of one month's rent (62.5 KD or $222). Not too bad really.

I'll be switching to night shift in about a week as I volunteered to try it out before the family gets here. That should be interesting...

Otherwise nothing much to report...I'm going on Monday for an eye exam for my Kuwaiti driver's license. Hopefully that means my civil ID is progressing well too. I'm thinking I might switch emphasis to looking for a car as that is something of a pre-requisite to getting an apartment.

Bus Adventure

2007-11-04T17:27:00.000+03:00

View Larger Map

This weekend's project was to figure out the bus system. I had read that maps can be had at the main bus station downtown Kuwait. Sounded like a good destination to me! I also had my Aunt LuAnne's christmas present from a family member to mail to her, so I figured I could find a way to do that as well.

First a little background. When I mentioned at work my intention to hit the busses this weekend, the reaction was unexpected. At first I was told that I was "unauthorized" to do this thing. Then I was told that we weren't supposed to go anywhere except in pairs. Neither of these things were actually true, but then it got down to the fact that they thought it was icky and dangerous. These are co-workers by the way, not actual supervisors. Needless to say I dismissed their fears and prejudices, and I'm very glad I did.

I asked a guard how to get to Kuwait by bus and he told me to go out to the nearby roundabout and get on line 102. It would cost 250 fils (90c). I headed out and started walking up the road. Not seeing a bus stop on my side, I asked a gentleman who was waiting by the side of the road where it was. He said that it was coming along soon and he was waiting for it himself. I waited with him, and presently a bus came by. However, there were several other bus numbers that swung by first, some of which went to completely different places, and some zigzagged between towns on their way up north. After a while I started hiding behind a truck so that the taxis couldn't see me. They kept slowing down and honking at me trying to get me to ride with them.

We got on the 102 bus (a Citybus brand I believe), paid our 250 fils and proceeded north. It took about an hour, with stops fairly frequently. We quickly got on the Fahaheel expressway (basically a free way) and at every exit the bus took a special bus exit and picked up or dropped off more people. I saw that it was perfectly acceptable to pay with a 1 KD or 1/2 KD bill and the driver was adept at providing change. I'm sure he'd be a bit concerned with a 5 or 10 KD bill, so best not to try paying with one of those. I should mention that I left around 7:30 in the morning and there wasn't any traffic til we got downtown.

The bus itself was quite large, more of a long distance model than the short hop busses in use with Trimet. The seats were quite comfy and the air conditioning, when turned on, worked great. There was one woman seated in one of the front seats (front seats are reserved for women and children here) and no one seemed to bother here at all. She was filipina, and dressed normally for a filipina (i.e. no hijab or abaya). A guy did sit in the other pair of front seats but as there were no other women who got on til near the end, this was not a problem. The new woman just sat next to the other lady. The bus was clean and smelled fine.

I had bought a map of Kuwait with a detail of Kuwait city at the PX, so was able to follow along and orient myself quite well. I got a bit lost towards the end, but was pleased when the KPTC (different bus company) main station loomed and I was able to hop off. It appears that the two main bus companies keep the same route #s and roughly the same routes, so that is helpful.

I headed into the bus station and asked about maps. They directed around the back of the building and a sign that read "Head Station Season Passes." In here was where they sold the monthly bus passes that allow riding all of KPTC busses without having to pay everytime, quite useful if it is your main transportation. In Portland, our Trimet pass was costing around $70 I believe, here it is 15 KD ($54). Not bad at all. As with everything it seems, you need a civil ID to purchase one, so while I was tempted (bad idea, it would have drained my cash reserves) I couldn't buy one. They also told me there were no more maps. Bummer. One other person told me perhaps tomorrow. Well, my roommate expressed interest in doing the bus thing, so perhaps he will join me tomorrow and we'll see if there are bus route maps available. Another person told me they were online, but I checked the website and couldn't find them. I'll try again just now.

Anyway, now it was time to find a post office. As luck would have it, there was one in the same building as the KPTC main offices. In what may be my first interaction with an actual Kuwaiti, the lady (all women staffing the post office) there told me I needed to get a box, and put white material on it, and then bring it back to mail it. Ummm...ok. I asked where to buy a box. She said try the bookstore and pointed vaguely. Half an hour later, I found the bookstore, they sent me across the street. I walked in a random paper supply store and asked for a box. They scrounged one up, kindly helped me tape the box up, and tape a piece of white paper on the side, as I assumed white material must mean a white piece of paper for writing the address.

When I took it back, the first thing she did was pick it up and shake it. She said no good, it couldn't make any noise when it shook. And also, I had not followed directions and covered it in white material. In answer to my puzzled look, she pointed me towards to guys sitting in a corner and said that they would help me. I went over to them helplessly with my package and they jumped up to assist me. I asked about "white material" and one guy pulled out a bolt of white cloth. Ah...it starts to make sense...kind of. First we stuff the thing full of newspaper til it doesn't make anymore noise, then he proceeds to cut out squares of white fabric and sew it around the box. After I wrote the to and from address, and paid them 1KD for the service (certainly a rip off, but at this point I was too relieved to have someone to sew up my box that I didn't care), and it was back to the Kuwaiti postal worker. Finally all was as it should be and I shipped off the package to Saudi Arabia (let's hope it gets there!). I sent it registered mail, so I have a receipt.

