Movin' up!

Doing a TDY gig down in the city for a couple months, so company is putting me up in some new digs. I guess I'll have to live with the view.

Blast from the past - 14 NOV 2010

So I got the truck for the day (day off) and went for a drive.  Went over to Camp Virginia and got a couple of things, then came back.  Drove out this road I'd seen on Google maps.  It really just goes nowhere.... well sort of nowhere.  It goes to a building/area that I think may have been a firebase during Gulf 1. 

But it's a way straight road to get to it...

Here's the view from the other side of the building.  This might impress on a few of you just how flat it is here...

 

If you kept going this direction, you end up in Saudi Arabia.

On my way back to Buehring, I ran into some more friends....

 

You do have to watch out for these guys....  I've been told that if you happen to hit one and kill it, you might as well pack your bags, because you're going home, AND your company ends up paying a million dollars to the owner.  They really value their camels.  I don't know if this is true or not, but I don't want to find out.  Plus, they are kind a cute....

More later...

Blast from the past - 5 DEC 2010

OK, instead of me re-entering my posts and setting the dates to what they were, I'm just going to repost using a current date.....

So back on December 5th, I got a chance to go back down to Kuwait City for the day.  Saw a few sites, did some shopping at the malls, and had some Lebanese food.  It was nice to get off base and go somewhere besides work....

Here's probably the most photographed objects in Kuwait.  The Kuwait Towers.

And here's Kuwait's current tallest building, the Al Hamra tower.... 413 meters (1,353 ft).  They're already planning a new tower though.... the Madinat al-Hareer, which is supposed to be 1001 meters (3,284 ft) which will be the world's tallest when completed....

And if you've noticed, I'm starting to dig Lebanese food.  Any chance I get, we go to a place called Awtar Libnan located at the Marina Mall in the Salmiya area of KC.  Very good stuff, especially if you like lamb.  :)
I think my favorite so far is the Lamb Arrayess.  Think quesadilla except with thick tortillas and ground lamb instead of cheese.  MMMMM.... They also have some other interesting dishes.  I forget what this was called, but it mainly ground up beef with spices served uncooked.  Not too bad, but not something I'd eat every day.  And they have an excellent dish comprised of 'squeeky cheese' on lettuce.  Very good stuff.

And lastly for the day, we spent an hour or so running around the pipe shops in Fahaheel.  At least I think that's where we were.  Need a water pipe?  This is one of several hundred shops that specialize in these.  Shisha is huge over here.... everyone has one, and they range from micro-mini, to ultra-mega huge.....  These guys would make a killing back in the states.....

Anyways, a pretty good day overall.  I like getting down to the city and into the backstreets.  The people are more normal than at the malls....


More later...

Room, basic room

The intertubes are being happy tonight, and I figured out why some of my pictures wouldn't upload, so yeah for me.

So a couple of people have asked what my room looks like.  Basically it's just a room about 16' X 20'.  It's normally split up between two or three people.  Right now, the 3rd guy is more or less never here, so I hijacked some of his space for the other guy and myself.  My area is about 8X10.  I was lucky enough to buy a couch, TV and a couple other items from a guy shipping out, so at least I don't have to sit on my bed all the time.  And the TV is big enough to XBOX on.  :)

And before anyone asks....  that little thing sticking up from the corner of my laptop screen is the 3G wireless adapter that makes the intertubes come to life.....sometimes.

I also got this as part of the package:

Not the biggest, but it does a good job a keeping stuff cold.  No freezer though.  :(  Those are boxes of bottled water underneath it.  You can't, I repeat CAN NOT drink the tap water in this country.  Which is really sad considering that they de-sal something like 95% of their fresh water and it's some of the cleanest in the world.....at the plant.  But the water system is awful.  And that's in town.  Here on Buehring, ALL of the water is trucked in.  EVERY. SINGLE. DROP.  And yes, we do run out on occasion.  I've been lucky not to have had to rinse off using bottled water yet.

And what do I currently have in my fridge?

(best thing in there is the little bottle in the door with the green label and red cap  :)  Thanks Baby!!)
Actually, the Hot Pockets have already gone bye-bye....

I know it seems like a really small space, but since I work 12 hours a day (with an hour drive each way), other than my days off, I'm really just sleeping here.  And I try to go do other stuff on my days off.  They have a movie theater, a couple of rec halls and plenty of places to go sit and read, so the room isn't that bad.  They just installed a new AC unit, and it works nicely as a heater too.  Now if I can just get the other roommate to keep the temp somewhat cooler than the surface of the sun......

More later...

I can fix it..... I'm mechanical

To kill the slack time over here, a few of us got R/C cars.  The other guys bought new ones, but my son was kind enough to let me borrow his for a while.  It's a couple of years old, and while it still ran pretty good, time has taken its toll on it.
When it got here it needed the steering servo rebuilt (the little motor/gearbox that turns the front wheels) and the original battery was a bit lacking.  Once I got it up and running again, its performance wasn't nearly what the other guy's cars are.  So....  I made some basic (e.g. inexpensive) upgrades.

First up, shocks cleaned and rebuilt using heavier oil and and some higher rate springs. 

Next I mounted up some new tires.  The fronts are in good shape, but the rear wheels were broken around the lip and the tires were getting a little worn out.  And, because there happens to be a LOT of sand over here, I invested in some paddles.

So here's what it looks like with the upgraded stuff, and stock tires.

And with the paddles....

I also (since it takes about 10 days to get parts shipped over here) picked up some spare gear sets, a-arms and misc hardware.  I haven't had a chance to run it with the new stuff yet, but it should do much better.

More later.

Happy New Year!

Went into KC for the day.  Got a few parts for my R/C cars, ate some very nice Lebanese food, and saw a movie.  There's an IMAX theater in the 360 Mall, so we saw the new Tron movie.  Actually, I'd already seen it, having ... um.... found it on the 'net already, but IMAX is MUCH better than my laptop.... and it was in 3D.  Of course, it had Arabic subtitles, and we had to sit in the bachelor section up front, but it was good.  The movie was 4KD (~14US) to get in, but popcorn, skittles and a soda was only about 1.250KD.  However, if you ask them for salt for the popcorn.... they go all 'deer in the headlights' on you.


On the way back to base, we stopped by one of the roadside vendors and picked up some fun.....  :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x-B90NMzsA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6dJ3HB4jpg

(sorry about the links.... I can't get the blogger software to upload video directly from here....)

The video doesn't do the sound justice.....  it's amazing how LOUD things can be when there isn't anything around to bounce the sound off of.  hehe...  of course, they are slightly bigger than your normal bottle rockets.  These were the smallest ones, and they were about 1.5 inches in diameter and about 9 inches long.

So that's was my New Year's eve fun.  :)

Later...

Well crap....

Well the piece of software (POS) I was using to post to the blog, which was much faster given my limited bandwidth issues, has decided that all of the post from 13 NOV 2010 until now, weren't only not worth posting, but has sent them to someplace that I can't find.  Sooo.....  I will have to go back and re-enter everything as I get time, bandwidth, and find stuff.  :(  sorry.

BUT.....  since it's going to be a new year and all....  it seems like a good time to try and start over with the blog thing.  I'll be doing it thru the blogger interface, so posts might be kind of bland if the internet is crap.  Which has been a LOT lately.

So...  here we go....