It is a guy telling me to go to Mozambique. I was supposed to go to Brazil in the middle of January. I have no idea who I am talking.

Turns out, I have a new boss. I need to be in Pemba, Mozambique on the 30th.

So Margo and I make plans to go spend Christmas in Dallas, drive home and I hop on a plane. After we get there, I get a call and I need to leave the day after Christmas. So we do our Christmas stuff on Christmas eve and we spend Christmas day driving from Dallas to Atlanta.

Right wing blogs claim Obama has an army of millions of Muslims ready to vote for him to usher in his second presidency. I have no idea where they are, but it isn’t running gas stations and restaurants along I-20.

My flights were Atlanta to Johannesburg and later take a charter flight to Pemba. The flight was pretty uneventful. I got an email telling me what to expect when I arrived in South Africa and later, Pemba.

As usual, this was wrong.

I was told to report to the international counter for a 3 am check in. The counter didn’t open until 4:30. I was told that when I landed in Pemba to have exact change for my visa. The price was either 78, 82, 88 or around 86 dollars. I didn’t have to pay for a visa.

Our driver did meet us there, which was a change. They tend to forget you/get bored and wander off. Or not have a sign and expect you to know who you are looking for.

The staff house here is the Pemba Beach Resort. It is shockingly nice. No internet and The restaurant takes forever, but overall pretty nice. It is walking distance to our shop.

We did go a few times into town to eat at some restaurants there, but the there isn’t much in Pemba at the time.

It usually just hosts Europeans on vacation. I’m not sure where the town will end up, but the sudden influx of oilfield money and oilfield workers is going to change it. Hopefully, it happens quick. There may be more work for us in the area and right now it is a logistical nightmare.

Or the hotel that had no internet. The only internet was in the common area and it was down. The guy that knew how to reboot the modem was on vacation. You would think there is a joke there, but there isn’t. There wasn’t a single person in the employ of the Pemba Beach resort that knew how to reboot the modem.

So, I’ve sort of been working on this in my head and will post them over the next few hours/days. Actual details may vary, but the gist will be there. I could also explain why I didn’t say anything more about Qatar and UPS throwing my Christmas present in a bucket of water, but I’m going to blame that one on SOPA.

My webpage went dark in protest before it was cool.

Anyway, we heard about the Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse at a party. I was dressed as Sheriff Rick Grimes in a pretty decent costume my wife made, and nobody at this nerd party recognized me. But it started a dialog about zombies and some suggested we go. It was outside the perimeter where nothing good ever happens, but we wanted to go to a haunted house, and we like zombies.

The webpage was great.

The event had people dressed armed guards patrolling the parking lot. We even saw an armed guard drag a girl at gunpoint off into the distance. Later, we thought we saw her in a scene, so I think she was just late. Either way, I think they should do that. Put ringers in the crowd and grab them.

We got wanded for weapons and were given a brief safety lecture before entering. The zombies are under control, but don’t touch them, don’t touch anything, stay on the path and you are under video surveillance at all times. We walked along past a guy in a hazard suit into a room. A man shows up and tells us that the CDD(Center for Disease Development.) has the zombie outbreak under control and this is to show us the truth behind the media distortions.

We entered an area that had fenced enclosures and zombies jumped out at us but were stopped by the fences. And we saw a mad scientist that had a zombie under control. His pet zombie lunged at us and “chased” us into the next room. Lame Haunted house stuff. This next room was a fenced in area with “members” from a previous tour that had been exposed to the zombie virus and realized the CDD was trying to turn us into zombies. One of them started to turn into a zombie. He lunged at us and a member of the army stormed in killed all the zombies and basically said “Come with me if you want to live”, that started our 20 minute run through hell.

The army guy ran with us shooting zombies and he got us to a door. He said to run up to the roof there is an extraction team up there. We ran into a group of CDD executives that realized things have just gotten real and they think we are interns. They hand us paper work and tell us to start looking for information about Project Indigo. Until they realize we aren’t with the CDD and they kill themselves. Another CDD employee runs up and says how crazy this situation is and we should follow him to safety. A few members of the group remember the army guy said to not listen to any CDD employees. They try to stay behind, but the idea of being left alone was a far worse prospect. Our new guide takes us down a hall into another room and he leaps out and says “GET EM!” as two zombies come barging through the walls. As they menace us, more army guys show up and shoot them. They guide us through a few more zombie infested places.

