Some of you may have heard already, but it looks like I am headed to another adventure.  I’m taking a job in Kuwait for the next 8 months.  I’ll be working as a design engineer for military vehicle supsensions.  They want me to leave onl July 10th!  Basically the next 10 days will be a complete whirlwind of packing, doctors appointments and paperwork.  It is really sudden, but I am excited because this job is pretty much exactly what I have been looking for.

That is all the info I have for now.  I’ll try and post some more later, and of course look forward to some blogging from the Middle East.

Ever since my trip to SE Asia, I can’t eat like I used to.  Previously, I was all about the junk food.  I still indulge every once and a while, but my cravings for the unhealthy have definitely decreased.  This blog post has some great links and videos about the food we eat in the US and the associated industry. Some surprising stuff, you should check it out. Makes me wish for a a few more “third world” meals.

I have set up a completely new photo gallery on the site. I was running into some problems with the old one, hence the change. More importantly, I have also uploaded every picture stored on my computer.  The photos are all organized by location and then activity so they should be easy to navigate.  Feel free to browse the thousands of photos I took of temples in Cambodia or some photos from Fenway Park in Boston. Or maybe you are just interested in embarrassing photos of my friend Kayla.

Find the new gallery by clicking the pictures link at the top of the page or going to photos.southpolesteve.com (no WWW).

Hey, some of you may have got an email from me this morning and seen that the site is not right, there are no posts. Sorry about that! I am moving southpolesteve.com to a new server and adding some new software. The transition has been a little rough. Everything should be back to normal in a few days.

I’m back!  Arrived about a week ago and have been just relaxing since.  Sorry for no updates, but there hasn’t been a whole lot to report.  Feels good to be back.  Now I am currently hunting for something to do next.  Well see what happens…

In the mean time I found a cool new thing that allow you to chat with me right from this website.  I am mostly on google chat, so you will see my current status just below. Click right on it and a new window will pop up where you can chat with me. No logging in.  Pretty sweet.  In encourage you to try it out.

I just had the worst thing on the planet.  Its almost midnight here, and in the area not much is open for food.  I wandered down to McDonald’s and outside MickeyD’s was a little hamburger stand.  I couldn’t read the menu, so I just ordered what the guys standing around were having.  Here is, in order, how you make one of these burgers:

Note: Any sauces must be added in triple portions.

1. Deep fry 2 beef patties in half an inch of oil
2. Place a large scoop of mayo and oyster sauce on each patty
3. Fry 2 eggs in the grease, but spread it out omelet style.
4. Stack the patties and wrap in the egg
6. Add more mayo to the top, more oyster sauce, and chili sauce.
7. Add one thin slice of lettuce (vegetables!)
8. Place on 2 buns that have also been drenched in mayo
9. Serve

I think it would have been a better choice to go to McDonald’s

The F1 Grand Prix didn’t quite turn out how I expected.  Almost every day here, in the late afternoon, it deluges for a good 30-60 minutes.  Yesterday was no exception.  But, I am getting ahead of myself.  The story starts on the bus ride too the track…

The track it self is about an hour away by bus.  I got on the bus at 2:00, thinking I would be there well before the 5pm race.  Then we hit the traffic.  It might not have been so bad, except for the motorcades that kept coming through.  Every 20 minutes a motorcade with police, range rovers, and some ridiculously expensive car (Porsche, Bentley, Ferrari) would come along trying to get through.  All the cars would have to move off to the side to make way and then everyone scrambled back to fill the empty lanes.  It was a nightmare.

I missed the start of the race, but only by about 5 minutes.  For roughly the first hour, it was fine.  The race was very exciting, but off in the distnace you could see that rain was coming.  When the rain arrived, they had to stop the race as the track was flooded in several parts.  Lightening was hitting the grand stands and the TV tower (remember I am sitting on top of a big hill!).  Finally they cancel the rest of the race and everyone leaves the track.

After the race there is a free Jamiroquai concert.  I don’t even like the band, but its better than waiting in the 2 hour line for a bus back to the city.  So I wait 45 minutes to get into the concert.  It is held in a big field next to the circuit and predictably is a HUGE mud puddle.  It starts raining again.  After getting soaked through a second time and also covered with mud, I leave to go wait for the bus.  Luckily I was able to find a rouge bus company operating just down the street from the official bus.  This prevents me from having to wait in the 2 hour line.  The ride back, due to traffic again, takes almost 2 hours.  I arrive back at my hostel, wet, covered in mud, and exhausted around 11:30.  Quick shower and I am asleep.

I think next year the FIA will think twice before having a late afternoon start time.

Hey, I know I have been bad about posting pictures lately.  I still have stuff from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia that I have not posted yet.  I will just have to make a video!  In the mean time, here are some pics from the first day of F1 practice

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The ticket is booked.  I am headed home next Wednesday, April 8th.  28 hours of flying later and I will arrive in Boston.

For the past few days I have really been enjoying a city called Hoi An, Vietnam.  It is about half way between Saigon and Hanoi.  The best part, it is the consensus tailor-made clothing capitol of the region.  Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore all have many good tailors, but Hoi An has hundreds; in a city of only 75,000 people.  They also have a many good historical sites and some UNESCO world heritage ruins near by.

Unfortunately, I was sucked in by all of the nice clothes and bought a lot.  Of course, they look and fit fantastic.  I couldn’t be happier and easily paid less than 10% of what I would have paid for them in the US.  On top of this, they are all custom tailored to my exact measurements.  Now I need to find a job where linen and plaid suits are acceptable to wear to work.  I did get one grey suit that is fairly tame, but the other clothes might be a little loud for most office buildings.  On the other hand, I could just start a new workplace trend.  Third option: I just don’t get a job at all.

In other news, I woke up from a nap yesterday and had a deep desire to leave Vietnam and go to Malaysia for the Grand Prix.  It is interesting because for the last week I was fairly confident I would be going to China and the Chinese Grand Prix.  Luckily I found a string of flights that got me to Kuala Lumpur tonight.  The downside is that I am currently waiting in the Saigon airport for the next 7 hours.  Regardless, I went with my gut, and I am excited to see the grand prix this weekend.