Observations | Newspapers, Egypt Update, and the end of the Great Internet Crisis?

MY APARTMENT – I almost burned our house down today. And no, Mom, I didn’t leave it alone. I was there the whole time.

I bought a candle recently (because in an apartment with two guys, you need all the deodorizing smell you can get), and it seemed to be working well for quite a while. However, one day, the wick seemed to slip into the melted wax. I attempted to repair the candle by tying the wick onto a piece of dental floss (see, cuz it’s wax…), and then hanging the floss from a pen sitting on the lip of the candle. No such luck – somehow the wick wouldn’t ever light again for more than 2 minutes, and I was forced to become creative.

So being the brilliant guy I am, I put the candle in a pot half-filled with water, set the gas stove on low heat, and let it sit on there. My inventiveness paid off – tada, I had a new candle.

This worked fine every day until I came back from Masai Mara. After showering and writing yesterday’s blog, I “lit” the candle so I could de-mustify the apartment. I set it up like normal, not realizing I put the burner on high heat, and went to my laptop for a little Super Mario Brothers.

5 minutes later, Elvin runs into my room, “HEY CHRIS, YOUR CANDLE IS BURNING!” I leap out of my computer chair and turn around to see a wall of smoke filling the apartment. We acted quick, shutting off the stove, evacuating the now-cracked candle outside to smoke inside no more, and facing the fan (on setting 3) outside.

While it was definitely the funniest thing that’s ever happened inside the “Death Star” (our apartment), it was incredibly embarrassing and humiliating. Students in the dorm heard our ruckus, and Heather, walking from the elementary school, walked by, right at the perfect time, to see smoke billowing out of the place. This is one moment I will not soon live down, I’m sure!

Three observations:

1. I’m not ready to get back into the newspaper business. Not yet. I spent all of Monday afternoon with Krystle, the Maxwell Mirror newspaper editor, trying to get our first edition of the paper out. After spending many hours last week setting up the layout, we’d finally got it all done and printed. Now, to make 11”x”17” (A3) photocopies…Come to find out that the rizograph, our heavy-duty more-than-30-copies-only-please copy machine can’t make copies that large. Ok, well let’s just do it on the copy machine. Nope, copy machine can’t handle A3, either. Plus, it shouldn’t do too many copies – it’s not intended for such extended use. Well allright, let’s just do what they did last year and make 4 copies for sharing around campus (boys’ dorm, girls’ dorm, library, café). No, Krystle says that we have the budget to make everyone a copy, so let’s make everyone a copy.
   
   This goes on for hours, literally, until finally, we’re stuck with no A3, folded-in-half newspapers, but with 20 copies of double-sided sheets of paper, stapled in the corner. It brought back refreshing memories of bickering with Rachel Turner in the ASB closet, “our office.” Nope, I’m not ready to be an editor yet.


2. A friend in need (of something to do over Christmas break) is a friend indeed (to someone who needs someone to go to Egypt with). I just might have found a co-traveler to go to Egypt with. Roger, a Brazilian student from Maxwell, expressed heavy interest in going to the Land of Pharaohs over break to me recently.
   
   This is welcome news to someone who might not be able to go unless he has a traveling companion. I’m praying his parents will say yes so we can start planning in depth.As of right now, I have a 14-day trip planned for just about $715. I think by the time I’m done entering museum and attraction fees into my Excel spreadsheet, I’ll be at $750 for two weeks, including a round-trip flight. Not bad.


3. First thing I’ll do when I get consistent internet service is go to KCFX.com and listen to Mitch Holthus’ voice. On Thursday, I got to update the blog because of a free/unexpected trip to Nairobi with Elvin, Valerie, and Evan (an MAA student). MAA’s internet is still retarded, so we went to visit another service provider to get a more reliable ISP.
   
   Good news: It’s gonna happen. Maxwell’s principal and financial chief have already approved cutting ties with our current ISP and switching to Access Kenya. This new corporation will give us unlimited bandwidth at the same speed through a wireless connection, all for $100 less a month!
   
   Bad news. I’m guessing the switch will be made next week. So we’ll be going back to an internet café tomorrow for my day off. Booo.

Ok, well I should go. I’ve got a volleyball intramurals game to star in. Next week we start flagball intramurals – better get some aspirin on my next town trip.

-cw