Crazy weather!

So I'm sitting in my house the other day, and it started to rain rather suddenly. Before I knew it the wind kicked up and the rain was whipping by at a rather crazy angle. For a brief moment, I felt like I was back in Florida during one of those fun afternoon thunderstorms. It was quite refreshing to say the least.

WIRED 30 HOUR FAMINE AND FOOD DISTRIBUTION

Faces (cont...)

Faces

This week I will be posting random pics of faces of people here in Burkina Faso that I have taken over the years. Comments are welcome.

The real purpose of a 30 hour famine... (very small video due to low bandwidth)

Death of a smartphone....

Nearly a year ago now, my cousin gave me this great Blackberry 8830 to use here in Africa. Upon returning here to Burkina Faso, I was able to get most of the features up and running. Well, a month ago I finally got the unlimited data rate plan going here. Everything was working great until yesterday morning I woke up to -you guessed it - the red light of death! At first I was rather confused as I always turn my phone off at night and have the alarm turn on the phone and wake me up; but this time I woke up before the phone was scheduled to turn on only to see a steady red light. I observed it for a while and noticed that it was essentially cycling internally. It would attempt to boot up (like from a hard reset) then flash the white screen with the turning hour glass for about 3 seconds and then go black again - only to start the cycle all over. If I take the battery out and plug it directly into my laptop, it will do the same thing only windows is so kind to remind me with a constant "bing" that it is virtually being unplugged and plugged back in over and over again.
If you should encounter this same problem, I regret to inform you that your phone is officially "bricked." I am sure that some tech savvy hacker out there has found a way to fix this; and if by chance you are reading this, I would greatly appreciate any comments or helpful hints you might have. In the mean time though, I will be hunting down a new phone on ebay and doing my best to get a replacement in the next 30 days.
Oh - and I forgot to mention that all my contact information was stored on the phone and lost in to a digital 'stargate' at this point in time. Live and learn - should have backed it up!

The cats will play when the .....power goes out???!

If there is one thing that I have discovered here in Africa, it's that the power cuts quite often; (everyday actually) and when it cuts at night, it's always good to have something fun to do. I recently acquired this awesome green laser off of ebay. Not only is it super bright, but I can use it to point out stars and constellations in the night sky as well. You would have to see it to believe it, but it's almost as though the laser beam just keeps going and going.

What I dream about when it's hot and humid......

Here in Burkina, the season is currently referred to as the "rainy season." It's no monsoon, but it can be quite hot and humid at times for a guy that grew up in Washington state. Just yesterday, I was sitting in my house with no electricity and sweating profusely as the humidity was over 70 percent. It's during those times that I like to close my eyes picture something like this.
This pic was taken back in 2004 of me standing on top of Green Mountain with Glacier Peak standing tall in the background. The view was breath taking and the air was so crisp!