Archive | October, 2008

how do you deal with failure?

31 Oct

Related  post over at 2 W.E.A.K Dudes.

A few months back, our 15 year old family restaurant ran bankrupt. The reasons are many. We suffered three consecutive breakins that wiped us out. My step ma had just passed away, so all records were frozen, meaning the banks couldn’t loan us money, and Africa being what it is, the relatives were bickering over how to proceed while failing to proceed.

But the bottom line, for me, is that I was in charge, no one else. Granted, I tried everything, and failed to keep the restaurants running. Now, you might argue that it was meant to be, or *ish happens, or it wa’ant my fault, but the truth is, I was in charge, and I failed.

It’s going to be a very painful failure for me. Especially seeing how long it had been in business, and how much it meant to the future of my now orphaned siblings.

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how to start a rebellion, the rogue king way

30 Oct

Ever had that urge to rebel against everything that ties you down. The incessant urge to rebel against the system, against monotony, against redundancy, against boredom?

Ever wanted to feel the wind in your face, the mountain ranges at your feet, a shack for a crib and the earth falling away beneath you.

Ever want to take photos of a beautiful ocean sunset, play guitar by a campfire at the beach, kiss a native island girl in Maui?

If so, then you know how I feel every single day.

The rogue in me beckons from the moment I rise, to the second my eyes close of their own volition.

The call of the wild lures me like the water sirens of ancient Greece.

So I have a plan. It’s been brewing for years, but the resolve grows stronger each passing day.

I want to start a rebellion.

Here’s my list:

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ten random things I’ve learnt from facebook

28 Oct

I joined Facebook about a month ago, as a kind of social experiment. Even though I’ve been pleasantly surprised to catch up with friends I last saw almost 10 years ago,  I’m not about to put up embarrassing childhood photos or join redundant groups that have no relevance to my current existence. Stop sending me Werewolf Fight invites!

But catching up with all those friends, browsing through their profiles, photos, etc, has forced me to realize a few things. In no particular order, I give you, “Ten random things I’ve learnt from Facebook”:

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diwali, walk of life and free robotics lessons from Stanford

26 Oct

First off, in case you missed them, two new “writing on the fly” pieces at 2 W.E.A.K Dudes :  1001 Tales – Gabriel and 1001 Tales – Two.

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I’m supposed to be going for the Diwali celebrations today, they’re normally at Munyonyo. An no, silly, I’m not Hindu. It’s just that ever since an Indian friend took me there a few years back, I’ve been hooked. The food, the crowd, the culture, the music, the fireworks, it all just one big crazy experience.

I fell in love with a girl there one a couple of years back. She was beautiful, gorgeous, witty beyond belief, adventurous, and a major life-ist, but you know, that’s a tale for another day.

Thing is, for the last two years, it’ been getting gradually boring… or maybe the novelty is beginning to wear off for me. But that’s not the reason I’m going.

I’m not going because I’m unbelievably broke, and I have a tonne of work to catch up on. So I’m sitting home, chilling with Evenstar. I’m making good progress, trying to master a few more chords and learning to strum to  a simplified version of Walk of Life, by Dire Straits. Rockin!

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my cup runneth over

23 Oct

I’m no stranger to pain, anger, rejection, dissappointment, tragedy and frustration. In fact, I sometimes view them as an integral part of who I am, like somehow, all the *ish that has happened to me has helped define who I am. Maybe my responses towards the drama is what defined me.

The stoic, stubborn refusal to curl up and die, so to speak.

But I’m also not a stranger to love, friendship, goodness, joy and mercy. They come in small measured doses, but they also come just at the right time, when the frailty of my humanity is brightly profiled in the harsh luminance of reality.

In the face of tragedy, when the storms of life lash and whip relentlessly, I have learnt that it is the best time to give thanks.

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crossposted – a thousand and one tales

22 Oct

I’m trying to learn how to write on the fly. None of this is pre-conceived or pre-meditated, I want to see how far I can push a story without stopping to build the characters, or to plot out a proper tale. So I’m writing and developing the story real time.

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One.

He has the stupidest grin on his face, a face damaged by a life of pain, hardship and toil. A face weathered and leathery like the discarded hide of a long dead mountain goat. He displays a mis-shapen set of teeth whose ugliness is magnified by the fact that there are only six of them left, the last two hidden so far in the recesses of his mouth that he has the appearance of an overgrown rabbit gnawing at the remnants of a once hopeful life.

