Monthly Archives: January 2010

Jan 16 2010

things I have learnt since being 30

Started getting into classical music.

As opposed to be against such in such type of band, I found my choices in tunes gets wider and wider, listening to composers like John Williams and Ennio Moriconni and listening to most film sound tracks at epic times of life means movie-like choruses which sound pretty darn good in my own private little world, especially when travelling to new places in my car or on holiday with my ipod.

Being asked why I have an old mobile phone.

Because 1) I grew out of the must have the latest phone type thing, and have a 30 day SIM subscription which is cheaper and suits my quickly cancel and disappear into the middle east life style and 2) I actually love my Motorola RAZR, and don’t want a horrible stupid slider type thing!   its the perfect size when closed, has decent big buttons when opened, hasn’t got too many scratches, don’t need to lock the keypad as I just close the lid, it still works and does everything I want it to.  🙂

Besides my phone still looks suitably gangsta-like.   When was the last time you saw a bad guy in a movie with a Samsung?

Living with lots of different people.

No not like that, meant that I have shared 3 different rented houses and lived with (still counts,) about 12 different people, some nice, some were not so pleasant, I am still yet to get my own little place though….   Being better prepared for dealing with awkward people, and probably should be able to cope with when I eventually get married a good deal better than when I was when I was 25…

Wanting to buy things for my next house.

In the same way people get broody and want to buy baby stuff (note this not me)  I have an urge to buy things for when I get my own house at unsuitable times, mainly getting middle east style bits and pieces, old Bedouin style tea pots, brightly coloured throws, tiled coffee tables, stuff for kitchen, even though getting my own place is a long way off yet.   (I dont even have a job at the moment!)

Having less hair (yes, balding)

No point in fighting it, I just tend to shave most of it off, less to maintain.   Lots of people my age in the UK and in Israel have very short hair, and apart from needing a hat for when its cold, it works well for me…

Like being yourself.

Because those three decades have taught me that there is no point in following someone else’s style…

Jan 16 2010

The operation

Yesterday I had to go into QA Hospital at 7.30am to have an operation involving a plate in screws or wire to fix my elbow.   The previous day had 9 people in to have fractures or breaks seen to.

Despite its large size and that it has gone purple-ish, I wasn’t in too much pain as it was set in a 90 degree angle in a sling.

Once in, my parents took me in as my dad wasn’t working that day, after a while I was given a bed, after various nurses, doctors and consultants all asked me the same questions, if I were right handed, if I had heart problems, epilepsy or diabetes or anything that could cause a problem during an operation, I had a big arrow drawn on with pen on my left hand, and got asked to undress and put on an NHS nightie.

I grew more and more fearful of what was going to happen, the last operation I had was in 1985 (when I was about nine) for a tonsillectomy.  The cheerful male nurse called Adam who was quite chatty told me he was born then, for me it felt hard to imagine not being concious before the op, and that something could go wrong with me waking up at the wrong moment or something like that.

Its worth mentioning QA hospital has undergone a big revamp with I think at a least £100m or so probably just for this new block.

So, at about 10am or so, I get wheeled down on my bed to the theatre.  Just before then I got a briefing from my surgeon who told me that they had a meeting and are going to go with the steel wire wrapped around the elbow to hold it place to make it heal.  Once on the corridor on the way I pass all kinds of exotic looking medical equipment parked in the hall, once I arrive in the theatre I look up to see the dreaded large medical lamps directly above me, although being new these use lots of ultra bright LEDs rather than fluorescent tubes.

I get introduced to Claire, who tells me she is going to be my anaesthetist today, and by golly she is very very pretty, with blonde hair and big blue eyes, its not just nurses that just have the feminine charm in medicine, I try telling her about when I worked for the Portsmouth trust I was working for as she injects me with something, and how more recently I was at the Southampton trust, as the also very new Lymington hospital in the New Forest has similarities to the block I am in and I notice I am losing the ability to speak, shes just tells me to put on a mask and breathe the oxygen deeply, I think I only got 4 breaths of this before I don’t remember anything else….

I wake up back in the corner of the ward I was in earlier.  I am in a nest of wires and tubes, well not that many, but I have sling with my bad arm in, a cord round my wrist with a handset I can use to press a switch to feed me with morphine if I have too much pain, my right hand has a stent with a tube which will feed morphine or plain water, I am a bit concerned about the tubes as they are easily pinched by me sitting on them or wrapped around the bars on the side of the bed.

