Independence Day in Kenya

What a great day for a BBQ! Although today is the day after independence day, we decided to have a mini cookout to celebrate America's Independence. Mike and Zach went out in the afternoon to buy a ton of meat....from goat to lamb, and chicken to steak. even some tilapia. it was great. judy and her friend peris came, and john and his fiance judy also came. very relaxing....although we had some trouble getting the coal to heat up the grill. i must have inhaled a ton of smoke trying to heat up the grill. the food was great, and the night was awesome. got to sit around and talk story with everyone. then we headed back to work on our lecture slides for the week. I spent all day yesterday and this morning researching creating powerpoint slides. Initially my task was to create a lecture on persistence storage for J2ME. Then i mentioned about bluetooth, and whether we would cover that. Mike said sure, and assigned that task to me. Then he came in Friday night, saying how we also needed to go over Location awareness with GPS, and told me I seemed interested in that topic, and that i should create that lecture as well. So, that means three lectures for me.....yay!!!!

I'm almost done. Did most of the research and coding today. it's actually very interesting. i've been playing a lot with the nokia phones we got from univeristy of nairobi. i even made my own J2ME app...nothing fancy, just an application to record and keep track of our expenses...dinner, groceries, recreation, etc. good way to keep track of who paid what and who owes what. it's really good for me to cause i learn and make apps at the same time. what's even cooler is the bluetooth and GPS on these phones. there's actually a sample bluetooth in the book on how i can make a dating app...where people can find potential partners within a room based on their cell phone. when the phone 'senses' a girl with the right profile, the one you define obviously, then you can retrieve that individual's contact info. pretty cool...might make and use this app for myself. don't worry boys, you can use it too :)

the GPS is also very cool. still new to it, but hopefully i can exploit it to its fullest potential. last night judy took us out to dinner, and then we went out dancing. it was a lot of fun, and it's funny how mike says i'm the best dancer...and that i got 'moves'. hopefully next year i'll have more time to learn more dance moves.

that's about it. the students have spent a lot of time last week creating their SMS apps, which they'll present tomorrow. looking forward to that. cant' believe july is already here. time's flying by real fast. until next time, happy coding!