Good day

I wasn't supposed to be at work today. But a wee. mini, minor crisis came up and so I decided to mosey in. Actually I decided to drive like a bat out of hell - because this morning I dropped off Judith for her driving test (she passed!) and the guy took FOREVER to actually administer the bloody thing (20 mins to set up 20 cones? c'mon) and we then had to endure the vagueries if the DMV. Still she passed, I got out in time and managed to cruise to work in time for the meeting. Which went okay - lots to do in the new year though.

Headed back and had Jude drive me to an outlet mall (she's now insured) where we got into the Xmas spirit by buying something from virtually every store at stupidly low prices. The place was next to empty, the parking plentiful, the bargains terrific and the staff overly attentive in that 'I'm SO bored" kind of way perfected by the department stores years ago. I used to think that department store attitude came from spending a lifetime surrounded by goods they didn't pay you enough to buy yourself, but now I think it's a mixture of aching feet, polyester uniforms and the stupidity of virtually every customer.

No real chance for pics yet so I shot a quick one of reception on my way to payroll where my cheque (check) was waiting for me and no dramas unfolded.

Now for wine, for dinner and for the final of Clash of the Choirs (which we DVR'd last night)

My new camera arrived

Lumix FZ18
Originally uploaded by akiko@flickr

Spent the evening charging various batteries and the morning turning off the various beeps that accompanied my every move with it.

Massive zoom makes for more shots of unsuspecting old folk. I feel a photo safari coming on.

Hundreds of 'idiot modes' that probably make for amazing pictures but rob me of the chance to say that a shot is 'mine' and will therefore be all but ignored. It's looking promising though.

Pics over the weekend I think

Oh the drama

Turns out that my package WAS on the truck after all.

This I know because when I went in to collect my package - it wasn't there.
Despite a call that said "I have it in my hand, I will place it aside for you now"

Still in an attempt to move into lemonade manufacture I said

"Well that's good news. You guys are delivering a second package to me too. He can drop them both off together"

But of course he can't.
Because he now has instructions to return it to base.
So that I can pick it up.
Tomorrow.

The man in the knackered warehouse to whence I had journied seemed quite shocked that I would question the competence of his staff and his confidence in their ability to divine ass from elbow.

Still the mustang averaged 31mpg (that's 37mph for you UK folks today)... perhaps it's being powered by the vibration from the one loose piece of trim driving me to distraction (oh for a piece of blu-tac)

Note to all - UPS... should be known as "Ooops"

Yet more fuckwittery

Oracle morons
Originally uploaded by AndyArmstrong

So the old company was sending my last pay cheque by mail. Or rather by UPS. They forgot Friday and sent it out at 5pm on Monday. Delivery by 3pm Tuesday. Except it didn't arrive. UPS said it was on a truck and that I should "Not go to bed before 11.59pm". Well this morning still no package. It hadn't even been in Michigan. It was in Penn. No worries, it left this morning at 8am. Except it didn't. They didn't have the apt. number. Weird I'd given them the apartment number on Monday. And Tuesday. And at 7am this morning.

I asked why the package hadn't made it on time. "For no good reason" they said.

Comforting.

"Why not come in tonight between 8pm and 8.30pm?" they said. It might be here.

Then they called back - it's on a truck.

Then back again "It's not on a truck"

Then once more - "all of the appointments for 8pm to 8.30pm are gone. It'll be tomorrow. Maybe."

"Appointments? You told me to come by."

"Yeah, we did. We shouldn't have. We're busy."

So no cash before Xmas. No cash from the new guys until Jan 15th and no bloody holiday cheer for me or my family.

FUCKWITTERY

Day two

orange.JPG
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

okay so into day two of the new job and still at a bit of a loss regarding how to best fill me time. I've done benefits. I've met the people physically in the office, I've used the right click option on my mouse (it's a PC!) but there's only so much that you can do between Xmas and New Year in a half empty office.

That said I'm going through all of the stuff that's currently in research and trying to figure out how the good bits of each could form a cohesive whole. I guess it's like looking for which rabbits are going to make the coat and which will hit the stewer. You have an idea but it's only post skinning that you really figure it out.