After that entertaining time I decided to do some wandering. First order of business: climb that huge tower looming over me. Liberation Tower was completed around the time of the first Gulf War and was subsequently renamed "liberation" in honor of that time. I thought it was climbable, with a restaurant at the top. So I found my way into the adjacent building, a quasi-government building with other banks in it as well. When I attempted to go into the tunnel leading to the tower, I was shoed away and told it was closed, but I could ask security if I could go in. I asked security (a couple of bored young Kuwaiti's playing computer games on their laptops) and they said, no it was closed, but go ask the building manager. I went to the manager's office and he said, sadly that no, it was still closed. And it was unlikely to be open any time soon. Oh well...I tried.

On to the souks! My map indicated a plethora of souks nearby so I wandered from collection to collection, finding the shoe souks, the watch souks, the clothing souks, the bric-a-brac souks, vegetable, meat, etc, etc... Essentially I wandered souks all day. I was looking for Danska shoes for Kerri, but did not find any, nor did I find anyone who knew what they were. I did find a meat merchant who sold camel meat though. Didn't buy any. I did find a real local bathroom though! Picture is included.

Had lunch at a disappointing place...the lamb was very tough. They served me a salad first with no eating utensils. After a while I gingerly started using my fingers to eat what appeared to be a kind of spinachy leaf. Whoa! Must have been some sort of horseradish greenery or something, it had quite the powerful flavor. Another guy came in and started eating his with his fingers with gusto, so it appears I had the right idea. The best part of the meal was the freshly cooked flatbread...mmmmmmm.

I was a bit sleepy after lunch and it was getting hotter. I wandered a bit more, but decided to head back as it would likely take longer to get home. Plus I had another side project this weekend: cook stew in my new crock pot and freeze it for the future. I have to stop buying groceries that can go bad...there is no need to cook during the week, and on the weekends I'll mostly be eating out!

At the KPTC station, I got on a KPTC bus line 102 and waited about 5 minutes before it headed off. The KPTC bus was very much similar to the short hop busses that Trimet uses (covert picture included). Seats weren't as comfy for the long trip back, which took about 1 1/2 hours. Traffic was pretty bad leaving town, but cleared up after that. It too was clean and pleasant. An indian woman got on at one point, and was given a front seat and as far as I could tell left alone. She was dressed in typical indian garb (sari?) and did not wear a head covering. So far I've noticed that in Fahaheel many more women wear the full abaya including gloves and face covering then other places I've seen. In Kuwait proper, it was somewhat unusual to see, but in Fahaheel it's the opposite. I guess Fahaheel is something of a more "traditional" area. Nonetheless, everywhere you go you see filipinas, indians, pakistani, sri lankan, tibetan, etc... ladies and rarely are they covering up to that extent. A few of them may be wearing the hijab (veil) but usually that is if they are in a Kuwait's entourage.

Didn't see any kids on the busses today, but I did see a family waiting at a bus stop.

Well, I think that's it for today's adventures. Tomorrow I may visit someplace more interesting, like Saliwa or Marina Mall. Or maybe just up to the Magic Mall which is quite close.

Kuwaiti Medical Experience

2007-11-01T09:22:00.000+03:00

Today my room mate and I had to go get blood drawn, X-rays, and then fingerprints for the Kuwaiti residency visa and civil ID. It wasn't bad actually. We were picked up by our sponsor's agency (KRH) and taken to a nearby medical center (primarily for this type of government thing I think) where in 20 minutes we got our blood drawn (new needles were used, I verified) and then some chest X-rays. Then we headed over to another part of town about 5 minutes away, outside a non-descript building for a while. After which we went upstairs and waited a bit longer in a side room. Then some guys in uniforms came in and fingerprinted us, after which we went to the wash up area and proceeded to try and wash our hands with next to no soap available. Then it was back to our meeting point where some guys from work picked us up and dropped us off at our apartment. We have the rest of the day off, so I need to figure out what to do.

I'm very glad there appear to be very competent people to handle of these details for us. Not looking forward to doing it all myself for Kerri and Rowan, but hopefully someone will be on hand to let me know what needs to happen and where.

My area

2007-10-28T11:27:00.000+03:00

Here is a map of where I am living. I've tried to annotate it with information about what I've found out and discovered so far:

View Larger Map

Weekend

2007-10-28T09:31:00.000+03:00

Today (Sunday) is the first day of my weekend. We worked one 12 hour shift yesterday, kind of, cuz in reality we will be learning the ropes for quite some time, so there were long stretches of boredom. Having something to do will greatly ease the long shifts. The worst is the morning, cuz after we get there, we jaunt over to get some breakfast around 5 or 5:15, head back, then it's about 7 hours later before we head over for lunch. The afternoon may go by a bit faster as it's only 4-5 hours. It looks like we do not generally eat dinner there, which I think is good, as that means we get home a bit earlier. We were home last night by 5:30pm, which isn't bad considering.

