by ezs | Dec 14, 2005 | travel, Uncategorized
Another day in Europe. Today Hamburg, Germany.
Every time I have visited customers in Hamburg it has rained. Drizzle or heavy rain – it always seems to be raining in Hamburg. When I was last visiting customers a Novell account manager told me that was why people from Hamburg had an affinity for English people – they are all used to the rain!
The highlight of the day was visiting Airbus – and seeing the Airbus 380 fabrication building. The scale of infrastructure that has been put in place to build this plane is incredible. There are no superlatives left. Wings are assembled in the UK, fuselage in France, the whole thing is assembled in Hamburg. Seeing the A380 up close was humbling.
Travel back from Airbus is always fun – taking the ferry from the customer site, across the Elbe and then on to the airport by taxi.
by ezs | Dec 13, 2005 | travel, Uncategorized
Today I was in Paris.
I travelled on Eurostar – leaving from London Waterloo to Paris Gare du Nord.
I arrived – and there were no taxis available – and a queue of several hundred people waiting. I resorted to diving into the Metro to travel across to the Novell office in the west of the city – near La Defense.
Turned out there was a strike on the RER – and some RER commuter trains were not running through Paris.
One benefit of taking the Metro is to ogle the timeless 1950’s design of some of the metro stations; Franklin D Roosevelt is one of my favourites – orange, silver and harsh lines; with delightful, gallic station names.
A good set of meetings with customers and partners – this is the first time back in Paris for a few years.
At the end of the day out to Paris Airport Charles de Gaulle – again major delays because ofthe SNCF strike – I have never seen people so crammed into a train.
by ezs | Dec 12, 2005 | evilzenscientist, fun stuff, travel, Uncategorized
Getting a taxi can be hit and miss anywhere across the globe. Too many times I have been let down by missing cars, breakdowns, rude and sometimes downright dangerous driving.
I needed to get a cab this morning at the ungodly hour of 0430. That’s way too early for me.
I booked a cab through the recommended services of Addison Lee – a London cab firm. They have great customer service. While on the phone booking the pickup I was told exactly how much the fare would be – no surprises at set down. That was my first pleasant surprise.
15 minutes before pickup I received an SMS to my phone saying that the driver was on his way; a description and license plate of the vehicle and the cell phone number for the driver. I got a second SMS minutes later saying that the driver was waiting outside to collect me. He wasn’t – just a few houses along; I called him and got picked up.
All cabs seem to be fitted with smart GPS and directions; much like the (much lamented) Hertz Neverlost. Part of me thinks this is a great idea (no more roundabout journeys), the other part laments the loss of ‘The Knowledge’ that is still required for all black cab drivers. I can see times when human knowledge of side routes and less busy roads beats the GPS hands down.
All in all I was really impressed by the service from Addison Lee – if you are in London and need to pre-book – try them out.
by ezs | Nov 10, 2005 | evilzenscientist, travel, Uncategorized
I saw this on the BBC News – a new variant of the Boeing 777 flew non-stop from Hong Kong to London. 23 hours in the air.
Urg. Imagine the tedium and discomfort of such a long flight. Even in business or first class I imagine it would be difficult to find something ‘new’ after 8-10 hours.
by ezs | Nov 3, 2005 | evilzenscientist, fun stuff, travel, Uncategorized
McCarran Airport in Las Vegas has fast free wifi.
The JW Marriott Resort in Las Vegas has a voucher-based wifi implementation – but it only blocks ports 8 (http/https) – not anything else. So if you don’t mind not having web browsing you can – hypothetically – do email (GW, POP, IMAP, SMTP), other stuff (SSH, RDP) and also things like IM. Oh well.
by ezs | Oct 3, 2005 | evilzenscientist, travel, Uncategorized
Every time I travel to Cambridge I have cell phone problems. Five bars of signal; can’t get through.
Tonight was no exception. Full signal, dial, wait, nothing. Dead air. Dial again, nothing. Again, “You could not be connected”. Again, and again.
Turned out that each time Granias phone was ringing, showing my number and the line was dead. Go figure.
Even Mayor Menino thinks it sucks.
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