I was talking with a few co-workers last night over dinner and had mentioned Devins observation of all the expensive cars in Kuwait. They explained the reason for this to me. Evidently all the Kuwait people that are considered True Kuwaitese during Ramadan the Kuwait Prince erases all of their debt’s. Soooo the Kuwait people go out and buy a brand new expensive car make one or two payments on it and then have the debt erased during ramadan. Also all of the “pure blood” Kuwait people recieve a pretty decent kick back for all of the Kuwait oli sales.
Language lesson of the day (although I can’t say if It’s spelled right)
Balli (ball E) Hello
There must have been over 100 cop cars in 5-7 minutes. They seemed to be escorting several really nice cars, no clue who was in them, but they must have been important.
Speaking of cars, I saw at least 6 Lambrogini’s yesterday, 1 of which was abandoned cracked up on the side of the road… Did I mention there’s a lot of rich people here and lots of high end cars? One of the Lambo’s was being driven by a guy who looked 25 or so. 25 and driving your own half a million dollar car, must be nice.
It was hot and sunny at lunch with a decent bit of wind, but by the time class rolled around, the wind had kicked up a small dust storm. Maybe half mile visibility and you could easily look at the sun with your naked eye without squinting. It wasn’t quite as nasty as I thought a dust storm would be, just dirty and annoying, not blinding and deadly like the movies make it out to be. It might be nastier out in the desert where it’s all sand and no concrete or asphalt to keep things down. There were a few drops of rain on the windshield towards the end of the ride home as well.
Class has been going good, and will be over tomorrow afternoon.
I had dinner with Heather and Tom from Kwaj 2 nights ago. We ate at some Lebanese place that was pretty nice. Tom also showed me their palace place. It’s freaking nice, all marble floors 3 bedroom 3.5 bathrooms, a small kitchen and a few balconies. There’s a view of the ocean if you go up to the roof on the 3rd story. Hopefully I’ll snag some pictures from them or get some myself before I’m out of here.
The night I got here, it was under 50 F, and with the wind chill, it was almost enough to freeze my but off. I can actually navigate my way around Arifjan now, and amusingly enough I’m probably not going back. I’ll be crashing with a co-worker who has a hookup on a nicer place to stay that’s closer.
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Drivers here are a different kind of crazy than Afghanistan. I’ve never seen so many high end vehicles either; I suppose it’s like driving around Burbank or some other ritzy area. They don’t seem to care about their vehicles either, it boggles my mind. I’ve never seen so many vehicles abandoned on the side of the road, due to accidents or more likely mechanical failure mostly due to negligence.
Class is better now that there are labs mixed in with the lecture, more interesting and more practical.
I made it to class finally. Our flight out of Bagram was delayed for an hour or so due to lightening. Once we made it to Ali Al Salem, we got to wait around for about 4 hours for a bus to Arifjan. Pulled in at 1:30am or so, then took another hour to find the bus to Section 6 billeting. Finally crashed around 3am or so. Up at 6:30 and off to class, which is where I am now. Very tired and have a bit of a headache, but things seem to be going pretty good now.
here at the end of the week I’m heading back to Kuwait. ITT seems to actually provide training for their employees so they can stay current and progress in their careers, what a concept. Well, anyway I’ll be taking a Cisco (networking) class for about a week. And speaking of training, I’ve been chatting with Heather (formerly of Kwaj) while she’s been taking an Exchange class in Kuwait (dam, they really believe in keeping their employees skills updated so they are useful). They are setteling in over in Kuwait and seem to think Tera and I should transfer over that way after our contract is up. Not quite as good of money, but still pretty darn good, and much nicer living conditions.
The kitty, or lack thereof may end up being the biggest factor in where we end up. Allegidly the biggest holdup on Heather and Tom getting their kitty back is a certain cat sitter deciding they really like being a cat sitter. 
Even if we could get Spooky over here, our room is a little small, and I doubt there’s a vet we could get to, if she got sick. Tera seems to think she’d do fine in the room, and we may be able to get her over here to Kabul, so who knows.
I’ve been messing with some VOIP stuff for personal enrichment and the hope of getting a phone setup sometime. We seem to be getting at least 10% packet loss all the time on this WiFi connection, which really sucks and makes VOIP doubtful. Hopefully I’ll get my WiFi gear in soon so I can tap into the better connection that the NOC geeks have setup at their house a block or so away. In the mean time I’m trying to figure out all this VOIP stuff, which is really cool and starting to get pretty popular.
Apparently I’m rustier than I though. I put up a good showing, but not nearly as good as I would have liked. No worries, there’s a re-match tonight and I’ll be schooling those camo wearing punks at tonights Counter Strike LAN party. There is no force around that can keep geeks from busting out a LAN party.