6000 Miles from home

Posted by Steve on January 14, 2013 Leave a comment (0) Go to comments

Howdy folks! Live from Kuwait City It’s Satu…wait, no it’s Monday for me. Well, I have landed and been on site for almost a week. There is certainly a level of adjustment to living in a Middle East nation. Things are a LOT more conservative here than back home, but for the most part, it’s not that different. I am staying in a simple 2 Br apartment in the Fintas region. We have Cable TV and the internet is not terrible. Only now and then do I run across the “This Web Page is Blocked.” The work here is good, it’s keeping me busy and most of what we are working on is done from our Apartments with the occasional trip into the Datacenter.

There are a few things I wanted to try and see/do during this trip. Of course, one of them is to keep up with my Project 365, which I have done pretty well so far. As an added challenge to my photography project, I managed to leave the charger for my DSLR battery at home! Sarah mailed it to me but it can take up to a week to get anything. I have been very sparing due to this. You would think I could just buy a new charger out here, but I have hit, and I am not kidding, 12 different places and NONE of them carry the charger. I did manage to buy a backup battery (because you can never have too many) so I should last until the charger arrives. I still kept up on the pictures and I’ll add them at the end of the post. Another is to scope out some cool places to see when Sarah comes out in March. And the latest addition to the agenda is finding a Gaming culture.

In the Americas we have a rich gaming culture. Be it video games, board games, card games, or dice games. There is usually something for everyone. Out here, it’s a little harder to find, but I think I just need to dig a little deeper. (Not speaking arabic is a hurdle as well, but I have google translate to help me with that.) One of the saddest things I have found here was in a park near the beach close to where I am staying. It would appear that there is a “Fun Times” park that has an arcade, go-karts, and family fun area just across the street. In a fenced off area near by I found this:
Yes, that is a bunch of arcade cabinets just sitting out in the elements. I don’t know what games they are, but I can see the PCB’s and CRT’s still intact. I cried a little.

Another thing I am working on is a project that I will detail in another post later this week, but it involves those little guys at the top of the page.

Now, for the catch up on Project 365.

Kuwait Towers (P365-13)
I had been waiting for the chance to get out to the Kuwait towers, today was the day. Beautiful clear sky’s and a nice wide angle shot from below the towers.

Kuwaiti Sunrise (P365-12)
The first time I have ever woke up early enough to get a sunrise picture. Normally I hate waking up early but I took advantage of the time change effect on my system.
Lesson learned from this shot, I really need to work on my landscape pictures.

Rough Ride (P365-11)
While driving through the desert we came across this car that had been in an accident and abandoned. This is commonplace around here. You can see a bit of a dust storm off in the distance.

Reflection on conversions (P365-10)
The weather today was incredibly bad. Lots of win and sand everywhere. This made any sort of outside shot despicable. So I fell back on some of my travel accessories.