Damn hell!!

I just dinged my precious car.

My precious shiny car. My precious, black, relatively dent free, shiny car. Sigh.

We were on our way to Atmosphere in the Sabah Foundation Building (or Tun Mustapha Building as it’s know now), for their spectacular cocktails. Note what I said: I said, we were on the way there, not departing. I swear I’m the only person ever to have an accident before they go drinking.

The cylindrical building (in the tiny picture left) has a ramp that joins a circular driveway at about 8 0′clock, if you image the circle as the face of a watch and in the picture the shadow falls on twelve o’clock, then runs around the building and exits down the other ramp which is located at about 4 o’clock. In hindsight, you’re supposed to follow that route and never touch the area between 4 and 8 o’clock.

However, that very area is a wide open space and it has an entrance smack on 6 o’clock, so as it was drizzling, I thought I’d drop off my two passengers at that entrance first before I parked my car down at the bottom. I went up the ramp with enough momentum to carry me to the top and then free-wheeled it to the entrance from 8 o’clock in an arch towards 6 o’clock.

It’s just, the very pretty building’s driveway is lined with tiles. Yup, about the same as you’d find in some kitchens, or perhaps some bathrooms, even living rooms if they weren’t such hideous bathroom blue (unless you like that kind of stuff in your living room of course) - and not outdoor tiles either, nope, house-hold, slippery-when-wet tiles. And it was drizzling, which means it was coated with a thin film of rain; wet rain.

Physics was not on my mind as I made a nice wide arch so as to stop right in front of the exit, parallel so that my passengers could exit with minimum fuss - except, a little into the arch I turned my wheels, but the car didn’t move in the direction I had intended, instead it continued along it’s trajectory on the slippery, wet tiles.

I registered the lack of response only a little at first, and casually responded by turning the steering a little more, yet still with no response. At this point we were very near the entrance. My foot on the break also had little effect, even pushed down to the floor, and there was nothing to do except to watch the entrance approach like an asteroid, as if stuck inside that little triangular space craft used in the old old game Asteroids, where momentum will carry you on and on and on long after you’ve turned and blasted the other way - and our jets were fresh out.

The four entrances of the building are located at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock, with runways about 20m long stretching out from them towards the driveway. There’s a height difference of about a foot or 30cm between the runway surface and the driveway - a big moat of water circumvents the area between the building and the driveway that isn’t occupied by the approximate 10m wide runways - between the moat of water and the driveway is a storm-water drain roughly as wide as a Myvi’s wheel, which runs a border around the outer rim of the moat. Each runway has a few low walls preventing people from falling into the moat and the walls stop at the end of the moat, whilst the runway covers the storm-water drains to join the driveway direct.

So in slow-motion my car floated towards the runway, the moat and the low wall. Mark, my shot-gun passenger, held on and watch, deer-caught-in-headlights like, whilst Phyllis, my back seat passenger, clenched the stuffed toy monkey that was on the back-seat (another story all together) and I think she said “watch out” a few times. Me? I had my foot on the brake, the steering wheel straightened out and the hand-brake almost at shoulder height and images in my head of going up the runway, sliding right into the building’s lift foyer and coming to halt inside one of the lifts.

I wasn’t thinking advanced driving techniques, because I never got one of those for my birthday.

This scenario played out over all of about 5 seconds. Our little white, triangular spaceship with its jets fresh out floated forward, mockingly slow. I guess, had there been more time and if this scene didn’t span real time, I could have jumped from the car, ran in-front and stopped it. But I’m not Hiro Nakamura and before I could even undo my seatbelt, our little spaceship had kissed the asteroid. A loud, unpleasant crack-slash-thump pierced the night and at once, the car stopped moving.

“Why did you do that!?” were Mark’s first words, looking at me as if I just went skidding over the slippery tiles on purpose. Phyllis was quiet, hugging the monkey hard to her chest with her head on the headrest of Mark’s seat. I jumped out and expected to see the crumpled front of my car against the obliterated wall lying in pieces, also expecting my car to be half inside the moat if not the storm-water drain.

