Yesterday, the 25th of July 2008, Dr. Randy Pausch, the noted Computer Science professor at Carnegie Mellon University finally caved in at the prime age of 47, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Pausch was a founder of the famous Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University and worked on the “Alice” program, an animated educational system for high school and college students. He is survived by his wife and children Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.

I personally think Randy’s greatest gift he’s leaving behind (especially for those of us who only came to know him during his last days) is his “Last Lecture” talk (video embed below). Might be a perfect time to take to heart Randy’s admonition to relentlessly pursue your childhood dreams.

And while you’re at it, remember another advice from Randy: that those “brick walls” we encounter along the way are there for a reason, for us to prove that we really want that which we’re striving for.

Farewell, Randy, we’ll always miss you.

After the last marathon of interviews at Huawei Technologies (Ghana) I thought everything was settled. Well not quite, as it turned out later.

I was invited back to their office last Friday, the 18th of July, to meet the Managing Director. Which I did.

After a lengthy conversation, they’re still going to “get back to me”. The issue? They’re not convinced that I’m going to stay for long. And I understand their concern. Many people have been in and out — most from KNUST, the only technological university in Ghana. So why should I be trusted to stay on?

And for my case, two additional issues seem to raise more alarms in their thoughts: a) I’ve flipped jobs a bit since graduating in 2002, and b) they just can’t understand why I left a high-paying job in 2005 to engage in voluntary work. In their minds, there has to be something wrong else which I’m not telling them.

Well, while I cannot say I’ll stay with them forever (who can really say so to an employer and mean it?), I really don’t have any immediate plans for anything else: I just want to settle down. I’m not “shopping” around for jobs, and I’ve already decided to let go of my prior plans for grad school.

And I’m not the fresh college kid I was, back then.

So I’m still here waiting for them. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to wait for long.

Do you follow me on Twitter?

If you do, you’ll surely remember the great distress I went though last Sunday the 12th of July, when I was invaded by a large army of one mouse.

While my courage didn’t take me far in pursuing this enemy, I validated my smartness by devising some rather creative ways to outwit this enemy. Much credit also to the professionally certified mouse exterminator who came to lend a helping hand.

So in the spirit of sharing everything I’ve got, here is my fool-proof strategy to help you too kill the the most annoying mice in your life … whether it’s real rodents (like in my case) or some rodent-like homo sapiens sucking up energy from you.

1. Run. Shout. Immediately.

Didn’t you just see something moving around? If you’re thinking you saw something, then you probably did. Trust your guts. Take action NOW. Run. Shout for help.

But sadly, I didn’t trust my guts, and I didn’t take any action myself. I continued to watch my 1935 movie, A Night at the Opera, totally oblivious of the advancing army of one mouse.

Yet I was smart, you see, when my enemy struck. I quickly grabbed the most important possession in my life, my MacBook, and run out of the room. No, I ran out of the house. I bolted the iron gate and left the walled compound.

Just because of a mouse, you’re saying? My friend, you don’t know what you’re saying! Mind you, it was not just a mouse… it was a whole army of one mouse! And tell me, have you had the experience of being a coward before?

2. Call For Mouse A Exterminator

Yeah, that’s right. They don’t carry business cards, but they are there nonetheless. They are everywhere. There’s one probably sharing an apartment or room with you.

So call for help. Dial 666 from your cellphone. That’s the universally recognized contact number for Mouse Exterminators around the world. Works great no matter where you live… best when you don’t have cellphone coverage at all!

For my case, it turned out, I had a Certified Mouse Exterminator sharing apartment with me. Or maybe it’s the banality of heroism at work here (hint: there was a lady around too).

Who knows? And who cares? I got my army of one mouse defeated.

3. Don’t Live In A Bad Neighborhood

That is, if you can help it. This is really a preventive measure though.

You see, Ghana, and Accra in particular, is such a great place to live — for the lawless, that is. And I live in an area of Accra called Tesano. East Tesano, to be more precise. It’s supposed to be a residential area. That, in Ghana, simply means two things: a) rich people live here, and b) robbers pay frequent visits.

