Thursday, December 10, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
1st day of work . . . .
No fun pictures to accompany this post. Today has been all about work.
My travels went as planned and I managed to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep on the flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi and I felt reasonably refreshed when I landed at 7 AM. Cleared customs and found my luggage without any troubles and our driver (and my friend) Jasan was there to meet me and take me to my hotel.
I was told that I had about 2 hours until Jasan would come back to the hotel to take the 7 of us from the US to work. I had a light breakfast with a few of my colleagues and then went up to my room to unpack and take a shower. It felt good to get out those clothes I had been wearing for the last 40 hours.
Not much to tell you about work, except that there was plenty to go around. Here it is now, 6:30 PM and we're all still here, going strong. As usual, we're behind on getting the questions from our editorial staff, but as usual, we'll handle it with no problems.
Safe and sound here on the ground in Nairobi, I'll post more when I have more to say.
My travels went as planned and I managed to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep on the flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi and I felt reasonably refreshed when I landed at 7 AM. Cleared customs and found my luggage without any troubles and our driver (and my friend) Jasan was there to meet me and take me to my hotel.
I was told that I had about 2 hours until Jasan would come back to the hotel to take the 7 of us from the US to work. I had a light breakfast with a few of my colleagues and then went up to my room to unpack and take a shower. It felt good to get out those clothes I had been wearing for the last 40 hours.
Not much to tell you about work, except that there was plenty to go around. Here it is now, 6:30 PM and we're all still here, going strong. As usual, we're behind on getting the questions from our editorial staff, but as usual, we'll handle it with no problems.
Safe and sound here on the ground in Nairobi, I'll post more when I have more to say.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Layover in Amsterdam
Well, I've started my travels for Zain Africa Challenge 2010, Season 4. I left on Thursday at 4:15pm from Los Angeles International airport on a great big KLM 747 bound for Amsterdam. I got to sit upstairs in their business class only seating, but it was no big deal. Neither was their service. A short 9 1/2 hours later and we were landing in Amsterdam.I had nearly 10 hours to kill before my flight to Nairobi, so I locked my carry-on bags into an airport locker and went through customs to spend a few hours touristing. It was easy to catch a train from the station at the airport that took my exactly into the city center of Amsterdam in about 15 minutes. That's a picture of the train station, above.
The first thing I noticed was, it's cold! About 48 degrees. I was glad to have packed my ski shell and a wool scarf in my carry-on because I was very comfortable dressed that way. The next thing I noticed was the traffic. There are more bicycles in Amsterdam than autos. You see them parked everywhere, cluttering the streets and they even have multi-level bike parking lots.
I dodged the bikes as I crossed the streets leaving the train station and saw a number of boating companies in the large canal there offering canal tours in long narrow glass covered boats. I bought a ticket on a tour that was just leaving and saw the sights of Amsterdam from the water for the next hour. Marion will be happy to know that there 
were no messy seagulls dive-bombing us, no rotten kids dumping buckets of water from bridges on passing boats, and that the glass roof would have protected us if they did.After my boat ride I decided to walk around the city for a while. I had no plan of what to see or what to do. I knew what I wasn't looking to do. I had no interest in visiting one of Amsterdam's famous coffee houses, of which I saw (and smelled) several. That would be a stupid reason to miss my connecting flight.
I was more interested in the wonderful bakeries and cheese shops I saw. These Dutch love thier cheese; Gouda, Edam, Jarlsberg, big yellow wheels of cheese everywhere you look. I passed on sampling the cheese though and set my sights on a treat that I remember from previous trips to Germany; Dutch Patats. What the Germans call Pommes Frittes and we call French Fries, the Dutch call them Patats and they cut these Belgian potatoes into small wedge-shaped fries and fry them in I don't know what. 
Then they serve them hot in a paper cone and covered with a mess of your choice of sauces. I chose curry sauce, something between a red curry and a bar-b-que sauce. You eat it with a little wooden fork the size of a toothpick. Yum!
Then they serve them hot in a paper cone and covered with a mess of your choice of sauces. I chose curry sauce, something between a red curry and a bar-b-que sauce. You eat it with a little wooden fork the size of a toothpick. Yum! After that I headed back to the airport on the train and still had 4 hours to kill. I got some work done and posted this blog, but now it's just about time to board my flight to Nairobi on Kenya Air.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Halloween 2009
We had a very fun Halloween season this year. It all started with a trip to the Pumpkin patch at Faulkner Farms. They had a pumpkin-lobbing trebuchet that would launch a gourd 100 feet away to it's gut-splashing death.On Halloween day we started off with Nik's AYSO soccer game, and then it was time to rush home to prepare for the evening.
This is the first year that both Brodie and Nik could really take part in preparing their own pumpkins for carving. Neither of them were too happy with putting their hands in the squishy guts.They both created their own design for their Jack O' Lanterns and I helped them carve.
Meanwhile, Marion was getting the house ready for a Halloween party we were hosting for Brodie and Nik's friends. We were having about 9 kids and their parents over for games like Skeleton scavenger hunt (find the bones hidden in our yard,) Which Witch? (where each kid demonstrated their psychic skills by reading the minds of the others,) and mummy wrap contest.
She also prepared some spooky treats. The punch bowl had two scary hands floating in it, and the apple slices were dressed up as vampire's mouths with slivered almond fangs. She also served freshly sliced flesh for the grownups (prosciutto on toasted baguette with cream cheese.)
Brodie wanted to be the Terminator for Halloween, so I bought a small makeup kit to cyborg him up. It seemed a shame to let the rest of the makeup go to waste, so we dressed-up Nik's pizza guy costume to make him a Zombie Pizza Guy; "Want a slice?!" I don't usually dress up for Halloween, but since I was hosting the party I thought I should make some effort so I did myself up as The Joker from Batman.
Everyone from the party trick-or-treated as a group in the neighborhood of new homes behind our house. The houses were built very close together with the front doors very close to the side walk, so we were able to visit a lot of homes in a short time. Unfortunately we didn't stop after a short time. The boys returned home at 9 o'clock after more than 2 hours of trick-or-treating, and only stopped because their arms hurt from carrying their heavy bags of loot.Monday, October 19, 2009
A visit to FoxSports NFL coverage
I got a unique opportunity yesterday to watch a NFL game from great seats. The father of one of the boys on the AYSO soccer team that I coach, Jason Carter, works with Fox Sports and helps broadcast their NFL games. He works for the company that puts the yellow first-down line on the screen, amongst other graphics. That's him on the right, clicking on the his screen to place the blue line that marks the postion of the ball. On the left is Jeff whose job is to constantly monitor the dozen shades of green and brown on the field and set the filter to block them out when their graphics are displayed without drawing the graphics over the chalk lines on the field, the players, the ball and everything else.
Sitting next to them was Ty who works the FoxBox. This display updates the info seen at the top of the screen with the score, the game clock, the down and distance and the live scores of other games around the country. When a penalty flag is thrown he clicks on his "Flag" button and the display on the screen automatically updates.
My credential gave me access to all parts of the stadium and to all parts of the production areas. During the second half I watched part of the game from the main truck where director Sandy Grossman and producer Michael Burks were calling the game. Both of these guys have won Emmys for their sports television coverage and they've both worked on Super Bowl broadcasts as well as many other sporting events.
Jason encouraged me to wander around during the game and take advantage of my pass, so I went to the press level and visited the broadcast booth where announcers Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan called the game. I also stopped by the press booth while I was up there. 
My visit wasn't just for fun. I was hoping to see how they linked their statistics-tracking computers with their graphics-building computers to generate graphics such as the one pictured above. This is similar to what I am tring to do with my work on the Zain Africa Challenge TV show in Africa and I was hoping to pick up some clues on how I might accomplish this.
Unfortunately, their approach was decidedly low-tech. There was a group of 4 or 5 guys in the back row of the truck tracking game statistics with tally-marks on note pads and then yelling out the numbers when needed to the guy at the graphics computer who would type the numbers in by hand.Never the less, it was a great experience to get to watch them produce a Network NFL game and I'm glad for the chance to have done it.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Channel Coast Divers
Last year Marion helped found a diving team here in Ventura, the Channel Coast Divers. Brodie has been diving for about a year now and is making some good progress.
Here's some video of him I shot at practice this week.
Here's some video of him I shot at practice this week.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
5K Run
We ran in the YMCA family fun and fitness 5K yesterday as a family. I've got to tell you, I haven't run 3 miles all at once in probably 30 years. The last time we ran, in a YMCA 2K fun run (which is about 1.2 miles) I jogged about a quarter mile, then walked a hundred yards or so to get my breath, then jogged some more, then walked and, you get the idea.