My room mate and I were headed out for dinner when he got a call from his friend here to go have dinner at a place he knew. He has brought his family over so I was eager to meet him and hear more about the process. They are great people, he has been here 6 months, his wife and kids 3 months, so it's pretty fresh in their minds. They have 2 kids, 8 and 6 (six year old boy!), and they live about a mile up the coast from where we are now. The wife said she had pretty much acclimated now, though at first she was not at all sure she wanted to stay, I guess it was pretty tought to get used to. That and they endured the middle of the summer here and temperatures of up to 120 F. Everyone keeps telling us how we are lucky to be arriving right after the really hot season. 100 F every day is cool in comparison.

I asked about their setup, and they have a 3 bedroom place with maid's quarters for about 450KD ($1597.5). It's right by the coast, there are 3 swimming pools nearby they have access to, and lots of other families live there. If we could find 2 bedrom place for 300-350 KD that would be about what we were paying in Portland. I asked about transportation, and he has bought a car for travel to and from work, while his wife says she gets by with taxis if she wants to go places. She says its not too expensive, maybe 1/2 KD, to ride down to the area I'm at right now (Al Manshar and Al Kout malls). I'm sure riding to downtown Kuwait City would be more, but she says they just wait for weekends for that sort of thing.

I asked about the ride in alone in the car, and he said he has usually left earlier to avoid that (ugh) or if you can arrange with someone else to pick them up, then you can do the HOV lane. One thing for sure is that once you opt out of company housing and cars, you cannot take advantage of them, so there is no point in finding a place within walking distance of Al Manshar.

Another cool thing about this family is that they are homeschoolers! She also said that she has made other homeschooling friends here, one lady is homeschooling her six kids! So there should be plenty of support and help for that sort of thing. Its refreshing as the first thing anyone says to me when I say I'm bringing over my kid is "Oh yes, the schools here are first rate, though expensive." I just nod and smile.

There are tons of families all over, in the evening, the kids come out of the woodwork, running down the halls of our apartment. She said they have lots and lots of families where they live too.

Anyway, it was a very encouraging talk, and good to see that there is going to be lots of help and support for Kerri while I'm off at work most of the time.

One piece of advice they had was to not wait for the civil ID process before getting started on the process of getting Kerri and Rowan over here. They did that, and it took much longer for them to get over here I guess. I have also been told to call the US Embassy here for information on what to do next. Apparently, marriage and birth certificates in the states will need to be certified by county, state and federal authorities, and that can take a while for sure. I'll be calling the Embassy as soon as I finish this.

I finally cooked my own food for the first time since being here! Admittedly it was just fried rice and egg, but still... I'm going to try to eat at home for all meals but dinner over the weekend. Then during the week I'll try to eat dinner at home. Eating out (at the right places) is pretty cheap here, but still, better to get into good habits now. Of course, I need to buy more groceries now that I have a working stove (they fixed it yesterday) like meat and vegetables, but hopefully they won't be too spendy.

Oh, I got the Eagle Cash setup on base yesterday. It's pretty cool! Basically, it links up to your bank account in the states, then you use their kiosks to transfer money from or to your bank account and your Eagle Cash card, up to $350 a day. Then you can use that card to buy stuff anywhere on base (and some things are definitely cheaper at the PX), or you can go to the finance office and buy KD with no transaction fees! The only annoyance is the $350 daily limit, but I figure once I get an idea of the regular expenses (i.e. rent, utilities, etc...) I can get on a schedule of moving the money over every other day as needed. Unfortunately, it'll be at least another pay cycle before I find out what a normal paycheck will look like, as this one will have CRC time still on it. The next paycheck after that will allow me to construct a budget.

Today I'm going to hole up in the apartment until the afternoon when things start to get cool again. I've got plenty to do from here, and a movie I need to watch so I can return it to the MWR (Morale, wellfare and recreation) center.

Oh, about internet...we still aren't sure if we can get it set up without civil IDs, but it's pretty expensive no matter how you cut it. My room mate and I will be able to split it, but once I move out, ugh... Funny, you'd think they'd have better internet options here...but oh well. I did find an internet cafe nearby that claims to have high speed and machines with skype, cameras and headphones, so I hope to able to phone home soon.

First day at work

2007-10-26T19:55:00.000+03:00

Nothing much to report today, just got shown around and introduced to a bazillion people whose names I will not remember. Tomorrow begins our first "real" day of work. My shift will be 5am to 5pm, but we leave here at 3:50am. Because I am just getting to know the environment, I'll be working with another department for the first two weeks, and my weekend will be Sunday, Monday, which means I'll get a weekend right after work tomorrow! And apparently there is a holiday that happens in November that means we have to take another day off really soon. All in all a pretty soft landing.

Tonight I ate my first shawarma! Well, 3 shawarmas really. They are pretty small, 250 fils (1/4 a KD), with some meat and maybe a vegetable or two. Pretty good, but nothing to compare with the donner kebabs in London. Still, pretty yummy. I also found this restaurant nearby that serves shawarma and whole chickens. I'll have to go back there for chicken sometime. Typically, all 3 meals will be had on base, so that should keep me restrained to just weekends for yummy stuff.

My room mate and I did some grocery shopping this evening at the Sultan Center, but pretty limited still as our electric stove was not wired in properly, so we can't cook anything. I finally found a semi-cheap (for here) rice cooker (5.1 KD), and bought some rice, so at least I can steam things on the top while cooking rice.

