Car rental

8 03 2008

The Hertz counter at LAX didn’t have a Mazda6 as I’d requested, so I ended up in a Chevrolet something-or-other. I wanted a Mazda6 as that will likely be the next car we get—we currently have two 10-year old Mazdas and are really happy with them, so this was to be an opportunity to take one for a long test drive.

However, on hearing me mention that I was going via San Francisco, the lady at the Hertz counter suggested I try exchanging the car there. Well, I could do one better than that—Orange County (John Wayne) airport which is about 6 miles from where I’m staying in Corona Del Mar! I called the Hertz counter at John Wayne when I arrived at Bill’s, but they didn’t have a Mazda6. The helpful lady suggested I call back the next day. So I called this morning (Saturday) and got one! So down to the airport to do the exchange.

Erin at the Hertz Gold counter was most helpful and polite, unlike the usual treatment you get at LAX. However, Erin did say that Hertz LAX did 2000 rentals just on Monday, so I guess they get a bit frazzled by people wanting something that isn’t available.


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Categories : USA

“LA International Airport…

7 03 2008

… where the big jet engines roar”

… and the Customs and Immigration and baggage situation gets worse by the year.

There are two lines at Immigration—one for US Residents, and one for Visitors. But the Visitors line is filled with two types of Visa holders—the green Visa Waiver scheme people (like Australians, Brits etc.) and the white form people (like the entire plane loads from Korea and Chile who arrived just before we did). The white form people took at least 5 minutes each to process—some, 10 minutes; the green people took less than 2 minutes to process. Why don’t they create a Visa Waiver line and a white form line? It would save a lot of frustration…

And how come baggage comes out randomly? I checked both my bags in at the same time with the same person who put them on the conveyor at the same time, and got the first one quickly (that’s because of the LONG lines at Immigration). Had to wait AGES for the second. Both had “First class” tags on them (not “Business” as I expected), yet came out with the “Economy” bags.

And then there are the unlabelled long lines for the final check by Customs before you’re through. No-one to supervise the line, no-one to tell you you’re in the correct line, no big columns of green and red to indicate ‘nothing to declare’ or ‘something to declare’. As an aside, while I was waiting in the last line before getting out into the ‘fresh’ LA air, there was a woman at the Customs counter whose bags were being searched. She had plates of food wrapped in foil, raw meat wrapped in plastic, other food in plastic containers. What *was* she thinking???

BTW, I think that “Immigration” is the correct name for it—not one person in authority appeared to be a caucasian American. All the officials seemed to be from somewhere else, just based on their physical appearance.


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Categories : USA

Uneventful flight

7 03 2008

Some notes from the Qantas flight from Brisbane to LAX:

  • Took off about 40 mins late
  • Arrived about 10 mins late, but 5-6 hours BEFORE I left
  • Dinner was superb – I had beef fillet
  • ‘Sleep suit’ was terrific and very useful (‘sleep suit’ = pyjamas!)
  • Breakfast was good
  • Movies were crap and didn’t match the Entertainment Guide so I didn’t watch any

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Categories : Travel

Someone famous

7 03 2008

DATELINE… 10:30am Brisbane International Airport Qantas Club Lounge, 7 March 2008. Someone famous is in the lounge. Musician, group. I can’t tell. But there’s a few of them. One has an instrument (guitar?), all have mops of unkempt hair, one’s female. American accents. I’ll see if I can fid out who they are. I don’t recognise any faces…

LATER… on board aircraft prior to take-off. I’m seated one seat slightly behind and across from… Cindi Lauper! I didn’t recognise her as she had a cap/hat on, her hair was bunched up in it, and she had NO makeup on.


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Categories : Australia, Travel

Little annoyances

7 03 2008

Some little things encountered today (Friday 7th March Australia), that stopped the smooth transition from Point A to Point B:

