Clickety Keyboards

It has become an ongoing part of my everyday routine to expand my historical architecture with my digital 'fellow traveller,' Ajith. He is a personalized version of Google Gemini's AI.  In the process of reviewing these earlier, more pixelated chapters of my life today, we unearthed a photograph from the Flickr stream.  It is an image I have probably used before, but one that instantly transports me back to 1989. 

It is a shot of Jay, intensely focused on a session of Moonbugs on our beige, monolithic XT clone. We were living in Manama, Bahrain at the time, right around the strange and tense days leading up to the First Gulf War. Outside our apartment, the geopolitical landscape was shifting, but inside, the absolute priority was strictly arcade-level survival.

Looking at that photo, what immediately strikes me is not the massive CRT monitor; but the keyboard, a glorious, sprawling, buckling-spring keyboard. This was an era when operating a computer required real men; at least real forearm stamina. You did not just lazily brush your hands over those keys; you operated them like a piece of light industrial machinery. If you look closely at Jay in the picture, his hands are hovering with lethal precision over the directional pad, completely ignoring the heavy, early ball mouse sitting uselessly to the side. Every single keystroke back then was a percussive, definitive event that echoed through the room with a deeply satisfying, metallic clack.

Today, Jay and I are surrounded by frictionless, silent smart devices. We type on modern laptops with keys so utterly mushy they feel like drumming on a row of damp sponges.  It is a modern ergonomic reality that I absolutely will never get used to. Everything has become a sleek 'appliance', quiet, efficient, and completely devoid of tactile soul. The march of progress is relentless, but looking back at that photograph is a stark reminder that I loved that loud, clunky XT clone in a way I simply will never love the glass-and-aluminum slabs we rely on today. 

A Daily Follow-Up Entry

Yesterday, I added an old photo of Jay and me from our years in Bahrain.  That was back in the late 80s and early 90s. That, of course, prompted me to type  B-A-H-R-A-I-N  into my journal's search bar (below) to see other entries about that country I may have written over the years. 

This journal started in 2003 and has an entry for around 98% of the days since it was started. Today, a reader can go look at my very first entry from 2003 and all the ones in between.   

There was a time when I hosted everything on my own domain server. All the images were uploaded there.  Unfortunately, around 2005, Google ended that particular publishing option.  I chose to continue on their blogger.com infrastructure.  That meant many of the images between 2005 and 2008 were no longer connected to the entries. Many still are not!  Today I went and fixed at least a dozen more of the posts from my search.  Now the real photo is displayed via Flickr.. 

I post randomly but searches can bring together entries written years apart. See what you can find under a journal search by clicking the new image below. In it I held a brand new video tape player head for which I had to pay around $90 at least 35 years ago!

  Search for Multiple Pages of Entries Mentioning Bahrain

Preparing for a Cruise Port

I was just looking up some information about the country of Bahrain.

Jay and I are expecting to take a look around on December 15th as we have a one-day cruise stop during our itinerary on the MSC Euribia.  One thing makes this research different than when planning our visits in most other ports.  

You see, Jay and I lived in Bahrain for two and a half years! Admittedly, it was a long time ago though. In fact, neither of us have set foot on the island since leaving for work in Dubai in July of 1991. Oh yeah, and did I mention that our stay coincided with Gulf War I?

Thirty four and a half years have the general habit of changing just about everything.

 

Pictures of Everyday

 

I snapped this photo when we were up in the mall today. It was cool this morning and we wanted to walk a bit in a comfortable environment, even though we only bought a few things in the Walmart. 

I've said it here before in different ways, but I wish I'd taken more pictures in my life. Sure, I do have over 43,000 images on Flickr but they're mostly from this millennium. My past is sadly lacking as it was a time when photos were rarer and more precious. Now I can snap multiple images per day, easily and for free. That was not always the case. 

