Busy day that was

I had an extremely busy day today, depending on your definition of busy and your proximity to the beach, it’s highly unlikely that the definitions will come anywhere too close. I woke up at around 0630 hours and as a normal human being in the 21^st century I have to check my facebook page. You got to understand this generation is not like our folks’, we don’t watch the news, but we have to know what is going on around the world. Facebook comes in handy as the most reliable source of day to day happenings in the world, considering twitter is limited when it comes to the maximum words one can use. I can’t really say am addicted to facebook but am sure my definition of addiction is again a little different too. I prefer to consider myself very tolerant of a lot of things and people too, I hate to break hearts and promises made either by me or people in the M.O.D.’s (They call them the Merchant’s of Death but I don’t really like to view them in that kind of light).

Busy day as I was saying, at work at around 0832 hours. My boss had a meeting with some partners which was supposed to last the whole day and with his assistant out of town for a couple days and the procurement officer out of the office too, I was the only one in the office who got a lil power. That reminds me, we do have an Inspector, huh, people do forget fast considering he’s being gone for less than a weak. Gone as in visiting his family and not the big guy. 0900 hours, I decide to check if there is being any movement on my blog, and it’s finally hit 3,000 views. Okay I got to admit, am addicted to my blog, not that it’s not common in a lot of bloggers but since I added the feedjit gadget that shows where my visitors are blogging from and the number of hits in real time, it’s become like a drug. I can’t last an hour without checking if the numbers have gone up. It is sometimes depressing since it sometimes stagnates for hours; I hit the refresh button a couple of times, no change. I exit, give it a couple of minutes and then creep in like a mini ninja (like those remaining turtles, proven mini ninjas), and take another sneak preview before I go back to my work.

As I was saying, extremely busy day, 0952 hours  but before you get down to work, you have to see the paper but since am in Lamu where the paper hits town in the afternoon, the online version works just fine, except for the lack of the classifieds and the obituaries sections, it works pretty fine. I know you’re wondering why I check out the obituaries page whenever I get the paper, but if you must know, it’s because I believe at some point people will start writing honest obituaries. Case in point, Jim Adams, who didn't die the way he wanted: which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a date and this was duly noted in his obituary. The classifieds are more for price comparison considering I have this habit of always paying less than the asking price, mostly; my bargaining power should be enhanced through research and the classifieds have plenty of information. Unluckily, I can’t really get that information when am reading my paper online. I do however love to be updated especially on Mondays since not much news are read over the weekend. You find out things like the Al-Qaeda mastermind responsible for the 1998 Nairobi bombing finally kicked the bucket, or rather somebody did him (do me I do you has finally being used to mean something that concerns National Security!! Finally!!) 

1042 hours, I decide I deserve a smoke, or rather I can’t go another minute without one, too dry a mouth at this moment. I don’t know why it always happens to me but when the craving hits home hard, my mouth feels like there hasn’t being much liquidity of fluids happening. Anyway, I light up my cancer stick at the Rangers lounge as I listen to a news update from Radio Jambo. Apparently the illegal liquor served with love to our fellow soldiers of boredom after work has claimed a total of 13 men!! The platoon is loosing too many men and the war being waged against us is reaching to a point where if we don’t do something now, we will end up riding the same boat. (BREAKING NEWS: The death toll has hit 17). It all started with that archaic  Mututho Law limiting the number of hours one can imbibe the magic liquid. 1700 hours to 2300 hours is not sufficient considering some of us have a larger tank than us, which means filling up may take a little longer than expected. If he ever attended an Economics class, he would have learnt government controls of any kind regardless of how well willing he is tend to kill the market, in this case people. What happens when you can’t drink in public for fear of the ever hungry Kenyan policeman? Drink in a den, where the no one is 100% conversant with the contents of the drink they are clearly enjoying. With the need to make ends meet, considering that the cost of living has almost doubled, and increasing the prices of these home made brews almost out of the question, a little catalyst maybe added to maybe speed up the process or increase the strength of this drink. Throw in the tax increases year in year out, you end up with a thirsty country whose people can neither afford the refreshment of the working class, nor even drink it in peace whenever they catch a catch a lucky break. The high unemployment level hasn’t helped much either, with these young men and women in search of either employment dealing this lethal liquid, or idleness drives them to these dens. But with the big shots preparing themselves for more important things like transport for their Hague buddies and 2012 approaching at a speed they least expected, the rest of us are just pones in their game of human chess. That’s just how being a Kenyan means, now time for a new story so we can forget about this little distraction  (did they solve that small matter of Wanjiru’s death?, or the grenades in Uhuru park a while back which claimed six unimportant lives?)

Sorry I drifted too far from my story, busy day I was talking about, 1117 hours, back in the office and there is a small issue of tax returns, mine and a few colleagues who need some direction. It doesn’t take long to show them the way and am back to my work, work, the reason I left the house this morning. I open my office cabinet and arrange my books in order of priority. My table has too much clutter I realize, a little space creation project before getting down to the important stuff. 1234 hours, lunch time. I had a heavy breakfast plus I need to make a few calls, I decide against leaving the office, too much to do. The office phone is pretty loaded which means one phone call will probably be long.

0157 hours, with my table pretty neat, I can finally get down to clearing a two week back log. Abba, a colleague of mine needs some help with internet on his phone and being a people person, I can’t really deny him one tiny little favor. Safaricom are not as friendly as they should be as they are taking a tad too long to send the settings to his phone. Luckily, I got a friend who works with Safaricom, I call up Frank and give him the details of the phone and he promises to send me the Internet settings. The phone has different line of thought and decides the configuration message isn’t compatible with its sexy self. This took us a pretty while before we eventually gave up and decided it would be much easier if he took it to a Safaricom dealer either in Malindi or Mombasa on his way to see the folks. 

0243 hours, I just remembered Biko had promised to reply to those who send him the best pieces. I had sent him a link to my blog sometimes back and I was really eager to here from him, but due to the events of the weekend just gone, I hadn’t checked my mails. I open my email but you all understand how the urban legend goes, the internet one on how you can’t just open one tab. I decide to check if my blog has a few extra views. Okay, I take it back, am not addicted to my blog; I do however love to see the numbers going up or high (the clean version). It’s also important to check your facebook page in case there is some news you haven’t heard yet or a tip that is neither constructive nor helpful in life, like how do you turn a sweet, honest girl to the cruelest, raging, most heartless bitch you'll ever meet? You break her heart. Anyway, tabs, you need a facebook tab, twitter, yahoo, gmail, your blog (or mine if you don’t have one) Arsenal.com, and in case you are one of those lonely or horny kinds, an extra one for the urges is allowed every once in a while.

Time moves really fast in the afternoons, so I’ve noticed, 0359 hours and I have another personnel issue I have to handle. Whenever I tell people to avoid bank loans like a plague unless someone is literally dying and you are out of options, they think I am being stupid. If you must, at least read the fine print and do a little shopping around for better offers, not the first bank that sends a smiley face. Anyway, am not sure if it’s Barclays Bank or Asili Sacco but one of these two is mincing this guy to the last cent.  None of the two institutions will give us a straight answer; at least we’ve established Barclays won’t which is better from none from Asili who won’t even pick up their phone. After realizing these institutions won’t give us s***, it’s back to our beloved HR guys who promised to check the information in their system and get back to us.

1631 hours, I still can’t believe this day is over that fast. I need to lock up so I can catch the 1700 hours boat. Make a quick note of things to do, buy and collect to make my work much easier tomorrow. I really hope that my boss gets another commitment tomorrow. 

It’s being a while since I had such a short busy day. I hope to compensate by doing lesser distracting things like just blogging.