Back at work today. I left nice and early to give myself plenty of time to get here. Lots of catching up to do. Home again tonight though, and working from home tomorrow — back into the normal weekly routine.
Bubby had her second school assembly today. Photos on flickr.
The battery in the Falcon finally died. Lisa hasn’t used it for a week or so, and this morning it was totally dead. It’s only 5 and a half years old. 
$100 later it’s all good.
I woke up at 2:30am this morning and struggled to get back to sleep. It’s just after 4:30am right now, and I’m wide awake. I haven’t quite got back into the Australian timezone, but I’ve only been back 18 hours, so no surprise there. I guess it will take a day or three to really sync back to local hours. I’m going to stay home today to hopefully shake out the last of the jet lag, then go back to work tomorrow.
Without any doubt at all, the 48 hours I spent in England visiting family is top of the highlight list. It was great seeing Grandma for the first time in a lot of years and meeting cousins I’ve never met before. We had a whirlwind trip around London and then a much more leisurely visit to Lincoln; both days were excellent. Grandma kept asking if I was bored. Not even close; I could have stayed for weeks just looking and listening and absorbing the sights and sounds of an England and family I left 34 years ago.
It’s hard to decide whether San Francisco or Munich is second on the highlight list. They were both good for different reasons. I’d have to say Munich is slightly in front because even though I can’t speak any German I found it such an easy city to understand. As an urban centre to live and work in it just made so much sense. San Francisco was ok too, but I didn’t see that much of it aside from the photowalk, so I didn’t spend enough time there to get a handle on it. It’s without doubt a beautiful city though, and more time to wander around would have been good.
Those personal things aside, this was obviously a work trip, and a lot of work was done while we were there. I haven’t blogged about it much because it’s all pretty mundane and somewhat confidential. Besides, the details of internal company discussions around product architecture, packaging and deployment strategies, billing system logic etc don’t make for particularly exciting reading.
The whole schedule was definitely very rushed. Four major stops (Munich, London, San Francisco and New Providence) in 14 days. Lisa’s Mum asked how many flights I went on, and I had to think. I said 10, but the answer is actually 11: MEL-SIN, SIN-LHR, LHR-MUC, MUC-LHR, LHR-SFO, SFO-LAX, LAX-ORD, ORD-EWR, EWR-DFW, DFW-LAX, LAX-MEL.
Airlines? Qantas was great. Three flights (MEL-SIN, SIN-LHR and LAX-MEL) and all were good. American airlines was ok, but their MD Super-80 planes aren’t all that super. British Airways was crap. I flew them LHR-MUC, MUC-LHR and LHR-SFO. Totally, totally forgettable. On the LHR-SFO flight I felt like death warmed up for the whole trip, but even so their business class seating and inflight entertainment was pretty poor compared to Qantas. LHR-MUC and MUC-LHR were terrible flights; really, really crappy. Horrid little Airbus A310 planes and meals that bordered on inedible.
One thing that really did surprise me was how easy it was to move around America. I’d heard (and read) a few TSA related horror stories about how difficult it can be to travel, but I have to say that it was actually very, very easy. A complete non-event. Do exactly what they ask you to do at each security checkpoint (shoes off, laptop scanned separately, etc) and everything is good. No trouble at all. Totally polite and helpful every time. There were a few times you could see they were getting annoyed with other people, but it only ever happened at very busy checkpoints (I’m looking at you, LAX) and people just weren’t preparing properly to go through the checkpoints. I never had a problem.
Border crossings in general were pretty easy. The most trouble I had was in and out of Australia, and that’s because I made that crossing as an Australian citizen with an EU passport rather than an Australian passport. Once I explained why I had no passport there was no problem. The longest it took was at LAX where I had no Australian passport and importantly, no reentry visa. For a moment there was some doubt about whether I’d actually get on board the flight!
Speaking of LAX, that is one crazy airport. The shuttle bus from the DFW arrival terminal to the MEL departure terminal was a very entertaining trip. The driver was a real character; the way he managed to get a full size passenger bus around the terminal ring road while half joking and half yelling at passengers was interesting to say the least. I think 50% of the time was spent with the horn on. Then again, that ring road is a 4 lane highway that’s carrying 6 lanes of cars moving at 5 km/hr without any rules at all. LAX at 9pm Friday night. Gotta love it. Absolute mayhem. The driverless monorail terminal shuttle at DFW was much better but almost boring in comparison.
