Todd Thille

The Secret Art - off to print

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:50:23 -0800

A thoroughly revised and updated version of Duncan Laurie’s book on radionics and the arts has been submitted to the printer today.

The previously titled “A SHORT HISTORY OF RADIONICS: INSIGHTS FOR ARTISTS WORKING WITH SUBTLE ENERGY” is re-dubbed “The Secret Art: A Brief History of Radionic Technology for the Creative Individual. ”

The manuscript finally being produced in physical form has been a herculean effort undertaken at the behest of Patrick Huyghe of Anomalist Books. The text and illustrations have taken shape over the past year through the direct labors of Duncan, Patrick, Mike Bossick, Jessica Paulk and myself. I have also had the pleasure of designing the interior and cover.

Nalepa Flatlands released

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:13:13 -0800

Steve Nalepa’s 5-years-in-the-making, ambient glitch dub album, Flatlands, sees a commercial release on 1320records. The digital only bundle contains the original 10 track album along with a 15 track remix album and 10 full-res music videos.

Remixers include Nosaj Thing, The Glitch Mob, Ruxpin, Deru, Slidecamp, [a]pendics.shuffle, David Last, RD, RND, Heyoka, Kero, Rena Jones, Kraddy, Aerostatic and Bluetech.

The videos feature a collection of stunning, groundbreaking work by an all-star cast of luminaries including Benton-C Bainbridge & David Last, Thomas Williams, Brian Ziffer, Brian Kane, Johnny Dekam, Christina McPhee, Arrow One, and Todd Thille.

Getting back in(to) TouchDesigner

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:54:07 -0800

[ Greg Hermanovic demonstrates TouchDesigner 077 with Markus Heckmann ]

Greg Hermanovic of Prisms and Houdini fame was in Berlin for performances with Raster-Noton artists at Club Transmediale. Friend fALk Gärtner had been tipped off that Greg would be around and invited him to talk at the weekly Visual Berlin meeting.

One of Greg’s passions is for live visuals, which he founded Derivative Inc. to make software for. The result was the TouchDesigner platform. Based on Houdini, TouchDesigner has been around since 2000. I used it from 2003-2006 before I got rid of my dedicated Windows hardware.

Club Transmediale - Netlabel Night

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:42:30 -0800

Took some time out from working on v[3] of the avit.info website with fRED & flux and Toby Harris to check out some of the Club Transmediale activities. The excitement on this particular Tuesday evening was Visual Berlin member Servando Barreiro repping for netaudio.

CODA and Hex Color Picking

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:37:28 -0800

I have been enjoying CODA, the everything-in-one-window web development toolbox from Panic, more and more over the past year. In amongst all the goodness, I have been continually baffled by the lack of a web safe color palette in the supplied color picker or any hint of hex colors in the WYSIWYG CSS editor.

Today I came across the RCWebColorPicker from Rubicode. After downloading and installing the free plugin, the standard OS X color picker gains an “RCWeb” tab. This new tab features a box for a full RGB hex value, RGB sliders with corresponding hex values and a check box to limit the palette to the 216 web safe colors.

“Follow The Light” on G4TV’s Attack of The Show

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:19:59 -0800

My protege Vince Calanoc was featured on G4TV for his clever hack of the Laser Tag system developed by Graffiti Research Lab and Theodore Watson.
Check out Vince’s “digital spraypaint” below.

(Via hearsee)

All in your Mind

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:03:03 -0800

Two newly announced products based around technology from NeuroSky round out a number of recent BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) consumer devices.

The Mattel Mind Flex and The Force Trainer from Uncle Milton both leverage NeuroSky’s bio-signal technology to interpret brainwaves, eye movements, facial muscles and heartrate. NeuroSky’s developer kit may be the gateway to many other interesting products.

Of more interest as a dedicated BCI is the OCZ NIA (Neural Impulse Actuator). Geared toward PC gamers, the NIA uses bio-signals to trigger keyboard commands. Software such as MIDI-OX can further parse these commands into MIDI data streams useful for audio and video programs.

Resolume Avenue Review

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:19:57 -0800

Resolume Avenue Review:

Looks like it’s audiovisual kick-ass-o-clock over at resolume.com. They’ve totally revamped version 3 of their VJ software, included comprehensive audio controls, and made it available for both mac and PC.

(Via skynoise)

aerostaticmusic.com relaunch

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 03:13:11 -0800

I created a website for aerostatic, a music project from Michele Darling and Terry Golob. The newly relaunched site was built with Drupal 6 and custom PHP.

Ghostlab Interview

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:51:20 -0800

An interview I conducted with Cosmin of Ghostlab is up at DuncanLaurie.com. I met Cosmin at Live Performers Meeting 2007 in Rome. His most recent project, with Marie Christine, is an installation entitled “Aurora Consurgens” at ISEA in Singapore.

Mind Meld III

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:06:39 -0800

The weekend of Friday the 13th marked the 3rd annual Mind Meld gathering at Duncan Laurie’s Jamestown, Rhode Island studio. An incredible assortment of audio and video artists were assembled, ostensibly to relax, but with so much talent in one place, a show or two is inevitable.

Dragonline Studio.

Duncan’s three-storey studio sits atop Bull Point, surrounded by water on three sides. The studio was built entirely out of salvaged materials. Floors made of glass block allow light to penetrate up from the lower workshop, through the main room and into the laboratory on the top floor. It is on the top floor that Duncan and his electrical engineer Gordon Salisbury have been experimenting with sonifying signals from Nature. There is an impressive array of old Radionic equipment as well as a number of devices that Gordon has developed. The visual centerpiece of the lab is the “Music Machine”, an 8’ tall cuboctahedron that was part of a GENESIS Bio-Entrainment Module, a bio-feedback device developed in the 1980’s. The machine is now host to Gordon’s Purr Generator. The purr generator is a device which generates a signal at approximately 25 Hz. This coincides with the frequency of vibrations given off by a “happy cat” and has long been thought to be therapeutic. External audio sources can be played through the machine.

META 2008

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:17:07 +0200

Took the Greyhound overnight from Atlanta to Asheville, North Carolina. Met up with Duncan Laurie and his daughters Lena and Bryn. Headed into the “hippie” part of town for some vegetarian lunch at the Laughing Seed Café. Found one of Duncan’s cast metal belt buckles from the 1970s in the Paul Taylor Sandals shop.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/57611802@N00/2558293776 “View ‘One of Duncan’s “Star Buckles” from the 1970s [center] at Paul Taylor’s’ on Flickr.com”)

LPM 2008

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:17:16 -0800

Live Performers Meeting 2008

The fifth edition of the LPM was held in the old slaughterhouse at Mattatoio in the heart of Rome. The low-hanging hooks and carcass processing apparatus had been carefully covered up for safety, but the lattice-work of runs with strange, barbed, wrought-iron chandeliers loomed overhead. The FLxER crew had installed 13 screens in the cavernous space with a stage at each end and an A/V nerve center in the middle with places for the late night VJ sets.

µ:avit

Sat, 24 May 2008 23:20:07 -0800

The DMY festivities were well underway when I arrived from Istanbul. The Visual Berlin crew had a booth set up in the dark nether-regions of the cavernous Arena by the Spree River. The showcase schedule on the µ:avit site is up to date and all is in readiness for the Avit event on Saturday. The usual suspects from the Visual Berlin crew were present and accounted for: fRED, Flux, HilmeKillme, cyper…fALk was also present and Willow made a surprise visit.

META 2008

Sun, 04 May 2008 04:17:07 -0800

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/57611802@N00/2558293776 “View ‘One of Duncan’s “Star Buckles” from the 1970s [center] at Paul Taylor’s’ on Flickr.com”)

A visit with Richard Devine

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:56:38 -0800

Paid a visit to Richard Devine at his home in the Atlanta suburbs. Spent the afternoon talking shop with him and Josh Kay, of Phoenecia fame. All of us will convene in June at Duncan Laurie’s studio for Mind Meld III.

Got the grand tour of acoustic instruments, modular synths and circuit bent oddities that were used on the recent Sony Creative Software loop library, The Electronic Music Manuscript.

Brian Kane's Meat Water

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:10:15 -0800

Brian Kane’s latest brainchild, MeatWater, is gaining some traction. As well as some airtime on the Moffit & Frankie show on Fox radio.

Elvis in Istanbul

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:49:54 -0800

Dara Kılıçoğlu and Çağlar Kanzık’s piece in the Tershane group show, entitled “ELVIS.” The group show consisted of a number of approx 40cm square pressboard boxes that the artists decorated the interior of. Dara and Çağlar’s box was mirrored to provide an endlessly reflected view of a security camera with ELVIS emblazoned on the side. The camera was liberated from “watching” an ATM in Ankara a couple of years ago. The camera turned out to be an empty fake. The veneer of safety without any of the substance. The “ELVIS” piece is “…a critisim of Turkey’s politics against EU standarts and shifting socio-control process nationwide.” Dara’s blog post. On Düğümküme here and here in Turkish.

Todd joins duncanlaurie.com

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 07:27:36 -0800

Duncan Laurie, Steve Nalepa and Todd Thille @ Spark Fesitval - Feb 2008.

After over a year and a half working behind the scenes to build up online presence for Duncan Laurie at duncanlaurie.com, I have joined the front of house team as a designer. The first project that I will collaborate on with Duncan is the design of a print edition of his Radionics book.

Project: USB Wiimote Sensor Bar

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:17:04 -0800

Finally got around to putting together a USB powered Wiimote Sensor Bar. 4 IR LEDs dissipated 4.8v forward which is close enough to the 5v coming off the USB port. Cut up some old circuit boards as a base for each side and Velcroed them to the lid of my 17" MacBook Pro. Used my old Sony DCR-PC5 to check that the LEDs were indeed firing. Nice remote mouse control for the computer via DarwiinRemote.

Spark Festival - Rock Music Paper

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:40:28 -0800

Steve Nalepa flew the redeye out from LA and arrived at the Holiday Inn around 07:00. Let him get an hour of sleep before we headed off to get breakfast at the Hard Times Cafe. Headed over to Ferguson Hall in time to catch the end of Megan England’s talk about Second Life. Duncan and I were up next with “Rock Music”. Started out with a brief intro and Rock Star. Continued along with the work of T. Townsend Brown with petrovoltaics and touched a bit on Cleve Backster’s work with plants before getting into Gordon Salisbury’s work at Duncan’s studio. The talk was well received and garnered some interesting questions afterwards.

Spark Festival - Found Sound

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:10:16 -0800

Up at the crack of dawn to bid Kim and Bryn goodbye and hit the road with Duncan. Made good time over to Bradley International in Hartford Connecticut. Had some fun finding the long-term parking but got right on a shuttle in the lot and were on our way. Good flight out to Chicago, but delayed on the Minneapolis leg. Finally got in and through the airport fun to find that the Holiday Inn Metrodome was best reached by Super Shuttle. Stopped at all the rest of the downtown hotels before making our way over beyond the Metrodome. Checked in to the hotel and freshened up before heading across the river the check out the Whole where Duncan and I would perform the following morning as part of the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts’ Concert of Found Sound/Audio Appropriation. The venue looked decent, with video screens flanking the stage.

Gadgets and Kane

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:36:47 -0800

Spent the day working on a Max patch to get MIDI data coming out of the Doepfer Pocket Electronics controller attached to Gordon’s homebrew Octo input box massaged into something that Ableton Live would like. Input was provided by a magnetometer attached to a Rate of Change Convertor.

Snow over the Eastern Seaboard

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 08:55:26 -0800

Made a long trek from Istanbul to Jamestown, Rhode Island via Frankfurt, Amsterdam, a bonus stop in Detroit instead of Newark and Hartford, Connecticut. Here to prepare for an audio/visual performance with Duncan Laurie at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts in Minneapolis.

Fog in Frankfurt delayed my flight almost an hour…eating up the precariously short layover time I had in Amsterdam. Couple that with the plane taxiing in from one of the far runways, seeming to circle the whole airport and my outbound flight leaving from the opposite end of the massive Schipol Airport…and you have me getting to the gate as the walkway was freshly pulled back from the plane. It sat there taunting me for some time as the gate staff arranged an alternate route through Detroit that only added 20 minutes to my flight schedule.

Elements 7 Year Anniversary with Robotkid

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 22:57:48 -0800

Cake for the 7 Year Anniversary party at Elements. Robotkid mixing up some wicked visuals.

Rocked a four hour set of 180+ BPM Drum and Bass with Robotkid at Elements 7 Year Anniversary in Boston at Phoenix Landing. DJs Lenore, Crook and MDOC spun an amazing tag team mix of blistering tracks. Robotkid and I set up three laptops, DVD player and an infrared camera.

dj rndm and sosolimited

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 18:57:39 -0800

In Boston to visit Robotkid. Caught his A/V collaborator dj rndm over at middlesex lounge. He threw down a wicked awesome set of classics for the 80s. An A/V crew called soso limited did an interesting set with some custom software the one of the members had written in C++. The software would take a video feed and manipulate it in 3 space. In the case of a TV feed, the closed captioning could be extracted and used to draw text on the screen. They were using the software with whatever the club had playing on their Satellite Dish (mostly Emeril Live.) This ultimately rendered the show less interesting than it could have been. With some well thought out material, their set could have really shined.