In fact, this afternoon Jay and I were talking about our years in Bahrain. I was thinking about where we bought groceries and came up blank. I'm sure between January 1989 to July 1991, we ate.  Even with front-row seats to the Gulf War, food is never really optional.  Still, I have no pictures of markets or grocery stores.

 

Thanks for the Kind Words

I love the Internet for many reasons. My appreciation is for much more than the things I do on a daily basis with it. The more amazing thing is the potential. Any of us could start to learn a new language, or begin learning an entirely new field of study. Certain careers were not even dreamt of when some of us went to college. The Internet has changed how we handle money, conduct business, and entertain ourselves. Yet today, it is ability to reach out and find someone that I'd like to celebrate.


I had an email out of the blue from one of the students pictured above. That is a scan from over twenty six years ago in the country of Bahrain. I was involved in teaching at the Bahrain Defense Force at the Muharraq Airbase. I remember these guys very fondly.

One particularly memorable guy, Isa, emailed me this week. He is holding the hair pick in the original picture. He said he was happy to find my email address. He's now married and living in Qatar.

It is gratifying hearing from this student who appreciated a student/teacher relationship forged so many years ago.

Daily for over Eleven Years!

There's a whole lot of personal information contained in my eJournal and images. In fact, I forgot to mention that over the Labour Day long weekend my little endeavour hit a new milestone of continuous, daily entries.

I find that I use this space to keep track of what I do, occasionally say what I feel, or chronicle the minutia of existence. It is also a nice place to throw things which I might want to refer to later. Of course, a lot of life occurred before this blog started; in my particular case, 44 complete years!

Some personal history ends up creeping into this expanding, online document. For instance, the photograph is the place where we lived in 1991. It was taken from an outside corridor by the door of our apartment building near Juffair, Bahrain. It was fairly close to the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. That was our third and final address on the island country as we moved on to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates in the fall of 1991.


The other day Jay was going through paperwork and discovered a bunch of yellowing bank statements. They offered an interesting glimpse into the mailing addresses used between January of 1989 and June of 1996. I am going to add them here simply as a reminder of postal addresses we have had.

Road 2625, Block 326
Building 505, Flat 21
Gudeibiya, BAHRAIN

Al-Hamala Beach Village
25D, PO Box 11465
Manama, BAHRAIN

Flat 25, Building 70
Juffair Avenue, Block 341
Manama, BAHRAIN

Al-Khifaf Apartments #316B
PO Box 2622
Dubai, UAE

Ahmed Al-Tayer Bldg.
Flat No: 106
PO Box 6852
Dubai, UAE

Being Less of a Man

At the doctor's office the other day, I weighed in at 212 lbs. Of course I was fully clothed and with shoes on. Surely, that allows me to subtract a pound or two. The number was not surprising but it has caused me, once again, to think about my weight. I believe the first reference to it in this blog was in September 2006. I was in Sri Lanka at the time and bothered by the fact I found it hard to fit into the bus seats. Later that fall after coming home and buying digital scales, I documented for posterity a weight of about 235 lbs.

I did a good steady job losing some of the extra fat. At one point in the middle of 2009 I bragged about weighing 198 lbs. Even back at that point, I wanted to shed more. I guess the idea had sort of fallen by the wayside. I used to start each day by weighing myself. I've not done that for years but shall try it again. That will be a nice slap in the face every morning. I think a daily reminder might be good encouragement. I have recommitted myself to the goal of 190 lbs.



(Today's entry is really for my own information. Without the links above I would have never been able to remember my previous progress or lack of it. And to encourage me even more, I'll add a picture taken 23 years ago when I was working in Bahrain. Too bad, I have no idea of how much I weighed at the time.)

News Blues

People get what they deserve, I suppose.