I didn’t have a huge amount of downtime, but any I did have was spent with the camera. I somehow manage to come home with 1344 shots, 505 of which I took on the SF photowalk. I spent a bit of time yesterday trawling through those looking for anything worth posting that isn’t already online. Expect a few more shots to dribble up to flickr and/or smugmug over the next week or two.
It was a good trip, no doubt, and it was great to meet a bunch of family and spend time working with overseas colleagues who have only ever been voices on the other end of the phone.
It’s even nicer being home though. The smell of the bush when I got out of the car at home yesterday was lovely, and lying on the couch cuddling Adelaide was more luxurious than anywhere I could have gone overseas.
Flew into Tullamarine just before 10am. Landed safely. Home now. More later once I’ve caught up on family and a bit of sleep.
I went out for a wander around New Providence this morning. A very quiet town. Nobody seems to be in a big rush to do anything. Took a few photos (here too).
I’ll head off to work soon, then back to the hotel for a midday checkout and the start of my trip home.
I left San Francisco at 9pm last night when I got on a flight to Los Angeles. Then a connecting flight to Chicago. Then a connecting flight to Newark, New Jersey. Right now I’m sitting in a hotel room in New Providence, NJ.
Last leg of the trip.
The mushy remains of recent snow are draped over the countryside but it’s actually quite mild outside. Nice, even. Except that it did bucket down cold, cold rain at lunchtime when a colleague and I went to the fake 50′s American diner for lunch. Pink neon, laminex tables with the ribbed aluminium trim, the whole bit. Much better food than they served in the 50s, I suspect. Warm chicken salad with Jalapenos and a small serve of onion rings. Very, very glad I didn’t go for a medium or large serve.
Yesterday afternoon in San Francisco was a huge trip highlight because I got to go photowalking with Thomas Hawk.
I hadn’t even considered contacting Thomas or the Scobleizer because I didn’t think I’d have any time to spare to see either of them, as much as I would have liked to butt in and say hello.
Lisa, however, had no such reservations. Behind my back she fired off a few emails and got into a brief chat about the next scheduled photowalk. Turned out it was at 2pm on the day I was leaving.
I had a flight out of San Francisco into LAX then on to Newark at midday; Lisa told me to change it (told, not asked!) so I could go on this walk. With help from our local travel assistant this was all done, so I got to go spend 4 hours being guided all around Chinatown and North Beach by Thomas and dozen other walkers. Good stuff. Photos on flickr, of course.
I won’t go into the slightly dodgy way we got 20-something floors up a fire escape to lean over the balcony and take shots of the Coit Tower and the San Francisco skyline. I’m not sure it was illegal, but I suspect that if we’d asked the establishment in question whether a dozen people could crowd into their fire escape to take photos they probably would have said no.
Oh, I’ve also created a smugmug account and put these photos up there as a gallery. Check it out. I’ve looked at smugmug before, but given that Don from smugmug was one of the people who was so nice to Lisa helping get this opportunity hooked up I figured I’d take another look. Besides; three of the smugmug team were shooting with us yesterday, and they seem to be a pretty decent bunch. Hearing them talk about the passion they all have for photography and some of the plans they have for the site was pretty exciting.
Also — check out Matt Roe’s shots. He’s only 15, and he wagged school for the day to come along for the walk. This kid has some talent.
The change in flights was why I ended up going through Chicago. Instead of getting into Newark at midnight I elected to get the redeye special in the hope that I’d be able to sleep on the plane trip. Fortunately I was; I got 90 minutes on one flight and 120 on another. I’m not quite sure what day it is, but I’m in Newark so it must be Thursday. Time for bed soon. Very soon.
PS: If you were wondering, yes, I have been working.
Interesting video with a bit of buzz around it.
Short post. Need to get to bed. Took some photos early this morning; they’re up on flickr.
Ok, there’s a bunch of London photos up on flickr. Plus, I’m safe and sound in San Francisco. Not sure that I like the city all that much. Full of beggars and posers.
Who said what?