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I’m back

I’m back from Africa.  Actually, I’ve been back for over a week and have been getting caught up in my online stuff.  The trip to Africa went very well.  I am happy to announce that I made it to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  The final summit day was pretty tough.

We started at 11,000 on Day 1 at the Shira trailhead.  The actual distance in hiking to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro is not very far.  What makes it a difficult hike is the elevation.  Our bodies have to acclimate to the higher elevation and the only way to do that is to spend time at higher elevations.  This is why it takes 5-7 days to get to the top.  Each day we hiked about 6 hours.  We had acclimatization hikes where we would hike up to the top of a hill and back down.  This was solely to get our bodies use to the elevation.  These side hikes did not get us closer to the top.

I had slight altitude sickness on Day 3.  I had a headache and nausea.  But I still went on the acclimatization hikes because I knew that it was the only way to help my body.  It’s a weird feeling because you feel like you have the flu or a bad cold, but you know that resting won’t help you at all.  Day 4 I was still not feeling that well.  By Day 6 my altitude sickness symptoms were gone and I felt pretty good.

On the morning of Day 7, which I use morning loosely, we woke up at 12am and started to head for the summit at 1am.  We hiked very slow in the dark.  The distance to the top was only 4.5 miles, but the elevation went from 15,000ft to 19,350ft.  I could feel the air get thinner at about 18,000ft.  I was having trouble staying awake while hiking.  I was able to snap this picture as the sun began to rise.  I used my camera as an excuse to rest.

I made it to the top at 8:30am after 7.5 hours of hiking.  In our group of 12 hikers, 10 of us made it to the top.  We were lucky because the weather was great.  It was sunny and clear and probably about 20 degrees at the top (which is really warm for the top).

The next 2 days I went on a safari at Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater.  I’ll post some pics of that in a few days.  I say a few days, because I’ve been lazy catching up on my online stores and things in general so this blog priority keeps getting pushed.  Sorry.

Posted in Vacations | 1 Comment »

Hello from Africa

Well it turns out I have wifi at the lodge.  I don’t know how they get internet out here.  It’s literally in the middle of nowhere.  It’s unsecured and the funny thing is that right now, at about 12am, it runs fine.  But during the day it runs like a 1200 baud modem.  So I’m guessing that everyone is on this single internet connection during the day.

I arrived here at midnight last night.  It took me 3 flights and about 30 hours.  I haven’t been on an international flight in 17 years.  But I’m glad that everyone has their own personal screen with a DVR with alot of movies to choose from.  It made the flights bearable.

They served a ton of food on KLM flight from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro.  It was a 9 hour flight and we had 4 separate meals.  The first one was a regular dinner, chicken & rice, salad and dessert.  It came with some weird lime green custard that was really good.  I went to sleep and I woke up to some bread, butter and juice.  I went to sleep again and woke up to chocolate ice cream and water.  Then with about 1 hour left in the flight they came around and served another full meal, salad, quiche, pasta and dessert.  I got off that flight very full.

We landed at 10pm and it took me an hour to get my visa.  It was a mad house and it was hotter than Phoenix in the summer!   Once I got out of the airport I saw a guy with a sign and my name on it.  He gave me and 5 other people a ride to our lodge.  It was a 1 hour ride and the road was pitch black.  I kept expecting to see a zebra jump out into the road in front of us.

Today, I walked from the lodge to the center of town, Arusha.  It was about a 3 mile walk or $5 by taxi.  I thought I’d walk it to see the sights.  Honestly, there wasn’t much to see.  Most people stare because you stick out like a sore thumb but it wasn’t bad… until you got into town.

Then people would come up to you and try to talk to you.  There must be a school on how to befriend a foreigner because each person had the same story.  First, it was hi how are you.  Then it was where are you from?  I said Chicago a few times and the response was always, “I know Chicago Bulls, You like Michael Jordan?”  although one person said “You know Kanye West?”  They were all artists who had paintings to sell.  I didn’t want to tell them their paintings sucked. When I started saying I was from China, they didn’t have a response for that.  So I stuck with the no English plan, when they came up.

They would then keep walking with you and try to convince you to go to market.  They pretty much try to sell anything and try to get you to buy.  Some guys gave up after a few blocks.  It was almost like they had a territory they had to stay in.  But if you never show interest, they give up.

As soon as you got one to leave, another guy would show up at the next block. None of them were pushy or aggressive.  But sometimes, you get a weird vibe from some of them.  Once I put on a hat and my sunglasses, less people came up to me.  Maybe because I might have blended in better or maybe I looked like I didn’t want to be bothered.

I did see another white guy, who looked like a tourist.  He was following one of the dudes to the market.  What a poor sap.

