Mountainous

The Cup is ours AGAIN!

My ‘humility’prevents me from bragging and chest thumping but by now all and sundry will know what came to pass on the final day of the EPL which definately has put a smile on my face and a slight bounce to my stride which I consider to be adequate compensation for the hours on gnawing tension that have characterized the last agonizing weeks of the premiership and the Championships league. It is not easy being a Man U fan especially with fans of all other fans rooting againist you but that is the price we have to pay for the high standards we are judged againist it. Now I can hardly wait for the game on 21st at Moscow, I pray the Red Devils will put the RED into Red Square!

Ferrari yet again!

This weekend saw the KCB national rally championship come back to my current hometown of Embu after 19 years and this put the town in a festive mood unfortunately for me I couldn’t partake in the excitement as I had to head on to Nairobi for the weekend. I decided to come back early on Sunday if at least to catch the last few hours of the rally but mob delays ensured that I couldn’t make it in time for the finish but nevertheless I managed to get to Izaak Walton Hotel in time to catch the second half of the Turkish Grand Prix. Being a Ferrari fan I had high hopes of Kimi Raikonnen extending his championship lead at Istanbul but brilliant strategy by the Mclaren team saw Lewis Hamilton pip him for second place and close the gap on the championship points but nevertheless I was excited by Felipe Massa’s convincing (hat trick!) win. I think this is for the better for the championship because it ensures that there is real competition and hopefully the thrills will last till the last race just like last year.

Small Town Blues!

On getting to Embu yesterday I realised how the Nairobi crowd can totally overun a small town by the time I got there almost all the beer in town had been emptied by the very thirsty rally enthusiasts and crew which had me quite worried cos I dídn’t relish watching the tension packed EPL season finale without something to calm my nerves I just had to settle for a Whitecap Light which I discovered is not bad at all especially a cold one and after the Man U victory a beer has never tasted so sweet! From what I could gather all the hotels were full and my usual haunt Kenol was jam packed on Saturday.

Traffic Gridlock

My rant this week is the traffic on Thika Road, anyone who used it on Friday night must be seething like me I spent over 3 hours on that road cos a trailler had overturned somehere after Ruaraka at the Allsopps drift, I was literally able to read all my mail on the phone and do some browsing while waiting for the road to be cleared. The absolute worst about this stretch of road is that there is absolutely no option to divert once you are on it unless you somehow can manouvere through Garden Estate onto Kiambu Road. The planners need to know that we need those promised bypasses like by YESTERDAY!

Apologies

To akina 3TOC and Bomseh, pole for being away for so long but I have been having issues with the internet here at the office coupled with the constant tinkering by WordPress during the upgrade which has been quite offputting lakini I’m still lurking around sio hiatus.

Todays agreement on the Grand Coalition Cabinet has definitely gotten me thinking. I know I should be angry about the grand waste of public funds that will be occasioned by this massive cabinet. Instead I am mildly amused about the sitting arrangement.

If the 17 current ministers filled up the Cabinet room in Harambee house as shown in the picture below, now I wonder which sort of cabinet room can fit in 40 members of  the cabinet around one table.

Photo from Nation media

Following this wouldn’t it be better for the ‘Principles’ to hire a classroom for cabinet meeting with the chairman facing the ‘class’ especially now that they have a prefect ‘PM’. Won’t it be amusing to see who will scrample for the front seats eager to catch the teachers eye and who will be the noisemakers hiding in the back row reading comics under the desk!

Sadly however none of this is amusing at all!

Its been a while since I put up a post on the blog this has been due to a few things I needed to catch up at work and of course the distractions due to the Easter Holidays.

First off I thoroughly enjoyed the Easter Weekend, I initially didn’t have very high expectations or plans and that it fell on the wrong time of the month I still managed to enjoy myself and relax with some friends, I also ventured to a Mugithi night somewhere in Central, its been a while since I did that but it was thoroughly enjoyable, the company was also great.

