Category personal

Apr 4 2010

Easter is truly about the greatest story ever told

Is the story of Jesus relevant today to those who are not Christian?   I have been thinking about some well loved movies and these recent stories has some startlingly similar elements to them.

The Matrix

Thomas Anderson aka ‘Neo’ is picked by his new employers to save the world, aside from as a software developer he does not really have the means to be a slick, fast thinking and smart super agent.  However his mentor Morpheus soon get him trained up and running.  Here just like Jesus was tempted in the desert, Neo is searched at his work place and consequently arrested and offered to have criminal accusations dropped in return to cooperate with the demands of Smith and his secret police.

Rather than walking on water, Morpheus teaches Neo that he can do miracles if he just trusts he can do it, ie: leap off of buildings and jump huge heights to another location, and cheat death by bouncing off the road, or dodge bullets.

Of course here, one of the members of the team, Cypher is really a defector working for Agent Smith.  Judas in the bible had the responsibility of looking after finances, here Cypher has the responsibility of being the main IT systems administrator and to oversee possible security threats to his employer, in both circumstances these roles are abused.  Instead of pieces of silver, Cypher sits in a software-virtualised high class restaurant and is told he can have ‘anything you want!’ by Agent Smith if he traitorously turns over the secrets of his organisation.

The Bible calls Satan the Father of all lies, and here in the Matrix, Agent Smith can easily clone himself or morph himself or his minions into any kind of person to his deceptive advantage.

Fact:
1) Egypt banned the Matrix film because it contained the word ‘Zion’
2) The ship the Nebuchadnezzar has an inscription that reads “Mark III No. 11 made in the USA year 2069.” Mark 3:11 reads “And whenever those possessed by evil spirits caught sight of him, they would fall down in front of him shrieking, ‘You are the Son of God!'” – quoted from Wikipedia

Star Wars

Here as an enthusiastic young man who group up an ordinary background wanting to become part of the rebel alliance, Luke Skywalker has two mentors Obi Wan Kanobi and Yoda, both of these well respected individuals die, well they actually just seem to suddenly fade away, but only to be still around in spirit offering help when Luke goes through tough decisions.

Later on when Luke has a showdown with the Emperor, he is tempted by ‘I am unarmed, strike me down’ encouraging Luke to be more angry and resentful, seeing as he made his father turn away from good to evil.   Of course Luke after getting caught in this mistake before, he knows this is a trap and that the Emperor gets more powerful from absorbing hate, and uses talk of good things to ultimately defeat this particular character of Satan.

Of course, I do also like the building and scenery from Star Wars with white stone buildings although in a futuristic setting, and not a million miles away from the ancient buildings I see around in Jerusalem.

Fact: Endor, the home of the Ewoks tree top village, is also a place in the Bible.  See Joshua 17 1-12

Red Dwarf

In one episode, the four members of the ship Starbug, are looking for an essential spare part on a seemingly empty planet until a strange entity suddenly appears (voiced by actor Stephen Fry)  who announces himself as ‘My name is Legion, for we are many’  here there is an exact reference to a demon that spoke in Mark 5 : 10.

The Lion Witch & the Wardrobe.

Where as CS Lewis was a Christian, this probably has to be as a fictional story, the most closest set of ideas with Aslan the lion who mimics the death and resurrection of Jesus and with Eustace who betrayed Aslan for some Turkish Delight, albeit with a smaller (4 I think?) number of followers that the original 12.

Here, I think even the most hardened atheist should agree that the story of Jesus’s birth, ministry work, death and resurrection has had elements imitated in most probably thousands of books and movies ever since, we should be thankful for that the story this Easter really is part of the Greatest story ever told. 🙂

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Mar 3 2010

getting a little extra cash back from online shopping – my thoughts

For the last few weeks I have been doing online shopping with Top Cashback.

Originally saw this company mentioned quite a bit on MoneySavingExpert.com, so it is a legit operation and its quite popular now, it offers you cash back from buying anything online.  Most of the time its things I buy from retailers I use regularly.  It cost absolutely nothing to join and doesn’t need any commitment of any kind.

The way this works is you have to go onto the the Top Cashback web site first then do a search for a type of product (ie: car insurance, DVDs etc) you want buy or a retailer (Boots, HMV, confused.com, etc)   and then go and buy what you want, your browser relays what you have bought back to the web site who give you something back, easy.

Open this picture bigger and you can see what I have been using it recently.

