![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My Friday...
May. 26th, 2006 10:13 pmTuesday. Discover that a "customer" in another town is having Issues, and I will have to visit them.
Thursday arvo - Make list of things to pack and take
Thursday, 8PM - Try on the pants part of my one suit, having been told to dress nice and not having anything else even vaguely "nice".
Thursday, 8.05PM - Suit pants actually work.
Thurs, 8.15PM - Pop all the clothes I could need onto my couch. Go through my crumpler and my wallet and remove any extraneous or suspicious items - metal water bottle, "Fear Bush" patch held on with safety pins. Pack a lot of cables and electronic shit into it instead. A small box with lots of switches, an Ethernet hub, etc. etc.
Thurs. 8.20PM - Shave, hop into shower, hop into bed
Thurs. 8 something PM - Finish book I meant to take with me. Damn. Grab copy of book group book instead.
Thursday night - Attempt, badly, to sleep.
Friday 4.30AM (That's not a typo) - Alarm on watch, alarm clock and phone go off. Jump in shower.
Friday 4.46AM - Charlie the taxi driver buzzes my intercom. Grab crumpler, lap top bag, run out door. Leave list of things to do on table. Leave book to read on the floor. Try and find places in coat for mobile phone and wallet - used to having more pockets.
Friday 5.10AM - Qantas Domestic Terminal. Fortuitously bump into co-worker and fellow traveller, the e-check in thing gives me a window seat.
5.30AM - Board 767
6AM - Pilot announces low cloud has suddenly enveloped the control tower, and they can't see a damn thing. Suggests we'll take off using "Alternative arrangements". Presumably he can see through cloud.
6.19AM - Take off into a gathering mist. The town is coated in it, in fact we're one of the last flights who make it out. Arrive in Sydney to announcements that everything flying in and out of Melbourne has been delayed. The arrivals and departures board is a mess. We thank dumb luck that we made it out.
6.30AM - Watch moving map of our progress at movement. Marvel at choice of geographical pointers, these include King Lake National Park and later Wollongong. Also marvel at display of altitude and speed - 450 Kilometres an hour and climbing. 2000 metres altitude.
6.30AM - Co-worker gets "vegetarian breakfast" - cereal etc.
6.40AM - I get breakfast. Looks exactly the same as vegetarian, except it has yoghurt. Despite long objection to Carbs, I eat muffin bar thing, cereal and yoghurt hungrily. Despite chronic sensitivity to caffeine, accept offer of Tea.
6.50AM - Watch sun rise over wing. Did I motion window seat?
7AM - Watch hilly NSW landscape, including valleys filled with fog.
7.18AM - Land in Sydney after lots of over ocean flight. Marvel at approach.
7.30AM - Hop into Silver taxi with odd all-plastic interior. Seats plastic, floor plastic. These guys know how to handle drunken passengers.
7.50-8.40AM or so - Almost lose consciousness trying to stay awake during painfully long journey to some suburb called Blacktown. Despite craning my neck, fail to see anything vaguely Sydney related, apart from brief glimpses of the city skyline. Lots of ugly freeways. Frighteningly narrow tunnels. Watch semi-trailer charge through tunnel at 80ks, less than a metre from the wall. Did I mention this was a narrow, two lane tunnel? Travel a six-lane freeway onto which a lot of houses face. Getting out of THAT driveway must be a fucking pain.
8.40AM - Taxi driver is clearly insane. Gets lost about a kilometre from our destination. Attempts to go left when co-worker is yelling "right! right!"
8.50AM - Arrive in a generic suburb, looks like Narre Warren or a naff Hawthorn. Could be anywhere, even reminded me of parts of Adelaide. Find library. Someone lets us into brand new library building.
9AM - Find our contact, hang around his office, finally get to work. He gives us a tour, and our own security cards. Despite long-standing sensitivity to caffeine, accept offer of coffee.
9-11.30AM - Play with book sorter. Works great, eventually. Guys who built the thing also rock up, we have a fun old time making the thing behave. Only find four bugs, and it never crashes. Yay.
