The NOVICE MASTER|Welcome to Uncle Che’s NOVICE MASTER. This blog is all about Science and Technology, Business and Economy, Home and Family, Personality and Self Improvement as well as personal opinions, reviews and lifestream

Without the street lights, everyone felt it was OK. The whole city was kind of used to it. No one ever imagined improvements like street lights in the city of Buea so soon. Even when the poles were being planted and the cable works done, most still thought it was just a campaign move against the upcoming elections.

The first time the lights went operational was on the eve of the University of Buea’s Convocation ceremony. Everyone harbored the conception that the street lights were meant just for the convocation ceremony and that they will be put off the next day. It was easy to think like that since the convocation ceremony of the students of the University of Buea has always been the greatest occasion in that small town.

To everyone’s surprise, the street lights were not discontinued as speculated. People started hoping that it was a permanent situation but most believed that after some other public holidays like X-Mas, New Year, 11th February and the mount Cameroon race of hope, the street lights will be history.

Why did people have such conceptions? Is the city council too poor to afford for street lights. Oh, I don’t think that is the appropriate question since they already have them. Are they considered to poor to pay the bills? Maybe not. Is it politically impossible for the Anglophone minority to enjoy such privileges? Is there anything bad about development except meeting up with accompanying responsibilities?

The initial assumptions that the street lights were put in place just for the public holidays may be correct. If so, then why did they allow the lights on several days after the Mountain race and trade fair? That may be difficult answering but logically, they may have added some days of grace just to blindfold the masses. Last night, the street lights went into extinction. I will wait till it is night time. My conclusion on this story will depend on whether they will be on this night or not.

GRRRRRRRH

What’s this? I was mad. How could I just as for a 15mins permission from Lainy to go get some soft drinks and immediately I came back into the room, there was an outage. I could no longer continue the instant messaging with Lainy over yahoo messenger. Though we didn’t have much to say to each other again, I guess some emotions of hugs and bye-bye was worth the extra minutes. The outage started at a few minutes to 11pm and ended at about 3:40pm today. Before I came online, Lainy was already off for bed and I could only read some offline messages. Frustrating!!!

Over the past three weeks, the outages here have gone back to “normal”. When I say normal, I it ironic. I mean frequent interruption of power. Outages in Cameroon are as frequent as greetings. Even with the intervention of one American energy company, I guess the only thing that has changed is just the name of the electricity corporation from SONEL (Societe National d’Electricite) to AES-SONEL. I don’t even know what the AES there stands for and I don’t even care. All I know is that they are a mess.

Someone asked me not to put any blame on the American company. He explained that despite the fact that they have an influence up to the level of a change of name, they run less than 50% of the show.

Cameroon, as they rightly say, is Africa in Miniature. We don’t only have everything here but we have everything in abundance, especially when referring to natural resources, food crops and cash crops. Even the electricity that the masses are constantly deprived of is well enough to power at least 5 African countries. Yeah, you heard me. Five!!! However, politics always has a place to play. For political reasons, about 4 potential sources of power generation are being ignored.

I really don’;t have any problem with all of the above. The bills. That’s my problem. Why should my bills almost double when I use power for less than 80% of the time I need it.

I really felt pity for Noela. She had three assignments to complete and submit today and was still on the second when the outage occurred. I am not sure she had a sound sleep. She must have been dreaming about the unfinished work the whole night.

Sorry, baby. Never mind them

Do you have a friend or two who is so talented in what he/she does so much that you feel you want to be in that place? Have you found yourself asking questions like “where and when does he/she learn further”?

Everyone has a skill or two. Some are easily seen, while others are hidden. Some, where there easily seen or not are well utilized while others are just being “wasted”. Friends who make good use of their skills, talents or gifts are a good inspiration to us all.

The other day, after reading a post by Lainy, I told her what a good writer she is. I must have told her that several times, but what was special about this last time is that for once, I told her exactly why I think she is a good writer.

Lainy, you are such a good writer. Your writing is a perfect blend of conversational, narrative and descriptive.

Today, a friend, Bara Mark (aka Mbarakanamozo) of Bareta Online showed me a newspaper with on of his articles on the front page. Though I was amazed, it was not much of a surprise. I can recall that I have seen his article at the front page of the Eden Newspaper more than once. What is amazing about his writing is the fact that he is not a professional writer. It is just a hobby for him and what he writes is not even close to what he has studied in the University.