So is it worth it?  Well, its not a get rich quick scheme, but I have got back nearly £3 which isnt too bad, as I have only signed up since about the beginning of this year.  This might not seem much, but BIG amounts of money can be made on things like insurance or a mobile contract (£50, £100 or more)   so this is definitely worth considering.   I havent bought much seeing as I am not employed, I have bought a few computer bits of ebay in order to fix some old computers up to make them saleable.  In doing so, I probably only get 30 pence for £5 I have spent.   Ebay’s cashback is something like 40% of their fees they charge the seller, that the buyer can get back.  You can see I bought a bus ticket to get from Luton airport to Stansted airport as I will be getting off one flight onto another to go to Spain in May, this ticket cost me £11.70, so 70p back isnt bad, usually (when I am normal employment) I get a bus from Portsmouth to London about 3 or 4 times a year to go shopping, see friends or go to a museum which is about £13 return, so a bit of money back there pays for a bottle of coke or something.  Play.com (I think they must be second to Amazon now, for biggest online retailer in the UK)  give you 1-8%, they tend to be the cheapest place to get DVDs anyhow without this, here I just bought one CD for £7.99.   I used Vodafone to get a pay as you go SIM card which was free and doesnt get you any incentive as I wanted to switch from Orange due to their poor service lately, but O2 and Orange offer a small (50p or so) amount of cash back for free issue prepay SIM cards and a very good amount for a new phone contract.   In some cases two seperate offers can work together for even more savings.   If you are a first time user of Tesco’s online food shopping service they can give you £10 of £50 (if I remember correctly) but more money off on top of that if you use the discount codes that are widely on the internet and click to join from topcashback.

To make the cashback work successfully you need to check your computer can ‘track’, this means using the test tracking feature on the web site to ensure that your PC will tell the retailer that topcashback have sent you there, so they can acknowledge that you should have some payment.   Sometimes when buying this might not work, so there is a manual way of chasing up any money that doesn’t show on the list of things bought recently.

The way they can afford to give the public back their money is if you think of a real physical shop which has middlemen who earn a commission in between a product comes from a wholesaler to your shopping basket, so does the online retail industry.   Therefore companies, Google being the biggest of all earn a small portion of something you pay for if you go and search for buying something via Google’s site or one of their ads.   So imagine if one of those companies actually shares some of the commission with you, the customer and you get to keep it, well that is quite nice really.   They just want to pay a bit to someone who can point them in the direction of new business, it also happens that car insurance and mobile phone stores pay their salesman good fees if they make a sale, and at the same time you have some of that cash for yourself if you know where to look.

Tips to gain cashback successfully:-

  • – Always click onto Topcashback web site then search for the retailer’s site from there, otherwise it won’t work.
  • – Don’t change things on your browser settings (like clearing cookies or settings) whilst shopping online, this might remove the evidence you have bought from that particular shop.
  • – If the cashback tracking records doesn’t show up anything, check their web site for help on how to chase it up.

So, in all I would recommend that may be 6 months worth of casual small spending on popular online retailers could get you enough money to get a discounted DVD, or with more generous deals maybe quite a bit more.   Either way I wont bother earning points with Airmiles any more I reckon. 🙂

Online Cashback

Of course, they offer me a small commission of £1 if someone gets a recommendation from me and goes to collect £5 worth of money back from places you have spent at.   If you (UK residents only) could be so kind to click the above banner and join even if you are just casually curious, this would be most helpful to provide a tiny bit extra to my travels to Israel in a few weeks.

Feb 22 2010

horse riding in the West Bank

Shortly before Christmas I went with three friends to a farm on the west bank to do a bit of horse riding.  This was a fun journey going in a old VW Beetle out of Jerusalem through the border, getting smiles from Palestinian kids who haven’t seen a little car like this in a long time.

Its a long time since I have rode a horse, in fact I am not even sure if I have since about 1998 when I worked in a kids camp in Florida…   Anyway it seems quite obvious in yanking the reins and yelling woah to stop, but when this particular horse just likes to gallop up this hill and the only thing keeping me still onboard was my feet in the stirrups – it gets quite scary, and hard to grapple the reins and steady myself…

Without realising it, I managed to lose my watch after pulling back on the reigns so hard, it snapped the metal strap, I didn’t notice I lost anything until our instructor pointed out why I had a few scratches on my arm…   My friends who came with me were much more savvy at riding than me though.  Come to think of it, I didn’t see anyone with a riding hat 🙂

This camp is close to an Arab village but the young men working at the farm says there is never any trouble here, as police and army regularly patrol this area, but there are good relationships with the neighbours it seems.  The farm primary business, is making cheese and yoghurt from goat’s cheese, didn’t get to see the goats in their shed, but did get to see the finished products for sale.   They have to buy pineapple and other fruit from somewhere else to make this.