12.30AM - Guys from the library buy us lunch across the road. Get defac coffee. Compare favourably to coffee from Melbourne, since it was a Melbourne brand.
Afternoon - Do other work stuff. Two phone calls from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
evildoom_bunny. Not to mention five SMSs.
3.20PM - Call co-worker back in Melbourne. He locates bug I suspected in about five minutes.
3.30PM - Boss of library finds us fucking with something in the foyer. Offered demo of book sorter.
3.31PM - Book sorter, in it's own little room, is covered in magazines and about to dump crap all over the floor.
3.32PM - Attempt to demonstrate sorter doing what it's supposed to do. The Demo Effect (The more important the visitor, the less likely the demo to succeed) kicks in, and nothing works as advertised. Finally manage to dump something where it's supposed to go. Assure boss that we'll iron out the bugs.
3.50PM - Wander through shopping mall, which looks just like Northland, looking for the St*rb*cks near the exit.
3.55PM - Find taxi rank. Taxi's queue next to train station in a weird long s-shaped roadway. Five people in front of us get cabs. We quickly get a station wagon. Driver has to pull around another curve to get out of the place - seriously, I should draw a diagram.
4PM - Taxi driver less insane. Sydney roads still insane. He also shows no interest in chatting.
4.30PM - Pass Olympic Stadium.
4.40PM - Another tunnel.
4.50PM - Arrive T3 terminal. E-check in thing tells us our flight is in "final boarding". Panic. Head to counter. Told this is crap, but she can't get us seats together. Flight actually doesn't even start boarding for fifteen minutes.
4.55PM - Take laptop out of bag, put in tray. Take wallet etc. out of pockets, place in tray. Place crumpler, laptop, laptop bag, tray with crap onto x-ray thing. Security gate beeps when I step through. Take off watch and glasses. Beeps again. Take off shows, pop them through x-ray machine. No beep. Grab watch, glasses, laptop, laptop bag, crumpler, wallet. Say "This is mine, this is mine" like the cat from Red Dwarf. Security lady amused. Put shoes back on.
5.05PM - Shop for shitty souvenirs forevildoom_bunny while eating apple from Melbourne. Quarantine regulations forbid transport of fruit and veg across state lines. Oops. Find snow dome, fridge magnet shaped like a thong with the opera house on it, shitty postcard. Success.
5.10PM - Jog back to gate. Crumpler strap catch gives out from all the running about with it full of shit.
5.15PM - Find co-worker. Plane finally starts boarding. Climb on board with two bags, long coat, parts of the Age, airline headphones. Find seat, 21E in the middle of a group of three. 737. Narrower than the plane in the morning.
5.46PM - Get onto runway finally. Plane supposed to leave 5.30. Take off. While we farted around in the terminal, the sun has gone down.
5.50-7PM - Listen to shitty "Qantas News" on the headphones and on the over head TVs. Read EG from the Age. Violently disagree with most reviews, especially the list of 101 albums you should own. Discover existence of new Woody Allen movie. Listen to Radio National. Find some shitty comedy channel playing Jerry Sinfield.
7PM - Plane lands on time. Chat to lady in the next seat while everyone on the plane tries to get off at the same time. She tells me she was supposed to get to Sydney at 9AM, the fog closed in, she waited in the terminal for a few hours, waited longer on the tarmac in the plane, got to Sydney at 1.30PM.
7.10PM - Finally get off plane. Take in flight snack with me. And airline headphones. Consider pinching safety card (thinking of Fight Club) but decide against it.
7.20PM - Shitty Chai from Gloria Jeans.
7.21PM - Hop in cab. Listen to stupid people do a quiz on the radio. Delight at familiar streets. Joke with cab driver about how Sydney roads suck.
8PM or so - Home.
8.10PM - Take off work clothes, dump crap from bags, grab my laptop.
8.11PM - Call Hazel while walking out the door.
8.30PM - Type this on laptop while doing dinner in Traffic cafe.
