Simiyu's blog | putting down the occasional insights

Tiwi Beach Camp Tweetup – How it went down

Posted by: simiyu on: March 17, 2011

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Pretty soon it was getting dark and supper had to be prepared. It was time to light up the jiko, had been a long time since i had last done this 🙂 and with the ever helpful sideword giving a helping hand.

With the Jiko blazing in all its glory (hehehe) the chefs got to work

and they came up with some delicious looking and tasting chicken stew. Below are the two final products, a whole lot of ugali and the delicous chicken stew, with @sideword standing guard over the ugali.

After the eating was done it was time to get the bonfire lit, sit back, relax and while the night away

With the sounds of the waves as a backdrop, people just fell asleep where they were sitted, under the clear night sky, and woke up ealry in the morning to catch the beautiful sunrise.

See the full gallery on Posterous

After breakfast, everyone went down to the beach for a swim. South Coast has the most beautiful beaches on the Kenyan Coast and Tiwi is simply one of the best. With almost no beach boys to hassle you and the crowds that are common on the North Coast beaches, Tiwi is simply idilic for a nice relaxed swim and the tweeps took full advantage of it.

Lunch was grilled fish, freshly caught and delievered to the campsite by a local fisherman unfortunately with no ugali since no one was willing to leave the lovely swim and come cook it.

With our bellies full and with relaxed and happy smiles on our faces, we soon had to pack up and leave for out time in this little slice of paradise was up and the real world was calling us back, but one thing is for sure. We will be back.

Fianlly some photos of the campsite.

Tiwi Beach Camp TweetUp – the details

Posted by: simiyu on: January 19, 2011

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Turning Twenty Six

Posted by: simiyu on: May 12, 2010

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Last Saturday I turned 26. For the past few days i have been thinking about my life and what i want to do with it. They have been days of quite reflections on my dreams and aspirations, my successes as well as failures.
Growing up I always had one big dream, start my own IT company and be a millionaire by the time I turned 26.
I am now 26, employed and with no millions in my bank account. So where did I drift off that path? What happened to the dream?

Taking a look back at my life and all the choices I have made, there are things that I wish I could turn back the hands of time and redo, and there are others that given that chance I would not change. The 1st deviation from the dream came a few months after i had left University, back in campus i had gotten together with a couple of friends (Mistake no 1: we were more than 4 co-founders, each with his own vision on what the company should be) to start Syafrique Technologies an IT firm providing a range of IT solutions basically a jack of all trades, our second mistake. After a brief period i got a job offer with my current employers and i left the company. it later broke up with the founders going their separate ways.

Getting employed i promised myself that i was going to this for only 2 years, gain all the experience that i could within those years as well as network and plan for my exit and start of my own company. Unfortunately leaving employment has not been as easy as i had anticipated. Every year i make a resolution to be self employed the next, only to do the same the next year. This year i am determined to make the change and so far things are panning out OK. Hopefully the change can come sooner rather than later and next year when celebrating my 27th birthday i can look back and see this as the turning point in my life, when i decided to chase after my dream and make it a reality.

Finally I would like to take this chance to thank all who wished me a happy birthday and especially my girlfriend Olivia who went out of her way to ensure that the day was truly special for me. I love you all and God bless.

Posted via email from artsim’s posterous

Turning Twenty Six

Posted by: simiyu on: May 12, 2010

In: personal
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Last Saturday I turned 26. For the past few days i have been thinking about my life and what i want to do with it. They have been days of quite reflections on my dreams and aspirations, my successes as well as failures.
Growing up I always had one big dream, start my own IT company and be a millionaire by the time I turned 26.
I am now 26, employed and with no millions in my bank account. So where did I drift off that path? What happened to the dream?

Taking a look back at my life and all the choices I have made, there are things that I wish I could turn back the hands of time and redo, and there are others that given that chance I would not change. The 1st deviation from the dream came a few months after i had left University, back in campus i had gotten together with a couple of friends (Mistake no 1: we were more than 4 co-founders, each with his own vision on what the company should be) to start Syafrique Technologies an IT firm providing a range of IT solutions basically a jack of all trades, our second mistake. After a brief period i got a job offer with my current employers and i left the company. it later broke up with the founders going their separate ways.

Getting employed i promised myself that i was going to this for only 2 years, gain all the experience that i could within those years as well as network and plan for my exit and start of my own company. Unfortunately leaving employment has not been as easy as i had anticipated. Every year i make a resolution to be self employed the next, only to do the same the next year. This year i am determined to make the change and so far things are panning out OK. Hopefully the change can come sooner rather than later and next year when celebrating my 27th birthday i can look back and see this as the turning point in my life, when i decided to chase after my dream and make it a reality.

