I’m one of those people who are always skeptical about what companies say, so when WIMD was offering high speed wireless connectivity to homes I wasn’t sure what to expect from them. I spoke to an engineer and sales person, they basically said they would bring the equipment, connect it and try it out before they would bill me. The engineers came about 4 days later, they started installation, they had a few initial issues but after a few hours everything was ironed out. They use a consumer grade Cisco router that you can buy from any electronics shop like XCite in Kuwait but the Wireless Broadband is through Proxim.

They are using Wireless Broadband technology which has been tried and tested for a while now. It is excellent but there a few minor drawbacks, one of the major ones is that it isn’t consistent. So even if you have a 10 MB connection it can be 10 MB then drop to 4MB then back up to 8 MB then back to 10MB again, its just the reality of the Wireless Broadband Solution, but overall any speed even if it isn’t consistent is better then 1 MB. In my case it hit 20 MB so I went for the 20 MB package without a thought, I live off the internet and now I shall be very happy.

Requirements:

• Line Of Sight (Your house has to be visible to One of Their Towers)
• Close to a Tower (They have lots of Towers)
• You can mount a small tower to the exterior of the house

They are using Qualitynet as their backend provider, I think or hope they would expand on that. Now that people are starting to find out about them and they have coverage around Kuwait I hope they can still manage to provide the speeds they have promised even when their subscriber base increase dramatically.

Link: WIMD

Pricing:

• 6 MB – 325
• 7 MB – 355
• 8 MB – 390
• 9 MB – 473
• 10 MB – 523
• 11 MB – 590
• 12 MB – 660
• 13 MB – 730
• 14 MB – 800
• 15 MB – 870
• 16 MB – 940
• 17 MB – 1010
• 18 MB – 1080
• 19 MB – 1150
• 20 MB – 1220

There wasn’t even half the enthusiasm that there usually is for voting this year, everyone is just fed up with the whole mess. I didn’t know what to expect but I was hoping for a good change, I think we just want progress at this point. I was very happy that a lot of people went out to vote but the results were devastating. Every person I voted for didn’t make it to parliament but that isn’t the disappointing part, whats disappointing is that a majority of the people who got into parliament will rip this country apart and there will be nothing progressive taking place in Kuwait in the next 4 years. It is said that a majority of the Parliament are from the religious faction and have plans in mind to change some laws, all I know is that what ever they have planned won’t be good. There is always hope and I hope things will get better and people will realize that they can’t keep voting for the same hooligans who make things a mess in Kuwait, we need progress. I’m even surprised that no woman made it to Parliament, Aseel Al Awadhi was good and of course there are the bad but I was hoping for more women but it doesn’t look like it will happen in this Parliament.

Things have come full swing and GulfRun is around the corner, today is the car wash event that I do enjoy so much. A ton of different kinds of machines coming around this time of year and some of them are really modified and ready for the track, everyone is taking this seriously and each year the caliber of cars and drivers just keeps going up. The car show is always entertaining at 360 Mall especially so many machines are on display especially the ones that are supposed to be indoors.

Kuwait:
Thursday, Jan 12th: Al-Falah Carwash

• 6:00pm – 10:00pm |Stickers placement

Friday, Jan 13th: 360 Mall

• 10:00am – 10:00pm | Car Show

Saturday, Jan 14th: 360 Mall

• 10:00am – 10:00pm | Car Show

There have been a few changes to the track, and I’m really looking forward to checking out Outer Circuit, I have never done that before. As for the Karting, Bahrain International Circuit have the best Go Karting circuit in the world which is going to be very cool to try it out.

Bahrain:
Thursday, Jan 26th: Bahrain International Circuit

• 8.30am – 7:00pm | GulfRun7 Day 1 (Outer Circuit / Inner Circuit / Karting)

Friday, Jan 27th: Bahrain International Circuit

• 8.30am – 7:00pm | GulfRun7 Day 2 (GP Circuit / Autocross Competition / Quartermile Drag)

This is one of the things that I really get annoyed with. On Friday and Saturday mornings from 6 am onwards there is almost no one on the road, and the roads belong to the bikers. Over the past three weeks there have police check points just after going under the round about on the Visa Round About heading towards Bede’a on 5th. It is a speed trap since everyone is used to traveling 120 on 5th Ring Road, but just before going the underpass it changes from 120 kph to 80 so if you are going 130 kph then you are doing 50 kph over the speed limit and they fine you, take your license and registration. Some cars also get towed depending on how fast they were going, and they were even stopping bikers. Most of the time police leave bikers alone but at this check point they pull people over and either tow them or hold them for a few hours.

I would honestly think that they would have much better things to do instead of hassling people that early in the morning and it police check point starts around 6 or 7 am, ends around 10 or 11 am on both Friday and Saturday.

Fasttelco has been going through some changes over the last 6 months and mostly for the good. One of thing they are doing that I like is that they are looking for creative Kuwaitis to joining their team and I like that they are looking for people with or without experience. Its good when companies such as these takes this step, and its the step in the right direction.

