Category: General

Is this the new age wisdom? Well I didnt know until I found out the hard way. I had a precious one week in between two jobs and I felt like making the best out of it. The best in this situation was running away from everything. You know, the calls, emails, bla bla bla.So I decided to go and hang out with the Queen. At least, I figured out that the cost of international phone calls should make some people lose the ideas of calling me up.

Unfortunately, my pockets got some rather deep potholes which were making flying on the regular airlines look like a colored elephant project. I remembered a rumor that Afriqiyah could almost get you to London for free on the agreement that you must pay homage to Gadaffi.

So off I went to Keffi Street and got myself a ticket to London for N61K. Good bargain. They even told me it takes just 8 hours (as opposed to the 6 hours of virgin, hmmm).

The d-day came and once I found myself on that plane, I knew I made a terrible mistake. The plane was one of those miserable small Airbus A320. The hostesses were super crappy, no blanket, no in-flight entertainment. And we listened to larubawa music all the way to the land of Gadaffi.

Instead of the 8 hours, it took forever to get to London. In fact, next time am short on cash, I would rather ride a donkey than fly Afriqiyah.

Coming back, however, was a more pleasant experience and it took half of forever to get to Naija. I met some funny characters on the plane. It was kind of fun.

Today marks my last day as an Access Bank employee. It’s been quite a trip.Jogging down memory lane, I came to Access Bank from Standard Trust Bank in August 2002. Spent 2 months at the training school where I met some of the craziest human beings. Surprisingly, some of those guys there are still my friends (Nnamdi “rubber punk” Okafor, Martina Eseigbe, Kemi Lewis, and Tayo “Omoba” Aileru).

Started working at the eBanking department and wasted practically the first 8 months until my old boss left and someone else came to run the whole IT group. All of a sudden, the task of running our little department fell on my rather slender shoulder.  But with all glory going to God, I have been able to move the department from mediocrity to become the innovation and idea lab of the bank. We have been able to create paradigm shifts and release block buster applications to the benefit of the bank and its customers.

One thing I will never forget is the opportunities you get to excel in this bank. Also, everyone is open; competition is keen and cut-throat. But every organization has got its own bathroom slime too. If you aren’t careful, you could slip on those.

In Access Bank, I learnt ColdFusion, AD programming, Oracle, MS SQL, and practically all the important technologies highlighting my professional career.

I believe Access Bank is going places.

I am going to miss the guys in my department, Biyi, Alison, Kemi, Blessing, Rotimi. The general IT group would also have fond places in my heart. I can’t but mention Sina, Adeola, Lanre, Mike “Jagbo Small”, Sanmi “Shorty”, Moses “The Menace”, Emmanuel “Agent A”, Josephine “Iya Ibeji”, Seyi “Opa”, Idowu “ID on the street”& The list goes on and on.

I can’t forget people downstairs too (banking hall), Moji, Bola “Shorty”, Tomi, Yellow Rose, etc. Same for guys from the head office: Anne Monye of library, “Aunty” Kunbi Anifowose, VSlimeE, etc.

And where am I going to now? That is a good question. Just watch out.

A crazy article about the new web. Time has come again for the old dudes to start looking for startup funds.
Read it here: http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=3594

Meebo is an AJAX on steroid web application that allows you to login to Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Jabber, GTalk and ICQ all at the same time without installing any desktop app. The startup is run by a dude and 2 babes (chikitos!).

Check them out at www24.meebo.com

How things change so fast. Last month, 25th of January, I wrote about the Nairaland Phenomenon. It is so sad that few days later, the head nigger in-charge there developed a nasty and acute case of Megalomania. I have since dropped all associations with them. He has systematically deleted most of my posts. However, this is the last one before I left.

This is to announce that this marks my last post on NL.

It has been a wonderful time since I came to NL on November 21, 2005, 07:30 AM. I have made few friends, plenty enemies and surprisingly, my perspective about life haven’t changed.

I am successful professional in my endeavors of technology, banking and technical writing; which sometimes make me ask myself what I am doing here. Up to this week, the fun of being with highly creative and lovely people here has been an overriding reason for sticking along. From an entrepreneur point of view, I really want NL to succeed and Seun to climb to the highest pedestal on internet grandeur. But like every beggars dream, I guess that is a wish.

This place is descending into hell. I don’t have a problem with people fighting (if people don’t fight, what else can they do?) but am particularly miffed at Seun’s autocratic and extremely unprofessional choke and hold on power. Man, you don’t know this people but they can, as a whole, make and unmake you! And just yesterday, someone called me a pervert. And I have a wife and baby girl at home? I can’t stick that. Never!

I have met people I will never forget here:
Timmy: cool dude, Treize: My baby girl. Daddy’s going to miss you, Hot-Angel: sassy and smart, thelastdon: I really like him. The fatwa is off your head, Miskay: we have a deal? Nana: You fashied an old man. Na wa o. And last but not the least, Snazzy: We know where to meet.

Children, be good. Live your life here in a way that wouldn’t make me to be ashamed of you. Seun, you ‘v got to grow up. If you continue this way, you could be another Bill Shockley. Find out about him.

Adieu

NB: Papa could be contacted in heaven at [email protected] (You have to figure that out!)