It isn't impossible to become well-informed on international events. I suppose I have an interest because I have been, and even lived, in places that make the news. I do blame the news media for trying to make the most complex situations into a simplified sound bite though. I often feel somewhat depressed about what is reported. I know enough of certain situations to realize that a more balanced understanding is beyond the scope of many ordinary people. In a way this is true because it seems beyond the scope of most news organizations to provide it. For example, I lived in Bahrain for a few years. It may sound like hubris, but my observations have made my opinions more valid than those who've never been more 1000 miles from home. There are so many half-truths and convenient stories being told to ignorant citizens. Often the bigger travesty lies in what is completely ignored and remains forever unreported!

I guess I cannot not blame anyone for ignorance. There are far too many areas and events around our globe, for an ordinary citizen to grasp even a small percentage. Yet, I keep running into those people who possess strong opinions based on meager facts. I do find that annoying, very annoying. Unfortunately, it is possible that an entire country be led astray by a poor showing on the part of its media. This happens when coverage becomes all facade with no background.

When was the last time you heard the actual voices of people on the ground in places in the news? I'd venture it may have been a while, if ever, if one is limited to the media outlets in North America. In democratic countries this lack of information is sinful really. At least the BBC, for all its faults, has real reporters out speaking to real folks in the streets. (Click the icon now for the Global News podcasts.) Occasionally the British Broadcasting Corporation gets a little sidetracked by focusing on what is considered hot in media circles. Generally however, I can plan on hearing from somewhere that a few US network-news anchors couldn't even locate on a globe.

I am so sick of being reported at.

While Set Up ...

The email from Asia Miles arrived in the night. I opened it in the morning and discovered our flights from Xi'an to Shanghai were successfully booked using some banked mileage. They will charge our credit cards about $25 for the taxes and fees. Oh, and as they didn't have my middle name in their records, they needed me to email a copy of my passport.

I don't keep my scanner set up, so I had to scramble to get it ready to make a pdf. There were a few old photos sitting inside the scanner's cover. I think they are snapshots that I have found around the apartment in books or drawers. I thought I could at least put one into digital form.



This photo was taken in August of 1990. (Remind me to wipe off the dust before scanning the next time.) I was standing near the door to the Juffair apartment in Bahrain. That area, back in those days, had a large area planted with date trees. I remember that many parrots used to live in among them. Those birds were most probably the feral offspring from caged ones which escaped years prior to that time.

Home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet

I am following the continuing unrest in Bahrain in the media and it makes me a little sad. I worked on the island country for almost two and a half years. I was there working with Bahraini Air Force personnel. My job as English instructor came about, basically, through kickback funds from the sale of F15 fighters by Texas based, General Dynamics Corp.

Although I started working well before, our time there included the months of the first Gulf War. I do have to admit that Bahrain was one of the places I most enjoyed in the Gulf. The people were nice and the country poorer but more open honest and down to earth.

The simmering troubles there are nothing new. During our time, I could never believe how out-of-touch diplomatic circles were to the real opinions and aspirations of many of the island's citizens. It wasn't as if the things were secret, it's just that many in power turned a blind eye. If I were kind, I'd say they had advisors who simply didn't know the situation on the ground.

For one thing, the real world is immensely complicated. This is something that zealots who dress themselves up as true patriots often forget. Things are not as black and white as many pretend. Ignorance hardly seems an excuse, but is often the only thing protecting the status quo. If the US military and foreign policy advisors had used their influence to force friendly regimes towards democracy twenty years ago, then the region would look a lot different today. I guess it wasn't in their interest at the time, or even today for that matter.

A 1.5-Ton Oven

Today felt a little more like spring than the weather of the past few weeks. It was only supposed to hit 17C (62F) degrees but over the next few days it is forcast to continue to climb. The area's official weather is also recorded at the airport. YVR is always a few degrees cooler as it sits near the ocean in the delta of the Fraser River.

My car was parked at the BC Institute of Technology today from around 11:00 am to 4:00 pm. When I opened the door to drive home, I felt a blast of warm air. It'd been so long since it had happened, it was a little bit surprising. I was reminded of my cars in the Middle East. In the Gulf countries, sometimes the plastics in automotive interiors would nearly melt from the heat. Living where I do now, before a trip, I needn't run the car in cold nor in hot weather to make the inside bearable.


