Congratulations to Jenson Button

You car racing fans may have noticed that at the end of last years Formula One season Honda announced that they were pulling out and the team was up for sale. F1 racing is an expensive business, McLaren has a reported 1,000 employees, and Honda wasn't doing very well anyway. I was wondering what would become of the Honda drivers, there are not that many openings for F1 drivers and all the other teams seemed set.

Just before the start of this years season, Ross Brawn who had been leading Honda's effort, managed to gather enough support and he bought the team, hence Brawn racing was born. The first thing they did was dump the Honda powerplant and partner with Mercedes for engines. I didn't give them much chance of being competitive with so little time to prepare. So what did they do? Took first and second place in the inagural race of the 2009 season in Australia. Jenson Button was first and Rubens Barichello took the team's other car in for second place.

I say, good show! To top it off, Brawn announced Virgin as the team sponsor like the day before the race and they managed to get the logo on the distinctive lime green and white cars. (Although you can't see it in the picture. Maybe Brawn didn't have time to hire a team photographer) I suppose there will be more red in the paint job once they have to time fully integrate Virgin into the scheme.

BTW, Honda still supplies all the engines for the Indy Racing League (IRL) cars. How pathetic is that league now that it's proven that Honda engines can't compete? Further BTW, last years champion driver Lewis Hamilton came in third in a McLaren.

Looks like an exciting season ahead.

Is this home?

My last post was written in a sense of despair of going back to Africa. All the problems and all the problems. And the flight was pretty horrible, not that it was bad, it's just that sitting or even being in the aluminum tube for 11+ hours is not my idea of nice. The service was good, the food reasonable, the entertainment banal, the seat OK, but, watching that moving map thing creeping across the Atlantic is just too much.

We crossed onto the continent over Dakar, sliced off the east end of Gambia, and curved around the backside of West Africa. Just south of Bamako, I think that I could see the lights through the haze, can't imagine any other source that big. Well south of Ouagadougou as we cut off the top third of Ghana and turning further south towards the coast. To me anyway, these names just roll off the tongue and I was getting excited.

The pilot adjusted course to go north of a big storm system over Togo, and then we turned back south. This really messed up the moving map thing and it started showing increasing times to our destination. Almost due south over Ibadan, west of Oshogbo, and over Abeokuta into LOS.

Sunday morning is a good time to come into Lagos but there were some differences too. The immigration queue was more organized and faster. The porters were decked out in blue vests indicating some form of organization. The money changers were polite and the traffic light. (N155 per $1). It looked like the taxis were getting organized too.

It's amazing how I just fell back into it. I could say "God Bless" to the beggars and they weren't pushy. I could step right through the parking lot traffic as the unwritten rules required without fear of being hit. I knew how to engage the money changer to get a quote and get away without entanglement. I stayed in the shade.

Today I went shopping with Jesse (driver) and caught up on events while I was away. There was the little matter of the shootout at our dock where the 6 kidnappers were killed trying to get away with their N30,000,000 ransom. But I had missed all that and to celebrate my good fortune gave N5 to the leper who sits near the front of the "New Market" and has become my regular tithe. For that price I get a blessing too.

I'm going back to what?

As my return to West Africa looms, I've been checking the news to see what's going on. I'm not sure that I can look forward to this trip. Some stories that I've noticed: (I'm not sure how long these links will be live)

1) Lebanese man kidnapped at construction site in Victoria Island. This is the upscale part of town, what? As usual, came from the water and escaped in a speedboat. Link.
2) Another building collapse (picture). Link.
3) Trouble brewing over the toll road. I had wondered when this would surface, the Government sold the only road out to where I live (Lekki penninsula) to a private company. The deal was that they would improve the road and in return collect tolls. Now that people can see the toll booths being constructed they are starting to fuss. I had predicted that as soon as the toll collection started an angry mob would burn down the booths. I'm still betting on that. Link.

I know it's not all as bad as the newpapers, but hey. We arrive Sunday morning and should get home with no problems. The issue now is how much and where should we go out? We'll have to see once we get there, maybe just lay low for the remaining two months.

Obafemi

I needed to get my Alpha XP900 system booted up last week to check out some Apache scripting issues. The monitor on that system had been "repurposed", uh, I mean, given out to some daughter or another for their PC. So, I was off to the local Fry's electronics, late on a Monday night to see what I could get.

For those of you living in the dark ages, let me just say that Fry's is the place to get electronics, or appliances, or video games, or Diet Coke, or, well, it boggles the mind. I knew what I was looking for so felt pretty confident. In the back, on the left wall, there are the monitors.

It all goes back to the Fry's grocery chain founded by the old man. The sons, the one I knew was John Fry, were determined to start an electronics superstore. The myth is that the father allowed them to do that but only if they also sold food. The remnents of that legacy are the plentiful selections of canned soda and bags of candy. Still to this day, small convenience store owners come in to buy cases of pop for prices that are less than the wholesale distributors. Kind of weird to be standing in line with a disk drive behind a guy with a cart piled full of cases of Coke.

In the back, on the left wall, I was looking at monitors. I had already recabled a demo PC to check out how the monitor on sale would work with the resolution that I needed. That's how it's done there, few clerks around, best to know what you want when you can capture one.

I managed to grab one! Very helpful and knowledgable, got me the monitor and paperwork right away. Then I noticed his name tag, Obafemi. I had thought he was a bit out of place amongst the Afganis, Pakis, Indians, and Iranian clerks. So I asked him, sure enough he's Nigerian, been in the U.S. for a couple years and doing well.

Once we had connected and I told him where I had been living, he graced me with a handshake. Thanks Oba, for the help.

News? From CNN?