My parents and sister are with me the rest of the day, but I drift in and out of conciousness that afternoon and evening.   By the next day, I haven’t slept that well but I am ready for breakfast and I get some porridge and toast.  After then I get some new pain killers and some coffee, so the strong effects of the tablets meant my coffee gets recycled back onto one of those cardboard plates provided for this purpose.  Trying to go for a wee in special paper-mache box under the bed clothes is also very strange and feels just plain wrong.   Part of the reason I feel sick is it is too darn warm in this ward, hospitals have this annoying habit of having the heat whacked all the way up all the time, whilst the bloke opposite me is out in a clinic for half and hour I use the time to stand by his bed next to the open window to get fresh air and to stop me being from feeling queasy.   I have half of my lunch (which wasnt all that great)  and my mother has come, I put my clothes back on, and I get the all clear to go home and three sets of tablets to be taken each day.

I haven’t dared looked inside my sling and bandages, but it appears the wires hold the two halves of the broken bone together helping the healing process.   The most risky part was damaging any nerves could impair or paralyse part of my arm, I have perfect control of my fingers and wrist so it looks like a complete success so far.

The other three chaps in the ward are much older, one of the two older gents both called Ken is 86 and has been there for a few weeks.

Things could of been worse, I could of landed on my wrist or shoulder which would of been much more unpleasant and harder to heal.  Also whilst I am typing this I just saw on TV about an American woman who was on holiday in earthquake struck Haiti who has had her leg crushed and amputated.

I am grateful for the progress God has made with healing of me so far.

I would request I need the wisdom to plan part two of my return to the holyland, this might seem like a big spanner in the works, but as I have seen three other volunteers go through bones fractures at some point, I know someone else that got in a plane with arm in sling so there is no reason why I cant do it either…

Jan 12 2010

broken arm on ice

After yesterday walking in treacherous conditions into town in Portsmouth, it might be considered a bit silly to walk again, but I needed to meet up with my church leader at church two miles away in Southsea, opposite a bike shop in Victoria Road I took a tumble onto the ice covered pavement backwards pretty hard taking a lot of the force on my left elbow.

The blow feels like when you see children hurt themselves, there is a few seconds delay before they cry as there is a sudden sense of shock, for me it more of a case of  down in agony on the street in pain than saying a few rude words. But seriously, it felt like it could be something more than a bruise, I carried on walking with my left hand in my pocket and went to chat to people at my church, after a brief while I felt like there was something stuffed in the sleeve of my jacket, I often might keep my camera in there while I wander around Jerusalem which has typically British autumn weather in winter period in Israel, however in turns out my elbow has expanded to the size of a small grapefruit, first of all the church staff drove me in the direction of the NHS walk in centre, a place to go in if you have a minor injury like a sprain, but it was clear I was going to need an X-ray so I got dropped off at Queen Alexandria hospital near Cosham at their Accident and Emergency ward.

It was a little frustrating waiting around after taking a ticket to get seen and then get a brief consultation of asking how much it hurt from one to ten, this was hard as the pain is more of a dull ache, and this can be worrying as it suggests there could have been a problem with the nerves that pass through the elbow. After some pain killers and it put in a sling I get put on a triage list, and they checked to see if I have feeling sensation and in moving my fingers and wrist which worked all ok.

The xrays proved I had a break in the bone near the elbow, after remembering injuries from various people from BFP staff that had breaks that required operation needing metal plates and screws put in, was something I was dreading. Later on I was offered some stronger pain killers and told to be nill-by-mouth (nothing to eat or drink, not even water) for next day as I need to be called into hospital for some kind of treatment, possibly an operation then.

At the moment I am learning to type one-handed, called a couple of people in Israel on Skype to get them to pray, I am just in a sling, as opted not to have plaster put on, at least until I find what treatment I get tomorrow.

I decided to still cook for my parents today (tuesday) as still wanted to try and cook some middle eastern food, so did some couscous with saffron, meat balls, fried eggplant and pepper with Israeli salad (chopped cucumber, tomato with olive oil and parsley, just took me a bit longer but cutting up vegetables wasn’t too hard one handed. Came out pretty good but forgot to buy some humus.

Jan 11 2010

back in the UK in deep winter…

back at home in our green white and (sort of) pleasant land.

being home is strange.   My home city of Portsmouth seems a bit foreign with the extreme cold and 4 inches of snow on everything here.   I decided to venture out to Commercial Road, in the centre of town and bought a few things.  On the way home I managed to fall over on the pavement, each time more painful.    There is a shortage of grit so the pavements are incredibly slippery.

I spend some time catching up with friends and plan what my next challenge is.   I have no job at the moment, so I spent today putting together a small server in my parents house to learn some new IT skills.

