Feb 9 2010

The Golden Gate and strange graffiti?

In mid-December, I took a walk through an Arab cemetery right next to the Golden Gate outside the main walls of the old city of Jerusalem.  Its one of the oldest of the gates as some special significance as its meant to be where Jesus will go through when he returns to this city.

Ezekiel 44 :  1-3 mentions this site.  Thinking about it logically, it has been bricked up and a cemetery has been built in front making it unclean from a Jewish law point of view, but this would not stop the Messiah from returning back here.   The ground goes up some stepped layers with some trees in front meaning it would not be possible to get a car or horse to go in a straight line from the road from here.

I need to go back here and find out what exactly lies on the inside of this gate.

100_3098 100_3099
You can see the iron railings at the bottom that go around this gate.

While I was here there was some graffiti scribbled in some European language on the wall.   I took some pictures of it with the intention of doing some research on what it might be, I do not know if its modern or old.  Google’s recently improved translator website thought would be good for this, as you can put in some writing of unknown tongue and it takes a guess of what the language is.

The top middle part of the text I wrote here.

vakaiekaa
ralawana
bihmaiviai
kamey
tagivetavia
qaranivav
22/5

Google tells me this is Finnish, perhaps its just some people’s names but it could not provide me with a translation.   If you have sharp eyes and can make out the text better, feel free to comment and have another attempt at what this could be.

My photographs of the wall  got the suspicion of some Israeli policeman walking across the path, mainly as I was the only the person in the whole ground and they asked to search by rucksack and look at my passport, they then spoke in Hebrew on a radio to headquarters, probably to check the number on my visa was legitimate, they then let me go.   This might seem like a nuisance to have to go through to, but its something you get used to and quite necessary in this part of the world.

Feb 9 2010

Church in a pub

On Sunday morning went to my usual church then went out for lunch, usual quite relaxing day.  The talk in the morning was part of a series on distractions which is something that causes more problems with things for me than I can think of.

In the evening I went to the Isambard Kingdom Brunel pub (a Wetherspoons pub named after the famous industrial engineer who lived in my city of Portsmouth, UK) and met up with Mark Rodel reverend of another church in Portsmouth who has a blog and in addition to running his own church likes to meet up with anyone in this pub most Sunday evenings for a chance to relax and have a beer and chat to another small crowd.   Something different from regular church or cell group, (which is a mid-week church meeting someone’s house in a informal closer knit group for regular church people) but this is different as provides a chance for people with casual questions about Christianity and church in a familiar public environment.

For me I think many Christians don’t always visualise the fact church can seem very scary place for many people that have never been before to church, have fallen away, or are just plain shy, and this is a good place to get to know people and get questions answered on many things on church life.  Jesus spent a lot of time in public places speaking, so its only natural that fellow believers could sometimes get together in a place most people are familiar with and invite people to come and chat about whatever they wish.  Mark uses a few unusual visual cues to illustrate things from the bible and this week he got us to make some paper boats to float on a washing up bowl of water he borrowed from the bar.

Anyway there was just about 7 of us from different churches around the city, it was nice getting to know different people from quite a few backgrounds.   Will try come along semi regularly while I am still here in the UK.

Feb 8 2010

Top Gear comes to Arab neigbourhood of Jerusalem? / Killer Cacti

Time for some more holyland LOLs

Top Gear in the Middle East

As spotted in East Jerusalem.   This week on Arab Top Gear, Jared Clarkson test drives a clapped out Fiat Uno with half the exhaust missing, Richard Mohammod puts a huge sound system in a 1980s Mercedes, Jameel Al May selects a good tunic and headscarf to wear in your ride

Killer Cacti!

Like a wet paint sign this just encourages people to be more risky, people might get hurt but this plant, or they might not see barbed wire in front of it.

Feb 5 2010

Journey to the Red Sea – part five; Petra Spectacular!!

Hope that two serialised stories of this and Bethlehem running together doesn’t get too confusing!!

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

This is part of the trip I was most looking forward to, the scene from Indiana Jones and the last Crusade, even before I left Jerusalem, I bought a CD off ebay of the official soundtrack and put it on my ipod and have got a little bit obsessed in repeatedly playing the tracks whilst on my voyage around the Red Sea.

I spent the whole day looking around Petra, the temples built into the side of rocks, the mountains, the various different ruins of all kinds, there is absolutely loads to see here, you need a couple of days to see it all.

