Bummer

Getting in to my work, covered
in oil - there goes one shirt.

 I was initially planning on being back in the U.S. for the past and upcoming two weeks. However, KSA decided not to lift the ban on direct travel from the U.S. to the Magic Kingdom. (They require a 14 day quarantine in a non-banned country prior to entry which tosses a monkey-wrench into the works.) I did find out a couple things after it was too late to get the time off and arrange travel. First is that there was another guy who works in my same department but in Riyadh who spent two 'fun-filled' weeks in Bahrain w/o losing his PTO and on Uncle Ray's dime. Wish I'd known that option was available sooner. The second is that apparently (unbeknownst to almost everyone on the compound - at least I haven't found one person who will admit to it) there is a 'letter' whereby one may fly direct from Dulles to Riyadh - but your name must be on the letter. Funny how only a couple people got back here that way. I guess RHIP is in full effect. To top it off now there is some finger-pointing and run-around on how to get put on that letter. Sheesh! Unfortunately, these things meant that I had to miss surprising my daughter at her MBA graduation this past Saturday. (Congratulations, honor well earned!) It would also have been nice to get out on the motorcycle even if it was a little cool in Michigan lately.

Anyway, I was going to try to put my 'holiday' time on hold by working this last week but someone here got their nose out of joint and put a stop to that. So, I ended up with a 'staycation' instead. Of course that gave me a lot of time to delve into my genealogy project that I started a number of decades ago. At this point I have over 17,000 individuals listed in my database of which I am related to just under 7,000 of them; that includes spouses. I've discovered two direct ancestors (one on my paternal side and one on my maternal side) who arrived in the New World aboard the Mayflower, one of which should be an easy path to prove for membership in TMS; at least seven direct ancestors (split fairly evenly) who were on the winning side of the Revolutionary War, I already am a member of the SAR through one and have a supplemental app approval to his son-in-law; at least two (one on my paternal side and one on my maternal side) on the winning side of the Civil War; and a few in other conflicts. I've also discovered a few other famous relatives, some direct ancestors, who were famous in their own right; among these is the astronaut Christa McAuliffe who was a distant cousin. Of course the only people who were really interested in all these details are long dead and I know I'm boring on this topic so I'll put it aside and hope that some generations down the road some of my descendants and relatives find the research I've put together interesting and useful. (If you want to make my day just ask me about my family tree - but please, at least pretend to be actually interested.)

I've been putting in time on my planning for the little hill climb now scheduled for early July. I will be flying to Moshi, Tanzania for a nine day hike up and down Mt. Kilimanjaro. It should be interesting to say the least. I've started to step-up (pun intended) my daily work out of at least four miles daily walk to include a mile at 15% grade on the treadmill - I can do 3 mph fairly easily so I'll have to bump that rate up a bit over the next few days. I'm going to add in some weight training just for fun, lol. So far I'm down below 100 kilos which is a very good thing (at least according to my doctor.) If any of you reading this wants to come along let me know, there is still room in the group.

So, it's back to work tomorrow, no one has mentioned the hours, since they changed over Ramadan, hopefully it goes back to what it was before. We shall see.

Boring week off :(

 So, it is the last week of Ramadan and then Eid al Fitr. Then I can go back to work. Yippie!

I just found out yesterday that my employer has a letter with a list of names on it whereby people can come back to KSA directly from the U.S. without having to spend 14 day quarantine in a non-banned country prior to entry. The U.S. is one of the 20 banned countries. (Can you say 'politics'?) However, the company neglected to inform anyone that this was even possible. Therefore I will be missing my daughter's graduation from her MBA program - Congratulations! PMO, b/c the return issue was why I didn't go ahead with 3 weeks off this month. Bummer all around. Now I will have to track down whoever is in charge of this 'list' and see what or if I can be added to it. One of the drawbacks I already know of is that the only flight this would apply to would be Saudia from Dulles airport to Riyadh - my opinion of Saudia flights has be a topic prior in a previous blog post.

New Dec. 2020, after about
500 miles of walking around here.

Worn soles from Sept. 2020,
shoes I brought, ~2 y.o.

 Either shoes have gotten much worse wear-wise or the heat and distance I cover (~5 miles per day) has really taken its toll. I can't believe that I will soon have to go out and buy yet another pair of sneakers (for sneaking). Can't wait to see how my new hiking boots hold up.