  • Not sleeping well last night. I woke several times during the night. Was it the rich, chilli-hot Indian food? Possible. Was it that I knew I had a plane to catch tomorrow? Likely. For some reason, even if I have a long flight ahead and whether I get to bed early or not, I just never sleep very well the night before. I wonder if the alarm will fail on the only day it’s not meant to fail, or if I won’t get to the airport on time. I don’t know where this irrational fear of missing a flight comes from—I’ve never missed one in my life (well, one, but that was totally out of my control—I landed 3 hours late and I missed the connecting flight but got on another within a few hours… and that was more than 20 years ago).
  • Taxi rank being used by other vehicles. Right outside my accommodation in central Brisbane is a cab rank. When I came out on to the street with my luggage, there were no cabs there, but the stand was filled with other vehicles—couriers, service vehicles, delivery vans, and the like. I missed one cab as he didn’t see me try to flag him down (some of those vans are high). For the second one (some 5-10 mins later), I actually stood out in the road to flag him down, then he had to stop in the middle of one of Brisbane’s main streets to load my stuff into the cab (well, I loaded it—he wouldn’t get out of the vehicle). Designated taxi stands should be for taxis, not other commercial vehicles. The signs clearly said this was a taxi zone. Grrr…
  • Over-cautious drivers. The taxi driver was a very cautious driver—hesitant to the point of nervousness, IMHO. He touched his brakes many time when it wasn’t necessary. His nervousness about driving in traffic made me nervous!
  • On a more positive note, the Qantas check-in desk at Brisbane’s international terminal was a breeze, as was Customs and the carry-on luggage check.
  • But another negative was the lack of business facilities in the Qantas Club Lounge. For the 100+ (maybe 200+) seats in the Lounge, there were only four computer terminals. Only three worked, and the one I eventually got, wouldn’t print to the printer. The guys at two of the terminals were having a conversation they could have had in the lounge seats, which added a little to the frustration.

None of this is earth-shattering, and normally none of these incidents would raise a blip on my radar, but for some reason they annoyed me this morning. As I said, it’s the little things…


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Categories : Australia, Travel

Last full day in Brisbane

6 03 2008

Another full work day today. I ended up getting all the work done that was on my list for the four days. That included an extra 60+ page document that neither Mel (my boss) nor I were expecting. We worked hard on that doco on Monday and very early Tuesday morning, so the guys could hand it to the client on Tuesday and train them with it on site (central Queensland) on Tuesday and Wednesday. In the words of the Implementation Team Lead today, according to the client the doco was ‘sh*t hot’.

Today I also got the email saying that my conference session looked like being popular, so it was back to Big W to stock up on more Caramello Koalas! I now have nine dozen of them, so I hope I have enough for everyone.

After work, Mel and I took a cab over to New Farm for a couple of drinks at Gerties, a neighbourhood bar, and then we wandered across the road to the Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant (cnr Brunswick and Barker). We had Madras Prawns and a chicken dish (Chicken Nariyal??), both hot; some pappadums; and some chilli naan. All hot. All lovely. All eaten!

We also had a really good chat about life, the universe, and everything. Thanks for a lovely evening Mel, and thanks Greta for the Indian Restaurant suggestion (Greta couldn’t join us as she’s at PDAC in Toronto, but she sent Mel a text message sending her regrets).

Mel only lives around the corner, so I caught a cab back in to the city. This time it was less than $10, so I was happy with that.

I started packing when I got back. I’ll finish in the morning after I’ve had a shower etc. and pack the toiletries. I think that the packing will overflow into the second bag – nine packs of Caramello Koalas (and something for someone who reads this blog so I can’t say what it is) take up quite a bit of space!! I’m a walking, talking wine and chocolate courier… Not much room for clothes and shoes, but hey, I can always buy them in the US 😉


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Categories : Australia, Food & Wine

Gulp!

6 03 2008

I just got an email from the conference organiser. He’s putting me in a large room as more than 100 people (out of around 500 attendees who can choose between 5 concurrent sessions) have indicated that they intend going to it.

Seeing as though many (me included!) may not have sent back a response, that’s a pretty big number.

Previously, my conference presentations have been delivered to between 30 and about 70 people. In the conference organiser’s words “This says a lot of good things about you and your topic.”

I hope I can live up to the audience’s expectations…


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Categories : Life stuff

Dry run

5 03 2008

My  work day started reasonably early, then I had a meeting at 9am with my immediate boss and the new graphic designer. At 11am it was show time! I did a dry run of the presentation I’m doing at the conference in Portland, OR, in two weeks.

There were 20+ in the room, almost all of whom were software developers. Only four were women, including me, and, as far as I know, only one of them was a developer. Software development is still very much a man’s game, at least when it’s associated with the mining industry…

My presentation went over well, which was good seeing as though I’d written it for quite a different audience. I got some insightful questions from the audience, and there were quite a few heads nodding in agreement at what I had to say during the presentation – even a few “See? I told you so” glances across the table. A few people came up to me afterwards or sent me an email saying how much they’d enjoyed it and how they’d got a lot out of it.

And I didn’t run over time, so that was good.

The rest of the day was work – the graphics designer and I spent some time discussing how we could help each other out, and I spent some time with one of the subject matter experts getting details for the Help I’m writing for one of their clients.