Yesterday I set out with no great expectations. I started out with about 150 runners down the course and just tried to stay within my head. My breathing was pretty easy and I didn't try to keep pace with anyone else. We made the turn at the end of the first street and headed up a slight incline. Uphill, even slightly, seemed to take much more effort, but I kept my breathing even and pushed on.
I was surprised when, still jogging, I passed a chalk marking on the street announcing 1 mile. Wow! I hadn't been able to jog a mile since Marion and I first started dating. I stopped at the water station for a second and then ran on. I had been slightly ahead of Nik and Marion for most of the way, but soon I heard the slapping of Nik's tiny shoes running up behind me. Marion, Nik and I ran together for the next mile or so, and yes, I was still running.
In our third mile, on the way back to the finish line, we had more uphill running. Nik and Marion slowly pulled away from me and I was running alone. They ended up finishing about 150 yards ahead of me, but finish I did! Brodie had run by himself the whole way ahead of us and he finished about 1 minute before Nik and Marion. Brodie's time earned him the 3rd place award for 10 and under boys and he got a medal. Nik's finish was captured by a photographer from the Ventura Star and appeared in Sunday's newspaper. You can view the article by clicking here:http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/jul/26/ventura-family-ymca-holds-fun-and-fitness-5k-run/
So, how was I able to run 3 miles? I've been training with a personal trainer 5 days a week for the last 3 weeks. They work me so hard that sometimes I don't know if I am going to pass-out or puke, and both are a possibility. During the 3 weeks I have seen my stamina increasing, and I guess this run shows that it's made a difference. That being said, I am sooooo sore today, as is my whole family. You know it's bad when your 5 year old complains about muscle soreness. Never-the-less, I am proud of my whole family for running together and finishing strong.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Brodie and Nik's Tree Fort
Well, it was a long time coming, but construction of Brodie and Nik's backyard tree fort has finally been completed and the grand opening was celebrated on Saturday afternoon.
This structure sits over 9 feet high in the branches of the 40 year old plum tree in our backyard. I've never tried to build anything even remotely this difficult before, and my computer-programmer hands are blistered and raw from the effort. I relied greatly on the help and experience of my neighbor Chuck Yuncker in coming up with the final plan and executing it safely. It's a scary thing to trust your children's safety to the inexperienced carpentry skills of their father, so I appreciate Chuck's suggestions to make sure this was properly built.
Although it sits nestled in the cradle of branches of the tree, almost none of the weight is borne by the tree itself, but instead it is supported at the top of four 4X4 beams bolted to brackets set in concrete poured almost 2 feet deep. Even so, there's still a few inches of sway at the top of those beams when people are moving around up there, which is as it should be in a tree house, I say.
I started work on this in January before my first trip to Africa, but only got the concrete foundations poured before I had to leave on my trip. When I returned 2 weeks later I was so exhausted that I wasn't able to work on it for my first 5 days at home. I only had one more week before I was to leave again for Africa and I was determined to finish it before I left. I worked on it every afternoon and made good progress, but Mother Nature intervened before I could finish. I only had one day's work left to finish the ladder stairs when it started to rain, and it rained for the last 2 days before I again boarded a plane for Africa. I felt bad leaving again with it undone, but there was nothing to do about it.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Pete the Bird
Out of all the animals that you might see when visiting Africa, one of the most amazing is the Marabou Stork. This impressive and ugly bird can stand nearly 5 feet tall and have a wing-span approaching 10 feet wide.
In 2008 during our first extended visit here to Kampala for the taping of season 2 our director, Dennis, was having lunch with our executive producer, Richard, on the patio at the Serena hotel. As they were dining there they noticed these gigantic birds walking not far away in the gardens. Never having seen a bird like this before they asked the waiter, "What is the name of that bird there?" The waiter said he didn't know, but he would find out for them.
He came back a few minutes later and informed them that, "The bird's name is Peter, but I don't know his surname."
In both Kampala and Nairobi you can see large flocks of Marabou soaring high in the sky and you often see dozens of them nesting in the trees.
My friend, Raj, in trying to describe these birds described them as "nearly Beryl-sized", referring to a member of our Nairobi staff, pictured here. For the record, Beryl has nicer legs.
In 2008 during our first extended visit here to Kampala for the taping of season 2 our director, Dennis, was having lunch with our executive producer, Richard, on the patio at the Serena hotel. As they were dining there they noticed these gigantic birds walking not far away in the gardens. Never having seen a bird like this before they asked the waiter, "What is the name of that bird there?" The waiter said he didn't know, but he would find out for them.
He came back a few minutes later and informed them that, "The bird's name is Peter, but I don't know his surname."In both Kampala and Nairobi you can see large flocks of Marabou soaring high in the sky and you often see dozens of them nesting in the trees.
My friend, Raj, in trying to describe these birds described them as "nearly Beryl-sized", referring to a member of our Nairobi staff, pictured here. For the record, Beryl has nicer legs.
Friday, February 20, 2009
A Walk Through Kampala, Uganda
Yesterday after we finished taping, instead of going to the Fitness Centre here at the hotel I asked John Sibi-Okumu (JSO, the host of our show) if he would take a walk with me through the city. Click on the slide show, below, to go directly to my Google Picasa web album.
In two weeks here this was my first, and possibly my only chance to get outside of the hotel where I live and work. It was a warm and humid afternoon when JSO and I started on our walk at about 5pm.
We started off walking down towards the Sheraton and after walking through the beautiful lobby of that hotel we walked into their gardens, which also serves as something of a public park. Exiting the gardens on the opposite side we walked along the busy streets. The traffic in Kampala, like much of Africa, is incredible. The cars and trucks are packed closely together, and boda-boda motorcycle taxis weave in and out of any open space. Trucks with 20 men standing in the back drove by, but we were unable to grab photos of that. I needed to be careful in openly taking pictures on the streets as some people might be offended, so we took our pictures of street scenes by pretending to take pictures of each other and then shifting the focus of our camera at the last minute.
Our walk took us to the famous Nakasero Market, a large public market not for tourists but for those who live here. Hundreds and hundreds of small stalls crammed under a shelter where you could buy produce, spices and other food stuffs, and household goods of all kinds. It was a wild scene with the shoppers packed almost as closely as the vendor's stalls. It was my favorite thing I've seen on this trip, by far.
Our walk took us along the busy streets and many times we had to cross them. You take your life in your hands crossing the street; The cars and boda-boda don't slow at all and sometimes drive so close to the side walk that you are nearly swiped by their side mirrors. Plus, they drive on the wrong side of the street here, so I'm always looking the wrong way when I want to cross.
JSO took me to a nice little curio shop hidden under a street in a subterranean shopping area and I had my first and only chance to add some money to the Ugandan economy.
It was a wonderful time and a very different view of Kampala than that which I see from the hotel balcony.
In two weeks here this was my first, and possibly my only chance to get outside of the hotel where I live and work. It was a warm and humid afternoon when JSO and I started on our walk at about 5pm.
We started off walking down towards the Sheraton and after walking through the beautiful lobby of that hotel we walked into their gardens, which also serves as something of a public park. Exiting the gardens on the opposite side we walked along the busy streets. The traffic in Kampala, like much of Africa, is incredible. The cars and trucks are packed closely together, and boda-boda motorcycle taxis weave in and out of any open space. Trucks with 20 men standing in the back drove by, but we were unable to grab photos of that. I needed to be careful in openly taking pictures on the streets as some people might be offended, so we took our pictures of street scenes by pretending to take pictures of each other and then shifting the focus of our camera at the last minute.
Our walk took us to the famous Nakasero Market, a large public market not for tourists but for those who live here. Hundreds and hundreds of small stalls crammed under a shelter where you could buy produce, spices and other food stuffs, and household goods of all kinds. It was a wild scene with the shoppers packed almost as closely as the vendor's stalls. It was my favorite thing I've seen on this trip, by far.
Our walk took us along the busy streets and many times we had to cross them. You take your life in your hands crossing the street; The cars and boda-boda don't slow at all and sometimes drive so close to the side walk that you are nearly swiped by their side mirrors. Plus, they drive on the wrong side of the street here, so I'm always looking the wrong way when I want to cross.
JSO took me to a nice little curio shop hidden under a street in a subterranean shopping area and I had my first and only chance to add some money to the Ugandan economy.
It was a wonderful time and a very different view of Kampala than that which I see from the hotel balcony.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Happy Birthday Brodie!
10 years ago today my first son, Brodie, came into the world and changed my life in wonderful and magical ways. Before that day I thought that love was something that was finite, something you stored in a jar, and if you wanted to share it with more people each would get a smaller share.Brodie showed me that love multiplies. When he came into our lives he filled our home with more love than we had ever before known.
