Canceling Tivo

Today was the day I called to cancel Tivo.  The guy asked me, "How do you plan to record all of your favorite programs now?" like it was an important question.  It struck me that so much of what goes on in this world is really unnecessary.

We are well past the point where people work to support life.  How many of us have jobs doing something that actually matters?  Farmers, some doctors and nurses, I guess that you could make the case that some construction workers are necessary.  Not the ones building Walmarts, but the one building water treatment plants.

At this point in our existence we are a civilization of Ipod users.  How many people owe their livelihood to this device or something similar?  Millions of digital music players have been sold enabling people to listen to more music than ever, yet it has decimated the music industry.  Record labels are going out of business and artists are making less from record sales.  This forces them to tour more and make their money from touring, which has been a boon for clubs (recent recession not withstanding).

The other trend that I noticed relates more closely to the Tivo problem.  The reason I canceled Tivo was that I am also canceling Time-Warner and switching to ATT DSL and Dish Network.  This move saves me about $60/month for the first year and $25/month for the second year.  After two years, I suspect I will be switching back for similar discounts.  How many people are employed to switch me, and people like me, from Time-Warner to ATT and back.  We have now been trained to do this kind of thing to provide growth in the economy.

To date, this blog has made 23 cents.  How far removed are we from an economy where people spend their days looking at other people's blogs and clicking on ads to generate revenue for the blogger.  Seems like might be just as well off if people did nothing.

Ghana -- A Preflight Check

I would like to begin with a picture.

This is the last piece of American culture we saw before we boarded our flight for Accra.  Yes, a giant carrot with what appears to be a bean on top.  It can be found adjacent to Gate E16 at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta.

This undoubtedly says something, though I'm not sure what.  Bad art knows no bounds?  A monument to American excess?  I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque?  Not exactly what I want to remember the homeland by.

We had allowed for a six hour layover which the Airline of Broken Dreams (my pet name for Delta going back many years) whittled to four by being late getting us out of Kansas City -- still plenty of time to get something to eat, get accosted by the power-hungry clerk in the duty-free shop and just hang out and eat jelly beans.

I think we were both excited when we reached Atlanta.  We found our gate and then went to choose our last meal on American soil.  Tanya chose shitty Mexican.  I chose shitty Chinese (an inferior choice as we would later find out when the airline served us shittier Chinese as the in flight meal.)

Here is Tanya standing at the gate.  The smile is genuine.

Our excitement turned to fascination as the gate area began to fill with fellow travelers.  Note:  If you are white and traveling to Africa and not a missionary, you are in a minority.  The missionaries on our flight were all wearing bright red T-shirts to identify themselves.

More interesting than the missionaries were the Ghanaians.  Most of the Ghanaians on the flight were well-dressed, some in more traditional African apparel and others in suits.  A family sat adjacent to us.  They consisted of an elderly grandmother in a wheelchair, and a younger woman who had several young children with her.  The grandmother had an elegant if not regal look to her wearing a green traditional gown -- she commanded respect and had the air of being a formidable presence every where she went.  The younger woman looked to be more assimilated into American society with braided hair and jeans.  She carried the youngest, a boy of about 18 months, in the traditional African way though.

We watched in fascination as the woman lifted the boy onto her hip, while he balanced there she quickly swung her arms around him and slid him onto her back.  While he lay there with her bending over, she picked up a large piece of cloth and draped it over him, brought it around her front and tied it at her breasts.  She then flipped the bottom of the she under his butt and brought it around and tied it at her waste.

Later we would see hundreds over children toted in this manner.  It seemed so easy and comfortable.  Later in the trip when we would see someone selling baby strollers by the side of the road, we wondered who would buy one.  The terrain isn't really conducive to strollers and their traditional method just seemed better.

Overall, the Ghanaians appear to be experts at carrying all manner of things, be it babies on their backs or nearly anything else on their heads.

A Quick Update on Job Hunting

I have now applied for 130 jobs in the past 3+ months.  I have had two in-person interviews and several more phone interviews.  Very few of the jobs have been positions similar to what I have done in the past.  Working in a position closely tied to new construction, makes for tough going at the moment.

The free-fall in residential construction appears to be continuing.  Commercial vacancy rates are in the mid-teens.  That must come down if new construction is to pick up.

I am beginning to think in terms of not returning to the workforce full-time.  I have purchased professional liability insurance and started to move toward marketing my own business.  In the coming weeks I will launch Graham Engineering.  My hope is that it will generate enough income to keep me out of working for the man.

Thoughts leading up to Ghana

Although I had travelled abroad before, it was more than 25 years ago with a high school tour group to Europe -- the culture shock of that trip was minimal.  The hotels were not much different than American hotels, the food about the same.  The biggest difference was that we were usually allowed to drink beer -- the coolest part of the trip for most of us.