Bareta is a young Cameroon studying Microbiology in the University of Buea and currently residing in Buea. If you visit his blog expecting to see some Microbiology related talks, then you are wrong. He calls himself the analyst and believes very strongly in human rights and freedom of speech. He is no politician, but a dedicated student who always aims at leadership roles. If he were to stand for the presidential elections someday, I bet I will be his campaign manager.

Bareta’s most recent article as of today (Tuesday 17th March 2009) is MT.CAMEROON RACE,THE PEAK OF ANGLOPHONE MARGINALISATION. Oh, before I forget to mention, that is the article I saw on the front page of the Eden Newspaper.

Bareta was the very first candidate of Pen 2 Net. I love the courage he took. After making him are that WordPress won’t be the piece of cake that Blogger is, he still accepted my offer of migrating his blog to self-hosted WordPress and accepted a domain name which will be paid for by the Pen 2 Net project as long as his blog remains alive.

I wish I could find more talented Bloggers like Bareta and introduce them to the Blogosphere.

Blog and Win at Lainy’s Blogoversary Celebration
This artistic piece which Lainy has themed LAINY’S HOTTEST BLOGOVERSARY WRITING COMPETITION: A BLOGGERS CELEBRATION! is interestingly rich, well organized and simple to follow but yet a very challenging food for thought…

Eh! I think I went a little bit too far for an introduction. Let’s rewind the tapes and listen to what the past says.

If you don’t include your blogs when counting your relatives, friends and colleagues, then I assume you are yet to be a blogger. Blogging is such a passion that anyone who is in NOT ONLY for the cash knows exactly what love for a blog means. No one can ever be able to pay back what he/she owes a blog. That is why no online system built would ever be able to actually evaluate the worth of a blog. Do you really believe Lainy’s Musings can be worth just $4,799 as Smart PageRank says? Certainly not. I believe Lainy realizes she owes her blog a great deal. That’s probably why she celebrates the anniversary of Lainy’s Musings.

LAINY’S HOTTEST BLOGOVERSARY WRITING COMPETITION:
A BLOGGERS CELEBRATION! is far bigger and more interesting than I could ever imagined. Organizing something of this magnitude is no piece of cake. It takes lots of time, patience and intellect and one can’t afford to move into it alone, unless you don’t have any friend. It is our (faithful friends, relatives, colleagues and fellow Bloggers) responsibility to see that she makes it with flying colors.

I deeply regret fate didn’t favor me this time. It didn’t give me enough opportunity to stand by Lainy while she journeys through this very demanding period, but then when I come to think of people like Windmill, Ivy and the other hundred plus who didn’t hesitate tagging her as “sister” by their numerous, varying and heart-originating sponsorship, something tells my guilt “come on, give Uncle Che a break”

Lainy has been very busy making sure all the “I”s are dotted and the “T”s cut.

Friday, February 20, 2009 – Another Contest in the Making

March 6, 2009 – Last Call for Blog Contest Sponsors…

Friday, March 6, 2009 – Complete List of Sponsors for the Blogoversary Contest of Lainy’s Musings

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 – What’s at Stake for the Lainy’s Hottest Blogoversary Competition?

Friday, March 13, 2009 – Thank You Is Not Enough

Sunday, March 15, 2009 – LAINY’S HOTTEST BLOGOVERSARY WRITING COMPETITION: A BLOGGERS CELEBRATION!

Today Sunday 15th March, marks the very first day of the contest for participants. Lainy told me yesterday that she hopes I don’t miss it, and I promised not to, but I was a little surprised when I couldn’t reach her by IM.

Where are you, Lainy? Taking a break? God knows you deserve one.
Clap
Clap
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You have done a very great job.

This is not the very first time I am seeing this browser. I first saw it on a friend’s laptop about a week ago but never aid attention to it. I am so happy and contented with Mozilla Firefox and don’t even want to try any other browser unless absolutely necessary.

However, my Firefox really made me angry today. Kept on crashing at an unbearable speed. I wanted to think of this as a temporal situation so I decided to get another browser that I could use just for today, hoping that tomorrow, I will find my Firefox working like magic.

