Khaled is a Syrian fellow who works for a local computer parts vendor. He takes care of us; if his company can't find the part we need, Khaled heads for the souqs and finds it himself, delivers it to us, and we pay him directly. I am in the process of constructing a couple of antenna masts, and I needed a pair of guy-wire rotator cuffs (so I can attach guy wires to them, and they'll be able to rotate freely around the mast). The one I fashioned for the mast at our villa took a long time to make, but worked well, so I figured I'd see if Khaled knew anyone with a machine shop who could do some custom work for me.
He didn't know anyone offhand, but he knew where to look. This evening, he took me over to the industrial district and, after asking around a bit, we located Al-Jazeera Lathe Works and Garage. I had taken the time to make a drawing on the computer of what the part needed to look like, and even included a photo of the one I'd made, so Khaled was able to tell the machinist what we wanted without too much difficulty. The guy quoted us 40 riyals. Where else can you get custom machine work done for twelve bucks? We're supposed to go back tomorrow to pick up the pieces.
I'll be able to find my way back on my own, if I have to, since my boss bought a GPS unit to help in setting up our wireless shots. It's a Garmin eTrex Vista, and it works like a champ. Thankfully, it automatically adds travelled routes to its internal map as I drive around town, because the canned maps for this part of the world aren't that great, if they exist at all. I have ordered GPSy software for Mac OS X, so maybe I'll become my own GPS mapping department...reminds me of the good ol' days at BTU, when Phil stuck an antenna atop his minivan and would cruise around town with his laptop and GPS unit, mapping unmapped roads for us. Way ahead of his time, Phil was.
We finally planted some plants in the dirt patch in our backyard, after mixing some "organic fertilizer" (a fancy term for processed camel dung) into the soil. We have no clue what will survive the heat over here, so it's something of an experiment. We bought all the plants, fertilizer, and a couple of planters at a small nursery we stumbled upon after we got lost looking for a different nursery. There aren't that many nurseries around here, so we figured it was Providence that took us to this one. Nobody spoke any English, but we managed. Trading goods for money has its own language, I suppose.
Our son is learning verses as part of the "Sparks" program, which is sort of the entry level of AWANA. It's gratifying to see my little boy hiding God's Word in his heart, and the memory capacity of a five-year-old is nothing short of incredible.
My wife asked me to trim our boy's bangs the other day, and then was mortified when I cut them too short for her liking. I'm probably out of the haircutting business for now, which is fine by me. I like to avoid needless controversy.
We're scheduled to move into our new building at work on February 8, which is the day after the upcoming week-long Eid-Al-Adha, the celebration of the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca. Which means that, after this Thursday, we won't be able to get anything done because the whole country will shut down for a week. Which is a concern for us, because we have issues. For example, the electrical contractor installed the wrong type of electrical outlets throughout the entire building, so we can't plug anything in. They look very similar to the standard British-style outlet used over here, but they're not the same--the hole for the ground lug is smaller than the standard. At last report, the contractor is going to custom-grind a bunch (a bunch!) of plug adapters so we'll be able to plug things in while we wait for them to replace the outlets. I also have a shipment of wireless equipment that's sitting in customs, and I can't get a straight answer on what needs to happen to get the stuff delivered. DHL wants me to fill out paperwork with Q-Tel. Depending on who I talk to at Q-Tel, they say either it's DHL's job to do the paperwork, or no paperwork is needed, or I need to call someone else. Irfan just got back in town, though, and as he's one of the two people who actually do productive work at Q-Tel, maybe we can get this straightened out before the Eid. Maybe.
Posted by jon at January 28, 2004 02:54 PM