I may have mentioned the hoopla when I was told to park next to the officer's admin person in our office. The guy actually made me go out and move my car to the third slot, right next to where the Col. & LTC park. The admin guy uses the 4th slot. There was a great noise about this with many of the Saudis complaining that they should have been bumped up to the slot instead of me. Side note: I am usually the first one in the office and unlock the door. Anyway, the LTC decided to removed the assigned parking (except for the officer's) and people would park where ever. I generously offered the choice slot to anyone who got in to the office ahead of me.

'VIP Visitor'

The picture on the right is a couple of fuzzies - the little one belongs to a guy here on the compound.

Someone thought my ears
needed cleaning.

 So, partly given the kerfuffle listed at the beginning of this post, but mostly because I had been threatening it for some time (I had planned to do this almost 10 years ago) I have scheduled my little hill climb. Anyone want to join me?

 

Starting from July 7th I am undertaking a climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa. We will be back from the little walk by July 15th. If anyone wants to go with there are 9 more open slots for this hike. Tanzania has minimal C-19 restrictions and no issue with return to KSA except for the obligatory brain-probe via nostril. 

Little 9-day walk up the hill

I'll spend another week in Moshi, probably take in a couple day trip events like the coffee plantation and maybe the falls or hot springs. There is supposed to be some sort of artists area within the city and I also see there is a large market building. Adventure awaits.

We got new walls around the compound b/c the government wanted the roads back. Makes for a little more convoluted driving and some of the tenants had to move to units further in. So, the "MSP" has new walls.

Oh, and Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!

'Pretty" new wall

"DANGER"

To the Crater!

 (This should have been published in April 2020 but things got in the way.)

So, I got up really early (3:30 a.m.) and headed out to see Al-Waba Crater. It's volcanic not an asteroid impact crater. If you are interested you can look it up online from various sites including Atlas Obscura. About half way there I caught the first glimpse of the sunrise. It's a four hour plus drive from my place to here. https://www.visitsaudi.com/en/do/adventure-activites/discover-the-al-wahbah-crater

Sunrise as I was heading into the hills.

There was the
obligatory traffic jam
for the camel drive.

Enjoying a cup of tea
with a young man who
was very interested in 
meeting someone from 
America.

I got there about 8:30 a.m. There was a little park and a (closed) museum near the parking lot. There are a number of kiosk/shelters around this half of the rim. I met a couple young men there with family and I was invited to a cup of tea. We mainly communicated using the translate app (very useful indeed even as rudimentary as it must be.) I was able to explain that I intended to hike down to the bottom of the crater. He seemed to think that you couldn't breathe down there (fumes from the volcano perhaps.) However the wind was very strong so I wasn't too worried.

He did head over the rim while I was changing into my shorts and sneakers. I started down in this area (wrong place to start but I didn't know any better) and he had completely disappeared. I didn't see where he went and thought that he had gone over the side - I hoped he hadn't fallen since it was a shear drop but I couldn't see over the side. So I drove over to where I was sure there was a trail. To my surprise when I headed down the Saudi was coming up the trail head, he had walked around the wide lower 'rim' and I entirely missed where he had headed off to.

So, starting out it was about 95°F with a good breeze and I had two 1.5 L bottles of water, I headed over the side, seemed like a fairly easy trail, someone put a lot of effort into it. Good/bad part is that the trail is from the north edge of the crater so while it is well lit it is probably hotter than if it were from the south rim. About 1/4 of the way down I ran into three young men (Indian most likely) heading back up. I had seen their car up at the top of the rim.

Three guys were headed
back up as I was starting 
down.

In the background the 'salt' flat can be seen of sodium phosphate. There was a lot of water there since it had rained quite a bit recently out here. The hike is about 850' down (and back up of course.) You could see the steam rising off the salt lake as it got hotter. Fortunately there was a breeze all the way down but the sun was heating up - I should have gotten started earlier.

It's a steep climb down although the top part of the trail is deceptively easy going, after you round the first bend you get the view of the 'long' portion of the trail twisting back and forth. 

Didn't walk around too much at the bottom, maybe next time. If there is a next time.

