A Day Late - Happy Peacekeepers Day!

OK, I know that I am like a day late and a dollar short. Yesterday, May 29 was International Peacekeepers Day. I should have posted sooner, but access to the internet was an issue. After all, I am a peacekeeper, so I should celebrate the day. It celebrates 60 years of international Peacekeeping.

This is how the day came about:

By resolution 57/129 of 11 December 2002, the General Assembly designated 29 May as the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers, to pay tribute to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve in United Nations peacekeeping operations for their high level of professionalism,dedication and courage, and to honour the memory of those who have lost their lives in the cause of peace.

The Assembly invited all Member States, organizations of the United Nations system, non-governmental organizations and individuals to observe the Day in an
appropriate manner. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the United Nations eace-keeping Forces in 1988.

You can find all about UN peacekeeping missions here. You can read about all the hoopla here. So anyways, happy belated peacekeepers day!

The Dangers of the "Knut Hole"

One of the dangers here in Liberia is not what you may expect. It is the Knut Hole. OK, I am not sure who made the name up, either me or one of my friends here, but it has to do with a guy named Knut falling in one.

These are open holes in the sidewalk, that anyone could easily fall into...


What is really bad, one of the worst "Knut Holes" is in the driveway of Monrovia City Hall, and it is across the street from UN Headquarters.


Sometimes they are marked for safety with a rock or two...


I wonder how guys like this can manuver on these sidewalks safely, but they do.


Note: Those guys just passed the first Knut hole shown above.

Stay Safe!

Singin the Blues - I Wish!

Ok, I am not all down and out, but I am kinda blue. Maybe it is knowing I am missing my youngest's graduation. Maybe it is all the little things that have gone wrong. Maybe it is boredom. Maybe it is the malaria medicine :)

Whatever it all is, I have a hankering to sing the blues. I don't have a guitar either (no this is not a line from a song) Ok, now I am thinking it should be a line from a song. Also, I cannot play like BB King, but I really like his blues.

Today has been one of those "out of it" days for me. I cannot seem to get anything together, and would have forgot my head it it weren't so attached to my body.

I know things will get better, I just don't like the dazed days.

Stay Safe!

Bloggers Unite For Human Rights

I am not one to jump on a lot of band-wagons, but I am joining in this. I almost didn't just because Amnesty International joined in. However I work for the UN right now (I know, I know) specifically UNMIL, and I have seen many a human rights violations take place, and part of my job is to try and stop that.

All of that said, it brings me to this. What exactly is a "human right" and who decides what human rights are? For example, what many may consider a human right in the U.S. is a great priviledge elsewhere. Do we have a right to news access for example? A lot of folks do not have that. Do we have a right to a "safe" home, a house or an apartment?

The American Heritage Dictionary states

The basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law.

The UN's list is long and wordy. You can see it here. Not everyone everywhere has all of those rights. Everyone in the U.S. doesn't even have all of those rights (I say that because the U.S. is a pretty rights oriented country)So what I wonder is this: is freedom from torture a human right? (the UN thinks so) Many countries routinely torture their prisoners and the populations of the countries think it is "normal." Just something to think about. Is a minimum amount of space per prisoner a human right (the UN thinks so) though I did not see that in the definition. Is having three meals a day a human right?

I may not understand all about human rights, even though I am hired as an "expert" on that among other matters, I still work for human rights where I can.

Sometimes I Wonder...

Sometimes, I wonder where my blog readers, or at least visitors come from. Some I know, old BBB (Barry's Baghdad Blog) fans and some blog catalog friends. Then there is the passerby that may or may not leave a comment - but I often wonder what lead them here.

My wondering is based on my totally not knowing how all of the blog-traffic thing works. Oh, I know I could get lots of traffic with a few wild posts, but that would not be fair to the people it would draw in, as they would have been duped. I guess it would be like spamming, so to speak.

I think I am really just trying to keep myself distracted in a positive way while here in Liberia.

All is OK, I am just rambling.

Happy Mother's Day! (and some useless trivia)

First of all, to my mom, my wife, and the rest of you mom's - Happy Mother's Day!


Useless Mother's Day Trivia: In 1905 when Anna Jarvis died, her daughter started a campaign to memorialize the life work of her mother and began to lobby prominent businessmen and politicians. In 1908, Anna wrote to the Andrew's Methodist Church in West Virginia requesting that a Mother's Day service be held in honor of her mother, who was a Sunday school teacher at the church.
The first official Mother's Day celebration was held at the church on May 10, 1908. Jarvis sent 500 white carnations to be worn by each son and daughter and two by each mother in attendance.