Birmingham - AVIT UK 2005 Day 2

Wed, 27 Apr 2005 18:00:04 -0800

Managed to get going in time to get to the Be the Control session. The gentlemen running it were still setting up throughout the whole morning session. The concept of the piece was to build an interactive audio and video installation. The inputs consisted of a Korg Kaoss Entrancer, and two Doepfer Pocket Controls run into Ableton Live and Flowmotion.
Checked out the demo of the Pioneer DVJX DVD Turntable. The gent giving the lecture was a house DJ from London. He seemed more than a bit pompous, so I left after a little bit. Back over to the Rooty Frooty for some lunch. Got approached by a gent named Neil who runs Trigger Recordings, a Birmingham Electro/Breaks label. He inquired as to what I was doing and showed me a piece of animation he was going to use for the Beats not Bombs show on Saturday. I showed him some of the stuff I had on my laptop and he was impressed enough to insist that I have an hour-long VJ set alongside one of his artists. Spent most of the rest of the afternoon working out all of the details.
Caught the end of the Demo Scene session. Some of the cream of the crop Demo’s from scene.org were presented. Next were a couple of informal sessions about Vjing and Post lead by Toby Harris and VJ Blogging presented by fALk.
Saw a bit of the VPeek show at the Medicine Bar and then joined the after party in the Gallery until 2 am.

Birmingham - AVIT UK 2005 Day 1

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:20:00 -0800

Slept through my alarm and awoke frantic at the though of having missed part of the AVIT festivities. Threw myself together and rushed over to the Custard Factory to find that the first session had been cancelled. Was able to join the Narrative Lab session. Paul and Laura, who I met at the Birmingham train station, were leading the workshop. Kate Southworth who works as Glorious Ninth started off talking about some collaborative projects she has worked on. Paul talked next about a Story Collector, a project he has been working on to create narrative works based around the lives of fictional characters. A back-story is developed and then the character is thrown into situations and visual work is created about the events. The last part of the session was a hands-on creation of a short piece created around five pictures. I gave up my seat and worked on my laptop, but most of the session was then taken up by transferring the picture files from CD to several laptops. Had a bite to eat at a health food spot called Rooty Frooty at the Custard Factory.
Next up was 7" cinema. Some nice work from around the world. Caught the end of the Step Up and Play session where the event attendees were invited to plug into the video system and show off their stuff. Joined Chris, a Birmingham native, for an hour-long video jam. Got some kudos from fALk about the stuff I was doing. Back to the hotel around 2 am. Finally stilled my racing mind around 3:30.

Birmingham - AVIT UK 2005 Day -1

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 16:39:59 -0800

Awoke to a whole new group of roommates. Gathered up all my gear and headed over to the Euston Rail Station to get a ticket up to Birmingham. Finally got hold of Noemi and arranged to meet her for lunch. Headed over to Magma again to while away some time and pick up a few more DVDs. Jumped on the Tube and headed over to Noemi’s office. Was a little nervous as I headed off the edge of my map. Had no trouble finding the spot, but had to wait a bit for Noemi to finish up with a meeting.
Noemi finally can out and we talked for a bit about the setup she has to create promo DVDs in house. They are running Beta SP tapes through a Pinnacle MovieBox that spits out DV. Lots of room for improvement. Had a nice lunch at a local pub. Talked some about different ways to improve their output. Sadly, as soon as lunch was over I had to head back to Euston to get my train north.
The train was very well appointed, even in the Coach seats. Nice to have some power at my seat. Had a good two-hour ride through Central-Eastern England. When I alighted in Birmingham I was fortunate enough to overhear some of the AVIT organizers inquiring after maps at the information booth. Jim, Paul and Laura offered to give me a lift over to the event at the Custard Factory. They were also kind enough to turn me on to cheap accommodations not far away.
Took some effort to get over to the Hotel. People’s memory was a little hazy as to where it was exactly. Got set up in my little room in the Hotel that automatically cleans itself. Hiked back over to the Custard Factory to collect my luggage. Another round trip brought me back to see if I could lend a hand with setting up, but my services were not required. Back to the Formule 1 to work a bit before tucking in for the night.

London

Sun, 24 Apr 2005 10:11:06 -0800

Up at 7:30 am to the sound of my roommates rustling about. Freshened up a bit before heading down to breakfast with one of the roommates who was a farmer from the south coast near Brighton. His farm produces fruit and he employs workers coming from Poland and the Czech Republic. The formation of the European Union has made it possible for workers from other countries to come to Britain legally to do work that the local population will not do. With 17% unemployment, the Polish government is actively encouraging its populace to come to Britain and other wealthy countries in the Union to find work. The farmer pays his workers £5.00/hour which is less than British citizens can get from unemployment. The farmer was in town for a self-improvement workshop over the weekend. We had an interesting discussion about the state of the world and where it seems to be headed.
Made my way down to the Tate Modern, which is housed in an old power generating facility. They had some very interesting video about how the plant was converted from its former use to the gallery space it is today. There was a sound installation by Bruce Nauman in the main space. Several of the smaller galleries were occupied by a great number of sculptures of everyday objects. Headed up into Convent Garden in search of some luncheon. Came across the Food for Thought Restaurant. Not as much on the menu that I could eat as I had hoped. Got a bit of lentil soup to go and found a nearby park to eat in. Tried to call Chantal’s friend Noemi, but got an answering service. Found the Forbidden Planet Bookshop where I picked up a copy of Edge magazine that had a four-page article about Josh’s Frequency game. Also found a bunch of Vernor Vinge novels. Hiked down to Embankment to get some groceries from the Health Food shop by the Underground station.
Took the Tube back across the Thames to look in on the Design Museum. Got there too late to get in. Came across a giant outdoor exhibit of the photographs of Yann Hartus Bertrand (Earth from the Air.) Ate a bit of dinner and spent quite a while looking at the photographs and reading the informative captions. Headed back to the Youth Hostel and crashed just before 10 pm.

London

Sat, 23 Apr 2005 10:10:19 -0800

Awoke just after breakfast. Managed to get a spot of orange juice and to resist the flight attendants insistence that I could use some tea. Into Heathrow a bit later than scheduled. Cleared customs without trouble and got some travelers checks cashed before heading to the Heathrow Express. Blew a bunch of my pounds on a round-trip ticket from the airport to Paddington Station. Must remember to use my credit card in the future. Caught the Tube over to King’s Cross and up to the St. Pancras Youth Hostel. Got checked in and jumped on a very expensive Internet station ($10/hour). Headed out in search of some veggie dinner. Managed to pick a restaurant in a business part of town, which of course was closed on a Saturday. It was overcast and everything seemed empty and dead. Not many people out and about.
Headed over to Magma. Picked up a couple of DVDs. Will probably come back for some more before I leave.

Transit LAX-LHR

Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:09:17 -0800

In to work for a bit despite my desire not to show up at all. Was able to get a few loose ends wrapped up and pick up a spare laptop battery at lunch, so it was worth while. Got out of work later than I wanted. Grabbed a taxi over to Van Nuys airport to take the FlyAway down to LAX. Started getting nervous as the minutes slipped by to the point where I had less than an hour to take off by the time we hit the terminal curbside. There was no one at the check in counter, but that turned out to be because everyone was at the gate already. The attendant made a quick call to see if it was all right for me to be let through. Got cleared and jumped into the security screening line. It always amazes me that people pay so little attention to the instructions they are being told. It can’t be that hard to have your boarding pass in your hand when you approach the metal detector. Glad to have made it through without mishap or further scrutiny. They were just announcing boarding for all seats when I got to the gate. Got my luggage in the overhead where I wanted and got settled in my window seat. Whiled away the first bit reading and watching National Treasure. Had a good veggie meal before tucking in for a fitful bit of sleep.

my english is a catastrophy

Sun, 21 Nov 2004 18:44:46 -0800

Attended a day long lecture by Alejandro Jodorowsky, famed director of El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre.

The lecture covered a 17th century version of the Tarot from Marseilles that Jodorowsky has restored and a form of gestalt therapy termed Psychomagic.

Freak Phone

Fri, 12 Nov 2004 23:15:33 -0800

A little late night project at work. A custom hand-made phone cozy for one of my co-workers. There is a very good chance that I have finally lost my mind.

Long Beach Marathon

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 12:45:16 -0800

Completed a half marathon. Race-walked at just over an 11 minute pace to finish up the 13.1 miles at 2h 24m 28s.

Some of the other runners were convinced that I was getting a speed boost from my mohawk. It was appropriately colored as a wave cresting over my head.

V4 Mod

Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:06:14 -0800

Modded my Edirol V4 video mixer to sport an optical fader instead of the factory issue t-bar. The copper plate took a couple of hours to cut and shape by hand.

Tofu Festival / Spirits in Stone

Sun, 25 Jul 2004 00:20:58 -0800

Finally made it to the Tofu Festival in Little Tokyo after missing it for the last five yesrs. Enjoyed lots of delicious Tofu snacks under the blazing July sun.

Took in a Shona Sculpture exhibit in Pasadena after the Tofu Festival. The Spirits in Stone organization put on an exhibit of Zimbabwean and South African art at a Pasadena church. Artist Passmore Mashaya was on hand demonstrating his technique.

Sculptures by Kaitano Ngamu and Passmore Mashaya.

Passmore Mashaya working on Serpentine. A South African basket made from telephone wire.

Comic-Com

Sat, 24 Jul 2004 23:28:16 -0800

The annual expedition to San Diego for Comic-Con netted the following glimpses into fandom and obsession.

There was a large Star Wars presence, including a number of hybrids. My favorite was the Elvis Trooper.

Igor getting a lesson on trading card games. Hamlet translated into Klingon.

Some fully costumed characters. A dead bear, the Flaming Carrot, an Ugly Doll.

A cast of strange characters.

Obsession taken to amazing heights or lows. The Cat Man.

Piercing the Mist

Wed, 10 Mar 2004 21:09:50 -0800

One of my favorite sights in Downtown LA. Light rays piercing the morning mist.

LA Marathon

Sun, 07 Mar 2004 20:51:26 -0800

Still going strong at mile 11. Finished all 26.2 miles in 5 hours and 48 minutes.

Maple Drive

Sat, 06 Mar 2004 22:02:50 -0800

Man-made along Maple Drive.

Sunset over Burbank

Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:24:45 -0800

Sunset over Burbank.

Rainy Evening in LA

Mon, 01 Mar 2004 01:41:59 -0800

A glistening rainy evening in Downtown LA.

Leap Day

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 01:38:37 -0800

A leap day dinner with Sylvia.

Mt. Hollywood

Sat, 28 Feb 2004 01:34:22 -0800

The culmination of a two hour hike through Griffith Park.

LA: Everyone is Going Downtown

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 21:40:26 -0800

I was up at 3 a.m. Did not trust that I would make up again at 5 a.m. if I went back to sleep. Got a bit of grooming taken care of. Trimmed two months of beard way back to a clump on the end of my chin. Had a long bath and a long hot shower. More of the grime from the trip was sluiced away and I was ready for civilization.
Had some corn flakes and orange juice for breakfast and got my things together. By the time I got out to the lobby at 5:15 a.m. to catch the bus back to the airport, the line was already 50 deep. Slowly crept forward while bus after bus was filled with fellow travelers. Got on board at 6:15 a.m. There was a special section set aside at the check-in counter for our flight. I was happy to have been assigned a bulkhead seat at the very front of the economy section.
Scampered upstairs to get some emails shot off before I went through the final security checks. The gentleman manning the X-Ray machine thought the contents of my bag were too dense, so it was pulled for a hand inspection. Got off with a light search and was on my way in ten minutes. The display for the gate status showed my flight as “Closing” so I sped through the rest of the terminal only to find that they had not yet begun boarding.
At 8:45 a.m. our 7:45 a.m. flight took off. There was loud cheering from further back in the plane. The flight was pretty smooth and the vegetarian food service was good. I spent most of the flight working on my computer. I took a couple of breaks for watch Terminator 2 and Laura Croft 2. Hard to really enjoy a feature film on a paperback book sized screen.
We arrived at LAX just before noon. Got off the plane and through immigration fairly quickly. Got stuck at baggage claim. One of my bags appeared almost right away, but the other took a half hour to materialize. The Super Shuttle to downtown was not long in arriving and we only made one more circuit around the airport before heading off. It was overcast and drizzly. Despite the rain there was a layer of hideous brown haze hanging over Hollywood and Downtown. Made a drop by USC before heading into Downtown. Traffic on the side streets was horrible. We zigged over to 2nd Street and came across on Los Angeles. The Midnight Mission patrons were overflowing onto 4th Street and causing a great deal of the backup. Finally got to the house at 2:30 p.m.