That's quite a Michigan kind of analogy actually. Maybe I am made for this state after all.

Snow

IMG_5176
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

It snowed yesterday. A lot. Inches and inches of snow fell and not a snow plow could be seen. Apparently they clear snow only on work days - or just before work days; so you're left to fend for yourself if it snows between 6pm Friday and 3pm Sunday.

Still the dog was happy and the town was pretty much empty as we trekked knee deep (shoulder deep for Velcro) through the pristine white snow.

Woke up this morning fearing that I might not be able to make it into work - but the roads had been (partially) cleared and so I put the Mustang into second (wheel spin in first) and edged out towards the motorway. Wasn't too bad out there - though I did see a few people who had spun clean off the road and a couple of people who really deserved to.

The journey in took about 40 mins, I reckon that on a clear day I could shave 10mins off that and the new building is rather lovely. I'm a little out in the open and my area of the office is arranged so that I have my back to everyone but other than that it's all okay. My silver, half dalek chairs revolve, people are friendly and generally things seem organized. I had my ID card within minutes, my computer soon after (it's a PC) and was up and running within an hour of arriving.

Orientation is tomorrow - so I guess that I'll have chair training and the chance to choose a health insurer then. Until which I shall attempt to look busy and to meet as many people as possible - given that it's the week before Christmas and the Holiday Season has helped 'thin out' the bodies available for hearty handshaking.

So far though, so good. This is going to be a tough job, but I'm thinking that I might even enjoy the challenge. Better to be worried about the job at hand than about the fact that someone, somewhere is going to book you on a plane to Des Moines rather than Detroit.

Brrrr

This is Lake Michigan. During the summer it's all beaches and people protesting for the right to bathe in the altogether. Right now it's a frozen wasteland. As is much of Michigan. It was bloody freezing this morning as Jude and I battled our way from store to store in a bid to find decent Christmas gifts before one of us lost a limb to frostbite. I honestly can't remember being as cold. And I thought that I'd been in cold.

Of course the truth of the matter is that the lowest we've been so far this winter is -14c (I know, I keep a record) and it's been colder than that. When my parents visited us upstate it was -20c; so cold that when my mom got out of the car and exhaled her breath first misted and then froze to her glasses adding a 'jam jar bottom' look that caused much mirth whenever she walked into a lamppost or small shrub.

Luckily for us the heating in the building is paid for and we have a gas fire that sends flames leaping into the air at the push of a button, all very nice come a winter's eve.

Jude wanted to go swimming this afternoon - but I'm afraid that the thought of being in swim trunks on a day when even the penguins are begging for the right to kill a mink or two in the name of survival was beyond me. We'll do it tomorrow though. IN the morning. Before the brain is engaged.

But first the dog needs a walk and that means me suiting up, wrapping up and getting up. Here we go

One final piece of fuckwittery

Money Trail
Originally uploaded by Big-E-Mr-G

I was supposed to get paid today.
But I didn't.
Final pay is sent by cheque - in the mail.
Nobody told me this.

Nor did anyone put the cheque in the mail.

So instead it's sitting in an empty office (everyone is at a party retreat)
And I'm sitting with no money in the bank and with Xmas fast approaching.

Ok - so I have some money in the bank.
But they don't know that.

And "The cheque is almost in the mail' is a lousy excuse

ho-hum

back at the airport

_MG_9426
Originally uploaded by locaburg

and really early. it was the first time that I didn't hit Mexican traffic and as a result I'm now at the gate of the still new and deserted Terminal Two. It's actually quite eery here, alone, in a vast white building. The stores have yet to be opened, there are staff everywhere but no customers and the whole place has a sense of white elephant about it. It must have felt like this at The Dome come 2000.

Mexico was fun, the hotel rocked and we're in a good place on the project. All that's left now is to find some images and then make the recommendations look pretty. I find that almost everyone responds well to beauty. It's innate - whereas reading is learned.

-10c when I land in Detroit - hope that there are cabs.