Brodie is smart, generous, curious, kind and above all, loving. He is one of the brightest lights in my life, and I'm sorry not to be at home with him on this day when he celebrates his first decade on this planet. I've no doubt that if he wants to, he will celebrate some of his birthdays on other planets, too.
Brodie, I love you, I miss you, and we'll celebrate when Dad comes home.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
To Sleep, Perchance To Dream
When Hamlet gave his famous soliloquy with these words he was contemplating suicide. Thankfully, that has not been much in my thoughts (except for about 3 hours on Friday night when things were going particularly bad.) My thoughts have been more about peaceful sleep.
The long hours that we work here are not conducive to rest. We normally work at least 15 hours each day and sometimes as many as 19. When you finally get a chance to get to your room and lie down your mind is still churning away so that sleep doesn't come quickly or last very long. Couple that with the 11 hour time difference and the resulting jet-lag, and you can see that good sleep is hard to come by.
On Saturday night after our first day of taping our Director, Dennis, asked me to try and fix an annoying problem with the video output from my computer, a white raster flash that occured every time a new question was displayed. I worked from 8 until 10:30 on the problem without finding a solution, so I decided to 'sleep on it'. This was the first time since I had arrived that I had been able to get to bed before 1am, and in 6 nights in Uganda I had yet to sleep for more than 4 hours. I fell asleep quickly and slept well until about 2:30am when I woke up with the solution to Dennis' problem. Apparently sleeping on it actually works! I lay in bed for a while going over the solution in my head and was excited to find that it should actually work. Well, there was no more sleep to be had that night, so at 4:30 I got out of bed and showered and then headed down to the control room to re-program my application to institute the change. It worked perfectly, by the way.
Sunday night was my first good night's sleep. I got to bed at 10:30pm and woke to something I had never seen before in my room, and it scared me half to death. Daylight! I opened my eyes to see light coming through the window in my room and I bolted out of bed in a panic, thinking that I had overslept and was late getting down to the control room. Actually, it was only 6:45am, and I had plenty of time for a shower and breakfast before work, but the adrenalin rush lasted for several hours.
Monday night was another good night's sleep; I was actually awakened by the alarm on my cell phone, which I have turned on and put into Airplane Mode just so I can use it as an alarm clock. On Tuesday we had our fourth day of taping and finally reached the half-way point. It was my best day, energy-wise, so far.
Wednesday is a 'dark day' here, which is to say, a day off from taping. All of the participants and most of the crew were being sent out on tours to Jinja, the source of the Nile river. Mary also arranged a night out at a club for our crew on Tuesday night with a special reserved area for them with bottle service, all payed for by the production. This was a great chance for the crew to get together and socialize, blow off some steam, get rip-roaring drunk and then have the next day open to sleep it off.
As much fun as that sounded, I opted to stay at the hotel and turn in early again. Sleep is more fun.
The long hours that we work here are not conducive to rest. We normally work at least 15 hours each day and sometimes as many as 19. When you finally get a chance to get to your room and lie down your mind is still churning away so that sleep doesn't come quickly or last very long. Couple that with the 11 hour time difference and the resulting jet-lag, and you can see that good sleep is hard to come by.
On Saturday night after our first day of taping our Director, Dennis, asked me to try and fix an annoying problem with the video output from my computer, a white raster flash that occured every time a new question was displayed. I worked from 8 until 10:30 on the problem without finding a solution, so I decided to 'sleep on it'. This was the first time since I had arrived that I had been able to get to bed before 1am, and in 6 nights in Uganda I had yet to sleep for more than 4 hours. I fell asleep quickly and slept well until about 2:30am when I woke up with the solution to Dennis' problem. Apparently sleeping on it actually works! I lay in bed for a while going over the solution in my head and was excited to find that it should actually work. Well, there was no more sleep to be had that night, so at 4:30 I got out of bed and showered and then headed down to the control room to re-program my application to institute the change. It worked perfectly, by the way.
Sunday night was my first good night's sleep. I got to bed at 10:30pm and woke to something I had never seen before in my room, and it scared me half to death. Daylight! I opened my eyes to see light coming through the window in my room and I bolted out of bed in a panic, thinking that I had overslept and was late getting down to the control room. Actually, it was only 6:45am, and I had plenty of time for a shower and breakfast before work, but the adrenalin rush lasted for several hours.
Monday night was another good night's sleep; I was actually awakened by the alarm on my cell phone, which I have turned on and put into Airplane Mode just so I can use it as an alarm clock. On Tuesday we had our fourth day of taping and finally reached the half-way point. It was my best day, energy-wise, so far.
Wednesday is a 'dark day' here, which is to say, a day off from taping. All of the participants and most of the crew were being sent out on tours to Jinja, the source of the Nile river. Mary also arranged a night out at a club for our crew on Tuesday night with a special reserved area for them with bottle service, all payed for by the production. This was a great chance for the crew to get together and socialize, blow off some steam, get rip-roaring drunk and then have the next day open to sleep it off.
As much fun as that sounded, I opted to stay at the hotel and turn in early again. Sleep is more fun.
Monday, February 16, 2009
An Army Marches On Its Stomach
As I write this, it is one in the afternoon and we are just coming back from our lunch break after having recorded 2 more shows this morning.In years past, the quality of the food has been one of the biggest complaints of the American staff working here in Uganda. It's not just that the food has been different from that to which we are accustomed (which it has,) but that sometimes the food has made us physically ill.
In the most memorable example from the first year, the caterers prepared finger sandwiches for afternoon tea, which the crew descended upon with gusto. Unfortuately, the warm mayonnaise dressing did not fare well in the 95 degree heat there and we ended up losing almost 20 percent of our crew the next few days to food poisoning, some of them even needing hospitalization.
Last year in season 2 every meal was a buffet of indistinguishable hunks of meat simmered in some saucy stew served with rice, usually chicken or goat. While goat is a delicacy here in east Africa, usually reserved for feasts, it did not appeal to our American crew day after day, especially as it appeared to have been butchered by a blind man with a meat cleaver; Bones hacked in half, weird joints in the middle of a hunk of meat, gristle and sinew in every bite, it became the joke of the event, "Try the goat!"
In this, our third season, we would be spending a week longer here to tape double the number of shows as previous seasons and Mary and her staff realized that morale would be an issue, so they devoted considerable effort to the menus that the hotel would be serving. Mary already works 27 hours a day on this project, and indeed, moved from California to Kenya this year to make even better use of her limited time, so for her to spend hours on the crew menu shows that it had some importance to her.
She and her staff came with cookbooks and their own recipes from home and together taught the Ugandan kitchen Chef to make chili, tacos, jerk chicken and Philly cheese-steak. They have arranged a nice variety of themed meals to break up the monotony, and provided comfort foods to help us better manage the incredible stress that comes with this production. Yesterday at lunch we even had some honest-to-goodness chocolate ice cream.
It has definitely made a difference this year for most of us, and had made this sometimes hellish experience less unpleasant. Having said this, I've just this moment been informed that tonight's menu includes goat. Seriously. Oh, well.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Battle and Television
They say that, "Battle is long periods of boredom punctuated by short bursts of terror." Well, television is like that, too.
After 5 days of everything going relatively smoothly all hell broke loose on Friday night, right before we started taping on Saturday morning. A glitch developed in my program that was throwing a white raster flash on the screen every time a question was displayed, and it needed to be fixed and proven before we could start taping, but I couldn't get to work on that because I was also needed to record student intros, a mind-numbing process that required me to click a button once every 2 or 3 minutes. Unfortunately it was once every 2 or 3 minutes for over 3 hours. When we stopped at 8:30pm I had a quick dinner and then finally got working on my fix.
I worked on that until after 1am and then I still had 90 minutes more work to get the questions for the first day into my computer for taping. This night was a flashback to year one of the show, probably the worst 2 weeks of my life. I stumbled to bed after 2:30am and set my alarm for 4 hours later. I was due on the set by 7am.
My late-night fix worked perfectly the next day, and we taped our first 4 shows without hardly any problems. My biggest challenge was staying awake and alert the whole time. After finishing only 15 minutes late for the day, I had another 3 hours of boring student intros to tape.
Now it is Sunday evening here and we've just finished day 2 of taping and got another 4 shows recorded without any troubles. Once again I am in the middle of another 3 hours of student intros, but this time, for the first time in 3 days I have my computer back and I am able to check emails and post to my blogs again.
We have 3 more days of player intros to tape after this, and 6 more days of taping 4 shows a day before I get to go home again. We're barely a quarter of the way through, but I feel like I might be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe that's just the muzzle flash of the cannon.