LHR: In Transit . . . Please Hold

Mon, 22 Dec 2003 15:51:59 -0800

Got into Heathrow around 6 a.m. I was unable to check my bags all the way through to LAX, so I had to go through immigration and retrieve them in order to check them in again. The line at the immigration counter was incredibly long. I was glad to have some reading material with me. Most of the rest of the folks just had long faces and bored stares. I finally made it into England at 7:15 a.m. Glad I didn’t have a quick connection.
The baggage for the flight had not arrived at the carousel by the time I got there. Fortunately it was not long in coming and my bags were among the first few. Had a bit of a hike to get to the Heathrow Express. You can ride the train from terminal 4 where I was at to terminals 1-3 for free. Had another bit of a hike to get to the surface and into the correct terminal. United was at the other end of the terminal. My shoulder bag repeatedly seemed on the verge of falling off, I would stop every twenty paces of so to reposition it. Finally made it to the checkin counter where I was more than happy to turn in my bags.
I had several hours to kill before my 11:40 a.m. flight. I made a quick circuit of the airport and located a convenient power source for my computer. Spent the next two hours working and finishing up the last of the cashews I had. Finally got up and made another circuit before heading through the security check toward the boarding gates.
Ran another gauntlet of shops. Got sucked into the Virgin Megastore Express. Was surprised to see Goldfrapp’s “Black Cherry” in the New Release section. It had been out since early summer in the US. Popped into Dixon’s to look at some shortwave receivers. Managed to extricate myself from both establishments without opening my wallet.
At the final check-in counter I was able to get my seat changed to an aisle instead of a middle seat. Finally got on board and settled. It was beginning to look like I was going to have an empty seat next to me when the Captain came on to let us know that there was a problem with the hydraulics and that we would have to wait until the ground crew could figure out what was wrong. Half of the passengers were still waiting at the gate to be let on while the rest of us were on the plane. Seconds turned into minutes and the minutes dragged into hours. Three hours later, we were told that the problem could not be fixed in a timely manner and that our flight was rescheduled for 7:45 a.m. the following day. We would all be given a room in a nearby hotel along with transportation from and to the airport as well as meals.
Back through immigration I went. I was happy to find the line a bit shorter this go round. There was an incredibly long wait for the checked bags to be unloaded from the plane. While most of the rest of the passengers stood around looking wise, I was happy to have my book.
I was not looking forward to spending a great deal of out of doors in the 1 degree celsius temperature so was glad to find a bus was waiting when I got outside. Finally got to the Travel Inn a bit after 4 p.m. Got checked in and enjoyed the first hot shower in a couple of weeks. Headed over to the cafeteria for a ample serving of rice and vegetable chili with peas and carrots. Back in the room I attempted to get hooked up to the internet. My efforts were in vain, for although I had been provided with some time on a pre-paid phone card, I needed an ISP to actually make a dial-up connection to the Internet. My days of dial-up have been over for a couple of years and I am not thrilled with the idea of going back.
Fell asleep at the desk and awoke after midnight. Disappointed to find that my watch thought it should be New Years once again. Got it reset and an alarm set for 5 a.m.

TAN: Once More to Lazy Lagoon

Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:51:48 -0800

I awoke from my slumber on a bed made from three chairs in Maina’s office at 5:45 a.m. Checked my email one more time before gathering up my things to head for home. Went out in search of something suitable for breakfast and nearby. Was happy to find that the office door had not been locked and that the attendant was quick in coming to unlock the door at ground level. No luck on breakfast. All the restaurants looked at least an hour away from opening for morning business.
After collecting all my things, I headed out to get a cab to Micocheni B. I was hailed by a gentleman in a car where they usually operate car washing. After some negotiating, we agreed on the usual fare of 3500 Shillings. We were off, but only as far as the filling station. Got to play the fill up game, but this time with a bit of a twist. The driver claimed that the tank was in the front. He raced out with an empty water jug to get two liters of gas. The hood was lifted and using a smaller water bottle for a funnel, the gas was poured into a reservoir at the back of the engine block.
On the first long stretch of road the car started to fill up with smokey exhaust fumes. I became a little concerned that the engine might be on fire or soon to ignite. The driver seemed unconcerned, hugging the steering wheel, as we hurtled to my destination. As we drew near Maina’s house, the driver started whining about how far it was and that he wanted 4000 Shillings. I said no a number of times and finally asked him to stop a little short of the house. I paid my 3500 and walked away.
Got to the house a bit after 7 a.m. to find Maina just getting up. Started some DVD backups of my trip data and worked on getting my things repacked for the trip to Bagamoyo. By the time I had showered and gotten everything sorted out, the cab had arrived. We piled in and headed over to Hanif’s to collect some propane tanks from Alex Fox. Jeannie was out getting them filled so we headed over to Shoppers Plaza to avail ourselves of the ATM. I popped into the supermarket in search of something for breakfast. The sort of breakfast convenience food that is popular in the US is non-existent here. I ended up with some cashews and a strawberry rolled cake that looked vaguely breakfast pastry-like. Neither Chantal nor Kamau had any interest in the cake, so we all had cashews.
By the time we got back to Hanif’s, Jeannie had returned with filled propane tanks. We got them loaded and were on our way. The trip to the launching point at the Kasiki Fish Camp in Bagani seemed shorter than last time. I think I had a better idea of where we were going, so it didn’t seem like an endless road through the sparsely populated coastal area. The suspension on Ebrahim’s car seemed a little more shot than it had been when we came this way with him a couple of weeks prior. Many of the speed-bumps were negotiated with rather sickening sounds of metal colliding with metal.
We got to the launch point to find Vlad and some of the staff having just launched a newly restored large wooden boat. We chatted with him over some mangoes while we waited for the boat to be sent out from the island. The boat eventually arrived and we were whisked over to the island. The only other guests were an American family. We got settled in a banda each and looked around for a couple of hours before sitting down for a delicious vegetable curry lunch. After lunch, I brought out my computer to show Vlad some of the pictures from the trip to visit the Apopo research center in Morogoro. Kamau enjoyed watching the DVD and Daryl, the father of the American family got sucked in while it was playing.
Daryl turned out to be a Minnesotan who has been in Tanzania for the past six years. He has been working as a college guidance counselor at the International School in Dar es Salaam. His eldest daughter is in her first year at Pepperdine, just north of Los Angeles. His two sons are at the International School.
After the show and tell was finished with the family moving off to play Paintball, I went for a swim. An hour or so later I had had enough. I spent a while working on the computer before dinner. Had another vegetable curry and conversation centered around workers in Tanzania, currently Vlad’s topic of choice. Was in bed by 10 p.m.

TAN: Working Long into the Night

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:51:39 -0800

Had another long day sequestered in the DTP office at work on the Pixel Corps website. Stepped out to the Royal Chef for a bite of lunch. Back at the keyboard for the rest of the afternoon and early evening. The internet connection died again around 8 p.m. The others headed out to what was billed as an all meat restaurant. I headed off to an Internet cafe to try and get some emails off. I had also hoped to get the revised website sent off to San Francisco. This did not come to pass as the Internet cafe was using a dial-up connection and the staff were unwilling to get my computer hooked up to it. I spent an hour there banging out emails on a keyboard with a sticky “F” key. As I was working with Macromedia Contribute to get the directions right for Dave Hurley, I noticed that all of the navigation disappeared from the pages I edited. This caused me a great deal of concern and drastically changed the nature of the emails I sent.
At the end of my hour I headed back to the office to collect the rest of my bags. I tried the connection there again and was pleasantly surprised to find it working. Spent the next few hours trying to get to the bottom of my errant navigation bar. Finally figured out that with the webserver on my computer the line breaks in the PHP part of the page were being deleted, causing the the PHP instructions to break. On my regular server the problem did not exist. It took a tremendous amount of time to get enough of the site uploaded to test it out.
Eventually folks in California came online and I was able to chat with Alex. Got it settled that I would update the pages for the time being and the training for the team leaders would be rescheduled for the end of January. By this point if was after 3 a.m. and the thought of hunting for a taxi did not seem very wise. I pulled up a few chairs and settled in for a bit of sleep.

TAN: Sandrine Off, Kamau In

Mon, 15 Dec 2003 15:51:28 -0800

Up at 6 a.m. yet again. Puttered with the computer until the others stirred. We headed over to Kiriako to get some breakfast at the Royal Chef. I had some chapattis and peas. Delicious. Spent the rest of the morning at the DTP office working on the team pages for the Pixel Corps website. Alex Fox came by with the new iBook he picked up in Dubai. I spent some time going over it with him. Eventually he had to head back downstairs for a meeting with Hanif and Jack.
Our group headed back to the Royal Chef of a quick bite of lunch. After we got back to the office it was time for Sandrine to depart. We bundled her into a cab and wished her Bon Voyage. We were to learn later that she had been hustled for some cash over exceeding the weight limit. The check in clerk initially indicated that she would have to pay an additional $450 for her overage. When she balked, the price dropped by half and kept dropping throughout the discussion. At one point the clerk suggested that Sandrine could get some new souvenirs from the duty free shops and bring them on as carry-on. As the negotiation continued, Sandrine decided that she would rather just leave the things rather than paying the amount on the table at that point. This seemed to throw the clerk off guard and Sandrine was able to get going for less than $100.
Alex returned in the afternoon for some more lessons. I went over hooking up his new digital camera and working with iPhoto as well as using iMovie with his new miniDV camera. Shafiq called us downstairs to talk about having us build a website for DTP. His timetable is quite short with the site being due on January 1st.
In the early evening the internet connection died completely. This curtailed getting the completed team pages up for testing on the web. Maina’s brother Kamau was due at the Scandinavian bus depot at 8 p.m. There was some communication problems and Kamau finally called around 8:30 p.m. We collected him and headed over to their cousins house for some dinner. There were some potatoes and a tomato and onion salad I could eat. The rest of the meal with meat heavy. Finally called it quits around 10:30 p.m.

TAN: Ride with the Valkyries

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 15:48:02 -0800

We were up early to get some shots around the camp. The weather did not look like it would cooperate so we had breakfast first. As we were finishing up, the clouds gave way to the morning sun. We got more footage of the tents from the hill and then hiked out onto the plain to get a long shot of the camp. Walking along we noticed some rather interesting bright red furry insects that vaguely resembled velvet ants. Tim thought the insects were some type of giant spider mite.

TAN: Hallelujah, its Rain and Little Men

Sat, 13 Dec 2003 15:47:51 -0800

After a quick bite of breakfast we were out on a game drive with a third of the Voigt group. Our first stop was at the main gate where our park fees were paid. Chantal wanted to get more footage of safari vehicles entering the park. She jumped out and we went through the gate. The driver wasn’t quite sure what to make of the situation and crept along slowly. We kept telling him to go, but he eventually stopped. Chantal ran around the barrier and down the road after us. Our guide, Nicolas was none to pleased and we tried to wave at Chantal in an effort to get her to stop. Our efforts were in vain. As we drove back to the gate, the park manager approached the car. She had some words in swahili with Nicholas. She then switched to english to chew Chantal out. She wanted to know if we were professional photographers and to inform us that if we needed to get out of the vehicle in the park, a ranger could be arranged for $100 a day. We declined the offer and headed on our way.
We were taken along the highway for a long way, which we all began to wonder about. Our patience was rewarded by a pair of male lions just off the side of the road. We weren’t supposed to be off road in the park so we only spent a couple of minutes looking at them. One of the older ladies in the Voigt group picked the moment we were ascending the embankment to get back on the road to ask the guide a question. This distracted the driver from his task and we came to a halt halfway up tilting precariously to one side. This same lady kept up a banter of questions to our guide Nicolas. The biggest stumper was a question about why all of the elephants seemed so small compared to normal. Huh?

TAN: With the Voigts

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 15:47:40 -0800

We saw Julia out of the house at 7 a.m. Basta and Julius had worked on the food for the train trip until 3 a.m. We moved our gear over to Maina’s house in anticipation of Hanif arriving back in Tanzania before we returned from Mikumi. As we were coming back by the house, Fadhil arrived with Alex’s Land Cruiser and a taxi in tow. The Land Cruiser was left at Hanif’s and we all piled into the taxi. We were the second group to arrive at the station. Two photographers from Conde Nast had arrived before us. Along with two other guests and the Marketing Manager for A Tent with a View, they were to depart the train in the Selous.
We waited another half hour for the larger group of 13 people to arrive. The larger group was a last pilgrimage to Tanzania by Helga Voigt, the 95 year old widow of Werner Voigt, a German settler who had come to Bagamoyo in 1926 and stayed in East Africa for the next 60 years. The family still holds the lease to Ras Roale, the peninsula that the Foxes’ Lazy Lagoon camp is situated on. Along with Helga were her two daughters, Evelyn and Veronika, along with their husbands and assorted family friends.
A pair of Maasai had been arranged to provide some extra local color. Their put on dance on the platform was well received by the others, but seemed a little contrived and hollow to us. We have been spoiled by seeing the real thing in a more natural setting.

TAN: Slow Beaming the Bytes

Thu, 11 Dec 2003 15:47:29 -0800

We were out of the house by 9 a.m. leaving Julia outside to await the house lady, Vlad having left at 5 a.m. to take a bus to Kenya in order to get his visa renewed for another three months. Had a quick bite of chapattis for breakfast and we were ensconced in front of our computers at the office again. I was busily at work on the team pages for the Pixel Corps site.
After a quick bite at the Royal Chef, Julia came by with Fadhil to collect the keys to Hanif’s. Julius and Basta from Lazy Lagoon had come down and they were going to use Hanif’s kitchen to prepare the food for the train trip. Chantal and Sandrine headed off in the evening to find some dinner. I stayed at the office until midnight to get the first test of the Pixel Corps team pages to Ben in San Francisco. The Internet connection was exceptionally slow and my upload of the entire site timed out a dozen times before I decided to just try with the new and modified pages. I was able to get through this smaller file on the fourth try. I arrived home to find Julius and Basta in the middle of a kitchen full of food. Chantal and Sandrine had arrived just a bit ahead of me and Julia a bit after. I packed my things for the trip in the morning and went to bed.

TAN: Konstfack

Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:47:10 -0800

Slept in until 7 a.m. Enjoyed another hot shower to wash away the last of the road grit. Headed over to DTP after breakfast. Spent the day trying to coax the Internet connection in the office to deliver what we asked. As seems to be the usual for our times in the office, the connection crapped out completely a couple of time and was painfully slow while it was up.