Proper entry tomorrow

when you only have a nickle

shoeshine.JPG
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

...get your shoes shined. Unless you're our illustrator who fell for the "Let me shine your shoes down this back alley" trick end ended up paying $20 for a shoe shine on $40 shoes. It would have been more had he not met the aggressive demand for cash with "my best cockney" - a universally understood language of aggression.

Our last full day with clients in Mexico will be spent in a focus group room. It can't be as bad as last night - moderator showed up late, nodded through a briefing, then abandoned the guide within seconds of starting the group with a bunch of show off know-it alls on a brand they didn't know. Just awful.

Still it's free food and the promise of a beer or two for those suffering along with us instead of being at the client Xmas party

So out of touch am I

Little Curry Monster and Little Paprika Monster
Originally uploaded by mashishka

that upon waking this morning I dashed, ran, hurried and generally shifted toward a computer to book "just released" tickets for The Spice Girls. And was amazed at the availability.

For younger readers The Spice Girls were as close to pop perfection as the 90s went. They were sexy enough for boys to like but scary enough to reassure tween girls that their boyfriends had no chance of getting anywhere. Actually that boyband members had no chance of getting anywhere.

Of course it was all image ... as Robbie Williams used to say "I had the good fortune of being in one of the nost successful boyboands of the decade... and in three of the members of the most successful girl band"

These days the girls are older. The Girl Power rhetoric turned down a tad and the whole thing has the right cash to kitsch ratio.

It should be fun. Meanwhile I'm in Mexico and about to head into the morning traffic. Arrrrgggghhhhhh!

Ahhhhhhhhh

After weeks of travel fuckwittery and hotel malady it's good to have some time in a hotel where things work. And even better that Jude (whose flight left and arrived without drama) is here with me this weekend.

Yesterday was canal boats, market lunches, town squares and remarkably cheap transportation (the metro here costs 2 pesos, that's 20 cents or 10p to you Yanks and Brits) === that compared to the $8 that I had to pay to go one stop on the London underground is a bit of a right royal bargain.

Anyway the sun is shining, we have a witch waiting to cast our bad spirits into an egg and I have to catch up with the illustrator this morning so this is qoing to be a quickie.

Research tomorrow, home Thursday. New job next week! Hurrah.

Oh for a gun

So today's 4 and a half hour flight took 15 hrs.

Booked onto the 8am flight I turn up at 6.30 to be told that there's no reservation for me between Detroit and Atlanta.
There was one - but it had been cancelled.

I have to buy a new ticket. In business. It's $650. I stump up the money and get my boarding passes.

The Aeromexico part shows as business but has me sitting in coach.
I head for the Delta counter - they tell me to go to Aeromexico in Atlanta.
I head for the lounge with my business ticket - they tell me to bugger off.

I get on the plane.
It's -14C outside and colder inside.

Land in Atlanta and walk from gate A to gate E in search of AeroMexico
They're closed.
I e-mail the travel agent.
She tells me to sort it out myself.

I call Aeromexico - it's business in their system but coach in Delta's - tough luck
I go to the Delta desk - he tells me it's not his problem until I have a business class ticket. At which point i won't have a problem.
I call Aeromexico again - they tell me that they've corrected the ticket and that I am now good to fly.
Back to Delta with my code. Nothing has changed. Other than the coach flight has now been cancelled.
They take my boarding pass and suggest that I pay another $1250 for a new ticket.

I stand my ground.
For 2 hrs.
In line.
With people hating me.

Finally.
Miraculously.
They find a way to access my records.
I'm given a boarding pass.

Flight is delayed. 6 hr layover now.
The direct flight is $500 and 4.5 hrs.
I'm paying three times that and taking three times as long. Why?
I fume.

Onto the plane and the pilot is being held at immigration.
Another hour.

We take off.
No vegetarian meal.
Stewardess insists that chicken IS vegetarian.
I ask "is a chicken a vegetable then?"
She spills wine on me
Then drops bread on me
And ignores my coffee order.

Finally land. Immigration is quick. Customs slow. Traffic Mexican.

Meet illustrator. Tad chirpy but nice.
Gareth has left champagne in my room.
I'd rather he'd left a homeless person, a large knife, a clean up kit and a 'get out of jail free card"

And now to bed.

