Saturday, November 29, 2008

Orlando, Florida

Thursday 27: 10-15am Lagos local - 10:30pm Thursday (Orlando local time)

Got into town Thursday night with Ope Adeoye. It was a very tiring ride on Delta, 12 hrs 42 mins, direct flight from Lagos to Atlanta. The ride however from Atlanta to Orlando International took 5mins (I slept for the 1.5hrs and that's how long it felt). I succumbed to the lure of duty free and got a Titinium plated Skagen and a new reading glass to replace the two broken items I carry around at the moment, damaging my "keep it low" resolve on this trip, we're really trying to manage our very low budget for 12 days.

Touchdown was great and we started feeling the Naira-meets-dollars saga immediately. We paid $50 for a ride to the Marriot villages Hotel in a long cab, the journey was less that 25 minutes! I can't forget that's N6, 000 Naija money, plus I got a N1,000 ride for a longer distance same day in Lagos.



At the hotel next, it's $140 (forget the .99cents that is ever present in UK and US) for the night and we're definitely shopping for something not 4.5 star in the morning.

The next set of issues to be breasted includes getting a SIM and adapters for the laptops. You won't dare roam or you'll accumulate bills in the range of N10k in 2 days. As for the adapters, remember the Yankee 120volts issues? luckily the HP machines nowadays support both voltages but the pins we have can't fit the walls, so we quickly use up the remaining battery life on my system, Naija NEPA don show Ope and I was lucky to have an inverter.

The rooms are however very cosy and sleep up for grabs.

Friday 3am - Friday 11pm

Got a smaller hotel today, just for the weekend and would probably be back at the Marriot Monday for the business of software :). Took a walk to Orlando premium outlets and only got a KODAK easyshare camera, now Naija police are going to get popular from my newly acquired Paparazzi skills. Black friday sales are slated for this weekend so we're taking our time not to overshop. Everybody is waiting for the weekend sales to get a great deal.


Ope got a phone, a net 10 for $30 and we bought a call card for $10. Now you can't call Naija directly from an At&T Net 10 without a call card, but beware of those cards. The one we got lasted less than 4minutes, approx 2 minutes talking to family, approx 2 minutes phone ringing without response burned out the credits. Horrible. Now we've given friends the line and we only get in-bound calls, unless it's a life threatening situation.



Saturday 4am

Notice I've been getting up really early, either my system is still running Naija time or I'm renewed by the scenery. Orlando is beautiful, day and night. We missed the opening of the weekend sales, slept off early but maybe it's not such a bad thing. The news have it that a Walmart attendant was trampled to death because of the teaming crowd waiting to start the sales weekend and the outlet (in New York) had to be closed for hours. A woman reported she was injured in the rush but waited till she finished shopping before going to the police!

So much for the yanks, we're getting ready for breakfast now.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

FW: Is this democracy? Harry Arogundade

To: Kehinde Adewusi
Subject: [Mi Mantra] FW: Is this democracy?

Let him be remembered as the "Rear Admiral" who ordered his "Men" to beat up a lady on the streets of Lagos.
May his barbaric acts linger in our memories.


View Video here


From: Ope Adeoye
Sent: 06 November 2008 10:20 AM
To: IT Application Development
Subject: Is this democracy?

Let us immortalise the name 'Harry Arogundade' such that when anyone googles for him they'd only get results that show him for who he is even when we have all passed on.

Simply contribute to the 'noise' on the internet... Facebook, Digg, Nairaland, Blogs, Nigeria Village Square, Punch...

Please pass this on...

Monday, November 03, 2008

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.