Time to relax after scary and crazy horses, and try some goats cheese with some of the people on the farm, think some young adults out of work get a chance to do some training in helping here.  This was a fun day out on my last (first week of January 2010) day out here.

Feb 15 2010

Journey to the Red Sea – part six; into winter desert in Wadi Rum

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

I had to wake up early for this group tour I booked with the manager of the hotel in Wadi Moussa (the town Petra is in)   This meant getting up very early, the calls from the neighbouring mosque took care of that, but not so loud or abruptly this time.

I came down at just after 6am and remembered I could get some breakfast for leaving, apparently breakfast in Jordan is quite simple affair, pita bread with jam or some foil triangles of cheese.  Had a couple of these and was half way through some coffee then heard a beep from outside, my bus tour was here dead on time at 6.30.

This is where a very stressful morning came.   I realised to my horror I had spent most of the money in Jordan on the long taxi ride, admission to the park and food.  Here the tour guides would obviously expecting payment before we leave town and there were no ATM machines once we left Wadi Moussa.   We stopped in a road with two banks opposite.   Here they let me out and I drew out some money, the ATMs have the instructions in Arabic and a selection of main European languages as well.   This machine asked some strange questions asking me if my bank account was a savings, checking or some other account, I pressed one of these before correctly two day ago, but I didn’t really know which of these is appropriate to my account, anyway it spat out my card, and second attempt was the same.   The different bank over the road had a machine that gave me the same result and refused a withdraw.   I had to tell the young Arab man on the bus I would have to cancel my trip as there was no way of paying and I couldn’t use plastic to pay for the tour (about 35 Dinars I think, quite good value for a whole day’s exploring, staying overnight and getting food)  so there he told me I could pay with my shekels and after giving me a figure I didn’t have time to think but knew it was a pretty lousy exchange rate, I decided to stay put in the bus and go with the trip.

A bit further on we were told we would get to a checkpoint where would need to pay for access into the park.   Before getting there I had a phone call, not on my phone as I didn’t have roaming enabled to use my phone on JO networks, but the driver’s Nokia phone which reeked of cigarettes which a voice of someone I have never met told me (but strangely not the other travellers) that I had to tell the border guards I had come from suchandsuch hotel, I replied and told him I was from a different hotel, but the voice repeated that I had to tell them this exactly, as it implied I had to be a bit dishonest to the security guards at the Wadi Rum border, this made me feel really uncomfortable.

I really was not enjoying this trip so far, not planning in advance in having enough cash in Dinars, tour guides who were asking me to tell lies, more oddities were yet to come.   At the border, which was a fairly relaxed affair, seeing as I was going to a national park not between two political authorities, the guards asked me where myself and the other people on the trip where we were from, I just said I was from that hotel, seeing as I could not remember the name of either my real hotel and the one they tour people wanted me to say.  They told me I needed to pay 2 dinars, this was not mentioned about extra fees with the tour, but it was not much money so I didn’t care too much.

The trip was tour around Wadi Rum a famous desert national park towards the south of the country, not to far away from the border with Israel.  This meant my journey back to the border would be much easier and cheaper, as not requiring only and costly taxi ride.

We got off the minibus (which was a Toyota, I didn’t know they do vehicles of this type)  at a small village with a couple of dozen houses that looked a bit scruffy looking, and got to office where Zedan the tall Arab man who is the boss of the tour company.   We just got a chance to have some Arab tea and have a chat.   The other people on the trip were two Japanese men, two Swedish men, a couple who were Mexican and Spanish, a Korean girl, a Brazilian chap and a few others.  Another good chance to share stories of what we were doing in the middle east.

Seeing as there is lots of stories on the news about Jap motor giant Toyota’s reliability being tainted due to various different issues with sticking accelerator pedals or software bugs causing brakes not to work if hitting a speed ramp, it seems Jordan is where aging Toyotas go to retire.

