Monthly Archives: March 2009

The Trip From Hell

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Well the first problem is where do I start, and where do I end.  Indeed when do I end, since this trip from hell is far from over yet.   It’s just a whole comedy of errors and things going wrong, that will hopefully have you feeling along with me, having been in a similar situation yourself.  Hopefully laughing at the situation, maybe suffering from back ache in sympathy…

Ok, first some background I suppose for those of you who are not familiar with the whole story…

I lost my job 6 weeks ago, so since Debbie only gets 2 weeks off work (Easter school holidays in the UK) and the flights from the UK to Florida cost hundreds of dollars more than from Florida to the UK, we decided that I would go to see her for 3 weeks instead of her coming to see me.   Yes we miss the warm Florida weather, but we will be able to spend more time together, nice as we haven’t seen each other since the beginning of January, and also we should be able to live cheaply over there.

And so I set off from home Saturday morning.  The guy I rent with dropped me at the Tri-Rail station at 10:15am, it being cheaper to take the train ($4) to the airport than to drive and park.  My flight wasn’t until 2:10pm, and the train journey is only 30 minutes, but there is free internet at Fort Lauderdale Airport, so I wasn’t bothered about the long wait.

Well the train runs every 30 minutes during the week, but only every 2 hours at the weekend, and it was heaving.  It’s only 3 carriages long, and mine had 3 bicycles, a dozen people with bags and suitcases, and it was standing room only.   2/3rds of the way we stopped twice for long periods because of signal problems, so the journey took an hour.  It was extremely warm as the air conditioning wasn’t working properly, then the shuttle bus to the airport terminal took 10 minutes to arrive.   So by the time I got to the terminal I was soaked with sweat.   The bus stopped way past the terminal, so I had to lug my bags all the way back, the ticket counter at Fort Lauderdale is on the 2nd floor but the up escalator at the near end wasn’t working, so I had to walk all the way to the other end, and by the time I got to the check in desk I was dripping.  Of course the air conditioning in the terminal wasn’t working properly either, and all the staff were complaining.  I actually soaked my handkerchief wiping my head and neck.

Well I go to check in, and find much to my horror that my suitcase is 10lbs overweight, and they want to charge me $150.   Did I tell you about the bag?  No?  Ok this is where it gets more frustrating and in a way comical…

Debbie has been visiting me every 6-7 weeks for the past 18 months, and so she has been bringing more and more summer clothing over to save having to carry it in both directions, and it’s things she wouldn’t be using in England in the winter.   Well, since she isn’t going to be coming over in the summer, I am bringing a lot of her clothes home this time.  I already have a lot of my clothes at her house, so didn’t need to pack much for myself.   TEN POUNDS OVERWEIGHT! Shall I say that being unemployed I had a mild panic attack, but then realised that my carry on bag was mostly empty, so I opened my suitcase, took out all of her shoes and a couple of mine, a book and a fleece jacket, and with a sigh of relief found that the bag now weighs 11lbs less.  PHEW! Of course now my carry on is incredibly heavy, full to bursting, I have another thick binder of papers in my laptop bag, and by the time I got my boarding pass I was not so much soaked as melting.  I have been known to be drier when I come out of the shower!   Well I get to the gate, only to find that the agent didn’t give me back the printed copy of my itinery either, but at this point I no longer need it.  I did think to myself though “I hope nobody opens my suitcase – it could be embarrassing being full of women’s clothing…”

Well now the one thing that did go right happens, I find a seat in the terminal next to a nice couple, and it’s one of the few spots in the terminal where you have access to a power socket, so I was able to plug the laptop in and also MSN worked so I could have a chat with Debbie and watch NASA TV so see the shuttle land.  The weather wasn’t good so the shuttle landed an hour late.  My plane was also delayed 35 minutes because of bad weather in Atlanta when it left, so I finally left at 3pm instead of 2:10pm, and only 70 minutes between flights.

The pilot made up much of the time, but then 20 minutes from Atlanta, we were informed that the weather was awful, so we had to go past the weather and circle for ages.  It was also the bumpiest flight I have had in my 20 years of frequent flying, with being shaken from side to side.  Finally we land, 10 minutes after my plane was due to leave, and of course it had – on time :(

I joined a lot of other people in a long queue at a Delta ticket desk, where 2 women were slowly assisting 2 people.  Then they both assisted the same person.  For about 20 minutes nothing moved, and then one of the women upped and left, leaving just one and about 20 angry people.   Finally my turn came, and this woman said I had been reconfirmed on the same flight – TOMORROW!   That meant 24 hours in the airport!   She was so unhelpful, and they wouldn’t pay for a hotel, but I did manage to get some meal vouchers and then left to head to the terminal, which of course is the complete opposite end of the airport, a long train journey.

