Personal Stories

Alas, The Torture Is Over

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
by George Appiah

If you do follow me on Twitter, you will remember about a week ago I said I was going to work on some 3,000-plus ADSL modems. Yep, no typo here: I had this unpleasant task to update the firmware and pre-configure a large consignment of ADSL modems — a little over 3,000 units — for one local ADSL service provider. This was to make these boxes work with both their ATM and IP DSLAMS.

How I got myself into this big holly mess is another story altogether — that will, hopefully, be told in the not too distant future.

But I’m glad the work is done. It took exactly 8 days — within which time I never stepped out of my bedroom-turned-workshop, and never had more then 10 hours of sleep (total). Of course I got great help from my little friends Christopher Bennett and Remy Edmundson, and I’m really grateful for their help.

Now that this torture is over, it’s about time I moved on: go out there into the streets of Accra, find a cute little girl who can think, marry, have a whole lot of kids, and live happily thereafter.

Or something like that. What ‘ya think?

Technorati Tags: ADSL modems, IP DSLAM, ATM DSLAM

How Much Is Your Last Name Worth?

Friday, March 7th, 2008
by George Appiah

Mine is apparently worth US$5,000. That’s the price the poor fellow who owns the domain name “appiah.com” is asking for at BuyDomains.com. The other two generic flavours “appiah.org” and “appiah.net” are owned by another Appiah, Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah of Princeton University.

While I’m glad I own my name [georgeappiah.com], I obviously cannot share this with my family, if I ever happen to have one. So I was hoping to grab the last name, but it looks like was too late to the game. Actually I didn’t expect this generic domain name to be available, and I was willing to buy it, if the price was right. But US$5,000 does not smell right at all to me.

Of course, some domain names have sold for millions of dollars (“sex.com” reportedly sold for 2m), but I didn’t know my last name was this valuable

War In My Heart

Friday, March 7th, 2008
by George Appiah

This morning, while unpacking some documents to scan, I found a little piece of paper with these words below, written in my own hndwriting. I don’t know exactly when and why I wrote this piece, and I don’t even remember the subject here.

Yet this little piece of paper drew down buckets of tears — salty tears of sweet descent — as I read line after line. I wasn’t crying because of the content of the poem though: I was crying for the part of me that I’ve has slipped by. I was crying for my childhood writings I lost — literally hundreds of poems and short stories. I was crying for never daring to take my pen and paper to write once again, after all these years since I lost my writings.

And I was crying for all the days gone by, and for all the dreams left behind.

Update: From some other scribbles on this piece of paper, I’m almost certain of the context of this writing now. I wrote this piece, back then during college days, to my sister. But the subject is someone else. You see, there was this cute little girl, who was my sister’s roommate, who….

I wonder where she is now and what she’s doing. The memories are all coming back to me now. The tears are falling, once again, except faster this time. The battle continues. But who can see me? Who can rescue me?

George Appiah Picks A Big Fight!

Thursday, March 6th, 2008
by George Appiah

When I first registered the domain georgeappiah.com for this website, one of my goals was to control my identity online. I knew that while I couldn’t control what someone would write about me, I could have much say in what people discovered about me through a web search. And I wanted to make it easy for people to find what I wanted them to find about — about me.

So after many turns and twists and two fatal database crashes, today if you google “George Appiah” (without quotes), you’ll find information about me all over. At the time of this writing, the entire first page results (1-10 web pages) were all about me. In fact, but for a few usurpers, the entire initial 100 websites (first ten SERPS) would have been about me.

Obviously I’ve more than exceeded that particular goal of controlling my online identity, even though — I will confess — I’ve not done a decent job at building one coherent personal brand yet. More about that later.

But I want more, ya know. I’m up with another goal, this time a more specific and measurable goal: I want to be the #1 on the search result page for the name “Appiah”. Here’s the current competition:

As you can see, Stephen Appiah’s Wikipedia entry is right at the top. That his name is at the top is neither surprising nor interesting at all to me. What’s interesting to me though is that his personal website, www.stephenappiah.com does not appear on the first page at all.

Aside this Stephen Appiah anomaly, the rest of the page, and in fact, most of the first 100 results, is dominated by Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah of Princeton University (no relation to the soon-to-be Prof. George Kwabenah Appiah ).

This is the competition I’m putting myself against now. I don’t have any plans yet to win at this game, but I’m going to cook some ideas and share the progress over here.

Good Luck, My Dear Little Thing

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
by George Appiah

You recently married. I got to know about it just 3 days to the event, and even then, from someone else. You never gave me the slightest clue, and you still haven’t. But I had my own plans made already, so I couldn’t be around. Besides, you surely had a reason for not telling me about your marriage — I obviously wan’t wanted around. So coming around, even if I did have the time and inclination to, would have been rather disingenuous on my part.

I’m not complaining. I’m human, and I do understand why you didn’t want me around. But your family and our mutual friends obviously don’t. So they keep bugging me about not being around when you tied the proverbial knot. If only they knew what we both know.

