This the scene from my right window as I am driving to futoor to the family house. This is just ridiculous, the one thing I am happy about is at least he is wearing some helmet and eye gear, but still its not enough. I won’t lie I do enjoy seeing a well done wheelie but not necessarily in the middle of traffic and putting themselves in harms way and getting people agitated with them. The problem is that a lot of people are very agressive when driving and don’t take these riders into consideration, riding is a risk within itself so there isn’t really any need to put yourself in this situation. If they are on a track or open lot then they can go enjoy themselves completely, but not in the middle of traffic just before Futoor rush hour and a few insane people on the road during that time.
This is just getting ridiculous, I didn’t even know how many useful sites Qualitynet is blocking. Forget they are blocking really useful and informational content, and the funny part so that people don’t get annoyed directly with Qualitynet they have changed the look of the blocking page they use which is very funny. They even removed the Qnet contact email which used to be there for mistakes, I think too many people emailed them and they don’t want to listen to anyone anymore.
Forget that they are blocking torrent sites for no reason, and they say its the Ministry of Communication requesting it from them but its odd they wouldn’t request it from the other ISPs who aren’t blocking them. They have blocked BoingBoing which wasn’t blocked the week before, and I was surfing it normally reading up on articles from physics to the latest technology, and funny stories. I just find it ridiculous that they have no criteria and that they are even blocking anything what so ever. There are ways to get around it but its still really annoying.
We are two thirds through Ramadan right now, and it feels like its flying by. The one thing very different about this Ramadan is the heat, I got used to the cool Ramadans of the past. A lot of people are even saying they won’t be in Kuwait during the next Ramadan because of the heat, now thats going to be interesting for sure. A lot of people will be flooding to Lebanon during that time for sure since its much cooler and nice during the hot periods in Kuwait.
One thing I am happy about is the change of weather and how things are cooling off a bit these days. Its nice to be outside albeit a little humid but still its nice sitting outside. I may have to switch on my boiler after keeping it off all summer long so that I may use hot water again, these days its lukewarm.
Now the question going around the question of the day is what is your Eid plans. It seems that this holiday during Eid is long enough to take the whole week off so people are making plans and they want to go to different destinations. Most flights to Egypt, UAE, and Lebanon are pretty booked, and it seems the majority are going to these places for their vacation and everyone is trying to take some time off. I like Kuwait when its empty so that I may enjoy some riding, and there might be some scuba diving plans if I can get my Padi license in time but its going to be tight.
I was going through some letters the other day then I see the power and water letter sitting in between them. I assumed it would be a bill, and I opened it up to see what it exactly it was. The period was from April to July, and we usually prempt them and pay the bill every 4 to 6 months. When I saw the amount I was shocked and thought something was very wrong, for last year our bill was only around 1900 KD for the whole house. Suddenly on this bill for a 3 month period it said 13’480 KD, I got on it to get things sorted out.
After dragging a technitian from the the Ministry of Power and Water to take a correct reading of the meter. After going back and forth, they were telling they can’t change the amount even though it was a completely wrong reading. After getting into a few heated arguments the amount changed from 5 digits down to 3 digits, to be exact around 350 KD which is much more reasonable since I was home alone for most of the summer and almost everything was off. I wonder how they taking readings in Kuwait, and somebody they don’t even send them the bill.
There is something about these guys just parking and on the side of the road and causing traffic. I really don’t understand why they do this, and how come its a Ramadan ritual. The police used to do checks to see if some of the kids who are standing there don’t have licenses other then that they can’t do anything. The sad part is even when the police are on the road the quads and off-road motorcycles are riding past them with their machines pointing to the sky.
As I am taking pictures there are some guys that notice and they did the funniest things, I just couldn’t help but laugh. I don’t understand why they just chill there every Ramadan, and it causes traffic every time.
The first day of Ramadan was a nice start since work wasn’t too much and I had a few errands to run before going to futoor. I went to futoor to my brothers house, and I wasn’t that hungry when I went but I was thirsty after a long day.
The best thing about the whole day is seeing my nephew and my niece! My nephew can now say my name has morhped from Agoog to Ma-soooook which is funny. I really missed those little two even though it was only two weeks and a bit.
After futoor I went with some Family members to do the rounds and one thing is for sure going from Dewaneya to Dewaneya is a great tradition. You get to see a lot of people, and its interesting how they schedule all these visits, one thing I really liked was seeing all these old Dewaneyas which kept the old Kuwaiti architecture in great condition.
