Category: Personal

Now that I finished with the audio install in my Wrangler the next thing I am going to do is get a lift so I could install 33″ tires. After scouring the Jeep Forum and doing a lot of research I decided to go with the DPG Ultimate Trailgunner Suspension System which is a kit put together by DPG for Jeep Wranglers and consists of a 2.5″ Old Man Emu suspension system combined with DPG springs, a 1.25″ JKS body lift and a bunch of other parts which I need for the Wrangler install like adjustable track bars, quick disconnects and bump stops, etc.. basically all the parts I need to get 33″ tires installed on my Wrangler. You can check it out [Here]

Now as usual I always try to purchase stuff from Kuwait first but also as usual I get put off by the prices. I found the Old Man Emu dealer in Kuwait which is Naser Al-Sayer (Tel: 4747137) but their prices were more than double that of the US. Even with shipping it would be a lot cheaper and more reliable to order the parts from a specialized place like DPG in the States.

So now that I solved my suspension lift issue I have another problem with the tires and wheels. My current setup is 31″ tires with 15×7 wheels, for my 33″ setup I need to get 15×8 wheels and 33×12.5xR15 tires. I found some really nice American Racing wheels (black steelies) for KD16 per wheel but they will cost me an arm and a leg to ship to Kuwait. So I decided to pass by the American Racing dealer in Kuwait who are Silicon Valley Group (Tel: 4826723) to see how much the wheel cost here. The visit was pretty disappointing, they barely had anything in stock, they had nothing that fits the Wrangler and the employee there really had no clue about anything. They are even the local dealers for Mickey Thompson tires yet they only had one model from the size I wanted 33×12.5xR15 and even worse they only had one tire in stock. The guy told me I could place an order for anything I wanted but that it would get here by August/September. Very disappointing.

For tires I wanted BF Goodrich AT/KO but I couldn’t find a local dealer so I started calling other places to see what they had and this is what I found:

Goodyear Wrangler MT/R
33×12.5R15
KD80 per tire (slow shipping, 2 months to arrive)
KD110-120 per tire (fast shipping, 2 weeks to arrive)
Tel: 884737

Mickey Thompson Desert King
33×10.5R15
KD90 (1 tire in stock)
Tel: 4826723

Maxxis MT762 Bighorn
33×12.5R15
KD42
Tel: 4824256

Hankook Dynapro MT RT03
33×12.5R15
KD37 (6 tires in stock)
Tel: 884737

I also tried Dunlop, Toyo and Yokohama but they didn’t have any in stock or in Toyo’s case no one ever answered the phone. I am extremely disappointed with the state of some of the dealerships in Kuwait. Prices are expensive, they don’t have a large stock and ordering stuff with them takes ages. Gives me less and less reason to buy stuff from Kuwait.

Update: A friend gave me a link to a website of shop in Dubai called Icon Auto who sell and install lifts for the Wrangler. Their price is very competitive compared to the US. For example a 2.5″ suspension lift costs $659 in the States, $800 in Dubai and $1100 in Kuwait. How come we don’t have a place like Icon Auto in Kuwait?? [Link]

Al Mayass is a very popular Lebanese and Armenian restaurant in Lebanon but for some reason I hadn’t heard about it until it opened up here in Kuwait. Since I’ve been hearing only good stuff about the place I decided to try it out and see what it was all about.

Al Mayass is located inside the Shiik Resort which I think is a pretty strange location because I can’t imagine girls in bikinis walking by conservative families on their way into lunch not end up being a problem. Anyway once you walk into the place you will notice it doesn’t look very Lebanese but thats not a big deal since the colors and design of the place is leaning more towards Armenian. What would be a Lebanese look anyway? I don’t think we have one for restaurants.