He is unbelievably happy. A stranger had handed him a coin with a crane on it. That meant his miserable existence was made better by the previously unimaginable amount of five hundred shillings. His mind whirled with infinite possibilities. He owned his little fiefdom, he was the king of his kraal. Life, friend, was a sum of joy, beauty, hope and an endless supply of food.

Continue read the full tale at Two W.E.A.K Dudes.

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o! for a horse with wings!

20 Oct

One thought has been heavily on my mind for the past few weeks.

I want to fly.

I look up at the sky and want to take one huge leap and soar…

When I’m on a motorbike, I close my eyes and imagine myself a thousand feet in the air, the wind rushing by my face…

At night, I lie back on the grass and look at the stars, and wonder what it would be like to look down at the earth from the sky…

My mind has been working overtime to figure out how to fly, even for the briefest of moments, to just float in the air…

Icarus, Pegasus, and Hermes fill my dreams, and haunt me in my waking moments.

How does one fulfil a yearning this strong?

Offtopic:

“When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
-Unknown (attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

O! for a horse with wings!
-William Shakespeare, Cymbeline

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of comic books, poetry and wormholes

16 Oct

I’m a huge comic book and science fiction fan, as in goesthroughwikipediareadingbackgroundspowersuniversesandorigins type of fan.

After watching too much He-Man, Power Rangers and X-Men and all the usual science fiction thingamajigs, including reading Star Wars novels and what not, in my S.1, I wrote my first (and only) comic book. It was a short story actually, with a few illustrations thrown in for good measure, Hardy Boys style.

It was called “Radon Defenders”, and the premise was this;

A super teen geekwas building the world’s first Radon particle accelerator, in the hopes of being able to explore dark matter and wormholes. One night, while his parents are away, he invites his buddies over for a demo, as the machine was almost done. The usual drama occurs, lightning strikes, machine malfunctions and there is a blinding light. They wake up, find themselves on a dark lonely planet, somehow, the machine has torn a wormhole in the fabric of space-time and they end up in an alternate universe, endowed with super-powers.

Right.

Carrying on…

Obviously, I didn’t have the resources to go into mass production, glossy cover art and all, so only one comic/novel was produced, on a ruled exercise book, Musana, I think. Funny thing is, everyone who read it loved it. To this day, I wonder what was wrong with them. Someone even asked me a couple of weeks back what happened to that story.

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and it shall be called “Evenstar”

14 Oct

In the beginning, there was the Rogue King, and for a time, it was good. A boring existence followed, interrupted with the occasional stifled royal yawn, and punctuated with endless series of meaningless roguish activity. Until one night, a deep ethereal voice rang out from the heavens;

“Learn the guitar”.

And the Rogue King tossed and turned in his bed, unable to get any sleep. He called his wisest advisers, and they came trembling to his courts, for they full knew the wrath of the Rogue King when incensed by insomnia.

One by one, they failed him, and he had them all thrown into the lion’s den, where the fire was made seven times hotter, and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Finally, one frail adviser was left. Solomon was his name, and he was a quivering mass of flesh, dressed in goat-skin and looking like he’d been on a diet of locusts and honey. He inwardly rued the day he was brought forth to this world, for all his life’s endeavours where to end this very night.

“Solomon!” The Rogue King’s voice echoed in the chamber.

“Yes, sire…” a frail whimper, not unlike a mongrel on the verge of death from hunger.

“Solomon! Solomon! Let down your golden hair!”

Silence.

“Uhhh… sire?”

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your subconscious is a sneaky lil’ bugger

13 Oct

I’ve realised with growing concern that there’s too much of me scattered in here, but two things keep me going. One, it’s my blog darnit, sue me. Two, when I started the blog, I promised myself I’d only talk about life, technology, design and business issues based on experiences I have gone through, unless they’re links to some cool stuff, so yeah, indulge me, will you?

Carrying on…

A few years back, during my S.6 vacation, I had the pleasure of meeting Rev Zac Niringiye, he was a friend to my dad and I was a friend to his son. One day, I found myself seated with his family at Chipper’s Ice Cream. Being the kind of person he is, he asked us all to share our dreams and ambitions.

I told him my dream was to own many companies under one umbrella corporation. He told me the word I was looking for was conglomerate. I was impressed, and I’d learnt a new word. I never thought much of that meeting afterwards, least for a while anyways.

On an obscure 19th birthday, I jokingly told someone that I wanted to own a company by 21.

In 2003, I registered Rogue Digital (name only) and then a few months later, a fully registered partnership, NVGOR8, with the Apprentice.

I was 20.

It was only when I was very quietly celebrating my 21st birthday the next year that it hit me. My passing remark had… well, come to pass.

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