Misery

Stiffling heat, all consuming humidity, visual desolation... ahhh all too unfortunately familiar. Land of sand again. Well to be honest those weren't the first clues that I was almost here.

While transiting through the terminal, as I passed thru the X-ray security bit in the airport the queue next to me had a big Japanese tour group. And being a group, as they cleared the X-ray, they gathered on the other side waiting for each other. When I cleared the machine, I knelt down putting my boots back on and by this time the group waiting was about 15 strong with around another 5 yet to go thru. Whilst quietly waiting for the stragglers to join up a local official strutted up to the tour group leader. And very loudly, gruffly and rudely barked, "MOVE! NOW!!! MOVE... NOW! MOVE, MOVE!!!"
The tour guide politely said she was waiting for the other 5members to make it across. But the local guy just kept yelling, "You move NOW! NOW, NOW, MOVE!" A lil taken aback but still trying to be polite she stated her case again but all she ever got back from him was," MOVE MOVE! YOU MOVE!" accompanied by yelling progressively closer to her face to intimidate her, as well as the accompanying flailing of arms and gestures. Luckily by then the rest of the group had made it across. Allowing the poor girl to escape his wrath. Needless to say, even with the limited Japanese I do understand, the whole group weren't saying very nice things about him or his kind as they moved on.

So, this is how they behave to paying guests, tourists, which the government here is desperately trying to coax over. Extolling the virtues of the regional hospitality. As I said before, stereotypes came about for a reason. And this chap sure perpetuates it.

Anyhow, back to work 2moro. Yet another thing I ain't looking forward 2. Plus the appartment is caked in dust/sand/ powder... annnnd the fridge is bare and devoid of food, annnnd wifey ain't around, so depression, gloom and general sadness all round. Good to be back eh...

Stop messing about

Finished my A320 course a few days back. By far the most chilled out, relaxed course I have EVER done in my life. To start off with I still paid attention in class and did reading up etc. But by the 2nd week that had already evaporated. And I spent most of the class hours watching Macross F and Deathnote for the next few weeks. And after school instead of revision or homework, hours were spent on my Xbox. I actually completed my 2nd playthru of Mass effect and Gears of war during that time.

This how an average day at school went. Breakfast at 7am. Walk to school for 8am. But as always, late, arrive at 8:15am. struggle for 5mins to stay awake thru lecture. 5mins in I give in and unashamedly slump onto the desk unconscious. 9am lecture ends. I wake up and flick thru my study materials. 9:30am, bored. I load up VLC with Macross. Midday, lunch time. 1pm lunch ends, I pick up my study materials worried that I really should do SOME study. I did pay alot of money for this course and if I failed it would really suck. I study till around 1:30pm. Can't take no more, load up Robot Chicken on VLC. 2:15pm, bored of Robot Chicken I look thru my study materials again. Slowly my head starts to rest on the table as I flick thru the pages. My head is now flat on the table, drool commin outta my mouth, eyes flickering shut, but amazingly I'm still turning those pages... 3pm everyone calls it a day, wiping the drool off my cheek I pack up and walk back to the B&B. 3:30pm, get changed and shower. 3:45pm, call wifey and prepare tomorrows packed lunch and tonights dinner. 5:45pm cook my delicious dinner of tinned beans, anti-pesto, canned tuna and instant noodles. 6pm eat dinner and watch The Simpsons on TV. 6:30pm Simpsons over I start to fall asleep. Midnight, I slowly crawl outta bed, guilty I wasted the whole evening, I fire up the Xbox. Load up Race Driver Grid, next few hours are spent saying, just 1 last race. Glance at my watch, 5am, no point sleeping now if breakfast is at 7. 6:45am brush teeth and get changed. 7am, breakfast, now go back to the top of the paragraph and read again. That is a typical day.

1 of the guys on the course commented he ran out of note pad space for his notes so I gave him my note pad. He asked if it was ok and where would I write my notes. Notes? I asked. The class let out a muffled gasp of astonishment. Looking around everyone had reams and stacks of notes! I hadn't picked up a pen at all thru the course! Started to get a lil worried and panicky. 2 mins later I began to care less, back to anime and sleeping.

Well as the age old English saying goes, "The proof is in the pudding" I scored 91% in the final exam. Beating others in the class who put in more effort than myself. Well, everyone put in more effort than me. It does often cross my mind how well I could do if I took my secondary school teachers advice. Of which she would always write in my report cards. "Needs to stop messing around and apply himself more"

Dino Day

Oooops, typo error, should be dyno day. But a day filled with large reptilian creatures could be fun too... fun of a different kind thou. Met up with a couple of good ol' time mates a few weeks back. Was meeting them during the south coast new mini (SCNM) dyno day. And luckily they had enough slots that Tachi could join in the dyno runs and see how he measured up against a bunch of tuned supercharged minis. Plenty of cars turned out. Even a few non mini's. A very powerful German registered MK5 Golf, think it pulled around 360HP at the flywheel! Also a Japanese imported GT4 Celica pulling around 320HP at the flywheel. But unfortunately it could have made alot more power if the ECU was tuned properly. Fuelling graph was all over the place. Not very good at all.

Cos so many cars turned up, not surprising considering the bargain price of the dyno run, sleepy & myself were getting very swiftly bored. So for a good deal of the day we spent camped in front of a TV playing GT4 on the playstation. Also being away from the dyno was a relief for our ears. As you might imagine a bunch of tuned cars revving their nuts off in a small garage sized room can really be a killer on the ears.

