Creaking Tatters

Around Town

Ok, so it's been a while. Part of it is the busy-ness of work, the other part is the lack of anything of interest to say or take pictures of. Denise has been active in posting up pictures of our recent short trips, including Mumbai and Jordan.

Here are some pictures we took yesterday of downtown Kuwait:

And another one

Another shootout this morning, supposedly the Kuwaiti police caught the "spiritual leader" of the cell.

Five killed in Kuwait gunfight, militants' spiritual chief arrested

And from BBC

BBC Video Story

In the News...

2 Kuwaiti Policemen Killed in Shootout - KUNA

Armed Men Kill 2 in Kuwait - Al-Jazeerah

Star Academy

The Information Minister here in Kuwait, Mohammed Abul-Hassan, resigned this past week, for a number of reasons. Some say that it was linked to the Information Ministry's allowing some concerts by the Lebanese-based Star Academy.

So tonight, I'm playing with our Orbit satellite network, and managed to pull in another 100 channels or so, of mostly arabic TV. I managed to pull in the Star Academy channel. They were doing some arabic-english version of "Fame". It hurt, but I had to watch it.

More Kuwaiti Blogs

Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, etc, etc. No New Year's resolutions, but will try to write more in general.

Been reading more of the Kuwaiti blogs recently. Here's a good one:

Kuwaiti Nomad

And this one, Indefinitely Defineless, had a great entry about the Kuwaiti Weekend, here's an excerpt:

"The gangs of male kids, who are all trying to be on the cutting edge of fashion yet simultaneously unaware of how similar they all look, meet. All of the Hamoods and their first male cousins, who are also called Hamood, are feeling lucky in scoring big..." Read More

Birds

Went to the Friday Market last week. Big flea market, not much interesting to see or buy. One interesting but slightly depressing area is the animal market. Lots of birds and fish, some cats, dogs, rabbits and monkeys. Here are some of the parrots, with an artistic touch.

And up and up

It's really cold, but they're still plugging away on this hotel next door.

Big River

Yes, it does rain in Kuwait. We couldn't believe it when we first got here, and it was 120 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. But it's been raining a bit lately, and last night the skies opened up. Here's some pictures from our ride to work today.

Have a nice drive

At the entrance to the highway we have to get on every day to go to work, there's a nice little wreck from a recent accident.

Also, today I passed an interesting wreck that we've seen a few times, finally got around to taking a picture. I'm assuming the car drove off the highway and smashed into the overpass, rather than fell off it.

Next Door

The hotel next door is going up slowly. They still like to work in the middle of the night...

Kuwait Blackout

A faulty transformer triggered power blackouts across Kuwait yesterday. We lost power briefly at work, until the backup generator kicked in. Our housekeeper called me at work, the power had gone off before and all the microwave and oven lights and clocks were blinking, she didn't know what was going on and thought there was danger. "No danger," I told her.

One of the Kuwait blogs has a good entry on the political ramifications, or lack thereof, of the blackout.

Kuwaitis for Bush

Perhaps it's the legacy of the father, or perhaps it's because John Kerry voted against the 1991 authorization to use force in Kuwait. Or it's because Bush Jr. got rid of Kuwait's worst enemy. Whatever the reason, the older population here is staunchly behind the President in Tuesday's election. If Kuwait were a state, it would be a Red state, through and through.

Salam Pax

Salam Pax, the Baghdad author of the wartime blog, "Where is Raed?", is now writing articles for the UK Guardian, and has a book out.

Kuwait Blogs

I've been reading some Kuwait blogs lately. You can actually find most of them aggregated here, at Safat.

There's an interesting piece on the Kuwaiti resistance during the first Gulf War here.

A few other Kuwaiti blogs:

Zaydoun
Stories from Kuwait
Jackie
Tata Botata
Savior Machine
Pink Thinks
MadM2000
Notions on Kuwait
Mosan Mosan
Badou Inc
Lots of other Kuwait blogs listed here

Oil Scenery

We took a ride out to the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) facility down south.

This is one of the well-heads being flared off.

This is an "oil lake." I didn't swim in it.

During the first Gulf War, the Iraqi military destroyed much of KOC's facilities in the area, including a large number of the holding tanks and gathering centers for oil production. The Kuwaitis rebuilt all of them except for one, so they could have something to show people as an example of what happened to them.

This is a partially melted holding tank that the Iraqis blew up.

The crumpled thing on the ground in this picture if a fully melted holding tank.

Near the area of this damage, there is the small hill which the Kuwaitis swear is natural and is the highest natural point in Kuwait.

Red Handed

Perhaps a strange way to describe someone caught with pornography...

Jail Better than Wife

The headline says it all. Reminds me of that Tom Waits song, "Better off without a wife"...

Cat Returns to Kuwait

There's just a whole lot to this story, but there's a cat that left Kuwait and returned, there's the first Gulf War, there's chemical weapons, just all sorts of stuff. Check it out>

Whiskey River

Just about every few days in the newspaper there will be a picture of some guys busted with alcohol, either trying to smuggle it into Kuwait, or caught brewing up some moonshine. Here's a few recent pictures:

Now, if you were gonna get busted for alcohol, which guy would you rather be? That's right, Red Label baby! Or, you could be the dudes with the plastic garbage cans...

The Road to Iraq

A short video clip of the road north, somewhere between Kuwait City and Iraq.

Road Hazards

On the way up to the border, we came upon this truck that had just overturned in the road.

News from Kuwait

There are two local English language daily newspapers in Kuwait, the Kuwait Times and the Arab Times. There's also an English language insert to the International Herald Tribune, called The Daily Star, and it's a collection of stories translated from some of the Arabic language press.

Reading some of the stories, you really get a sense for what's going on here.

That's about $700,000 worth of Johnny Walker Red Label, in case anyone is counting.

And in another sign that the country is going to hell in a handbasket:

Wheels

It's 117 degrees in Kuwait today. Do you know what that feels like? Go turn your oven on and stick your head in it. Oh, and get a heat lamp and shine it on your face while you're doing that.

We got our car today. Ran around all morning to various agencies getting it registered, inspected, etc., then back to work. Nice to have wheels here. Kuwait City is a lot like LA, I think, you must have a car. Or, as they might say here, you must to have a car.

New view

We moved some things around in our apartment, swapped the second bedroom and the office. Our desk view is a little better:

Ouch, my thumb

My wife seemed to find this very amusing, but I didn't. I slammed my thumb in the door of an armored car. Now, slamming one's thumb in a regular car door is pretty bad, but an armored car, that's really bad. It's a really heavy door.

Kuwait City Views

Looking north from our apartment, towards downtown Kuwait City and the towers.

Persian Gulf Sunrise

The sun rising over the Persian Gulf, from our apartment window.

Welcome to Kuwait. You want fries with that?

So we arrived in Kuwait about a week ago. It's hot. We live right by the beach though, and our apartment building has a nice pool. And there's a McDonald's right across the street. In fact, the third or fourth night we were here, McDonald's was celebrating it's tenth anniversary in Kuwait. What could I do? I had to check it out...

Can't you feel it calling you, like a beacon in the dark night?

Yes, they did have some kids doing bike and rollerblade tricks, and a DJ. I kid you not.

The view of McDonald's and the Persian Gulf from our balcony.

Kuwait Driving

We moved out of our apartment in Arlington on Friday, staying with friends in Fairfax County until Monday night, when we fly out to Kuwait. We'll put up some pictures when we get there, insha'allah.

Our car should show up sometime in July, but I'm not sure how much we'll really want to drive it around. I stumbled across this page recently, the Crashed Cars of Kuwait.