I drove a Toyota Corolla in Bahrain in 1989.

In Historical Perspective

Almost everything is interesting after enough time passes. This seems true in the broad sweep of civilization which is why humans sometimes dig around in the dirt. We excavate to find out how ordinary people used to live. It's not only archeological treasures that are better when viewed years later; personal images increase in value as they get older.

During life, most of us tend to get out a camera during formal events or trips. We ignore the everyday and ordinary which is a real shame. One reason I'm so intent on keeping up with my Daily Picture Parade project is that I will, on occasion, be forced to take photos of things that bore me. I find some people's picture collections very pretentious. I only want to keep some historical evidence that I lived. I want to see the things that surrounded me. Those are the very things that take on the most significance in future years. It's fun to laugh at the style of clothing or hair. It's neat to see how an area changes. In our case, it's truly useful just to help remember the various places we've lived.


To view at YouTube, click here.

This clip is less than 2-minutes long. It was taken in 1991 when we lived in Juffair, Bahrain. In this clip we take an empty water bottle to be filled. The tap water was fine for cleaning and showering but I guess we used to pick up potable water. I would have completely forgotten this fact. I assume the facility was government run as I mention the cost of a refill as being about a $US quarter.

Nothing Remains the Same

I sent the link for a larger version of yesterday's blog photo to an ex-colleague who is in Bahrain now. Actually, he's been there since the time I took that photo, making it neigh onto twenty years. In retrospect, I probably had a better life in the UAE, but Bahrain still remains dearer to my heart. I always said the people there were nicer due to the fact they were poorer. Don did send along this comment when I asked if the Adhari Hotel was still there.

Yes it is there along with 88 other hotels, half of them in the new Juffair. The area around Adhari is real run down and trashy nowadays.

You would not recognize Bahrain. High rises all over the island. Your old building there is dwarfed by other, bigger buildings beside and behind. There's not a sqaure inch of empty land any where in Juffair AND the area has doubled in size.

There are several 20, 30 and 40 story towers in downtown Manama, and in the Seef District, there are even more with a 75 story building being planned. Juffair looks like Diplomat area but 5 times the size. Not a place to park anymore and the road to the base is busier than Exhibition Road was; supermarkets, every chain restaurant, coffee shop and pizza place you can think of and some you can't.

All the roundabouts all over Bahrain are being done away with and flyovers are being built in their place. No more roundabouts at all in Manama and they are putting flyovers in at the Manama end of the Sitra Causeway, which will tie in with the new causeway. Also Isa Town, Salmabad and A'ali roundabouts are gone. BTW, they are building a causeway to Qatar.

There's a whole new city being built off the southern tip and a new series of islands were created east of the southern end of Muharraq and already they are built up and all the villas and condos (were talking thousands of 'em) are being sold from 200,000 to 1,000,000 dollars. There are about 25 condos in the Manama, Juffair, Hoora areas built and most of the apartments are sold, starting at $100,000. Just beside Pearl (Lulu) Roundabout, there are three 25-floor towers all sold out. Prices started at $250,000. There are several new universities with entire campuses dotted over the island, too, and 4 or five huge new private hospitals. Dubai might be where it's at, but Bahrain isn't far behind considering its size and resources.

A Street Scene Revisited

When I first tried a hand at blogging, I didn't consider I'd include a photo or image most every day. In September of 2003, I am not sure if I knew I'd still be adding daily posts in June of 2008! Eventually, I did realize that a graphic of some sort could be featured with most entries. Over the years, the images have often become the entries.

Once entered in my eJournal and images, they create part of my historic record. My initial idea that I'd only be able to go forward with present-day images has proved incorrect too. Because of a scanner, I am able to, quite often, dip into the past.