My last trip ever with these clowns - the relief is overwhelming

Yup it's that time again...

Face down
Originally uploaded by poorusher

... flights back to Mexico mean MORE Fuckwittery

The instructions were simple

- A Direct Flight

- Nothing leaving before 9am

The flight.

An 8am flight via Atlanta with a 5 hour layover


A few calls show two things

- That a direct flight leaving at 9.20 is available

- There's an 11.10 flight out of Detroit that still makes my Atlanta connection with hours to spare

But of course the ticket has been booked as a "No Changes" thing and been approved by a moron in my office who agreed to all of the times and dates without thinking to consult me - or look at my original request.

Now last time I flew in I landed at the lovely new terminal. Terminal 2. Scheduled in at 1pm. Gareth, who was flying from New York landed at 3pm at Terminal 1. The person who arranged the travel came up with one car - which waited at Terminal 1 with my name on it.

To get from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 you need a valid boarding card.
If you've just got off a plane you don't have a valid boarding card.
Which means that Delta have to issue you with a fake boarding card and then escort you through train security (a man with an anorak and a gun) before you can be on your way. This takes 45 mins.

Then there's the fact that the ticket is issued by Aero Mexico. The code on the ticket is Aero Mexico but you can only check in on Delta. Which is in a different terminal. That you need a boarding card for. Which of course you don't have.

We've also had issues with hotels all week. I refuse to do three hotels in 5 days again, the client wants to save a few dollars (fewer than they usually spend on company funded rooftop cocktails) by having us switch around. My company isn't prepared to fund the difference (about $200 all in) and so around and around it goes again. We're staying in my favorite hotel - the only one where we know that everything works (internet, business centre, cars) and to hell with it.

Reckoning that 30% of the workng say is going on this stuff. Which is about $1700. Or $8500 a week. Fuckwittery? I'd say

Load of old cock

cock.JPG
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

Back to Mexico tomorrow. Not quite sure when as the flight details are always kept a mystery from me until the very last moment at which point they're pulled like a rather mangy rabbit from a mouldy tophat and I set the alarm for 3am.

Hoping for a more reasonable flight tomorrow. Perhaps even something direct - although holding my breath would be an act of suicide on that one.

Still Jude is coming down to Mexico city for the weekend. We have wrestling, witches with eggs that can kidnap bad spirits and trips on flower boats through fetid canals to look forward to. It'll just be nice to escape the cold and the snow for a while.

The person who made "pish" type noises at our thought of buying a 4*4 obviously had a very peculiar sense of humor though. The roads here are rarely cleared. The hills are steep. The rear whell drive on my 4.0L muscle car is prone to sending the car into all kinds of wriggles and wiggles upon set off (it's great once you're out of first gear) and I spend my life praying that the mom vans behind me are piloted by moms who really, really, really don't want to get into an accident with 'precious' on board.

The pic by the way is from a store dedicated to cock fightung magazines. Plenty of cock to admire. They do bull fighting too. Now I'd have called the store Cock and Bull (obvious but descriptive) but instead they called it something like "fa-tha-tha-thaa-thee-tha-thaaah" - the name of all stores in Mexico.

Okay taks to be taken in hand here. Ciao all

All barking mad

life.JPG
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

So finally back in Ann Arbor (at least for three more days - then it's off back to Mexico City, the traffic, the noise, the peanut brands) and I've realized that everyone here is barking mad.

For example I spent a half hour today walking out in the -10c temps with Gareth to buy some dog food. We head out and en route see a Xmas Tree decoration shaped like an Octopus. This Gareth decides he has to buy for his artist gorlfriend who became famous with a slo-mo film of her trained Octopus and is currently exhibiting a range of Christmas Tree Ornaments. In we go and are greeted by a large woman who reminds us taht the Octopus has a very large place in certain forms of 'erotic Japanese literature'. Somehow the subject turns to Xmas and Lapland (Gareth had been chief elf there some years back - I kid you not) and she asks "Did you meet any of those big teethed girls who bite the balls off reindeer?" before adding "That might be customer inappropriate. They usually keep me in the shed"

We leave, bauble in hand and get to the pet store where we're told that a 'dog tag silencer' isn't an anal invention at all but a top seller. They then gasp when Gareth picks up a harness (it looks a bit like a bra) and ask that we don't touch the 3 foot high rubber chicken as "It's been reserved as a wedding gift."