Odd looking Swiss cheese style rocks and caves are everywhere, and one cave has been turned into a quite inviting looking lounge with comfy looking cushions and furnishings.

The cops. The mounted Jordanian police look every bit as cool as the Canadian Mounties

Young Arab men like to races these chariots at quite high speeds around Petra

Towards the end I saw some other British people I got chatting with on top of a hill which which took a while to get up you can see almost over towards the Dead Sea, in fact my phone (which doesn’t have roaming enabled and wont get a JO network, shows Cellcom IL with 5 bars).  There was one girl who had been working in Dubai and got a long weekend off because of the fact it was a Islamic holiday, the other two chaps were two friends that had been travelling around the middle east and were on the last few days and travelled over from Cairo, so it was nice to chat about my discoveries about the holy land and the others who had been in a modern rich Arab city and in the famous ancient capital of Egypt.

At the top of this hill was a tent with a Bedouin chap living there who was playing an Arab style guitar like instrument, and provided us some tea, he told us that his tent was his permanent home, although was selling some souvenirs didn’t seem that concerned about trying to sell us anything, he like a lot Jordanians I had met was genuinely very hospitable to visitors.   All four of us where chatting for sometime, but I noticed it about 4:20pm which meant it would start getting dark just before 5, so we ought to start leaving as getting down the hill was long, windy and undoubtedly extremely dangerous in darkness.   The park shuts at dark according to the main gate, however perhaps in a moment of wanting to live just a bit dangerously, we just carried on chatting and drinking tea, by 4.45 it was most definitely dark, this didn’t bother us as one of the British chaps had a ‘headlight’, a torch on a stretchy band he was wearing on his head so he went down the steep steps first.

We were negotiating our way out of the Roman style pillar stones in the middle of the park and it was now in complete darkness, the girl (argh – wrote you folks emails on a bit of a paper which I have now lost..) said she had to meet the man who was taking her home in a car park near a restaurant.  One of the chaps took her back there, as she was going to go alone which would not of been wise, later I met up with the boys by the pathway that weaved around the main temple.

Close to the entrance there were two men and pick up truck around a horse which was lying on its side, it was obvious the animal was quite distressed, considering I have seen people whip their donkeys to get them up hills with tourists, this animals are worked extremely hard, having said that I am guessing good horses and donkeys are expensive and I guess this was a vet in the truck come to provide assistance to the animal there, the boys from Egypt were hoping to get a quick cheeky snap of us by the main temple in darkness, but one of the staff saw us and told us we should of exited the park over 45 minutes ago.  We said our goodbyes, as I suggested we go for a pizza in the main high street but they wanted to go home and get an early night.

Next, yet another rude awakening, a hasty scramble to get to Wadi Rum..

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

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 4 2010

Electric cars in Israel

Yesterday I watched a DVD I bought ages ago about the failure of General Motors EV1, an electric car available to be leased to the public in California.   Against the wishes of the satisfied owners of the vehicles who rented them and really liked the cars, not just at the attractively low cost of ownership but the comfort, handling and style as well as zero emissions and better ethics of the EV1 and protested against having their cars taken away, as the leasing program ended, and the vehicles were taken away and destroyed.   The film concludes a combination of the state of California, General Motors itself or the oil companies were to blame, as electrics cars require too much investment for their design and for infrastructure set up to fuel them, as well as lack of some kind of business model for the government to receive tax from owners to maintain the roads.

But could electric cars be a reality in some of other part of the world?

A short while ago, some of the Israeli and mainstream world news were looking on a project Renault and Nissan were working on called Project Better Place who are based in California like the GM EV1 and similar electric vehicles made by Ford, Toyota and Honda which also quietly pulled the plug on them leaving just Toyota with their unexpectedly fashionable Prius hybrid model.  Better Place wants to sell purely clean running electric cars to test their vehicles elsewhere, in Denmark, Israel and Hawaii more specifically.  This is expected to happen in 2011.

Where as the start of the 201xs is still not out of a recession, there must be people happy to pay for a more expensive car with low cost of ownership as well as getting a feel good feeling from the obvious environmental benefits.   The worrying large scale of recalls this week Toyota have announced with many models of their cars unexpectedly accelerating probably means that all car makers R&D labs might have to subject more stricter testing to new model vehicles.

