Saturday, December 30, 2006

For the love of1 (&$*(@)#*@

Right, I've really had it now. Lost temper, tantrum time... I got back to the states to find my dad had forgotten the golden rule with my beloved Porsche 911... always start it and run it once a week... Unfortunately, he forgot, and then didnt use the key in the ignition, so not only did the car commit suicide but the battery is completely dead.

This now appears to be a common problem with 911's from around my year (1998), put simply, I just need to charge the battery. But the boot and bonnet release are both electronic. Meaning I cant actually get to the battery to change it.. Numerous suggestions and routes have been, and are being explored. First up was a jump start device that works between the cigar lighters of two cars.. idea being is to supply enough charge to the batter from a donor car to allow my car to start... that didnt work. Second route is currently in progress, which involved handing over a moderate sum of cash to Porsche in exchange for a trickle charger/charger which plugs into the cigar lighter, and other end into the mains socket. Slowly it's supposed to feed power to the battery.. it's showing that the charger unit is on, but not showing any current going to the battery. Porsche said to give it an hour, so fingers crossed!


If this doesn't work, the third route is to dismantle the bonnet release lever mechanism.. which will require the purchasing of Allen keys and lord knows what else just to be able to undo the whole thing.


All this just to charge a battery!?!??! Sheeeeeesh...


Thursday, December 28, 2006

An absence of humanity..

This is probably going to end up on my other work in progress travel blog when I finally get a name for it.. but here's another joy of being overseas and trying to make simple things work.


Despite having used my mobile several times this morning, about 2 hours ago it completely died on me, and refused to believe that any cellphone networks existed in the UK. So, after much resetting, swapping of SIM cards and confirming that everything's okay with the phone and it's just the SIM that's messed up, I caved and called T-Mobile USA customer service...


First of all I get a stupid automated voice system, that doesnt understand any variation of "my phone is f*cked". The conversation went much like this:


T-Mobile woman: "Tell me what service you'd like?"

Me: "My cell phone wont connect to a network"

T-Mobile woman: "I'm sorry, I didnt understand that, tell me what service you'd like?"

Me: "Network problems"

T-Mobile: "I'm sorry I cant give out billing details through this system, is there another service you'd like?"

Me: (sigh) "My cell phone wont connect"

T-Mobile: "I'm sorry, I'm having trouble understanding you, please tell me what service you'd like, for example, how many minutes do I have left"

Me: (sobbing) "there's no network... please help..."

T-Mobile: "I'm sorry I'm having so much trouble understanding you, let me pass you onto an operator"

Me: (still sobbing)


Eventually an operator comes on, I give her my account details, and she goes through the system.. then says "what can I help you with today". I explain im in the UK and roaming, that I cant connect to a network, I explain that I've tried manually selecting a network, swapping the sim with a different phone and so far nothing's worked. So, for the sake of process she asks me to just try a manual network selection again, at which point I pick up my phone to find out whilst I've been screaming at a voicemail system it's fixed itself, and is happily telling me it has 4 bars of service on the O2 network, and that I have voicemail. B*stards.


I'm convinced there's some guy in bangladesh or some obscure country laughing his arse off over the whole thing. Just like all those times I've been asking for phone numbers from automated systems where "PC Warehouse" sounds like "George's El-Paco farm". Bah.


It's not just the customer service angle either, even in my own company I'm not free of it.. yesterday I wanted to connect to the internal wireless network but I'd lost the document with the config in.. so I called the helpdesk, sure enough I get some woman in Budapest with an accent thick as syrup, that takes a staggering 5 times to get my last name spelled correctly. Then she ignores what my problem is, logs a call and insists that somebody at the local Milton Keynes office physically comes to look at my PC and configure it for me.. ignoring me sobbing quietly in the back ground saying "I just want you to email me the document... please?!". Thing is, I know for a fact that as soon as she escalated it to a desk visit, rather than listening to what the problem was, that cost us almost $350 as a company, whereas some kind of knowledge base and a new email from her with the attached document would have eliminated most of that expense.


So I'm wondering now.. with all this overseas helpdesk activity, and offshoring, nearshoring and rightshoring, whatever you want to call it, has it actually resulted in a genuine cost saving, because I seem to now have to spend 3 times as much time with the helpdesk than usual!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Just dont ask okay....

To far flung friends, please resist the urge to ask if I had a good christmas, or indeed a happy new year (which is a few days away still). I'm having issues, or rather my company did. Due to not filing a tax return for me in the USA there have been worries about successful completion of the immigration process on the visa side.. so despite nothing having gone wrong, the lawyers have decided to do the best thing which is to avoid the "yet" part involved in nothing having gone wrong.. so, I'm back in the UK.

For at least six weeks.

Oh happy happy me... having missed christmas with friends and loved ones, the only consolation I have is that it's been nice seeing dad again, and at least it gives me a chance to sort things out packing and storage wise. I guess we'll find out what happens next.

Anyway, I'm extremely upset, fed up, and not exactly full of Christmas cheer.. especially as my Porsche battery is flat and the thing commits suicide as soon as it's been left alone for more than 7 days.. so I have to speak to a nice man my dad knows about getting the battery hooked up.

Biggest issue with things right now is that there's no instant hot water, instant heat or any network connection at my dads. So I'm missing shower, warmth and general connectivity to loved ones and far flung friends.

All is not well in Leeland.. evil storms loom.

Thursday, December 7, 2006

Uneventful Events

I've spent most of this week at an event in downtown Seattle which has been utterly pointless.. three days of Sales and Marketing for no reason because it's either recycled content or could have been delivered via a webcast or even just a simple recorded livemeeting.