How a poor boy like me ended up in a rich folks’ neighborhood is another story I hope to tell someday. Suffice it to say now that I was visited by thieves everyday for the first week that I was here. After all, a new rich guy had moved into the neighborhood.

Isn’t it ironic that “poor neighborhoods” in Accra are safer than “rich neighborhoods”? But I digress. On to the mouse story now.

Next to our house (and I mean next, as in … just a wall separating us) is a large undeveloped piece of land. Half of this land is farmed all year round, and the other half is full of weeds. So we have all kinds of unwelcome guests jumping over to our end: rodents, ants of all colors and sizes, armies of caterpillars, etc.

The only guests we’ve not received in our home are those from the reptile family.

Now for the records, I have nothing against urban gardening. But when it has to be at such a great nuisance to others? And imagine all the smoke that engulfs the entire neighborhood when this heartless urban farmer “slashes and burns” to plant new crops!

So that’s it. If you follow these three simple, ground-breaking strategies, I’ve no doubt in my mind that you can deal with any mice in your life, whether rodents or human mice.

I have a confession to make: I’ve never written about this here or elsewhere before — but I have a deeply-rooted fascination about motor homes (also called mobile homes, recreational vehicles, etc).

And I’m convinced I’m going to live in one of these someday, that’s I’ve been incessantly shedding away all but absolutely needed “stuff” and living a really lean life (another confession, eh?). It’s just a matter of time.

For now I nurture my passion by frequenting various RV forums, blogs, newsletters. Thanks to the Internet, I can easily find and interact with like-minded people from all over the world. This doesn’t come so easily for me in the brick-and-mortar world.

Today someone passed along these massive beasts from UNICAT: The UNICAT Expedition Vehicles, passionately nicknamed “land yachts”.

Designed, engineered and built to take you practically anywhere you want to go: from the heat of the Sahara to through the cold of the North Pole, even through up to 4ft of water… God have mercy!

Fitted with redundant GPS units … so you’ll never get lost on the desert!

On board “escape” vehicle:

Now just look at the interior: real and rare luxury on the road!

I want one of these. Pricing depends on the particular model and fittings, so you want to buy one for me, just let me know… so we can take out all those stuff that I wouldn’t need

More photos of these recreational / expedition vehicles from UNICAT’s website.

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Update: Turns out that I’m not the only one fascinated by these beasts. Veronica Belmont from Mahalo Daily took a trip to UNICAT Ameicas’ Palo Alto HQ to check out their entry level vehicle.

Now this “entry level vehicle”, with all the fittings will take you back US$600,000, and US$800 to completely fill the tank (at current gas prices). Hmmm. Here’s the Mahalo Daily video:

Hello folks… here’s the latest in this little life of mine:

I’ve finally decided, after three years of being out of formal employment, to return to a full-time working life. And in all likelihood, I’ll be joining Huawei Technologies pretty soon.

I spent the better part of last Tuesday (08/2008) at Huawei’s office here in Ghana going through a series of tests and interviews (5 in all!), and in the end I’m glad to say I’ll be working with these folks in building Ghana’s telecommunications infrastructure.

More about the interview itself in a later post.

Huawei Technologies is a Chinese company specializes in research and development (R&D), production and marketing of communications equipments, and providing customized network solutions for telecommunications carriers around the world.

Starting from a humble beginning in 1988 by Ren Zhengfei as a distributor of imported PBX products, the company has grown rapidly into a global operation providing next generation telecommunications networks. Huawei is the largest networking and telecommunications equipment supplier in China and in many emerging markets, and also has a strong presence North America and Europe.

I’m joining Huawei as a Radio Network Planning & Operations Engineer . in Ghana and potentially other operators in the sub-region. I’ll be doing a “physical” (fitness test) next week, and then begin working shortly afterwards.

Thank you all for your encouragement and support during these past two years that I’ve been on “voluntary unemployment”. Being out of work formal work sure had its perks… but like anything else in my life, it had to change for something new to take its place.