What Friday September 3rd says to me

I am not going to get into the specifics of what took place on Tudor Street on Friday evening. You can read about it yourself here: http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/newsitem.asp?more=local&NewsID=12531

I will instead seek to address what this says about the nation I love.

The number of things in Barbadian society that had to go WRONG for this tragedy to have occurred is frightening. It speaks to systemic failures across important sectors of the country.
 

1. The culture of lawlessness and ignorance among large groups of young people is frightening. I'll bet that when those two thieves tossed those Molotov cocktails into the store ostensibly to cover their getaway, they thought to themselves "Yeah soldier. That was tight." and it never occurred to them that people could die due to their folly.
2. There is a fundamental lack of training, understanding, proper equipment and logistical support on the part of first responders. The incident took place right next to central police station. The area of the store should have been swarming with police within 10 minutes and fire fighters within 15. On 9/11 fire fighters rescued thousands of people from two burning skyscrapers, yet we were unable to rescue 6 people from the ground floor of a relatively small burning building. Instead, in the news paper I see them practising "mass casualty exercises" taking place in an open field (YEAH, THAT'S LIKELY *steupse*). Suppose that had taken place in Cave Shephard in mid afternoon with 800 people inside. How many would be dead right now? (Not that I in any way mean to belittle what happened here.)
3. Unsatisfactory building/workplace safety codes and a lack of enforcement. It's not rocket science. For every X square feet of space you need a working exit of Y size per floor. In North America your house needs a sprinkler system if it is over a certain size, furthermore commercial buildings. Inspectors randomly show up ever few months to ensure that things are in working order and fine the building OWNERS if they are not. What we had instead was essentially a concrete box, with a single door, packed floor to ceiling with kindling in the form of clothes. In hindsight it was really just a matter of time.

• I am tired of politicians of both parties paying lip service to the serious issues that affect our country while using events like these as photo opportunities. 
• I am tired of them making promises about legislation (*cough integrity*) that they have no intention of making law. 
• I am tired of the laws we already have not being enforced. 
• I am tired of the political nepotism that allows incompetent party supporters to take up important positions for which they are completely unqualified, while deserving persons with vision and ability are passed over. 
• I am tired of the unions and public sector, the so called "army of occupation" holding this country to ransom over petty issues. It sickens me that port workers/customs officers can decide to strike WITH UNION BACKING over security cameras being installed in the port, while Barbadians' goods can go missing from that same port on a daily basis.
• I am tired of the piss poor service I get wherever I go in this country. Phrases like "good day", "how may I help you", "please", "thank you" seem to have become passé. 

The worst thing about Friday, September 3rd was that it showcased a deterioration of our culture and way of life and that it was preventable, and that knowledge makes me feel very tired.

World Cup Rant #1

This blog post originally started as a Facebook post until I hit submit and was told that it was too long. What's with the limits on post length, Facebook guys? Thou shalt not follow the Twitter to do evil. Anyway...

/BEGIN RANT 1

I'm confused...

When you sign up for ADSL does the contract state that you are supposed to get the performance you pay for approximately 3 days out of the month? How is it that my "4Mbps" package is insufficient to support a 1Mbps video stream for my Net2Vu player?

People in Europe and Asia have 100Mb internet access in their house and I can't get 1Mbps to stream. Oh wait, and they raised prices! How can a company justify lowering quality while raising prices? Their new motto should be "LIME - For that bitter after taste in your mouth."

/END RANT 1

/BEGIN RANT 2

The World Cup Starts on Friday! I am (well was) eagerly looking forward to watching every match I could. For those of you who don't know, Barbados has three TV providers - CBC, DirecTV and the brand new Net2Vu, who stream live TV channels to a set top box in your living room via the internet. 

Not one to take chances with events as important as the World Cup, I have service from two of the three - Net2Vu and DirecTV. If I told you that only 1 provider was actually carrying any World Cup programming would you believe me? Guess which one. Go ahead guess. I'll give you a hint, NEITHER OF THE TWO I HAVE! If this was the World Field Hockey Championships or the World Cup of Curling, I would find it as funny as you no doubt do. BUT IT'S THE WORLD CUP! You are telling me that the cheap at DirecTV couldn't pay to license it? It's not exactly a recurring expense. It happens once every FOUR YEARS! Incidentally, I had CBC at one point but got rid of them due to poor service and the fact that their set top boxes had a bad reputation for overheating and setting stuff on fire.

/END RANT 2

So here I am, stuck hoping:

1. That I can find World Cup matches to watch on TVU Player
2. That the commentary is actually in English since most channels on TVU are from The Republic of Dontspeakenglishistan
3. That my "4Mbps" ADSL will actually allow me to stream the channel if I find it.

Wish me luck.

Barbados National What?