I get to the other terminal, and there is a Delta ticket desk, and also a later flight at 10:10pm.   So I join the long queue to see if I can get a standby or if there are any other options.  Meantime it’s now 7:30pm, I landed 2 hours ago, and I have been getting nowhere.   I finally get helped, and a friendly lady gave me a standby ticket for the 10:10pm flight.  Now this was also going to London Heathrow not Gatwick, which is a lot better for Debbie to pick me up, so I was hopeful that things might get better.

At this time another guy joins me.  He was also on my flight from Fort Lauderdale, and had waited back at the first desk, where another person had turned up and he already had a standby ticket for the flight, plus she gave him a hotel voucher and meal vouchers.   I think the other one was related to Hitler in some way… she was just so unhelpful – not exactly what you want when your journey has been disrupted.

The two of us decide to stick together, and head off for a bite to eat before going to the gate to register our standby requests.  We get there at 9pm, and at that time there are not a lot of people waiting for the 10:10pm flight.  We are somewhat hopeful.   But of course time marches on, more and more people arrive, then the gate attendant announces that the cleaning crew haven’t finished cleaning the plane, so they can’t begin boarding for another 30 minutes.   Time drags on, even more people arrive, more announcements to say that the cleaning crew are not yet done.   What on earth happened in there?  Did a toilet overflow?  With all that suction I would hope not!   Did 50 people end up throwing up because of turbulence?  That would be bad, but you know, I just wanted to get on that plane – I would have handled it.  It was the last flight of the night, so my only option for not spending the night at the airport.

Well further delays, the departure time is changed to 11:40pm, more people arrive, and about 11pm they begin to board.    Things don’t look good, but there are still two people not checked in.   They arrive about 5 minutes before the doors close, but there is 1 seat available, for the guy I am with.  It’s seat 1A, First Class too!   By this time it’s 11:15pm, over an hour after the flight was due to leave, and just as the attendant is about to put the ticket in his hands, up marches the final passenger, and of course it’s her seat.   No more room, about a dozen people are turned away.   The two of use were really disheartened, since 24 hours with nothing to do but kill time is no fun, I lose a day with Debbie, and he misses a day with his daughter, who works in London.

So back to the Delta ticket counter again, another 20 minute wait.  He already has his hotel voucher, and heads off to the shuttle.   I get to the desk, to find out that the voucher is only for a discounted price, and it would still cost me $49 for a room at the cheapest hotel.  Well add onto that taxes etc, and you are talking closer to $80, so I turned that down, and resigned myself to having to spend the night in the terminal.   By this time I am feeling a bit like Tom Hanks in the movie “The Terminal”, where he ends up not being able to fly home, and immigration won’t allow him into the country, so he spends months living in the airport.

As is usual in an airport, the seats have armrests and it’s almost impossible to lie down.  I asked one of the employees where the most comfortable spot might be, and he directed me to a section of gates where there are long seats plus others without backrests.  I was able to pull these together and made a fairly comfortable bed for the night.  Well not exaclty comfortable, but as good as could be expected for the night.   It is by this time midnight… and I am knackered…

I go to settle down, and this elderly man comes up, and offers me an airline blanket.  From a first glance I thought he was asking for money, but I later realised he was just already dressed ready to spend the night there himself.   I accepted the blanket, and in the end needed it, as the terminal got extremely cold during the night.  Not only that, the volume of the televisions in the area was very loud, as were the cleaners, who kept banging vacuums and polishers into the seating.   Also any movement by anyone caused a lot of vibration, so turning over woke the other up.

Well first this man decides he wants to talk.  I find out he is Russian and was married to a Mexican woman.  His English is not so good, so we end up speaking in a common language – Spanglish!   I can’t make out all he is saying since my Spanish is a bit rusty, and he was using words I didn’t know (Mexican has a few words of their own), but finally I get to sleep for a while, but mostly it’s tossing and turning and trying to stay warm for a couple of hours.   I was rather please by now that I had taken my fleece out of my suitcase, as I needed that, and I also had a cardigan in my hand baggage that I used as a pillow.  If not for those I would have had a really bad night.

At 3am Debbie called me, so I got up and had a chat with her, washed my face, and then tried to get back to sleep.

