Whole Foods London

A Sierra Nevada sixer for only $27!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Health & Safety

If you think America overdoes it, check out these fun tidbits from life in London:

1. There's a fire alarm test at work every week. Ours is Fridays at 3pm. You don't have to evacuate, just endure the screech for five minutes. Always a good time. Hopefully an actual fire doesn't strike at the same time.
2. Every single thing that plugs into a power socket has to be tested (earthing and insulation) every two years (for office equipment). They then slap a large sticker on it with the test date. It's almost comical how many of these stickers (10) I can see from where I'm sitting right now.

P.S. It's raining again. Long live the queen!

Bud

One 330 mL bottle of Bud on Friday night: $8.10. I think the only solution is for me to stop drinking....

Threats

I'd heard about the TV license before-- it's a funny little quirk of the UK that we Americans, with our God-given right to a TV, SUV, cell phone, and gun, find amusing. Of course, since I don't have a TV yet, I hadn't really done that much research on it. Last week, we got this letter in the mail (my favorite part is in the red box):


In case it's illegible, the boxed part reads:

What if you do not use TV equipment at his address? Please call us on 0870 241 8209 and let us know. We will arrange a visit to confirm the situation (emphasis mine), following which we will update our records.

What will the procedure be if you do not respond by the above date? Your details will be prepared for transfer to our Enforcement Division for investigation. Regional Officers will be scheduled to visit your address. If they find evidence that TV receiving equipment is being used on the property without a valid license, you may be cautioned and your statement will be taken in accordance with the Police & Criminal Evidence Act 1984, or Scottish criminal law. You may face prosecution and risk the maximum penalty of a £1,000 fine.

Now, once I get a TV, I'm planning to buy the license, but why not just call a spade a spade? If they're sending out threatening letters (even if it is in their adorable, proper English manner) and putting the burden of proof on every person to prove he doesn't have a TV, is it really a license any more? It sure sounds like a tax to me.

By the way, yes, the license is £135.50, or about US$ 271. So $23/month for the pleasure of the BBC. Yay! Anyone want to come over for the big cricket/snooker/soccer match?

BT Rant

British Telecom customer service sucks. Not as individuals-- everyone seemed very nice and competent (especially the credit guy). But, there's no reason for this to happen when doing something as simple as setting up a phone line:

That's right, a mere 3h45m after placing my call to BT, I was able to absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it, maybe have a phone line set up in the morning. And, if that didn't work out, an engineer could come around in 11 days to have a look.

Why the maybe? Well, since they don't actually store official Royal Mail addresses in their system, they couldn't confirm that I had a BT line already installed. This, despite my assurances that I had a phone at home plugged into a phone box which has "BT" stamped on it, and the phone was getting a dial tone.

So, the rep said she'd put in an order to have what she thought might be the right address' line activated. And, just in case it didn't work when I tried it, she'd schedule an engineer to come around to have a look. The next available appointment was in eleven days. Just for fun, you can't even start a broadband order until the phone line is installed.

That hour-long second call? Most of it was on hold too. I had to speak to a total of four reps to get my line maybe connected:

1. Initial screener: Asked why I was calling. Good thing I navigated through that phone menu during the first call. ("Why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you'd like to see?") He transferred me to sales. Or, I should say he transfered me to the sales queue.
   
2. Sales: Hm, I can't find any record of your order. Ooooooh, you placed it online? Well that's different. Here it is! There seems to be a problem with your credit check. Let me just transfer you over to them to sort it. Of course, this means the credit queue.
3. Credit: Hm, it looks like the credit check was done partly wrong. I'll just redo it. Ah, good. You're approved! (We just need £25 to get things going.) I'll transfer you back over to sales. (No surprise, the sales queue again).
4. Sales: What address? I don't have that in our system. (10ish minutes of wrangling and I'm all set with my maybe-connection).
   

One last fun fact about the BT queue: I'm pretty sure there's just one song. I'm only pretty sure because the song would play for a few minutes before being interrupted by a ringing sound (yes!) followed by a recording stating that they were "sorry for the delay but they are very busy at the moment." (dang!) Then, right back to the beginning of the song. For AN HOUR.

Not good times. Here's hoping I have a phone line when I get home tonight.

Update (Sun 6pm): No phone :( Guess I'll start the 11-day clock.

Update 2 (11 days later): Sure enough, the engineer came, saw my BT boxes, hooked up a line finder, disappeared up the street for five minutes (I assume to connect my pair up at the remote terminal), and my line was installed.

Update 3 (a few weeks later): My first BT bill arrived with a £150 installation charge. Unbelievable. So it was back to the phone queues again to have it removed. It wasn't that hard, but once again I'm forced to deal with something that should never have happened.