Oh, I also got a SIM card for my phone, so at last I can communicate here. It wasn't as cheap as I found it in the local stores, but on base at least I could buy it without having my civil ID yet. Pretty much everything here seems to require a civil ID. I called about getting better internet and they also said I needed one. Ugh. That'll be between 1-3 months.

In other news, I found out about a really great way to withdraw money here without incurring fees (of any kind I think...). It's called Eagle Cash, and it's available on the base. Basically, you fill out a form giving them access to deposit and withdraw money from your account in the states, and then you can use ATMs on base to withdraw KD or dollars with no charges. I'm still not sure what happens to the usually exchange rate fee, but maybe that gets bypassed too, which would be the best.

Well, it's 8pm, so I'd better hit the sack if I want some sleep tonight. Guess this is going to be my schedule from now on...

Al Manshar and Al Kout

2007-10-25T17:52:00.000+03:00

Today I did some laundry and cleaning before setting off on some exploration. One thing I forgot to mention is that the apartment is largely furnished, complete with many new items fresh from IKEA (far, far away from us apparently). Many of them are exactly what we had back in portland, so it's kinda funny to be using the same dishes.

The washing machine took me a while to figure out, as I inadvertantly set it on the "forever" cycle. I had to wait around for it to finish before I could finally leave. My roommate never woke up so I left without him.

First on my list was a haircut. I immediately headed across the street to the little shops that sell all sorts of stuff, cell phones, computer equipment, jewelry, shoes, handbags, etc.... Most of these places expect bargaining. I found a small haircut place staffed by several filipinos and got great haircut there. Then I found a glasses shop to repair my sunglasses that broke the other day. Then I wandered, pricing cell phones and sim cards. I ended up buying just the phone for 11KD (a very basic nokia) as you need an ID to buy the SIM card and I can do that on base.

I wandered the bazaar, just checking stuff out. Eventually I found a filipino restaurant called Mario's and had lunch there....very good. Headed back to the apartment to dump some stuff, then went back out again, this time wandered the mall (Al Manshar) and went down to the gulf area (Al Kout). Took pictures and stuff.

Then I went home...that's about it! Bought some electronics for hooking up the laptop and things, but that's all. Tomorrow is my first day at work, I can't wait!

Fahaheel

2007-10-24T22:25:00.000+03:00

Oh...my...word.

We are finally home in Fahaheel. I am totally blown away by how nice this is.

Today begain at 0630 with the ITT team picking us all up and taking us to the Middle East Office for briefings. It was the first time I actually felt like I worked for a company instead of the military. HR, finance stuff, etc... We got a talk from the head honcho that oversees all of our contract. He's a great guy with great vision and everyone speaks very highly of him. I was impressed.

After the all day briefings, me and the other 2 guys staying in Kuwait were taken to another set of offices, actually a villa (large house with several floors and rooms) which serves as offices to some, and also as an in-between house for people moving in and out of the area. We waited there for our supervisors to arrive and take us to our living quarters.

They arrived, and me and the other guy (Stan) who are going to be room mates left with our direct supervisor for Fahaheel. He took us to our room, which is up several floors in an apartment tower right next to a lovely mall. There is another mall across the street. There is all sorts of stuff all around us, small shops, big electronics stores, a grocery store, a bazaar area, the gulf is walking distance. He took us to the end of the mall next to us and took us to a middle eastern cuisine restaurant which was very good, and also looked out over the gulf. We talked about lots of stuff, some work. Tomorrow is an off day for me and Stan, and on Friday we get to go into work for the first time. We'll be picked up a bit later than usual and taken onto the base.

Both Stan and I are totally overwhelmed with how nice everything is. Our apartment is humongous! 2 rooms with what look like king sized beds, 2 shower/bathrooms, 1 straight bathroom. 1 extra room we are just going to use for storage. Living room all fitted out with furniture, a tv, stereo, and dvd player. And best of all, our Internet is already hooked up and ready to go. Just needed to plug my router in and fiddle a bit, and here I am. It's pretty slow, but hey, it does the trick.

Oh there is also a kitchen, equipped with new stove, washer/dryer and refrigerator. And a dining room complete with full dining table and chairs. The ceilings look 12 feet tall. It's incredible. I've uploaded some pictures, but they do not do it justice.

I asked about how much to rent a place like this and he said about 400 to 450 KD (3.5 dollars to the KD). So pretty spendy stuff. Before Kerri gets here, I'll need to find a place for us, but I do like this area a lot. There are lots of expats who live here apparently, and it's fairly recently developed around here. Apparently the farther north you go, the more affluent and the nicer things get, and Fahaheel is pretty far south, but it's very nice here IMO. If the prices go up farther north, then this is probably where we'll stay. That combined with the fact that it's pretty close to work will cinch the deal. I'm told you can find places for as low as 200-250 KD, more in line with the space Kerri and I are used to (i.e. 1 or 2 bedroom apartments). I guess we get about $900 apartment/car allowance if we move out of company provided quarters, which will be very welcome at the prices around here. Still not sure how the car thing is going to work out, but we'll see.