The Russian started getting up at 4:30am.  Seems his flight was soon after 5am, and he wanted to talk more.  At 5am he disappeared, and I managed some more broken sleep until 7am, when I cleaned up a bit, went to the food court and had a bite to eat, and called Debbie.  Cleaning up was frustrating too.  Of course you can’t carry your wash bag with you these days, and I already have everything I need in England.  I was able to get a bag from Delta, which had a thin overnight t-shirt in it, a toothbrush and squeeze out toothpaste that was more like a ketchup packet, so the toothpaste would only be good for one use.  It also had a disposable razor and an other shaving gel packet, that had about 1/4 of the amount needed, would not foam up, and the razor was so bad it was trying to tear my skin off while leaving the hairs behind, so I decided to give that a miss.  Better unshaven than badly shaven and incredibly sore.   Add to this trying to do this in the washrooms.  You know the ones where the taps only work when you move your hands just right?  Well it’s really hard to do this with a toothbrush or a razor.  Just take my word for it…  But at least I brushed my teeth, and they had a deodorant in the bag too.  Not a great one, but a deodorant nevertheless.

And this is where you catch me, now coming up to 10am, 7 hours of boredom left, sitting in the food court where I get free internet.   It’s hard to type as I am shaking a bit from the tiredness,  it’s not a good day for typing!   Hopefully the flight will be smooth tonight.  I have a feeling though that finding a free seat in either Business or First Class will be impossible.  As long as I get on the plane and it arrives on time I will be happy.

Of course the plane is now going to Gatwick as per the original plan, a longer journey for Debbie to make.  It’s now going to be on a Monday morning not Sunday morning, so the traffic will be horrible, and she is supposed to be working too.   I will by this time probably not be smelling too good either.  Delta wouldn’t give anyone their bags back, so I have nothing to change into.  I also won’t have shaved for 2 days.

Updates to follow when I get back online…

And here I am, Monday evening, at Debbie’s house, finally :)

The flight Sunday night left on time thankfully, and arrived almost an hour early.   No queues to go through passport control or customs, my bag came off quickly, and I was standing outside for about 5 minutes when Debbie turned up, so she didn’t have to pay to park, which costs a small fortune at airports in the UK.

It took about 2 hours to get home, since it was Monday Morning Rush Hour, but we made it.  I had a wonderful shower, it felt good to change clothes after 2 days wearing the same things, had a bite to eat, then upstairs for a nice long nap in a real bed :)

It feels so good to be home with Debbie at last.   Thanks for all the lovely comments everyone.

And so the frustration continues

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Great.  After all the frustrations of the last few weeks… weeks?  Who am I kidding?  MONTHS… Tony is stranded at Atlanta airport due to a flight delay.

When we planned this trip, obviously cost was more of an influencing factor than usual.  So we decided on a stop over rather than a direct flight as it was so much cheaper.

First leg was Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta with a one hour ten stop over before boarding the second flight to Gatwick, UK.   Just about enough time to make the connection with a few minutes to spare.  However, the first flight was delayed by 45 minutes.  Great.  So Tony, along with another 20 or so passengers making the same journey, were boarded anyway.  They arrived at Atlanta around the same time as the Gatwick flight took off.

Now I’ve been on flights across to the UK where we’ve been boarded and then told we were waiting for other passengers from a delayed flight… and we waited and waited.  I think it was almost two hours we waited.  But Did Delta do that?  NO!!!  They boarded passengers in Fort Lauderdale fully aware that there was no way they’d make their connections.  But did Delta hold the connecting flight so the 20 or so passengers could make it?  NO!  So it took off right on time.

But wait, there’s a later flight going out of Atlanta… but it was fully booked.  The airline staff at the desk kept Tony, and others, waiting for over an hour while they sorted things out.  No hotel offered as the delay was due to the weather but they did kindly give him some food vouchers for his 24 hour stay at the airport. 

Another passenger suggested they ask to be put on standby for the later flight.  This wasn’t actually suggested by the airline.  So they found another desk, asked to be put on standby for the 10.10pm flight.  That was delayed due to the cleaning crew apparently.  A third of the passengers hadn’t turned up (probably delayed from another flight)  so things were looking hopeful.  But no, due to the delay, they arrived and were boarded.  At the last minute, someone who had put their name down before Tony, was in the process of being handed a first class ticket as there had been a no show.  Just as he was about to board, in walked a woman who was VERY late for her flight, no apology and that was the last seat taken.  So the other passenger was then given a hotel voucher for the night and off he went.