After 5 days of everything going relatively smoothly all hell broke loose on Friday night, right before we started taping on Saturday morning. A glitch developed in my program that was throwing a white raster flash on the screen every time a question was displayed, and it needed to be fixed and proven before we could start taping, but I couldn't get to work on that because I was also needed to record student intros, a mind-numbing process that required me to click a button once every 2 or 3 minutes. Unfortunately it was once every 2 or 3 minutes for over 3 hours. When we stopped at 8:30pm I had a quick dinner and then finally got working on my fix.
I worked on that until after 1am and then I still had 90 minutes more work to get the questions for the first day into my computer for taping. This night was a flashback to year one of the show, probably the worst 2 weeks of my life. I stumbled to bed after 2:30am and set my alarm for 4 hours later. I was due on the set by 7am.My late-night fix worked perfectly the next day, and we taped our first 4 shows without hardly any problems. My biggest challenge was staying awake and alert the whole time. After finishing only 15 minutes late for the day, I had another 3 hours of boring student intros to tape.
Now it is Sunday evening here and we've just finished day 2 of taping and got another 4 shows recorded without any troubles. Once again I am in the middle of another 3 hours of student intros, but this time, for the first time in 3 days I have my computer back and I am able to check emails and post to my blogs again.
We have 3 more days of player intros to tape after this, and 6 more days of taping 4 shows a day before I get to go home again. We're barely a quarter of the way through, but I feel like I might be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe that's just the muzzle flash of the cannon.The pictures above show how the signal from my computer is fed into Helge's switcher where it is composited with many other layers and signals into the polished video package that will play on TV.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Ready For Rehearsals
It's Thursday evening here, and we're finally getting everything locked-in, just in time for rehearsals to start on the set tomorrow. We start taping shows on Saturday, so Friday is our only day to get it all together. Here you see Helge, our technical director from Germany hashing out last-minute details with Peter and the crew from Focus in the Netherlands.
Our set has been painted in the new colors from the palette of Zain, the sponsor. The lights are being set and programmed, and here in the control room the cameras have been tuned and synchronized. 
After doing three days of run-thrus with the host of the show, my program is thoroughly tested and I feel ready to go. The questions for the 1st day's taping are ready, and the questions for the 2nd day are in their final stages. The hope, by the time we start taping on Saturday is to be 3 days ahead in preparing the questions for TV.
After doing three days of run-thrus with the host of the show, my program is thoroughly tested and I feel ready to go. The questions for the 1st day's taping are ready, and the questions for the 2nd day are in their final stages. The hope, by the time we start taping on Saturday is to be 3 days ahead in preparing the questions for TV.On the set we have this marvelous rear-projection big-screen with an image so crisp and sharp it looks like it was painted on. The secret to the incredible image is the projector, which features a 12,000 Watt bulb. It's so powerful, I'm surprised it doesn't melt the screen. As expensive as this projector must be, we can't afford to be without it for the show, so we have a back-up ready to go.
Tonight I enjoyed dinner with our director, Dennis, our show's host, John, and Richard, the executive producer. We spent a leisurely 90 minutes at dinner being educated by John Sibi-Okumu on the finer points of the game of cricket. Walimu (teacher, in Swahili) demonstrated his deliberate teaching style in a lesson that lasted nearly as long as a cricket match, but was definitely more entertaining.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Morning Hijinx
Here in Kampala it rains nearly everyday, not that I ever see any of it. I've been in the hotel for 3 days now and only been in the open air once, but it rains whether I'm there to see it or not.
I was reminded of that this morning. I was enjoying breakfast at a table near the window to the outside patio when I heard a torrent of water pour down. The tables on the patio sit under the cover of a giant canopy and the canvas was sagging under the weight of all the captured rain-water from the previous night. One of the hotel workers had gone out with a broom to poke at the canvas from underneath and allow the water to pour off the edge. Peter, the 6-foot-tall leader of our Dutch production crew was outside enjoying a smoke and decided to use his height to help out. As he tugged on the edge of the canvas to stretch it out and release the water he was pushed under the cascade by one of his coworkers and drenched. A wrestling match between the two resulted in Peter getting his revenge on Remie.The Eagle Has Landed
At 5:30 Monday evening my luggage finally arrived, 30 hours after I did.
It turns out that I didn't need to travel to the airport and back to get it. I don't know who was paid or how much, but I'm grateful that it's done.
After taking 5 minutes to unpack, I applied a liberal layer of deoderant and changed into my sneakers. True happiness lies in the small details.
It turns out that I didn't need to travel to the airport and back to get it. I don't know who was paid or how much, but I'm grateful that it's done.
After taking 5 minutes to unpack, I applied a liberal layer of deoderant and changed into my sneakers. True happiness lies in the small details.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Day 1 In Uganda
After 3 flights and over 32 hours of travel I arrived at the Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala at 11AM on Sunday. Unfortunately, my suitcase didn't make it with me.
We had a very short 1 hour 15 minute connection in Nairobi and we had been unable to check our bags all the way through to Entebbe, so we were faced with the prospect of having to wait in line to clear customs in Nairobi, then pick up our luggage at the baggage claim and re-enter the airport to check them back in with Kenya Airway; In short, an impossible task. Enter Kalpesh, our man on the ground at Jomo Kenyatta airport. Lillian had contacted him to meet at as we deplaned and he had already checked us in for the Kenya Air flight and had our boarding passes in hand. He directed us to the Kenya Air desk inside the terminal for help in getting our bags without exiting the terminal. Tom Cunningham went with the KQ rep to pick our bags off the carousel and have them re-directed onto our next flight, but he didn't pick my suitcase. Then, after he let Lillian know my bag didn't make it, she contacted Kalpesh to get my bag on the next flight. Unfortunately, his directions for me to file a lost baggage claim when I arrived in Entebbe never got to me, so now my bag has made it to Uganda, but we can't get it out of the airport. Today, Monday, I will need to ride 1 hour back to the airport to claim my bag personally. A total waste of about 4 hours of my time, I figure. Meanwhile, although I was able to shower and change into the extra clothes I packed in my carry-on, I haven't shaved for about 50 hours, I brushed my hair with my fingers, and without deoderant I run the risk of fitting right in, odor-wise, with the locals by this afternoon.
The rooms here at the Imperial Royale are absolutely huge. I don't know if you can tell from the picture the amout of open floor space in the middle of the room. There is a nice little sitting-area (that I will never use) and a 40 inch LCD TV hanging on the wall opposite the bed, about 20 feet away. Unfortunately, the remote control doesn't work, so I have to get out of bed and walk across the room to turn it on or browse the channels.
The bathroom is also big, over 350 square feet, with dual sinks and a shower stall that is about 3 X 6. The king-size bed has a nice comforter and 6 pillows, which sounds nice. Unfortunately, the pillows and the linens stink of cigarette smoke so badly that I couldn't fall asleep, and the mattress is a wooden plank rapped in stiff foam sitting on another wooden board. You don't realize how much of the softness of a bed comes from the foundation support until you sleep on a hard mattress on a wooden board.
I worked until after 11 last night, a 12 hour day after all my travels, but the room didn't prove too restful and I was awake at 4:30AM. Time to get back to work now.
We had a very short 1 hour 15 minute connection in Nairobi and we had been unable to check our bags all the way through to Entebbe, so we were faced with the prospect of having to wait in line to clear customs in Nairobi, then pick up our luggage at the baggage claim and re-enter the airport to check them back in with Kenya Airway; In short, an impossible task. Enter Kalpesh, our man on the ground at Jomo Kenyatta airport. Lillian had contacted him to meet at as we deplaned and he had already checked us in for the Kenya Air flight and had our boarding passes in hand. He directed us to the Kenya Air desk inside the terminal for help in getting our bags without exiting the terminal. Tom Cunningham went with the KQ rep to pick our bags off the carousel and have them re-directed onto our next flight, but he didn't pick my suitcase. Then, after he let Lillian know my bag didn't make it, she contacted Kalpesh to get my bag on the next flight. Unfortunately, his directions for me to file a lost baggage claim when I arrived in Entebbe never got to me, so now my bag has made it to Uganda, but we can't get it out of the airport. Today, Monday, I will need to ride 1 hour back to the airport to claim my bag personally. A total waste of about 4 hours of my time, I figure. Meanwhile, although I was able to shower and change into the extra clothes I packed in my carry-on, I haven't shaved for about 50 hours, I brushed my hair with my fingers, and without deoderant I run the risk of fitting right in, odor-wise, with the locals by this afternoon.
The rooms here at the Imperial Royale are absolutely huge. I don't know if you can tell from the picture the amout of open floor space in the middle of the room. There is a nice little sitting-area (that I will never use) and a 40 inch LCD TV hanging on the wall opposite the bed, about 20 feet away. Unfortunately, the remote control doesn't work, so I have to get out of bed and walk across the room to turn it on or browse the channels. 