Sports wise the weekend was also great with my Formula one team Ferrari back to winning ways after that fiasco in the Australian Grand Prix it was a relief for me to see Kimi Raikonnen win in Malaysia I expect a very tough season this year especially with Lewis Hamilton expected to mature a little bit more and the lack of traction control and computerized driving aids will definitely add to the excitement. Onto Football this year my cheering for Man U has been muted on this blog due to the up and down nature of the league but after the great weekend I can fully don my red jersey and make some noise. The league is not yet won but at this stage it feels good to be in pole position.

On the geek computer side I am still learning the ropes of Ubuntu on my computer, I have now installed more memory on the system which has vastly improved the perfomance of the computer and I can happily report that I don’t see myself going back to MS Windows anytime soon. To help with the transition I installed the Wine application which enables me to install and run Windows apps this is quite a help since I still need to access some office files and I don’t want to tamper with the formats. Additionally I have also installed the KDE desktop which allows me to log into a Kubuntu session so I am now currently comparing which desktop environment I would prefer to use permantently.

Otherwise for those who have been missing the posts from the mountainside now I am back.

Apparently voyeurism go hand in hand with blogging otherwise where did all this tagging business have to do with blogging. Anyway since I was tagged by Half and Half and I hate to be unsportly despite the fact that I have already obliged a number of tags in the past I will attempt to do the neadfull and get it over with quickly. (oh and thanks to Modo for reminding me that a Mountain cannot lie low otherwise I had decided to totally ignore this post)

 The Rules:

- Link to the person that tagged you.

- Post the rules on your blog.

- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.

- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.

- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website

1. I cannot resist Choclate Eclairs: this little tofee sweets with milk choclate centers have been the total ruin of me. I keep a stash that is not so secret in my car at most times.
2. I cannot wear a shirt untucked: Even in the house and I am alone it just feels awkward and don’t get me started on wearing pants without a belt.
3. I hate shopping for shoes: Strange as it seems I find shoe shopping an entirely complicated affair and will avoid it until my soles are falling off. (this will sound completely strange to some of the bloggers out there who know themselves)
4. I can’t shout: I find it terribly difficult to get loud even when when I am angry or scared, I just can’t
5. I am addicted to caffeine: If I don’t get my daily fix of caffeine at least  cups of coffee by 10:00 am at all cost avoid me for I will be very cranky. I keep a few cans of Red Bull in the house for emergencies.
6. I am loyal to my barber: I’d rather let my hair grow wild than experiment with just any Kinyozi I have been going to the same barber for the last 6 years .

I will tag the following just to go with the flow so sorry to:

• Frankie - for being so lost
• Tweety 
• Maua - Just curious
• MissE - Also just curious
• Gitts - You need to wake up.

Most other people are already tagged so that will be enough for now.

Onto other intersting matters, I was scrolling my blog and realised that I have been blogging for exactly one year now so yippee its MY ANNIVERSARY. I can honestly say I am surprised that I have stayed the course for so long from that Friday evening in February last year when I was in the office and just on the spur of the moment decided to start a blog and joined KBW one day later. I hadn’t read many blogs then I didn’t understand a lot of the little nuances that go along with blogging but true to my nature of relishing challenges I learnt a lot along the way, interacted with alot of interesting folks both back here at home and in the diaspora, reconnected with some long lost friends and most of all had lots of fun.

It would be extremely difficult to mention all the good people who have enriched my blogging experience all through the year and made such a big difference in my life. I promise to continue blogging for as long as the interest holds me (yeah I know I have been a little bit out of action in the last 2 months).

So to all you my dear blogthren I bid you Cheers!

After weeks of Trial and Error I have finally managed to erase Microsoft Windows from my laptop and replace it with the Linux Based Ubuntu operating system. I will be the first to admit that I am not a computer geek but several problems with viruses and missing drivers had made my laptop all but useless resulting in my decision to plunge into the world of the unknown.

