Long time no write. Lots has happened in the past month. I have founded the Kuwait Mapping Meetup and we have had 2 events already. I also did a few more sailing trips, went on the inaugural ride of the Kuwait Cycling Caveliers bike club, became a full member of the Kuwait Desert Bikers Club (another mountain biking club)... not to mention all that's happened at work. As mentioned in the title, I've also been out and about on Highway 80, otherwise known as the Highway of Death after it was bombed to oblivion by the US due to the Iraqis using it for their retreat. So, where to start?

Kuwait Mapping Meetup

The next one will be 530pm, Monday 30th September at Coffee Bean, Coastal Rd, Mahboula for those interested (anyone can come that is interested in maps, you don't have to be a pro). 
 
I've been wanting to found this ever since I came to Kuwait. I mentioned liking running networking events for GIS during my interview for this job and attended plenty of tech/entrepreneur meetups and networking events when I came here. I mentioned this idea to a few people and they all seemed interested. So at the end of August I finally got the courage to seriously plan something and picked Coffee Bean in Mahboula on the Coastal Road after a suggestion from a colleague. I just sent out a few emails to the various people in the surveying/GIS industry that I had met and when the day came, Monday 2nd September, waited at the coffee shop to see who would arrive. It was a great event, with 9 attendees - albeit all from the KOC or its contractors. This was good though, as we all had a good chat about GIS issues at this organisation and came up with a couple of ideas to fix things. The main thing was experiencing a sense of community and the chance to chat casually with people who had the same background and passion. It was nice to be able to talk about things to do with GIS without a fear of others no understanding, we could all be spontaneous. 

I started a LinkedIn group after the first meetup and we had another one a fortnight later. This was just as successful, the same number turned up but with 3 new people outside the KOC, including the regional advocate for Google Map Maker who told us about his experiences volunteering in building the Google Maps dataset for Kuwait over the past 5 years. I had actually met him through the Q8 Startup event which happens every month and the person who introduced me to him there also came to this second meetup. So that's the power of networking right there for you ;-) Discussions were still going after 3 hours, when I had to leave to take a friend home. I think that's a nice indication of an event's success when the organisor has to leave before the attendees! 

Anyway, similar to starting the Phnom Penh Mapping Meetup, after 2 events we are considering a different venue to accommodate more people and also having presentations each time. I have already got one presenter, and there was some talk of having it at the National LIbrary next. Anywhere, really, though which has a place for a projector. Through this latest meetup I found out about a fantastic environmental information portal and web map for Kuwait, Beatona.net. There are some really great online GIS projects that have been rolled out in Kuwait. Another one is the Public Authority for Civil Information's webmap of house numbers, they have an associated mobile app called Kuwait Finder. We talked about this at the meetup too, it was made by OpenWare who also have the contract for GIS support at the KOC - perhaps we can get someone involved in making this PACI map to present at the meetup. Anyway, this has been a major positive development in my experience in Kuwait so far and I'm really happy about it. It took 4 months to get it up and running - about a month slower than it took to get the Phnom Penh Mapping Meetup up and running when I arrived there. 

Destroyed Umm Al Aish Earth Station

North of Mutla Ridge up Highway 80 is are 3 destroyed satellite dishes. This is the Umm Al Aish Earth Station, bombed by the Iraqis when they invaded in 1990. Kuwait had 4 of these at the time, allowing land to satellite communication. All were destroyed but six new ones have now been built. The actual dishes are no longer there (photos of these here) but the bases on which they sat remain, along with buildings related to the facility. There is a lot of exploring you can do, climbing up on the bigger of the two dish foundations and mucking about in the bombed out buildings. The three larger ones all have basements you can go down into, where you can see large cone shaped piles of sand that have accumulated there over the 20 years since the place was destroyed, filtering slowly through holes in the floor above. One of the buildings has a large hole in the centre of its roof, see photos. Obviously this was from a bomb. Direct hit. Never seen anything like this in my life before. Life is different in Australia. Australia (Darwin) was bombed by the Japanese but only in the north during WW2, nothing recent like this. 

There is an underground passage between a couple of the buildings which I went through. Quite claustrophobic at the other end because it was dark and I didn't have my glasses on. I also didn't know where any exit points were on this lower level of the connected building, only that I could get out by going back through the relatively short passage then scrambling up a pile of sand, having to squeeze under a concrete beam on the way up and then exit through a hole in the floor/ceiling above. Yes, even 30 year olds can be afraid of the dark! Check out the photos for more of the story and this video of us going for a burn around the place in the 4WD. We also did some more fooling about at Mutla Ridge on the way back to town, see this playlist. 

Sailing

I haven't been sailing as frequently in the past month but another thing that happened last weekend was going for sail on a much bigger yacht, the Dolce Vita. This is the only sailing boat at the Al Kout Marina and boy is it a beauty. It's quite long, perhaps 15+m, and has a hell of a lot more sail area than what I'm used to on KOSA boats. The cabin even has air conditioning! We had winds between 7-12 knots and hit a maximum speed (on ground) of 7 knots (I was at the helm!). It was quite something helming this thing because it had two wheels one at either side and when you turned them it went the direction you turned, rather than having to steer it like a forklift when you just have a tiller in your hand. The sail was a getting-to-know-you thing for a series of 3 sails (one down to Dubai then a race to Oman then another race once there) coming up in the next couple of months. We'll see if I've been selected :-) Here are a few videos bringing her into the Al Kout Marina.

Bike Riding

As mentioned above, I've been getting into riding a fair bit. I've worked out a 30km route around Ahmadi and Mangaf that so far hasn't gotten me killed in the traffic. I've also ridden from the city to Mangaf a couple of times, once I came across a Dhow sailing race which was something to behold. It's really nice to be a member of a couple of clubs mainly because I get to see a new part of Kuwait each time and have a chat with people about how the week went and what other things are happening around the place. I'm also thinking of starting a bike race or at least sportif up Mutla Ridge. We'll see what happens. 
 
So that's the wrap for now. As I said in one of the videos of Mutla Ridge, it is possible to have fun in Kuwait.