Lagos recently got written up in Business Week as the world's worst city to work in. Other news organizations picked up that story too. That's how news works these days, everyone copies each other. I am just amazed at what CNN came up with. The guy in the interview is managing directory of CocaCola in Nigeria a Mr. Ebelt. Looking pretty comfortable in suit and tie, Mr. Ebelt admitted it wasn't so bad. Despite proding from CNN the worst he could come up with was that it was hard to find housing. I'm assuming he meant finding something with a swimming pool, gardens, electricity and guards.

Apparently the producers then needed some footage of how horrible it really is after Mr. Ebelt's lack of enthusiasm. So they put together a montage of "bad stuff" footage. It included a shot of the Oshidi market congestion, but whoops, that's been gone for a while. Then some bare feet, and market scenes. Too bad those markets aren't in Lagos. Look closely at the price signs and you'll see the numbers are for some other currency. And no Lagos market has such signs anyway. Local experts also tell me that the facial features are not West African in those shots. I'll leave that distinction to them, but I believe it.

Short on time? Your interview subject didn't deliver what you wanted? Just grab some footage and put it together. As I've written before, these "news" shows aren't about information, they're about emotional impact and entertainment.

One more week in California and then on the plane back to Africa. I guess I'm a glutton for culture shock since I get it both ways.

Am I the only one?

That, like cares about anything positive? I just watched a space shuttle launch (STS 119), they got that bird to 7,000 miles an hour after about 7 minutes. Pretty impressive for those nerds. Then I switched the channel and now can watch some celebrity check into rehab, to some rock tune and jiggly camera work. Or change to see some fake reproduction of a murder, huh?

Please, people, please. This is supposed to be America, land of the brave etc... It's become land of the commercial, the most profitable business is advertising. Advertising what? Crap I don't need or want that will make me closer to some celebrity that you just advertised to me like I should care about them, but I must because my life is so little? I am actually rooting for the economy to completely crater, if this is what we call economy.

I'm ready to go back to simpler things, like the rules at Tricks. And I miss a real sport, like English football, without timeouts for commercials every 5 minutes. Give me Steven Gerrard and company everytime as opposed to overpaid college basketball players.

Home and away

I'm confused, as usual, about where my actual home is, but am now here in California, and I'm sleeping in my bed. Arrived Wednesday early morning and today am feeling, finally, pretty normal. As usual, I'm astounded by the weather, it's just fantastic. Writing this, looking out to the east, the sun is coming up, the birds are chirping and the grass on the hills is green. Springtime in northern california, that's the rhythm that I grew up on and it's the one that I love.

News from my other home is ominous, President's motorcade attacked by stone thowing mob, more attacks in the delta, company layoffs. Since I'm only getting this from the online news, it's hard to judge the reaction but it can't be good.

When I'm here I have latched onto a couple local bloggers that you might enjoy:

• the wubc
• crazed in suburbia
• mayor of concord
• and claycord

Maybe sit outside and enjoy the sun...

Up on the ladder

You mean I have to replace my own lightbulbs? I must be back in California, no more calling maintenance for the guy to come over, I'm on my own, shocking. So I was up on the ladder at 05:30 this morning lightbulb in hand. I was up anyway, after sleeping pretty much all day yesterday.

Found myself reaching under the dash to push the "secret" lockout button when starting the car. Took a second to realize this car doesn't have one, duh! I quoted "secret" because it seems like everyone in Lagos knows about that switch, even the cook who had advised me the first time when I was having trouble.

Also noticed that I had switched hands to free up my right to accept something from the flight attendant. Just being polite, in African terms anyway, I'm sure she didn't notice.

Cold and rainy in the bay area, how's that drought coming along, again? Delta airlines business class highly not recommended. You mean I need to get my own gas too? What a life.

But then again, the bulbs don't blow up and I'm not likely to get kidnapped in the car and I can drive wherever and anywhere I like.

But people, can't you get a little bit real? I walked into HomeDepot and an employee said "Hello" as he walked by me and was gone before I could react. No time to say "Good Morning", "How are you? How's the family?" What a bunch of cold fish fakery! At my other home, the guy may be sizing you up to kill or kidnap you, but at least you are greeted properly.

"Good morning."
"Good afternoon."
"Good evening."

That's more like it.

Cancelled

Well, that was fun. Picked up this morning at 04:30 for flight to the states. Don't you know the rain started and poured just when I answered the door. The pilot (bus drivers are referred to as pilots as opposed to just plain drivers in recognition of their higher status) was really nice and backed the bus around so I could dash from my front door right into the vehicle.

The trip to the airport was uneventful although I did have to wait at the office for a while for the other passengers to arrive. I was quite pleased to see that the policeman on duty was on duty and watched out for me as I waited. Maybe I wasn't in any great danger at that time, but it was nice to see him taking his job seriously and sitting with me as I swatted a few mosquitoes in the predawn darkness. Why do those little buggers find me so attractive?

At the airport things were moving smoothly until I got to the Delta counter. "Another one", I heard the agent say and soon knew what she meant. The SFO leg of my journey had been canceled due to bad weather in the southeast, I was offered the choice of flying just to Atlanta and trying from there or rebooking the whole trip at a later date.

I took back my bags, rebooked the whole thing for two days from now and am home with spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove. I had diligently thrown out everything from the fridge, so the choices were limited.

Actually not too bad a day. A lot better than sitting in ATL competing with hundreds of angry passengers from other cancelled flights. On my rebooking I got first class from ATL to SFO so that will be nice, and what hurry am I in anyway? Not sure why the upgrade but I've been told a couple times by airline employees to be pleasant and direct in a situation like this and things will work out better.

Got Manu and Tottenham on the telly in the Carling cup final so better get back to that. Cheers.