The bathroom is also big, over 350 square feet, with dual sinks and a shower stall that is about 3 X 6. The king-size bed has a nice comforter and 6 pillows, which sounds nice. Unfortunately, the pillows and the linens stink of cigarette smoke so badly that I couldn't fall asleep, and the mattress is a wooden plank rapped in stiff foam sitting on another wooden board. You don't realize how much of the softness of a bed comes from the foundation support until you sleep on a hard mattress on a wooden board.I worked until after 11 last night, a 12 hour day after all my travels, but the room didn't prove too restful and I was awake at 4:30AM. Time to get back to work now.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
This All Looks So Familiar
4 in the afternoon here in London where I sit again at Virgin Atlantic's Heathrow Clubhouse after an uneventful flight last night from Los Angeles. The Ambien worked as advertised and I got 6 1/2 hours of sleep on the flight, and then finally enjoyed the movie Wall-E while I ate breakfast over the Eastern Atlantic. Courtney Love was on our flight. She was in line behind me for the bathroom at the end of the flight when I was changing out of my VA Pyjamas, but I didn't talk with her. Some of the other guys in our group talked with her during the flight and said she's very nice, if a little chatty.
It's 8 in the morning back home, and hopefully the rain has passed and Marion and the boys will have a fun day today. If I were there I would head down to the beach and walk from San Jon Road to the river and back. Marion, Brodie and Nik, you should totally do that!
Soup seems to be my meal of choice whilst travelling, so I've just ordered a bowl of the very delicious Scotch Broth that I had a few weeks ago when I was here. I'll be avoiding alcohol for the rest of my journey until my return, so Coke Light is good enough for me.
Next stop, Nairobi, where we have a short 1 1/2 hour connection to make our flight to Entebbe. Virgin can't do anything to check our bags through to Entebbe, so we will somehow have to clear customs, collect our bags and then check them back in to the Kenya Airways flight in that short amount of time. It may not be possible. I'll let you all know what happens . . . .
It's 8 in the morning back home, and hopefully the rain has passed and Marion and the boys will have a fun day today. If I were there I would head down to the beach and walk from San Jon Road to the river and back. Marion, Brodie and Nik, you should totally do that!
Soup seems to be my meal of choice whilst travelling, so I've just ordered a bowl of the very delicious Scotch Broth that I had a few weeks ago when I was here. I'll be avoiding alcohol for the rest of my journey until my return, so Coke Light is good enough for me.
Next stop, Nairobi, where we have a short 1 1/2 hour connection to make our flight to Entebbe. Virgin can't do anything to check our bags through to Entebbe, so we will somehow have to clear customs, collect our bags and then check them back in to the Kenya Airways flight in that short amount of time. It may not be possible. I'll let you all know what happens . . . .
Friday, February 6, 2009
Here We Go Again
It's less than 2 weeks since I've returned from my whirl-wind tour of Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria, and now here I find myself again at the Air New Zealand Lounge at LAX waiting to board a flight to Africa. It seems that I've only just got over my jet-lag and started to feel normal again, and now in the next 24 hours I will travel half-way around the planet again, far from those I love and miss.
This trip will be almost 3 weeks, but I will spend all of my time at the Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala, Uganda. Work has already begun there building our set in their grand ballroom, and for the next 3 weeks I will be working along with a team of about 100 people to tape season 3 of the Zain Africa Challenge.
My biggest regret as I leave is that I was within one day of completing the luxury tree-fort in my backyard for Brodie and Nik, but it has rained steadily for the last 2 days in Ventura, so I am forced to leave the job undone. All that remains is to finish the stairs that lead up to the deck 9 feet above the ground in our 45 year old plum tree.
Oh, well. Something to look forward to when I return on February 25th.
This trip will be almost 3 weeks, but I will spend all of my time at the Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala, Uganda. Work has already begun there building our set in their grand ballroom, and for the next 3 weeks I will be working along with a team of about 100 people to tape season 3 of the Zain Africa Challenge.
My biggest regret as I leave is that I was within one day of completing the luxury tree-fort in my backyard for Brodie and Nik, but it has rained steadily for the last 2 days in Ventura, so I am forced to leave the job undone. All that remains is to finish the stairs that lead up to the deck 9 feet above the ground in our 45 year old plum tree.
Oh, well. Something to look forward to when I return on February 25th.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Too Few Good Days Like This
It’s been a few days since I’ve blogged, not because I’ve been too busy, but because I’ve actually had the opportunity to have some enjoyable time here in Nairobi.
After the first round of tournaments was completed on Thursday, Friday was a quiet, unstructured day while we waited for our crews to fly back from the other tournament sites in Uganda and Tanzania. As they came into the office there was lots of laughing and exchanging of stories.
For dinner that night Mary took us to Furisato, a Japanese restaurant in Nairobi near the tony Westlands area. Most of us ate family style; we started with gayozas (pan fried pork and vegetable dumplings) and BBQ chicken wings. Then the staff brought out 3 wooden boats, each about 2 feet long, laden with an assortment of sashimi. Now, I know what you’re thinking because I was thinking the same thing, too; Where do they get fresh sushi-grade seafood from in Nairobi? But Mary assured us that it was all first class, and she was right. I’ve never been able to indulge to that extent on the rare occasions when I enjoy sushi, so I took full advantage. We all ate our fill and toasted each other with hot sake, shouting Kampai!
Saturday the staff from Los Angeles had only a little work to do, and most of that could be done in their rooms at the hotel, so Mary gave us the morning off and scheduled a very rare day of touristing for us. She sent us off to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant sanctuary. Located within the Nairobi National Game park, the Sheldrick centre rescues and cares for orphaned baby elephants and other large game from the park and after raising them to the point where they can be self-sufficient, releases them back into the reserve. They allow visitors only once a day, for one hour at 11am.
(Click on the slide show to view it in a larger size)
We left our hotel at 10am in a steady rain. Our driver, Jimmy, laughed at us crazy wazungu (the plural of mzungu, the Swahili word for “white man”) dressed in shorts and without rain coats or umbrellas. As Jimmy drove us further out of town it continued to rain harder. By the time we turned off onto the dirt road for the sanctuary it was coming down in buckets. We had arrived about 10 minutes early, so we waited in the van and hoped that the rain would slacken. It didn’t.
By 11 a crowd of about 30 people had gathered, mostly white Americans and Europeans. I was happy to see that most were not any more well prepared for the weather than we were. A guide led us down to a clearing where there was a roped off area where they would bring the baby elephants to feed. Within seconds we were drenched to the skin, sheltering our cameras in our pockets under our windbreakers. I was starting to wonder if this would be worth it.
And then from off in the distance we heard the trumpet of an elephant and from around the trees came a herd of 8 tiny elephants, none higher than my chest. All thoughts of the rain disappeared and cameras quickly came out of pockets. The little baby elephants were very excited because they knew they were going to be fed and they pushed and jostled for position near the handlers. There was plenty of room for all of us against the rope to view them. When finished feeding the babies were ready to play. There was a soccer ball on the ground that they kicked and knocked with their trunks. Some of them picked up leafy branches and carried them about. The elephants were very social and enjoyed their audience and came close to the ropes , close enough to touch. At first I only touched the flank of those passing near me, but as I realized they did not mind I felt brave enough to touch their head, ears, and even let one explore my hand with its trunk.
Although we knew to stay on our side of the ropes, no one told the elephants and soon 2 of them had crossed to mingle more closely with us. The elephants had a playful way of backing into them, bumping them gently. This might have been more fun for those bumped if the elephants had not been covered in wet red Kenyan mud. One elephant explored a young man’s face with her trunk, leaving a long red smear from his forehead to his cheek. Another elephant head-butted David from our group from behind, tattooing him with the muddy print of her trunk from his butt all the way down his leg to his socks.
After half an hour the elephants were led back to their corrals and we were led to another set of corrals where we saw some infant elephants, only 2 weeks old and abandoned by their mother. There was also a 2 week-old black rhinoceros. The black rhino is very endangered so it was very special to see a new-born one at all, and it made me happy that the sanctuary was there to help protect the abandoned infants of this species.
By this time, of course, the rain had stopped. We had no choice but to load up into the van soaking wet and covered with mud. We were in good spirits though as Jimmy drove us away from the sanctuary. On the road on the way out Jimmy stopped when he saw a Dik Dik in the brush by the road, a type of antelope, and then on the main road he stopped again when he saw 2 baboons nearby, one of them quite large.