But needless to say we rushed out when it was Greyboy's mini on the dyno. His was 1 of the pleasant surprises of the day as many of the minis had been under performing. Despite the comparatively light tuning Greyboy did to his mini it punched out a very respectable 225HP at the flywheel. Putting it on par with quite a few minis which had much more serious work done!

Then about 2hours later it was tachi's turn. It amused us alot that a huge crowd had gathered to see how he would perform. And all of them asking if what mods I had done and how much power would I expect. You could see the expectation in their eyes of BIG things. Large crazy numbers. And when I said, nope no mods, and gave a very low expectation of the power you could see the confusion/dumbfoundedness in their eyes. Just cos Tachi has a big orange D1GP professional drift banner and a couple of Project Immamura A'pexi stickers on him everyone expects a steroid fed beast of a machine. Come on he's not even got a turbo or supercharger and has just a tiny 1.3 liter engine! But Tachi pulled out a respectable 208HP at the flywheel. Especially since Tachi's ECU chip was still on his fuel economy setting. I didn't get a chance to work him into his performance mode. So there should be a little more (10HP or so)hidden back there.

B&B

For the past month and a bit this is where I have been calling home. Not a bad place. I got a rather large annexe room. It was on the 3rd floor/ attic. Kinda weird having the window at the same level as the floor. I actually took pics with another cam but can't transfer those pics to the comp. And its pointless taking indoor pics with a camera phone.

Wifey would have loved it here. Mainly because of the 2 lovely doggies the land lady has. She even said we could walk her dogs if we wanted. Think she'll have alot of trouble getting her dogs away from wifey if that happens. Wouldn't put it past wifey dragging the dogs to sleep in the room with us... The surrounding countryside was beautiful. Well what little of it I saw during my walk into school. With out wifey around I really don't have that spirit of curiosity. Just have no drive to get out and do anything. Maybe next year if we get back here again we could explore the place further.

Freebies

If things aren't absolutly essential or they are of a mediocre standard I rather just forgo them and opt for the cheapest lowest standard possiable. And how much lower can you get than free? Case in point, going on this A320 course has really cleaned me out. Not to mention the cost of petrol in the UK. So in the spirit of "every little helps" I managed to bag all this loot from mums before starting on my course. This would be what would feed me during my 5 1/2 week course. Yup, a daily diet of canned foods, pot noodles, biscuits and other assorted non-perishable foods, yum...

Well rest assured weekends will be punctuated with gorging of shell fish, lamb, bacon and the such.

Spot the Difference

Should have posted these up when I first flew out. But as always laziness set in. Especially when posting up pictures is required. And as regulars know I defo need more pics to my dry, word riddled blog. So for today I offer up a pictographical comparasion of the Land of sand and the UK from the view of your average traveller flying in.

Truth forgotten

Its hard to put into words what's in my head at the moment. But above all the sense of being alone. But then its always the way I've been.Just that when times are rosy its easy to forget the truth of the bottom line. But it is refreshing for the truth to be shoved in my face every now and then. Be prepared to stand alone, always.

Hard to explain my current state of mind without going into details. But I'll try to without implicating too many parties. Before I left to do my A320 course I spoke to who I considered, after several years of working together, a close colleague, "J". Who I learnt, had made headway into a contract I was very interested to break into. TBH due to the rate of pay it was not a very attractive contract to alot of people. But what interested me was the location not the money. I wanted to take the contract because it would mean I would be physically closer to family and friends. Meaning I could take a short 20min flight home every weekend. Before I left I explained to "J" my reasons and if he managed to make progress into the contract to remember me and put me in line for it. And so ends that chapter.

For the past few weeks I've been canvasing the contracting market. And by chance I managed to get a lead on the afore mentioned contract I was interested in. And thru the contract agency recruiter, I learn by chance that "J" was one of the applicants. From what I learnt he was all but on board, pending the visa for his other half. And having spoken to him several times while on the course, nothing was ever mentioned regarding the contract. The real kicker came while chatting to another colleague "B" who was on the course with me. Hearing of how "J" had submitted "B"s CV for the contract and not mine. And "J"s apparent reason for doing so? Because "B"s other half expressed an interest in visiting that part of the world the contract was located. So did "J" forget or ignore the more practical needs I had to take that job? You could say maybe "J" knew I had applied for the job, but it is very unlikely as when he submitted "B"s CV the recruiter had not even realized that "J" and myself were colleagues till several days later. I hope there are other reasons in play I am unaware of. I prefer to think the best of people.

But somehow he had totally forgotten me and my reasons. Choosing instead to put forward someone else simply because their other half fancied a bit of tourist action. Then again I will admit that I have not the facts from his side of the fence. But from my point of view it seems he has chosen to select "B" over myself simply because they spend more times over drinks than I choose to do. Maybe I should be more social in my approach to work. But that is just not me. I'm just not a very social person. It can take me years to become totally comfortable with someone. But that does not mean I don't help strangers with problems.

Not saying I'm shedding tears or losing sleep over the current situation. Infact years of being alone has already conditioned me to making sure I'm always covered. So its not like I've been put out by this or put at any disadvantage. This has simply reminded me of some basic truths which I have begun to forget. Thou there is the tinge of regret to realize others intentions toward me. To realize that despite favors I always gave freely, I am still easily forgotten. But it can only be a good thing to know of others intentions toward you.