9.28PM - Finish this. Total time since I got up: 18 hours. Plans for the weekend: Sleep.
Thursday arvo - Make list of things to pack and take
Thursday, 8PM - Try on the pants part of my one suit, having been told to dress nice and not having anything else even vaguely "nice".
Thursday, 8.05PM - Suit pants actually work.
Thurs, 8.15PM - Pop all the clothes I could need onto my couch. Go through my crumpler and my wallet and remove any extraneous or suspicious items - metal water bottle, "Fear Bush" patch held on with safety pins. Pack a lot of cables and electronic shit into it instead. A small box with lots of switches, an Ethernet hub, etc. etc.
Thurs. 8.20PM - Shave, hop into shower, hop into bed
Thurs. 8 something PM - Finish book I meant to take with me. Damn. Grab copy of book group book instead.
Thursday night - Attempt, badly, to sleep.
Friday 4.30AM (That's not a typo) - Alarm on watch, alarm clock and phone go off. Jump in shower.
Friday 4.46AM - Charlie the taxi driver buzzes my intercom. Grab crumpler, lap top bag, run out door. Leave list of things to do on table. Leave book to read on the floor. Try and find places in coat for mobile phone and wallet - used to having more pockets.
Friday 5.10AM - Qantas Domestic Terminal. Fortuitously bump into co-worker and fellow traveller, the e-check in thing gives me a window seat.
5.30AM - Board 767
6AM - Pilot announces low cloud has suddenly enveloped the control tower, and they can't see a damn thing. Suggests we'll take off using "Alternative arrangements". Presumably he can see through cloud.
6.19AM - Take off into a gathering mist. The town is coated in it, in fact we're one of the last flights who make it out. Arrive in Sydney to announcements that everything flying in and out of Melbourne has been delayed. The arrivals and departures board is a mess. We thank dumb luck that we made it out.
6.30AM - Watch moving map of our progress at movement. Marvel at choice of geographical pointers, these include King Lake National Park and later Wollongong. Also marvel at display of altitude and speed - 450 Kilometres an hour and climbing. 2000 metres altitude.
6.30AM - Co-worker gets "vegetarian breakfast" - cereal etc.
6.40AM - I get breakfast. Looks exactly the same as vegetarian, except it has yoghurt. Despite long objection to Carbs, I eat muffin bar thing, cereal and yoghurt hungrily. Despite chronic sensitivity to caffeine, accept offer of Tea.
6.50AM - Watch sun rise over wing. Did I motion window seat?
7AM - Watch hilly NSW landscape, including valleys filled with fog.
7.18AM - Land in Sydney after lots of over ocean flight. Marvel at approach.
7.30AM - Hop into Silver taxi with odd all-plastic interior. Seats plastic, floor plastic. These guys know how to handle drunken passengers.
7.50-8.40AM or so - Almost lose consciousness trying to stay awake during painfully long journey to some suburb called Blacktown. Despite craning my neck, fail to see anything vaguely Sydney related, apart from brief glimpses of the city skyline. Lots of ugly freeways. Frighteningly narrow tunnels. Watch semi-trailer charge through tunnel at 80ks, less than a metre from the wall. Did I mention this was a narrow, two lane tunnel? Travel a six-lane freeway onto which a lot of houses face. Getting out of THAT driveway must be a fucking pain.
8.40AM - Taxi driver is clearly insane. Gets lost about a kilometre from our destination. Attempts to go left when co-worker is yelling "right! right!"
8.50AM - Arrive in a generic suburb, looks like Narre Warren or a naff Hawthorn. Could be anywhere, even reminded me of parts of Adelaide. Find library. Someone lets us into brand new library building.
9AM - Find our contact, hang around his office, finally get to work. He gives us a tour, and our own security cards. Despite long-standing sensitivity to caffeine, accept offer of coffee.
9-11.30AM - Play with book sorter. Works great, eventually. Guys who built the thing also rock up, we have a fun old time making the thing behave. Only find four bugs, and it never crashes. Yay.