We started around 7:30pm and we finished around 10:30pm, and that is only the first set of the day. Then over the next week there are other rounds to be made, and it starts right after Isha prayer. I can imagine how tiresome this can get, but this is the first time for me so it is interesting making these rounds.
It has started and this time its going to be a little hot during Ramadan, unlike the previous years. Last summer wasn’t too bad but this just feels a little early. I’m the type of person that really enjoys Ramadan since I get to see a lot of my family more often and I get to enjoy their company. For the first day its going to be going to a lot of Dewaniyas after Futoor so that will take up sometime from the day I’m just hoping to be able to meet up with my friends since its the beginning of the weekend. And there is going to be a lot of traffic on the streets around 5:30pm over the next couple of days.
A lot of people follow the Arabic TV shows during Ramadan, I just follow them with family since I have my own set that I follow from the states and there are some new shows to follow. Its funny how everyone is sending the times of the new shows on all the different Arabic channels, but the Ramanda is when the quality shows are shown so it will be interesting.
And my works hours have changed from 9:30am to 3:30pm, but its funny how work always goes past that and for the first day I have a 8:30am meeting, and so I wonder when the day will end.
I got some enquiries regarding the Treasure Hunt event in Kuwait so I have found out a little more information.
Contact: 9359953
Just tell them you want the Treasure Hunt People. It is two girls who handle everything.
They need a two week lead time, and the groups have to be a minimum of 8, but we did it with 6 people. Basically the more the merrier.
These events are very customized to each event and requirements. They need to know a lot of information about the people who are participating since they completely customize the clues depending on the people. Such as where they graduated from, what they like doing, where they work, and that type of information. Then they customize the event based on your requirement.
What I find great is how much effort they put into making it fun for everyone. You can also specify the area you want it to be in. From my understanding one time they did a group of 6, and each group had 5 membesr so it was a total of 30 people with lots of places to be covered. Its one hell of an adventure and worth checking out.
Regarding price I think its between 30-40 per person, I’m not totally sure since I didn’t organize the first event. I will be calling them in a couple of weeks to organize an event for all our friends and making into a rediculous run around Kuwait.
A blogger Bashar Al-Sayegh was taken from Al-Jareeda news paper by Kuwait Secret Police (Amin Al Dawlah) for a comment against the Emir of Kuwait in his blog, which he deleted after reading the comment, and Jassim Al-Qames was detained for taking photographs of the illegal detainment of Bashar at the Newspaper head quarters.
Bashar was thruoughly beaten and he was made to sign a document under duress. And Jasim is still imprisoned without any knowledge of his whereabouts or updates.
This is completely against every right that we have in Kuwait. I hope they free Jasim and prosecute these people in the Secret Police for their actions. I wish we could find out their names.
Link: QSWS
Link: K.theKuwaiti
Link: 248am.com
I’m traveling to the US in a couple of weeks so I had a couple of questions pop up regarding my Passport and Visa. I sent the embassy an email regarding the question and they called back the next day to answer the question. I was surprised they didn’t write back, but then when I thought about it they just didn’t want anything written.
My passport expires in Dec of 2007, and my Visa is valid until Feb of 2008 but some countries won’t allow you to enter the country if there is only 6 months left on your passport. I know this happened to a friend that visited Thailand or Malaysia on his honeymoon and he only 4 months left so they wouldn’t let him in, that was a mess for them to deal with.
I knew about this issue before, but the process of getting a new passport only takes about 3-5 days, but getting a new US Visa could range from 2 weeks to 6 months. There is no set time and I didn’t want to take that chance even though I already have a valid Visa. First off if your going to the Embassy leave your mobile and camera in your car. Ask questions if you don’t know what your doing like me, there is always somebody to point you somewhere, at the gate they told me to take the golf cart to the front of the embassy which I did. Then your sitting outside in front of three counters and each one labeled for the type of business you have with them but sitting out in the heat felt like we were cattle.
I stepped up to the Visa window and asked the person at the window what is my situation regarding the passport and visa, he told me the only thing they care about is having a valid visa. If my Visa is valid then it doesn’t matter when my passport ends if I am entering the US and my duration. That is the same thing the person said after I sent my email, I really do hope that is the case since it would really be horrible to land in the US and they won’t let me enter the country. So if the visa and passport is valid for the duration of the trip then I would have no problems on the trip.