We Are The Littles

So, one of the fellers that works for me has a US visa that expires in March. He came last time I was here and asked if he could go back to the good’ol USA for more training before his visa expired. It’s very difficult for Nigerians to get US visas and they LOVE going to the States. Anyway, we put together a training schedule, I got his rooms and transportation booked, and away he went.

Now he’s back and happier than ever. So happy that he brought me a gift! It’s a
Curve gift set by Liz Claiborne.  It has body wash, cologne, & deodorant. I asked him if he was trying to tell me that I was smelly. He wasn’t.

In more exciting new, the new 24 Jack Bauer Power Double Hour movie prequel is on this Sunday night. I have my DVR set to record every blissful minute. Unfortunately I won’t get to watch it until I get home. The trailer is below for your viewing pleasure and is much better than the one I posted a while back. This one looks more like a John Rambo movie than your typical Jack Bauer affair. Oh, and it takes place in Afreeka. A place I’ve been a time or two.

Ok, so my plan was to get home with this newspaper, scan a few select articles, and upload them for all to enjoy. They’re not very enjoyable though. Interesting, yes. Entertaining, maybe if your strange like me. Anyway, the power pack for our work scanner at the apartment here has gone awol. I can’t use my travel scanner because I would have to cut the articles out & the newspaper belongs to another guy here and who is saving it since it’s rather outlandish.

The headline above is one story that is told in the first three clippings below. The fourth clipping is the second story and the last clipping is the third. Click the pics below in order to read the full articles.

Now you all really have to give us some credit for a truly original blog. You never know what you’ll find here. It could be crazy Nigerian newspaper articles, or maybe Carolina’s Culinary Creations, pictures of the young’ns acting goofy, political rants, and the occasional Gabe’s latest Gadgets post. Yes, we are mildly creative. Later.

Sorry, I still don’t have any exciting news to share. Just another day in Nigeria. This morning went by nice and smooth. I was busy, but not too busy. Then one o’clock rolls around and all hell breaks loose. I didn’t have enough hands, phones, or computers to keep up. The madness finally ended about 4:15pm. By then I was worn out.

In other news, my tiny little netbook computer got a virus. I NEVER get those on my machines! However, I broke my code and used a thumbdrive from one of the mud engineers because I’d all ready shut down my work computer. Bad idea and I know better. Every single machine, memory stick, CD, hard drive, you name in our office and in the field are infected with a million viruses. I finally got rid of the stupid thing yesterday and now it’s running fine again.

I took a video on the way to work this morning. It has no entertainment value what-so-ever but I guess a crappy video is better than no video at all. This area is always congested with thousands of people buying who knows what. I call it the Port Harcourt Wal-Mart. I also took a picture of one the tanks that is being built in our yard at work. The picture was taken the day after the election. No, I’m not getting on my soapbox again! Just showing you who the Nigerians were rooting for. Big surprise.

Last but not least… It’s holiday time in Nigeria just like it is everywhere else in the world. In order to continue doing business in this wonderful place we have to give gifts to the communities. Otherwise they’ll hijack our trucks more than they all ready do and make life even worse. The particular community in the letter below just finished threatening to storm the base and shut us down… Violently! Luckily the powers that be came to a an agreement with these people and we continued business as usual. However, it’s time for their end of year celebration and we have to provide them with:

1. 5 Live Cows
2. 20 Live Goats
3. 100 Bags of Rice
4. 5 Cartons of Assorted Hot Drinks / Spirits
5. 10 Crates of Minerals and 5 Crates of Malt Drinks

It’s the cost of doing business I guess. I cropped the letter because I don’t want these volatile folks coming after me! The big red machete in the middle probably still gives it away though. We’re not giving them everything they want. The goats and drinks aren’t happening.

Oh, and did I mention that Gabby rolled over for the first time on 11/17/08? MBM put her to sleep on her tummy and when she went to check on her she’d done flipped over to her back! She has yet to do it again.

I don’t have much to tell other than I’m finally getting a treadmill here in Port Harcourt! It’s been a long time coming, and it won’t be here immediately but it will be here.

The boss left for his USA vacation trip on Saturday so I hit him up Friday night when he was all happy about leaving. When I get home, I’m going to buy one (the same model I got for us at La Casa de Little) and I’ll have to deliver it somewhere in Houston to an international shipper that will put it in a cargo container and ship it over the water.

Hopefully it will be here by the time I return for my next hitch in January. That means I’ll have my weights and I’ll have my treadmill. Now if I could just ship MBM and the kids over in a cargo container all would be perfect.

Nah. I’ve just been internet-less or exhausted the last few days.

