We Are The Littles

I’ve made my way to Lagos for the time being. I arrived yesterday afternoon after waiting out a torrential rainstorm at the airport in Port Harcourt. Of course the storm started at 1:30pm which is the time I was supposed to take off so I was delayed by 45min.

Anyway, I’m in the office today in Lagos finishing up some last minute things. My relief was supposed to fly to Port Harcourt early this morning but they held him up at the airport because apparently all hell broke loose this morning and things there are preeety tense.

I don’t know all the specifics, but I do know they were having a Carnival (think Rio) there today and all of the expats were told to stay home. Most of the roads were to be shut down between the hours of 8am and 4pm, including the one and only road to our office. There’s only one way in, only one way out. So, there’s a big Carnival, plenty of people gathered in large crowds, and the militants go crazy. They were blowing up cars, shooting at people, the whole militant 9 yards.

So, in the last month I know they’ve kidnapped one expat, shot up a convoy of expat rotators heading from the heliport to town (4 wounded, 2 critical condition), and now gone Carnival Crazy and blown up cars and shot at people. I don’t know if they managed to hit anyone with all of those bullets but I’d find it hard to believe otherwise.

So, I’m going home tomorrow and I got out in the nick of time!

What does 150,000 Nigerian Naira look like? I’m so glad you asked.

N150,000 Nigerian Naira

N150,000 is worth roughly $1275. These bills are mostly N500 notes.

• If these were $1 bills it would be $300
• If these were $5 bills it would be $1500
• If these were $20 bills it would be $6000
• If these were $100bills it would be $300,000!

But they’re not. They’re worth a little less than $5 each. I try to keep as much as I can on hand and flip it for $USD at the end of my hitch. Of course I always get a little less than the going rate but a little is better than none at all!

I updated Gabby’s site today too. Go have a peek.

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.

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.

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

I don’t think the tiny scorpions we used to find in Oklahoma would stand much of a chance next to this bad boy. Some of the guys found it on one of the trucks that came down from Northern Nigeria to deliver some stuff. No Q.o.U., they didn’t kill it. It was dead when they found it. I’m glad they don’t have critters like this where I’m at. Can you imagine stepping on one of these on your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night!!!??? Talk about a rude awakening.

In other news… There are some great new pictures over on Gabby’s Virtual Baby Book. MBM took the best one yet and it’s up for all to see. Go have a gander.

Good night.

From POTD's

My relief finally decided to show up. I’m going to Lagos to meet him and do a handover. That’s good because it gets me out of Port Harcourt 24hrs earlier than expected. It doesn’t get me home any quicker though since my flight to Germany doesn’t leave until late tomorrow night.

I’m sitting in the Port Harcourt International Airport, typing this out on my oh-so-trusty iPhone. I’ll be in Lagos before you read it though because there is no wireless connection here. Big surprise.

Even bigger surprise… They have George Jones music coming from somewhere behind one of the counters in the picture. Strange.

This is what I found in the tub this afternoon. Nice huh?

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, one year ago today I started my gig as #2 in Port Harcourt. I’ve officially been here one year. Or half a year since that’s all I work. Either way, I made it a year. The job is easier now that I have some sense of what I’m doing. That doesn’t make it or the people any less frustrating though. Oh, and the boss is away again for the next two weeks so #2 moves to the #1 spot. Now all I need is #1 pay and I’m happy. Anyway, as I always say… Nothing has changed. It’s the same Port Harcourt as it was one year ago. Definitely no better, but not worse either.

One thing I don’t remember from this time last year is all of this rain. It’s the rainy season and there have only been two dry days since I’ve been here. Most of the time it is fine during the day, but around 5:30pm or 6:00pm the rain starts. Right around the time I get home. Right around the time I’m supposed to run. I guess I should dust off that old jump rope that’s been sitting in my dresser drawer for the last year and give it a spin.

In other news, a hurricane is about to obliterate the Louisiana Gulf Coast again, MBM and crew are back in Wichita Falls, Weezer is back on Oklahoma City, & Kari and crew are moved into their new giant abode. Maybe not moved in, but they’re sleeping there.

That’s about all the time I have. Now it’s off to work. I’ll leave you with a slideshow of some of the pictures I’ve taken here over the last year or so.

And don’t forget about little Gabby next door. She’s having self-esteem issues with the lack of participation over at her corner of the internets. One comment each on the last two posts? Y’all are slippin’.

**EDIT** It looks like my slideshow is acting up. Hopefully it will start working later in the day.
****EDIT**** I’ve given up on the slideshow. I can’t even get the link to the gallery to work. Maybe next time.