arik.org

Web access logs are a funny thing, when you own your own domain. You get to look at a lot of interesting information, such as the domain names from which people visit your site, but also a little about how they get there.

I look at them from time to time, and occasionally find some odd things vaguely related to things I've written about and the articles I host here. There are lots of hits from people searching for information about Bungee Jumping. No surprise there. Or there's people looking for information about computer hackers. Again, no surprise there.

But three were very curious. They were Google search requests with the syntax "www.arik+air" and then another "arik+jobs+publish" and finally, "on+the+wings+of+arik".

Having explored the peculiar history of my first name, I figured I'd see where these searches led and plugged them into Google myself. It turns out there's a new twist: Arik Air is an airline.

Somewhere over the skies of the African nation of Nigeria, there are airplanes bearing the name Arik. According to its corporate history, it emerged in part from the liquidation of that nation's national airline. A local businessman, stepped up and purchased one of its aircraft for his personal use, and soon word spread and private citizens in the gas and oil industry were using his plane to fly around the country. It wasn't long before he bought another, and then a few more. I don't know where the idea for its name came from.

Posted 11/05/2006 02:17:00 PM

On The Wings Of.....Me?