Vipond Adventures: January 2009

Friday, January 9, 2009

Knowing one end of an engine to the other has come in very handy!

Well I had a very good day out throwing paint with the boys. Kelly opted out to go to some workout classes at the gym with some girls so I brought along a buddy instead. This time we were at the old jail house in Kuwait. This jail house was absolutely destroyed by Iraq so it makes for an awesome paint ball field. 4hrs of that and we had enough. First round in the game a guy came from behind me (backup didn't see him) and laced me from about 4ft away. Unfortunately one ball got me right in the mouth. Actually it was the mouth guard on the mask but it still felt like my lips ripped off. The mask has a screen on it so the ball smashed and paint ripped into my mouth at seriously high pressure. Long story short; I had a pink paintball for lunch!

Now onto the good stuff...

The boy that I tutor in grade 7 told me that his father had a Porsche and that it was reeeally nice but had a problem with the engine. So when "Dad" came to pick him up after tutoring I asked him, because we are now pretty good friends, about this porsche. Turns out the engine lets out a huge cloud of smoke when you stomp on it. He said he didn't want to bring it to a Porsche dealership because it would be very expensive. He is also leary about the mechanics around here trying to get a lot of money out of him for something that really wasn't that expensive. So I told him that I would be happy to take a look at it for him as I know my way around an engine. He was very happy to hear this and in fact was excited to hand me the keys to see what I could find out for him. Long story short...I now have a Porsche to drive for a couple weeks. And let me tell you when they say Porsche is a high-end car name, they mean it. This is an amazing car to drive. Besides the rear shocks needing replacement it rides very well and handles better then anything I have ever rode in. It has way more power than I would have imagined for a standard "Boxster" and is so fun to drive. So about the engine...yes it bellows smoke like the dickens when driven HARD, but runs fantastic all in all. A new motor for this little guy will hit your wallet at $15,000 but fortunately for my friend, after my trained eye gave it a once over, his little Boxster only needs a $70 air/oil separator. This unit is sort of like a PVC valve working from the crankcase allowing vapor to be vented back through the engine. When this air/oil separator fails it sucks oil from the crankcase into the throttle body and then into the engine. It doesn't always do it but when you "floor it" excessively high vacuum is created and oil is sucked up through the separator and into the engine. This creates a cloud of smoke for about a 500m radius and brings traffic, behind you, to a halt. Very very very embarrassing.

You start up a nice Porsche in front of a bunch of people, while they watch you, and it's like "Uncle Buck" just smoking everybody out.

Upon further investigation it was concluded that the part can be changed in about 1.5 hrs with a pair of pliers and a 10mm wrench. Whoo hoo!

Now I just need to find me a 3 ft, 40 lb person to fit inside the engine bay to change it for me.

Here are a couple pictures from paintball today and my new toy "smokey".

My principal Craig on the left, Gabe from Ontario, and Ted from Saskatoon

This is after I cleaned most of the paint off my teeth and face

Monday, January 5, 2009

What's coming up for us?

Well we are fully up to date with the new year events back home. First off, Congratulations Rod & Coralee on your beautiful little girl. We will be sure to give you a ring once you three get all settled back at home and have a fews days without the phone ringing off the hook.

The deep freeze has definitely hit The Pas this winter. Lots of people out sledding already, makes me miss home that much more.

Kelly and I are heading out this weekend for another paint ball match. There should be quite a good sized group as Santa brought a few new toys that some of our club members are dying to try out. After the battle we are all heading over to my Principal's house for a BBQ. He also paint balls with us.

Next week will be a short week for us as there is no school on Thursday. This is the day that mid-term exams start for all middle/high school. Exams go into the following week. Students will have one 1 hr exam each of the 5 days that week in Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts and Islam. Fortunately this means a week off for Kelly and I...well we still have to be at school and administer the exams but they are done at 9am. Students are very nervous for these exams as they are very focused on grades over here. Many of my students have already started studying and booking tutors for next week. So once we finish the week of exams on January 23rd we start our "winter break". This is a 2 week vacation for the whole school and yes we still get a spring break, that comes in March.

For the winter break Kelly and I and another couple from Ontario are heading to Cape Town, South Africa for the two weeks. This has always been a dream for ours to go to Africa so now is our chance. Kelly has friends there that we are going to stay with for 4 days so they can show us all around the city. Over the course of the holiday we have planned some "must do's". To begin, we will go on a tour of the Two Oceans Winery. It is a winery up on a high hill over-looking where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet. That should be a very dizzy, foggy, stumbling time. Also we will be going on an African safari to see 4 of the "BIG FIVE" african giants. The most exciting event of the trip is our planned tour to go cage diving with Great White Sharks. Just off the coast of South Africa, 2 hr drive from where we are staying, is an island with the largest density of great white sharks in the world. We are heading out with the legendary Brian McFarlane and his crew to go see these predators of the deep. He has a custom-built hi tech catamaran that can accommodate up to 40 people. Its about $200 for the 6 hr tour with all diving gear and meals/drinks included. We are both extremely excited for this. Kelly is more petrified than excited but I am stoked. If it interests any of you check out the website...www.sharkcagediving.net

Well that's the scoop on our plans over the next month. If anyone has any questions, comments, quandaries feel free to e-mail us at vipondrr65@gmail.com, we would be happy to hear from you.

