Another Year Down the Tubes

Down the tubes.  What exactly does that mean? After googling it, I found that it essentially means wasted and unrecoverable. Now, what tubes are they referring to??? “A strong candidate for the tubes being referred to must be the soil-pipes which are connected to lavatories,” as explained here. Actually, after looking up the meaning I’ve found that maybe it doesn’t quite describe the way I feel about the last year. Upon reflection, there have been a lot of positives that I can be thankful for.

As you may have guessed, today is my birthday.  Another year older and hopefully wiser. Truth be told, this time of year tends to get me down. At least it has since I’ve lived in Yanbu. The reason for that is because I tend to miss good  buddies at a time of year when you normally get together with friends and family to celebrate. This year the gloominess is accentuated by the terrible itch I have to visit Canada and enjoy my first full summer off since 2005. I can’t wait. Only 9 days until we blow this Popsicle stand! hmmm…wonder where that saying originates from…

In other, random news…

• It’s kind of ironic when I discover breaking news about Saudi Arabia by visiting the online edition of the Winnipeg Free Press.  The earth shaking news I’m referring to is the screening of a movie in a public theatre!!! Yes, for those of you who don’t know, Saudi Arabia has NO public movie theatres!  Essentially, the conservative religious stance on it is that it will lead to spiritual laxness, and moral rot, (phhhh…like there’s any evidence for that happening in N.America…uhhh…;-) as well, it might encourage females and males to mix.  For a deeper explanation, read here. And here’s probably a more interesting angle -the Saudi News take on it
• My gr. 8’s sang Happy Birthday to me this morning.  That was nice.
• I pimped my ride…  Yeah, my truck had scuffed paint all around the vehicle and the driver door’s corner was folded in. I took it to an Indian autobody guy and he quoted me 700SR to fix it.  That equates to 186 USDollars.  Ha! how cheap!  So, it was a no-brainer and the work looks good.
• The temperature when we got home from work yesterday was 40C.  By the time my tennis lesson started at 8pm, it had dropped to a manageable(?) 34C.  But, the good thing is that it’s a ‘dry’ heat.  ha!
• Interestingly, I found out that the official temperature in Saudi never exceeds 50C. The reason for this is because Saudi law dictates that all outdoor workers must be sent home if the official temperature is 50C or higher, thus ensuring that it never is!
• As for down the tubes. I have a strong feeling that the Winnipeg Blue Bomber season is going to be filled with folly and embarrassing losses. I would not be overly surprised to see them win fewer than 5 games this year.
• as for embarrassing, maybe it will be tough for them to top this…