12.30AM - Guys from the library buy us lunch across the road. Get defac coffee. Compare favourably to coffee from Melbourne, since it was a Melbourne brand.
Afternoon - Do other work stuff. Two phone calls from
evildoom_bunny. Not to mention five SMSs.3.20PM - Call co-worker back in Melbourne. He locates bug I suspected in about five minutes.
3.30PM - Boss of library finds us fucking with something in the foyer. Offered demo of book sorter.
3.31PM - Book sorter, in it's own little room, is covered in magazines and about to dump crap all over the floor.
3.32PM - Attempt to demonstrate sorter doing what it's supposed to do. The Demo Effect (The more important the visitor, the less likely the demo to succeed) kicks in, and nothing works as advertised. Finally manage to dump something where it's supposed to go. Assure boss that we'll iron out the bugs.
3.50PM - Wander through shopping mall, which looks just like Northland, looking for the St*rb*cks near the exit.
3.55PM - Find taxi rank. Taxi's queue next to train station in a weird long s-shaped roadway. Five people in front of us get cabs. We quickly get a station wagon. Driver has to pull around another curve to get out of the place - seriously, I should draw a diagram.
4PM - Taxi driver less insane. Sydney roads still insane. He also shows no interest in chatting.
4.30PM - Pass Olympic Stadium.
4.40PM - Another tunnel.
4.50PM - Arrive T3 terminal. E-check in thing tells us our flight is in "final boarding". Panic. Head to counter. Told this is crap, but she can't get us seats together. Flight actually doesn't even start boarding for fifteen minutes.
4.55PM - Take laptop out of bag, put in tray. Take wallet etc. out of pockets, place in tray. Place crumpler, laptop, laptop bag, tray with crap onto x-ray thing. Security gate beeps when I step through. Take off watch and glasses. Beeps again. Take off shows, pop them through x-ray machine. No beep. Grab watch, glasses, laptop, laptop bag, crumpler, wallet. Say "This is mine, this is mine" like the cat from Red Dwarf. Security lady amused. Put shoes back on.
5.05PM - Shop for shitty souvenirs for
evildoom_bunny while eating apple from Melbourne. Quarantine regulations forbid transport of fruit and veg across state lines. Oops. Find snow dome, fridge magnet shaped like a thong with the opera house on it, shitty postcard. Success.5.10PM - Jog back to gate. Crumpler strap catch gives out from all the running about with it full of shit.
5.15PM - Find co-worker. Plane finally starts boarding. Climb on board with two bags, long coat, parts of the Age, airline headphones. Find seat, 21E in the middle of a group of three. 737. Narrower than the plane in the morning.
5.46PM - Get onto runway finally. Plane supposed to leave 5.30. Take off. While we farted around in the terminal, the sun has gone down.
5.50-7PM - Listen to shitty "Qantas News" on the headphones and on the over head TVs. Read EG from the Age. Violently disagree with most reviews, especially the list of 101 albums you should own. Discover existence of new Woody Allen movie. Listen to Radio National. Find some shitty comedy channel playing Jerry Sinfield.
7PM - Plane lands on time. Chat to lady in the next seat while everyone on the plane tries to get off at the same time. She tells me she was supposed to get to Sydney at 9AM, the fog closed in, she waited in the terminal for a few hours, waited longer on the tarmac in the plane, got to Sydney at 1.30PM.
7.10PM - Finally get off plane. Take in flight snack with me. And airline headphones. Consider pinching safety card (thinking of Fight Club) but decide against it.
7.20PM - Shitty Chai from Gloria Jeans.
7.21PM - Hop in cab. Listen to stupid people do a quiz on the radio. Delight at familiar streets. Joke with cab driver about how Sydney roads suck.
8PM or so - Home.
8.10PM - Take off work clothes, dump crap from bags, grab my laptop.
8.11PM - Call Hazel while walking out the door.
8.30PM - Type this on laptop while doing dinner in Traffic cafe.
9.28PM - Finish this. Total time since I got up: 18 hours. Plans for the weekend: Sleep.