Five years later, the US house of representatives adopted a resolution calling for officials of the federal government to wear white carnations on Mother's Day. In 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed a Bill recognizing Mother's Day as a national holiday.

Later, the commercialization of the day disturbed Jarvis so much that in 1923 she sued to stop a Mother's Day event, in the 1930s she was arrested for disturbing the peace at the American War Mothers group - protesting against their sale of flowers. In opposition to the flower industry's exploitation of the holiday, Jarvis wrote, "What will you do to rout charlatans, bandits, pirates, racketeers, kidnappers and other termites that would undermine with their greed one of the finest, noblest and truest movements and celebrations?" Jarvis died in 1948, blind, poor and childless.

- Not even a mother. Makes you think doesn't it?

Busy at Business

I have been blog hopping quite a lot lately, mostly looking for ways to increase traffic to my Be Your Own Detective blog. I still do not even understand a couple of the sites that are highly recommended by Search Engine Optimization "experts". I am not sure that I should even embarrass myself by saying what an idiot I am at del.cioi.us I just do not get it. There is a part about having a "community" but for the life of me, I have no clue how to use it.

I know that there are folks that make money online, but I seem to not have the flair to make Google like me. What is funny is this - this blog is looked upon with favor by Google, yet I cannot even get my Be Your Own Detective web page nor blog get indexed by Google. What is NOT so funny, is searches that should bring up my page bring up basically "dead" sites before mine. Sites that offer things that do not even exist any more or that have not been updated for two years. Yahoo has another way of indexing sites, it is simple: bribe them with 300 bucks AND if they think your site is worthy, then they will index it. Would it be worth 300 bucks? Sure, IF they index it. Am I gonna gamble on it? I am not sure if Google has not yet indexed my site.

I am not trying to fool myself. I don't expect to get rich online, I just wanted to generate income. Maybe I should do like all the real money makers - it seems all they sell is "how to make money online" which I am not selling. I sell legitimate service(s) - background investigations/checks and cell phone lookups.

This isn't a sales pitch, just a little venting of my frustrations.

Y'all stay safe!

Wordless Post: The President of Liberia and the SRSG

Laptop Back in Business - Woohoo!

Yes!!!

I was able to fix the laptop. Except yours truly forgot to take photos of the laptop in pieces and the repair job.

Added after original post:

I had to re-solder a power input jack I had re-installed on the laptop (apparently a common problem with a Toshiba Laptop like I have) I was able to borrow a soldering iron form the air conditioning repair guys here. I re-soldered the jack and put some epoxy on the other side for re-inforcement. That way it cannot work loose again.

Now I may be able to get back to my online business.

Now to find a guitar here - supposedly they aren't hard to find. My three trips to locate the guitar store have been fruitless.

Stay Safe!!

The One Month Challenge

OK, I am taking a one month challenge. For the month of May, I will see what a workout “Lance” gave me will do for me.
Here are the basics of the workout – it is short, but intensive:
You need two sets of dumbbells, heavy and light. To start, I used 15 lbs for “heavy” and 10 lbs for “light”
Bench Press 30 seconds Heavy
Rest 15 seconds
Half Squats (use end of bench to regulate) 30 seconds Heavy
Rest 15 seconds
Seated Shoulder Press 30 seconds Light
Rest 15 seconds
Standing Toe Calf Raises 30 seconds Heavy
Rest 15 seconds
Seated Hammer Curls 30 seconds Heavy
Rest 15 seconds
Prone Triceps Kickbacks 30 seconds Light
Rest 15 seconds
Repeat 6 times

This is done every other day. I will do some cardio on the off days.

We will see how well this workout does for me. FYI – the first time through, I was thinking, maybe I went too light, the second and third time through, I was thinking, “this is ok, not too hard” the fourth time through was work, the fifth time through, I was thinking “ this is hard work!” the sixth time through I was lucky to get 10 reps in the 30 seconds, the last triceps exercise – four was all I could do, I could swear the dumbbells went from 10 lbs to 80 lbs :P

Some Photos From Work

Some people just do not read the signs :) Who says there isn't surf in the Atlantic? These were about 12-15 feet:

Note the vehicle in the photo for comparison.

Not much else just a few pics - I hope to have something actually interesting later.

:D

Stay Safe!