TAN: Lead Foot

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 15:44:16 -0800

I was up again at 6 a.m. We had agreed to meet at 8:30 a.m. but Swale and I were ready to go at 7:30 a.m. , having gotten the fluids in the truck checked and our gear loaded. He and I grabbed a bite to eat and waited for Chantal and Sandrine to stir. 8:30 a.m. came and went with no sign. A bit after 9 a.m. I went to check up on them, to find that Chantal was up but had no idea what time it was, as the still sleeping Sandrine had hidden her watch and the phone. They eventually came out but were disappointed to find that the choices for breakfast were much more limited at the later hour.
We finally got everything together and went out in search of some diesel. The stations in Kilwa were quite hidden to our untrained eyes, amounting to little more than a collection of 55 gallon drums. Diesel has a whopping 790 Shilling per liter. We weren’t so happy to shell out for a full tank, but we thought it best to get it while we could.

TAN: Kilwa Kisiwani

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 23:21:54 -0800

Had a very restless night. The new watch I had gotten before leaving has been giving me fits. It has begun resetting itself with increasing frequency. It has been New Years at least six times so far on this trip. Fortunately, this morning was not a New Years morning, but I was up ahead of the 4:15 a.m. alarm anyway.
Got myself together and out the door to go and make sure Chantal and Sandrine were on track. I was stymied by the main building being locked. I circled toward the back of the building looking for a way to get by girls’ window but found no access. I am sure the gentleman who was washing cars at 4:30 a.m. was rather confused by what I was doing. I eventually hopped over a wall to find that they were indeed awake, but felt they were locked in. As I came back around, the front door was open and Chantal was by the bungalow looking for me. As we all met up, it started to rain. The rain lasted 10 minutes, but didn’t bode well for our trip to Kilwa Kisiwani. Swale and Saidi turned up a bit later and we headed off to the harbor.
A dhow awaited us at the harbor. We scampered aboard and enjoyed the half hour trip to the island. The sky had started to clear and we could see areas of rain moving away from us. As we drew near the shore, we noticed a rainbow over the ruins of a fortress. After our gear was unloaded, Chantal and I headed off to document the fortress. As we were returning to the rest of the group, a local official approached. He had Pierre on a walkie-talkie and a long conversation in Swahili and French ensued. The upshot was that the official did not think our papers were in order and we would consequently not be allowed to film or take pictures. After further negotiations and some linguistic finagling we were allowed to shoot.

TAN: Eaten Alive

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 04:46:38 -0800

Happy Birthday Mom!
We met at 7:30 a.m. for breakfast, the ladies having slept in the main building of the guesthouse and Swale and I in a bungalow outside. We each had a couple of chapattis (Indian flatbread), as the offerings of a whole dried fish or hunks of meat soaking in cloudy broth didn’t seem that appealing.
A quick trip through the marketplace got us set up with bottled water, tomatoes, bananas, mangoes, and pineapples. Our next stop was the District Commissioner’s office to get a permit to visit the islands of Songo Mnara and Kilwa Kisiwani. A gentleman claiming to be a guide glommed onto us as we got to the office. Pierre had failed to indicate that a guide would join us, so we were very standoffish. Our official handwritten document cost us a whopping $1.50 each per day. We were also given a questionnaire to fill out and return upon the completion of our visit. We headed over to Pierre’s to collect him. We found the guide, a gentleman named Saidi, there ahead of us. We apologized for not being more cordial to him at our first encounter.

TAN: Where's Pierre?

Sat, 06 Dec 2003 01:38:14 -0800

We were up and ready to play the waiting game by 9 a.m. Today we were waiting on Swale, the driver that Shafiq had arranged to take us to Kilwa. He finally arrived a bit after 9:30 a.m. We got our gear loaded and made stops to get cash from an ATM and check email at the DTP office. We were on the road by 11 a.m.
The journey to Kilwa covered some 300Km south from Dar es Salaam. Swale had been told by a friend that it was only 150Km, so he was a little surprised when he finally looked at our map and figured out just how far it was. The road was in a variety of states of disrepair. There were alternating parts of pristine tarmac, smooth dirt, pothole ridden tarmac and badly rutted dirt. Getting closer to Kilwa there was a tremendous amount of Chinese led road improvement projects underway.

TAN: Kanga Street

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 15:38:29 -0800

Up again at the usual 6 a.m. Spent the morning working on the computer until it was time to head over to the DTP office. We sequestered ourselves at the office, only emerging for a bite to eat for lunch and to do some shopping in the early afternoon. Our shopping expedition took us around the corner from the office to a street lined with stores selling fabric and Kangas, the traditional printed cloth that Tanzanian ladies fashion into skirts, shawls, head coverings, slings for young children and a myriad other uses.

TAN: Rats!

Thu, 04 Dec 2003 15:38:17 -0800

We were up at the crack of day once again to make our 7:00 a.m. appointment at the Apopo research center.

Apopo is a scent detection project funded in part by the Netherlands government and the EU. The research involves giant pouched rats that are indigenous to most of Africa. They are primarily being trained to detect explosives used in land mines with the goal of being able to provide and effective and inexpensive was to clear large areas of mines. Some of the rats have been working in Mozambique. The initial tests have been very positive with a 100% find rate.
As we arrived, the staff were bringing out cage after cage of giant rats ready to go out into the field for their morning training. The outdoor training is only done from 7-9 a.m. After that it becomes too hot. The rats were loaded into a truck with the staff piled into a dala dala. We followed them both down to the training field.

TAN: Leaving the Steppe

Wed, 03 Dec 2003 02:35:19 -0800

Another early morning on the Maasai Steppe. This one was to be our last for this trip.

We got a few more shots around the boma before beginning to pack up. The kids had to head off for school, so Sandrine brought out the things she had for them. Them seemed quite appreciative of the pens and pencils. There were some perfume samples and costume jewelry as well. Maiko was given a Fisher Space Pen. Chantal and I wished we warranted one of them. They have pressurized ink cartridges so you can write anywhere with them, up side down, right side up, even in space.

TAN: Mwarabu Boma

Tue, 02 Dec 2003 01:08:41 -0800

We were up again with the cries of the rooster. It was decidedly overcast when we poked our noses out of the tent. Not good for filming. Fortunately the cloud cover burned off fairly quickly. We followed the kids to school again, getting more footage. They were more comfortable with the camera and a little more relaxed.

The remnants of some children playing “house.”

The schoolkids sweeping the schoolyard clean. In no other country have I seen so much effort put into cleaning so little. A young warrior idling near the school.

TAN: ilsingoliotin lo ilkorianga

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 01:34:36 -0800

(Evening Songs of the Youth)

A Maasai bull. Each clan has different markings for their animals.

I was up again at 6 a.m., just a bit after the chickens started their early morning call and response. We got some footage of the cattle being let out to graze before heading into the boma to see the preparations made by the school kids. Monika and Maiko were in their school uniforms already. Maiko had the snazziest stripped socks. Breakfast consisted of ugali and milk. After breakfast and Mateyo changing into his school outfit, we were off on the twenty minute hike to school. The kids were a little uncomfortable around the camera and kept looking back at us as we followed them.

TAN: Catching Up with the Nomads

Sun, 30 Nov 2003 01:11:36 -0800

We were up at the crack of dawn to be ready for a 7 a.m. rendezvous with Rafael. Given his recent track record, none of us were really surprised when he arrived at 8:15 a.m. I think we were all half expecting more reasons why we would not be able to leave. Amazingly, we were able to pack up the truck and head out.

Getting our gear stowed for the journey to Handeni.

TAN: tijin'ga l'laanyisho mee l'laanyuni

Sat, 29 Nov 2003 09:06:45 -0800

- Maasai proverb (It is better to be the one waited for, rather than the one waiting.)
Rafael showed up at 9:30 a.m. as promised, but he was not ready to depart. He insisted that the truck needed to be washed and he was short a spare tire. I went with him to complete these tasks. The tire repair place tried to sell him on a completely shot tire. He refused and they brought out a new tire that he complained cost way too much. Negotiations went nowhere, so eventually he just got his rim back. I asked him if the price was inflated because he had a mzungu with him. He thought that this was probably the case and dropped me back in Micocheni, promising that his errands would take another twenty minutes.
Four hours later, Rafael returned after a call from us. The errands had been run, but we still weren’t able to leave because a driver had not shown up. It turned out that the driver had not gotten the message that his serveces were needed and was still out in Handeni, the town near the Maasai Steppe.
We sat down and enjoyed a two-hour conversation with Rafael. We chatted about our situation, ethnobotany, AIDS, female genital mutilation, the food and wine culture in France, the culture of the US, and the state of decency in the world. Rafael eventually excused himself to go in search of food.
After Rafael had gone, we headed over to the handicraft market in Mwenge. Chantal and I picked up a couple of things and Sandrine went hog wild while managing to swing some incredible bargains. An old Rastafari named Joseph herded us over toward the taxis in the local market part of Mwenge. It looked very interesting there and we all agreed that we should come back when we weren’t burdened with handicrafts.

TAN: Vodacom Premier League

Fri, 28 Nov 2003 09:06:20 -0800

Was up at 6 a.m. and worked on the computer until it was time to head to the office around 9:30 a.m. We found Maina at the office and the Internet connection up and creeping along. Got some emailing taken care of and headed out for lunch. The Royal Chef, our favorite out of the restaurants in the immediate vicinity is still closed. Supposedly they will reopen on Monday. The management used the month of Ramadan to renovate the premises.

TAN: IDDI BILI

Thu, 27 Nov 2003 00:03:38 -0800

Today was the second day of national holiday to mark the end of Ramadan. We awoke to a morning of downpour. It finally started to let up a little as we were leaving the house to get Arnaud and Lilia over to the port to take the ferry to Zanzibar. The touts at the ferry terminal could see us coming a mile a way and chased the taxi along the entry road to where we finally stopped, all the while yelling out the rates and departure times for the boats they were hustling for.
Chantal, Sandrine and I headed over to the office to find Maina there, but no Internet connectivity. We headed out in search of lunch and an Internet cafe. Quite a bit more was open and we were able to get a delicious lunch at Retreat, the “exclusively veg” restaurant. As we were finishing up, a rush of folks appeared who all ordered the lunch Thali. Must try it next time.

TAN: IDDI MOSI

Wed, 26 Nov 2003 03:44:41 -0800

The end of Ramadan is upon us at last. There are two days of national holiday to celebrate the end of the observance of the month long Muslim fasting.
There were tremendous downpours in the early morning. At times, the corrugated metal roof sounded as if were being beaten in. In my semi-slumber I expected to find the roof caved in just halfway across the room. The others were amazed to find almost no evidence of the rainfall on the ground a couple of hours later.
The power went out almost right after I got up at 6 a.m. and would remain off until just before we left the house at 11:30 a.m. I spent the morning getting seven days of blog prepped and ready to upload at the office. We headed off to rendezvous with Maina at the office. We found the space open, so phoned Maina to tell him he didn’t need to come and that he should enjoy the national holiday instead of worrying about us.
I began the long process of uploading my blog entries. The others checked their email and Arnaud and Lilia headed off to change some currency just as Rafael arrived. We had a nice chat with him. Still couldn’t get everything nailed down, but it looks like we will be leaving on Saturday to spend four or five days out in his village, northwest of Handeni. We will either have Rafael or some of his colleagues as our guides and liaisons with the community.
Arnaud and Lilia eventually returned after trying to find us on the wrong floor of the building and we headed out to find an exchange office that was still open. It was a national holiday and Dar was practically a ghost town. Close to 99% of the business establishments were closed. We headed for a big hotel downtown to be turned away because their exchange was only for guests. Ended up at the Pita Kepap on Samora Ave for a late lunch. It was nice to sit in the shade and spend a while conversing.

TAN: Civilization, Who Needs It?

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 10:50:19 -0800

Everyone was up for the sunrise boat race, but most of the boats had dropped out and we were left on the shore to watch the waves and clouds. Arnaud, Lilia and Sandrine went back to sleep. I worked on photos until breakfast. Everything was in short supply this morning. There were no eggs for breakfast, leaving everyone with a plate of beans and half a cooked tomato. We all found the presentation quite interesting. The area where the eggs would normally be on the plate was left suspiciously blank, as if they might magically arrive at some point while we were eating. We were also without water in all of the faucets. For some unknow reason, someone appeared to have gone around to all the toilets and flushed them, leaving no water for their use.

TAN: Bagamoyo Bound

Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:24:28 -0800

Had the best snorkeling yet after breakfast. I was out early enough to find the water clear before the tide started to come back in. The highlight of my poking around was seeing a cuttlefish. When I first spotted it, it was a mottled color with a electric blue band down it’s length. It darted away to grab something and then caught sight of me. Immediately it changed color to blend in with the surroundings. As it moved over different areas, it’s coloration subtly changed to match. I spent a good ten minutes watching before it finally moved away. I also caught sigh of two eels, one was particularly good sized.

TAN: Secret Getaway

Sun, 23 Nov 2003 09:04:19 -0800

Up at 6 a.m. to watch the fishermen sail by in their dhows. Not a lot of action on this particular morning will have to try our luck again tomorrow. Maina, Chantal and I headed over to the lodge to have tea on the balcony. While we were there it started to rain for a couple of minutes. It was just enough to spatter the ground with raindrops and to cause a full rainbow to appear at the end of the island.

TAN: Maina Arrives

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 08:20:03 -0800

Had a bit of a sleep in passed my normal 6 a.m. wakeup. Enjoyed a hike around the tide pools at the end of the island. Saw loads more marine life than either of the previous visits to the area. There was a bounty of starfish in all shapes and colors as well as some sea slugs. The biggest excitement of the morning was finding a stonefish. Not something to tangle with, as contact with one is almost always fatal within a matter of hours. Glad I have a healthy respect for nature and didn’t feel a need to poke at it.