On the way back we pass a store that says "The monsters are on strike" and has cut out monsters with signs saying things like "We demand bigger closets." Turns out it's a variation on the Brooklyn Superhero Store theme (there's also a Secret Agent version in Chicago that has a frontage that says "The really boring store" and a window full of gray boxes.

Seems that monsters are too hard to innovate around ('what do monsters need? drool?') and so it's about to become a Robot Store instead. We suggest that the Robot store is dropped on top of the monster store and that they have monster feet and monster goo dripping out of the front door where they were squished. It seems we're as mad as the rest of town.

30 mins, 3 mad people. Lots of gifts. It's good to be home

Mexico City Airport

Mexico City Airport
Originally uploaded by Lydyzze

At the airport in Mexico city. A rather swank new terminal with free internet access and a huge number of 'helpers' in wheelchairs.

have another tight connection in atlanta and the threat of snow and ice storms closing detroit airport. So another stressful day. Why I can't fly direct with Northwest I don't know. But they won't let me. So it's deep breath, fingers crossed and here we go. Again

Yet more

I See Things.....
Originally uploaded by shadowplay

the posts this week have been few and far between as we hopped from one hotel fiasco to another and one torturously slow internet connection to a virtually non-existant one. It's been a shocking show of organizational incompetence and jaw slackening ineptitude and yet somehow we managed to make it through the week with smiles on our faces and a growing conviction in our hearts that what we have growing on our laptops and in suitcases full of paper is getting closer and closetr to the answer. Which is a relief as the client here is lovely and deserves the best work that we can manage.

Another change of hotel today then tomorrow a flight home with a ludicrously short layover in Atlanta (it'll be land and run, customs, security, terminal transfer and boarding in less than an hour) so I hope AeroMexico are on time.

All of that said it's been an okay week, but really REALLY I just want to go home and hug my wife.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water

Devils' Feast Ocumicho
Originally uploaded by Teyacapan

the fuckwittery continues. Yesterday's hotel took 20 mins to check in each guests, had none functioning lights, a wireless connection that required both a near impossible to acquire password and the ability to type whilst mimicking an aerial in order to get a connection, connection wires that didn't fit data ports and an alarming willingness to tell you that there was a message at reception and then deny all knowledge of ever having done so despite having left written evidence.

Today's hotel refused to let us in - as the company credit card (there to book two people into a hotel for a week) has a limit of $1000 and we spent that earlier. They wouldn't take an authorized number from my company (I left my wallet in the US) and their net connection (so we could pay off the work card and have it clear for one more night) was slower than the receptionist at the Hotel Indifferent.

Then there's the 'executive lounge' to which we've been moved (it's either executive nor lounge like), the ability of the staff to move so quickly to take your bags that you feel that you're being mugged and so aggressively to be tipped that technically you may well have been mugged.

It's all just awful. But Mexico remains lovely, the people are sweeter than a Betty White syrup cookie and I am ready for bed. Night all

Mexico

Water fountain
Originally uploaded by ƒreg

a big hello from a Mexican taxi where el diablo is finding work for idle thumbs.

I am now fully immersed in Mexican wine, the shopping habits of over made up Mexican radio psychologists and the new Mexican hipsterism (dontcha just LOVE Lulu?) and have decided that my inability to string together more than ten words in the local language is no impediment to my moving here forever.

Of course forever isn't long enough to go amywhere in this traffic and the ominous appearance of Starbucks on every corner signals the end of any unique culture but that's okay. I'm tall here. I like the food. And i have a bevy of beauties (plus Gareth) attending to every detail of my life.

So what if i left my wallet in Detroit? Or that the journey here took 14 hrs? Who cares that the streets are giant parking lots? This is the land of Mistico - and he can FLY.

As Elvis might have said Viva Mexico.