The picture above represents what I didn't do often enough; namely, take everyday shots of my surroundings. There was no reason to take this photograph of the Adhari Hotel in Bahrain twenty years ago. Yet, seeing the details is interesting to me due to the passage of time. For example, I would not be able, in my mind's eye, to put together such simple elements for the feeling of an ordinary street then and there.

It is a real shame I didn't take more pictures of nothing during my lifetime.

One Man's Treasure

I'd never wish the stress of a calamity on others. Still, a house fire or flood must be a sure way of getting rid of junk collected over the years. As a case in point, I finally got around to throwing away these old things that were hanging on the wall in the bedroom. Had it not been for painting the walls, they very well could've been hanging around, literally, for years more.

Here's the story on the front frame. In 1988, I worked for a year for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Instructors were given dorm-style rooms right on the military compound. The rooms were provided with basic furniture. Whenever an employee left, their old room was always left unlocked. During one such time, I found this RSNF-inventoried picture. It was calming to see the river scene while actually sitting on the edge of the desert. Additionally, it may have reminded me New Hampshire, I guess. I appropriated it.

After I left Dammam, it came with me and was placed on walls in Bahrain, the UAE, and both apartments in New Westminster. During one move, the glass broke. In the intervening years, the colours faded. So, after twenty years, I realize it's time to say goodbye to it. One of the other little pictures was salvaged from a dumpster when a hotel in Dubai was updating rooms. The third was a framed beach towel from long ago.

I don't mind parting with them; it's just I had to document their existence here first.

Smoking is So Yesterday

I spent the day in class with my weekend COMM 0004. I'm extremely happy that tomorrow is Remembrance Day in Canada and it's a holiday. In fact, Monday is a vacation day too. So, I will have off two days in a row which seems like a treat. Don't let me make it sound like I have a hard life. I recently had three months off and will also not be working for three weeks during half of December and part of January.

I started to say that we went over the topic of cause and effect today. When discussing the topic I generally have the class think of bad habits they might have and the effects that lie down the road because of them. I was a little surprised when I asked how many of the 19 students smoked.

None of my current class smokes! I can't help but compare this to when I began at BCIT. Ten years ago it was not unusual for half my classes to run out to have a cigarette during breaks. Of course, I used to join them too.

Cigarette smoking is certainly no longer cool. In fact, people who seem to congregate near doorways nowadays to puff are losers. I equate smoking as something primarily done by unemployed bums or other people of questionable character.


In the Middle East cheap, tax-free cigarettes provided
no incentive to quit smoking. I do not have a photo of me
actually holding one though.

Bahrain's Tree of Life

Today, I was a bit late in considering what I could put here. I wondered what information would make a suitable entry.

I have found that sometimes each blog post is a world onto its own. At other times, a number of consecutive, daily entries may be on a similar topic. On rare occasions, there's a reverse continuity in what I write.


The only reason I chose the picture above is that yesterday's entry was a YouTube clip from 1991. It was recorded when I worked in Bahrain, and so today I rifled through my online pictures so I could put a still photo here.

I am standing in shorts with 16 fewer years of excess weight. I'm standing in front of what is referred to as the Tree of Life. Isn't it amazing that one can find just about anything on Wikipedia, even if only a stub?

How to Wear a Gas Mask

In order to check out my new Intel Quad processor, I needed to find a CPU intensive task. Since I'm not a game player at all, I spent a little time working with video files. I burnt the video tape of our central European trip to DVD.

While in the folder on my external drive, I discovered a clip from an old analog tape from 1991. I was working in Bahrain at the time. I was a civilian contractor for General Dynamics and taught English to members of the Bahrain Defense Force. This was recorded during the first Gulf War. I now call it The Gulf War: Classic.

Freeing Other Media

There can be a blush of excitement after scanning an old photo. One realizes that the actual paper artifact has been granted an entirely new digital life. It cannot fade further. Multiple copies can exist. It can even be easily passed around via email or a web page. I most recently added a blog entry along these lines a month ago.