This is the quality automobile that was used for our trip.   There appears to be no keys, I don’t think the owner locks it, probably doesn’t matter as the boss of the group leaves outside his office which is in a small village in the south with only about 20-30 houses in between two mountains.  The young chap who is our tour driver has to touch two pieces of cable under the steering column.   The car has some of the plastic rim of the steering wheel come away and fixed with insulation tape, various other bits like all three mirrors and one of the brake lights are missing, one of the wiper arms is completely absent, the other has a sharp metal prong which has already scored a curved scratch over the windscreen, I also noticed part way through the desert that the fuel gauge showed empty, I asked him that I hoped that it doesn’t work, and he assured me it didn’t! 🙂  The bodywork looks quite decent until I open the back door and can see rust holes along the rear wheel arch with a 2mm gap where I can see the tyres.  There is also strangely no licence plates on this or the other vehicle another older Toyota of possible late 1970s origin, we did go past a police car and they didn’t bat an eyelid.  I would say judging by the black square on the doors it looks like this Toyota Landcruiser could of once owned by the UN, a recent test drive of Top Gear of the latest 2009 model mentions the UN are Toyota’s biggest client for this model car, but the man said it used to belong to the Jordanian government.

Not long after we stopped at a small shop in the middle of nowhere on a desert highway to get stuff for lunch, which after carefully counting about 3 dinars (I worked out I needed the other remaining 20 for my taxi home) got me some salty biscuits and some extra water.

Pics from us in the other truck which was swapped over a bit later.

Next, roughing it in a Bedouin camp in a desert in December….

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Feb 5 2010

The ambulance chaser telemarketers exposed.

The people that texted me wanting me to claim about my accident, I decided to responded to the text with a reply “moreinfo” or whatever it was and they called me.   First of all I had a missed call from 02031891350 (looks like a London number but the 3 confuses me a little?).  When you call them back you get a message saying “this is MSAC, leave your number and we will call you back”   I didn’t.   They called me again later, I told them I am not interested and demanded to know where they got my details from.

I did some research. MSAC aka Money Saving Advice Centre has a sales team who want to claim for your accident and do other things such as miss-sold insurance on investment claims.  Can’t find a web site for them, but just seems they have an army of aggressive sales people who can be retrained for whatever dastardly purpose is needed.

Sounds like they are trying to pretend to brand themselves similar to Martin Lewis’s well respected MoneySavingExpert.com web site (which is a great genuine goldmine of unbiased financial advice)

Seeing as they have used dubious, possibly illegal techniques to find me (someone has told me who works in government, there is plausible legal loopholes for them to get confidential information from hospitals)   I’ll do them the favour back by listing them on the big ‘ol bad interwebs.   So there.   Mua ha ha. 😛

But seriously, if you get a missed call from these people and you’ve found my blog by googling that number, now you know 🙂

Have you had your personal data leaked to a dodgy sales canvassers?  You could be liable to compensation!  phone 0800 BENTLAWYERS4U you have nothing to lose!!!

Feb 2 2010

things to do in 2010…

Its now February and haven’t really fully thought about what I want to achieve this year.

Originally not long before I came back to the UK I wanted to get settled in my career and buy my own house, but this is to be shelved as God wants me back in Jerusalem to volunteer for a second season.

1/ Return to Israel and carry over keep the IT systems simple, reliable and effective for a Christian charity in Jerusalem.

2/ Visit sites and learn more about biblical history, not just Israel, I would also like to visit Malta, Turkey and Greece someday.  I am single chap, so I may as well make the most of be flexible to do things, as maybe that might not be so possible in the future.

3/ Spend less time on Facebook as it just eats lots of time, its nice to know what friends are doing and plan events and things but I dont really care about a lot of the extras.

4/ Cook more and learn to do Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Asian type food.

5/ Learn to deal better with my bank stuff, get money into an account that is better suited for overseas working, as my Lloyds TSB bank account charge loads for using debit card and ATM use.

6/ Get some extra IT qualifications, for this year to better serve my employer and for my future.

7/ Renew friendships with different people both in UK and Israel.   Also going to a wedding of a good friend who is getting married in Spain which I will visit in May.

8/ Get fitter, I am average weight (12 stone) for my 5ft 10 height, and I do a lot of walking, mainly going around town in Portsmouth and Jerusalem, but I get out of breath running, not sure why.   Really its a case of some how do some kind of physio or exercise to get strength back in my arm.

9/ Be better at bible study, I am a lot of below average on biblical knowledge compared to most Christians.

This year has a few sacrifices, I have had to sell my car as its just sitting here and rather let it depreciate in value and find somewhere else to store it again, this is sad as I do really enjoy driving, especially going through the woods to see a friend in Haslemere, close to Guildford, or when I was work driving around the New Forest.  Of course, being away from friends and family is another, but I will home in May for a short time whilst I see my sister as her baby is expected then and the above break in Spain.