Tony then resigned himself to the fact that he was stranded for the night.  He left home at 10 am saturday morning and it was now 11pm at night and the next available flight is 5.20 pm Sunday evening.  That arrives at 7am (local time) Monday morning  in the UK.  He’ll have been travelling for 48 hours by the time he gets here.

I spoke to him this morning, which was around 3.30 am for him.  He was cold, thanks to the air con pumping out all night although he had found a nice armless bench to lay on.  The lights were all blazing away and the TV’s were all left on.  If that wasn’t enough to keep him awake, some cleaners and security officers reguarly walked past talking or laughing at the tops of their voices just to make sure no-one got any sleep.

Although he has his laptop with him, there’s no free access at the airport and currently he’s refusing to pay for it.  We’ll see how desperate he gets through the day.

So there we have it.  Another frustration to add to the long list.  Today we should have been having a relaxing day together.  Instead, Tony is exhausted and stranded and I’m sat here worrying.  It would have been a nice easy drive to collect him from the airport this morning.  Now, I’ll be driving up and back in rush hour traffic and trust me, you don’t want to be anywhere near London in Monday morning traffic.  I’ve also had to speak to my boss as I’m not going to be here for the start of my working day. 

I hope Tony does eventually get some sleep on the flight back tonight but I doubt it.  So tomorrow he’ll crash when he gets here and then it’ll take him days to get over his jet lag.  Thank goodness he’s not here just for one week.

So, would the person, persons, Gods, long gone ancestors, spirits in the sky, fate or Karma, whatever/whoever you are, please stop testing us… we want to be together, Ok?  Live with it!

A Totally Wasted Frustrating Day

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I have to admit that today started out ok, I knew I had to get certain things done today, since I am flying to England tomorrow morning, however no sooner had it started than the frustration set in, and at this point in time, almost 2pm, I haven’t really achieved a lot.

On Monday I had an interview for my Naturalization (US Citizenship), and all went ok except that I had to provide proof that I am paying child support, which I am.   I expected the form providing details to arrive after some weeks, but no, when I got home Wednesday night there was a letter, telling me what I needed.

Reading the details of the forms they sent, which were rather vague, it seemed that I needed to provide a notarized letter from my ex-wife as evidence of my payments, so we arranged to meet up this morning close to where she lives to get this done, and then I would take the forms into the Immigration Office where I had my interview.

We were due to meet between 8am and 8:30am, after she took my daughters to school, but no sooner had I started my 25 mile journey south on I-95, than the radio announced that the road was completely closed southbound due to an earlier accident.   Well there was no easy way to avoid the block, and I know from previous experiences that the radio is usually a good 30 minutes behind with the status of accidents.   I mean, just how long can they leave a major highway completely blocked?    As I got closer and sat in traffic, the radio gave out more information, advising people to use alternative routes, but I stuck to my guns and sat in traffic doing a very slow crawl.   It seems that at 5am there was a head-on fatal crash, and although it was a few minutes to 9am when I got to the point where they were directing traffic off the highway, the road was still closed.

The trip, which would normally take 30 minutes on a good day and 45 minutes on a normal rush hour one, took me close to 2 hours!   Of course my ex-wife was peeved since she had a busy day lined up, and I knew that I would have to maybe sit for hours in the Immigration Offices, before heading back down there to take my daughters out tonight.

Well we got the documents notarized, I headed back north, traffic a lot easier this time, and arrived at the Immigration Offices.   A rather rude lady insisted that the form they sent me was an interview date, not the date that I had to have the forms returned by.   The documentation was rather vague, but it said in block capitals that “the documentation must be returned by 29th May 2009 at 7:15am.  It did not say this was an interview date, it said disctinctly to return BY THIS DATE!   So having got nowhere with the rude lady, I headed home, where I grabbed some oatmeal and a banana, it now being after 11am and I hadn’t had a bite to eat yet.

It was after 11am by the time I got home, and by the time I had eaten, changed the bed ready for when I come home from England in 3 weeks time, put some laundry on, and then Debbie came home from work.   I explained the situation with the papers to her,  and she suggested writing a letter and sending it off.  “Great idea” I thought, so I composed a letter explaining how vague the instructions were, enclosed the documents, put it in the mail, and at the same time turned on the sauna in the small fitness room on the 1st floor of the condo building.   I then did a bit of work online, watched some fo the American Idol show I taped earlier in the week, and went to take my sauna.