TAN: Lazy Day

Fri, 21 Nov 2003 02:03:29 -0800

Spent another beautiful day in paradise. Had a very slow morning in spite of having gotten up at 6 a.m. I wandered along the beach in front of the banda for a bit before running into Vlad. He had a newspaper article and book about the Maasai that he thought we should read. The article was about the arng’ehe ceremony, the event to mark the passing of young men into elders that happens every fifteen years and had taken place in the last couple of days. Had a good Foxes breakfast of beans and cooked tomatoes with toast, but with an ample serving of beans for once.

TAN: Missing the Social Event of the Season

Thu, 20 Nov 2003 01:50:51 -0800

We wee all up at 6 a.m. in order to be at the French Embassy for a 7 a.m. appointment with the First Secretary, Head of Development Co-operation a.i, a man named Arnaud. Upon our arrival an animated hour-long conversation in French ensued. I caught about every fortieth word this time, a couple hundred more of these meetings and I might become fluent yet. I think a better bet would be the courses offered at the Alliance Française, with 50 lessons costing a mere $37. Arnaud has been in Africa for the past 17 years, stationed all over the south and east. He was a wealth of information and stories. He encouraged us to go and visit the ruins of the Arabic trading port on Kilwa Island and to visit another Frenchman building markets and roads in the Morogoro region. The preparations for the Beaujolais Nouveau were well underway. It looked like it was going to be a gigantic event, both inside and out on the Embassy grounds. The $15 tickets would be on sale later in the morning up until 5 p.m. We promised to come by later.
Our next appointment for the morning was with Mwanga to go and get the permit for Journalistic Activities from the Ministry of Transit and Communication. We got to Mwanga’s office right on schedule and were off downtown. Again, Mwanga talked his way right passed the entry personnel and we marched up to the Assistant Directors office. Chantal, Sandrine and I sat outside while Mwanga went to liberate the paperwork. Sandrine then went to pay the $200 fee. Had a quick trip back to Mwanga’s office and headed over to DTP. The cab driver had a different understanding of what the rate for the trip was, and in spite of Mwanga telling us that it should be 1500 shillings, insisted that we pay double that amount.

TAN: Maina's Birthday

Wed, 19 Nov 2003 01:34:40 -0800

Had a full schedule of meetings during the day in search of subjects for Sandrine. Started at 10 a.m. with Gerald of FEWS NET (Famine Early Warning System Network).The FEWS NET organization had posted information about an impending food shortage throughout much of Tanzania. Rainfall throughout the country has been spotty at best. In September there was a shortfall of corn production that precipitated the government buying 32,000 metric tons of maize. Although the maize was to come from a governmental agency it still had to be paid in cash to liberate the supply. The government was unable to come up with the cash all at once, so the required supply was purchased in smaller amounts over a period of time. This delayed the delivery of the maize to the districts that needed it. To compound the problem further, the government did not have enough money to provide transport to distribute the food once it got to the districts. To get the food out to the towns and villages that needed it, the districts, which have less funds than the government, were called upon to provide transport.

TAN: The Swedish Connection

Tue, 18 Nov 2003 02:53:44 -0800

Got over to the office a little before 10 a.m. to meet Mwanga, who finally sauntered in around 11 a.m. Mwanga had offered to take us around to some organizations that might help Sandrine with subjects for spots to show on French TV or write-ups for newspapers or magazines. We were off to visit TAMWA, Tanzania Media Women’s Association, a NGO working to raise awareness of womens issues in print, on the radio and TV. They also do grassroots organizing as well as working closely with a number of other NGO’s to promote larger projects.
We met with Irene, who despite having just returned from a months leave for “major surgery,” seemed quite together. Several of the campaigns they have been working on over the last couple of years are of interest to Sandrine. They continue to do extensive work against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), the removal of some or all of the clitoris (in extreme cases the labia as well) as a puberty rite. Although illegal in Tanzania, FGM is still practiced in the north, around Arusha. Practicing FGM is punishable by a $300 fine and/or 15 years imprisonment. Many of the practitioners get off by bribing the police, who might turn the charge into the theft of a cow. A diagram in a piece of TAMWA literature showed a horizontal swath going straight across from East Africa to West Africa where FGM is still prevalent.
Irene also had some horror stories about misconceptions of AIDS in the rural areas. There have been cases recently where HIV+ males have been raping young girls and elderly women under the misguided idea that having sex with a virgin will cure them. The elderly women were somehow supposed to have become virginal again due to their age. Another practice putting women at risk comes when one of their offspring dies. In order to lift the curse that killed the child and to prevent it from affecting others in the family, the mother must go out and have sex with the first man they meet.

TAN: Maji Safi (Clean Water)

Mon, 17 Nov 2003 23:00:18 -0800

The low background noises of the morning are pierced each day around 7 a.m. by the shrill cry of a woman who seems to be complaining bitterly about her eye. Her call of “Hey, my eye, my eye e.” [my_eye.mp3] was a mystery until I caught sight of her a couple of days ago. Her eyes seemed to be quite fine, but she had a huge stack of egg flats on her head that she was selling. According to Maina, hardboiled eggs are a breakfast staple here.
At some point during the night we ran out of water at Hanif’s. Fortunately we were aware that the tanks were almost empty. Maina arranged for a truck to come by and give us a refill. A canary yellow tanker rumbled up to the gate and after some fiddling with the fittings on the pump, we were in business. Three 2000-liter tanks were filled for $25. The reason for all the tanks is that the municipal water supply is highly unreliable. Coupled with a neighbor closer to the water supply continually cutting the kilometer long pipe that runs to the house, it is easier to fill up tanks.

TAN: Happy Home Renter

Sun, 16 Nov 2003 02:03:04 -0800

The main focus this day was to secure the house we have been working to get near Hanif’s in Micocheni. Headed over to the office at 9 :30 a.m. to meet with Yusuf and get all documentation in order. At this juncture, DTP will be on the lease, eliminating the need for Maina to have his work permit in hand before renting. The Internet connection was a bit better but still not up completely. We all checked in with our various information services.
Two hours went by with no sighting of Yusuf. Maina eventually got hold of him and arranged to pick him up from a nearby bus depot. The two of them worked on all of the paperwork required. Official documents related to DTP were Xeroxed; a three page lease was generated, along with receipt forms. We were finally on our way around 2 p.m.
Back in Micocheni we had the unexpected honor of being invited into the home of the neighbor, Mr. Mtana, to join in the tail end of his youngest sons baptismal feast. We were brought in among friends and family and offered the finest in hospitality. The meal consisted of chicken, vegetables in a sweet and sour sauce, a tomato and cucumber salad, white rice, brown rice, and ugali. We joined the men on one side of the room with the women being on the other side. The seemingly big excitement was the bottles of Pepsi that were gingerly brought out and lovingly toweled off before being served at the end of the meal. The TV was blaring the entire time we were seated.

TAN: Out on the Town

Sat, 15 Nov 2003 23:42:23 -0800

Went with Maina over to the office at 9:30 a.m. The last of his Saturday classes met this morning. He had forgotten that he had told the students to be there at 9 a.m. They all gave him a hard time when we finally arrived at 10:00 a.m. I was at the office hoping to get a bunch of Internet activities completed. Luck would have it that today would be one of the worst days yet for the Internet connection. The connection was just dead most of the time. It would come on and start to pick up only to flat line a few minutes later. I imagined that everyone in Dar es Salaam was waiting patiently for the connection to come alive and as soon as it did, pouncing on it all at once. Needless to say, I was just as glad to leave the office to head over to the Q Bar to catch the tail end of the Rugby match between New Zealand and Australia.
Chantal and Sandrine had arrived at Q Bar at noon according to plan and were a little peeved at Maina when we showed up an hour late. I worked on my laptop amidst the howls and hoots of a sizeable chunk of the expatriate community in Dar es Salaam. To Maina’s disappointment, Australia won. A round of the usual Vegetable Fajitas (pronounced here with a hard “g” sound rather than the soft “j”) and a Hamburger for Maina took over an hour to be served.

TAN: Sandrine Arrives

Fri, 14 Nov 2003 23:41:49 -0800

Maina arrived at 9 a.m. to take us over to a house in the area that he had looked at previously. It turned out to be right around the corner from Hanif’s. Although the house would need a great deal of clean up, it was much better than the one we had looked at in Msasani. The only thing preventing Maina from getting the house is the owner insisting that he have his work permit. To date the permit has been held up in the Ministry of Labor. Every time we had enquired about it, the response had been that it would be out in a day or two. Eventually we gave up on asking.
Back at the office, we ran into Jack, who seemingly knows everyone. He did indeed think he knew the owner of the house and agreed to see what he could do to smooth things over. He also agreed to see what he could do to speed along Maina’s work permit.
We worked for a bit before heading over to the airport to pick up Chantal’s friend Sandrine. We were delayed a bit by the motorcade for the former president. Fortunately Sandrine had only just emerged from the terminal when we arrived. The white-knuckle ride back to the DTP office didn’t make a very good impression on any of us.

TAN: Televised

Thu, 13 Nov 2003 00:47:20 -0800

We were still working at the house when the housemaid arrived. She desperately wanted to tell us something about the television and us. Our only experience with the television at Hanif’s thus far was that it didn’t get any signal. As the housemaid tried a second time to explain in broken English, all we could think about was the dysfunctional set. At this point, we decided it would be better to have her write down her message and have Maina give a shot at figuring out what it was. She only picked up on us saying Swahili, missing the pantomime of writing, causing her to launch into an animated explanation that was completely lost on us. Eventually we got the message down on paper. Later at the office Maina translated and much to our surprise, we had been on television the previous evening. A gentleman from TVT, the government television station had been filming at the Mac Expo we attended on Nov 11th. We hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but I guess it had been a fairly big deal.
We grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed over to Msasani to meet with the owner of a potential house. Chantal and Maina had been over here before. The house was decent, but certainly not worth the $350 per month rent due up front for one year. We have continued to be amazed by the amount of money due at one time to secure a place to live. The shortest period of time that rent can be paid for seems to be six months. I imagine it is very difficult for the average person to afford a decent place to live.
Anne Marie joined us after the owner had left. She was not at all impressed with neither the house nor the neighborhood it was located in. We all headed over to a South African owned rib joint with a American South West decor. The food, though quite good took an interminably long time to materialize. Chantal and I headed back to office, leaving Maina to spend the rest of the afternoon with Anne Marie.
Tonight’s order of business for the Pixel Corps was picking a project to work on. We had come up with a number of suggestions for graphic design and video and a set of milestones for each. I ended up spending the session resuscitating Mwanga’s fish handling movie. The Pixel Corps members picked an interesting variety of projects to work on. Two of the folks doing graphic design decided to do posters, one for a soon to be released dairy product and another for a video rental store. Chantal’s suggestions that they make one for a movie, music or cultural event were met with blank stares. One gentleman asked if a car accident was considered an event that a poster could be made for.
The video projects ranged from a piece about Tanzanian soccer to a humorous short and a documentary on the underprivileged fighting for their rights. The gentleman who wanted to do the documentary was so soft spoken that for all intents and purposes he was just mouthing the words. We are all very curious as to how his project is going to get done if no one can hear him speak.

TAN: Some Form of Communication

Wed, 12 Nov 2003 01:15:10 -0800

Our morning activities around Hanif’s house were disturbed by the arrival of Joclin from the DTP office. She had come looking for the lighting kit. Maina had sent a message, but Chantal had left the phone on silent mode in her bag, so we were caught unaware. We quickly gathered everything together and were ready to head out the door when the Foxes magic yellow mini-bus arrived. It was an unexpected surprise to see Vlad and Miriam. Plans were made to visit Lazy Lagoon in two weeks time for Maina’s birthday. Miriam was convinced that the keys to Peter Fox’s truck were somewhere in the house. We spent the next 15 minutes or so looking in every conceivable spot they might be, but to no avail. Eventually everyone was shooed out of the house and we were on our way. A short detour over to the Valhalla Complex to visit the Nordic Clinic got both Chantal and I enough anti-malaria medication to last the rest of the trip. Both of our insurance providers only allow month long prescriptions to be filled. Not entirely useful for long trips. My Dioxycycline was $12 for a two month supply and Chantal’s Larium was $40.
Mwanga came by the office just after we arrived. Chantal somehow convinced him to come to lunch with us even though he was fasting. We talked about the state of the film and video industry in Tanzania over plates of Matoke (savory banana mash) and mixed vegetables. Back at the office, I continued to do battle with the Internet. Everything times out due to the slow connection. Every picture I post for the blog takes five or more tries before is finally gets uploaded. I have begun to consider the necessity of looking for a different connection option. A good chunk of the afternoon was spent rebuilding Mwanga’s computer. He has been having trouble launching several applications and his external drive is formatted incorrectly.
Chantal ran the Pixel Corps group through a presentation exercise. The members were paired up and interviewed each other. Each of the members then gave a short report of the other persons background, goals, hobbies, and favorite design or video. The group interest was primarily in video with two folks interested in graphic design. They all did a decent job with their presentations.
After the evening Pixel Corps session had finished we headed over to the Retreat restaurant. Had another delicious all veg Indian meal. Got some space snacks for a starter.

TAN: Mac Expo

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 01:02:45 -0800

A stop at the Mayfair Plaza to meet with the architect, Smit was the first order of business for the day.The Mayfair is scheduled to be open in January with about 75% occupancy. The power was out when we arrived, so Smit gave us a tour of the premises to show us what was possible for the new DTP space. From the high polish floor tiles to the guady wall treatments, the Mayfair had a typical mini-mall sensibility to it. Everything was glossy and cold. It will take some work to convince them that the office needs a different approach.