I only found three problems with the Al Mayass and one popped up right at the beginning. Its not actually a problem more like a nitpick. I found the napkin too small to properly place over the lap. If I am complaining about napkins then you already have an idea on which direction this review is heading. The second problem followed nearly instantly, they don’t have soup on the menu. I was eager to start off with their lentil soup since it was cold outside and wanted something to warm me up. I even asked the waiter about it hoping they had a soup de jour which wasn’t on the menu but he apologized telling me they sadly didn’t have soup on the menu. I think this is a permanent thing and not just temporary which is disappointing.

We then went ahead and ordered a bunch of cold and hot appetizers including hummus, hummus with meat, labne with garlic, tabboule, batata harra (hot potato?), cheese beurek and ras asfoor which translates to bird head although the dish is actually meat chunks. For our main course we ordered chicken taouk and kabab with cherry.

One by one the dishes started to arrive and everything was tasting great. The hummus with meat was probably the best I had ever had and the batata harra was also really great although pretty filling. The cheese beurek is basically a cheese puff and from all the appetizers is the only one I wouldn’t order again. We ordered two cheese beureks at KD1.500 a piece but they were really tiny pieces, each the size of two matchboxes placed side by side. Actually now that I think about it I wouldn’t order the ras asfoor again since that dish cost KD5 and really wasn’t that great.

Once we were done with our appetizers our main courses arrived. The chicken taouk (KD4) was good and very tender but really didn’t grab my attention as much as the cherry kebab (KD4.5). I hadn’t had cherry kebab before but a friend of mine told me I would love it and he was absolutely right. The cherries turned an ordinary dish found everywhere into something much more interesting. The combination of kebab with the sweetness of the cherries resulted in a very flavored kebab which I would definitely want to have again.

By the time we were done with all the food we were pretty full but we still went ahead and ordered the Mayass knefeh which needed 15-20 minutes of preparation time. I guess the waiting period raised my expectations because usually my knefeh gets served instantly but to wait 20 minutes for one meant it had to be really special. It wasn’t, the knefeh tasted like regular knefeh although it did come in a different shape from the usual. My feelings are its just not worth the wait, if you want it make sure you order it while your main course is being served.

Overall I liked Al Mayass even though I am not usually a fan of Lebanese grill. I usually find Lebanese kebab and taouk dishes pretty dry and bland but the cherry kebab has sparked an interest with me. The Lebanese waiters were very friendly without being the talkative type and their service was fast. The lack of soup is a disappointment and the prices of two of the dishes I ordered were expensive. As you can tell though if I am picking on the size of the napkin its because there isn’t much to pick on. The place is great and is probably the only Lebanese restaurant I would want to visit again. The final score is a 4 out of 5.

Before MP3 players became popular and before the iPod was invented, I had my eye on the Pioneer CDX-P5000. It was the ultimate CD changer for the car at that time holding 51 CDs. It was huge, unpractical and slow but there was nothing like it when it came to carrying all your music with you in the car. Now when I look at it and compare it to my tiny iPod which holds a lot more then 51 CDs, the Pioneer CDX-P5000 looks ridiculous.

I really want the Herman Miller Aeron chair for my office. One of my clients has them in their conference room and the chair is super comfy. I checked on Amazon and they sell the chair for KD205 ($749). The price at the local dealer? KD420.

I thought the Burgan Bank logo was bad but the new ABK logo is even worse. Where do I start? First the typography, why is the letter “a” in lowercase while “BK” in uppercase? The Arabic and English types also don’t match, I think the English should have been based on the Arabic one and both should have at least been the same weight. Currently the English type is too heavy compared to the Arabic while in the old logo they were more balanced. The new icon also looks very generic and flat compared to the old one. The new icon is simply a square box while the older one had a more interesting open shape to it. I am sure they changed the logo because they wanted something that looks more modern which has actually worked in this case but I think thats the only thing that has worked. I would have posted about this logo Friday when I first saw the billboards on the Gulf Road but I couldn’t get a hold of the new logo since up until now their website hasn’t been updated. I had to get the logo from Fonzy’s blog who has also posted about the new logo. If anyone knows the name of the branding agency behind the new logo please post it in the comments.

