Ramadan Kareem to all, this is going to be an interesting one since its going to be in the lovely heat of the summer. We are trying to keep our activities the same on the weekend, I’m still trying to get up on the wake board, we just have to deal with the thirst. As usual it isn’t the hunger that gets me but the thirst. I honestly look forward to Ramadan every year since I get to see family so much, but I get annoyed with people who don’t want to work because they are fasting and a lot of things come to a halt in Kuwait because of that but here is hoping everyone has a fun Ramadan.
Short film about the martyrs of Kuwait and significant moments in our country’s history. Aired on Al Watan TV, Al Rai TV and in all Cinescape movie theaters for the August 2nd memorial day.
I have this sticker on my door since 1991 which says “Don’t forget our POWs”, and this video summarizes my feelings. Abdul Mohsen Al Hashim is the director and he did an amazing job with this video, there is a whole team who is listed in the credits but its seriously amazing. This video does make me feel proud, because its Kuwaiti talent that made this video to honor our martyrs, and I’m looking forward to the projects that he has next.
Its a little while since I went for a check up, at least some blood work to see whats going with me. So I decided to go to BuHamra Clinic just off of fourth ring road while entering Salmiya. I was going for a full check of everything you can think off that would can be made from a blood and urine sample. The whole thing didn’t take more then 45 minutes with the preliminary results. Overall everything turned out to be good, I thought my cholesterol might be off the charts due to eating so much meat but it wasn’t bad, and my iron level was a little on the high side but thats better then being on the low side. The Clinic is owned by Dr. Mohammed Buhamra who is a famous dermatologist, but this was just a check up so I didn’t need to see him. Some tests will be sent to Paris and the results will be out in about 8 days and then I won’t have to do another check up in a while. At least my blood test doesn’t seem I’m overweight, it says I’m in pretty good health.
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FREE CITY official launch on Tuesday the 18th of August, 5-10 PM, Exclusively at Pink Moon, Across from Seif Palace.
Pink Moon Boutique is one of those boutique stores in Al Seef Mall Strip in Kuwait City by the sea side, its a entrepreneurial Kuwaiti business which has been around for a little while now and I’m always up to supporting these ambitious people and I do like their store. Most of the time its for the female patrons but they have brought a new clothing line an LA based Loungewear line which is unisex, some very cool and comfortable sweats and hoodies, sizes available from S-XXL.
Link: PinkMoonBoutique
Something came up and we had to go to Bahrain for a meeting, checked on the flights and there wasn’t anything that fit our schedule so we decided to leave early in the morning. Took off to the border heading to Bahrain, the Khafji border didn’t take us 20 minutes and stereotypes are very true, we had nothing in the car and we wore dishdashas so at the border they stamped things quickly and at the Saudi Customs check they didn’t bother they just stamped and we went right through. We were on our way straight to Bahrain, we were discussing work, movies, and a ton of other things on the way there.
We go to Saudi/Bahrain border in under three hours which is pretty damn good but I also had a high average speed. This was pretty much a test for the Landcruiser crossing all the way to Bahrain, I wanted to see how the car handles and what it feels like. All I can say is that Toyota has created perfection with this machine, the drive was extremely smooth at speeds over 180kph, the brakes were fantastic and even with the heat we didn’t feel anything thanks to the excellent air conditioning and Huper Optik tint, the seats were very comfortable, great sound system, and the little fridge in the middle was very useful. We both had a spare dishdasha and chemaq ready for our meeting when we get there, it was that simple.
45 minutes from the border the gentlemen called us and delayed our meeting which worked to our benefit, called one of my friends and he gave me the address to Meat Co in Bahrain and we got to it, its in an Area called Aadliyah but they really changed it and it looks very nice. So many nice restaurants, I remember coming here back in November for GulfRun and it was all asphalt but now they made it even nicer with all the nice restaurants. Crossing the border in Bahrain took us about 45 minutes because of the traffic but we got in and had our lunch, we even had 45 minutes to spare which was perfect, we went into the meeting energized and ready. That went decently well to start with, but we need to have a few more meetings before we get into the project. We were done around 3:45 pm and we had some tea at a coffee shop and then headed to the border, we got there around 4:00 pm.