Similarly, after languishing on 8mm video tape in a drawer for sixteen years, I helped this video capture from Thailand make its escape. That country was a common vacation destination for colleagues in the Gulf. In fact, we went up to visit another teacher, Mr. Don Richardson. This particular clip was made in old Chaing Mai. We were on break when living in Bahrain. Later that summer, I finished my work there and took up teaching duties in Dubai.

This grainy, 2 1/2-minute clip does not accurately show the environment. It does, however, show personal events that until recently were difficult to access and impossible to share.

Before the Internet

Fifteen years can seem like a lifetime. I recently found the following information on an archive CD. This was research when I was working for the Higher Colleges of Technology in Dubai, UAE. In March of 1992, I was interested in getting a computer bulletin board system running at our college. There was no Internet available there at the time. Eventually I set up and operated a 8-modem, Major BBS/WorldGroup system. I fear that most people reading this blog entry may not even be aware of early days of computer communication.

I wish to publish the information today as a tribute to former Gulf-country sysops (system operators) who struggled with old-skool modems, uncooperative telcos, and the temperamental BBS software of the day.

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G.C.C. Bulletin Boards (March 1992)

Area/ Name/ Number/ Speed/ (Special Hours)

Bahrain

Al-Bahrain/ Al-Madani BBS/ (973) 250454 *6/ 3-12-24-96
Al-Bahrain/ Flyers Wildcat! BBS/ (973) 336 721 / 3-12-24-96
Al-Bahrain/ Stray Cats BBS / (973) 277997 / 3-12-24-96


Saudi Arabia

Abqaiq/ Abqaiq B.B.S./ (03) 572 2197 *3/ 12-24
Abqaiq/ Abqaiq B.B.S./ (03) 572 3884 / 3-12-24
Abqaiq/ Air Ecosse/ (03) 572 1653 / 3-12-24
Qatif/ Ali Mutab B.B.S./ (03) 856 2720 / 3-12
Riyadh / B.E.S.T. B.B.S. / (01) 478 6703 / 3-12-24
Alkhobar / Bulldog B.B.S./ (03) 894 8974 / 3-12-24
Dhahran / D.P.C.S. Bytenet/ (03) 873 7852 / 3/12
Dhahran/ Darkstar B.B.S./ (03) 873 7851 / 3-12
Dhahran / Darkstar II / (03) 873 7853 / 3-12
Dhahran / Desert Boots B.B.S/ (03) 873 9241 / 3-12-24/ (17-00 to 07-00)
Jeddah/ Elyas R.B.B.S./ (02) 683 3120 *2/ 3-12
Al Khobar / Express B.B.S./ (03) 898 3980 / 3-12-24
Hofuf / Hofuf Air/ (03) 586 4382 3-12-24
Al Khobar/ Jeraisy B.B.S. / (03) 894 7394 *4/ 3-12-24
Dammam / PC-Soft (PC-NET)/ (03) 834 4413 / 3-12-24
Riyadh/ Riyadh PC Board / (01) 464 4079 *1/ 3-12-24
Jeddah / Taurus B.B.S./ (02) 667 2353 / 3-12-24
Dhahran / Viking B.B.S./ (03) 878 3887 / 3/12/24/ (21-00 to 08-00)
Yanbu / Wildcat #1 B.B.S./ (04) 396 0285 / 3-12/ (13-00 to 20-00 Sat-Thu)
Yanbu / Wildcat #2 B.B.S./ (04) 396 0285 / 3-12/ (22-00 to 11-00 Fri-Wed)


United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi/ Sphinx Wildcat! / (971) 2 5005202/ 3-12-24
Dubai / The First Wildcat BBS/ (971) 4 5005401/ 3-12-24
Dubai/ The Lonestar Wildcat/ (971) 4 5005403/ 3-12-24

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