My sister got a dog yesterday and Geo and him have been have been running around playing and fighting ever since. One minute they are best friends and the next they are fighting over a doll. Its ridiculous and exhausting keeping an eye on both of them. They are getting used to each other so thats a good thing. My sisters dog is a Shar Pei and she’s called him Mao but that confuses Geo since Mao sounds like “no” to him. Thats why I’ve decided to call him China Town which I think is cooler and he seems to be responding better to it anyway.

I thought I needed an hour more work today but it ended up taking like three. I was experiencing some vibration sounds yesterday so today I removed the 4 speakers and stuff the area behind them with a lot more pollyfill (pillow stuffing). This ended up improving the sound quality and killing any vibrations I was hearing. I also cleaned up the wires in the rear, and fastened my amp and subwoofer into the trunk.

Even though I have the amp and sub installed in the trunk, when the rear seat is folded up there is still a lot of room for Geo to get in, sit and walk around. When the rear seat is down the amp is hidden and there is still some room next to the sub for some grocery bags.

I tuned the sound system a bit but will wait two more weeks for all the speakers to break in before I spend more time tuning things. Although it was really exhausting work it was a good learning experience. Next project I am probably going to try is to install is a suspension lift by myself. I already have the step by step instructions just need to get the right tools.

I woke up at 9AM today morning so I could start work on the installation of my Alpine sound system in the Wrangler. First thing I did was pass by Sultan Center and pick up a cutter and extra batteries for my MagLite. From 10 in the morning until 5 in the evening I was working on the installation non stop without lunch just 2 small bottles of water and gum. I got a lot of surprises, most of the stuff I was expecting to be difficult turned out easy and what I was expecting to be easy turned out to be difficult. My fingers are killing me now and I have a ton of tiny scratches all over my hands from all the work I did under the dashboard trying to get all the cables neatly through.

I am not done yet, I still have around an hour of work work which I will do tomorrow. I still need to fasten the amp and the sub to the car, I already drilled the holes just need to screw them in. I also need to fine tune the sound, currently I got a lot of highs and a lot of lows with no midrange. Also the front speakers are slightly louder then the rear so I can still tell which direction the sound is coming from but thats also an easy fix. I think I did a pretty good job of the install, there were a few moments where I thought I was fucked but those quickly got worked out. Only thing I need to improve on is my soldering technique.

My friend at work has been nagging me to start riding in to work again but I just found the weather too cold to ride. This week the weather has been perfect so I am back to riding to work and although I was originally worried I would freeze my ass off in the morning, it actually isn’t bad at all, refreshing if anything. During lunch I ride with my friend to Souk Sharq and the weather is usually sunny and cool but once the sun goes down in the evening things will get nippier again.

I’ve had the car for a day now and so far its been surprising. Before I picked up the car I thought the thing I would like the most in the car would be the interior. I had checked the CTS website and I was really looking forward to the “Ambient Interior Lighting”. A lot of cars have it but the CTS has a unique version that uses LED’s that go along the dash from one end to the other. But, I quickly found out the version of the car I was reviewing didn’t have the ambient lighting, I don’t know if its not available as an option in Kuwait or if it just wasn’t an option in my car but I wasn’t able to experience it.

With one of the things I was looking forward to not available I had to find something else to take my interest and I quickly found it as soon as I hit the 5th Ring Road. The CTS has over 300hp and as soon as I slammed on the gas the engine let out a brutal grunt and took off. At high RPM’s the engine gets really loud and aggressive which is surprising because the car gives a civilized impression. Another thing that surprised me was the “Driver Shift Control” which allows me to manually change gears. Unlike most of the ones I have tried before the Cadillac’s transmission was pretty fast and responsive. I’ve been recently trying to cut down on my speeding and the CTS wasn’t helping.