We got stuck at the Saudi/Bahrain Border for 1 hour and 36 minutes, I think snails were passing while we were stuck in that traffic and it wasn’t even a weekend. I was going nuts waiting, and we were getting tired from the wait, thats half the trip to Kuwait and I was hoping to be on the while there was sun light. We took off at around 5:40 pm, we just stopped at the gas station about 20 km from the border to pray, fill up gas, buy some candy and drinks to keep us energized the way back. Then I just took off, the lowest speed I was going at that point was 180 kph and tried keeping it at 200 kph. When in Bahrain and in Kuwait I drive around 120 to 140, but Saudi is like no man’s land, if you drive slow they run you off the road, so i just kept a high pace but you have to keep your eyes out for those changes in the road because of construction, there is always construction on that road, but its a straight line from Bahrain to Kuwait. We made great time, we go to the border at exactly 8:00 pm and it took us about 30 minutes to get through and even in Kuwait they didn’t bother checking the car which is funny because we could have snuck anything in. It was one hell of a trip but got a lot of work done and I got to test my car on a very long trip.
So I have been testing Huper Optik on my Landcruiser for some time, I installed the C40 which has a decent amount of heat resistance and my M6 has the same but from Llumar. I wanted to try them out since I kept hearing about the product and reading up on the differences between metallic tint and ceramic tint, and turns out that this is true. I tried out a couple of walkie talkies inside the Beemer and the Landcruier, we could get farther with the Landcruiser and its substantially clearer, and we tried it with another car with metallic tint and that also had the same results, Nano-Ceramic tint has no bad effect like metallic tint.
After the little experiment with the Landcruiser I decided to change my Beemer tint since Llumar wasn’t honoring their warranty, the tint was peeling from the windshield and passenger window. The Landcruiser cost me 220 KD to tint every window including the windshield, the Beemer cost 160 KD and they offered me a 10% discount on the car because it was my second car and even though it was more work for them. The difficulty with the beemer is that they had remove the tint and without damaging the rear window, which are those thin defogger lines. They did a great and thorough job of removing it and installing their tint. They told me that it would take about a week for some of the small bubbles to go and they did, couldn’t find any after a week. What I did like is that you are in contact with the owners, and he even told me that there is nothing wrong with my tint, he said he would just replace those two windows instead of taking the whole thing off, I was so pissed with Llumar that I wanted to remove the whole damn thing. It did also help that they were working on a car a little more sensitive then mine and I could see the car they were taking with it. I went for a combination of C40 and C30 tint which is basically very dark and a great amount heat protection, I will be stopped by the police but I don’t care at this point since it looks great on the car, the car next to me did a C60 tint which is pretty close to clear but with a lot of heat protection. I was surprised they did a heat test of my window with the Llumar tint and with the Huper Optik tint, Llumar claimed 80% heat rejection when it was only 23% and the Huper Optiks was 55%, thats another thing to add to the list of Llumar, false advertising, they claim UV rejection not the total heat rejection which is the only thing that matters in Kuwait with our sun. They have a great product and great service with decent prices, I just hope they continue at this level, they now have a loyal customer.
Good things about Huper-Optik Nano-Ceramic Tint:
- Does not fade, unlike other tints, because it has no additives
- Better heat protection, I can hold my steering wheel after leaving it in the sun for 8 hours
- Doesn’t interfere with GPS, Bluetooth, Radio signals unlike metallic tint
- No hassle service with these guys, car was done in 4 hours
- Price is reasonable for a quality tint
- 10 year warranty
The address and contact details of Huper Optik Kuwait can be found in the link below. For all your tinting needs this is an amazing product, and the service is great.
Link: HuperOptik
On the way back I had a two and half hour delay leading to four hours and half in a 20 year old Oman Air lounge. Those were probably the most uncomfortable couches I ever sat on, and sitting on it for several hours led to some pain in my neck and back. Even with all that I just couldn’t get mad at the people working there, they were very nice, polite and apologetic. The plane was an old Boeing 737-700, the Omani flight attendant was very nice, even when I fell asleep before the flight she asked me if I wanted to eat when there was 10 mins left before landing, and the plane was very quickly even though it was very old.
Oman has a natural mountainous and green areas, surrounded by the sea, especially Muscat. It has some very nice windy roads up the mountainous areas and some very nice coastal roads by the sea. All the roads are very smoothly paved, even though you can tell some areas need work, but the roads are extremely clean, and so are the side walks. You just get this feeling that every where is clean in Oman, and it feels so refreshing.
I managed to visit Sultan Qaboos Mosque which is an amazing piece of architecture, and a real work of art. It just has this heart warming and majestic feeling when you walk into it, and what I found to be amazing is that it is open to the general public during morning times for visits. The Omani curator and security were very friendly and asked if they could help me, and were willing to give me short private tour but I was on a schedule and unluckily for me I didn’t have the time but its worth it to come back and see it. Every Omani person that I met was more then friendly and helpful, they were genuinely nice and whenever they found out I was Kuwaiti they were extra nice, I don’t even know how to explain it.