I had a problem of choice. didn’t know which browser to go for, so I decided to check out some reviews. On the very first list I saw, Flock with second, after Firefox. After reading that it is based on Firefox 3 plus some kudos, I didn’t hesitate downloading and trying it.

Flock rocks!!! I find it difficult to believe, but to my opinion it is faster and more stable than Firefox 3. The only problem is that the edit screen looks kind of crowded and strange to me, but I believe I will get used to it. I will reserve Firefox only for tasks I can’t accomplish with Flock.

If you are looking for a second browser to add to Firefox, I suggest Flock.

They are passionate, serious and dedicated to their course. At last, they made it. A debut album is not always an easy task. They have been into music for a long time and I always knew there is something in them that will explode into the dream they have always lived.

I was with them at the University of Buea and have watched them record at Slim Records. I have even featured in one of their tracks recorded by Big Slim himself, at Dirty South City.

This album titled in Pidgin English “E MAKE SENSE” literally means “there is a lot of meaning in this”. These guys rap in three languages; French, English and Pidgin. I guess that is one of the characteristics that makes them the masses’ choice. They do both singing and raping and filled in this 14-track album is a whole lot of emotions, truth and education behind the songs.

They are my pals. We shared the same dream. They are now ahead of me and I am happy they are making it and looking back at us. They both took the pains to personally deliver an autographed copy of their CD to me.

I will send them a mail this night requesting for permission to put up their songs on CamHooD. I hope that doesn’t go against the contracts they have signed with their sponsors and producers.

To learn more about them, meet them at their official website www.zionside.co.cc

The biggest discoveries and revolutions in history always stem from very small ideas and situations. While reading some pages on the web today, I found this piece of writeup on a certain website that caught my attention

A Tea Launches a Revolution
The Women’s Rights Movement marks July 13, 1848 as its beginning. On that sweltering summer day in upstate New York, a young housewife and mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was invited to tea with four women friends. When the course of their conversation turned to the situation of women, Stanton poured out her discontent with the limitations placed on her own situation under America’s new democracy. Hadn’t the American Revolution had been fought just 70 years earlier to win the patriots freedom from tyranny? But women had not gained freedom even though they’d taken equally tremendous risks through those dangerous years. Surely the new republic would benefit from having its women play more active roles throughout society. Stanton’s friends agreed with her, passionately. This was definitely not the first small group of women to have such a conversation, but it was the first to plan and carry out a specific, large-scale program.

The above is amazing, isn’t it?

This reminds me of similar situations where a small incident has lead to something very big. See the examples below;

An apple falls on Sir Isaac Newton’s head while he was in his orchard and he questions why the apple didn’t fall upwards. This simple incident lead to laws about gravity, which have a very great impact on science today.

Archimedes, the guy who discovered something as easy and simple as the screw, also made basic laws on density, mass and volume after spilling water from his bath and running outside naked.

I wish I hope more examples at hand, and also hope you get the point. Never turn down someone’s idea(s) simply because you think they are dump or out of time. Don’t get a shock the day you realize the future of the planet depends on the validation of the dumbest thing you have ever heard.

I remember when we were kids. We used to have very lengthy arguments about which season is better/friendlier; the dry season or the rainy season. I always chose the rainy season because the the freshness, beauty and fruits it came along with. I always forgot about the muddy surroundings in the villages and the obstruction of mobility caused by trains, talk less of a handful of disasters.

It is for sure that each season has its advantages and disadvantages over the other. You may not notice this until a year when one season extends into the time frame of the other season for too long. There are certain years where there is either too much or too little harvest just because of such irregularities.

The question as to whether it is the dry or rainy season that is better gradually fades away as I see the transitions between the season harsher than any of them. It is almost the rainy season now and you won’t believe how much I sleep or easily get tired. Most of the time, I am so tired and weak that I feel like a sick man.

It is too hot here. I am more scared of rising temperatures than falling ones. I will rather be in a pot of ice then in a steaming room. I pray it rains soon enough so that I can get a chance to call the climate around here “normal”.