“Oh great!”  I get down to the sauna to find that someone has gone in and turned it off, it’s only lukewarm in there.  It needs a good 45 minutes to warm up, so I headed to the pool, got chatting to one of the residents here who is down by the pool most afternoons, did 20 lengths of the pool, and by that time almost an hour was up.   Headed back to the sauna and “oh yeah” nice and hot.  I knew something had to go right for me!   Had a good sauna and steam, then realized the time, hit the shower, and had to head out to see my daughters for the evening.

I normally see my daughters ( aged 4 and 8 ) on a Saturday and take them to breakfast and to the park, but sometimes, like today, I take them out for pizza.  Of course this meant a 25 mile drive south for the second time today, I picked them up, took them to the park at the soccer fields where they play, had a good kick around, then out to the pizza buffet, and back to their house.

I had to leave them early, because I had remembered earlier that I had to pick my suit up from being altered.  It wouldn’t be ready until 5pm, and of course I would be with them at that time, but the store was open until 9pm.   Of course the store is 5 miles north of where I live and also west, so I had an hour to make the 35 mile trip.  All was going well until just before I had to exit the highway, when I came across another accident which almost blocked the road.  I had a minor panic for a minute, thinking I would be stuck and not able to get to the store in time, but the traffic kept flowing and I made it.  PHEW!

Now I don’t need the suit for my trip to England.  I need it for a dance the night after I get back.  My 8 year old is in the girl scouts, and they have an annual “Me And My Guy” dance where the Dad’s take their daughters to the ball.   She enjoys it, but I feel a bit awkward not really knowing any of the other Dad’s.   I suppose I could have picked the suit up the day after I return from England, but the last thing I want to do is to have to worry about that when I have jet lag and am about to have a late night.

And so I finally return home at 9pm, tired, sticky, frustrated, actually really tired, and the guy I rent with wants to know if I want to take a walk.  Having eaten way too much pizza and needing the exercise I agreed, so we took a good 4 mile walk around the lake and through part of the golf course, which is always nice.  We both enjoy walking in the evenings, the exercise is good after a meal, it’s nice to be off the road where there are fewer lights and the stars are clearer, and fortunately tonight we were a bit later, because if we don’t time it right, we have to dodge the sprinklers.  It all adds to the fun, but these walks are great for clearing your head and letting off steam as well.

So 9 hours after I started this article, it’s about complete.  I am exhausted, ready to hit the hay, and hopefully tomorrow will see a couple of good flights, no delays, a smooth ride, and a happy Debbie waiting for me at the other end.

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Six Weeks And Counting

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frustrated tired sleepySo far I have been out of work for six weeks as of yesterday, and although I am trying to settle down into a routine, trying to generate work and income online, and trying to spend my time fruitfully, I find myself being incredibly busy yet have trouble achieving much of what I want to.   It’s extremely frustrating.

It took the best part of a month for me to settle down to waking up at a decent time instead of 6:30am,  and this is one of My Pet Peeves with being out of work.  It’s the same when you are working, you struggle to get up during the week, but then at the weekend you wake early, when it would be so nice just to have a lie in for a change.

Well my best intentions for the month of March were to start writing a lot of articles on different sites, to investigate creating Squidoo lenses to sell, to identify photographs and other works of mine that I can sell, and a few more things.   What have I achieved?  Not even 10% of this!

The problem is that although there is so much that I want to do, at the same time there is so much to be done.

Taxes

Take for example last week.   I had to get my taxes completed before leaving for England this weekend (I will get to this later), because although they have to be filed by 15th April, I am not going to be here.   Preparing the information took some time, although I don’t know why I bothered because the accountant said that if the details do not exceed the standard amount then they won’t make a difference.  I just know I ended up with a huge tax bill (see my previous posting).   So I spent several days trying to find out more about paying my taxes in installments, or to see if I can make an offer to pay less.    The information on the IRS web sites doesn’t really help me, and it’s often confusing,  so I tried calling, and I am on the phone for up to 30 minutes, holding while some crackly music is playing.  Meantime you can’t do anything, because you have to be ready for the call.  When you do speak to someone, they more or less just direct you to the web site, so back to square one…

Frustration Zombie Disorder

Are you one of these people like me, where when there is a lot to do and you are frustrated, you just want to go to sleep, or turn into a vegetable?  The more frustrated and stressed I get, the more I can just sit there and stare into space like a zombie, my brain racing at 100 miles per hour, but getting nothing done.  The past two weeks have just been a classic case, especially when I found out about having to owe so much money to the tax man.

