July 24, 2011

I know it's been several days since my last post but I've been so tried by the end of the day I just want to pass out. Not that I've been DOING too much, I'm just tired. I haven't been sleeping well due to either an army of mosquitos or one very hungry sucker. I wake up with bites, then I start scratching and then it itches more and I can't stop scratching and therefore can't fall back asleep.

As far as work goes, we have moved all of the MaRS tanks into the shop and they are now all plumbed together and ready to go. If only we had power. We have already used up all of the breakers in the panel that's in the shop so we have to bring in some more power! The electricians need to run cables along the ceiling and down to the tanks. We are also missing some pumps and not all of the ones we do have work. Tomorrow we are taking a long extension cord and will test the lights and pumps and see what we can fix and what will need to be replaced.

On Sunday we moved the shark tank onto the stand. That was an adventure. We had about 15 guys and still had to call in help from the random electricians and carpenters hanging around. The tank was sitting on roller carts that were shorter than the tank stand so we had to figure out how to get it up above the level of the stand. We brought in a huge pile of lumber pieces, used the pallet jacks to jack the tank up, built up the roller carts so the tank would now be higher than the stand and then rolled the tank onto the stand. If only. The first part was simple enough. Once we started pushing the tank and simultaneously pulling with this huge strap thing, the roller carts inevitably hit the stand. We had to stop, jack the tank up, move the carts back, lower the tank back onto the carts, push/pull again, stop, repeat... Once the tank was "mostly" on the stand we just had to use brute force to push the thing into place on the stand. It weighs about 3 tons. We couldn't push on the actual acrylic viewing glass, which limited where we could work from and we also had to deftly maneuver around flimsy walls and support beams in the room. I'll work on getting the pics and videos of the ordeal up here or on Facebook soon. It was, of course, the last 5cm of getting it placed evenly on the stand that posed the biggest problem, but we got it on there pretty square! Now we just have to pray that the architectural consultant gives the OK on the reinforcment of the stand that was done last minute. We might have to move the tank off again.

Saw my first Starbucks in Jeddah yesterday. Right next door to a Pizza Hut. Interestingly enough, Pizza Huts here are like Starbucks back home, they are on every corner.

We were supposed to get a shipment of 25 baby blacktip sharks today from Sri Lanka but something happened and they didn't get shipped. It had something to do with the fact that the plane was overloaded so of all the things they could unload, they unloaded the live fish. Now, as you might imagine, being shipped to another country is stressful an a shark. Hell, it's stressful on me. They get fasted for 24 hours, packed into large plastic bags with a sedative like drug in it, stuffed into styrofoam boxes then packed into crates. They are them driven 1 hour to the airport, go through all the normal customs screenings and procedures, get loaded onto the plane and then after another hour or so get OFFLOADED from the plane. The guys had to go back to the airport, pick up the crates, take them back to their facility and unload them just to have to do this all over again in a few days. Stupid. These are animals that will be here at the palace, in another large shark tank that Issham is building for the guy who owns the boat I worked on last summer and then a few will probably end up in the tank at the shop.

There are 2 British guys here today doing some work and they invited me to go out to dinner with them. That should be fun. We'll go on an adventure. I'll let you know how that all plays out.

I have some sort of electronics travel curse. Last summer it was the Kobo ereader, this summer it is my underwater camera and iPhone. The camera flooded with water after only the 4th dive so it's toast. Now my iPhone speaker doesn't work. I can hear it through the headphones but the speaker is out. I did the rice thing to see if it was moisture in the phone and the next day it worked! Then it didn't again. It's been sitting in a bowl of rice for 3 days and it's still not working. I give. It only got wet due to me being sweaty and it being in my pocket. Apple needs to be able to make sweat proof phones. That's pretty ridiculous that I'm going to have to pay to fix this damn thing because I was sweating.

OK, time to go get ready for tonight!