Finally I would like to take this chance to thank all who wished me a happy birthday and especially my girlfriend Olivia who went out of her way to ensure that the day was truly special for me. I love you all and God bless.

Posted via email from artsim’s posterous

Jitihada training pictures

Posted by: simiyu on: November 24, 2009

In: Mombasa | personal
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Here are some of the pictures i have managed to get so far from the time at the Jitihada Training I attended a few weeks ago.

Blackberry, GPS on a friday night

Posted by: simiyu on: November 11, 2009

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A couple of weeks ago, i went out for a Friday night dinner with a good friend of mine Ahmed, we usually do this at least each friday that our pockets can allow us, but what was different with this evening was that i had installed bbtracker on my blackberry and has set it to track my movement.

Here is a jpeg of the kmz coz for some reason i have been unable to put up the actual google map on this blog.

SFD preparation

Posted by: simiyu on: September 18, 2009

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A few hours to the main event in my calendar this year. The software freedom day. This is the second time I am organizing this event in mombasa and its definitely shaping up to be bigger and better than last year’s.

One of the low points of the last event was we had quite a low turn up to the event and that most of those who showed up were from camara and so they already had an idea of what Open source was and what it was all about. Not that this was a bad thing but the major aim of the event was to introduce people to FOSS.

This year I have taken steps to try and avoid a repetition of that mistake, which came about by people not knowing about the event. I have managed to print flyers and posters which we distributed around schools, colleges and the town in an effort to raise awareness of the event.

I also made a foray into online marketing, using facebook (thanks to the camara crew and Ahmed who created the event), twitter, mailing lists, email and this blog as a means of spreading word.

So the comps are packed and ready. What remains is getting to the venue and setting up. For now all I can do is get some sleep and hope everything goes ok tomorrow.

Tags: Mombasa, opensource, sfd

SFD preparation

Posted by: simiyu on: September 18, 2009

In: personal
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One day to the main event in my calendar this year. The software freedom day. This is the second time I am organizing this event in mombasa and its definitely shaping up to be bigger and better than last year’s.

One of the low points of the last event was we had quite a low turn up to the event and that most of those who showed up were from camara and so they already had an idea of what Open source was and what it was all about. Not that this was a bad thing but the major aim of the event was to introduce people to FOSS.

This year I have taken steps to try and avoid a repetition of that mistake, which came about by people not knowing about the event. I have managed to print flyers and posters which we distributed around schools, colleges and the town in an effort to raise awareness of the event.

I also made a foray into online marketing, using facebook (thanks to the camara crew and Ahmed who created the event), twitter, mailing lists, email and this blog as a means of spreading word.

So the comps are packed and ready. What remains is getting to the venue and setting up. For now all I can do is get some sleep and hope everything goes ok tomorrow.

Tags: Mombasa, opensource, sfd

Software Freedom Day 2009

Posted by: simiyu on: September 9, 2009

In: Foss | Mombasa | open source | sfd | software freedom day
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SFD2009_logo

SFD2009_logo

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business.

This year Mombasa will be hosting a SFD event for the second year running, this time at the the Koblenz Hall along Moi Avenue from 10 am to 5 pm in the evening.

The theme for this year event is: Empowering the community using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)

There will be a number of activities going on through the day such as;

Talks from IT professionals on various topics regarding FOSS
InstallFest; members of the public can come with their PC’s and laptops and have experts install FOSS for them
Open Source Cds distribution
leading open source software will be on display (educational, general use, business use)
open source workshop/training
and so much more

The event is free and open to the public. Will put up more details as they come. Hope to see you there.

Big thanks to Lamu Software and Bid A Web for making it possible for us to rent the hall.

and am back :)

Posted by: simiyu on: August 26, 2009

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It has been a while but am back to blogging.

One of my new year resolution was to actively blog, unlike what i had been doing the previous year, an occasional blog once in a while.

Unfortunately things didn’t go according to plan, as they always do, i got caught up with other things and forgot all about it. The past month i came to the realization that there year is almost to an end and nearly all of my resolutions were still undone, written on my notebook and forgotten.

And so with with four months before the year ends i will try and achieve most of the resolutions. The first is setting up this blog and posting on it regularly, at least one post a week. hopefully this will just be the start and i will be able to achieve the rest as well. It is a long shot but as the saying goes better late than never.