Everything isn’t perfect and I do have my problems with the car. For one thing I found the audio and navigation system sluggish. Firstly the car I am driving only has the European map installed. I don’t know if a local map isn’t offered yet but without one the navigation system is useless. Going from menu to menu and raising and lowering the volume is also a hit and miss affair. Sometimes the system doesn’t respond to my commands or responds after a few seconds delay. After experiencing this issue a number of times I am convinced its a software issue and the system problem needs an update or a reboot. Another thing that I didn’t like was the location of the fire extinguisher, its located in the middle of the passenger side foot area. Nat didn’t know if she should put her feet on top of the extinguisher or stretch them out over it but it was really annoying and uncomfortable.

Those were the only negatives I could find in the car although I would also have liked a reverse cam since its become like a standard but other then that the car is fully loaded. There is a USB socket where you can plug in the iPod and the navigation system turns into a TV although I couldn’t catch any channels but thats a good thing since KTV sucks. The sunroof is amazing because the whole roof is a large glass panel which really brightens up the interior.

I have the car till tomorrow evening so I will still be driving it some more. The price of the car if anyone is interested is KD13,000 with the all wheel drive version costing slightly more.

I was flipping through a book on the history of Kuwait called “The voice of the Oud” when I found a photo of a kid who looked exactly like me. The book is full of amazing old photos of Kuwait and here I was in one of the pictures. I checked the date of the photo and it was 1983 and taken in Mubarakieh outside the carpet souk where I used to tag a long with my dad every Friday morning.

I scanned the photo and emailed it to my mum just to be sure that the picture was of me when i was a kid and she called me to confirm that it was. I think its pretty cool especially since the book has a ton of cool shots of old Kuwait. The girl in the picture was my neighbor who is no longer in Kuwait and I am also no longer chubby although I am still very white.

Over a year ago I posted “Elect me as mayor of Salmiya” because I was pissed at how the old shopping street in Salmiya was getting torn a part bit by bit and all my childhood memories were disappearing with it. Well since then things haven’t changed, I wasn’t elected as mayor and Salmiya is still losing its history.

The building that has Hardees, Tikka, KFC, Waleed Toys, Alamiah and The Family Bookshop is going to be demolished soon. Already Hardees, Tikka, KFC and Baskin Robbins have vacated the building and I am sure the rest will follow soon. What I heard is that whole block with the land behind it and to its sides plus the old souk in front of Marina Mall (Kaysariyah) will be demolished and turned into one giant super mall, as if we don’t have enough of those already.

I got my first computer, the Sakhr MSX2 from Alamiah, I had my first roast beef sandwich from that Hardees and I bought all my Peter and Jane books from The Family Bookshop. This really sucks.

My car speakers and multi-amp wiring harness arrived today. I now have everything I need to start the installation except for the RCA and speaker cables. I will get those from Mr System in Shuwaikh sometime this week. Yesterday I passed by Ace Hardware to get some pollyfill which everyone online advises to use to fill in the enclosure behind the speaker. Surprisingly they didn’t have any which is weird because they have everything. If you haven’t been to Ace Hardware recently you should because they’ve rearranged sections, canceled some unimportant ones and added new ones with more useful stuff. I really love the place. So after Ace I passed by Barakat in Salmiya which is a sewing store, I ended up finding pollyfill there which is basically pillow stuffing. 250grams for 750fils.

I also got a call from Cadillac today, I am going to be test driving the new 2008 CTS over the weekend. I checked out some pictures of the car online and it looks pretty interesting so I am looking forward to it. [Cadillac CTS]

I am not a big fan of classic cars or old cars in general but there are five I would love to have in my garage one day.

1- Lancia Delta Integrale

2- BMW M3 E30

3- VW Golf GTI MKII

4- Ford Escort Cosworth

5- Datsun Skyline GTR (1971)

I was going to add this note to my Aramex post below as an update but I decided not to hijack it and instead post this separately.

On January 3rd my car amp arrived to my U Shop We Ship address.
On January 4th my car amp was shipped from my mailbox to Kuwait.
Today, January 6th, I just got my car amp delivered to my office.

This has to be the fastest I have EVER received a package.