It's all pretty heady stuff quite amazing. I feel bad for the folks heading onwards to Iraq and Afghanistan, they are not going to have such niceties and many will continue to live in the conditions we have been subjected to of late. All will be confined to their bases, none can travel in country. True, they are being paid more, but for me, the reason I wanted to do this was to live in a foreign country, not on a base. It's really looking like that may be possible.

One thing about work is the hours, which I already new would be 12 hours, 5 to 5. My suspicions were confirmed today when I heard my supervisor mention that he'd been up since 3:30am, as you then have to drive to the base and get in by around 5am... And I leave at 5pm that puts me back by around 6pm. So on a day shift we're looking at abour 6pm - 8pm to see Kerri and Rowan before hitting the sack to get 7 hours of sleep. It won't be so hard on me, it's them I'm more concerned about, getting through the rest of the day... But it would be better than them being stuck in the US, that's for sure. At least we'll have the weekends.

And vacations...looks like I basically get around 4 weeks of vacation a year, not counting holidays (which can be moved around and taken in conjunction with weekends so as to not eat into vacation). That would be way more vacation than I've had in prior jobs, with so many interesting places to go. A full week is plenty of time to fly over somewhere, spend some quality time, and fly back, so we will definitely be doing that a lot. And I know Kerri has some places she would like to visit even if I can't make it.

Everyone here at ITT is talking confidently about having this contract here for a long time, and even if it does run out or get handed off, they are a great company that really tries to keep their contractors and redeploy them elsewhere where needed. If they continue to prove to be as great a company as they appeared to be today, then I don't know that we'll ever leave them. Where else can you work for a company that takes good care of you, allows you to work overseas, and constantly has opportunities to move around? So far this is really looking a very good move for us. I am really thankful to God for where he has lead us and hope to keep my eyes open for the real reason He let me come here. It is easy to get distracted by all the cool stuff, but I know that ultimately I am accountable to God for what He has given me, to invest in things that are eternal, not temporary. I am sure there is a reason we are here and I'm looking forward to discovering what that is.

Well I need to throw my things into a drawer and fall asleep pretty soon as it's getting late. I also need to get these pictures uploaded, not sure how long that'll take. I'll take more pictures tomorrow during the daylight. Here are the pictures I have from tonight:

Arifjan at last

2007-10-23T19:36:00.000+03:00

No, I am not actually leaving Ali Al Salem yet, but today one of the ITT guys took the 3 of us who will be staying here to Arifjan to get some of our many paperwork processes underway. When all is said and done, I believe I'll have 3 different cards for various kinds of access. There will be no pictures from Arifjan, as it is prohibited everywhere quite prominently. It's much nicer than Ali Al Salem, paved roads and such. Much more permanent feeling, though nothing is truly built up. It's pretty spread out so having a vehicle is pretty much essential to getting around even on base.

We saw the place where we will be living from a distance. It's a tower/hotel like structure in Fahaheel, about 30 minutes (seemed less actually) from Arifjan. I'll be rooming with another guy here who I've luckily already made friends with. He plans on moving out eventually and taking the housing stipend, as will I once Kerri and Rowan are over here. We hear the place where we will be staying is very nice, with a view of the Persian (or Arabian, depending on who you talk to) Gulf. I'll take pictures once I'm there.

I did speak with a lady today about first steps towards getting Kerri and Rowan here. Number one is to get my civil ID, which will take up to 3 months. Once I have that, I can sponsor them over. Another option is that they can come over as US citizens and get 3 month visitor visas, which they then have to fly out of country and back in to renew. Depending on how antsy Kerri gets, we'll consider that option again later.

There will be a shared vehicle for those of us living in ITT's housing, so we can get through the lines into Arifjan faster (HOV's have priority). I hear there is also a vehicle stipend for those opting out of that perk. That would go far towards getting a vehicle for us if I can then take the bus in.

Things are slowly coming into focus and I'm better able to get a feeling for things. ITT's people have it really good here in Kuwait, that's for sure.

I still haven't had any interesting food since getting here, but I can see there will be lots of options eventually. There are 2 malls right where I will be living, so there should be lots of food options around.

The driving here is pretty nuts, but mainly in the speeding area. The guy driving us around was doing 100 mph several times, along with everyone else in the 3 lane highway. The speed limit is much lower, but everyone just watches out for the speed trap cameras and slows down when they see them. I think this totally explains the spectacular crashes now. Speed + disregard of rules = spectacular crashes. We saw a couple of examples of this.

It is interesting to note that we drove from the far north of Kuwait, almost to the southern border with Saudi and back again, plus spent a full day in Arifjan. Left about 7am, got back about 7am. It's not a big country at all.

Well, I need to get back to my room and pack my stuff. Tomorrow morning our bags will be transported to where they need to go while we endure the day of briefings. But tomorrow night, I go home!

Internet and cell phones are our first priority, but it may be a couple of days before we get it all sorted out. I may not have access for a while.

Mortification

2007-10-22T10:38:00.000+03:00

I made it to 2100 last night without falling asleep, though I did nod off at several moments. Got my passport and what looks like official 2 month visa. That should be enough time to do the necessary stuff to get the longer term visa.