Over the last year I have noticed a lot of items increase in price, and some drastically like plane tickets. Increase of fuel prices have one part of it, then there are a lot of other factors and one that I never knew of. We are considered a War Zone which causes the cost of items coming to Kuwait to increase in price. One of the main factors is insurance, to insure items coming to Kuwait including the planes flying here have increased three fold. Thats is why shipping costs have increased drastically over the last few years. I bought four tires for my car and it cost 620 KWD when the same tires cost about 480 KWD the same time last year which is a drastic increase, and one of those increases sited was shipping as well as the shortage of rubber.

The List:

• Egypt
• Syria
• Jordan
• Lebanon
• Saudi Arabia
• Kuwait
• UAE
• Bahrain
• Yemen
• Iraq
• Iran

Surprisingly Qatar is not on the list, and I do not know why some countries like Kuwait and UAE are on that list. With the way things are going we will never be off that list and some costs seem to keep going up instead of down. With all the floods and earthquakes asia has been facing there has been increases in pricing from cars & rubber to hard drives & electronics. I was wondering how countries get on this list and how to get off of it.

Over the last few years there have been incidents where I have had some interaction with private hospitals from normal cases to emergency cases which could be fatal. There is a lot that can be said about Kuwait’s medical system, one simple thought that comes to mind is that it is that we are lacking hospitals. And a few private hospitals have popped out but they aren’t as good as people have in mind.

Public:

When it comes to serious cases in Kuwait they always go to the Public sector, they have really good doctors and there are that people that care. It is sad seeing people get caught in the bureaucracy which is rampant in the public hospitals they end up not getting the medical treatment that is needed. Then there is the lack of professional care, half the recovery is after the surgery or when you are in the case of the nurses and in the public hospitals the employees are slightly disgruntled or do what they can with what they have.

What we need is some new hospitals and a drastic cut in the bureaucracy, our hospitals are in disarray and badly maintained with patchwork keeping it together. The same person cleaning the bathrooms is the same person serving the patients food which is a disaster. For country such as Kuwait it sad to see the state of these hospitals even when our doctors are really good. We really do have good doctors but sadly they get disheartened and we loose some of them who become prominent doctors in Europe, Canada, and the US.

Private:

There are a few private hospitals that have popped over the last few years and some of them are decent. But what I always feel about private hospitals is that they are trying to squeeze every penny out of you, not necessarily trying to rob you bling but a bit going over board.

One very drastic problem with private hospitals is that they will not accept dangerous cases or accidents which has happened with me personally. I was taking someone in who had a severe head injury and was refused entry by security at the door even though he was covered in blood from his head to his waist. I put him back in my car and flew to Mubarak Hospital who took him in right away and got him into surgery.

Then there is the drastic lack of equipment and expertise in emergency or complex cases. They all say they have emergency rooms or floors but in reality they don’t have the adequate equipment to handle them and this we have also experienced. There has to be some sort of oversight by the government to make sure they are ready for all types of cases which they are not. They might have nice buildings, clean areas, and smiling staff but still they aren’t equipped for every type of issue.

I got a chance to check out GUST for the first time, and they had the GulfRun booth in the center next to FoilArt & Zain. This was my first time to enter the GUST campus in Mishref and I have to say that I was impressed as an outsider the only thing that they are missing is a parking structure even though it does have ample parking. I didn’t walk through the facility completely but I was impressed with what I did see, and I really liked the spirit of the students.

The Carnival is an event organized by the Student Association and I have to say they did a very good job organizing it. I like the setup and it was in a nice area with a lot of walking space, and in the circular courtyard were the food booths. There were a lot of student entrepreneurs and its great to see them trying to sell their products and services. The funny part for me was seeing the GulfRun booth just in front of Zain since the Wataniya Logos were all over the cars, but they seemed to be a good sport about it, and the Zain Zone people were pretty nice. My surprise was seeing the Lotus 211 parked right there and the Lamborghini Aventador parked on the side walk as well. While I was roaming around I also picked up a lot of Kettle Corn from Popcornopolis.

Its been too long since I have had my car detailed, I have even drove it much over the year. I took it for a very necessary service to get the beemer in optimal state, and I still had a few of the GulfRun stickers on the car. They fully detailed the car which took about a day and a half so I picked it up the next morning. Full exterior, interior, and engine detail brought the car back to a beautiful shine, damn it looked even better then it was at the dealer for the first time.

Whenever I leave Al Falah Car Wash I have to keep in mind that my tires were shined and just washed so I have to take it easy when I leave. But I just couldn’t help myself in such a clean car I just wanted to drive like a bat out of hell, and the roads were completely empty, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I was driving down the highway with the music blasting.

Link: AlFalahCarWash
Phone: 2245 2432

Feed the dinosaurs, pet a leopard, moonwalk with an astronaut or brave a storm. Zain in cooperation with 360 MALL & National Geographic Channel, brings to you the spectacular world of augmented reality. Step in and be transported.

Venue: Main Atrium. Date: 22nd-25th December. Time: 10am-10pm.

For more info call : 1800360

Honestly this is something amazing by Zain & 360 Mall, to bring the Augmented Reality technology to our mall and all these kids to try it out. I heard from some family and friends that it really is amazing, and the kids love it.