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.

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.

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.

Yea, I know. I’m late on this one too. It’s not entirely my fault though. I’ve been trying to get the videos converted for the last 3 or 4 days and only managed to get them done and get them done right last night. None of my converting programs wanted to work and my Mac is at home so I was S.O.L.

Anyway, Savannah’s acting debut is below. She played the Little Mermaid’s sister in the play and did a great job. Don’t tell her I said that though or her head will probably explode.

The video is a little under 5min in length. Grab some popcorn and a drink, sit back, and enjoy the show!

Ok, so I made it to Frankfurt, Germany. Our flight was late but I still have a little time to waste. I usually call MBM when I get here but since I was late I figured it would be best not to as I might wake up the chubby wee-wun sleeping next to her and that would not bode well for me. Or her.

Anyway, the flight was uneventful which is just the way I like it. Not much else to tell other than leaving our abode and going back to Port Harcourt is getting harder and harder to do. However, I do try to always see the positive side of things and one of those positive things are the amazing Frankfurt Airport toilet seats. Don’t believe me? I’ve mentioned them before but never obtained proof on just how awesome these little beauties are. Video below for your viewing pleasure… Live from Germany. Gabe Little. Over & out.

Ok, so I’m back home and we’ve been busy. Very busy. Extremely busy.

The day I landed we had to hit HEB to grab some groceries since all of our food was lost during the hurricane. We didn’t have power at the house for about 4 days so the stuff that didn’t get taken and used by our friends had to go to the dump. HEB was the only store in the vicinity that had grub.

Sunday we went to church.

The kids finally went back to school today. They were out for more than a week. We noticed that we did get some water damage in our kitchen on our lovely hardwood floors. Gotta get the insurance folks involved in this one. We’ve cancelled our Comcast high-speed internet service and cable since they are awful. The internet only works when it wants to and it gets really old when your 6,300mi away and trying to talk to your wife and her internet keeps going out. So, AT&T will be out this Thursday to hook us up with better internet and cable. Hopefully better. We got free installation and all that jazz and the monthly charge is about the same for more services. Comcast bites. 

I also switched our home phone service from Comcast (they bite) to a VOIP line from Vonage. It’s only $25/mth and we get unlimited local and long-distance calling to anywhere in the USA and some other places we’ll never call. 

Then I got a quote on a fence to keep Rocky contained. It’s not cheap. Hopefully I’ll get that done before I leave again. 

Today we went to IKEA to get furniture for the boys room since they have virtually no place to put their clothes and toys. We walked out of there with two dressers, one big multi-drawer thingy for their toys, and a couple of cool lockers for their room. Now I have to put them all together! That’s not the worst part though. The worst part is that IKEA had no air-conditioning so we had to shop in the 90deg heat. I was not happy. Not only that, the store is laid out in such a way you have to walk down every single aisle to get to the check-out counters. EVERY SINGLE AISLE and the place is huge. The prices might be right but the layout pretty much stinks when there is no A/C. I understand their selling tactics but I don’t like’em.

Gabby is being Gabby. Pretty and prissy and happy more often than not. I’ve taken a few new pics that I’ll put up on her site tomorrow (hopefully). In the meantime, you can see a silly video I took by clicking here.

I found a tiny little snake outside last night. Picture below. 

Carolina is at her latest cake-making class at Lonestar College. The class was supposed to begin at 6pm and the instructor is nowhere to be found. It’s now 6:21pm. There are other people there waiting with her so she has the right day, time, and class location. Lonestar College bites too!

And… We’ve started our running routine again. We ran last Friday and today and plan on running 4 days a week for 3 to 4mi per day. Hopefully I’ll get it back up to 5 or 6mi again soon. I need it. 

O’yea, the boys have also started back with Karate and Savannah is rehearsing for her play after school. The play will run from Oct. 15 - 20. Expect video of that when the time comes. I’m hoping to embarass her royally when she gets on stage.

Ok, baby momma is away so baby daddy has to go scrounge something up for din-din. Poor children don’t know what they’re in for with my cooking!

We’ll start posting regularly again… Assuming we can find time!

From POTD's

This is what happens when the boys feel like being mischievous!

Ok, it rained again today. I mean really rained. I mean sumthin’ fierce. Not all was bad though because we left work 30 minutes early so we wouldn’t get bogged down in traffic. If you think people can’t drive there when it rains (especially Houston) you should see them here. It’s utter chaos. Anyway, there isn’t much chaos in the video below but I think you’ll find it interesting nonetheless.

It’s another boring night here. Only a few more to go. My relief still doesn’t have his visa which is a little troubling in my otherwise bright & cheery future. He’s supposed to be here Friday so we have time to go over everything. Only problem is I’ll have to do my real job all day and going over everything is going to be almost impossible. Good luck new dude. Sink or swim is what I always say.

Other than that, all I’ve been doing is downloading new software to try out. All freebies of course. I got iTunes 8.0. I’m not all that impressed. It’s not bad, just not an evolutionary step forward. I got the new Google browser called Chrome. I am impressed with it. It’s super fast, nice and small, and doesn’t get in your way like so many others. I also downloaded the Opera browser, which is what i’m using right now to create this very post. It’s similar to FireFox in some ways and has a few bells and whistles I wanted to try out. Finally, there’s Picasa3. I might have said this before but just in case you missed it… IF YOU’RE NOT USING PICASA & YOU HAVE A DIGITAL CAMERA YOU’RE MISSING THE BOAT.

Anyway, that’s about all I have for today. Over & out.

So, I pulled out my camera the night before last to make sure it was charged. I haven’t touched it since I got here which is rather strange. Anyway, the batteries were dead. I charged it over night and then headed out the next day to the mud plants. On the way there I turned it on to make sure everything was in working order and I found a bunch of pictures and video from the trip Justin & I took to the Houston Aquarium. We went the day before I left to come back to Nigeria and I never downloaded them.

I made the video below using the brand-spankin’ new version of Picasa from Google. I’m a big Picasa fan. You should all go download it now. It’s free. It works great. It’s the software that should have come with your camera in the first place.

Anyway, check out the video below. It’s a combination of the pictures and video. However, the pictures and captions are too small so go to the the Houston Aquarium Gallery to see the full-size version of the pics. Oh, and stay tuned for the entire video because there are a couple of them that are pretty cool.

Now I have to go pick my nose or something.