Naturalization

My other time consuming and worrying task has been my upcoming interview with the Department Of Homeland Security regarding my US Citizenship application.  No it’s not the INS (Immigration And Naturalization Service) any more, immigration comes under Homeland Security.   I finally got used to getting letters from them.  They sent me into panic mode at first, because not only could they contain bad news, they could also be about something else.  You always worry – well I do… even though I have been a good citizen (well resident anyhow)…

For my interview, which was Monday morning, I knew that I would have to answer 6 out of a maximum of 10 questions correctly, these being on US government, history and geography.  I was rather concerned, since I am not into politics, and in England I bet very few people could tell you much about the political system, or how many of this or that law there were, what year they were passed etc.  Here it’s different.  You are expected to know the year that the Constitution was written, how many Amendments there are, who was president during WWI and WWII etc.  The political questions were harder for me, although they do give you a book with the questions so you can prepare yourself.     Then there are what I call the silly questions, just basic things that most people ought to know.   For example, how many stars are there on the US flag and what do they stand  for?   Ditto how many stripes…   Well I know this, but I wonder how many people know anything about the Union Jack, what it is comprised of and what this means?  Probably not many.

As part of my interview I also had to pass tests that proved I could read and write English.  First I had to read the sentence “What state has the most people?”.  Then I had to write the answer, which was dictated to me… “California has the most people”.  Phew – I passed that one…  I bet if they asked a lot of people something about Mississippi they would get it wrong!     Gawd – the Welsh would have the perfect answer to stopping immigration…  Question: “What is the longest place name in Wales?  Answer (which you would have to write): “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch is the longest place name in Wales”.  Could YOU do it I wonder?

My interview was supposed to be at 9:15am Monday morning.  I arrived 35 minutes early (they said to not arrive more than 30 minutes early), I went through the scanners (same as going through at the airport, except I didn’t have to take my shoes off), had to go back to the car to leave my cell phone behind, because it has a camera, even though I don’t have the ability to take photos off the camera…  Well I waited, waited, waited some more… Lots of people got seen, then came out again.  More people arrived, quite a lot arrived up to an hour after me and got seen first, so I was naturally getting quite frustrated and concerned.  Of course I didn’t take my watch, since I have the time on my cell phone, which is now in the car, and there is no clock in the place.   I finally got called in for my interview, which took all of 10 minutes.  I passed the test – only got 1 question wrong, well half wrong…  Phew!  I got back to the car to find that the whole process took 2 hours and 20 minutes, 10 minutes of which were the interview.

However, as usual things don’t go completely straightforward for me.  I have to provide evidence that I am paying child support.  They didn’t ask me to bring that with me, something to do with Florida law, they aren’t allowed to ask, but they need it anyhow.   So I left rather relieved, but frustrated that I now have something else to do, and I am off to England on Saturday.   I thought the form would arrive in weeks, but it arrived yesterday, amazingly fast for a change.  Well now I have to try to provide this before I go.  That would save a month off the processing time since I will be away for 3 weeks.   It does however mean that today and tomorrow I have to get the paperwork ready and to no doubt wait hours more tomorrow to get the paperwork to them, when I would prefer to be packing my bags.

I Hope They Don’t Search My Bag

Although Debbie now has her visa (see previous posts for the long long saga of the visa etc), it’s cheaper for me to fly to England than for her to fly here, and with me being out of work I can go for longer, as she only has 2 weeks off work (school holidays).   So I am set to fly out on Saturday morning for almost 3 weeks in England.

Of course, since we had hoped that Debbie would be spending a year here with me as of last Summer, she has been bringing more and more clothes with her, and I now have a closet full.  Since it’s unlikely she will be coming back in May and can’t come during the summer, I am going to be bringing as many of her clothes back to the UK with me.   At the same time, the last 2 trips I made to the UK, I brought clothes to leave there, so I don’t need to bring many things over with me this time.   Problem is, if they decide to search my bag, which has never happened before, but you know Murphy’s Law…  they are going to find a suitcase filled with women’s clothing!   “Er, ah, I can explain officer…”   I might work up a light sweat on arrival in England… Shouldn’t be a problem though I am sure…  There must be dozens of cross-dressers going through immigration every day…  Just rather embarrassing since I’m not one..

Well back to my seemingly endless list of things to do…   So much to write about, but like everything else, so little time…

The Taxman Cometh

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I hope you enjoy this video clip from the late Lucky Dube, a great Reggae star from South Africa who was sadly murdered in 2007 (see Wikipedia).

