This is why “day in the life” can be so hard. What. A. Day.

6:40 wake up with severe stomach cramps.

7:00 check on night’s downloads. All failed. Power went out in the night. Restart them all.

7:15 Stomach cramps again. Yep, it’s another bout of African intestinal rot. Will be a fun day.

7:30 Blood sugar drops and nothing seems to be going right. Smallest jobs become a real hassle. Frustration rising. Realize that we don’t have a car (it’s at the non-criminal actually competent savior mechanic) and I have ten minutes to get ready and get Jen to the keep.

7:35 power goes out right before a much needed lukewarm shower. Take ice cold shower instead.

7:40 “Invigorated”. I race downstairs. Jen’s already walking. Declan’s sleeping in. I lock the house. Bike won’t start. Bike won’t start. BIKE WONT START! GUH!

7:45 Bike starts. But there’s no guard because last nights keep guard either a) got in a bar fight or b) got hit by a boda then beat the crap out of the driver. Either way he’s in jail so the day guard from the house worked at the keep last night. Get off the bike, open the gate, push the bike through, close the gate. I find Jen halfway to the Keep. Pick her up and drop her off.

8:00 Back home I start putting together to equipment for today’s big project: a pelican build for Daniel Stern. My first since Shmoo and a test of the how to video I’m working on. Prepare USB sticks for web class students.

8:50 Declan wakes up and we head to keep. Email, blog, breakfast coffee.

9:50 Declan to school, back to keep, pick up Jen, back to house. (no guard so pull up, open gate, pull through, close gate).

10:00-2:00 Working on pelican build in workshop. Multitasking with leather team, hanging out with Jen. Sweating like a pig in the intense heat of the hot season. Realize I’m missing 2.2k resistors. Sparks finds done used. A buck a piece. He brings them and sits with me as I show him the build. I find the resistors I thought I was missing. Find out my video is confusing. I take lots more photos and update the video. Water company shows up and threatens to shut us off for non payment. No guard so I get to deal with it. Go in house and produce water receipt. Power company shows up for the third time this week and threatens to shut us off for non payment. No guard so I get to deal with it. Go in house and produce power receipt.

2:00-2:20 Lunch with Jen. It’s nice. We both get sick from it.

2:20-3:30 Round 2 with the pelican. Attempt software build. Clonezilla fails to recognize built in sd reader. Sam helps troubleshoot from US. Begin to drill case and realize my Dewalt drill had a dead battery. Plug in and realize that the charger is fried thanks to crappy Ugandan power. It’s the second I’ve lost. The battery was down to 15% anyhow. Go to town (no guard so pull up, open gate, pull through, close gate) to bank for cash, no one has drills. One place has crap Indian drill for $125. I have no choice.

3:30-4:30 To Josh Hamby, our friend who’s working on our car. He shows us the bearings that were shot. Would have stranded us or worse in Kenya next week. Talk to him, wait for car and Pick up car(!)

4:30-5:30 Round three with Pelican, and just as soon as I’ve started I realize I’m supposed to be at the CTC for the opening of the web course. I’m late. Pack up the workshop, lug it all inside, lock up, shower (cold) and race to CTC. (No guard so pull up, open gate, pull through, close gate). Late late LATE!!!

5:40-6:15 Greet students and lay down rules of the center. DONT TOUCH LAPTOP SCREENS! Don’t steal. Respect my staff. Don’t steal the toilet paper. Seriously. Multitasking over iMessage with Sam about pelican and stuff.

6:30 Race home to meet Jen and Declan for the much-anticipated Olympic opening ceremony. It’s the only chance I’ll have to relax thanks to an insane day.

But wait. There’s no night guard. This is a problem. Our night guard Richard is on his last warning. He’s not been showing up for his shift and it’s seriously dangerous to have no guard especially when the powers been going out at night. We’re late. Let the dogs off, pull up, open gate, pull through, close gate, lock gate.

6:45 Sit down at the keep. Order dinner and coffee. Exhale. Excited for the break. All hell breaks loose. We get slammed with 30+ customers all hoping to see the opening. Get up, move chairs, move tables, flip over to inverter in case there’s a power outage, grab menus, get Internet coupons for customers, etc. have to play bad guy as a bunch of Ugandan girls are throwing things around the bathroom, spraying water from the sink and spraying all our deodorant spray. I tell them to move along, it’s not their playground. It’s become a working dinner. Food is delivered and gets cold.

7:30 Head guard shows up. We are officially down two guards. Which property would we like to leave unguarded? The CTC, The Keep, or the house? Looks like it will be the house. Send Emma to bugembe to track down the house day guard to work a double.

7:45 Sit down to eat cold dinner.

8:00 Guard returns. No luck. We are down a guard. I try to call Richard. His sister answers. No clue where Richard is. She gives me another number. I call it. No luck and no clue who Richard is. I make plans to spring keep guard from jail just so we can have a guard at the house. Swear to fire Richard.

8:30 Richard arrives at house. Drive home. Richard tells me that he was delayed at the clinic for treatment of what we are pretty sure is a pimple. I threaten to fire him for the third time in a month. We need another guard but tonight is not that night.

9:00 Back to Keep. Opening ceremony breaks out strobe lights. Over and over and over again. Instant. Migraine. Write this blog instead since I can’t watch the tv anymore. Keep staff is trying to shut down. We have to reprimand them for pressuring customers to leave. It’s against policy ESPECIALLY during special events and especially since our advertised closing time is 10:00pm on weekends.

10:00 Ceremonies over. Shut down keep, drive home. Unlocking cage is normally easy enough but someone left the front door light on so lake flies swarm in.

10:15 Richard, Gerald and Johnson fed, house cages locked down. Fall into bed. Nearly fall asleep but remember that I have to queue up downloads and brush my face and whatever. iPhone at 4% power so I can’t fill in any more details.