On the plus side I've had the opportunity to catch up with work colleagues from elsewhere in the world, our Security expert was in town from the Netherlands.. terribly clever chap, spent most of the time explaining Morphic Resonance to our bewildered looking marketing VP who'd travelled all the way up here from Texas. Sometimes these events can be an opportunity to meet new people and make new friends in the industry.. this time I've made a new friend in the form of Tania, who's all the way from Aussie land but works for one of our competitors, but we wont hold that against her!

In other news of what's been going on with me this week, im irritated because my dad still hasnt bothered to get his passport sorted, and he's supposed to be coming over here for Crimble! I'm annoyed because the company forgot to pay my cost of living allowance towards my rent for December, so that made things VERY expensive this month.. not good with it being the season to be jolly and all..

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Abandonsleep..

Surprise surprise it's still raining. Can't complain too much, it's Seattle and you have to expect this. Still, this morning was nice, am loving new apartment because I woke up to a glorious vista of snow covered mountains and shiny skyscrapers, but then the drizzle arrived.


Now I need coffee, and probably more sleep. The darker geek in me discovered DosBox, which lead to a few experiments. Either I'm having an early midlife crisis, or my life is so dull I need to reclaim my youth, but for the past month or so I've been fiddling with Amiga emulators. In particular WinUAE, now I'd probably get this to work given effort but I'm running a beta of Windows Vista and the whole thing refuses to work. But yesterday I stumbled across Abandonia, this website was fan-flipping-tastic. After directing me to the previously mentioned DosBox to emulate ye olde DOS 6.x, I moved onto exploring their games lists, these are ancient games which have slipped beyond budget and into the ether of "abandonware", which basically means nobody can be bothered with them anymore. Some still require purchase, or simply arent available for various reasons, others are in the process of stunning remakes, like Cinemaware's "It Came From The Desert". Unfortunately my whole evening was taken over by Populous and Mega-lo-mania, two of my favourite games ever. God knows what will happen if I get Settlers 2 working (it works but it's too slow to be playable).


Obviously whenever you go back to a childhood dream at a sensible age there's always that risk that it wont be as good as you remember it will.. not the case this time.


Put it this way, I have a boxed Amiga 1200 sitting at my dad's house in the UK. It's now going to be on the shipping list for relocation... :)


Anybody who used to have an Amiga, or simply craves the older games which were actually more fun.. you'll find an abundance of point and click adventures, strategy games, and puzzle style things over at abandonia. Go... you owe it to your inner geek.. or something.


Now I need szzzbctts..

Saturday, November 25, 2006

My company hates me...


And if they could get away with it, my life would be a considerably more uncomfortable.


I left home on monday, planning plenty of extra time like the news said because of the thanksgiving holiday. There was me, paranoid and concerned about the hordes of fed up looking couples, wailling babies and unruly ankle-biters all milling around, I had visions of lines of people stretching from security into the drop off zone, being swatted by taxi's like.. umm... things that get swatted.. flies, that'll do. But, typical luck on my part.. the airport was deserted. Dodging the tumbleweed, I cleared security, and wandered straight to the gate. There's one thing about Seattle-Tacoma's internation "S" terminal.. and that's that it has only 2 shops. A newsagent, and a gift shop. Neither of which is interesting. I'd already stocked up on magazines and things. Which meant 3 hours of staring at my coffee. Fun. Not.


Eventually boarding time arrived, and I assumed the foetal position for the compulsory 9 hours to London Heathrow. Uneventful flight, save for a huge crowd of incredibly noisy french students which prevented me from sleeping. Just the thing to keep me in a good mood.


Got to London, useless BMI have delayed my flight, so took me almost 5 hours to get into Amsterdam. Bleurgh.


Worst to come, after finally escaping Amsterdam airport (which for anyone who's been there should know it's f*cking HUGE), got into a taxi and then headed to the hotel. Due to an accident on the motorway, this took over an hour.


2 days of meetings later, and im leaving.. Friday morning get to the airport nice and early, only to find none of the wirless providers there actually have service.. so I'm stuck staring at coffee again. Now for things to improve slightly.. upgrade on BA! 39K crossed out and 18D written back in.. result! Business class is oooh so comfortable. No babies, no students, no loud french types, just my noise cancelling headphones, good wine, and a few films. Incidentally dont bother with "my super ex girlfriend"... it's more pleasant just chewing on your own hand for a couple of hours.. and more rewarding.


Things took a bit of a nose dive on return to seattle though. US immigration is dreadfully intimidating at the best of times, this is by far the most paranoid nation on earth. Homeland security likely do a cracking job of keeping terrorists out of the country, but unfortunately they probably scare plenty of innocent business travellers in the process. Usually it's a very straightforward effort to get through them, fill in the green I-94, then the white customs form, stamp stamp, and off I go. This time the rather official with the "god help me I want to go home" expression, just tells me to do my fingerprints, then sticks this HUGE red card in my passport and tells me to follow the green line to somebody else. Unfortunately following the green line was a bit like walking the green mile.. they send you passed all the US citizens so all these people get to stare at you, with your massive red card, like you're some kind of lepper. Or in the case of these folks, like you're a terrorist. Turns out I've been flagged for not having a return flight, easily the behaviour of an international terrorist.. so, a fair amount of time passes with rigorous interviews on what I do, who I do it for, and why I do it (god knows I ask myself everyday).


Eventually escaped and made it to car rental.. where I get Clarence the trainee for National, who's on his own, and needs the lady from Alamo to show him how to rent me a car. Another hour later, and I have a Jeep "It's using all the gas but I dont seem to be going any faster".


Finally... after the whole sorry ordeal, I'm back safely in Bellevue.


One word for the whole week.


Bleurgh.