After a while of running and ducking from zombies as the army guys are shooting everything around us, we get to one room where a school bus has crashed through the wall. We are told to go through the bus, through the survivor camp and meet with the rescue team. As we are making it though the bus, a zombie leaps at Margo. She shuts down and sits in a seat and won’t budge. I literally drag her up and out of the bus.

She is good and freaked out at this point. Her head is almost spinning around at every noise real and imagined. Which are quite a lot because you can hear gun shots and screams from the other groups. This also encourages the actors now that they have found the weak ones of the herd. One of the survivors with a gas mask keeps walking around and sniffing her as he sharpens his knives. She is steadfastly ignoring him, I keep pointing him out and saying she should say hi. Another survivor keeps hitting on her. One shoots a zombie in the head and his head sprays fluid out. Pretty awesome.

Eventually the army guys show up again and escort us at a run through this office complex filled with zombies. Margo keeps looking behind us prompting our rear guard to say keep your eyes forward and say something if you see something. Since I’m now running and pushing Margo through this and I’m a jerk I’m yelling “SEE SOMETHING!” Almost every step and calling her “Zombie Food”. Mostly because I was seeing Zombies lunge at us. Eventually, our guards get overrun and just scream “RUN!” we charge down this obstacle course of office furniture and zombies until we come barreling out of door and into the parking it. Tour over. And I didn’t feel cheated. I felt relieved to have made it out.

It was insane. We ran through hallways, up stairs, down stairs, through a school bus, across a parking lot and through rooms and offices. The whole time being lunged at by zombies, hearing gun fights and screams and trying not to get nommed on.

You could pay extra for a Zombie Shooting Range, but it was just zombies and you shot them with paintballs. Target practice zombies. I wasn’t too interested in that. I’d be interested in a Zombie Safari, but Zombie Target practice doesn’t appeal to me.

I feel a little bad about it sometimes because the other group is out working in the 110 to 120 degree weather, the salt from their rapidly evaporating sweat staining their coveralls. I’m in the AC sending email and faffing about on the internet.

I help a little bit, but they have enough people that I’m just sort of there. The good news is it sounds like I will be placed on a rotation and they are willing to pay to keep me locked down with Qatar. So when I am home I don’t run the risk of being sent somewhere else.

Either way, I’m glad they rushed me from Nigeria to here. So I could sit and tell them what to order. On the first, we have a show and tell for the customer. I’m not sure we can get it done. My stuff will only take a few days to get ready, but the other departments have things that need to be built and calibrated and certified. Not something I think can be done in 7 days.

Not work related, but somebody is trying to build the world’s largest shopping mall just down the road. It goes on for miles.

I just read an article where somebody claimed to be a Life Explorer. I have no idea what that means, but I hate him already.

So, picture this:

But with some benches around it that were falling apart because carpenter bees have eaten all the structural support. So I removed them, sanded the deck and replaced boards that were too worn to be usable.

The steps were each made of three boards that had warped and rotted, so I replaced them 2 x 12′s. Here you can see the building inspector checking my work:

It took three days to get to this stage:

But only one to get it to this:

I was a little worried about the dark spots I left behind. At the time, I thought I should go deeper and sand more to get a more uniform look. But in the end, I liked the dark spots and the way they came out.

I wasn’t done yes.

After a stern warning from the government of California:

I set about to make a pair of planters to replace the red plastic ones we were using.

I didn’t take any pictures of the process, but it wasn’t too exciting. I just cut construction lumber until it was what I needed.

But since there will be morning glories in the planters, I built an arbor:

The arbors were built to go around the planters and everything was stained with Behr outdoor deck stain. With any luck, it will last for a while. At least until we replace the whole deck.

It is OK, but I’ve always felt the phone doesn’t get a lot of support and I’ve never liked the look. So I thought it would be nice if I could make one that reminded me more of a vintage radio rather than white rectangle.