Immediately hit my bunk and was out like a light. I set 2 alarms for 0600 to be up and ready for the 0830 meeting for me and the other 2 guys staying in Kuwait. Next thing I know, I'm being woken up by one of the other guys saying "Hey...it's 8:30, the guy is waiting for us...." I re-checked my alarms, both were still configured to go off at 0600, and the time is correct on both. Wow...I rarely sleep through alarms, and most of you know that missing an appointment, especially a first impression type appointment, is anathema to me. So I threw some clothes on, barely remembered to put shoes on as slippers are only kosher when taking a shower. Stumbled over to the big tent to get some documents photocopied. Of course my ITT supervisor was there... I'm not one of these people who can avoid taking a shower some mornings, I look every inch the disheveled barely alive shmuck til I've had that shower. Oh well, what can you do except apologize profusely and explain about the *two* alarm clocks that filed to wake you up.

Next meeting is at 1245 so I grabbed some breakfast (subway this morning, DFAC is closed) and headed down the MWR tent for some internet time.

It's looking like we'll be here through Wednesday at least, and unfortunately subjected to the all day long briefings/powerpoint presentations that will occur that day. They are hoping to get us to Arifjan by the end of the day Wednesday and have us working by Thursday, but they are not for sure about it.

I'm just trying to take it one day at a time. At least we have some meetings and stuff to do today. Yesterday was not fun, but I'm feeling better for my nearly 12 hours of sleep (not feeling nauseous anymore) and hoping the rest of the time here will go pretty quick.

The temperature is probably the same as yesterday (100 F) but feels much hotter for some reason. Perhaps the wind isn't blowing as hard, or my use of long pants may be contributing, but I have already had to mop my brow today, which was odd as yesterday I don't remember being sweaty even in the middle of the hottest part of the day.

Oh by the way, I've been listening a lot lately to the new Radiohead album In Rainbows which has been getting press because they released it on the internet completely bypassing the record companies, plus they are letting the consumers set the price they want to buy it for. I paid $10 last week and grabbed the mp3s and have been listening to it during the trip and actually right now. I really like it! I have never been a huge Radiohead fan, but I remember Creep when it was popular and liked that a lot. I must now go back and listen to their earlier stuff to see if its worth buying.

Ok, enough for now, getting the evil eye to move on (30 minute limit).

Sleep deprivation

2007-10-21T14:19:00.000+03:00

Everywhere you go here there is buzzing, rumbling, roaring. Generators and air conditioners are everywhere. Add to that the buzz of 3 hours of sleep in the last 48 or so. And the heat/cold transitions. I feel like I'm on a different planet.

Around 0400 I started walking around, just soaking stuff up. Still dark for several hours of course, but the air was pleasantly cool, but not sure what exactly. At 0530 had breakfast (again). Kept walking around, my goal being to determine what the picture taking policy was so as not to violate it. I was told the command center would know, but no one was there.

I've been rotating in a big circle from our (air-conditioned) tent to the restaurant area, to the MWR tents (internet, games, etc...) to the PX back up to the command center. I found a thermometer on the wall of the command center so I've been taking readings since 0730.

0730, 75 F, 60% humidity
0930, 90 F, 40% humidity
1030, 100+ F, 10% humidity

Haven't been back in a while. I'm beginning to think my SPF 35 sunscreen might not be up to the challenge. Must buy a hat (not here though...all army related merchandise, I want to be able to wear it off base too).

I've been feeling nauseous occasionally, especially when in this internet kiosk area. The smells plus vibrations, plus general sleeplessness appearing to render me ready to throw up. There aren't many places you can go without people.

The chapel is quiet, but soon (1430) there will be a "gospel" style service which will be loud. I may go just for something to do. I was going to go to the general "protestant" service at 1000, but was feeling sick so went back to my tent to cool down. I've got a top bunk and the a/c is directly on me. Good at night, but during the day the thing is on full blast. Very, very cold. These temp fluctuations are not helping.

In daylight, this place is even more desolate. The sun is so bright, I am squinting behind my sunglasses. When I transition into a tent, it gets so dark I can't see anything without changing glasses.

I finally found someone at command center to tell me about the photography policy. He said he thought it would be fine, just be discrete and don't photograph obvious stuff like flight lines, troop movements, layouts etc... I took a few photos, but nothing compromising. There isn't much to take pictures of...

BTW, I see no reason now not to say that I'm at Ali Al Salem, in the far north of Kuwait. This is well known as the place people come into the theater for processing and deployment. It's pretty much just tents for transients, facilities to stave off boredom and some parking lots and air strips.

The latrines are a mixed bag. On the one hand, they are far better than true portapotties. On the other, they are capable of producing such a mixed stench of cleaning solution and human waste that excacerbates my current propensity towards hurling chunks. Perhaps I have a touch of the flu. Or maybe the pox (which is a lovely little pustule now) is getting to me.

I am not responsible for the tone of this post as I am somewhat delirious, so please disregard if it seems complaining. The experience is novel enough to be interesting, but this waiting and staying up and trying to while away the sunday is not fun. All I want to do is go way and find peace and quiet, but then I'll fall asleep, which I cannot do.