Jan 30 2010

arm break… two weeks after operation..

Two weeks after my operation and I went back to hospital to have my stitches removed.

After the nurse undid the bandages and cut out the stitches, it seems its been a success!  I now just have a scar and some bruising, my arm is still very sore and I cant lift anything heavier than a cup of tea, I have trouble sleeping, doing things like getting up from sitting on the floor or out of the bath I have to pull myself up one-handed as I must not put any pressure on it.  In theory I could probably drive now, but decided its not worth it for the cost of getting tax and insurance for my car when I want to return to the middle east as soon as I am fit.

I am thankful to God and to people who prayed for my recovery, its gone well so far.

I have to return in another 4 weeks (25th February)  for another check up, they have not said if I need physio, but apparently the wires in my arm do not need to come out now, they are neatly tucked inside the muscles so they are there for the rest of my life.   Means I can make a nuisance of myself going through security doorways!

I do want to get on and fly back soon, but will plan this as soon as I get the next hospital consultation.

Jan 25 2010

Curry and beer with the lads, and a message from the ambulance chasers?

I went out to meet up with my very good friends John P and Harry M for a Ruby Murray at the Goa on Saturday, it was a good way to catch up, especially as my friends are although married still like to do general lads stuff often.  On the way to meet up with my friend who came down on the train so not to drive and be able have a few beers, I got a text message.  It was from an Ambulance chaser, you know the sales people who have asked you if you have an accident and that you could claim compensation.

Would of this just been a coincidence that I got this so soon after getting discharged from hospital?   Sounds like there could be a breach of confidentiality here, a little worrying.

The disturbing thing I didn’t really think about until today was where they got details about my accident.

Could it be the hospitals?  As I have done IT support for two (Portsmouth & Southampton) different NHS authorities I know that any kind of patient data breach would get a member of staff investigated very very quickly, and extremely likely to be dismissed and possibly be subject to criminal prosecution.

Does someone comb facebook (my phone no is on there, and a picture of me in hospital post op) looking for possible source of punters?  Or, seen this blog and decided to look me up some how perhaps?

Anyhow slipping on ice in a Southsea street shouldn’t really mean the council or anyone else could be blamed, it was slippery as anything, certainly it wouldn’t make sense to blame the council, if everyone legally could do this this simply mean our council tax would have to go up by loads, to make a large pool of money for people suing for any old daft thing which I don’t think is right.

5/2/10  – update, I have found more about what these people do….

Jan 16 2010

Journey to the Red Sea – part four; Awakening on Eid

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

I was awoken at somewhere around 5am, there was utterly terrible noise blasted into my bedroom, putting the pillow around my ears didn’t help, a deep bass male Arabic voice drones in this dream like dirge, it seem to go on for ages before I eventually had some silence.

After wondering what it was, I realised it was because it was Eid, an important Islamic festival, hence people buying goats and sheep for slaughter the previous day, outside the hotel is a mosque with a large minaret, it was this that broadcasts the Muslim prayers at an uncomfortably early hour.   Getting up and using the shower it was clear why the hotel was cheap, plumbing and electrics in the middle east and not the same as they are in the west.   The basin was partly coming away from the wall and the toilet only had one (loose) bolt holding it to the floor so it wobbles, when you flush it, water (clean fortunately!) comes out of the cistern.   Two other toilets I have seen in other parts of Jordan had the whole top of the cistern missing requiring the user to put their hand inside and pull the ball-cock lever thing to flush it.

There are several well known hotel chains in Wadi Moussa, one of them is the Movenpick (think this is also a Norwegian brand ice cream?)  right next to Petra’s entrance, the others are much further up the multiple Z shaped bends, being out of the way of the noisy chants of the mosques.

But for all this the hotel staff were very friendly, the younger chap was about 22 and said he had been to a University (Leeds I think he said) in the UK, and his Dad was the main owner of this place.

So I headed out to the famous historical site that is Petra.

The price to get in is I think was 22 Dinars, there were discounts for two or three days visits, this required a signature check to stop tickets being resold.  The Jordanian Dinar is close-ish to the value of the UK Pound, something like 85-90 pence.

The front of the place was a amusing Indiana Jones banner on a van with gifts for sale, there are many stands all over the park, some up the top of the mountain tents, providing local made jewellery and souvenirs to those who climb up to the top.

Well not a lot to say that cant be said in pictures, Petra is truly spectacular!!!!

Will put on pictures of Petra very soon.

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

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…