A few photos ...

There appears to be a meta-message
on this label. Hmmm...

I assume they are not selling spelling

Near the Souq

From the other side

My office (window goes to hallway)

Sign outside my office

Flowering shrub near my office

Going native at the souq

Saudi?

Or Yemeni?

Choices, choices. Should I stick with the traditional Saudi head wear or what the majority of the shopkeepers would wear? Which one makes me look thinner?

Updated CoS

Yes, that's the way I park to drop off my shirts.
Got a problem with it?

Grumpy bags don't want to travel

Some things work, some things not so much

Had a (mostly) good day Wednesday, the day before, not so much.

Tuesday afternoon, all of a sudden, my internet goes out. (I haul a WAP to work every day, don't leave it here because my employer pays for it and I don't want anyone else 'borrowing' my wireless bandwidth.) I'm fairly clever about networks, routers, wifi, etc. I can handle this. Nope. Nothing. Nada. I check with my co-worker, his little box is working just fine. I send a message to our IT department asking if the SIM card expires - it's not supposed to. So I call the guy and, as it turns out, they had a number of SIM cards they didn't know the location of so they shut them off. In and of itself, this was probably a good thing since the hardware for the old WAP was made by Huawei and if you keep up on technology in the news you'll know why I probably shouldn't be using this in the line of work I'm in. So, trip to IT after work and they give me a new box and it is much faster than before. All is good again.

Also on Tuesday, got an email saying that we would no longer be allowed into compound buildings and had to use our badges to get in. Of course mine has not worked since I got here. I have asked about it several times and gotten many different stories. Now it had all come to a head. So, stop by the office, had to get 'illegally' buzzed in, the guy is there to make the badges but his badge printer has run out of ink and even though he has the cartridges there he says he has to wait for IT to come change them. "Come back in 45 minutes." Yeah, right, Saudi airline time, LOL.

Wednesday morning I went to get my driver's license. Got to work, set up my 2 laptops, checked my email, had a cup of coffee and a bite of breakfast with the guys then I head back to the compound to meet the guy who would take me to get my license. First the obligatory stop at a clinic for yet another 'health screening' prior to getting another government ID document. Blood test, check - I guess I passed, haven't caught anything since the last test I took 6 weeks ago. Eye test, check - I've got two and they seem to work about the same as always. Then a trip to the driving school/test/licensing offices. They had me sit at a computer and pulled up a simulator. After running over 5 pedestrians and hitting two police cars a screen pops up and says I have 5 million points in Grand Theft Auto. No, seriously, I didn't have to take any test since I got my license that was good for 10 years way back in 2012 so all they had to do was transfer my iqama (national ID card) and cellphone number. I walked out with a new card which they added 2 years to so it's good to 2024 now. Probably the extra 2 years was because I have not gotten a ticket nor had an accident in KSA for the past 7 years! (I did not tell them that I haven't been driving here for the last 7 years, they didn't ask.) Got back to work before 11. My office mate thought I hadn't even left because I left my computer there (no Saudi would have returned that day.)

Get back to the compound at the end of the day and check to see if I can get my badge to work on the door. For some unknown reason the guy didn't seem to know how to just add my badge to their system, so he makes a new one. Seems to open the door OK. I walk down to IT to say 'hi' (since I have been there at least every other day since I got here.) and my badge doesn't work. Walk back to the office - the guy has left and will be back in 15 minutes. Of course my badge now does not work in the main office door either. I wait. Okay, he makes me a new badge - this one seems to work but I didn't check it on any other door.

Thursday at about 3 p.m. I get a call from Sayed (badge guy) saying something about a new badge. So, I wander over to the office, aaannnd my badge doesn't work. Have to get buzzed in again. Oddly enough, Sayed hands me my badge back that I got originally in the U.S. He had already transferred access to that badge, hence the reason I couldn't get in, of course why tell me that in advance. IDK why he could now transfer the old one and couldn't yesterday - again I shrug. At least, apparently, my base pass is in the works to go from temporary laminated to permanent. We shall see.

One good thing with this company is that they contract out to a company to do my taxes for me - even 2019, although I've worked in 2019 for Raytheon they hadn't paid me until 2020. Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth. Even though I had already purchased H&R Block program I will still let these guys do heavy lifting.

...short explaination... mea culpa

Okay, quick update. I caught kind of a nasty (to me) cold, probably in the souq, and was miserable for one day at work and then slept for 12-14 hours each day over that w/e, fitfully I will add. Then came what seems like it has been a month of coughing up lung stuff and being generally stuffy. And this was all before the Wutan Clan came on the scene. (Didn't have any fever so it luckily wasn't any sort of MERS/SARS/flu - good thing since I hear that the shot I got has only been about 55% effective this year.) I understand that to cure the corona-virus you need to drink a lot of Corona with lime. Not going to find any beer here.

Then work has picked up quite a bit. My co-worker came back on the 19th and he's been filling me in on all the ins and outs of the job/location/people/etc. since he's been doing this for almost 10 years.

Then in the evening I've been working quite a bit on cleaning up my genealogy files. I've got most of the place names, if not standardized, whittled down from over 7000 unique ones to somewhat over 5000. I'm also working on making sure the information I have on my relatives & ancestors is at least as up to date as what's available online. That is a task and a half. There are well over 8000 people listed in my database - and some of the readers of this blog are included (you know who you are.)

Hopefully now I am getting back on track and will post a couple updates this week.