I will likely make another short entry after the up coming weekend.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

New Years in the Emirates

Well we all managed to tackle the United Arab Emirates and make it home in one piece. Once we landed in Dubai we quickly made our way to our reserved rent-a-car. The girls had no idea what kind of car I had booked and never cared to ask. Typical. But when they were directed to a 2008 Mercedes Benz their eyes lit up. I looked at them laughing and said, "when in the Emirates do as the Emiratis". We made our way to our hotel and checked in then hit the city.

Our first objective was to meet up with a friend at the Atlantis Hotel on the man-made Palm Island just off the coast of Dubai. We never did end up getting a hold of him but did manage to spend about 2 hours around this magnificent hotel.

After leaving there we headed to the other massive hotel on the beach of Dubai, the Jumeriah Hotel. We parked the Benzy and walked straight in like we owned the place. Nobody stopped us so we just helped ourselves to the entire grounds of the hotel. We were all pretty sure that this was not something that tourists were allowed to do but if you dress to impress nobody bothers you...and they didn't. So we headed out through the hotel to the amazing view of the beach and the Burj Al Arab Hotel (sailboat hotel). This is the worlds only 7 star hotel and sits on its own man made island. It is $150 to enter the lobby and is guarded by a strict security gate. The foundation is built just as far into the ocean as the hotel is into the sky and averages $10,000/night. Yup ten thousand. We snapped pictures like the dickens and then headed back to our hotel.

The next day we headed to the Emirates Mall and looked at the indoor ski-hill. Wendy and Tricia loaded up on souvenirs then we headed to "Chill out". Chill out is a bar/restaurant that is completely made out of ice. Everything in the bar is carved from ice, the seats, tables, cups, chairs, lights, etc. It is $15 to get in and they give you a big parka, boots, gloves and a toque. We had a cup of hot chocolate and then left. It was quite chilly in there after sitting for awhile but still only -6 Celsius. After that we drove down to the public beach to watch the sunset over the Burj al Arab Hotel.

The next day was a trip to the capital city of Abu Dhabi. It was 160kms away and a very nice drive along the Emirates coast. Once there we headed to the Grand Mosque, which, is the 3rd largest mosque in the world. The tours for the mosque were closed for the day but, as a male, I was able to head straight in and check the place out. Reason being, women have to cover in order to go into a mosque and the tour desk that gives females the dresses to cover themselves with was closed. So the girls stayed back and took pictures of the outside. This place was unbelievable.

After the mosque we headed to the heritage village to check out some local handicrafts but most stores were closed until 5pm so we went down to the beach for some tanning and then headed back at sunset. Kelly blew some glass and then bought her work of art and we explored around for a half hour or so. The last stop for the day was the Emirates Palace Hotel. This hotel was US$3 Billion to build and was completed in November 2005. It occupies 2,550,000 square feet of floor space, underground parking allows housing for 2,500 vehicles and it has its own marina and helipad. Most of the suites are furnished in gold and marble and the cost of staying for a night begins at $400 for a small 600 square foot room and goes all the way up to $12,000 a night for the 7,300 square foot Palace Grand suite. We parked the Benzy underground among the $500,000 Rolls Royce and Maybach's and then explored around the entire grounds of the hotel. We took pictures inside and out and could not believe our eyes with every corner we turned.

We got back to Dubai at around 1am that night. The next day we spent the morning at Wild Wadi water park. This was the largest water park in Dubai but still not up to the standards of the rest of the city. We had a blast but it was a far cry from Wet & Wild in Florida or West Edmonton Mall water park for that matter. We headed back to our hotel at around 2pm to get ready for our desert safari. This desert safari we had arranged the day before included, 4x4ing on sand dunes, BBQ dinner, belly dancing show, camel rides, and sandboarding throughout the afternoon and evening. It was an extremely fun time as we blasted over mountains of sand in a Toyota Land Cruiser. There were many times when we figured we were all a goner. Talk about a dream job for that driver. There were also opportunities to rent quads and go out on the sand but it was $40 for 15mins and the quads were Grizzly 400's. NO THANKS (no offense Rick). They had Banshee's and Raptor 700's for rent at another place but we didn't have the time for those. THAT would have been worth it!!

I think that was the best way possible to spend new years eve. We all had a blast!

New Years eve night parties were all called off throughout Dubai the morning of the 31st by Sheik Mohammed, ruler of Dubai and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates because of the crisis between Israel and Gaza. We were very surprised of this news, as was the rest of the city, but thankful that we hadn't put out hundreds of dollars for a new years eve party that was now cancelled. The reason for this order from the Sheik was to show support and condolences towards the Palestinians who have lost many loved ones in the battles over the past few weeks. Basically he didn't want his people to be celebrating and having a great ol' time while this tragedy was taking place. It really didn't affect us at all as we had no plans anyway but it would have been nice to see the huge fireworks display that was also cancelled. Needless to say it was a quiet celebration at the crack of midnight but was an unforgettable new years eve day.