Nat Arem's Blog

So I got home on Saturday and didn’t do much other than a bunch of laundry and putting stuff away. I was driving around on Monday when I noticed that the temperature of the car was really high. Also, the A/C wasn’t really blowing all that cold. At one point, the right side of the hood was actually steaming a bit so I pulled over to let the car cool down — the coolant was boiling when I popped the hood. I managed to drive it home (just a few miles) after a 20 minute cool down. I had to add a whole bunch of coolant to the car because so much had boiled off.

I took the car in to the shop yesterday morning and they said it’s a problem with the cooling fans for the radiator. The one problem is that they don’t have the part, no one on the island has the part and it’s actually kind of hard to find it online at a place who will ship internationally. I can wait for someone to order the part locally but they charge 5x more than the part costs and they take 10 days to get it in. Any blog readers out there work for an auto parts place? If so, I’m looking for a cooling fan assembly for a 2007 Infiniti G35 coupe. I believe this is the part that I’m looking for (but that place won’t ship to a non-billing address so I can’t order it from there because all of my credit cards have US billing addresses). I’d definitely owe someone if they can help me find this part and help get it to me quickly in Cayman.

Other than the car thing, I’ve been getting settled back into my usual routine. I’m still putting together the trip report from the Africa trip but I already put a bunch of pictures on Facebook. Here’s a public link to the album. I’m also working on videos. I put a few up on youtube here but it’s taking awhile to upload them so I’m going to upload them slowly over the next few weeks. I have some really good ones (like the helicopter ride over Victoria Falls) so that youtube account is going to get better over time. I’ll post updates here when I add to it.

I just arrived into Atlanta this morning and now I’m spending a few days in Georgia before heading back home to Cayman. It has been a very long last 30-40 hours or so. I started out the 18th by waking up around 8 AM at our hotel at Victoria Falls and going to breakfast. Then I walked with my brother and mom down to an area called the “Boiling Pot” which is where the water from the falls gathers together. After that we went back to the rooms, showered and headed to the Livingstone airport for our flight to Johannesburg. Then I had a 4 hour layover followed by a 17 hour flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta. The flight was soooo long. It didn’t help that I had a really big guy sitting next to me and I was in coach. I don’t think I’ll ever do a flight that long again unless I can find a way to get business class. Or, at least, I have to be guaranteed to be sitting next to someone that I know so it isn’t such a gamble.

Anyway, I am about to head out to Athens to spend the next few days with yellowsub. I’ll be posting a long trip report, pictures and videos over the next few days.

Well we’re a few days into our trip and it’s already been a pretty big success. We spent three days at a game lodge in the northwest part of the country (for those keeping track, we were at Sabi Sands near Kruger National Park). We saw a ton of stuff. I’m only posting a small percentage of what we saw here. I am really tired so I won’t be writing a ton… but there are tons of pics.

Arriving in the Johannesburg Airport:

View from prop plane that we took up to the game lodge:

Here’s the plane itself. Yes, the pilots were unloading the baggage:

Rhino:

Leopard

Lions:

Zebra:

Giraffe:

Elephant:

Post-sunset view inside the game reserve:

Buffalo:

Elephant running away from a crocodile. You can see the croc by the elephant’s back feet:

Eagle:

Vulture:

Landscape:

Hyena eating an impala (like a deer):

Leopard in a tree eating impala:

Now we’re in Cape Town (arrived this evening). Here’s a sunset shot from the hotel:

Anyway, really tired so off to bed. I’ll post more actual writing at some point in the next few days.

I’m here in Johannesburg. Flying out to the safari today. That long flight from Atlanta was awful. That’s all I have to say about that for now.

Hopefully the trip gets better from this point forward.

On the eve of my trip (flying out Sunday the 2nd) I’m getting over a relatively mild cold. Yesterday morning I woke up with stuffed up nose and a mild headache. Over the course of the day I felt worse and worse. I went out to the store to buy a thermometer and I had a fever of 102.6. The headache was definitely moderate but I wouldn’t call it severe to the point that I couldn’t do anything. Obviously, given the news over the last few months, the first thought is “OMG SWINE FLU” but I didn’t have a cough or any of the other flu symptoms and I felt good enough to go out to the store. I’m told that a typical flu-infected person will basically be laid up in bed for days with fatigue, stomach problems, etc. I didn’t have any of that. Also, my nose cleared up by midday so my only symptoms were a headache and fever. I called my Mom (a doctor) and she basically told me it sounded like your run-of-the-mill virus and that the fever was causing the headache. She also told me to take ibuprofen. By the time I went to bed, the fever was down to 100.0 and the headache was mostly gone. I woke up this morning with a mildly worsened fever but I’ve been feeling better as the day has gone on. The “fever” is now in the mid-99s and the headache is gone. So I think my Mom’s suspicion that it was a common virus is probably correct. I’m really hoping I’m still feeling better when tomorrow rolls around and I have to sit on airplanes for like 20 out of 24 hours.

Other than the sickness stuff, I’ve been doing the usual things to get prepared to leave. Charge up stuff, clear out the fridge, etc, etc. I also took my car to the car wash and snapped this picture. They have a pretty cool see-through car wash here:

Other than that, I’ve been doing some work things and spending a lot of time in the gym. I’ve been going to a gym in some form since I was about 12 years old so I guess it’s been 15 years now. For the first 8 or so, I focused just about 100% on strength training. Over the last 7 years, I’ve gone back and forth between more cardio and strength. It seems like I get into grooves for a few months at a time where I do mostly one or the other. Lately I’ve been in a cardio groove because I’ve finally decided that I need a smaller body type for optimal lifespan expectations. I’ve been six feet even for like 15 years now (maybe coincidence with when I started lifting, who knows… Either way I’m fine with being six feet tall so I don’t really care if it stunted my growth). Over at least the second 7.5 years of the 15 years I’ve been lifting I’ve been over 200 lbs. At my peak, I was over 250 (I know, really gross). Right now I’m settled in at like 205 but I think I need to be around 185 with my current muscle mass to be in optimal shape. There’s a reason why you don’t see obese old people. And why I know I’m not at high risk for heart disease and other problems at the age of 27, if I keep going in the 200+ weight range those problems are going to sneak up on me pretty fast. So, long story short, I’ve been doing a lot of cardio although I am still lifting because I want to maintain my current muscle mass. I’ve also been focusing for the first time in my life on flexibility. I’ve made huge gains in under a month of doing a regular stretching routine so I’m pretty excited to keep it up.

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to blog from South Africa but I’ll definitely take a lot of pictures and video for when I can get online.

Also, if you have a few hours, you should really read this: http://basketbawful.blogspot.com. Start with Part 1.