TAN: New Site for DTP

Mon, 10 Nov 2003 01:01:28 -0800

Pottered around the house and office for the first half of the day. Made progress on a revised quote for the IPP classes and helped Jack figure out how to play VCD’s on his Windows laptop. Shafiq requested our presence for a trip over to a potential new site for the office over toward the airport.
The site turned out to belong to Arifa’s uncle and was in much less shape than Chantal and I were lead to believe. Shafiq mentioned that DTP needed to be moved by the beginning of January. They have a great deal of work ahead of them. The area proposed production area is nothing more than a pad at this point in time. The rest of the structure was incredibly raw, with parts looking as if they had been through a war. We are joined on site by Smit, the architect for this site and the Mayfair Plaza over toward Hanif’s house. We made arrangements with her to meet the following morning and get layouts for the structures that DTP would occupy.

TAN: Hunting for Handicrafts

Sun, 09 Nov 2003 07:24:15 -0800

Getting a little culture was on today’s agenda. We headed over to Mwenge to look for handicrafts. I had been over there previously with Gabriel and knew what to expect. The handicraft area consists of a large plaza with an open courtyard in the middle where a number of woodcarving artisans ply their trade. The finished pieces are then taken around to the selling stalls at the perimeter to see if they can find a buyer.
We made it around to almost every stall. It is interesting to see, with minor exceptions, almost the same thing in every one. Chantal bought a few things, including a painting that she got talked into purchasing. I was mainly interested in getting a better feel for what sort of things were there. It is so close to where we are staying that it will be easy to go back in the future.

TAN: Special Pass

Sat, 08 Nov 2003 07:21:33 -0800

We worked at Hanif’s house throughout the morning and headed over to the DTP office to meet with Shafiq. We grabbed a bite to eat before he returned from the mosque at 2 p.m. On our way over to the restaurant it started to rain and continued to pour down throughout our meal, stopping just prior to our departure back to the office.
The meeting with Shafiq was to discuss the logistics and legalities of our proposed classes at IPP Media. First up was a viewing of the DVD project. Everyone present seemed impressed. The discussion then progressed to our proposed fee. Shafiq thought our bid was too low and a long discussion ensued about the permit required to legally proceed with the work. It was determined that we would best be served by a “Special Pass” that would allow us to work for six months for a $400 fee each. A gentleman named Jack, who we had seen at the office on a number of other occasions casually placed a call to the Commissioner of Immigration and discussed our situation with him. We were all a little taken aback. Out of the conversation it was revealed that IPP had recently come into a considerable amount of funds for the express purpose of training their personnel. We agreed to revise our bid and that we would re-convene on Monday.
The next hour was spent running the numbers to come up with a few pricing schemes. Almost every financial transaction here seems to involve some bargaining so we will aim high and maneuver down from there. The power went out just after we finished, so we decided to pack it in and go find some food. We ended up at the Indian restaurant that we missed a couple of nights previously. I was happy to learn that it was a strictly vegetarian establishment. I ordered a five Dal dish and some garlic parathas. Absolutely scrumptious.

TAN: To Dar es Salaam by Private Coach

Fri, 07 Nov 2003 04:18:07 -0800

With breakfast at 8 a.m. and an 11 a.m. departure, none of us were in any hurry to get up. I had taken off my watch and even though I probably woke up at the usual 6 a.m., I managed to stay relaxed in bed until just after 8 a.m. Had a bit of a scramble to get over to breakfast but I don’t think anyone really missed us.
The camp had a pool which Else and I made use of. The chilly water was most welcome. We swam for about 40 minutes before drying off in the sun. I am in desperate need of some more sun. I figure the tanner I get, the less I will get overcharged for goods and services. I will no longer be the pasty white European that the locals can spot a mile away. It is a pipe dream I know, but worth at least a little effort to try.
We departed the camp at 11 a.m. to be at the train station for a rumored 11:56 a.m. departure. We arrived early and the Dutch folks have a bunch of Bic pens to hand out to the kids. It is a bit of a mob scene and Fadhil is volunteered for the next time. The trip is smooth and most pleasant. We were forced to the siding to let another train pass at the village of Kifuru. We all opted to go out and explore the area. The Dutch folks were quite indiscriminate with their picture taking. One lady took offense and there was a bit of a heated discussion with Fadhil that he diffused quite well. We returned to the train just before the oncoming train passed. The next Bic pen distribution went much better. Fadhil’s solution was to have all the kids close their eyes and hold out their hands. This worked much better and made for some fun pictures at the same time.

TAN: “E Ticket” Ride

Thu, 06 Nov 2003 01:47:44 -0800

If Tanzania were the Disneyland of yore, today’s adventure would have required an “E Ticket.” We were summonsed by the Foxes to be at the Tazara Railway workshop at 8 a.m. in order to get on their train out to the Selous Game Reserve.
After a harrowing rush-hour taxi ride in a vehicle with no shocks (Being shock less necessitates negotiating the multitude of speed bumps at 5 Km/Hr, coming at them from a 45 degree angle.) we arrived at 8:10 a.m. to find no one at the workshop. Fearful of having been left behind, I attempted to call Nick, who had “arranged” everything. The guards at the gate failed to understand my request for a telephone, but were most amused by the page in Chantal’s notebook that Nick’s number was on. About this time Miriam showed up and whisked us over to the Tazara station for a 9 a.m. departure. Else from Vuma Hills arrived a few minutes after we did.

TAN: IPP Meeting

Wed, 05 Nov 2003 01:04:50 -0800

We spent the morning at Hanif’s house and headed into Kiriakoo for lunch. The main item on the agenda for today was a meeting with IPP Media to see if we could provide them with some classes. We arrived at 2 pm. to find that Lema not at the office. We met up with Ernesto, who turned out to be a good friend of Maina’s girfriend’s roommate. He does motion graphics for ITV, one of the stations under the IPP umbrella. Lema finally showed up with apologies for being detained elsewhere.
The meeting finally got underway with Lema, Ernesto, Maria, from Channel 5, three of the video guys from Channel 5, two of which I recognized from the Pixel Corps meeting the previous night, as well as Maina, Chantal and I. The IPP folks outlined their needs and concerns and we talked back and forth about what we could provide and how to proceed. We wraped up an hour of so later feeling good about what we had agreed upon.
The rest of the afternoon is spent working on the course outline for a two week program. We soon began to realize what a large project the training would become. The staff needs so much training in so many areas that two weeks seems like barely enough time to scratch the surface. Had a short break for dinner before a second session of course outlining.
The saga of Chantal’s email account continued. Between her requests to Pac Bell, Yahoo and her roommates, the password was reset one to many times and she was locked out once again.

TAN: Pixel Corpses

Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:58:13 -0800

Got into the office by 10 a.m. Maina was tied up with DPI classes and we felt a little out of place hanging around. Attempted to get some telecommunication done. Chantal’s roommates had set up a wireless network in their house and during the course of the installation had talked the technician into changing the master password for the account. That password also happened to be the password for Chantal’s email account. She spent an increasingly frustrating day trying to access her account without success. The Internet connection was even more glacial than I recalled from July.
The early evening found Chantal and I paraded in front of half a dozen Pixel Corps members. They stared woodenly as we introduced ourselves and talked a bit about our backgrounds. I had the disconcerting feeling I was addressing a room full of propped up corpses.
Chantal’s attempts to get into her email account kept us at the office until after midnight. She was finally able to get access to find nearly 300 unread emails that would have to wait until morning.

TAN: Nature's Breadbasket

Mon, 03 Nov 2003 07:26:38 -0800

I had made arrangements the previous day for our driver from the port to conduct a tour of the spice plantations for us. While getting the DTP logo off the Internet in the hotel lobby, I ran into the driver, who had a story about being unable to lead a tour for us today because he needed to get some medicine for his son. He was at the hotel to introduce his brother who he hoped would suffice as a stand-in. We negotiated a price and a time for him to come back.
With the DTP logo in hand, I quickly produced another build of the DVD and burned a copy. This one would go back with Julie and Gabriel to be shipped from San Francisco to Bruce in London. We gathered all of our stuff and at the last minute decided it would be a good idea to leave it at the hotel. Some repacking ensued and we were finally underway at 11 a.m. Stopped at the port to get ferry tickets back to Dar es Salaam. The only ferry out was leaving at 3:30 p.m. that would leave us with hardly any time to see the island. We opt to see about flights back. Precision Air was $60 for the 15-minute flight back to Dar. It was leaving at 9:30 p.m. so we decided to take it. Our next stop was at a local produce market. Lots of colorful fruits and vegetables, but none of the mounds of spice that were rumored to be there.

TAN: Zanzibar Bound

Sun, 02 Nov 2003 02:32:43 -0800

With our stuff all gathered together, we headed off to the pier to catch the boat to Zanzibar. Got our tickets on the “fast boat” all sorted out. We felt a bit taken advantage of by the guy that arranged for the tickets but by the time we realized that other options might be better, it was too late. Our search for breakfast was hindered by Muslim holy month of Ramadan being in full swing. We had missed the first few days while we were out on safari. With all the Muslim faithful fasting during sunlight hours, eating during the day for the next month or so would prove to be a difficult experience at best.

TAN: Farewell to Mufindi

Sat, 01 Nov 2003 00:42:21 -0800

Up for a 7:30 a.m. departure. We had to be in Mafinga at 8:30 a.m. to ensure we didn’t miss the Scandinavian bus back to Dar es Salaam. We were all intently looking at the license plates for the right bus. A different Scandinavian bus came through and Geoff’s enquiries about the Dar bus were met with a reply of it is coming just now. Our experience with “just now” has been spotty at best. There are varying shades of just now from “just now” to “just now, now”. The bus arrived in the “just now” timeframe, about an hour later. We loaded our gear and bid goodbye to Geoff. We were all quite sad to be parting.

TAN: Dusty Trail Rides

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:03:57 -0800

Up at 6:00 a.m. to keep on fixing our artifacted footage. One segment I have completed before breakfast. The other big one is going to take a while. Immediately after breakfast, Chantal and I join the French group in horseback riding. Chantal gets to talking with one of the gents who turns out to be teaching at a French school in Dar es Salaam. He has been in Tanzania for three years and has just signed on for another three. He has some suggestions for our stay in Dar and even offers a place to stay.

TAN: Artifacts are not My Friends

Thu, 30 Oct 2003 23:39:01 -0800

Up again at 6:00 a.m. to make more progress with the project. Geoff informs us over breakfast that our solitude will be broken later in the day with the arrival of four Frenchmen and a Frenchwoman. Geoff razes Chantal about finally having someone to talk to in French. She poo-poos him, saying she left France to get away from French people and she comes all the way out here to Tanzania and they still find her.
The Lazy Lagoon sequence is finally at a spot where everyone is all right with it. After a couple of false starts on account of missing media, I get started with the compression. I run through the piece a couple of more time to make sure everything is in as good an order as it can be. Some two and a half hours later I have a video track for the DVD. Oh, for a faster machine. To add injury to the insult of the process taking so long, there are very serious artifacts in a number of spots. This trip we have been plagued by a faulty PAL camera that Mwanga let us borrow. We first noticed trouble with it in Mikumi, but by then it was far to late to do anything about it. Had we noticed it before we got back into Dar es Salaam after our trip to Lazy Lagoon, we might have been able to do something about it.
After writing out another build of the DVD project, I watch it on the TV in the lodge to see how bad the video looks. Four sections warrant fixing. I spend the rest of the evening and on into the early morning, wrestling with the shots in Commotion, Shake and Photoshop. I finally call it quits at 2:30 a.m.

TAN: A Faulty Whistle and a Good Laugh

Wed, 29 Oct 2003 00:06:42 -0800

More of the same on the work front today. I set to work on new menus for the DVD while the others refine their edits of the various sequences. I am very glad that we are in Mufindi to finish this project. I cannot imagine a nicer place in all of Tanzania. Geoff is taking great care of us. The power is on right after breakfast through to 11 p.m. We are all making good use of every moment.
The highlight of the day comes in the late afternoon with the arrival of Pili and her friends Monica and Lena. They are all decked out and ready for singing in dancing. Gabriel is a little perterbed because he was not impressed with Pili’s voice last go round and does not want to waste his time with more of it. I go off in search of an extension cable to isolate one of the microphones. I come up empty-handed and by the time I get back, they have started.
The ladies perform about seven numbers. Half of them involve a metal whistle which doesn’t seem to function properly. The mis-firing of the whistle sends Monica into hysterical laughing. The first time she breaks out laughing in the middle of the song they are singing. As it deteriorates, we all end laughing. Everyone has a great time and several of the songs might even surpass the favorites from Lazy Lagoon.