Jan 10 2010

Replacing a DVD drive on a laptop, as part of refurbishing a Compaq Presario 2100

I have been fixed and serviced numerous laptops whilst volunteering for a charity here in Israel.

Here I am going to show you how to replace a DVD drive on a laptop that has this unit ‘fixed’ By that I mean on business laptops like IBM’s Thinkpad series, most Dell Latitudes & some Inspirons, Compaq Evos the drive can be removed and replaced with a simple lever that unlocks the drive so it can be slid out without any tools, and without even turning off the computer, you can unmount the drive on the Windows task bar. On these laptops that have the drives fixed often on Toshibas and Sony Vaios, these can be replaced be requires the computer to be dismantled more fully, if that sounds scary, actually this can be done often without a problem if you go slowly and take care.

One was a Lenovo 3000 that belonged to a friend which upon finding that the main board was defective was not economical to fix. One of the usable parts that I salvaged was the DVD writer. The hard disk was also faulty so the LCD screen and the keyboard will be listed on ebay at some point.

To remove and replace the DVD writer on a Lenovo 3000 v100 you simply turn the whole unit over and underneath is one screw that can be removed, inside this is a metal bar which can be poked sideways enabling the DVD writer to be slid outwards, without opening the actual body of the laptop. (Sorry no pictures)

On this Compaq Presario 2100 its a little more involved. This laptop is much different from other Compaqs I have seen as the layout of the insides is quite different. It has an AMD Athlon 2800 processor, doesn’t have a built in wireless card so uses a slot in PC card one (signal strength is poor as it doesn’t have a proper antennae) and the battery has not surprisingly aged and will only run for 30 minutes. However after a reinstall of Windows and regular drivers and fresh version of the owner’s apps it runs very well, its not hugely quick as it has 512Mb of memory.

First of all these two computers actually have standard type laptop DVD drives. You can get this style part from a specialist mail order computer dealer or look around for a new or used one off ebay.

What can make things difficult is the plastic fascia panel of the drive may be a different colour or a totally different shape from the standard, often these panels can be changed over they can be gently prised off and swapped over, as long as its exactly the same make (often LG, Samsung, NEC, Sony etc) and model drive. This can save you money as long you make sure you choose exactly the right drive.

First of all, work somewhere with enough space and near something earthed like a radiator to earth yourself from any static that can damage electronic products. Make sure the computer is turned off and the AC adapter is disconnected and the battery is removed. I would suggest you tape the screws onto a piece of paper with a diagram of where they go in, you don’t want to lose them or put big ones in where only little screws go in as this can cause damage. Get a decent small screwdriver set, I went though several sets of the cheap ones, they were total rubbish the handles would break off or the tips were just get mashed up and were not suitable for getting out little tiny screws. I got a good set from the motor retailer Halfords for about £7.99 about two years ago.

Turn your Compaq Presario upside down and remove the screws at the back that hold the silver panel which is above the keyboard, sorry I missed out making a picture for this step.

There are two more screws behind the computer where the panel covers the screen hinges go, don’t forget these.

Tilt the scree fully back and this panel can be removed easily. On a Dell Latitude or Inspiron, this panel can removed easily without taking out any screws it just prises out. Actually the little silver power button was a bit wonky as it was a bit broken previously, (not by me taking the machine apart!) so I glued it gently back in place, and now its all fine.

You need a largish thin bladed screwdriver to start easing off the panel on the far right in between the top row of keys by the break and scroll lock keys and prise it upwards, work your way leftwards, and eventually this panel should come free.

Next there are four screws holding the keyboard down, remove all of these, note, the right hand one is a different size from the other three.

Inside in the middle is two screws, these different sized ones can be removed.

The drive can now be removed, slide it out.

Reassemble is the reverse of disassemble 🙂

Here is the drive from the Lenovo unit, you can see this little bracket will need to be removed, the original broken (which was a ‘combo’ unit read only DVD, read and writes CDs) drive from the Compaq has different metal bracket from the one from the Lenovo. There are two screws that you can remove to take off this little bracket and swap it over to the replacement drive.

The replacement drive be fitted back in its place. As I mentioned, the plastic front panels can be a different shape, some could be curved or sloped which can be awkward to find a replacement, this drive is slightly wrong, the front panel of the replacement drive sticks out by about 1-1.5mm, but it works perfect and should not be a problem.

Jonathan has spent the last five years keeping professionals in vehicle contract hire, healthcare, software development and Christian ministry keep working on the move. As he seeks to look at carrying on donating his time in looking after the IT backbone of a charity in Jerusalem, he is seeking means to get new sponsorship, therefore if you have a question for him on laptop maintenance/repair, even to initially check if its viable feel to comment below. He would appreciate some kind of gift towards his next challenges coming up in 2010.

