Night life

Here is a shot of the water fountain in the Al Kout mall, the mall is two long buildings, with this in the middle.  One building has a grocery store in front and a fresh fruit, veggie and fish market in the back.  The other building has a movie theater, food court, and all the normal clothing stores that malls have, plus a few coffee and ice cream shops.  Behind the fountain, across the street to the left is the other mall, Al Manshar, which houses a Papa Johns and some other stores, beyond Papa Johns, i dont care too much.  Oh yea, they have these souvenir shops, I got a couple of chess sets there, and a coffee mug for my grandma.  They have all kinds of random crap there, wooden carvings, cheap knife and sword replicas, all kinds of stuff floating in glass cubes and balls, tea sets and who knows what else.  The shop is crazy crowded, i'll try to get a pic before i leave.

Whats the difference between a two lane road and a one lane road with street parking?  As soon as the parking lot is full, or a kuwaiti thinks it's full, or a kuwaiti doesn't feel like using the parking lot the right lane becomes street parking.   You know how in a mall parking garage there is often a patch of sidewalk in front of the mall entrance.  The other night while at the mall, it was so crowded a car pulled up on there to park.  If it wasn't for the mall security guards, they would have just parked on the corner, locking in the last two parking spots.  It's beyond ridiculous how selfish most drivers are here.  While in line, in the parking garage, on the 3rd story heading to the exit, a guy came behind us and barely squeezed between us and the parked cars.  There was no time to move over and block them since they came up so fast, a few cars ahead of us someone tried to block them, but they made it through.  I'm a fairly patient driver, but i've had more than one urge to chunk a tire iron at another car.

This is one of the strip malls near the whole sale store pictured below.   It would take a very long time to count how many mini stores like these are located around Kuwait.

I doubt i would drink this bud even if there was alcohol in it.  I'm not a snob, but if i limit what i drink, i'll drink less and less often, its a nice perk to being picky.

I dont have a clue what you would put vine leaves in.

  This is the whole sale center i sometime shop at.  Not sure how much cheaper it is than the regular place i shop at, but its got a few different items.  I got a mini pineapple there last week to cook with a pack of baby back ribs.  Three hours of cooking and they weren't that tender, but they tasted pretty good.  Pineapple, bbq sauce, garlic, brown sugar and a few other ingredients made a pretty good marinade.

 Here is a shot from the second story in the whole sale center.







I have a couple of more pics, but i apparently forgot to load them while at my place yesterday.  New post tomorrow, roof shots from near my place, and pictures of the Hamberg family

Kilts and the A.T.

So I've just read my 4th book on the Appalachian Trail and I'm more certain than ever that hiking 2145 miles would be awesome. Difficult, rewarding, painful, beautiful, why wouldn't someone wanna do it.

I've already written about the AT before, so I won't repeat all those stats, but I've also come across some new options.

I've also already decided that I'm gonna use a hammock instead of a tent.

The new option is to wear a kilt or not. There are many reasons to wear one, the biggest being comfort. Beyond all the teasing they get on the trail (in one poll, 1/2 the men and 1/5 of the woman thought it was dumb, notice 80% said they liked the kilt) every guy one source talked to raved about how comfortable it was and how they would never go back to shorts.

Right now I'm leaning towards the kilt, but I'm also curious as to how yall are gonna react to it considering finishing the AT is 90% mental and I'll be relying on yalls support.

CCNA

Sorry it has been such a long time since my last post, I have been focusing on the CCNA exam, which I finally took yesterday and passed.  Here are some stats that are just as exciting as studying for the exam was.

Pages Read:   ~900 from one book, a few hundred more from websites

Practice Tests Taken:  40
Practice Test Questions Answered: 1250
Time Spent on Those Tests: ~16 hrs
Time Spent Reviewing Those Tests: ~15 hours
Flash Cards Made:  200
Time to Figure Out These Stats: 10 minutes

As you can see, I've had my hands full.   Thankfully that is over with and now I just have to review the flash cards once a week or so to make sure I dont forget all that.

Can anyone guess what I'll be doing with my time from now on?  Well, starting tonight I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities.   After that I will split my time between reading the stack of books I haven't read, and trying to learn two languages.   One is a very usefully language to learn, specially since I am from Texas, but the other is an outdated form of communication only used by ham radio enthusiasts.  While the second language is completely useless, the nerd in me thinks it would be really cool to know.  We'll see if I end up learning either.

not a lot to report

It has been a while since I last posted, sorry, there hasn't been anything to report.  Lets see if I can find something worth typing out.