Like I said earlier, I didn’t have internet access on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Then Monday rolls around and it comes back. Problem was, I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep one single minute Monday night. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea. It just wasn’t happening. But, If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because I haven’t been exercising for the last few days due to the rain. So, maybe I just wasn’t tired enough. Who knows?

Tuesday was a whole different story. After being up for 40hrs or so I was more than ready to sleep. No problems that night. That brings us to Wednesday night. I just finished running (3mi), took my shower, and I’m settled in for the night.

I can’t say I have much news. I guess no news is good news. MBM is keeping busy with all of her cooking creations. The kids are still busy with school, karate, theatre, and playing outside. I’m still busy at work (no internet there for the last 2 days!) and the boss is heading out of town for a month on Friday. Bad news for me.

So, that’s about all I know. I did update Gabby’s site yet again tonight. Go see it and check out more funny pics of her Royal Hairness Heiness.

So, I’ve been internet-less for about 3 days now. It’s not nice since it’s my main source of communication & entertainment. However, I just got a text message from the internet provider and they say things are back to normal. Guess I’ll find out when I get home.

Since I don’t get paid to blog at work I’m outta here. Hopefully a better update will follow later this evening.

Don’t miss the 2hr movie on November 23rd. The series starts again on January 11th. I’ll be gone for both… Thank goodness for DVR’s!

Ok, back to the fun stuff. Although, this is kind of election related. Do any of you remember the Princess Leia Hologram from the first Star Wars moive waaaaaay back in 1977? You know, the “Help me Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” Yea, you probably do. Then there were the holographic chess pieces when Chewbacca & C-3PO were playing chess on the Millennium Falcon. Then there were all of the holographic conversations between Darth Vader and the Emperor. Yea, I’m sure you all remember those. That was 31 years ago (same age as yours truly). Well, it looks like life-size holograms are now being used in the mainstream media.

If any of you watched CNN last night you probably saw this. I didn’t watch so I didn’t see it until now. A short video is below for your perusal. You know how cool this is? Think about it. Who needs Skype when you have holograms. I could have a life-size holographic family show up in my living room in Nigeria one day! I could have a holographic baby momma cooking dinner, a holographic James & Justin playing soccer, a holographic Savannah acting like the Little Mermaid’s sister, and a holographic Gabby being entertained by her own hands and feet. Life size. Moving & talking in the same room. Would be cool huh?

One day… Hopefully I won’t be working in Nigeria anymore when that special holographic day comes.

I’m off to bed. Check out the video. It’s cool.

See latest stories on Yahoo! News

So, it’s election day. Did you get out and exercise your right to vote? I’m over here so I didn’t but I wish I would have. Not that it would have made a difference but at least I wouldn’t get any flack from MBM… She did vote today.

I’ve never been a fan of politics (not even the office kind) but this particular election peaked my interest. I even managed to watch all of the Presidential debates as well as the VP debate. A first in my lifetime. Not only did I watch the debates, but a certain person around our household who is interested in politics kept the TV on the Fox News Network (when it wasn’t on the Food Channel) so I learned quite a bit.

So now that you know that I’m an expert political analyst I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say I can’t believe Barack Hussein Osama Obama is going to be our next President. His name alone is enough to scare most people away. Who did we go to war with the last two times? Hussein & Obama Osama (sorry, keep confusing the two). Then you have the terrorist dude he likes to hang with, ACORN, and all of the other crazy scandals he’s been linked to.

Do people really think his economic plan is going to fix the country quicker? You’d think people would be tired of scandals after Enron, Fannie & Freddie, AIG, etc… Guess we all just want more punishment. Better buckle up folks because it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better!

**NOTE** This is all true because Joe Sixpack said so.

So, Friday I had a hankerin’ for some pancakes. I asked the cook to go to the store and buy some pancake mix and make’em on Saturday with some bacon and eggs. The store was out on Friday and Saturday was sanitation day which means nobody can be on the streets until 10:30am. So, he went back Saturday morning and got the stuff but by the time he returned the moment was gone. It was too late. No pancakes for me on Saturday.

I woke up this morning at my usual time, 5:30am, talked to MBM for a while and then decided to attempt my own pancakes (the cook has Sundays off). The result is below. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. The pancakes are just regular old pancakes. For the eggs I chopped up a FRESH clove of garlic, threw in some salt & pepper, and a little bit of cheese. Cheesy garleggs and pancakes.

Since it’s Sunday, the day of rest, I plan on doing as little as possible. I’m still on my push up quest and still trying to run as often as possible. I did a measly 2mi run yesterday, but I did a whopping 72 push ups on Friday! This Tuesday is my two week test to see how many I can do consecutively. Should be interesting.

That’s all I have for today. If you haven’t seen the Halloween pics MBM put up make sure to scroll down and check them out.

From POTD's