However this article isn’t about him, it’s about the sad state of affairs that everyone in the USA has to go through in the first quarter of the year, filing their tax return.

For the last 10 or so years I have always had a tax refund, however this year with living on my own and having to file single, even though I thought I was paying the correct amount of tax, it seems I got screwed, and so following a visit to H.R Block (a chain of tax accountants) on Wednesday, when I thought I might even get some money back, imagine my horror when I found out that I owe more than $4,000 in taxes.   Indeed – SHOCK HORROR…

It was a good job that I was sitting down at the time, because right now finding out that I owe more money than I have in the bank, and having lost my job five weeks ago, this isn’t exactly good news is it!

Well it doesn’t look like there is much I can do about it, and I will have to try and pay this in installments.   Nice of the IRS to charge you interest immediately on the extra that you owe, and although the accountant assured me that if I pay $50 a month that ought to be ok, I reckon with only marginal interest that it will take me 10 years to pay it back!   I looked online today to see how to register, and what do I find?  They charge you another $150 to register for payments in installments – plus the interest of course.

So what can I do?  Unless I get a job soon, and let’s face it, prospects now are not exactly good, I can either

  • Pay what I owe and save the interest and charges – but have nothing left for child support
  • Pay in installments and owe the IRS for a long, long, long, time unless I get a job

No good solution, since I really loathe having to pay interest and charges on anything, and always avoid doing so if I can help it.

Methinks that this of all times would be a good one to win the lottery…

STS-119 A Beautiful Launch

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Having been postponed twice before, this evening’s launch of the Space Shuttle’s STS-119 mission was perfect.

As launch time arrived, the sun had just gone down, but it was still light outside, and the sky was perfectly clear and turning turquoise as the light began to fade.

I was all ready for the launch to begin, out on the balcony of my 7th floor condo with my laptop set to NASA.  The internet feed on the NASA site must run between 20-30 seconds behind real time,  so as soon as the countdown clock reached THREE – TWO – ONE – you could see the red glow, really stretching out against the turquoise sky.  This is as compared to later night flights where you can see a dimmer glow and a fainter white trail.   This time the trail was amazing, starting off reddish purple where the sun was shining on it, then lightening to pure white, almost luminous as the sun shone fully on it.  As the boosters ignited just before separation, using the binoculars  you could see the three engines , and then after separation the shuttle dimmed to become like a small bright shooting star as it headed off over the coast, until it finally disappeared out of sight three or four minutes later.

The sun remained shining on the trail, which continued to rise in the clear blue evening sky, until finally there was a pinkish cloud and a spectacular white one next to it, the sunlight making it look almost eerie and sending shivers down my back.

Altogether the best launch I have seen from home, and not bad for 200 miles away.  I was just sad I didn’t have my camera or camcorder, since Debbie has those in England.

I live on the 7th floor of a condominium block, with a balcony that looks northeast, and although I live almost 200 miles south of Cape Canaveral, as long as the sky is clear and it is an evening or night launch, it is possible to see this from home.

Debbie and I were fortunate enough to see the launch of STS-120 from Titusville on 23rd October 2007, which is only 12 miles from the launchpad, and the closest viewing point, unless you are fortunate to be one of the 2,000 people who get to watch from the causeway at Kennedy Space Center, but although I tried for tickets, they sold out online in under two minutes.

I took hundreds of pictures of that launch, here are a few so you can get a glimpse of that wonderful day.

Message From Management

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In these current economic crises, we are sorry but we see no other alternative but to reduce our staff.
We have to lay off André.

staff_reduction

A friend, let’s call him Bill, because his name is Bill, sent me this today.   He got laid off from the company I worked for at the same time as me, both of us part of the 60 people who lost their jobs four weeks ago.   I thought it very poignant that when companies cut jobs, even though they claim it’s all about the money, it’s the workers that get cut the most, not the management.   This is a classic image, showing a whole team of managers just standing around, while a solitary peon is hard at work.  Ironically it’s the worker that gets to lose his job, leaving behind a team of managers but nobody to do the real work.

Sadly these days few companies want to pay for experience, the kind of experience that both Bill and I have built up through our careers.  They would rather employ more junior people, who haven’t learned the skills and been through the experiences that we have, which in Information Technology is critical to the understanding of what you are trying to do.