I am having to sell my trusty old Peugeot 306 diesel as I am not using it being in between doing charity work in Israel, but this little car was enormously popular, the second best selling car in the UK during the 90s, and as about half of them were diesels, Peugeot were something of a pioneer of diesel cars making them affordable with around 55 miles per gallon economy, decent performance and handling, people bought them who probably wouldnt of consider a diesel before.  Therefore its inevitable someone will make a mass market electric car, as the attraction of leaving behind a legacy of over-taxed and dirty petrol to history is a dream I think most of us would like to realise.

If you think about it, Israel doesn’t have oil so has to get it from neighbouring Arab countries who are not always easy to live with, does not have an actual motor manufacturing plant or any conflict of interest from the government.   As Israel is a small country, the typically short range of a battery isn’t too much of an issue here.  Given the amount of talented engineers in Israel I would say that this kind of project has the best possible chance of success I think.   I think this is quite exciting and really hope this comes to fruition.

But wait, the Palestinians are also wanting an electric car, this man in Gaza converted his old Peugeot 205 to electric 🙂  Youtube link.

Feb 3 2010

laptop repair – Replacing a broken screen bezel on Fujitsu-Siemens Esprimo V5535

This week in my workshop, well my parents living room actually, is this Fujitsu Siemens laptop which looks rather battered, two of the keys are missing, Vista is dog slow with 1gb of RAM (the video card uses 256Mb of this)

Software wise, this computer had an antivirus client called System mechanic but I couldn’t test it for spyware as it would blue screen, seems like System Mechanic would cause AVG or Malwarebytes to crash horribly.   I decided to get rid of System mechanic, and AVG once installed showed the computer has two conventional viruses, Malwarebytes picked up over 26 threats though.  Once this was cleaned up I put on Service Packs 1 & 2 for Vista, to lock the machine down against future security issues.

An extra 1gb of memory was ordered and fitted, easily slots inside the trap door underneath the machine, a new keyboard is coming from a company in China, this will take a few weeks to get here though.

For now I noticed the screen bezel, the plastic frame surrounding the LCD panel has broken as it appears to have been dropped at some point.

Here I am going to show you how to remove and replace the screen bezel.

This is quite simple, remove the rubber pads which cover the screws as shown, these are just gently prised out with a small flat bladed screwdriver.  Next remove the philips screws, there are four in the top and two at the bottom, sometimes there are screws in the side that might need to be removed (like a Dell Latitude I once did)   Note the right hand side part of the bezel was cracked so badly, it came off in my hand.

DONT use a screw driver to prise off the broken panel.  You run the risk of scratching or damaging the LCD or the inverter (the long circuit board at the bottom which provides voltage to the LCD backlight)  use sharp fingernails or some wooden or plastic implement, for me this was easy as the bezel was already broken, but if its not coming out, I would use one of those wooden stirring sticks you get from coffee shops and cut and file the edge into a sharp point to prise it off, I would start by easing the top off, on this particular laptop the bottom piece needs to be bent slightly to get the two corners out of the screen hinges.

This can discarded now and we are ready to fit the replacement bezel.

This is very simple, bend the bottom gently to get it to fit inside the two hinges, the rest just snaps into place, double check all the edges feel flush, you may need to slide the screen latch to get the hooks aligned with the gaps in the new screen bezel.  You can now re-fit the screws and the rubber pads.   Removing the LCD panel is quite easy, its is very fragile, so it would need to be gently removed by holding the edges of it only and the flat cable on the back of the LCD and the wires for the screen backlight can be disconnected.

Here is the laptop done with the broken bezel next to it.   The cost of the new bezel?   £5 including shipping!   The company I bought it from on ebay appeared to have too much stock of this part I think!

Jonathan is not working at the moment, but welcomes any offers to do laptop or PC repair work in return for a donation towards his second trip to Jerusalem to carry on doing IT support and administration for Bridges for Peace.   This is purely a voluntary position and not waged so would appreciate any kind of rewards for IT consulting or donations of course.  He is hoping to fly again possibly early March.

Feb 3 2010

car number plates collecting

I have a sad collecting hobby to confess.

I like collecting car number plates.   Its started with a visit to the US in 2001 (LA, Las Vegas and Arizona)  so I bought a Nevada state plate from a store on the Las Vegas strip, and progressed onto getting the other states I have been to, and also Florida, New York and New Jersey which I went to in 1998.

They are more fun than collecting stamps as you can hang them on the wall, its just an interesting challenge for a car nut to collect automotive history from different nations.