This blog entry was originally going to be about Rally Barbados weekend, which is what this weekend is. HOWEVER my bank has taken it upon themselves to ruin it for me. As such, I will now dedicate this blog to the Barbados National Bank.

Picture it, on my way to watch a super special stage, but first I need to buy some lunch. I don't have any cash on me, so I stop at an ATM. 

Error. Unable to contact your financial institution.

"Hmmm", I think to myself, "there must be something wrong with this ATM machine, but it's probably the fault of Bank X", whose machine I'm at. "This machine must just not be working." So I hang back and watch the lady standing behind me saunter up to the machine, slip in her debit card and calmly withdraw some money. Odd. Clearly that last time was a fluke. I approach the troublesome machine again, slip in my card, enter my pin and request a withdrawal.

 Error. Unable to contact your financial institution.

 OK. Luckily, I live near to two BNB branches. That's part of the reason I chose them. I leave the offending ATM and drive to the nearer of the two. Surely there was some sort of communication error between the two banks, but a BNB ATM will not have any such problems. I park my car outside the machine, confident of collecting cash and being on my way. As I enter the room housing the two side by side ATM's I see flashing red lights coming from them - never a good sign. Then I read the screens.

OUT OF SERVICE

"What????? This has to be some sort of joke. Both???" Determined to get to the bottom of this I jump back into my car and race to the next branch. I park in the Airport, which incidentally isn't free, and approach the BNB office. There it is again, the flashing red light taunting me just like that girl in... That's another story.

OUT OF SERVICE   OUT OF SERVICE   OUT OF SERVICE

So with that I have decided to put BNB "out of service". 

Now I know what you're thinking, I'm overreacting to one small, albeit inconvenient incident. Not so! A few months ago, "management" at BNB thought it would make sense to perform a major systems upgrade... IN THE MONTHS LEADING UP TO CHRISTMAS! The ATMs stopped working for weeks, as did their telephone banking system. My personal ATM card stopped working for two months. It was so bad they had to issue me a new one. Do you know what the lines are like inside a bank when their ATM cards don't work? I do, and I wish I didn't. 

Most incredibly to my mind, nobody at BNB was so much as publicly castigated for this debacle, furthermore fired. This represents a stunning lack of accountability. I work in IT and if I had screwed up this badly, I would be writing this blog from the homeless shelter and waiting for the unemployment cheque to come in. Luckily for "management", Bajans are docile people. I wonder what the situation would have been like if it were Jamaica National Bank?

In spite of all of this, I convinced myself that it was for the best (see docile). At the end of the process we would have modern conveniences like internet banking. Yes, you read right. As of late 2009 BNB did not offer internet banking. Guess what, after the major systems upgrade THEY STILL DON'T OFFER INTERNET BANKING!!! IN 2010!!! Maybe the internet visited to offer its services during the time the systems were down!

This brings us full circle to today. Thanks to BNB, instead of spending the afternoon enjoying the rally, I had to come home and cook. I guess then, in a way I should be thanking them, but I'm not that gracious. During the course of writing this I have though of several words starting with B that could replace "Bank" in their name, all more appropriate. I leave it to you to guess what they are.

The List

I mentioned to a friend of mine about The List, and he asked me to post it, so without further ado (and at the risk of incriminating myself) here it is:

1. (Redacted - My boss might read this)
2. Start a blog and share my ideas with the world
3. Attend the Olympic Games
4. Attend the World Cup
5. Skydive
6. Race in a special stage rally
7. Get fit and stay fit
8. Take an Arctic/Antarctic cruise
9. Fall in love
10. Get married
11. Have a family
12. Attend a Formula 1 race
13. Be a host on the Today Show
14. Play tennis with Roger Federer
15. Have a conversation with The Dali Lama
16. Have a conversation with T.D. Jakes
17. Write a novel
18. Write a screenplay
19. Create an anime
20. Learn to fly
21. (Redacted - You are not ready for this)
    
22. Attend a party at The Playboy Mansion
23. Finish this list
24. Watch an NBA game from court side
25. Make my house beautiful
26. Learn to play golf
27. Make beautiful photography
28. Perform a stand up comedy routine
29. Live fearless
30. Hold my grand kids
31. See the curvature of the Earth
32. Experience weightlessness
33. Drive a Bugatti
34. Drive an Ariel Atom around a race track
35. Be open to new things
36. Embrace life
37. Live in North America
38. Live in Europe
39. Learn to speak a foreign language
40. Learn to swim
41. Leave a mark
42. Make God happy
43. Tour Europe
44. Walk barefoot in Africa
45. Stay in an ice hotel
46. Address a large crowd
47. Become a father
48. Plant a tree
49. Be an inspiration to somebody
50. Sweep a woman off her feet
51. Learn to ski
52. Follow my heart
53. Hope
54. Love
55. Believe

Now there will be people who read this list and get it, and there will be those who think it's absurd. The second type of person is known by many names: cynic, hater, married. 