You have new Picture Mail!

You have new Picture Mail!
Originally uploaded by KwajKid.

At a Santa Clara Jiffy Lube....

Sad Car :(

My poor little Acura got smooshed into his Passat neighbor when someone headed up Jones accidentally rolled backwards into the right, rear bumper of my parked car. There was a note, so hopefully this will all get sorted out.

The Irish Bank

My first night experimenting with low-light photography. This was my favorite of the batch. More available in my Chinatown set. BTW, if you're a friend and not on my Flickr friends list, you're missing out on over 1,300 photos that are kept private. Sign up, add me, and see the rest!

Katrina Day 1

After my short night, I was really dragging Tuesday morning but excited to find out more about the mission. I had a 15 minute drive down to the main Red Cross warehouse to meet the rest of the Intel team. Of course, thanks to the Austin freeway system, it took about 30.

I signed in with the front desk, had my photo taken for an official Red Cross badge (more on that later), and did intros with the other Intel volunteers. Sites represented included Santa Clara and Folsom (CA), Raleigh (NC), Hillsboro (OR), Chandler (AZ), and Rio Rancho (NM). In general, they were all technical staffers, but I was surprised to learn that some were from the sales force. I wasn't, however, surprised to learn that I was the only finance person. In general, I tried to mumble that part of the intro. "Hi, I'm Matt from mobile chipset *cough*finance*cough* in Santa Clara." Gotta keep my rep, bro. I never did a count, but there were probably about ten Intel volunteers on site. There are others already out "in the field."


After a brief overview from the Intel lead (the Red Cross overview was delayed to tomorrow to wait for a few stragglers arriving tonight), we got a tour of the facility and a highlight of its mission. Then, it was time to get to work. The first job on our to-do list was to unpack, inventory, and load the Red Cross software image onto the thousands of laptops donated by Intel and Dell (although we only worked on Dells today). The unpacking process was very manual labor intensive, but it had to be done. Then, we connected them, 112 at a time, to a private LAN and used Ghost to multicast an image. Then, they were off to get packed for delivery to the hundreds of individual field sites. These PCs primarily get used by the Red Cross for their administrative functions and for evacuee communications (personal email, etc).


A pretty uneventful day, but we did get 700+ PCs ready to go for shipment tomorrow. We have a few hundred more to get through in the morning, and then it'll be time for the next line on the list. As a mere worker bee, I have no clue what that will be, but the Intel lead did say that we would likely eventually be scattering the team out into "the field" to assist with PC and network setup. Sounds like that might happen towards the end of the week.

So far, a pretty dry account of the trip. I'll try to get into some more commentary in my next update, but my lack of sleep last night is really catching up on me....

Katrina Day 0

In the weeks before I left, it seemed like this trip was coming together in slow motion. I exchanged email after email with the organizers before my participation was settled. Just as the trip loomed, we were all put on hold as Rita threatened Texas. After her unexpected turn to the east, we got the request on Saturday to attempt a Sunday/Monday departure. I had a few loose ends to tie up on Monday morning, so I scheduled my flight for Monday afternoon.

Flying through Phoenix, I didn't get to Austin until around 10:30pm. After picking up my car (a 4x4 SUV, a first for a rental for me), I spent about 45 minutes making the 20 minute drive to the hotel. I've lived in California for three years now, and driven in many other huge cities in the US: New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco. But, Austin takes the cake for the most confusing, bizarre highway system I've ever seen. It seems like every trip involves a few U-turns... BY DESIGN! I'm not kidding-- I really can't explain how bizarre it is. It looks like it works pretty well once you know what you're doing, but it's a nightmare for visitors.

In any case, I was settled into the hotel room by 11:30 or so. They had booked us into Embassy Suites. The setup is great-- bedroom + living room/kitchenette. Not really sure how many days I'll be here in Austin (vs. other sites), but it will be easy to do it in such a spacious suite.

Huge mistake of the night: turning on the TV "just for a minute" while I was sorting out my luggage. The Tennessee/LSU game was being rerun on ESPN-- I missed it while I was flying to TX. Long story short, it was 3am before I finally turned off the light. The 7am wakeup really hurt....

Stop Snail Spam!

Tired of all of the credit card applications you get? Opt out! I did this a year or so ago, and my junk mail volume significantly dropped. Valerie still gets a ton, and an article on MSNBC this morning reminded me that I should get her to do it too (as much as I love all of the shredding-- it's very cathartic).