First thing I did was gather supplies:
-a Class T amplifier
-iPhone adapter
-Speakers
-Hemlock board

I was tempted to make the Amp and adapter myself. But to keep things easy, I just bought them. Maybe if I do another version, I’ll spend some time and build an Amp with charging circuit. But I wanted this up and running quickly.

The first thing I did was grab some scrap plywood and make speaker holders:

I taped them together to cut them both at the same time:

And put them on the board to work out the dimensions I needed:

After getting that set, I marked up the boards so I would know where I’d been:

So I clamped it to my workbench and got to making shavings:

Which, if you were wondering, is entirely too light for handplane work, so I put a bag of cement on it:

I have to build a workbench soon if I plan to keep on doing this. There is something very pleasantly zen about taking shavings off of a board. The lightness of the Workmate also made it hard to do any sort of fancy joinery, so the whole thing is just glue joints.

I didn’t take many pictures of the actual construction process, because it is really pretty simple. I didn’t draw up a plan, rather I followed what I saw it looking like in my head. I need to get better about drawings.

Anyway, here it is before staining:

I’ve rounded and eased most of the corners to take away the hard lines and make it a little softer looking.

After looking at the stain aisle at Home Depot, We decided the best color was called Gunstock. We wanted something a lighter brown with just a bit of red in it.

I put two coats of stain and two coats of a semi-gloss polyurethane coating for protection and to make it shine a little. I tried to make it less blotchy, but that is just what this wood does.

I mounted the speakers and installed the electrics:

And here is the almost finished final product:

The front has a vintage looking aluminum knob. I was going to wait until I was finished before I posted this, but I have to go away for a few weeks so that has put a stop to that. I need to build some speaker covers.

I ordered some grill cloth, a goldish yellow style to fit the design. I also want to make a decorative piece to cover the hole the iPhone wires come out of, but I’m going to do that in a way that matches the speaker covers.

They put us up in a nearby hotel. I would only give it four stars because it doesn’t have a swimming pool or gym

The rooms are on the small side but they still manage to squeeze up to four people per room. That sort of efficiency you just don’t get in the USA. Sure the light switch was just a pair of bare wires you had to connect together and the bed was made out of pallets, but I like the rustic charm it gives

It does have running water, that I managed to catch a sample of in my soap dish:

And a restaurant on the grounds that serves goats, chickens and pigs

It is next to a thriving downtown filled with little boutique shops like this one that sells fish, chicken and sim cards.

This is the bar I’ve been going to with my drinking buddy Jesus. It is unique in that it has the TV and the beer is cool. There is no electricity. Anything that has power has it by generators, and the only places that have generators are places that gouge foreigners by charging $1.60 for 770 milliliters of beer. And I’ve sampled such wonderful beer as Nkoyi, Primus, Mutzig, and Skol, ranging from 5.2 to 6% alcohol content.

And our work facility is top notch. We have a bench grinder:

and an overhead crane certified to 2 tons:

I didn’t take a picture or video of the air compressor next to because quite frankly I was too scared. The flywheel was really unbalanced and looked like it would fly apart at any moment. I have no idea why the last crew that was here all came down sick the day before the flight.

And this cool looking moth:

I already have a blog that I use for travel that I almost never update because I am a lazy, lazy person. I’m also boring. I’m not motivated to blog when most of my days are:

Go to work.
sit in an office waiting on job information.
go to hotel.
Job cancels
Go home.

I’m such a bitter and angry old man.

Using my 20mm chisel, it cut faster than I expected and I managed to drive it into my leg.

After waiting, we decided that since it was so wide, we should go visit Urgent Care and let them stitch me up.

A few stitches later, and they tell me to come back on Friday for a follow up. I left with huge bandage and no lollipop.

I got six messages from her before I could peck out “Do you want me to bring it to you now or later?”.

Which finally irritated me enough to get a new fancy smart phone. I went to AT&T and got a Samsung Captivate. A fancy Android based phone.

After a few days of using it, I’m impressed. The text entry system called Swype takes as little getting used to, but it is amazingly quick once you do.