That's the list. I would appreciate any assistance or direction that you guys could give me as to how to make these goals happen. Post your own list. It's an incredibly freeing experience, kinda like letting your soul walk around nude (except for the redacted parts, which are fig leaves). 

So (Brain Fart: OK, OK, I know you are not supposed to start a sentence with a conjunction, but dammit IT'S MY BLOG) add some comments, click on follow so that I don't feel like I'm writing to myself, and get involved.

 

The great Bajan bus tour of 2010

I don't have a clue what I want to say so I figure I'll just start writing and something will come. Last weekend I went on a bus tour around Barbados. For pics from the tour see my Photostream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43050968@N06/. While touring I noticed a few things.

• Sometimes it's easy to forget what a beautiful country I live in. It's important to occasionally stop and just look around. Of course it will look drab if your perspective is limited to your house, the office and the traffic you are sitting in.
• The photography course I took DEFINITELY helped. I was hopeless with a camera before. I have now graduated to mediocre. Next stop, competent.
• What.The.Heck is the deal with teenage boys and skinny jeans? Not just any skinny jeans mind you, skinny jeans in the loudest colours they can find. It looks ABSURD! The pants legs are as narrow as my sleeve. A security guard, who I happened to overhear, said that girls are now unable to find skinny jeans in any of the stores because the "boys" are getting to them first. I feel unwell. I can't discuss this any further.

I also want to say thanks to the Passion Network for organizing a great bus tour, and please don't wait for another year to do it again.

My next computer (somebody please build it)

OK. I'm awake. At 6:30 in the morning ON A FREAKING SATURDAY! This can only mean one thing. It's time to blog. For whatever reason, I had this brainstorm about what I would want in my next computer. Don't ask me why. I don't know. Anyway I have a list of requirements that nothing currently on the market seems to satisfy. The strange thing is that all of the technology is already out there, but nobody seems to have figured out how to put it together.

My perfect computer would be a cross between:

• An iPad, i.e. a tablet form factor, only bigger
• Microsoft Surface, with gesture control and the ability to interact with real world objects
• Project Natal, with an integrated high quality front facing 720p camera, facial, gesture and voice recognition and control and motion tracking

It would also have some features found in a cell phone, such as

• An accelerometer for screen auto rotate
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• A Super AMOLED display
• A rear facing pico-projector 
• GSM/3G/4G (WIMAX and LTE) connectivity. 
• It would also have the best multi-touch available
• An adjustable kick stand
• A really good on screen keyboard, like Swype

It would also have other features that we have come to expect from our laptops, such as

• A decently powered processor like a Core i5
• 4 to 8 GB of RAM
• A solid-state drive
• Possibly a slot-loading Blu-Ray drive although not strictly necessary if it means saving weight
• A 14" to 16" native 1080p display
• 802.11b/g/n wireless connectivity AND a Gigabit Ethernet port
• Decent stereo speakers with virtual surround
• Multiple USB ports to allow connections to external accessories
• HDMI in/out
• 6 hours+ of battery life
• The other standard ports (VGA, eSATA,etc)
• Dimensions 16"x9"x0.5" (WxDxH) and 3 to 4lbs
  

Now granted, this would not be a cheap device, but I would gladly pay $2000 for it. Would you?

Credits to Engadget, Wikipedia and Apple for the source material referenced in this blog.

Starting Over

So here I am ... 35 years old, single and unfulfilled. Something deep down kept saying there must be more to this. So yesterday, after being inspired by an episode of The Buried Life, I made a list. I took 20 minutes to write down everything I could think of that I wanted to do or be. It ended up being 55 entries long. Starting a blog was number 2. Using my list as a guide I'm going to hit the reset button. In retrospect I should have made this list when I was much younger. It would have saved me A LOT of wasted time.

(Brain Fart: Can the previous day even be considered retrospect? How much time needs to pass before you can say "in retrospect"? Can Usian Bolt be halfway into a 100m race thinking to himself "in retrospect, I should have gotten a better start"? By the way, I wanted to name this blog Brain Fart, but it was already taken. Handbraking was sloppy seconds.)

Well today I thought of another item for the list - Learn Kung Fu (officially number 56). Not quite sure how I'll make that happen yet, but if every item was easy it wouldn't be much of a list.

(Brain Fart 2: There should be a standardized measurement for butt cheek size - the butt cup. Both men and women everywhere can understand what I'm getting at here. Consider the following vital statistics. She is a 34C-25-36F vs. 34C-25-36B. Women will be able to immediately pick jeans perfect for their body type and men will be able to immediately visualize them. This is a win-win scenario. Lets make it happen.)

Honestly I didn't know if I should include that last Brain Fart in my first blog, but it was just too good to not include, and I know I will forget it by tomorrow.