The images in my head were vastly exaggerated and probably fueled by the imagination left over from having finished Stephen King’s book Cell just last night. What I did see was some mortar from a small tile that had broken in half by some part of the underside of my car, a severely dented fender and a fog light hanging out of it’s socket like the bloody eye of one of the crazy phoners in Stephen King’s book. I gently took they eye and carefully pushed it back in its socket, before I assessed the rest of the damage. Nothing structural I surmounted and hoped.

By this time Julia and John, who were some distance behind us in another car, had caught up and were next to me asking what happened. The wheel of the car was stuck in the storm-water drain, the fender was hanging precariously and the mortar from the tile made it look as if the runway was damaged way more than just the half-a-tile that it was.

I asked John if he could drive stick and after confirming I went to the storm-water drain side of the car, imagining that with my adrenaline rushing I could single handed lift the car from the storm-water drain. The other wheel was on the tiles, but combined with the slippery wet tiles having no traction, the car being a front-wheel drive and only one powered-wheel touching the surface, it couldn’t just reverse without a push. With John behind the wheel, myself, Mark and two guys who had in the meantime joined, we managed to heave the car enough for the other wheel to contact the surface and he reversed.

Additional inspection revealed that the severe dent was dented as such a big bubble, that I could probably pop it out. I tried, but my shaking arm didn’t exert much force, so I saved it. I secured the fog-light properly and drove back down towards the parking lot, minus my passengers with John in tow in the second car. The wheel made a loud, unpleasant scraping sound against the bent fender as I turned right, but I knew it was just the fiber-glass casing. Once parked in the well-lit parking lot, I checked again. I stuck my hand in the gap behind the fender, gave one focussed thump and un-dented the fender. Apart from the scuff marks, it looked undamaged.

I checked under the wheel and saw the inner lining of the fender had come undone and I propped it back into a position, which wouldn’t bother the wheel later and both John and I made it back up the ramp to where the others were waiting. In the meantime the building security, a lone guy, had come out to inspect the damage and to write an incident report. He had asked Julia and Phyllis my name, and when they said Jaco, he had this look on his face of disbelief and said “come on, I need to do this report, I just asked for his name”.

After explaining that that is my name, he seemed satisfied, but later on took my number as well, just in case. The damage to the tiles were not that bad - one was snapped in half and the mess was just mortar which had totally gone brittle against some poor part of my car.

Our drinks were uneventful, but I didn’t enjoy them as much as the last time. Over the span of the next 4 hours we enjoyed a few drinks and and indecent amount of talk about all sorts of sexual topics. Before our first round I did take Julia’s camera down to take pictures of the scene, just in case they bashed up the entire place and said it was me later on. Unlikely, but you never know.

The drive back was slow paced and easy in order to listen for any sounds which might indicate unseen damage. Apart from a noise when we turned, due to a piece of fender still sticking out somewhere , there were none. I dropped off first Mark, who’s leaving on a jet plane tomorrow evening, then Phyllis at her car she had left in town, and lastly the, by now a little tipsy, Julia.

At home I switched on all the lights in my driveway for a proper inspection. At first glance the car only looked like what it is - dirty. Upon closer inspection the scrapes and a deep, but small pinch on the fender is visible - the head-light looked slightly misaligned and the fender sat oddly away from the body, and I immediately suspected structural damage. I popped the hood and a closer inspection revealed the reason for all of the odd alignments of all the elements involved - popped plastic rivets. I re-aligned the holes and saw the elements fall into place - so it’s just a question of re-riveting the missing rivets, then hopefully everything will sit fine again. The car is due for a service, so hopefully they can fix it all.

So yeah, that’s my car’s first self-inflicted ding and scrapes - there are others, of that be sure, but they all mysteriously appeared while I wasn’t near my car, so my car, like my heart, isn’t completely free of battle-scars.

But that’s life in Kota Kinabalu I guess.

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You probably know (or would, if you read more than the front page of this blog) that I have a Nokia something or other with a 1mpx camera and that I do actually get out now and then to point at random strangers. No, I don’t go around with a trench coat and cut-off trouser legs, that’s something else entirely.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I downloaded the pix I have on my phone and I did that just now. As you might have been able to tell from topics in this blog, my pet peeve is traffic rules and the breaking thereof and also driver attitude. I am, as you can expect from such a severe critic, an absolutely exemplary driver who never breaks a single rule and suffer naught from road rage. Haha - and I saw Father Christmas having tea with the Cat in the Hat.