Salt pan from above

There was still water at the bottom, see the 
vapor rise, it was hot down there even with 
a breeze

Acacia type flora

When the salt/mud dries out it leaves a
porous structure

It is a little more than a kilometer across at 
the bottom

More tenacious flora

I trust this is the group which built the trail

...and quite the trail it is

A desert Djinn

Here is a video pan of the crater 'pan' > 

https://youtu.be/PEHR-02GEsE

Back in the saddle?

 Okay, so I fell off the wagon, got writer's block, whatever. Let's get back on and ride. 

I have two posts from last year that I was struggling to complete and a number to add from this year. (At least I think they are interesting to some degree and hope my readers will find them so.)

Getting back to the Magic Kingdom wasn't all that easy. They shut down the country for two weeks so I spent an extra week at home. This wasn't so bad except that I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop - when could I fly back? The difficulty being getting flights set up with a travel agent who I could only communicate with via WhatsApp (fastest) or email. Of course once flights were set up (and close enough together) I had to quickly reschedule my PCR test. First thing Monday, January 4th, got scheduled and was assured a 24 hour turn around, required since it couldn't be more than 72 hours after the test before boarding my last leg of the flights into KSA. Just in the nick of time to print it out and head for DTW. Was I all packed? Did I forget anything? I got what I got.

Managed to squeeze in a Lodge meeting the evening before my travel, nice group of Masons in Byron Lodge #80. I hope to join their lodge soon. Of course that evening & the next morning I'm stressed because things are tight for travel, etc.

Took the scenic route from DTW to JFK via RDU, which was longer but it meant that I didn't have to land at Newark and find my way to JFK and my bag could be handled all the way through without my having to worry about it. Then there was the long layover in JFK. Problem was I did not have a boarding pass for my EgyptAir flight from JFK to Cairo nor from Cairo to JED. And their gate wasn't even open until about 2 hours before the scheduled flight. When the gate opened I went and asked but it seems there was some sort of problem. LSS, I got my boarding pass for the JFK-CAI but not for the CAI-JED leg - had to pick that up in Cairo. I think I was about the last person on the plane. At least it was business class so I could sleep some.

Interesting, or not so interesting, depending on your POV, but there was a loud "discussion" between one passenger and the flight crew - he did not think that he should have to sit 'next to' another person. (There are little sliders between the two seats but it's not much. Also, it was announced that we were not allowed to move from one seat to another even if it was empty.) Most of the discussion was in Arabic but it was easy to tell by the animated nature that it wasn't going to be an easy fix. In the end, the flight crew gave in and moved the guy. So the guy who was sitting next to me decided that he wanted to change seats to one where no one was next to him. (Not due to any animosity towards me, I'm fairly certain, just if someone else could do it he would as well.) Not my circus, not my monkeys - merely more evidence that there isn't much hope for the human race post Covid. Yes, it was all about masks (the original guy was all dolled up) proximity, etc.

Anyway, landing in Cairo airport is a "treat" as usual. I get through customs and head for the EgyptAir desk to see about my boarding pass. There is some problem. Go wait over here... The seat booked for me has been 'taken', can they put me on a later flight - the next day, of course they'd put me up in the airport hotel. Um, what about the PCR 72 hour thingy? They would check with the Saudi's, go wait over here... Now they need to find my bag, which they do, miraculously enough. And I wait, lucky it's a longish layover. LSS, my only option it seems is to be moved into coach for the 2 hour flight. At this point I'm tired and agree, at least it's a seat on the inside of the plane. 

When they can't figure out what to do with you, as in a transfer from international to another international gate, one has to sit and wait. Finally was told to get on this bus and after driving all over the airport I get dropped off at this mass-of-humanity gate area and wait. Then it is finally another bus ride out to the airplane. Guess what? Coach is JAM-PACKED, no Covid here (not that that bothered me at all), and "Mask? What mask? Let me pull up my chin protector thingy.", which promptly droops when the crew passes by. The saving grace was the fact that I was in the front row of coach. When we landed I got to do my world-famous block-the-aisle trick so the crush couldn't jam up the aisle in front of me. I do like me some order now and again.

Back through all the checking in KSA, catch my ride to the compound. Did I ever mention the something-something *NFL team from MA* *word that rhymes with thistle but starts with 'M'* set-up near the airport? No? Well I probably won't then. Get back to my apartment on the compound, try to figure out in my 24+ hours of travel fog, how to register with Talwalkana app for my quarantine. I fail and go to bed. Next morning I recall that I've got to put my phone chip into the crappy iPhone and do it there, oops, too late. Fortunately I did not get fined for this lapse AFIK. A few days quarantine and one more PCR test and back to work. Finally.