For some people who were asking I was staying at the Grand Hyatt since it was closer to the location where I had my meetings and it was a very nice hotel, nothing special as others have mentioned of Shangri-La and Chedi but it was nice nonetheless. The one thing that I can’t stop repeating is how nice every once, even the expats who get used to this place love it. They do say that somethings are a bit slow but you can live with it, but what I would surprising is that Oman was only introduced to DSL about 3 to 4 years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to live like that, also there is a very sophisticated monitoring tool which makes our ISP blocking tools look like a cake walk. Oman is worth a visit again, I’m thinking about bringing my motorcycle for some nice rides and a good lunch. I didn’t have a enough time but I had a lot to take in. I always thought of Bahrainis as the nicest people in the Gulf, but I think the Omanis are even nicer, I don’t even know how to describe it, they are just extremely polite, nice, and kind people. Even during the meeting I felt embarrassed from one person who went out of his way, what an experience that I hope to repeat soon. I know I will be putting some mileage on my Landcruiser because I’m looking for a nice long drive and dragging my bike with me.
I was passing by Al Sabih Marine to check out a few items, while I was there I just crossed the road into Tilal to check the Tamiya store. I have had the urge for a very long time but I don’t know why I haven’t been there. Its a very nice store with a nice selection of cars, looks like they will be moving to the first floor into My Toy Company. I looked around the moment I walked in, it reminds me of the R/C Stores in Muthana that used to go to as a kid but a lot cleaner and a smaller selection. They have some interesting cars which are ready made and some to be built.
The ready built cars range from 120 to 180 KD, different models had different sizes and I really enjoyed looking around. There was a cool Humvee with the green camouflage colors and then there was Nissan GT-R which looked like it would be a lot of fun on a smooth street. I walked in just talking a look around and ended up asking these guys a ton of questions. There was an old Landcruiser which is built on a rock crawler chassis and its really cool, and a few other ones are cool like that but the price of it starts at 200 KD and goes up to 400 KD depending if you get the full electric kit which has lights horns and other things. Turns out these complex trucks like the red Landcruiser seem to have gear boxes and you can put it into gear with the remote, it seems they have gotten a lot more complex over the years but still looks like fun.
I have been wanting to go to Rehab for some time now, but going to Hawally at night just isn’t appealing. So I had a chance to go early saturday morning and so I went, I want to go in and pick up a few games and head out. Usually I just walk to the Kuwaiti Center knowing which games I had in mind, then I spotted the Gamespot shop, I never knew that Gamespot had a retail store in Kuwait, I think they would be interested to know. I picked up a few games that I wanted to get for some time now, one of them is HAWX, I just can’t resist a good fighter pilot game, and then there is Red Faction which is a must.
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Prototype
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
I wanted to look for some tools, I needed a wire cutter and some other items so I decided to go to Ace Hardware. We walked in and as usual it was practically empty, and we went to the Bar-b-q section and to my surprise they had new Webber grills, these are practically the best grills available in the market and I didn’t know they brought them to Kuwait. I kept on walking and went to the tools section found the wire cutter, and asked a person about the Bosch air blower since mine broke and can’t be fixed. The sales person didn’t look up and he was flipping through a news paper which was on top of some tool boxes. I asked him when he would be getting them in, he said he doesn’t know, when were they out of stock, he said he doesn’t know. So I asked him “what exactly do you know while sitting and reading the newspaper, do you even work in the tools section or are you just bored?”, and that got his attention but not for too long. I left and we walked around, I like all the special items that Ace always seems to carry, I can’t help myself when looking at power strips and they have the quality kind which isn’t available everywhere. I made a not of it and kept on walking to the other sections, it seems they reorganized the place and stocked up, its nice to see new quality Japanese or German items they might have, its about finding something unique at Ace. We went to the tv mounts and found that they carry Omnimount which are high quality TV/monitor mounts. We were looking at a fully movable one for large Plasma/LCD TVs and the sales person came, we asked him if this was an Omnimount he said yes its an Oni-Point, at this point I asked him that there is no label and the box says nothing, he said no he is sure, so I asked him to prove it. After 5 minutes of going through the box he couldn’t find a thing that said its an Omnimount unit, we then asked him since when did they carry Omnimount and do they get it from dealer he says he doesn’t know. I asked him if he works in this section, he said that it is his section, so I asked him about installation and warranty, he said they don’t do installations but he can give somebody’s number who can do it but I have to pay for it and they don’t have warranty. Seriously what is wrong with the people there, either they really have no motivation, or they really don’t want to sell or help anyone.