clintonb's blog

It has been nearly a whole month since I have written to this blog, and so much has occurred. Spring Break was great! I was at home in Dallas for a few days before flying back to Boston, then Columbus, Ohio for the 33rd Annual National Society of Black Engineers National Convention.

So, my earphones stopped working last week. It has happened before so I exchanged them. Well, the new ones had the same problem, only sooner. Never buy Philips-Nike earphones; they're completely unreliable.

I upgraded to the Shure E2c earphones. They're pretty cool, but I could never use them for everyday use. They block out far to much sound too be safe for use when walking or biking along the streets. It's almost like being deaf. I thought they blocked out everything up until a few minutes ago.

I visited the USS John F. Kennedy on Saturday. "Big John," as its called, is one of the last non-nuclear aircraft carriers to be decommissioned. It sailed into Boston as part of its farewell tour. I knew aircraft carriers were big, but I never knew how big. Big John can house over 75 aircraft and 5000 sailors and airmen!

I'll let the pictures do the talking. You can view the album here.

For the past 13 hours, I have been locked in my room working. During this time, I have implemented a navigation system, providing turn-by-turn directions and designed a tag storage system. The navigation system works, but, even if it could be implemented, the tag system would definitely blow something up; it's total crap, but pretty polished crap given the time in which it was designed.

All I do is work; it's horrible. My dorm purchased a Wii a couple of weeks ago. At home, I've play the game for 10 hours straight (I'm an addict). Here, I haven't played for more than 30 minutes.

So I went boxing yesterday, but not with Rich Templeton. I saw an advertisement for a free workout session at a gym, Ring Boxing Club (http://www.ringboxingclub.com/), and decided to check it out. It was a great experience; I worked out for over an hour, and, of course, I've been in pain all of today.

Apparently lightning does strike twice. Are the stars out of alignment? Do I have some bad karma? Why can't I complete my trips without some crazy delay? Last time was Accra, now I'm stuck in New York.

So, I have pictures of Tamale posted. No video this time.

Like the rest of Ghana, there is a could of dust over Tamale, that blocks the sun and blends in with any clouds that might be in the sky. Consequently, the temperature is quite nice, and I don't have to worry about staying in the shade to keep cool.

On Saturday, I woke up early to head to Mole National Park. I was promised that I would see lions, tigers, and elephants, but I only saw elephants (3 of them), antelope, a few baboons, and wild hogs. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. There really isn't much to say about this trip. Basically, we drove around the park looking for animals for about an hour but didn't find many.

Straightaway, here's the good stuff:

• "Crikey!": A short video
• Photo Album

Back to the chit-chat...

The crocodile pond is located a short distance from the University of Development Studies' Navrongo campus, so I simply had to stop by. It was pretty interesting to be so close to so many crocodiles, also pretty dangerous, but there were many people around to fend off any attacks.