I wish I had a photo of the market to show you.  But I didn’t want to pull out my SLR while I was there.  So I came home empty handed, shopping for souvenirs just isn’t fun for me.  But I promised a few people I would get them something.  I think I saw a bracelet made from elephant ball hairs.  I’ll get them that.  LOL

Tomorrow is the first day of the climb.

Posted in Vacations | 7 Comments »

Going to Africa

I leave on Wednesday to Tanzania, Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. I hope I can get 10 minutes in an internet cafe while in Moshi or maybe even borrow a blackberry for a second so I could upload pics or give updates while there. If not, I won’t be posting until almost February.

I wanted to also give a plug to my friend Mindi who has a new line of handmade all natural soaps. I placed an order for a few bars last week and they arrived within 2 days. I knew the soap was here because I could smell them as I got close to the mailbox.  So please visit Wink Soap and get your bar of handmade soap!

Posted in Making Money Online | 2 Comments »

First Video Blog Post

Here is my first video blog post.   I needed some practice with my helmet camera for Mt. Kilimanjaro so I brought it with me on my hike yesterday.  The volume of the video might be a little low because I didn’t want to talk loudly while on the trail.  People walking by probably thought I was crazy sitting there talking to myself.

I hope I didn’t screw this up, I didn’t watch it after I uploaded it.  I thought video blogging was suppose to be quicker than typing but this is taking way too long.

One thing that I think is good about videoing yourself is that you can see any bad habits in public speaking that you may have.  I think I say “anyway” and “so” way too much.  You won’t believe how many I editted out.  I’m doing better with my “ums” but a few do sneak in there.

Posted in Making Money Online | 9 Comments »

Happy Holidays

Well, the holidays are over and the stores had a very good year.  My suppliers ran out of stock on Monday December 21st.  That wasn’t bad because the bulk of the orders were done a few days before.

Next year, I am going to pre-order a whole bunch more products so I will have even more stock than my competitors.  I made alot of customers happy this year because I kept some stock back until December 21st.  Then I posted on my stores that I had them in stock and they would ship the same day.  I also increased my price a little and make a decent profit on any type of expedited shipping.  So some products that normally had a $20 profit were making $40-$50 instead.

Today, I was expecting a bunch of calls.  Generally I expect to get calls about returns and exchanges and also wrong shipments.  But I only had 2 returns, 1 wrong package sent and 1 lost package.

I have to start training someone else to take care of my stores because I am going out of the country and will have no internet or cell phone access.  I’ll be going to Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2 weeks.  I was tempted to just shut the stores down during that time, but I would lose alot of revenue.

Posted in General | 2 Comments »

Avatar 3D: Real IMAX and Fake IMAX

So today I’m going to see Avatar with my parents at an IMAX 3D theater.  We are going to the morning show this morning to avoid the crazy crowds that I’m sure will be there later on.

Honestly, I’m not expecting a really good movie, but I’d like to see how the 3D looks.  I also wanted my parents to see a movie at a real IMAX theater and also so what 3D looks like in movies nowadays.

If you’ve never seen an IMAX movie, you should definitely try to get to see one at least once.  It may be overwhelming to some.  A real IMAX screen is over 70ft tall and 90ft wide.  I was looking for local theaters the other night and I noticed that IMAX is available in many theaters.  Based on my past IMAX experience with the huge screen, I just could not believe that certain normal theaters had IMAX.  This is when I discovered that there are “fake” IMAX theaters out there.

They aren’t really fake in that they legitimately are IMAX.  But people who have screen real IMAX call them fake because their screens are only 28×58 feet.  That is a huge difference when compared to a 70×90 foot screen.  These fake IMAX screens also charge about $5 more than a standard theater.  So if you are going to pay the extra $5, be sure to go to a real IMAX theater.

I would be pissed if I paid $15 expecting to see a 70′ screen and walked into a 28′ screen.  Yet, IMAXs are doing that to people all the time.

Here are some more posts about this:

Aziz is bored

Roger Ebert on Fake IMAX

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Holiday Ebiz Update

So I thought I was doing pretty well on stock by planning ahead of time this year.  But it looks like I may run out, or my dropshippers may run out of stock again before Xmas.

There is one particular product that is very hot this year and luckily I own the number 2, 3 and 5 slots in google for it.  I’ve probably sold over 100 units of that alone this month.  So my dropshipper sold out of this item last Tuesday, they had another 80 coming in last Friday so I pre-purchased 50 of them (they wouldn’t let me purchase all 80).  I had them send 12 of them to my house and keep the rest for dropshipping.

My plan was to hold the 12 until Xmas week because I know that I will get frantic parents calling at the last minute who will spend the $80 for overnight shipping.

This plan would have been great except that it’s only Tuesday and I’ve sold 41 of them already so I only have 9 left.  That will probably last me only today.  Then I will be sold out again which sucks.

My dropshipper is suppose to get 100 more this week.  I sure hope they do, because at this rate I will probably sell another 60 before Xmas.

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