Next we went to the Giraffe Centre, dedicated to the protection of the endangered Rothschild giraffe. There they had a 2 story structure where you could stand on the upper pathway at the level of the giraffe’s heads to feed them, or you could feed them from below and the giraffes would bend down to take their snacks. The staff there was not only willing to take a picture of you with your own camera, but they knew the best way to pose us for a fantastic photo.
When we left there Jimmy took us to a nearby curios shop. He told us that here we would be able to negotiate our own price and maybe get some good deals. I have to say that they had a wonderful selection of souvenirs, both large and small. My wife had already told me that, this being my 4th trip to Africa it was not necessary for me to bring back any new trinkets. Never-the-less, I found a pretty little beaded headband that would be a nice gift for the daughter of a friend of mine who had helped me build the tree-house for my boys, and a simple soapstone version of a marble game that Marion and Brodie like to play, so I thought if the price were right I would bring those home.
When it came time to agree on a price, the man asked me how much I expected to pay. I told him that I thought the headband was about 250 Ksh (Kenya Shillings, about $4), and that I would pay 650 bob (the slang word for Shillings, about $10) for the game. The man looked at me like I was crazy and told me that the two pieces together were worth 3,850 Ksh, about $50. I told him that he was the one who was crazy, and that I was not some tourist here for my first time on vacation. I told him that I knew I could get that headband on Moi Avenue in town for 250, and that I had seen a beautiful soapstone carving for 650 at the gift shop at the Giraffe Centre, so there was no way I would pay more than that for this simple game. It soon became obvious to me that there would be no good deals to be had here; these guys were determined to get $50 from every wealthy American who walks in there, and the other 5 people in my van were more than willing to oblige them. I didn’t want to spend 30 minutes haggling over $15 dollars worth of stuff I didn’t really need, so I told them man that we both knew that my offer was fair, but if he would rather have none of my money than to make this deal, it was no problem for me. He would not agree, so I walked away and he did not follow. The other guys in the van were all smarting from the beating they had taken in there.
From there Jimmy took us back into town, dropping everyone off at the hotel except for me. I still had work to do at the office that afternoon, completing preparations for the second round of tournaments to be held in Ghana, Malawi, Zambia and Sierra Leone on Monday. I finished work at the office at 6pm and rushed back to the hotel where I needed to meet with 2 of my colleagues to transfer some files onto their computers before we left for dinner at 6:45.
Mary took the entire staff to Carnivore, Nairobi’s most famous restaurant. Carnivore is a restaurant for meat eaters. As you walk in you see their enormous wood-fired grill with dozens of meat roasts on spits cooking over the glowing coals. We started our dinner with their signature cocktail, the Dawa, a mixture of vodka, honey and fresh limes. There are 4 halved limes in each glass and before you enjoy your drink you must crush the limes with a ceramic stick to release the juices. It was very refreshing. When it was time to eat we were each given a heated metal plate, and then the servers came out to our table carrying the whole roasts on the spit and slicing them directly onto our plates. That night they offered chicken wings, pork sausage, chicken livers, beef rump steak, leg of pork, beef sausage, ostrich meat balls, pork spare ribs, lamb chops and crocodile. The server urges you to eat all you can, I ate all I wanted and maybe a bit more. I passed on the beef roast, the beef sausage and the ostrich but tried everything else. The crocodile was very good.Carnivore is a restaurant that everyone who comes to Nairobi should try at least once. I’m glad to have experienced it, but I won’t make plans to go there again. Why, you ask? Three words: Too Much Meat.
After the first round of tournaments was completed on Thursday, Friday was a quiet, unstructured day while we waited for our crews to fly back from the other tournament sites in Uganda and Tanzania. As they came into the office there was lots of laughing and exchanging of stories.
For dinner that night Mary took us to Furisato, a Japanese restaurant in Nairobi near the tony Westlands area. Most of us ate family style; we started with gayozas (pan fried pork and vegetable dumplings) and BBQ chicken wings. Then the staff brought out 3 wooden boats, each about 2 feet long, laden with an assortment of sashimi. Now, I know what you’re thinking because I was thinking the same thing, too; Where do they get fresh sushi-grade seafood from in Nairobi? But Mary assured us that it was all first class, and she was right. I’ve never been able to indulge to that extent on the rare occasions when I enjoy sushi, so I took full advantage. We all ate our fill and toasted each other with hot sake, shouting Kampai!
Saturday the staff from Los Angeles had only a little work to do, and most of that could be done in their rooms at the hotel, so Mary gave us the morning off and scheduled a very rare day of touristing for us. She sent us off to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant sanctuary. Located within the Nairobi National Game park, the Sheldrick centre rescues and cares for orphaned baby elephants and other large game from the park and after raising them to the point where they can be self-sufficient, releases them back into the reserve. They allow visitors only once a day, for one hour at 11am.
 |
| Elephants and Giraffes |
We left our hotel at 10am in a steady rain. Our driver, Jimmy, laughed at us crazy wazungu (the plural of mzungu, the Swahili word for “white man”) dressed in shorts and without rain coats or umbrellas. As Jimmy drove us further out of town it continued to rain harder. By the time we turned off onto the dirt road for the sanctuary it was coming down in buckets. We had arrived about 10 minutes early, so we waited in the van and hoped that the rain would slacken. It didn’t.
By 11 a crowd of about 30 people had gathered, mostly white Americans and Europeans. I was happy to see that most were not any more well prepared for the weather than we were. A guide led us down to a clearing where there was a roped off area where they would bring the baby elephants to feed. Within seconds we were drenched to the skin, sheltering our cameras in our pockets under our windbreakers. I was starting to wonder if this would be worth it.
And then from off in the distance we heard the trumpet of an elephant and from around the trees came a herd of 8 tiny elephants, none higher than my chest. All thoughts of the rain disappeared and cameras quickly came out of pockets. The little baby elephants were very excited because they knew they were going to be fed and they pushed and jostled for position near the handlers. There was plenty of room for all of us against the rope to view them. When finished feeding the babies were ready to play. There was a soccer ball on the ground that they kicked and knocked with their trunks. Some of them picked up leafy branches and carried them about. The elephants were very social and enjoyed their audience and came close to the ropes , close enough to touch. At first I only touched the flank of those passing near me, but as I realized they did not mind I felt brave enough to touch their head, ears, and even let one explore my hand with its trunk.
Although we knew to stay on our side of the ropes, no one told the elephants and soon 2 of them had crossed to mingle more closely with us. The elephants had a playful way of backing into them, bumping them gently. This might have been more fun for those bumped if the elephants had not been covered in wet red Kenyan mud. One elephant explored a young man’s face with her trunk, leaving a long red smear from his forehead to his cheek. Another elephant head-butted David from our group from behind, tattooing him with the muddy print of her trunk from his butt all the way down his leg to his socks.
After half an hour the elephants were led back to their corrals and we were led to another set of corrals where we saw some infant elephants, only 2 weeks old and abandoned by their mother. There was also a 2 week-old black rhinoceros. The black rhino is very endangered so it was very special to see a new-born one at all, and it made me happy that the sanctuary was there to help protect the abandoned infants of this species.
By this time, of course, the rain had stopped. We had no choice but to load up into the van soaking wet and covered with mud. We were in good spirits though as Jimmy drove us away from the sanctuary. On the road on the way out Jimmy stopped when he saw a Dik Dik in the brush by the road, a type of antelope, and then on the main road he stopped again when he saw 2 baboons nearby, one of them quite large.
Next we went to the Giraffe Centre, dedicated to the protection of the endangered Rothschild giraffe. There they had a 2 story structure where you could stand on the upper pathway at the level of the giraffe’s heads to feed them, or you could feed them from below and the giraffes would bend down to take their snacks. The staff there was not only willing to take a picture of you with your own camera, but they knew the best way to pose us for a fantastic photo.
When we left there Jimmy took us to a nearby curios shop. He told us that here we would be able to negotiate our own price and maybe get some good deals. I have to say that they had a wonderful selection of souvenirs, both large and small. My wife had already told me that, this being my 4th trip to Africa it was not necessary for me to bring back any new trinkets. Never-the-less, I found a pretty little beaded headband that would be a nice gift for the daughter of a friend of mine who had helped me build the tree-house for my boys, and a simple soapstone version of a marble game that Marion and Brodie like to play, so I thought if the price were right I would bring those home.
