Dogbert: barking up the wrong tree

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With all the hoopla about Maps, I couldn’t help tinkering around with them myself.

Over the weekend, I took the Google Maps API out for spin and I was impressed by the ease of use of the javascript API. Checkout my quick hack here:

Google Maps – Kuwait

It’s only a very crude application that allows you to click around on the flags and see the name of the cities. It may take a while to load since it’s mapping about 200 locations.
But these basic tools can be used to conjure up some wicked apps like these:

oodle maps
Bicycle Route (Let’s you map your bicycle tour as an animation on Google Maps. Very innovative hack to animate the route.)

If people can provide me geocodings (latitude/longitude) of popular Kuwait landmarks, I can add them to the map.

I’ll do a small write-up later on if anyone is interested in playing around with the API (You don’t really need to be a programmer to do simple things with it).

Today marked the culmination of a tedious two-month process quite innocuously called “Transfer of Residence”. As I straightened out the two 1KD bills and inserted them into the vending machine, all I could think of was the hell I have gone through the last couple of months to get this little piece of plastic.

It all started with my decision to accept a government sector job. After all, my boss was a teaching professor (no micro-management), the pay was great and the 8-2 timings ensured that I could give more time to my “extra-curricular” activities. I was told that this particular government institution could not afford to waste a ‘mandub’ (ministry liaison) on me so I would have to do all the Ministry-related work myself. “Mafi Mushkila” I say to myself as I exercise my Arabic vocabulary. It shouldn’t be a problem because time is on my side and my Arabic consists of more words than just the ubiquitous ‘salami lakem’ and ‘in shala’ (I’ve seen way too many Westerners [ab]use these phrases).

So with much gusto I started the “ta7weel” (transfer) process. My enthusiasm was short-lived though, because I was asked to run from pillar to post to get things done. The worse part was the medical tests though. I’ve lost count of the number of times I must have gone to the ‘Majlis At Tibb’ (Medical Council) to get an array of tests done. As if poking me with a needle wasn’t enough, the blood-sucking (and I use this term loosely) ‘nurse’ was fishing around with the syringe in my arm like she was trying to put a worm onto a hook. This resulted in blood being spilled all into my internals and I had a nasty bruise on my arm for about a month! The most baffling part is that less than 2 months prior I was applying for my first work-visa and I had just got the exact same tests done. Surely the Ministry of Health has a file on me saying that I don’t have TB, don’t carry any STDs and my blood sugar is normal. But they don’t care, we’re Ex-pats (best read with a rapid “spitting like” gesture). After all .. who cares about them ‘Ex-pats’.

Coming in a close second for “10 Worse Nightmares to Endure for an Iqama” was the bureaucrats. Ah.. where would this lovely country be without them. Now I know every place has its share of paper-pushers, but the Kuwaiti bunch take the prize. I had to arise at insane hours just to make it in time to be 150th in the queue (really, do people camp overnight at the Ministry of Social Affairs in Sharq?) I am desperately trying to forget the terrible encounters I had with the apathetic jerks at the ‘shuoons’ but this one I think will take me a lifetime to forget: I was trying to get something done at the Ministry of Employment in Farwaniya. I noticed that most of the employees there were ladies and I thought to myself “Ok.. they’re ladies, they’re going to be nice to me”. I was in for a rude awakening. Having being sent from one of the ‘Mudeera’(departmental head) to the wrong place, I returned to her only to find out that she wasn’t there and someone seated in her place. I politely explained my situation to this new female and she told me in no uncertain terms to ‘F*** off’. So I switched gears and asked her to guide me to the person previously sitting in her desk. The reply is “Look around for her. She is here somewhere.”. Well, I would have done that in the first place except that literally every woman in this place is wearing a niqab (face covering)! Am I supposed to look under each niqab? The ridiculousness of her suggestion amused me.

Another thing that annoyed me no end was being referred to by my country of citizenship rather than name. “Wayn hadhal Elbonee?” was a common question if someone was trying to refer to me. Is “Dogbert” that hard to say?

Add to this the 50+ Celsius heat, the barrage of verbal insults if I got one of the myriad of processes slightly incorrect and the general feelings of racial disdain just because I happen to be from Elbonia and you will understand why I was more than a little miffed.

So you can imagine my tears of joy as in went my 2KD and out popped the CivilID at the PACI. After the hell that I went through, the CivilID process was anticlimactic. Just choose the renew option at PACI’s website and go over to pickup your card. No human intervention necessary. How boring.

I just got a killer broadband connection at home courtesy of my workplace. Seriously, this baby can run. I just downloaded the RedHat 9 ISOs (total 1.5GB) from the KEMS mirror in under an hour. Now those from outside Kuwait seeing this might be thinking that’s freakin’ slow. Well, that is pretty good if you consider the fact that most DSL users in Kuwait call 128 or 256Kbps highspeed dsl!

Doing a quick price check on qualitynet.net shows that for roughly the same amount I would pay for an annual 128Kbps connection here in Kuwait, I used to get 1.5Mbps (yeah that’s 1500Kbps) in the US! That’s an ‘order of magnitude’ difference.

Anyways, getting back to my dsl connection, it averages 512Kbps usually and since it’s free, I’m not complaining =)

What I will bitch about though is the ridiculous price gouging on wireless routers here in Kuwait. I want to setup a wireless network at home so I went around Ibn Khaldoun expecting to find a decent router for 20Kd or so. Boy was I wrong or what. Even bottom of the barell stuff like DLink was retailing for a minimum of 35KD. I know that it shouldn’t cost that much because I bought one in the US about 2 years back and it was like half that price. So did a search on PriceGrabber for that same DLink router and, guess what, the price is literally less than half of that.

I ended up buying a Netgear wireless kit for $75 (I need the USB WiFi key for my desktop because I don’t have any spare slots on my the motherboard for a NIC!)