Good luck, my dear little thing. May the Divine Wisdom grant you the desire to dream once again, the strength to wake up from your slumber and live your dreams, and the courage to live your life, your way. Hasta mañana.

The Die Is Cast: I’m Off To Grad. School

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
by George Appiah

Later this year, somewhere in September, I’ll be packing my single little suitcase again, and head for Sweden for graduate studies. Now it’s not if anymore. It’s when — when the time comes.

That means I have about six months here in Ghana, six months in my new apartment, and six months to do all the things I have to do and clean up all the mess I create along the way.

The above is a photo exhibition at the Second House of Sweden in SecondLife.

I’ve Moved: New Address, New Contact Number

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
by George Appiah

Just for everyone’s information — yesterday I packed my single suitcase out of my Haatso (Accra) apartment, after hanging around for about 12 months. I really loved the quietness of Haatso, but I moved primarily because, I couldn’t get a faster Internet connection at a reasonable fee.

I had been using Ghana Telecom’s “Alvarion Broadband” service, which is capped at 256/64kbps (shared, with an unlawfully high contention ratio). There are no fixed lines around, and hence no DSL, and the other alternatives are prohibitively expensive.

Anyway, I’ve moved to Tesano, also in Accra. And I managed to work out a fixed line and ADSL service even before I moved in. This came as a big surprise to a friend who has lived in the area for over three years, but has not been able to get Ghana Telecom to provision a fixed telephone line for her.

So how did I get? No, I didn’t pay any bribes. Nada. I never do. In case you didn’t know, I once worked at Ghana Telecom as a Radio Network Optimisation Engineer, and a lot of my college mates are still there, some in big positions. So I certainly have a lot of strings I can pull at GT.

Currently there’s only data and no voice. Actually the voice number has been assigned but not fully provisioned yet. I’m also using just 128/32kbps — but so far I find it faster than the more expensive 256/64 kbps service I was using at my previous apartment. That tells how terrible the contention was. I’ll push the data speed up as soon as I settle down to do something serious. Tell you about that later.

But what about my plans to live in the streests? Great question. I had a chat with one of my doctors about this, who managed to scare me out of it. How ingeniously stupid of me! As you probably know already, I’ve been battling a heart problem for a quite some time now, and my doctors remain one of the very few peple on this plant who’s opinions I truly value.

I’ve got a lot of things coming shortly. Stay glued.

Josephine Akyeampong — A Friend I Had And Lost

Thursday, February 21st, 2008
by George Appiah

Here’s Josephine Akyeampong with her little son, Kwame. Josephine was one of the few really great friends I had, until I lost her friendship to… eh… marriage. She hooked up with another good friend of mine, Donne Darku, about a year ago. The two are currently based in Nigeria.

We’re still in touch, and I spoke to her less than a week ago. But our conversations are not like they used to be anymore. Our conversations cannot be the way they used to be. Our conversations should not be the way they used to be… not anymore.

All the best, Jossie. Miss you dearly, Jossie.

Giving It All, And Taking Nothing Back

Thursday, February 21st, 2008
by George Appiah

Here’s a top top top (enough?) secrete for all my readers: if, for whatever reason, you feel you must embarrass me, here’s the easiest way to go about it: simply hand me a gift! Yeah, I know that sounds weird… but ’tis true nonetheless. This is one of the last few bits of my past life that still lingers on.

Growing up, I really lived in my own little world. I was completely all to myself, always deeply stuck in my own little world full of fantasies. I wouldn’t hurt a soul, not even the killer ants that often invaded our bedrooms at night.

And I wouldn’t let people go out of their way to give me stuff that, at the time, meant absolutely nothing to me. Indeed, my first real gift I ever accepted was a hand-crafted booklet, The Book of Love, given by my sister on my twenty-something-th birthday — way back at college.

I don’t know about you, but for me, if I had my way, I’d give it all… and take nothing back. But I understand I can’t always have it my way. To live is to let help live. So why must I prevent others from living?

Thank you Richard Matovu — my good friend from Uganda.

Hasta Mañana, My Friend Cyril Mettle

Sunday, February 17th, 2008
by George Appiah

Above is my friend Cyril Mettle, and his pretty little naughty sister — Eileen Elsie Mettle. No, he’s NOT dead. He just packed out. Of course last time I checked, both of us were as straight as the long wooden TV poles protruding out of people’s houses at my village — and we both knew we were going to, at some point, find pretty little things each and… and go our separate ways with out little things… to have a whole lot of kids and live forever after. Or somthine like that. At least I though so.

But having lived together for such a long time, his moving out didn’t go without a scratch on this achy breaky little heart of mine. Sure, we’ve had our ups and downs, like all lovers friends do. But what would life be without these?

And I’ve always dismissed this feeling of emptiness that creeps in every now and then — making believe everything is ok, and telling lies to the only person I’ve become accustomed to (and comfortable with) lying to — myself. That is, until the next time when this emptiness creeps in again.

Hasta mañana, gool ‘ole friend, Cyril Mettle, hasta mañan.