TAN: All Work and No Play

Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:14:17 -0800

Today we start to feel our deadline fast approaching. We are all ensconced in our little cabins, only emerging for meals and to shoot more footage. I spend the morning working on menus for the DVD. Gabriel and Julie are doing the final tweaking to their sequences on Mikumi and Lazy Lagoon.
Over breakfast there is a long discussion about what could have caused the stomach upset that seems to have affected everyone else but me. Geoff seems to have had it worst. Initially it is chalked up to the mustard beef, then the pudding and finally the beer.
After a delicious lunch of vegetable samosas, Chantal and I shoot the accommodations and more of the grounds. I spend the rest of the afternoon working on the setting up the framework for the DVD in DVD Studio Pro, the new version of which is a vast improvement over the previous one. Gabriel and Julie do some more recording of the staff members singing. There is some problem with the external microphone but the a few of the songs are salvageable.
Before sitting down to our evening meal, we show Geoff what we have prepared for the Lazy Lagoon and Mikumi sequences. He is most impressed as are the staff members who gather behind us and snicker through the song that we have laid into the soundtrack. It turns out that most of them are not in Swahili, but the local Wahehe language. Dinner is an eggplant stuffed with rice, beans and zucchini with potatoes, chard and broccoli. It is all delicious.
After dinner Chantal manages to best Gabriel and I in a three way pool game. I make up for it by besting Gabriel in a very close game. Back to the cabins to get a bit more work done before the power fades away. I can see having baths at night becoming rather addicting. Finally into bed around midnight.

TAN: The Mufindi of Yesteryear

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 09:07:54 -0800

Today we have a special treat in the form of a tour of Mufindi given by Geoff Fox. Directly after breakfast we set off. Our first stop is at the coffee growing on the farm. Geoff explains that he is growing Arabica coffee, the other drinking coffee variety being Robusta. The fruit on the coffee bush is picked when it turns cherry, or a dark crimson color. Inside the fruit are two coffee beans that are encased in sucrose mucilage. After being picked, the fruits are pulverized to remove the outer hull and the beans are placed in vats to ferment the mucilage coating so it sloughs off. The raw beans are then ready to be dried and roasted. Currently the market for coffee is incredibly low with growers getting about $0.50 per kilogram of beans. Vietnam has come out of nowhere to take the spot of second largest producer of coffee, behind Brazil. There will be slight fluctuations in the pricing but short of a major cataclysm it will never reach the levels it did previously

TAN: Back from the Hinterlands

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 08:54:41 -0800

More samples of the insect kingdom; a dung beetle and a walking stick.

Have a bit of a sleep-in this morning with wake-up time at 7 a.m. We quickly pack and head over for a bite to eat. We are trying to get in a drive over to where we spotted a leopard the previous morning. Peter arrives with the plane at 8:00 a.m. a half hour ahead of schedule. We all saddle up and head around the corner to find the leopard missing from it’s perch in the fig tree.
We grab a plate of breakfast for Peter on our way back by camp. Our route to the airstrip takes us by the folks who are tent camping. They seem just as morose today as they did yesterday. We are the recipients of long blank stares without any warmth behind them. We get to the plane by 8:30 a.m. and get our gear loaded while Peter has his breakfast.

Preflight meal.

TAN: Leapin' Leopards

Sat, 25 Oct 2003 08:52:47 -0800

The early morning view. Little craters with ant lions waiting patiently at the bottom of each and every one. The idea is that an ant saunters along into the cone and slips down the side toward the ant lion, which gobbles the ant up.

Up for a 7 a.m. breakfast and then off to the north on a game drive. We had barely gotten around the corner when we came upon a leopard lounging in a fig tree. We all had about two seconds to look at it before it leapt down and scampered off. The spooky thing is that Graham and I had been walking under this very same fig tree the previous afternoon.

TAN: Hippo Wonderland

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 03:03:56 -0800

We are up for a 7 a.m. breakfast in order to get Peter Fox over to the airstrip and on his way at 8 a.m. Our group keeps on going for a morning game drive. The excitement is nonstop; every couple of minutes there is something wonderful and new to look at. We start with a small hippo pool close to the car with a larger one visible in the distance. Next up is a vervet monkey who would go on to be a star of the Katavi section of the DVD on account of his bright blue scrotum. This was followed by a group of half a dozen crocodiles, one of which decided it was a good time to make a dash for the water only to freeze just at the edge of it. On the other side of the truck was another crocodile stretched out in full splendor. A few minutes later we come upon a buffalo carcass teeming with vultures. They are busily fighting with each other while picking at their meal. This spectacle is followed by more crocodiles in shallow caves in the riverbank. The cave making activity is supposedly unique to the group of crocodiles in Katavi and soon to be the subject of a documentary. It is starting to get quite hot so we head back to camp to cool off with some lunch.

TAN: Walking with the Animals

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 03:01:57 -0800

A walking safari has been arranged for first thing this morning. Our group will join a gentleman from New Zealand. We meet up with our guide Francis, Charles, the New Zealander and our armed ranger at 8:00 a.m. We drive about a half hour north of camp and are let off next to the river to hike back.

Our guide Francis and our armed ranger escort.

The walk is very exciting, but the game is much more wary of us on foot than in vehicles. We do manage to get fairly close to some hippos. A solitary one we come across is so annoyed with our presence that it vacates the pool it is in and tromps off in search of another. We make it back safe and sound. I really wonder how much stopping power our ranger’s breach-loading rifle has.

TAN: Editing Crunch Time

Wed, 22 Oct 2003 03:00:35 -0800

Some wildlife visible form the dining area at breakfast, a hornbill and bush hyraxes.

The baboons were having a good time in the river bed.

Gabriel and Julie opt out of the morning’s game drive. Chantal and I head out again with Joseph. This morning we find a bunch of hippo pools. The light is bad because the sun is behind everything, but some of the shots should turn out decent. I finally find out what has made the strange coating of plant material on several of the large rocks in camp. It turns out that when the hippos defecate, they wag their tails rapidly, thus making a coarse spay of their feces. Fascinating.

TAN: Roaring in Ruaha

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 02:55:04 -0800

We up early to get a bite to eat before heading out on a game drive at 8:00 a.m. This morning we have Corado again as our driver and a gentleman named Joseph as our guide.

Spotted this baby bird on our porch last might after dinner. The ants have made short work of it. A male agama lizard. The females are black with light yellow markings.

Billy, the bull elephant that terrorizes the camp sporting a fifth leg. The baobab trees are in bloom.

TAN: Private Car to Ruaha

Mon, 20 Oct 2003 08:59:27 -0800

Today we are scheduled to leave for Ruaha. Between the start and finish of breakfast, the departure time has changed twice. Chantal and I get some more footage of the camp while Gabriel works on the Mikumi sequence and Julie works on Lazy Lagoon. We gather ourselves up for a 10:00 a.m. departure.

A 5" long millipede that weathered the night in a drinking glass to have it’s close-up taken in the morning. Chantal shooting the accommodations.

TAN: Udzungwa Rainforest

Sun, 19 Oct 2003 12:53:29 -0800

I am up at the usual 5:30 a.m. to get the day started. Get some photo editing done before I get Gabriel up. We gather up our gear and put it aboard the minibus to be set over to Vuma Hills where we will be spending the night. Have a quick bite to eat. We are not quite quick enough and arrive at the pickup truck for today�s outing to the Udzungwa Mountain National Park, to find the really grumpy Danish couple we are to be traveling with, yelling at Tim. We have a sinking feeling that today is going to have a touch of unpleasantness to it.

TAN: Mutating travel plans

Sat, 18 Oct 2003 03:59:26 -0800

Our ever-changing travel arrangements now have us leaving for Safari Camp, in a pickup, right after breakfast. We get a few shots in and head out.

It seems as if everyone is in agreement that outside the vehicle cab is the best pace to be. Even our two new group members make a beeline for the pickup bed. Everyone enjoys the quick drive over to Safari Camp.

We kick around the camp for a couple of hours logging, editing, and shooting new material. I take a break to try shooting an HDRi. I am not entirely pleased with the results, but it is a start.

TAN: Mikumi Park by way of Scandinavia

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 01:50:39 -0800

Up at 6 a.m. to get the laundry started in the dryer. Alex Fox emerges from his room as I am transferring the clothes. He tells me that they had worked on the train until 2 a.m. But were unable to complete the preparations on time because the crew at the train yard had neglected the wheels. Their restoration, in spite of the crew having the wheels for three months, would take another three days. In addition, the windows had not been delivered.
I continue with my preparations and getting my gear rearranged and consolidated for the next leg of the trip. We are shooting for a 10 a.m. departure. I wake Gabe up at 7:30 a.m. He gets volunteered to go with Alex over to the train yard and get some shots of the train. Chantal, Julie and I gather all of our stuff up and head over to the DTP office to get some telecommunication taken care of.
It takes up a few minutes to get a cab. For all intents and purposes they are unmarked private cars. The only way I have been able to figure they are something else is that they will honk as they approach. We negotiate the price and get all our gear loaded. Not five minutes into our journey, we get a flat. I have little confidence that the spare is going to get us much further down the road, so we flag down the next available taxis and are under way again.

Our broken-down chariot with everyone looking concerned and the dubious looking spare.

TAN: Journey into Darkness

Thu, 16 Oct 2003 23:02:41 -0800

We awaken to another beautiful day in paradise. We are trying to get as much put together as we can. The upstairs deck has become our permanent office. The staff has taken the liberty of moving our dining table up there to make it easier for us. We don’t mind at all because the view is much better.

We work from after breakfast, around lunch and past dinner into the evening.

Chantal enjoying the new office furniture.

TAN: Alone on the Island

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 23:01:00 -0800

We have our first full day of being the only guests on the island. It is fantastic to have full run of the facilities. We follow up breakfast with some more recording sessions. Julius has brought out some of the other staff and they have fashioned a shaker out of a cooking oil can. After a dozen songs and some instrument solos, they take a break to go fetch some of their wives and to practice for the next session. We can hear the practice in the kitchen. It sounds so good that we decide to take the cameras back there. We are rewarded with a spectacular performance that feels much more natural than what we had seen previously out in the guest area.

TAN: Lazy Lagoon

Tue, 14 Oct 2003 23:00:20 -0800

Up at 5:15 a.m. I sit out on our porch working on the computer and watch the world go by. Granted, I would normally consider lounging on the porch fairly unproductive, here however, a bounty of fascinating things parade by.

The local fishermen off to an early start. Riding wind and current toward their quarry.

These Guinea Fowl spent a good long while putting around pecking at breakfast.

A kingfisher and a skink are some other notable participants in my morning’s entertainment.
Around 7:30 a.m. I head off for a walk along the beach. I end up hiking way down the beach on the ocean side, cross at the isthmus and back on the landside of our island. The ocean side is pretty much a constant of reef, ocean and sand with the exception of a solitary palm.

TAN: Out to Bagamoyo

Mon, 13 Oct 2003 23:00:01 -0800

Up at 5:00 a.m. Grab a quick shower and get back to work on the Pixel Corps website. Maina comes by a bit after 8 a.m. Julie and Gabe have packed a little heavy. Chantal and I give them a bit of a hard time. It is not so important to be light now but when we start moving around by light plane, weight consciousness will be imperative.
Our driver for the trip to Bagamoyo is supposed to arrive at 11 a.m., so we head over to the office for some last minute Internet time. Gabriel and I head out to get a step down transformer for our lighting kit. One of the gentlemen from DTP helps us find a spot that sells the supplies we need. After great deal of negotiation and the proprietor making a trip to another store for a higher wattage transformer, we end up with a solution, which should work out nicely. We grab a few other adapters on the way back to the office. While the little setup I cobbled together worked in my mind, I was very happy to find that it did indeed work with the actual gear. I was able to get all four lights powered up to their full potential.
The driver has some other people to ferry, so our departure is pushed back an hour and a half. I am glad, as it gives me a chance to get a bite to eat. There is a restaurant right around the corner, where an ample portion of ugali with beans or curried vegetables can be had for $1. As our next departure time comes and passes we come to find that we have been bumped again and that the driver will come for us around 3 p.m. There is some discussion about getting a taxi at the cost of $40 to get us an hour and half north of Dar es Salaam. We opt to wait for the driver.
We somehow manage to get all of our gear and the four of us crammed into a little Toyota. The drive north is pleasant on a smooth paved road for the bulk of the trip. The boat to take us over to the camp is nowhere to be seen when we arrive, so we have a bit of time to explore the shore. I talk with a couple of gentlemen who are students and Fisheries Institute we launch from. They have three large vessels they work with. They conduct most of their fishing about 150 nautical miles out to sea. Our small fiberglass boat shows up and we lug our gear aboard. I am much happier to be traveling with four people instead of the seven we had last time. The going is a little slower as the channel is quite rough in the late afternoon.

Boats hewn for the most part from a single log.