I tried the "Desert something or other" an "oriental" restaurant run by AAFES. I checked the menu and saw Chicken Adobo, a filipino dish, so I had to try it. Possibly the worst adobo I've ever had. Beyond salty, and the meat was like rubber. I'll be sticking w/ the DFAC from now on for sure while on base. Can't wait to locate my first local shawarma, but I can't leave base without an escort.

I have to stay up til 2100 as that's when my passport will be returned to me from its current hiatus with the Kuwaiti government. Only 6 and a half hours to go...

In Kuwait at last!

2007-10-21T01:47:00.000+03:00

It is 0145 in the morning here in Kuwait and I'm planning on staying up through tomorrow night if possible. Tomorrow (er...today) is Sunday and they don't have anything for us to do.

Turns out after arriving in Kuwait and being bussed to a camp, CRC isn't exactly over yet. We *all* get to go through several days of processing here now. After a gruelling half hour or so daisy-chaining all the bags off of the truck, our ITT point of contact (POC) gathered us together and had us fill out more paperwork and he gave us our schedule. Then we had to find our bags, get assigned a tent (yes, tent) and take our bags to our tent. We've all had a pretty good workout tonight.

So it was time for food. They have McDonald's, Pizza Hut, an espresso store, all sorts of stuff here. But you have to pay for it. The chow hall (DFAC) is free however with our orders, so I made for there as there was a special midnight opening. Really good food actually, better than at Ft. Benning.

So Kuwait. Haven't seen any of it in the daylight yet, and all I've seen so far has been this camp/base. The "sand" that is everywhere is more of a really fine dust. It poofs up everywhere, and movement kicks it into the air. It permeates everthing. I am going to be taking a shower after this post for sure. Really hoping my job has me in airconditioning most of the time.

Temperature here is a cool 70-80. Apparently we just missed the really nasty weather by two weeks, things are now getting down to 100 during the day (was getting up to 110-120). Whee!

BTW, I will not be at this base, but at a different on (Arifjan) eventually. But probably not til Wednesday at the soonest. In the meantime, internet is spotty as I have to sign in for 30 min increments like at CRC.

Nothing is paved here, all gravel and dusty sand, so getting around is kind of a chore. I will definitely be buying more appropriate footwear as soon as I find a place to do so. It will have to be good and waterproof too as I can only imagine what happens to this stuff when it rains.

Well, that's it for now...more info as I get it.

Sooooooooooo glad to be here finally!

On my way

2007-10-20T06:45:00.001+03:00

I am typing this on my DS from an airport in canada. We will be
stopping in europe, then on to kuwait. woohoo!

My Last Day

2007-10-20T01:25:00.000+03:00

Since Jesse will be away from computers for a few days, I thought I'd give an update on what's happening on the home front. Today was my last day at work. It was a nice day with many people stopping by to wish us well. Rowan kept telling everyone that we were "never coming back here ever again". No one really knew what to say to that. I will now be able to give my full attention to getting rid of the remaining things still in the apartment and getting totally out of it. I have until Oct. 31 to be out, so I will have plenty of time.

Rowan and I will be going to Newberg to stay with family until after Christmas when we will join Jesse in Kuwait. We are very excited about the next phase of this plan getting under way. We are both ready to have some other people in our household again. I really feel like we made the right decision to wait until Jesse gets established before joining him. This will be a great time with family.

Long day of waiting

2007-10-19T17:02:00.001+03:00

I woke up at 0430 to rain. Lots of it. It rained until just a little while ago, maybe 0930. There may be more on the way. Apparently there is quite a storm system over the SE US. Hope it doesn't delay our flight.

I have a moment to kill between formations. This day is mostly just waiting around. I'm all checked out of CRC and we are just waiting on laying out all the baggage so it can be loaded. Lunch is in about an hour, so that's good.

Later (3ish) we load up on buses to go who knows where.

Nothing else going on really...

Freedom Flight Ho

2007-10-19T01:32:00.001+03:00

The 1100 ITT formation was a bit of a surprise. Apparently, we require sleeping bags, which were not given to us at CIF as they were supposed to. When we come into Kuwait, everyone will be sent to a particular base (let's leave details out in case they might get me into trouble) where we will be processed. For those of us staying in Kuwait, that means at least 24 hours. The others will be 4-5 days before they get sent out to their final destinations. This means spending the night, apparently in tents, with cots. Thus the sleeping bags. Anyway, we were told to meet back up at 1200 something and we got on a bus to go back to CIF and get sleeping bags. This took about 2 1/2 hours for maybe 20 people. Military efficiency at its finest.

Back at CRC we checked and final formation at 1800 had not changed, so I headed to my room to repack and do some laundry in preparation for tomorrow. I got out some of my issued gear and assembled some of it, the easy stuff. The gas mask will have to wait til I have time to read the 1 inch thick manual I'm afraid. About 5 I headed over for some chow, and there was told by some other ITT folk that they heard formation had been changed to 1730. I didn't know, but finished quickly and headed back...sure enough! Ya gotta be constantly checking that board cuz they can change it at any time.

Luckily I was there to get briefed on what happens tomorrow with baggage and such. The gist of it is, we are signing out tomorrow, bringing our baggage out for transport and getting on some buses! Woot! Good thing I didn't get much sleep this morning, otherwise I might have trouble getting to sleep in anticipation.