Blegh! So call me a liar if you want, but what I am is a considerate road user and you will never (hardly ever) catch me committing any of the sinful traffic violations you are about to see. These are actual events as they occur on the streets of Kota Kinabalu. License plates have been blurred to protect the innocent (me!).

Every Man for Himself

In Kota Kinabalu traffic rules become null and void for two reason - either it’s some sort of festivity; pick your culture: Christmas, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, the birth of your child, etc., or, it’s time to pick your kids up from school. The picture left was taken recently during Ramadan, when it seems the car population doubles and roads fill up with traffic like a storm water drain during a 4 hour cloud break. Luckily everyone are in their cars, so there’s no real danger to pedestrians here.

This is any typical school day where people will park 3 cars next to each other in a single road, they will drive up onto the curb, park inside the arch of a traffic circle and of course violate every single solid line. But it’s perfectly acceptable, because everyone is waiting for their children - for up to half an hour. And the middle picture was taken from the parking garage immediately next to this mess, where there is an over offer of parking. But no, that would make life easy for other road users.

My father owns this road

I moan about parking often - possibly the number one traffic violation in Kota Kinabalu, because we know it’s not speeding. Anyway, this is just around the corner from my house. It might look like this car is part of traffic, I mean it’s in the middle of the road, nearly over on the other side of the lane, but nope - he’s parked there. There’s nobody in that car.

Not a full-time cynic

Just to illustrate that I don’t only take my phone out of my pocket to point out traffic violations, here’s a few snaps of life in general in Kota Kinabalu. We’re good people… when we’re not in our cars. In the photo far left, the security guard at Centre Point. Shame man, he’s old, give him a break. Oh, nevermind, he’s already taking one. The centre pic was taken at a little food strip in Damai. This as like at 10pm on a rainy day - there’s not much that will keep Sabahans away from good food. On the right, just a random cutie peeking back at me whilst in the post-office queue.

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Here’s a collection of random things that apply to multiple categories.

Rugby

The world champs went home and although politics are pissing on their parade, they have the umbrella of that longed-for euphoria to keep them dry for now. But it’s a tiny, tiny umbrella and the political piss is being blown in from all sides by the winds of change.

The good news is South Africa is now topping the IRB’s world rugby ranking, which as World Cup Champions is their rightful place. Interesting is how Argentina jumped from 6th to 3rd (!) place, thanks mostly to the vicious salt they rubbed in France’s wounds, and is now the number 3 team in the world behind New Zealand who is number two. If, like me, you wonder how that works, it’s all explained here.

Never too old for online dating

Whilst I was surfing my favourite South African news site (favourite, because you don’t make you pay for it when you’re logging in from overseas like the other giant, Naspers, does), I came across this little gem advertised in the sidebar. It’s an online-dating web site’s advert that features random profiles.

Meant to entice you to join, it will give you a little bit of info about who you’re seeing and what they’re looking for. I had to screen-grab this one (might never see it again), because it amused me for several reasons.

First, for relatively conservative South Africa for this distinguished gentleman to date so publicly at all is a huge social achievement. Secondly, I know my mom took a good 10 years to get the hang of this online thing, so kudos to him for doing that too. Then, I think he’s quite possibly the oldest person I’ve ever seen using an online dating service.

It’s probably a bit nasty of me, but first thing I thought when I saw his profile pic was rich, lonely, and extremely rich.

Anyway, chaps to the guy. You gotta wonder how the responses he’s getting are going for him.

Water under Troubled Bridge

I think I might have been one of the first people to travel across the new flyover next to the Kadamunsing Shopping Centre the night that it was opened to the public. Have you noticed how it hangs to the right when you travel over it direction Damai?

I picked up this little morsel of goss from architect and engineering friends of mine the other day: apparently, and these are just rumours, I don’t pretend to state them as facts, they were saving costs. See, usually roads are built slightly higher (nearly imperceptible) in the middle and lower to the sides to facilitate the efficient run-off of water, but this means draining systems on both sides, which clearly is more costly than just doing it on one side. So, slant your bridge to the right and save yourself some dosh.

