Power adaptor pack

5 04 2009

The little power adaptor pack I got from Adobe at the conference is REALLY neat. It has adpators going both ways for heaps and heaps of countries that use any of these adaptor formats: US, Europe, UK and Australia, which pretty much covers most of the world. The total pack is about 2″ long, and 1.5″ wide and deep. There are three interlocking pieces, and between them they cover almost every power outlet you’re likely to find.

On previous trips I’ve taken special adaptors for the US and Hong Kong (UK) — now I only have to take this little box and I’m all set.

(I’ll try to get some photos taken of it soon…)


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Categories : Business/Work

Anyone would think I worked for Adobe

5 04 2009

While I was waiting at Hong Kong Airport for my flight, I realised that I was branded by Adobe! My carry-on was the conference bag, which had the Adobe logo and name plastered all over one side; my laptop roll-on bag has a metal luggage tag, branded with Adobe (I think I got it at last year’s conference); and the power adaptor set I was using is also branded with Adobe (I got it at this year’s conference).

I don’t work for Adobe, though I do use a couple of their products — namely Acrobat Professional and Captivate.


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Categories : Life stuff

The world comes through Hong Kong

4 04 2009

One thing that always amazes me at Hong Kong Airport is the variety of airlines that come here. Pretty much all Asian and Pacific airlines (including many from North America), as you’d expect, but also European airlines (British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, etc.) and Middle Eastern airlines (Emirates, Saudi Arabian).  Perhaps the only airlines that don’t use Hong Kong would be those from South America and Africa. I can’t see any from there at the moment, but that may just be the time of day or week.


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Categories : Life stuff

Please tell me it isn’t so

4 04 2009

I grab a bread roll and a small bowl of Minestrone soup at the Cathay Pacific lounge in Hong Kong… and spot the name of the butter! Then I see that it’s a US brand. Is that right???? I’ve seen plenty of ‘sus’ brand names from Asia that don’t translate well into English, but this one from the US was a surprise.

butter


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Categories : Life stuff

Fabulous hotel

4 04 2009

If ever you have to stay overnight in Hong Kong purely to catch a connecting flight and you only want a bed and a shower and not all the shopping etc. that HK has to offer, then seriously consider staying at the Novotel Citygate right near the airport.

I stayed there last night and it was fantastic. I just had a standard room (for around AU$150) but the fittings, furnishings etc. were top notch. The hotel was built about 3 years ago and boasted some things I’d never seen in a hotel (or a house) before. Like light switches that turned on and off the same way, which, when you think about it is pretty darned sensible. The switches looked like rocker switches, but they didn’t rock in two directions, just one. You touched the switch (a sort of metallic square) to turn the lights on — the switch returned to the same position, so you touched it again to turn them off. None of this ‘Do I flip the switch up (US) or down (Australia) to turn the lights on?’ So simple.

The storage was neat too — lots of little hidey holes everywhere. And there was this strange sculptural thing in the middle of the room — it housed the mini-bar, tea/coffee making facilities and the fridge. The bathroom was part of the room, but the toilet and shower were completely enclosed — in opaque bluish-green glass inside and out. You couldn’t see in or out, but it made for such a nice light! The desk had a hinged panel in the top that concealed the data cable ports and two power outlets, which presumably went through the leg of the desk into the floor as there were no cables/cords from the desk to the wall.

The bed was good too! And there’s a free shuttle every 15 minutes from the airport arrivals hall.

Part of room at Novotel Citygate Hotel, near Hong Kong Airport

Part of room at Novotel Citygate Hotel, near Hong Kong Airport

More photos here…


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Categories : Travel

Methane on a plane

3 04 2009

For some reason I’ve really noticed the odour of methane on this trip. I know people cannot control their gaseous emissions when they are asleep, but boy, every so often the smell would waft through the cabin. Not pleasant.

Oh, and the toasted Reuben sandwich — with sauerkraut — that Cathay Pacific served as a snack halfway through the flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong? It didn’t help…


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Categories : Life stuff

What’s with light switches in hotels?

2 04 2009

The only annoyance in our room suite at The Westin Seattle was that a power outlet’s ability to work was reliant on a light switch being turned on! I’ve had this once before, in a cheap motel somewhere in the US, but it was the last thing I thought of when the power outlet next to the desk stopped working and thus stopped charging my laptop etc.

There were lots of power outlets and light switches in this suite, but for some reason the one near the desk was chosen as the one to be linked to the light switch near the main door — some 10+ feet away! Go figure. You had to turn on the light switch for the power outlet to work…

How did we find this out? After the first night, I realised my laptop’s power light wasn’t on and nor was the light on the power board. So I tried the power board in other outlets around the suite and it worked fine. It just didn’t work in the power outlet near the desk. The top outlet was connected to a power board that ran the router, desk lamp etc, so I couldn’t swap it out. Anyhow, I called maintenance and the very nice man said that probably at one stage a lamp was connected to that outlet that turned on when you came in the door and turned on the light switch (one of TWO) near the door. Well, the lamp is no longer there, and there are PLENTY of other lights in the room. So why are these things still connected. You’ve got to think that they get regular complaints about this, so how come they don’t fix it?


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Categories : Travel, USA

The Boardroom

2 04 2009

I’m waiting in Alaska Airlines’ ‘Boardroom’, their club lounge, for my short flight to Vancouver which boards in about 40 minutes. Qantas Club members don’t have reciprocal rights with this lounge, but they do sell a US$30 day pass (and it took them a while to let me know about it after I’d exhausted all other possibilities!). As I was leaving within 2 hours, the girl kindly let me have a day pass for half price. But it included the usual stuff — free wireless, basic breakfast food and drink, etc. Oh, and they appear to have Aeron chairs (or similar) at all the workstations.

My flight to Vancouver is only 50 minutes or so, then I have a 5 hour wait for the flight to Hong Kong. Fortunately, Qantas has reciprocal rights with Cathay re: the lounges, so the wait shouldn’t be too arduous. The flight to Hong Kong is about 12-13 hours, I think. Whatever. I don’t arrive in HK until around 8pm Friday night (it’s Thursday morning now), and pretty much miss most of April 3 — it’s like it never existed for me (but then I got two March 25ths, so I guess I can’t complain  😉 )


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Categories : Travel, USA

It’s snowing… in Seattle… in April

2 04 2009
Snow falling in Seattle in April

Snow falling in Seattle in April

And no, that’s not an April Fool’s Day joke! I went up to the room suite during the mid-morning break and saw snow flakes dropping past the window. Seriously. I then thought that maybe they were up this high (40+ floors), but at ground level they would be gone. Nope. When I got to the next session (on the 4th floor) the snow was still coming down. It doesn’t appear to be accumulating on the ground, so I expect it’s melting pretty much straight away.

And right now at 12:30pm it’s still coming down (though more lightly now).

But it IS snowing. In Seattle. In April. Sheesh.


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Categories : Travel, USA

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