Oh, I heard some people are wondering what a "formation" is. It's just military jargon for a meeting or gathering of people at one place and time. They have their own language for everything. I.e. it's not called the "flight" it's called a "freedom flight". Why? I don't know...

I think that's about it. I may not have time to hit the kiosks tomorrow, so you may not hear from me for several days until I re-establish internet access.

Almost done

2007-10-18T16:39:00.001+03:00

I'm almost completely done with CRC. Thursday is make-up day for people who still have things to do. Luckily that isn't me. Yesterday we were up on the hill doing training in stuff like first aid (not CPR, we're talking battlefield first aid, i.e. stop bleeding, bandaging head and chest wounds, etc...) and other stuff we aren't really supposed to talk about. Formation was at 0630 and final formation was at 1800. Luckily I managed to get to the chow hall after final form. We had MREs again for lunch and I'm getting the hang of it. Beef with vegetables...mmmmm. It was a loooong day, but surprisingly I didn't get bored til near the end.

This morning at 2am I turned over and felt something on my face. I brushed it off with a hand and then realized I shouldn't need to brush something off my face as I do not have long hair. I leapt out of bed and inspected my sheets for critters. Some of the spiders here are pretty poisonous and we've been warned about them. I never found anything, but due to the adrenaline and increased paranoia, sleep was impossible. So I showered and went to the day room where I whiled away the hours til chow hall opened at 0500. Caught the tail end of Young Frankenstein and American Guerilla in the Philippines. Fun fun.

Formation was at 0900 for the PPD (TB test) check, which was the last thing on my list of possible things that could hold me back (aside from last minute decisions of course). So I should be good to go.

We have an ITT specific formation at 1100 which I don't know anything about yet. Just trying to kill some time between now and then.

I hear rumours about how things are going to go down next, but the gist of it is that tomorrow we'll need to bring our bags out to be weighed and inspected. Then they'll be loaded up and taken to the airport (on base) while we are transported separately. When we get their they'll be re-weighed and inspected. Then we get to wait til the undetermined time at which our flight takes off. I've heard times have ranged from 9pm to 4am. They keep it random and unknown for security reasons.

That's it...so the rest of today I'll probably be working on pictures while re-charging my shuffle and then re-packing.

Hooah!

2007-10-16T22:44:00.001+03:00

The good news: My checksheet is complete and I have a spot on the flight! It won't be leaving til Thursday or Friday.

The bad news: Well, not exactly bad, just the stuff that has to happen to get to that point. So yesterday was the day they issued our gear. About $3500 worth of gear stuffed in a duffle bag weighing about 70lbs. Whee...I shouldn't need to use any of it, so I'm hoping to just leave it in the duffle bag and never open it. Body armour, helmet, gass mask, etc... Best part is that if for some reason they didn't give me something they said they did (or I lose something) I get to pay for it when I go to turn it back in. I have *no* idea if it all got in there or not, but a nice guy next to me who was former air force assured me everything got in. He also showed me some basics like how to close the dang thing, and how to assemble the straps. It is *heavy*.

Today was Medshed. At 0630 we were shipped off to the medical place where we waited in lines for hours, to wait in more lines for hours. Blood was drawn, records checked, dental confirmed, then it was immunizations time. Turns out I needed 5 plus the TB test. Among those were anthrax and smallpox. Ug. After I got all my tests, I was waiting for my paperwork to be given back and I started to feel lightheaded and woozy. I sat down. Started sweating. A guy asked me if I was feeling ok...I said I wasn't sure. The nurse started fanning me and a doctor was called over who called for a wheelchair and I was wheeled off to a stretcher to lie down while they monitored my BP and oxygen levels. I was fine...just needed some time to recover. The doctor said there is some nerve that runs up and down the whole body and sometimes shots will trigger that nerve and cause that kind of reaction. Otherwise I feel fine now, just a sore right shoulder (anthrax I believe). The smallpox one is a pain cuz it's contagious and we have to keep bandages on it, can't wash it or touch it (apparently it will start to itch). I was lucky as I had brought what remains of my immunization records and that took a few off the list. I heard they don't do more than 5 at a time though. One surprise on my physical was that apparently I've had hepatitis B in the past. Didn't know that. It's inactive now though. I can't remember what it was, but I know as a little kid I had something fairly serious that landed me in the hospital for a while. Maybe that was it.

Now there are a few hours til next final formation at 1830. I got back to CRC from this morning at 1430 so missed lunch, but we were given some MREs to munch on. Good thing as the one I had yesterday I goofed up and tossed in favor of a sausage from the miniPX. Today gave me another opportunity to practice. There is this plastic bag with chemical heaters inside that you put the sealed package of whatever (today it was Beefsteak with Mushrooms) into, then add some water and stuff it back into a cardboard box for 10 minutes. It gets very hot, and when done, you have a pretty good meal for something vacuum sealed. There was also a strawberry shake powder that you just add water to and shake...it was pretty good too.

Tomorrow is all day powerpoint slides, 11 hours worth. More MREs for lunch!

But everything else is A-OK...just gotta get to bed early for that 0600 formation time...hooah! (yes, we all say hooah in response to the sergeant)