Some every day stuff

This is a picture of a water clock that is in the middle of a mall here in Kuwait. This technology was pretty impressive for it's time and managed to tell time fairly accurately for centuries. The problem was that pressure in the air, altitude, temperature and way too many other factors made it too variable to be used for the really important stuff.

Kuwait was famous for it's ships and it's mariners. One thing they couldn't do however, was sail very far away from the coast because without a perfectly accurate method of measuring time, they couldn't tell their position by the stars. This impressive version of the water clock pays homage to the old technology though and it's pretty cool looking to boot.

This next picture is out the window of my villa. They're building a new girl's school here. Note the lack of windows and tall wall around it...

This is another picture right outside my window. The guys who work on the big beautiful villas that Westerners and Kuwaitis live in stay in these tents or in the unfinished villas while they're working on them. Note the chicken pen right next to the tent. Did everyone else hear about the 70 or so bird flu cases that occurred here in Kuwait? Apparently, someone who had some connections managed to get an infected bird into the country without going through quarantine. This is why corruption is dangerous. Hundreds of thousands of birds had to be culled. Anyway, no such luck that the REALLY NOISY ROOSTER in this pen got the bird flu. There were no cases passed to humans thankfully. Anyway, the damned thing is still alive and waking me up at 6 in the morning on weekends some times.

A-scripting we will go

This week and half of next I'm going to a class on VB scripting. The first day was really fun, especially since I'm friends with just about everyone in class already and JT is here! He should be bringing all his stuff to class tomorrow so I can bring him home to Hacienda del Heathen. He'll be staying with Tom and I, as I've mentioned earlier.

My friend Terra and I went shopping all day yesterday. We picked up all manner of goodness from the Friday Market and and a few other places. I think the coup de grace were the pants. I found a pair with sparkles on the butt and she got ruffle butt. All in all, a very pleasing day. Plus we did a really good job finishing out most of the stuff we needed for the guest bedroom.

Hey! Weird Science is on the movie channel... I'm outa here.

All dressed up

My ten-day week is finally over. Unfortunately, so is my 2 day weekend…

Tom went and bought a bed for our guest bedroom. He’s such a sweet boy. He knew I really wanted my friend JT to stay with us when he comes through for a class we’ll be taking together. Now I just have to get my butt to the Friday Market and pick up some curtains… He’ll have to literally live out of his suitcase, but it’s probably better than staying alone and shelling out Kuwaiti prices for a hotel room. I can’t wait to see him!

Bill, another friend of ours from Kwaj just got sent to another country in the region. We were hoping to hang out with him before he went there, but he caught an earlier flight than we thought he would. Oh well. At this rate, he’ll be back in a few weeks for some training himself. ITT seems to take pretty good care of their people in that respect.

Our household goods finally arrived. I spent a good portion of the weekend with Tom retrieving said shipment and unpacking. Not to mention, there’s just something about putting on a piece of clothing that’s been sitting around in musty old warehouses for 6 months that just doesn’t seem right, so I’m about half way through washing every piece of clothing and linen in the shipment. And boy is there a lot! When did I turn into a clothes horse? You know what else is funny? I still can’t find anything I want to wear…

It's going to be ugly

So I just had a 4 day weekend. I feel like I just managed to get caught up on sleep and here I go into a 10-day long week. It's going to be very rough. I must be out of my mind thinking I'm going to be able to do this for more than a year. Of course I always get to thinking that way at this point in the pay cycle. In a few days, when my bank account bulges conspicuously, I'll be singing a different tune.

And none too soon! Tom and I have dropped a ton of cash furnishing our new pad. It's gorgeous. Once we're all unpacked with everything hung on walls, etc. I'll post some more peeektures.

Bill, our friend from Kwaj is going to be coming out soon. He was Tom's poker buddy and he worked at IT for longer than me, if that's possible. I've known him for eons it seems like and I'm really looking forward to being able to hang out with him a little bit. I'm not even sure which country he's bound for, but hopefully he'll be able to drop by the hacienda now and again. I know Tom would love to see him.

JT, another was-Kwaj-but-now-is-here person will be coming through and going to a scripting class with me. I could not be more excited about that! Tom says we can go ahead and furnish the spare bedroom so he can stay with us, which will make it way easier for everyone involved, plus then we'll have a spare bedroom in which to host friends coming through the country again.

Our last house-guest was Terra (another was-Kwaj-but-now-is-here person) and she was absolutely lovely. She was tons of fun and her momma taught her good. Anyway, that was such a good experience, I think Tom's looking forward to doing it more often.

Anyway, back to SAN training.