Very late in the day, a colleague popped by. She’s one of the top 20 road cyclists in the world and she’s just got back from NZ, and is off again in a few days to compete in Europe. Her goal is to get selected in the Australian team for the Beijing Olympics. Pretty cool!

Tomorrow is my last day in the Brisbane office – I leave on Friday for the US. It’s been good catching up with people whose voices I know and whose faces I rarely see, as well as meeting the new team members who’ve started since I was last here six months ago. And I think the new ones have appreciated putting the face to the name and voice too. I even had a short chat with the CEO, who used to be the big boss of the area I work in and who was responsible for my contract negotiations when I first started.

But I tell you what, I’m glad I work from home. Having to dress for the office every day is a pain!


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Categories : Life stuff

Busy days

4 03 2008

My first two (of four) days back in the office have been busy. Quite a lot of staff on the team are away in far-flung places, but that hasn’t made it less busy. I think they’ve been keeping some things aside waiting for me to arrive!

I didn’t get a chance yesterday to write in this blog, and it’s now 10:30pm on Tuesday night and I should be in bed, but I wanted to get this out of the way before I rested my head.

After work yesterday I caught the train out to Thorneside (?) with Ian from work, then he drove me to his and Donna’s place. From there we went to a restaurant called The Lighthouse over in Cleveland, where we had the most fabulous meal. Ian had the Tempura Tiger Prawns to start, and while there were only three prawns, they were HUGE. Donna and shared an entree serve of the most beautifully spiced and cooked calamari. To die for. Then we all had a Coral Trout as our main course (delicious), and shared the ‘for two’ “Lighthouse Death by Chocolate” dessert. Three of us couldn’t finish it! I took photos of a seafood platter at a nearby table (yes, TFP, you’d be proud of me–I just went up to their table and asked permission to take a photo!) And I took a couple of photos of the chocolate dessert we shared. When I get better connection (tomorrow?) I’ll upload the photos…

Seafood platter

Death by chocolate

The worst thing was catching a cab back in to the Brisbane CBD. I have no clue where Cleveland is, but the taxi fare was over $70!!!! And I had to wait 20+ mins for it… the restaurant staff were in the closing up stages by the time it arrived.

Today was another busy work day, starting at 6am (under pressure to get a doc finished for the client by 8am–two of us came in early to get it done as we couldn’t finish it yesterday). And my $5 fake Rolex that my Mum bought for me in Bali died! For the past 12 months I’ve hardly needed to wear a watch–and just when I have to, it dies. So I bought a $15 watch from Big W. It’s only got to last 4 weeks… Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered, but tomorrow I’m doing my conference presentation for the software development teams, and have a couple of meetings, and so I NEED the correct time. My husband suggested the clock on my phone, but the phone will be turned off in the presentation, so that wasn’t a solution. It’s not like I have a plane to catch… NOT!

Tonight I practiced my presentation out loud and had a go at recording it on a voice recorder I purchased a while back. So I ended up not eating an evening meal. But then, after last night’s feed and breakfast and lunch today, I really didn’t need it.

OK, to bed!


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Categories : Australia, Business/Work, Travel

On the first part of the journey…

2 03 2008

(with apologies to “America”: Horse with No Name)

Travel day today. First, the 3.25 hour drive to Perth to leave my car with friends, then they took me to the airport for my early afternoon 4-hour flight to Brisbane.

Perth Airport didn’t seem as busy as usual, which was good! A bit of a queue for check in, no queue for the carry on baggage security check, and the Qantas Club lounge wasn’t bursting at the seams (which was lucky because they’ve got construction going on in there). I saw Kate Ceberano and her entourage in the Qantas Club – she must’ve been over for a concert. After seeing her on “Who do you think you are?” I think most Australians would feel they know her quite well after sharing her genealogical journey of discovery.

I sat next to a Qantas pilot on the flight – interesting conversation! He’d flown in from Tokyo last night and was flying home to his home on the Gold Coast. I taught him my techniques for Sudoku as he’s never figured out how to do them.

For the foodies: The lunch on the flight was excellent. I had a Lamb Rendang and it was really tasty. Airline food tends to be bland to cater for all tastes, but this had a nice bite. The little tub of delicious vanilla icecream with chocolate ginger snaps finished it off nicely.

Arrived safely in Brisbane right on time at 6:45 and I was in the accommodation within an hour.

Work tomorrow!

Apartment in Brisbane

Photo of apartment where I’m staying near the office


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Categories : Australia

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