When it came time to agree on a price, the man asked me how much I expected to pay. I told him that I thought the headband was about 250 Ksh (Kenya Shillings, about $4), and that I would pay 650 bob (the slang word for Shillings, about $10) for the game. The man looked at me like I was crazy and told me that the two pieces together were worth 3,850 Ksh, about $50. I told him that he was the one who was crazy, and that I was not some tourist here for my first time on vacation. I told him that I knew I could get that headband on Moi Avenue in town for 250, and that I had seen a beautiful soapstone carving for 650 at the gift shop at the Giraffe Centre, so there was no way I would pay more than that for this simple game. It soon became obvious to me that there would be no good deals to be had here; these guys were determined to get $50 from every wealthy American who walks in there, and the other 5 people in my van were more than willing to oblige them. I didn’t want to spend 30 minutes haggling over $15 dollars worth of stuff I didn’t really need, so I told them man that we both knew that my offer was fair, but if he would rather have none of my money than to make this deal, it was no problem for me. He would not agree, so I walked away and he did not follow. The other guys in the van were all smarting from the beating they had taken in there.
From there Jimmy took us back into town, dropping everyone off at the hotel except for me. I still had work to do at the office that afternoon, completing preparations for the second round of tournaments to be held in Ghana, Malawi, Zambia and Sierra Leone on Monday. I finished work at the office at 6pm and rushed back to the hotel where I needed to meet with 2 of my colleagues to transfer some files onto their computers before we left for dinner at 6:45.
Mary took the entire staff to Carnivore, Nairobi’s most famous restaurant. Carnivore is a restaurant for meat eaters. As you walk in you see their enormous wood-fired grill with dozens of meat roasts on spits cooking over the glowing coals. We started our dinner with their signature cocktail, the Dawa, a mixture of vodka, honey and fresh limes. There are 4 halved limes in each glass and before you enjoy your drink you must crush the limes with a ceramic stick to release the juices. It was very refreshing. When it was time to eat we were each given a heated metal plate, and then the servers came out to our table carrying the whole roasts on the spit and slicing them directly onto our plates. That night they offered chicken wings, pork sausage, chicken livers, beef rump steak, leg of pork, beef sausage, ostrich meat balls, pork spare ribs, lamb chops and crocodile. The server urges you to eat all you can, I ate all I wanted and maybe a bit more. I passed on the beef roast, the beef sausage and the ostrich but tried everything else. The crocodile was very good.Carnivore is a restaurant that everyone who comes to Nairobi should try at least once. I’m glad to have experienced it, but I won’t make plans to go there again. Why, you ask? Three words: Too Much Meat.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tournament Diary
So, today was our first tournament day.I wrote the software that they are using today to conduct this question and answer quiz tournament in 6 game rooms today, 2 each in Dar es Salaam Tanzania, Kampala Uganda, and here in Nairobi Kenya. The top 4 teams at each of these tournaments will win an all-expense-paid trip to Kampala in February and will appear on the televised game show, Zain Africa Challenge.
My software is used to display the categories for each of the 3 rounds of play, to show the next question in the selected category to both the Host as well as to the players and audience, and then to score the results. The application is fairly simple to operate after a little practice, but if something goes wrong with my computer code or if the scorekeeper is confused, it is my job to help them fix the problem and get them back on the right track. If there are problems here in Nairobi and can easily go into the room to help, but if the problem is in Uganda or Tanzania they reach me by cell phone. If my day goes well, my job is to sit in the hallway with my cell phone and listen to my iPod or read my novel. If my day doesn’t go well it might mean that we’ve all wasted our time; This tournament cannot run without my software.
A brief diary of my day.
5:00am I woke a few minutes before my alarm and showered and got dressed. After checking emails for any overnight crises (there were none) I packed up my computer and headed downstairs.
5:45am I convinced the service staff at the breakfast restaurant to allow me to grab a bowl of cereal and some fresh fruit before they opened at 6.
6:10am Mark, Raj and I were in front of our hotel waiting for Jasan to pick us up and take us to the Sarova Panafric Hotel where our tournament will be taking place.6:30am We arrive at the hotel to prepare for the day. We had come the night before to set up the rooms in advance, but one of our 2 rooms was in use that night for a dinner so we had one entire room to set up before the participants arrive at 8am.
8:05am Room setup is complete, just in time.
8:20am Our participant registration table reports that there are 5 player changes. I discover that there was no built-in way to print Name Plates so I quickly design a new report for that purpose. I made my way into the player meeting just in time to be introduced.
9:10am Nearing the end of the player meetings, the power goes out.
9:13am The hotel generator comes on, restoring power.
9:30am We start playing our first game of the day. It goes very smoothly.
10:15am Mary and I realize that it is going too smoothly. Neither of us has received a phone call, email or text message from our teams abroad. This either means that things are going exceedingly well, or that their problems go beyond our frequent power failures to include a long-term drop in their cell phone service.
11:05am The hotel generator stops running, plunging us into darkness again.
11:15am The generator has been restarted.
11:18am The generator stops and starts yet again, stopping only long enough that we need to halt game play and then re-set to start again.
12:00pm We have just completed our 4th game of the day out of a total of 15 that we will play. So far we are averaging more than half an hour per game. At this rate we will not finish until after 6pm. We need to speed things up!
12:30pm Good news! Mary’s phone finally rang; it was Lillian calling from Tanzania. Surprisingly, cell phone service is just fine where she is, and the reason we haven’t heard from her is that there have been no problems requiring my help.
12:45pm Charles just called my cell phone from Uganda with the first legitimate problem of the day. It was not a problem where my code exploded, but instead a strange situation where they needed my help to talk them through re-setting a match to a previous round. I’m pleasantly surprised at how well things are going.
12:48pm Because we are so far behind our time schedule, Mary has decided to modify the plan for our lunch. Originally we were going to break for one hour and enjoy our lunch poolside. Now the plan has been modified so that matches will continue during lunch, and that the 13 teams not playing in rounds 7 and 8 will go to eat immediately, and the teams that play during lunch will eat after their match. This means, of course, that the staff manning the game rooms (myself included) will not get a break for lunch, but will eat in their game room during the 5 or 10 minutes between matches. No big deal, but I would have liked to eat outside.
1:05pm It’s warm here today. It’s actually a few degrees cooler than yesterday, but with 50 or 60 people packed into each of the game rooms it’s uncomfortably warm there. I mention this because as I sit in the hallway outside of our rooms I notice that most of the people here are wearing long sleeves. Many are wearing jackets, either fleece hoodies or sport coats. I wonder how that man I see in front of me can bear to sit in that hot room wearing that corduroy sports jacket.
2:20pm Mary’s plan for lunch worked reasonably well for most everyone except for staff. Apparently no one got the message to make some plates for us, so we are taking a 20 minute break to run down and eat.
2:32pm Lunch was very good and I’m sorry to have had to rush it. A nice buffet of chicken tikka, braised beef with brown sauce, chicken curry and fried fish filets. They also had some traditional Kenyan staples, rice and sweet potatoes. I tried the fish and the beef and they were both satisfying. I enjoyed my 12 minutes poolside.
2:45pm I enjoy a small sigh of relief. We just received an email from our Tanzania crew that they have completed their tournament and chosen the 4 teams that will advance to the TV show next month. They are the first ones to finish because they only had to play 7 matches today, not the 15 we have scheduled. They had no problems at all in Tanzania that required my help. Now they get to enjoy the rest of the afternoon on the beaches of Dar es Salaam.
3:00pm Just finished round 9. 6 games left to go at 30 minutes a piece has us finishing at 6pm. 4:07pm Not much to blog about because we have settled into a steady rhythm.
4:30pm We’re down to our last 2 matches now. I just visited one of our game rooms and the temperature is in the mid-90s in there. When we arrived at 6:30 this morning they had the air conditioner on full blast and Mary and I joked that we might need a sweater. Now the room is a sweat box, and the funk factor is high in there.
4:45pm The results have just come in from Uganda, leaving us the last tournament to complete. We’re the largest one, too, so it’s no reflection on the strength of our staff. Time to put my computer away and get ready to start packing up stuff here. We should be finished in less than an hour.
5:30pm We have finally finished our tournament. Mary is conducting an awards ceremony in one of the game rooms while we, the staff, are breaking down and packing away the equipment in the other room.
6:30pm Pack-up and load-out complete, we board our van, 12 hours after we arrived this morning. There's lots of laughter and energy left in this group on the ride home. Although it was a long day, it went more smoothly than we could have hoped. As we are dropped off at our hotel Mary lets us know that we can sleep in tomorrow as we aren't expected at the office until 10:30.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Walking to Work
It was such a pretty day that I thought I'd walk to work today.Today was a travel day for much of our staff. Tomorrow we will be conducting tournaments in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, so teams of our staff were off to the airport early this morning bound for Kampala and Dar es Salaam while I stayed here in Nairobi with Mark and Raj, two of our question writers from Los Angeles.
There were no set plans on what time we were due at the office, and no arrangements had been made for Jasan to pick us up in the company van, so after talking it over at breakfast we decided to test our geographical memory and try walking the one mile or so to the office.