TAN: Lazy Sunday in Dar

Sun, 12 Oct 2003 23:18:23 -0800

Not entirely lazy, but pretty near to it.
I awaken a bit after midnight to the sound of someone calling Alex Fox’s name. I think I hear Chantal’s voice a little bit later. It turns out that they had arrived at 10:45 p.m. to find nobody at the airport to greet them. Maina had thought they were to arrive on Sunday evening rather than Saturday. Chantal had remembered enough of the route to guide a taxi driver out to Micocheni. Alex called Maina to let him know that Chantal and Julie had arrived. At first, Maina didn’t believe him, but was fairly well convinced when Alex put Chantal on the phone.
Gabriel came in at 3 a.m. He crashed soon thereafter and spent the next hour or so sawing down some dense old-growth forest with his sonic snore saw. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep from three on. Finally jumped up at 5:30 a.m. for a quick shower. I got straight into making fixes to the Pixel Corps website.
Hanif was leaving for the office around 9 a.m., so I hitched a ride with him as the other folks went through their morning routines. They finally caught up with me around 12:30 p.m. I got a fair bit of the website uploaded, The connection, one of the fastest in the area, crept along for my uploads, crapping out more often than not.
We all head out for a $3.30 all-you-can-eat vegetarian buffet at an Indian Restaurant around the corner. It is just a wonderfull as the meals we had there last time. After luncheon, we head back to the office for some more internet time and to do some system maintenance. Mwanga comes by to get the new 15" Powerbook that Chantal has brought for him. He seems quite excited, if a little overwhelmed. We do some installations and give him a couple of lessons before he has to go. We are to meet up with him in the morning to borrow one of his PAL Sony PD150 cameras. Originally he had nothing booked for almost the entire two and a half months that Chantal and I will be here. In the week prior to our arrival, six big production jobs have come his way, so he will not be joining us for most of the safari trips. This is a great disappointment.
We finish up our work at the office and head over to the Q Bar. Gabriel and Maina have been coming here the last couple of nights. We order up an interesting interpretation of vegetable fajitas. I have never seen fajitas with peas and carrots. It turns out to be quite good, with chapatis standing in remarkably well for tortillas. Over the couse of the evening we are joined by a number of Kenyans. First it is Maina’s girlfriend and her roommate. Another compatriot comes a bit later and we are joined, at last, my Maina’s cousin. There is a fairly good flow of conversation in spite of having unintentionally segregated our groups at opposite ends of the table.
We shoot a few rounds of pool and the others enjoy a couple more drinks, before the flight seems to catch up with Julie and Chantal. Maina’s cousin kindly offers us a lift back to Hanif’s house in Micocheni, which is just down the street where he lives. There is big excitement at the house with a new TV set to watch. We all tuck in and are lulled to sleep by the sounds of Animal Planet.

TAN: Msasani Slipway

Sat, 11 Oct 2003 08:52:33 -0800

I am up at 7 a.m. to grab a quick shower and get a little work in before Gabriel gets up. We finally get going from the house around 9 a.m toward the Msasani Slipway. Alex and I went there in July. We had gone on a weekday and were very disappointed. Supposedly there is a craft fair on the weekends so I am a little optimistic. We head out on foot and are happy to get a lift from Hanif as he comes upon us some 45 minutes later. He gets us a little further along the road and then we are on foot again.

A nicely designed billboard I wanted a snap of from July.

Transit: NAI - DAR

Fri, 10 Oct 2003 04:48:33 -0800

We get into Nairobi at 6:30 a.m. The Nairobi International Airport is about the same speed as the one in Dar. It is nice and cool in the early morning. I enjoy the stroll to the terminal as I know this will be the last of the cool temperatures for quite some time. The outside smell doesn’t have the typical sub-saharan tang that I remember. Inside the airport is a different story. Now I feel better. There is some strange juggling with gate we are leaving from. They finally move us along a winding route to a different gate, displacing the passengers for another flight.

Transit: LHR - NAI

Thu, 09 Oct 2003 04:51:04 -0800

We arrive in London an hour ahead of schedule, which is great for me, but has a number of other passengers grumbling. It doesn’t really do that much good as we end up in a super remote part of the airport and have to take a shuttle bus to the terminal.

Very happy to find a place to check in my bags so I can go into town without lugging them along. Jump on the Heathrow Express which takes 15 minutes into Paddington Station. Grab the Circle Line down to Embankment and get off. Find a health food store and get some yeast pâté and crackers. Mmm…Delicious.

Yeast…it’s what’s for lunch.

Transit: LAX - JFK - LHR

Wed, 08 Oct 2003 09:24:45 -0800

An auspicious sign from Happy Family Vegetarian Restaurant.

This trip has crept up on me at an alarming rate. While I should have been getting preparations made I have been working like mad on a wide variety of projects. These include, but are not limited to a website or two, a DVD project for Hewlett Packard, a bunch of Illustrator work for a book, getting certified as a trainer for Final Cut Pro and Shake. All this along with trying to wrap up my two and a half year tenure with Technicolor has kept me focused on everything but the imminent trip.

NYC: Fancy Food and Art Nerds

Sat, 02 Aug 2003 09:34:21 -0800

Got into JFK a half hour behind our scheduled 7 a.m. arrival. Make it throught immigration and customs pretty quickly. Bid goodbye to Alex who is about to embark on a eleven hour layover before returning to San Francisco. I am glad not to have to cool my heels in the airport for that long. I head over to the subway and am on my way into NYC. I get to Peter Shapiro’s about 9 a.m. He was up until 5 a.m. and is not very alert when I arrive. I head out to get some victuals from the health food store at Integral Yoga around the corner.

Transit: DAR-JNB-JFK

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 09:33:39 -0800

Up at 6:30 a.m. Can’t shake the early morning routine. Get all of our stuff packed up and head over to the DTP office. We putter around for a bit making DVD-R backups of photos. I head off on foot to a bookstore that Mwanga had recommended in search of a book on learning Kiswahili. Downtown Dar es Salaam is compact, so it only takes me about 15 munites to traverse more than half of it. I recognize a great many of the places that we have gone to with Hanif over the past couple of weeks.

Africa: Last Full Day in Tanzania

Thu, 31 Jul 2003 09:31:55 -0800

Alex and I have figured out that it is only a few blocks to the DTP office from where we are staying. We set out on foot around 7:30 a.m., leaving Harvey to his slumber. On the way over, I notice a building that purports to be the home of the “College of Business Education.” There has been an ongoing joke amongst us about a gentleman who handed Maina his card at the Pixel Corps launch. His card stated his profession simply as “Business Man.” I imagine that he was trained at the College of Business Education for his future career.

Africa: Around Dar es Salaam

Wed, 30 Jul 2003 09:30:58 -0800

We are just kicking around the DTP office today. Trying desperately to get this blog up to date. Alex is doing more training in the afternoon. We have lunch at Shafiq’s.

Following are some interesting street scenes:

A masaii in traditional colors.

Sugar cane vendor.

I believe this equipment is for sale, but you can try it out before you make a purchase.

Chantal has created a booby trap with all the cables to her Powerbook, drives, and DSR11.

Africa: ITV Presentation

Tue, 29 Jul 2003 09:29:40 -0800

We are up early again to get over to ITV for a 9 a.m. presentation. Alex has made a strong point about showing up early so we can be all set up and ready for the presentation. Maina picks us up and we get to ITV around 8:15 a.m. It is a good thing that we are early, as there is a much lengthier check-in procedure now that we are not accompanied by Lema. We have to account for all of our electronic gear, of which there is a considerable amount. They want to make sure we depart with only what we brought in.

Africa: Hot Shaves and a Visit to ITV

Mon, 28 Jul 2003 09:28:39 -0800

We are up early to get Alex back together with his laptop which he left uploading in the office last night. The drive is supposed to pick us up at 8:30 a.m. We are still cooling our heels 45 minutes later when Maina arrives to give up a lift. The frustrating thing is that we are fairly certain the office is only a handful of blocks away, but we are not entirely certain of which way to head out. Our anticipation of getting to the office is for naught, as it is locked up. So close, and yet so far away. I lent Alex my laptop so that he could at least get on the internet with the Airport. That kept him going until the keys arrived.

Africa: Mufindi to Dar es Salaam

Sun, 27 Jul 2003 09:27:44 -0800

(Map of the Area)

Up at 6:30 a.m. again. We are hoping to get an early start for the long journey back to Dar es Salaam. There are low clouds and mist everywhere, so we will have to skip a scheduled detour to look at the Rift Valley. It is a disappointment, as it would have been great to get some shots of the 2000 ft escarpment and the valley stretching away far below.

Africa: A Little Taste of England in Africa

Sat, 26 Jul 2003 09:19:15 -0800

We are up at 6:30 a.m. to take advantage of the sunrise. Some low clouds and mist hinder our viewing. Chantal and I get in some shots before we head over for breakfast.
View of the Main Lodge and environs (QT Mov 2.3MB)

View of the back forty looking toward the main lodge

After breakfast we head over to the stables where some of the guests get saddled up for a ride out into the tea plantation. We jump into the car and head over to hear a talk about the coffee they are growing. The elder Fox is a wealth of information. The advent of several large coffee combines have driven the prices into the ground. A grower gets $0.50 per Kg of beans. When it gets to the supermaket the Kilogram is worth $15 and by the time it gets to Starbucks, it is worth $180.

Africa: Ruaha to Mufindi in Four and a Half Hours

Fri, 25 Jul 2003 09:18:06 -0800

Up at the crack of dawn so as to not miss any early morning lions. We had a small and much quieter vehicle today. More of the same animals. The highlights were a nearly fearless family of warthogs that were quite close to the road. We also had a great time at the hippo and croc pool. This was the first time we had seen hippos out of the water. They were quite impressive in their slow lumbering gait. As we were going about our documenting, one outsider hippo approached a larger group at the shore. A hippo in the group took offense and charged the outsider with loud bellows and bared teeth. This sent about half the group splashing into the pool. As soon as the commotion had started, it was over and the hippos on land froze. A while later the outsider hippo was chased to the far end of the pool.

Africa: Big Game Hunting in Ruaha

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 09:17:12 -0800

Alex and I are stirred from sleep by the bellowing of hippos a scant five meters from our front door. We had not really had a chance to take in our surroundings in the dark the night before, so we were very pleasantly surprised to find that we were right on the Ruaha River. Spent some time taking QTVR’s and early morning shots of the river.

View of the banda by the river
We eventually make our way over to the main camp and are directed up to the “Bar” which has a great view of the surrounding countryside. While there, Alex gets to talking with one of the camp staff, a gentleman named Apollo. Alex shows off some of the photos we have been taking in the area and his demo reel. Apollo was educated in one of the local seminary schools and has certificates in math and physics. Unfortunately, there is not much opportunity in the area to put that education to use.

Africa: 13 Hours on the Road to Ruaha

Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:16:06 -0800

Up at 5:30 a.m. after a scant three hours of sleep. None of us were moving very fast, so we were about half an hour late meeting Mwanga. Got all seven of us crammed into the Nissan Patrol. I am glad that we are down one and not trying to squeeze eight into the truck.

We are headed out on the same road we took to Mikumi last week. I noticed some of the same mini-buses, including one with a full sized portrait of the Pope on the back. We stopped at the junction for breakfast. The shop we patronized before is closed and the one we end up at was not nearly as good. Alex was all ready in his Star Wars Episode I ILM VFX Crew shirt, but his friend at the junction was having his Star Wars shirt washed that day, so there was no photo op.

Africa: Pixel Corps Tanzania launch presentation

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 09:15:02 -0800

We are off at 5 a.m. to Ruaha and Mufindi until Saturday.
Up at 7:30 a.m. and jumped right back into prepping elements for the Foxes of Africa DVD. Our presentation begins at 6:30 p.m. this evening. We all have a lot of work to finish up before then. Chantal has to get over to the DTP office to talk with the Mobitel folks about the photo shoot she did yesterday. Alex, Harvey and I finish up at the house and await the driver. We are sequestered in Hanif and Shafiq’s office again. Chantal is finishing her edit, Alex is getting his presentaion together and I am compressing video. Harvey and Maina head over to the hall to stat setting things up.

Africa: Dar es Salaam and Mikumi Safari

Wed, 16 Jul 2003 09:12:43 -0800

Arrived in Dar es Salaam after a short 3 hour flight. Were a little worried at first as we came by the old airport first, which was incredibly ancient. Heartened to see a new airport they be disembarked at. Interesting process at imigration where you hand an official $50 US in cash and wait in line. Two ladies are filling in forms by hand very slowly. It took us a good three quarters of an hour to get processed from ten poeple deep in line. We were fortunate to be in the first flight that arrived in the afternoon. I am sure the people on the flight behind us waited a close to two hours.

Africa: Third Leg

Sun, 13 Jul 2003 09:11:37 -0800

Lads, my host during my South Africa stay lives in an area that has security check-points at all of the entrances. The residents pay about $30 a month for guards to be on duty 24 hours a day at the four entrances. Lads estimates that the crime rate in the area has dropped 95% since the check-points were put in place. Foot traffic still can go in and out unchecked so crime is not completely eliminated. Earlier in the week, someone had climbed over the wall of his property and made off with a bibycle. seemingly unhindered by the spikes atop the wall.

Africa: My Life as a Sardine

Sat, 12 Jul 2003 09:06:59 -0800

Insert Sardine NYC…Transport 14 hours…Reconstitute South Africa

Up at 4:30 a.m. after a fitfull three hours of sleep.

The Supershuttle Van was a tad late on account of the driver not being able to figure out the one-way streets. Got to Long Beach in good order. The flight to New York on JetBlue was pleasant. Had a great view of the Grand Canyon. No pictures unfortunately, as I was explaining how the canyon formed to a nice Haitian lady next to me. She is moving to Beverly Hills from New Jersey and does hair extensions for a living. She gets $6000 for a single stand weave which takes about 8 hours to complete. I am in the wrong business.

Africa: T -1 to BLASTOFF

Thu, 10 Jul 2003 09:05:12 -0800

Less than a day to go. Final preparations.

Gear for a two week trip. Most of it is digital.

Here is a rundown of what is going to make it in the bag:

Nikon Coolpix 5000 (taking the picture)

Tripod

Remote Control for Coolpix 5000

Panorama Tripod Head

183° Fisheye Lens

1.5 GB Compact Flash Storage

3 Batteries for Coolpix 5000

Battery Charger for Coolpix 5000

USB cable for Coolpix 5000

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Todd has a fine arts background (BA in Practice of Art from U.C. Berkeley) and is a self-taught technologist. More recently he has been leveling up skills in Machine Learning, Data Science and AI with coursework at MIT.

Since 2005, he has been working independently and remotely, either on the road or from bases in the United States and Türkiye.

Under the banner of Synesthete Studio Inc. he has worked with a variety of clients.

Contact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000