Armed with only an Ubuntu Live CD and several hours of browsing the documentation on the web I decided to take the plunge and just get rid of Windows all together, I had first considered partitioning the hard disk but then on second thought realised that the hard disk was too small for that and it seemed like such a complicated procedure. The second hurdle was the lack of enough memory on my system to run live CD since I couldn’t get my hands on additonal RAM I had to consider the other option of getting the software and that was by Downloading the Alternate-CD from the Ubuntu website which is no mean task since we are talking about 700 Megabytes. Fortunately in the office there are very few internet users after work so one evening after spending 3 hours downloading the entire CD image file and a CD image file burner I was ready to go.

I had already backed up all the useful files on my office desktop so after taking a deep breath and waving Bill Gates goodbye I put in the CD and rebooted the computer after a few questions and less than an hour later I was the proud owner of an brand new Ubuntu powered machine.

No doubt I face a steep learning curve since I have never used any other OS other that MS Windows but 2 days later I think I can hack it, still getting the hang of all these APT, Terminal and SUDO stuff so you will bear with me as this migration is taking almost all my free computing minutes. Todays task was getting MP3 and DVD playback operational.

I hear there is some tagging manenos going on out there in blogosphere so I will lie low as I contemplate the implications.

I normally won’t post on money and economic matters and prefer to leave it to the experts such as Bankelele but with each day that the violence and the crisis as a result of the stolen botched elections lasts the effects on the Kenyan economy are getting worse and worse and I feel the need to share the worries in my sector.  I happen to work in the Floriculture industry which is now gearing for its highest peak of the year that is on Valentines Day on 14th February barely 2 weeks away. In the last one month it has been impossible to get farm inputs mainly fertilizers and agrichemicals which are indispensible in flower production but even worse has been the inability to get shipping materials (boxes) due to the work disruption in the factories in Nairobi and the inaccessibility of the Airport due to the roadblock as well as the riots.

Fresh Flowers are highly perishable and timing is everything. Valentines day is the single largest event for Rose growers and can account for over 50% of a flower farms revenue for the entire year. Many a Farm Manager has lost his job for not being able to supply the Valentine demand on time, if your Roses open on the 15th of February no matter how excellent the quality you are completely done. Fortunately for us we don’t do Roses but nevertheless I have to empathise with my colleagues in this industry and in any case our peak is Mothers Day which is in March and not so far away either.

Following the ugly skirmishes in Naivasha over the weekend which happens to the major production locations for Kenyan Roses this industry is facing total collapse unless urgent measures are made to save this vital consignment. Not to forget the 12 months of sheer agony that all the budding Romeos around the world will have to face for the rest of the year for failling to present their lady loves with a bouquet of Fresh (Kenyan) Roses this Valentines day.

For more on the flower crisis read here and here.

This is the longest break I have taken from blogging, at one point I almost ditched the whole thing all together, since the 30th of Dec I have undergone almost every negative emotion that the human mind can fathom, from Shock, Anger, Horror, Despair, Pity, Weariness, Resignation, Devastation, Hopelessness……. you name it because of the political situation in the country. Fortunately I have been spared the first hand experience of the Mayhem that is going on cos of my location it is almost surreal when you try and imagine that what you are seeing on TV every day is happening in your own country.

The first days of the crisis I had to rely very heavily on blogs to get the real picture on what was going on and the emotions running through the country and to be honest they scared me shitless. I never imagined that the aggregator that I normally had scant regard for would become such a vital tool in my search for info. I personally did not feel equiped to blog through this crisis because mainly what I could say was mainly hearsay and secondly I don’t feel inclined to make my blog a political blog so I decided to hold back on posting and rather give any views I have as comments. But now I am back but with alot of hesitation, it is quite hard to come up with anything to post while the current situation persists. 

The dilema is whether to Move on, Stand Still or Retrace our steps back? That question I won’t even attempt to answer. 

How did it ever get to this?

Is there any hope?

I refuse to give up hope even in this most hopeless of situations, the economy is shattered but it can be revived, Communities are divided more than ever but the divisions can heal if the people are willing to rise up and make the change. I don’t see the political leadership making any honest step to resolve this mess that that they wholly created (ALL OF THEM!) but maybe, just maybe a new leader can arise to help Kenya out of this crisis or is it just my dream?

Does any Kenyan want to step up to join this honourable league of leaders?

If not then I give up!