In my profession, very rarely does the user know what they want.  They might think they know what they want, but you have to out think them and give them a prototype of your improved version of what they asked for, so that they can then criticise that and move the design more in the direction of what they really want.  It takes a lot of experience to understand this, not something that a fresh university graduate or trainee can easily grasp.  It takes years of experience working with many people in different companies to fully understand the nature of people, and to be able to create systems that work well and that also are not overly complicated.

All too often I have been given specifications for a set of computer programs that would have been horribly complicated to write, and even worse to try and use.  As the design phase went on, the complexity just kept on increasing, and at the point where the users were satisfied with the specifications, I had to step back, take an overall view, do a bit of lateral thinking, and have very often come up with an amazingly simple design that is easy to program, and easy to use as well, saving the company a lot of grief in the long run.  Inexperienced IT people can’t do that.  It takes learning the hard way to understand what might go wrong, because invariably it will go wrong.

The other thing with programming is that it’s not enough to cater for validation rules that the user wants to be programmed in.  If there is any potential for a user to key something in that is invalid – they will do at some point in time.  I always assume the trained monkey rule, in that if you gave the program to a monkey, it doesn’t matter what they type on the keyboard, if it’s invalid, it should not be allowed.

Junior programmers also take shortcuts in their code.  I have always tried to expand on this which helps greatly in the long run.  As an example, take the validation of a product code.  An inexperienced or lazy programmer might create a single error message to be output in the case that the user enters an invalid product code.  Great.  However, assuming you have to check for (a) product code does not exist, (b) product exists but is obsolete, (c) there is no inventory for this product, (d) this product is not stocked at the specified warehouse, (e) customer is not authorized to purchase this product, and so on.   If the programmer was to output a single standard error message, how is the user to know what the problem is?   I use this in addition to test the program, since I create specific error messages for each type of error.  So when I test this program, I can check for each situation or combination of conditions, and by looking at the error that is generated know that the program is working, prior to handing it over to the user.   So basically a little extra work makes my job easier and the user a lot happier also, with less need to come back to me because “this is a valid product and the program won’t accept it”.

Well it’s four weeks tomorrow since I lost my job, and I am still working on trying to be independent and to make a living online.  Trying and struggling so far, but confident that if I plug away at it long enough, my dream of shaking off the shackles of working for someone else is getting closer.  Then my job security is down to ME and ME ALONE.  It’s up to me to find those income streams and to keep working at this, until I can be financially independent from the employers who want to enslave us, until it’s time to spit us out onto the scrap heap once again.

Acne – Are Treatments Safe To Use?

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acneThe inquest into the death of 14-year-old Shaun Jones, heard that he died 12 hours after taking a prescribed tablet for mild acne. Shaun consulted his doctor about spots on his back and shoulder and was prescribed the drug Minocin. But the pharmacy was out of stock of that drug, so in consultation with the doctor, he was given Sebomin instead. Two hours after taking the drug Shaun complained of breathing problems and was taken to hospital in Llantrisant, Wales, where he died the next day. The hearing continues.

(Source; Children In The News: Daily Express, 26 Feb 2009, p18; Independent, 26 Feb 2009, p17; Mail, 26 Feb 2009, p35; Mirror, 26 Feb 2009, p19; Sun, 26 Feb 2009, p22; Telegraph, 26 Feb 2009, p12)

Frightening, isn’t it? My own son has what I would describe as acne and has had for several years. He’s a good looking lad, now at around 6ft 2in and a popular boy who has worked hard at college and his job. I’ve often commented on his condition which affects his face and asked what he’s used. I’ll get a ‘haven’t used anything, it’s all crap and doesn’t work… doesn’t bother me’ response.

And when I think about it, it doesn’t bother him, so why does it bother me? Maybe that’s what the problem is for some young people. It’s societies perception of this condition that makes it uncomfortable for a lot of young people. That’s what makes them spend so much money on over the counter products in the hope of finding a cure. It’s why doctors prescribe some quite heavy duty medications to help alleviate the symptoms.

Why? Self esteem. Self image. Everything is judged on how you look. If you have a face full of acne and your self esteem is affected by it, you’ll act with less confidence. You’ll react and be aware of people looking at your spots and either judging you for it or pitying you for it.

I’m proud of the fact that the son I’ve raised obviously has high self esteem and his acne doesn’t bother him in the slightest. It hasn’t held him back in any area of his life. Or should that be that he hasn’t allowed it to hold him back?

I hope the article above has made you stop and think about rushing off to the doctor with your teenage acne dilemma.

You might also find this article interesting THE IMPACT OF ACNE