There are two steps:

• Credit Cards: Go to optoutpresceen.com and fill out the online form. You can choose either a 5-year or permanent term. Alternatively, there is a phone number. It all seemed a little shady at the time since they ask for a lot of personal information to verify your identity, but it's legit.


• Direct Marketing Association: Go to their Consumer Assistance page. Several different interesting links from there, but the first one will get you off the mailing list they sell.

It takes a few months to get your request propagated out, but it really works. The difference in junk mail is astonishing.

Boing Boing Aftermath

Is it wrong to still be a little giddy about getting a submission on Boing Boing? I don't think so. I've gotten nothing but rejection from Slashdot, so I'll take my wins where I can.

As I write this, I'm still clinging to the front page, but one more post and I hit the archive. Surprisingly, there was a nonzero amount of traffic directed to my blog from Boing Boing. They get a TON of traffic, and they linked to my blog in my submission. Although I admit I don't think I've ever clicked through to a submitter's site, there are a fraction that apparently do.

Also interesting was the OS and browser anaysis from the traffic spike.

Back to obscurity....

Kwajalein

I guess it's time I explained what "Kwaj" means.

I had a pretty unique childhood. My parents are high school teachers. Pretty regular, right? Except they work for the Department of Defense, teaching on American military bases (they're civilians).

My dad is from upstate New York (Elmira). My mom is from Indianapolis. In 1970, they decided that they wanted to see the world and signed up to teach for the DoDDS system (now DoDEA). As luck would have it, they were both assigned to teach at Camp Zama, Japan. Long story short, my father met and courted my mother, and they were married in 1971.

In 1973, they took a new assignment at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. One thing led to another, and I was born in August 1974.


Fast forward to 1981. Ferdinand Marcos is the President of the Philippines, but all is not well. We lived in a village called Carmenville, right at the edge of a large sugar cane field (the coolest snack ever when you're a kid, BTW). Not infrequently, we would hear gunfire from the anti-Marcos rebels. A year earlier, close family friends had moved to the Marshall Islands. Fearing a destabilized government, my parents left the DoDDS system and moved to Kwajalein Island (map) in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. I was 7.

Kwajalein is located an equidistant 2,200 miles from Honolulu, Hawaii, Tokyo, Japan, and Sydney, Australia. If you clicked on the map link, you'll see that it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere. That's not to say that it wasn't an awesome place; I'm just pointing out that it's a six hour plane flight beyond Hawaii.

At the time, the Marshall Islands were a U.S. protectorate. They emerged from this status in 1986. Kwajalein Island is the largest land mass in Kwajalein Atoll, the largest atoll in the world, although there is some dispute in Wiki on this distinction. This "largest" island is three miles long and about 1/2-mile wide, netting a total land area of about one square mile. Yes, the runway kind of dominates the island.


I stayed on Kwaj (as the locals call it) until I graduated from high school (in a class of 26). My parents were there until 1997, when they moved to teach in Germany (at a DoDDS school).

What the heck do you do on a tiny island? For us kids, pretty much what you'd do in any other small town: ride our bikes, play soccer, go to the pool (or the beach), wish we were in a cooler city.... One of the best things I ended up doing was to get SCUBA certified when I was 12. I remember it being a really big deal that I was so young-- the instructor almost didn't take me. When I left Kwaj, I had in excess of 800 dives under my belt, everything from the 100+ WWI and WWII wrecks (ships, subs, and planes) to coralhead/reef/wall dives to fish/shell hunting dives. I've gone on a few dives since in Florida and Mexico, but it's not really worth the effort-- nothing compares to Kwajalein.

So there you have it: I'm a Kwaj Kid.

Over-the-top Police Blotter Write-Ups

I had a doctor appointment today, so I worked from home. From Noon to 5pm, some jackass' car alarm was going off every thirty minutes for at least five minutes each time. Thank god I finally figured out the key code to get the conference bridge to mute my phone. Nasty-windshield-note to follow....

But, while I was researching on the DPT web site to see if I could get him ticketed or towed (I cooled off and never called), I stumbled on to a hilarious section of the SFPD web site. They have a Community Newsletter page with the weekly police blotter and other info. I seriously think that one of them is an aspiring writer who's biding his time until he makes it big. Check out this blotter entry from Monday, May 16, 8:55am:

He had not run for very long before he realized the two cops were only pacing him. They could see something he could not. With each frantic step a sense of dread nagged at him. The more calm and calculating they were, the further behind he left his common sense, and his panic ratcheted up. As he ran, the black and white radio car glided silently along behind like a predatory whale.

Brilliant.

UPDATE: Wow! I submitted this to one of my favorite blogs, Boing Boing, and they published it! Thanks, Mark!