This last weekend was eventful for two reasons.  First of all I found out the IMAX in Kuwait was showing Inception, a movie I have heard a great deal about.  I planned on getting some coffee around 11pm then driving to the mall and watching the movie.  Instead my car wouldn't start.  Luckily I went to Starbucks next to the mall, so I bought a set of jumper cables.  I found a car nearby, some teenagers were just hanging out in the parking lot.  Five minutes of them trying to figure out how to open the hood ended in failure, apparently the latch was broken.  They called to another guy who pulled up with his suburban and 30 minutes of him charging my car didn't do a thing. This whole process used about 15 english words and a whole lot of hand gestures and sounds effects to communicate.  In the end I left the car there, got a cab back to my place and had a repairman replace the battery the next morning.

Tuesday night was exciting for two reason.  It started out with dinner with Greg and Becca. I made a nice smoked gouda sauce, mixed with bow-tie pasta and grilled chicken.  Sprinkle on a ridiculous amount of finely shredded parmesan cheese and you've got goodness.  I'm looking forward to heating up some leftovers when I get back to my apartment in an hour.  Greg and I then went to one of the Kuwait malls and watched Inception, a movie that definitely lives up to all of the hype.
 
Oh yea, between dinner and Inception, a moment 11 years in the making was realized.  I was introduced to StarCraft 11 years ago by my cousin Jason.  It is easily one of the greatest computer games ever made.  It was in second place behind Dungeon Keeper, my all time favorite computer game.  At 8pm StarCraft 2 was officially available to me, I had already downloaded the game, I just needed to buy a license to play it online and I was set.   At first when I tried to buy it, I was told I was in the purchase queue in place 930.  They estimated it would be 24,855 days until my turn came.  Luckily that was just a bug, and I purchase the license about 20 minutes later.  This game definitely lives up to the hype, I just wish it hadn't taken them 11 years to finish it.

I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë last week.   I give it 5 out of 5 stars and will likely be reading it again before I leave Kuwait.  Other than having a little drama, some romance, a few surprises, and a lot of patience, I wont say anything about the book.  I just recommend you read it.

Right now I'm about three quarters through East of Eden by John Steinbeck.  Very good story so far, depending on how it ends, I feel like its gonna get 3.5 or 4 out of 5 stars. 

While Jane Eyre was centered on, you guessed it, Jane Eyre, East of Eden has two families that the story is focuses on.  From marriage to kids to grand kids, there is a lot going on, and I'm pretty curious as to how it all ends.

sorry mom, but its gonna happen

While I love and respect my parents, I dont always do what they want, or I should say sometimes I do something they dont want me to do.  This is the case with me moving overseas, and while I agree with them that this sucks, its something I need to do.

In a related way, getting a motorcycle is something I've always wanted to do but never could, so I've already started looking at models that I like so when I get back to the states, I can get my license and get one.

I like the old look., no crotch rockets, and no big and bulky cross country bikes.

Here is what I'm looking at for my first motorcycle:

1964 Triumph T-120 model

1975 Harley-Davidson XL1000 Sportster

1992 Honda Shadow VLX 600

Those 3 are around $2000 apiece and all used.  The harley below is much, much more expensive and not likely to ever be in my garage, unless I win the lottery.

Harley-Davidson Softail Fat Boy 10

Whom Do You Serve

After many years of planning, changing designs, locations and text, I have finally settled on what I want.  On my recent trip home for two family weddings, I got a tattoo.  It is a phrase written in biblical hebrew on my wrist.

I didn't tell anyone what it translated to at first because it was my tattoo and I wanted to keep it a secret between me and God.  With everything going on in my life over the last few years, I wanted a reminder that wasn't just applicable to my current situations, but something that would remind me of truth in all situations.

I have gone back and forth in what I wanted, from old testament verses to modern sayings and designs.  One of my favorite Proverb is 11:22 because of its humorous, yet wise and timeless warning

Like a gold ring in a pigs snout, is a beautiful women without good sense.

I've also considered more heartfelt verses like Psalms 61:1-2

Hear my cry, O God;
       listen to my prayer.

From the ends of the earth I call to you,
       I call as my heart grows faint;
       lead me to the rock that is higher than I. 

I was very close to getting this ichthys on 

my back before I came to Kuwait.

In the end I decided that I wanted something small that could be a daily reminder to me.  The phrase does occur in the book of Joshua, but I didn't find that out until after I got the tattoo.  I got it in biblical hebrew so people couldn't just read and understand it.  Having less people understand it makes it feel more personal to me. 

Oh yea, and if you didn't read the title of this post and figure it out, the tattoo asks "Whom do you serve", ask me if you ever want a more in depth explanation of why i choose that phrase.

Back to the Grind

It was a great vacation, but now it's time to get back to work.

I was able to visit most of my family, attended two weddings, shared many meals with great friends and was able to cook a few times.  Overall a great vacation, thank you to everyone that was a part of it.

Now back to work, hopefully I'll be able to study for and knock out the CCNA within 2 or so months.