By Jonathan • Posted in it, me
2
Jan 6 2010

Journey to the Red Sea – part three; into Jordan!

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

After not sleeping so well in the hostel, I did plan to get up early to get to the border with Jordan early as it is probably a long and complex process to get through.  Firstly I got a bit lost.   My Hertz car rental map of Israel has a small square piece showing Eilat and its coast line, but only the middle piece.    Nowhere on how to find the border.   It was nice to stroll past the Vegas-eque style hotels, with plenty of wannabe-blinged-out-new-generation-Red-Sea resorts to come still being in the midst of a building site, one of them even has some kind of water ride next to it I think.  Although there was a picture of the Red Sea being parted with Moses and his people going through, I didn’t get to learn about any history about this place from a biblical perspective.

Heading northwards past this fairly dinky sized airport.   Not sure which flights come to Eilat, I can’t imagine people would want to fly from Tel Aviv, ok its 6 or so hours by bus, but maybe for Jews from Russia/ex-Soviet Union wanting to check out a seaside Israel that is a little different and cheaper than Tel Aviv.   After the airport I went round the outskirts of a salt mine and past a farm with mostly date palms, after heading initially in the wrong direction which sounds daft as I can see the mountains of Jordan in the distance, and the town of Aqaba but no border, it just happened to be behind a road where another field of palms was concealing.

At the border I met three young men who appeared to be from Europe there which I was hoping if we could share a taxi ride to Petra once through the border, these chaps were from Estonia but were actually just inquiring about coming another day as they were yet to book accommodation in Petra.

At the border it was much easier than I imagined.  Apart from heading from Germany into Poland in a road trip with friends about nine years ago I have never been through a border control between two countries before.   Here I had to show my passport, pay some shekels for the border fee, get a boarding pass (erm, I’m not going on a plane?)  get passport checked again, get bottle of water from vending machine, then a brief walk over a tarmacked road over to the Jordanian border control, the Israeli authorities were thorough but seemed professional, I had my bag x-rayed and there were a few questions asked about what I was doing here as they saw the volunteer stamp on my passport but otherwise ok. where I did the same thing all over again, only one lot of water of course.

The first small booth at the Jordanian office was very different, there were three men that looked like criminals with their three guns and partly used cigarette packets on the counter, rather than speak through an open window I had to get round the back and get my passport checked there, in the main office the three different officials I spoke to were all smartly dressed in uniform and seemed ok.

Most people have told me the only way to get from the IL/JO border to Aqaba is by taxi, this put me off a bit as I knew this was going to eat into my budget.  The next bit was different, the border was so quiet that day I was really hoping to be cheeky and to ask some other people in terms of sharing a ride to Petra.  There were two different taxi drivers hanging around smoking looking fairly bored and were intent getting me to ride with them there and then, where I was hoping for someone else to come over to share.   I decided that the town of Aqaba was only less than a mile away from here, so I could just walk and get a bus from there.  However I got stopped in my tracks by an official who said I could not leave the car park as the road ahead was a militarized zone, walking was not allowed and therefore I had to travel in a proper taxi.   So I ended up paying the 50Dinars (£45) to get ride up to Petra.

Jordanians are extremely friendly and me and this taxi driver had a good natter about all kinds of things, I was mainly intrigued to find out about the Hashemite Kingdom, the royal family, Petra’s visitor centre (Petra, the town itself is actually known as Wadi Moussa) and Wadi Rum.

Looking at Jordan as a country looks pretty empty, and it is, its mostly desert and the population is a bit less than Israel despite being  three and half times bigger.   Since the 1967 war, Israel and Jordan have pretty good relations and the Yitzak Rabin border crossing (the most popular way to travel between the two) border opened in 1994, a year before the then forementioned Israeli prime minister was assassinated a year later.

The road winding through mountains are pretty nice too, looking a little like driving through the desert in a national park in a US state like Utah.   The drive even let me stop on a bend to catch some pictures of one of his favourite spots, and also a brief stop at a shop to get some more water.

After a couple of hours I got to Petra itself.   Oddly enough the expensive hotels that part of famous chains have their branches at the top of a hill, as the road zigzags several times down as you get to the Petra visitor centre.   I got to visit an internet cafe as I need to double check the exact location of my hotel, there was no printer to make a hard copy of the map I needed but the man at the bar pointed me back up the road a couple of bends backwards I needed to head.   I got to find out why the best hotels are some distance away later.