In the years since my European travels, I had always planned to travel internationally but hadn't.  Money, family obligations, US company vacation policies all got in the way.  At 43 I had remarried to an artist with a lifelong desire to travel to Africa.  Early on she had told me that she was going to get us to Africa.  As she said, "I've wanted to go to Africa ever since I was 4 years old and told my preschool teacher that my family went every summer."

Tanya set about applying for grants, writing proposals and researching residencies in Africa and was eventually successful.  For my part, I watched my company's fortunes slide further into the abyss to the point where they laid me off.  Until this point, I had maintained that I would go for a week or so of the month long trip as that was all the vacation time I had.  With a layoff and not a lot of prospects on the horizon, I had little excuse not to go all in.

Tanya is an optimist.  She never doubted that she would get us to Africa or that it would change our lives in a positive way.  I've never considered myself a pessimist, but more of a realist or pragmatic.  That may just be how pessimists put a positive spin on their outlook.  For the sake of the story, we will just say that I am a pessimist.  Tanya read and researched exhaustively about Ghana prior to our trip.  My research fell into a few broad categories:  motorcycle tours; black mambas and 23 other varieties of poisonous snakes found in Ghana; obtaining local currencies, cellphone and internet services; and, the required shots and visas.  So maybe I am just pragmatic.

Everyday leading up to our trip Tanya would provide me with a new interesting fact about Ghanaian culture -- a recipe for fufu, or something about the Kente weaving village we would be visiting.  I would point out that black mambas were not actually black at all -- they could be in a variety of colors like "gunmetal gray" and that they were called black mambas because of the colors of their mouths.  Or, that black mambas were one of the fastest species of snake and could move at speeds of up to 15 mph, that thankfully if you were bitten by one, you would die within an hour.

Tanya travelled to New York about a month before our trip to visit her mother.  Her stepfather had set up a dinner with a Ghanaian friend of his and a woman from the Sudan who worked for the UN.  After the dinner, Tanya called excitedly to tell me how much she loved the fufu, didn't care for the chicken and that the woman from the Sudan could get us on as rape counsellors in the Sudan next year.  I responded that that was never mentioned as option on the skills inventories that I took in high school.

During this time we purchased plane tickets, made arrangements with the residency for Asafo lessons, and got our shots and visas.  The only required shot was yellow fever.  Typhoid, polio, hepatitis A and B, MMR and antimalarial drugs were all recommended and were opted for.  Also, meningitis was borderline.  Tanya's doctor gave her the shot , mine did not.  I wanted money in reserve for anti-venom.

I contacted the motorcycle tour company -- the only one in Ghana.  They had gone out of business.  Everyone seemed to think that this was a stroke of luck -- that touring Ghana by motorcycle was insane. I struck out in all attempts at obtaining local currency prior to getting to Ghana -- no banks or foreign exchange bureaus trade in it.  Cell service would have to wait until we got to Ghana.  There really wasn't a very viable option from this side of the Atlantic.  I went to Walgreen's to fill our anti-malarial prescriptions and ended up spending $111 on various supplies ranging from sunscreen to cold packs to neosporin to finger splints.

We arranged for my son and ex-wife to dog sit for our three large, poorly behaved dogs.  We decided that the only way this would work was if we left the dogs at our house and arranged for her to pick them up after we left.  This would make it much harder for her to back out as Caleb (the Doberman) wouldn't be able to countersurf until we were safely on our way to Ghana.

Ghana Beer Ratings

It is actually possible to get quality local beer in Ghana and as I once read, there are no known pathogens that can survive in beer -- drinking it is a healthy alternative.  Most beers are served in 625 ml bottles (roughly 20 ounces) and cost about 4 cedis ($2.80 at the current rate).

My favorites:

1.  Castle Milk Stout.  A mild, dark stout that stacks up well against Stouts from around the world.  Certainly my favorite.  Think Guinness.  This is brewed locally in Cape Coast.  I am not sure if it is the same Castle as in South Africa and elsewhere.

2.  Stone Strong Lager.  Most of the Ghanaian brews are lagers.  This one is note-worthy for its high alcohol content and strong flavor.  I would compare it to a Doppelbock.  Not one of favorite styles, but this one was quite drinkable.

3.  Gulder Lager.  This is owned by Guinness.  Think Harp's.  Not a bad all-purpose brew.  If your worst problem is that a beer equivalent to Harp is the best you can do, you probably don't have much to complain about.

4.  Club Lager.  Think Miller.  It'll do in a pinch.

5.  Star.  I believe this is the most popular beer in the country.  Think Schlitz -- not even the best of the yard beers.

Back from Ghana

Posting from Ghana proved to be difficult.  We are back now and I will begin to gather my thoughts and post them.

66th Day of unemployment

and still, well unemployed.  I have still not completed my to-do list.  I have had four interviews, two in-person and two over the phone.  No offers.

We are now five days from leaving for Ghana.  We still have some packing to do but things appear to be coming together.