I have a friend who is so much in love with Google that at times, I wish he was one of their employees. With such great passion, I am he will rapidly turn into the type of employee Google likes. He is a web developer and has built several remarkable websites in my country including ubstudents.com, executiveassets.com, openuandi.com, cameroonfootballers.com, saboga.org, vcccul.org..etc all branded under his firm’s official website www.afrovisiongroup.com.

When asked why he loves Google very much, he simply replied to me
Those guys are always serious in anything they do. Just have a look at their services.
Yeah, he is right. For the same reason, I think Google is great. Most people know only about their search engine, but that is just a tiny part of Google. Even the search engine that is most talked about has services most people don’t about. Do you know about Google Adsense for search? I have used that. But last time I checked, it was taken towards the direction of Google Custom search.

I played around with Google Custom Search and built a search engine that searches only African websites. I named it Afro Webia. If you read the About Page of that search engine, you will understand why the site can be of some use.

I never intended being serious with it but as I continued toying, I discovered more and more ways of making it worthwhile. Right now, the project is still under development. Using some intelligent wildcats, I have been able to all all African second level domains and now I have to add the others manually. This means I will have to search them somehow. I am looking forward to meeting the admin of Afrikeo for some help, I will keep you posted whenever I make a move. Thank God Twitter is there, though I hardly use it.

Let’s just pretend the day after the 28th of February is the 29th of February. So, today is the 29th of February and if it is the 29th of February, then it is certainly my birthday. He he he. It is difficult handling birthday issues when you are born on February 29 because you get to see that day only during leap years. However, you must somehow remind yourself you are one year older. Today is that day for me.

Lainy did some calculations and kept reminding me that it will soon be my birthday and after that day, someone won’t be calling someone Ate for a very long time. Ha ha ha. We always have funny ways of expressing ourselves. However, one thing remains clear; once an Ate, always an Ate. Before could even talk about my birthday publicly, she blew it up on her blog by inviting me to a Birthday Wis Tag. Later, Ate Vilma made a very wonderful post about me, wishing me happy birthday in a very special way. To be honest, I was so much carried away that I read that post four times in one sitting before I could think of what to say. Then, came lainy again with a summary of how we got to know each other, how our friendship has been moving on till date and also added February 29th on her Calendar just for me. She says today is A Special Day for a Very Special Man Ha ha ha. Thanks very much, Lainy

As if Lainy read my mind, I was waiting so that I could pass on the birthday tag on my birthday.

Here are my wishes

1. A longer, happier and more successful life for Ivy despite her loss
2. Lainy giving Scott a “physical” hug before the end of this year.
3. Noela having good grades in her Masters program and ACCA exams
4. Good health for my mum
5. Better opportunities for my Sister Adeline while she struggles to fully establish herself in Yaounde city
6. Gaining admission into a foreign university to study Web Development or Sound Engineering
7. Success in my plans to do business at Ebay
8. Greater Google Pagerank and Alexa Ranking for my blogs and projects
9. Earning more from blogging so that I can save dome pocket allowances against my studies next year
10. Getting married to Noela before the end of 2009

Extending this tag is not just an obligation but my pleasure. Out of 1,000 possibilities, I have randomly picked up 10 friends. Please extend this tag also and link to the person who tagged you. Thanks.

1. Vilma of A Maiden’s Testimony last blog post UNCLE CHE, Happy Birthday!
2. Bill of My Piece of Paradise last blog post Perpetual Smiling Blogger Award
3. Liza of Moms… check nyo last blog post Egg-cellent!
4. Allena of In the Eyes of the Beholder last blog post Kalilangan Festival 2009
5. Grace of “We Live to Tell God’s Amazing Grace” last blog post Successful Marriage (part 10)
6. Lala of Coastal Commentaries last blog post Coastal Kaleidoscope Part 1
7. Joyoz of Ozlife Begins last blog post Toy with numbers
8. Shinade of The Painted Veil last blog post Scenic Sunday & Mellow Yellow Monday ~Sunset The End Of Another Day: Never Forget to Sing With Praise~
9. Lynn of My So-called Life last blog post Much Sought After Beauty School
10. Irel of My Drama last blog post Step Forward

What was the best part of my birthday? No celebrations or parties. No cake at all!

However, I got a birthday kiss at midnight and I am looking forward to supper outdoors.