Petra, sorry Wadi Moussa itself as a town is fairly basic, I knew this was not going to be the same league as Dubai or Jeddah as an Arab city, it is a lot smaller than I expected to be and quite dirty and not at all modern.   I stopped into a bakery to grab some food, the cakes and bread are quite nice but totally different to bakeries in Jerusalem.

I got to my hotel and checked in, my room is small but I had a double bed (it was the same as a twin or single room so I thought why not)  and had an ensuite bathroom is a quite tiny door by the window.

I locked my non-essential belongings in my room and went out to take a tour around the town.   In the centre of town is a festival involving lots of people bringing Toyota pickup trucks full of goats and sheep, this is for the Muslim festival of Eid, where families have a feast by buying a sheep for slaughter

I got to find out at my cost why my hotel had not many people staying the next day…

Just before I went to bed I met up with a bunch of four Australians who were going to fly back the next day, so I had dinner with them, and chatted about different bits of the middle east we had seen, with my experiences in Jerusalem and they had been in Cairo.

After this I was off to bed, I was in for the worst start to the day I have ever experienced!!!!

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

Jan 6 2010

meet Jordan’s royal family, a modern monarchy with a geeky approach…

The royal family of Jordan are a bit different from a traditional monarchy.

King Abdullah who has reigned since 1999 likes sky diving, rally driving, and is a trekkie and got to have a walk on role in Star Trek the Next Generation back in 1996, and helped with the film production team of the second Transformers movie.

Queen Rania (not to be confused with Prince Rainier of Monaco)  used to work for Apple Computer at their HQ in Cupertino, California as a software engineer before meeting the heir to the throne, she is originally from Kuwait and does a lot of charity work, has her own web site and is on Twitter.

They seem well liked and respected by the people of Jordan and by neighboring countries and have four children and live in Jordan’s capital of Amman but also have a place overlooking Petra as well.

By Jonathan • Posted in me
1
Jan 5 2010

flying saturday morning…

I am heading back to the UK on Saturday morning at 6.15am, so going to have to head the previous night as to get all the security procedures done and maybe a chance to get some brief kip in TLV Ben Gurion airport, or if its too noisy or uncomfortable I have plenty of part finished things I need to finish writing and put here soon.

It will be nice to see family and friends again, I am a bit disturbed by the reports of snow I keep hearing, its going to be a shock getting used to a different climate….

Jan 4 2010

Jimmy carter and his apologies

There has been a lot of talk lately in the news this week about Jimmy Carter, the former US president preceding Regan about his apology to Jewish and Israeli people over his frequent comments about accusing Israel of ‘Apartheid’ and erroneous similarities between the racial problems of South Africa.

I tend to avoid politics here but if you want to see some factual information on this, link.

Anyway the debate was if Carter was truly sorry for the words spoken to Israel over the last few decades or not, he has written quite a few books critical of the state, and has been something of a mouthpiece for evil comments this side of Islam, and probably a huge influence on other hateful people and organisations.   I get sad when I see groups of people marching blaming the Israel for the treatment of the Palestinians (the PA’s corrupt government spent the money promised on food and aid on weapons) through main streets in my city of Portsmouth.   The war in Gaza wasn’t a good thing, but no other country in the world would tolerate its neighbours sending rockets over the borders each week.  Israel has the decency to send recorded phone calls and drops leaflets over towns to civilians warning of an impending bombing on terrorist facilities in recent wars.

If Carter, now 85 years old really wants to make amends, he should first of all tell Amazon and all the bookshops with copies of his disgusting hateful lies to recall the unsold copies and have them destroyed, the profits from the books he has already sold should go to a charity.   Some say that these apologies are more of a PR thing for his grandson who is just starting out in politics, either way, I don’t know this new chap but I don’t think its fair to judge Mr Carter Jr on his grandpa’s views.

My opinion is hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism are one and the same, both are attempts to discredit and change God’s plan and purpose for his plans for how the Messiah will arrive on earth and how all the nations wit Jerusalem in the very centre play a part in these events to come.   This doesn’t mean that Israel has always done the right thing, but the media puts a magnifying glass over this tiny slither (0.5% of the middle east) of land, and there are many injustices in the world that are get to be overlooked.

I have seen first hand for myself through a close friend who is an Arab who turned to Jesus about a year ago, how lies and hateful talk can be U-turned.   I pray that both that more Arab (I hear a lot of exciting stories from new believers in many Islamic nations, even Iran and Sudan) people will come to know Jesus and that the rest of the world will not quickly jump onto a soap box to join a band wagon they heard on the internet.

Please note, don’t write any comments at all on this story.   If hateful comments and links posted, your computer’s location will be logged and your ISP will know about it.   For people who know me I am happy to talk about some of the complex background to middle east privately if you want.