Alaska

I visited with a friend over the weekend, last week. It doesn't cease to amaze me that you learn something new everyday - if you want to! So apart from the many topics we discussed including business ventures, Kenyan politics and tribalism, dowry and marriage, housing bubble and sub-prime mortgages; it occurred to me that I didn't know much about Alaska. See while many of us were coming to America he was going to Alaska. You don't hear much about Kenyans wanting to go to Alaska. In fact it was just him and his brother from Kenya in Alaska. Amazingly, as a student he could save as much as $10,000 in a season. How? I asked. See when a Kenyan goes to a foreign land, he/she tends to copy what those others that came earlier are doing. If he finds them working as security guards most likely his first job will be a security guard. When my friend landed in Alaska he didn't find any Kenyans so he did what other Alaskans did. Employment is primarily in government and industries such as natural resource extraction, shipping, and transportation. And that's how he managed to save the mooolah.

Speaking of natural resource extraction he went into great detail about the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System a major U.S. oil pipeline connecting oil fields in northern Alaska to a sea port where the oil can be shipped to the Lower 48 states for refining. The single diameter pipeline was built between 1974 to 1977 at a cost of around US$8 billion. You can read all about it here.

I drove home thinking of opportunities, time and tide. Consider this: The area that became Alaska was purchased from Russian interests on October 18, 1867 for $7.2 million. Try selling it now!

"It's no good, it's no good!" says the buyer; then off he goes and boasts about his purchase. Prov 20:14