It truly was beautiful weather for a walk, and we were grateful for the opportunity to get away from our computers and spend some time outdoors. Lucky for us that Nairobi is a pretty safe place if you stick to public areas during daylight, because the three of us white guys strolling along those streets wearing shorts and carrying our laptops were definitely out of place.
We snapped some photos on the way, making us stand out even more as the tourists that we were.
"Rehabilitated Public Toilet" means that that facility had been upgraded
to include plumbing and that you could expect to sit on a porcelain toilet and not hover over a hole in the floor.
On our way we passed through the campus of the University of Nairobi.
That's Raj posing in front of their sign.
A close-up of the very impressive logo of the University of Nairobi.Finding our way there was harder than you think, because the roads in Nairobi can be very hard to negotiate in a car. Almost all of the roads have median strips in the center, and very often you have turn left when you want to go right and look for the u-turn lane after a few hundred metres. Also, most of the major intersections are traffic-circles so it's not too obvious to a passenger in a vehicle to which direction his driver exited. Our walking route was much more direct than the circuitous route Jasan uses.
Also, pedestrians and motor vehicles have negotiated an uneasy relationship where pedestrians are not afraid to step into oncoming traffic because they know that the cars will avoid them, although just barely. An additional risk for us as pedestrians is that they drive on the wrong side of the road here, so your instincts are to look to the left as you step off of the curb, not right, which can get you killed very quickly if you're not careful.
We managed to brave the risks and arrived at the office with no problems at all. I'm looking forward to making the walk again soon.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Shotgun!
There are about 6 or 7 of us LA staff staying here at the Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi, a point that will come into play a little later in my story, but . . . .
To get from the hotel to our office we ride in the company van, an 11 passenger vehicle similar to the ubiquitous matatu taxis you see all around town, except that ours does not have the yellow stripe that identifies a matatu. I've never been a big fan of riding in the back of a crowded vehicle, so when the oppotunity presents itself I like to sit in the passenger seat next to our driver, Jasan. That way I have a nice window I can roll down and let my arm rest on the door jamb as I take in all the sites of this busy city through the wide windshield.
Well, apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way. When it was time to leave Mary's house last night after the party I was the first one to wander out to the van and I took my accustomed seat. As the rest of the staff trickled out after me, Jonathan Evans, one of our LA staff tried very hard to convince me that I was sitting in his seat. After trying to convince me with logic, he turned to insults and threats of physical violence, but finally he admitted defeat and climbed into the back with the rest of the group. He good-naturedly complained about the injustice of it all the way back to our hotel.
Fast forward 11 hours to 9:30 this morning. Once again it was time for us to load up in the van, this time for the ride to the office. Once again I was the first one out to the van, so of course I headed for my favorite seat. As I was steps away from the van door, from behind me I heard the loud shout of "SHOTGUN!" from Jonathan.
Now, everywhere you go in Africa there are guards, some of them armed and some not. Hotels where Americans stay are protected very diligently, so maybe yelling out "Shotgun!" wasn't the best idea. I'd like to report that a crew of seven heavily-armed Kenyan Police descended upon him and pinned him to the ground, but that's not what happened. He did get a few puzzled looks, though.
In all the excitement over the boarding procedures for the van, no one noticed that one of our numbers was missing. It seems that there are indeed 7 of us in our group, but only 6 made it onto the van before it left. Not one of us noticed that David Tuttle, my travelling companion all the way from LA was not on the van, and indeed, no one noticed him missing until he emailed everyone in the office an hour later wondering where we had all gone.
To get from the hotel to our office we ride in the company van, an 11 passenger vehicle similar to the ubiquitous matatu taxis you see all around town, except that ours does not have the yellow stripe that identifies a matatu. I've never been a big fan of riding in the back of a crowded vehicle, so when the oppotunity presents itself I like to sit in the passenger seat next to our driver, Jasan. That way I have a nice window I can roll down and let my arm rest on the door jamb as I take in all the sites of this busy city through the wide windshield.
Well, apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way. When it was time to leave Mary's house last night after the party I was the first one to wander out to the van and I took my accustomed seat. As the rest of the staff trickled out after me, Jonathan Evans, one of our LA staff tried very hard to convince me that I was sitting in his seat. After trying to convince me with logic, he turned to insults and threats of physical violence, but finally he admitted defeat and climbed into the back with the rest of the group. He good-naturedly complained about the injustice of it all the way back to our hotel.
Fast forward 11 hours to 9:30 this morning. Once again it was time for us to load up in the van, this time for the ride to the office. Once again I was the first one out to the van, so of course I headed for my favorite seat. As I was steps away from the van door, from behind me I heard the loud shout of "SHOTGUN!" from Jonathan.
Now, everywhere you go in Africa there are guards, some of them armed and some not. Hotels where Americans stay are protected very diligently, so maybe yelling out "Shotgun!" wasn't the best idea. I'd like to report that a crew of seven heavily-armed Kenyan Police descended upon him and pinned him to the ground, but that's not what happened. He did get a few puzzled looks, though.
In all the excitement over the boarding procedures for the van, no one noticed that one of our numbers was missing. It seems that there are indeed 7 of us in our group, but only 6 made it onto the van before it left. Not one of us noticed that David Tuttle, my travelling companion all the way from LA was not on the van, and indeed, no one noticed him missing until he emailed everyone in the office an hour later wondering where we had all gone.
Monday, January 12, 2009
First Day in Nairobi
As I write this I am enjoying Samosas and a local Nairobi beer at Mary Oberembt's house in the Riverside area. Mary's LA staff came prepared with their Wii and her Nairobi staff came with their hospitality and enthusiasm.
After refreshing at the hotel we were off to the Nairobi office to get to work. The staff there was very happy to see me, because they had a chance to get their database issues solved in real time, not delayed 11 hours by the distance between us.
The picture at the right is of me and my travelling partner on this trip, Dave Tuttle. We had successfully braved over 24 hours of travel to arrive in Nairobi at 7am. Our driver, Jasan, met us and took us straight to our hotel to check in, get unpacked, take a quick shower and get something to eat.
The drive from the air
port took almost an hour through the crazy Nairobi traffic. There were times we were stopped for more than 5 minutes at a time.
port took almost an hour through the crazy Nairobi traffic. There were times we were stopped for more than 5 minutes at a time. Nairobi has really improved since the last time I was here. Many of the main streets have been repaved, and you can see that there is a lot of work being done to put in sidewalks and other projects to beautify the streets.
After refreshing at the hotel we were off to the Nairobi office to get to work. The staff there was very happy to see me, because they had a chance to get their database issues solved in real time, not delayed 11 hours by the distance between us.Mary had me driven over to her house so that I could finish working on the database application that will run the tournaments over the next few weeks in peace. She knew that I would be hard-pressed to get work done with her staff taking advantage of my presence there.
On the drive to Mary's, I saw that although the roads have improved the vehicles on them have not. 
The picture on the right was a heavy big-rig truck with one of the inside tyres (that's how they spell it here) completely shredded. Amazing.
The picture on the right was a heavy big-rig truck with one of the inside tyres (that's how they spell it here) completely shredded. Amazing.It's 9pm here now, and Mary is promising dinner will be ready soon. It looks like I've made it through my first day here ok, illness, jetlag and all.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
On the Ground in Nairobi
It's 10am here and I have just checked into my hotel in Nairobi. It took over an hour sitting in traffic to get here, but we're here at last. My boss has graciously allowed me time to take a shower and have breakfast, which I will do now.
More later.
More later.
Cold in London, too.
It's 4:30 in the afternoon here in gloomy old London, 8:30 in the morning where the people I love and miss are. I'm here in the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse Lounge at London Heathrow Airport waiting for my flight on to Nairobi which leaves in another 2 1/5 hours.
As you can see in the picture, I still have my trusty Kleenex box with me, but I'm feeling a little better than I did in Los Angeles. My travelling partner, Dave Tuttle, gave me a Singulair from his pharmaceutical stash when my Tylenol Severe Cold Medicine proved spectacularly ineffective. It dried me up enough that I was able to get about 5 hours of sleep on the flight. I plan to take a sleeping pill on the next flight to get another 6 or 7 hours before I land in Nairobi at 6:30am local time.
The Lounge here is truly fabulous with a wide assortment of foods and drinks to enjoy, comfortable work and leisure areas, a 15 foot wide TV screen showing English Football, of course, and a bar staffed by 3 bartenders. There is also a children's play area, but on the opposite side of the club from the bar.
I got about 3 hours of work done up to now, and I'm ready to get some more done. I'll check in again, next time from Africa.
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