I’m not sure if they were cutting corners to do this, or whether they had planned it all along, but there you have it. By having the surface slant down from left to right, they only had to fit one side with drainage holes and pipes. Hmmm.

And, I’m not sure, but if there are some mathematical geniuses out there, they could calculate the difference in the volume of the earth/gravel/rubbish used to build the ramp on the Damai side of the bridge, vs. the volume that would be required to make that ramp a proper, smooth decline.

Damn, if you approached that end of the bridge going faster than 40 kph I’m convinced you’d catch some air on the way down. By making it so steep they must have saved tons of earth, or gravel or whatever it is they use to prop it up with, and I wonder how much stuff like that goes for per truck load.

KK Traffic Problems

KK doesn’t have traffic problems. KK has driver attitude problems.

It’s true, there’s possibly 2 cars for every person in KK, but I think the roads can actually handle it. The challenge we face is the every driver is only in it for himself, which is understandable, because if you give one guy a chance, the 5 behind him will take advantage.

In order to make it easier for everybody, everybody has to be kind, patient and giving on the road. If everybody doesn’t do it, nobody will do it, so I can understand that this is going to be an uphill battle. But by making small, attitude adjustments that require very little effort, everybody can contribute to alleviating the traffic situation in Kota Kinabalu.

Tip No.1: Park properly - For instance, in this picture I took today, I returned from lunch to find the car park packed. There was this space, but Mr. or Mrs. Park-I-Cant parked their car in a way which made this space unusable. You see this in car parks every, as if KK sells drivers licenses right next to Pay as You Go phone cards.

Sure, I can squeeze my car in there and then carefully slip through the narrow space I would be left with, but do you think Mr. or Mrs. Park-I-Cant will do the same? Probably not. They will come back and without much regard for my car take little bits of my car’s paint with them by scraping it with their bag / keys / small children or their own car door, thinking nothing of it. My car is already full of little nicks and cuts that mysteriously appear while it’s parked in car parks and I’m not near it.

So park properly, it’s no effort. And if you can’t expertly maneuver your car, please stay at home.

Tip No.2: You’re not the only road user, be considerate - I was forced to drive to KK’s CBD in the middle of the day. I didn’t want to, but I had to. And then what I knew would happen, happened. Stuck in a jam, crawling along at two steps per minute, little grandma’s with walking sticks looking like they’re running past my car.

So cars were pushing and shoving and not respecting yellow boxes and not letting anyone in, but I was patient. Aircon, music, I was ok. Then I circled the Capital Hotel block to look for parking, all the while crawling, when suddenly the Kinabalu Daya Hotel mini-bus in front of me stops. More traffic, I thought, but no - this driver gets out, opens the back and starts to unload supplies, linen, flowers and other rubbish for the hotel from his van.

My incredulous look, hands up asking wtf was only met with a smile and wave of the hand. What could I do? And while he gingerly took his time unpacking the stuff onto the sidewalk, traffic was building up behind me and spilling into the road in front of Little Italy, causing yet more traffic. Eventually, after a good 6 minutes of seeing how many eggs the Daya Hotel uses per day, he hopped in and crawled off. A little further down the road a parking space opened up and he rolled in. I was fuming.

Anyway, watch out for my How-to-solve-KK’s-traffic Tips Series coming up soon.

The Doulos has Left the Building

We went to visit the Doulos last night. Got there, long snaking line of course. Armed with our secret weapon, Julia, we just waltzed straight past and went to the staff entrance where Julia hooked us up with the main man, the Director of the ship, who in turn hooked us up with Marli, the very easy-on-the-eye Media Relations Officer of the ship. She took us through the staff entrance and gave us the skinny on the Doulos.

Check out that article coming up soon too. They left the KK harbour this morning, but they’ll be spending it at Sepangar Bay today, because that’s where they will be refueling before they leave for Brunei, their home for the next 7 days. After that it’s off to the Philippines for some down-time to do a 10 day dry-dock stint for repairs.

The Doulos is a worthwhile project, and if I could afford to go without pay for so long, I would actually consider joining it. If you can afford to live on the ship, do good is many different countries while you live off sponsorship, then do go check out their website at www.mvdoulos.org for the requirements.

And that wraps it up for Issue I of Random Snippets.

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