Random observations

For today I have some random thoughts to share.  A bit of a "did you know?" for this post.

Even indoors, vending machines are air conditioned.

Cars (at least every car I've been in so far) makesa dinging sound or at minimum has a flashing light on the control panel near the speedometer, that activates when you go over 120 kilometers an hour.  In the taxis, their communication panel lights up red and a voice asks the driver to lower their speed.  Makes me wonder if the cars that go crazy fast on the roads just ignore the sound/light, have it disconnected, or perhaps just turn up their music to drown it out!

You can get a ticket for driving a dirty car.  Between sand and humidity, cars get dirty pretty fast, and some are so covered with dirt/sand that it becomes a safety hazard with covered windows.  (Saw a car pulled over yesterday ... oh so dirty.)

The dates of Islamic holidays are based on the moon.  For example, we knew that Eid Al Adha would fall somewhere around October 24th and 25th.  So, on a school calendar for example, you pretty much do placeholder dates.  Then, about 10 days prior the designated religious experts (yup, I need to look that one up so I can be more knowledgeable in what I'm sharing with you) eye ball the moon and what phase it's in.  Then we know exactly which two days Eid will fall on, and subsequently know for sure what days people have off for the holiday. There are some holiday dates that are set, but the religious ones (including Ramadan) are more fluid.

California drivers (and other States' drivers, to be fair) have nothing on the concept of riding another car's tail ... it can take your breath away just how close they will ride another car in an attempt to make the point of "get out of my way" or how close they will come to another car when changing lanes.  If you are a good defensive driver, you can survive these circumstances.  If not, I suggest a taxi :-)

Big cars and fancier cars "win" on the road.  There seems to be a correlation between the type and size of car you drive and how much respect you get on the road.  That' not to say that you don't see smaller and less fancy cars go very fast and zip around; I personally wouldn't risk that!

Like in the state of Oregon, you don't fill up your own car with gas.  (Actually, it's "petrol" here.)  Attendants do that for you. And people leave their cars running while getting gas, because you have to stay in your car and it gets so amazingly hot.

There are usually lines of cars waiting for petrol; there are gas/petrol stations, but it doesn't seem that the stations have kept pace with the amount of cars ... but they are building more of them.

Hmmm. Didn't mean to make this blog so much about cars, but ah well.

Take care my friends.