To look for plates to buy online, you really have to look on ebay Germany’s site, as the UK site doesn’t really have them.  Some people just get the US ones and aim to get all 50 states, after then you can get the Canadian ones and then go for Mexico and southwards.  Here in the UK, almost all large articulated trucks I see delivering things are all foreign, mostly from Poland or Eastern Europe, its sometimes fun on a long journey to spot the more unusual ones, just around were I live and work in Portsmouth and Southampton, I have seen Turkey (letters TR on blue band but not EU logo)  Morocco (white letters on green, no symbols – I think)  Estonia (blue band with letters EST)  and a car seen outside my old house from the Ukraine (UA on pale blue/yellow band)

I only collect the ones from countries I have been to.   My collection is a bit lame as I really only have the easyish ones.    When I went to Iceland on a lads road trip with Ian H, Rich T and Peter O, we got to the gates of a scrap yard near Akureyri only to find the place locked up and close and the piles of stacked cars appeared to have their plates missing.  In a used car spares warehouse in Talpiyot, near Jerusalem, they had car parts neatly labelled on shelves, and stripped out shells of dead cars waiting to be disposed  in a building close to one of my workplace their where I volunteered, when I tried to ask if they would sell me some plates, they refused (although maybe as their English wasn’t good enough) I am guessing in some countries its possibly illegal to buy plates from junk yards, maybe as it could be used for some kind of criminal activity.

Of course the other challenge is car scrap yards in most countries tend to be in fairly dodgy parts of town and therefore going shopping for a plate as a tourist with no much knowledge of the language might be quite unsafe experience.   When I visited Jordan and the Palestinian territories, bringing a plate through checkpoint would be probably land me in lots of trouble so I didn’t want to try that.

Of course particular nice ones to get are often small countries like Monaco (narrow plate with 4 numbers, white or blue with royal diamond emblem)  San Marino (another tiny EU nation popular for motor racing)  Isle of Man (part of UK, but has its own government, plates have red band with three legged Manx emblem) also various different Caribbean nations and some obscure places like Bermuda, Tuvalu etc.   For this reason the more rarer and aesthetically interesting plates might cost 50 Euros or a lot more on ebay like this one.

Some plate design change with the political eras.   Poland and Romania now have the EU logo with the letters PL or RO where as before they had their own flag, or prior to that no symbols at all.

This is my collection, just need to find a wall to hang them up again 🙂

If someone reading this would like to swap, ie: maybe I could source English or Israeli plate as a swap for something I want for my collection,
This is my wish list 🙂

Monaco (ok bit ambitious maybe!)
Finland (blue band with FIN)
Jordan (with blue or green band)
Iceland (later blue letters on white background with IS logo of possible)
Palestinian territories (green on white or white on green)

By Jonathan • Posted in me
0
Feb 2 2010

Bethlehem – journey to birthplace of Christ part III – The pools of King Solomon

Parts 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

After the chapel and the grotto park, the bus took us to another biblical location:-


The pools of King Solomon, there are three of them in fact, some background can be found here.  The bible mentions these in Ecclesiastes 2 It was a nice warm December day and you can imagine this being used as a storage for water which was so precious both back in Old Testament times and also today.    The police drove past in a rather nice new model VW Golf GTI, this vehicle decked in stripes in the usual familiar Palestinian green.  They asked one of the other members of the group to not sit on the wall as they seem quite protective of this ancient site.  (I had already got off the wall by then)   The actual pools are also guarded by fencing, although there is a small abandoned shed inside with graffiti on it.

Almost opposite these buildings there was this strange very new building, presumably built by the Palestinian government, its a conference centre and looks quite nice, but its not finished.   The main structure is all done, but there are no windows, doors or any kind of fittings, the neatly built steps and pathways are covered in weeds.  Its never been used.  I am guessing it was built no earlier that 1990s.  There is no sign of any nearby disturbance or damage, ie: signs of war.   I don’t think Israel is to blame for problems here with this or other PA government buildings.

Found some interesting information on some of PA’s infrastructure.   In preparation for planning to be an independent state, the Palestinian authority have an international telephone code of +970, Israel is +972, but either code can be used to call cities such as Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nabulus, Jericho as the telephone exchanges are still part of Israel, but some Islamic nations (Iran, Syria etc)  bar calls to Israel that have the +972 code, necessitating the +970 code.

It was then back the the coach to take us to the main thing that was centre point to Bethlehem.

Right: Looking out of a large multistorey car park onto Bethlehem’s bus station

Left: Christmas in full swing in a shop inside the multistorey car park.

More soon….

Parts 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

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.