...and Happy New Year!

 Welp, still no fly for me. 

It is 26°F in Corunna and 26°C in Jeddah - the twin cities. A dusting of snow on the ground here and high humidity with a chance of rain there.

On the positive side, after a blurred shot of a red-tailed hawk on our deck railing, I learned how to manually focus my (complicated) camera. For scale the railing is a 2x4 with a 1" railing cap so the bird is about 10" tall with a tail about 5" long.

Caught a Downy Woodpecker gladly attacking the suet feeder. Later on there were four White-tailed Deer crossing the corn field in back of our house looking for an easy meal no doubt. Saw a nice and bright red sunrise one morning. Then there were a few male Cardinals that visited the feeders. There have also been some fat Blue Jays but they haven't sat for photos just yet.

Downy Woodpecker enjoying suet

Red-tailed Hawk

Saw four deer crossing the field

Four friends checking out the remnants

Beautiful sunrise (and yes, it did storm)

Late sunrise ~7 a.m.
       

Mister Cardinal

My best side

Merry Christmas

 Merry Christmas from Michigan. I got back home on the 10th and I'm "scheduled" to return to KSA on the 31st. I say scheduled because on Monday of this week I got the notice that KSA has closed down all international travel for at least one week due to the new strain of Covid-19 (apparently less deadly but more contagious.) That means a total ban on all travel into and out of KSA. So, I guess on the 28th I will learn whether I can even get on a plane. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the POV. Every silver-lining has its dark cloud. 

Early in November I had a major infection in my lower jaw near tooth #27. Two weeks of antibiotics got rid of most of it but so I didn't have to worry about getting another severe infection while flying over the Atlantic I opted to get a root canal done in Jeddah - BIG mistake. Apparently the dentist was more used to working on camels. My dentist in MI actually said, and I quote, "WTF" when he saw this x-ray.

guess which tooth is in bad shape

Only recourse was to pull it and add an implant....next year sometime when I make it back to MI. Of course there is no way to sue the dentist in the Magic Kingdom. Another painful, expensive lesson.

So, it's a white Christmas, dusting of snow on the ground, cloudy, windy, and chilly. We are warm inside the house at least. 

I hope everyone has something they are thankful for at this time of year, can't be easy for some. Knock on wood, we are all healthy.

See ya next year!

I will fly!

Finally (cross your fingers & knock on wood) I will be taking off tomorrow for a long delayed visit home to Michigan and see wifey & the fur-babies. Not gonna lie, it'll be weird going from 33°C to -4°C. No more tanning until January at least. Two five-hour layovers along the way but at least I'll get to spend them in the lounge - I may even have a drink or two along the way.

Funny thing at work the other day - the other PT engineer in my office was sitting there with one of the other Saudis (both looking at their phones) and he starts humming. I poke my head around from behind my monitor, look at him and ask, "Are you humming 'Red River Valley'?" He didn't know what the song was but said he liked the tune. (Nice rendition here: https://youtu.be/Q89_4gL0M2M) So we had a little discussion about musical genres. BTW, he frequently hums/sings and I tease him about competing in 'Arabia's Got Talent' or 'Arabian Idol'.

Today he and I got to visit a vendor (I may have mentioned about the impeller from Taif) who has finally done a better job building one that should last. Welding is still not the best but at least it has evidence that they performed NDT on the welds - there probably aren't any blatant cracks. We were there to witness the balancing test and do a visual inspection prior to them finishing & painting. Probably another trip to Taif in store for us in January, brrrr! At least this time I'll bring a warm jacket.

So, on the way to this shop I had a small case of pseudo-deja vu. As we came around the corner there was business after business of trucks, tractor trailers, and heavy equipment. I asked my little buddy if this was the only location in Jeddah for these and he said yes - told me the name of the market in Arabic. I said that I've been here (any who have read my previous blog might remember mention of that.) The place hasn't changed from when I rode up that road with another Saudi and his cousin who was looking to buy a truck for his business in Jizan. It's a small world after all.

Wish me luck with successful landings at appropriate places over the next couple days.