The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
I have had my picture taken for my new passport today. I maintain that I look like a serial killer and I always wonder why people let me into the country.
I have just attended a seminar where the speaker made upwards of 75 “uhhhh” sounds in a 9 minute talk. This works out to one annoying pause every 7.2 seconds, on average. This impressed me more than the content of the talk.
We have just received the tickets to the Bill Bailey show in London, next October. This makes me happy.
I was going through the stuff I brought back from Amsterdam and came across this. It’s a snippet of conversation I had after smoking along the banks of the Gentlemen’s Canal with Michel:
Me: We’re like one big cliché here. It’s like a bad mix of When Harry met Sally and Thirtysomething: two old friends, on a trip to Amsterdam, get high and reminisce about all the times they had and their fears for the future.
Michel: You write it up, you sell it to Hollywood, you make millions.
Me: Who would you get to play you in your movie?
Michel: Forrest Whittaker.
Me: The big, black guy???
Michel: yes.
For some reason (besides being high), I found this hilarious. Still do :)
I made it back from Amsterdam in one piece and no drug-related incidents. I was mildly concerned that there might be dogs and they might have objected to some lingering scents from my clothes (oh come on, this is Amsterdam we’re talking about here!) but we made it back home with no problems. In fact, it was probably my easiest customs clearance in Stansted in memory. There was no queue. The buggers did change the layout of the landing card though, which made me waste a bit of time, having to read it.
I worked from home on Thursday and took Friday off sick cause I had a lingering headache that took its sweet time to go away. Yesterday was a bank holiday so all in all, it was a 4 day weekend. I could use more of those, even if Katy and I did spend it watching waaaaaaaaaaay too many episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, we are sad. Yes, we know it.
We did get some grown-up work done; laundry and groceries and the such. We’ve started buying nappies and baby wipes. One of the books mentioned that if you start buying that stuff before the kids are due and you’re still on full pay, it can really help ease the burden of low maternity pay. We stared, slack-jawed, at the wall of diapers in Tesco and we kept asking ourselves which ones to get and if more expensive really is better. In the end, we went for a brand name that was on sale. We’ll get more of the same in the following weeks. This mildly freaks me out.
We also managed to get some fun stuff done though. We had a BBQ on Saturday where we went completely overboard on the sausages. We went to Cafe Rouge on Monday, just for the hell of it. We wanted to catch a movie as well, but Katy was feeling a bit tired. The last few weeks have been emotional for her and it seems to have caught up with her. There’s the whole Rita issue, for one. She’s decided – and I support her decision – to simply cut all contact. Drastic, but it’s at the point where she’s getting more negative than positive from the whole thing and it’s time to call it quits and move on. I had something similar happen with Seb, years ago, so I do understand where she’s coming from. People change…
The plan for the next few days is work, work and work and then Ikea. I also need to start going back to the gym again. It’s been way too long and I’ve gotten in horrible shape. All the good work that I’d done for the wedding is long gone. I’ve not gained too much weight, but the muscle turned to flab and must be dealt with now. Blergh. Don’t wanna, but need to. Such is life.
TSA Snafu Damages Nine Planes at O’Hare Field – Pilots Furious with Misstep
Nine American Eagle airplanes were grounded Tuesday after a TSA inspector, conducting an overnight security check, used sensitive instrument probes to climb onto the parked aircraft at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. A TSA official confirmed the incident.
The TSA agent, as part of spot inspection of aircraft security, climbed onto the parked aircraft using control sensors mounted on the fuselage as handholds, according to a TSA official.
“Our inspector was following routine procedure for securing the aircraft that were on the tarmac,” said the official. The TSA agent was attempting to determine if someone could break into a parked aircraft, according to the agent.
Pilots were furious at the TSA misstep.
“The brilliant employees used an instrument located just below the cockpit window that is critical to the operation of the onboard computers,” one pilot wrote on an American Eagle internet forum. “They decided this instrument, the TAT probe, would be adequate to use as a ladder,” the pilot wrote.
Another pilot wrote the TSA agents, “are now doing things to our aircraft that may put our lives, and the lives of our passengers at risk.”
The TSA has been conducting such overnight spot checks at airports around the country.
Source: ABC
I had really weird dreams last night. I don’t really remember them, but I do recall that they were weird.
I woke up to the usual noise. The Dutch builders are very punctual and assiduous in their work ethic.
I checked out of my hotel and brought alll my bags to the conference center. My tram was delayed on the way so I missed the opening keynote. Le poo. The auditorium is… huge! Having said that, I can happily report that my talk went very well. I didn’t swear or say anything inappropriate (always a fear). I don’t remember anything of what I said – that tends to happen a lot when I give a talk in public – but the feeling I have and the confirmation from my colleagues is that I came across very well. I always think that I talk too quickly, but at least it comes across clearly so I can live with that.
I managed to find a chhicken salad that didn’t look like it would kill me (and as I’m writing this now, it would seem that it won’t) and it was actually rather tasty.
The plan now is to hang around here until 4:30, when we’re scheduled to break down the stand and pack everything up. I’ll accompany the other people that are also leaving tonight and we’re taking a cab to the airport. The flight is scheduled for 9:30 local (and we land at 9:35 BST, imagine that!) so we’ll probably eat and shop a bit at the airport. If all goes well, I should be home by 10:30.
That last thought makes me happy.
My plans were thwarted when I arrived to find the bagel place closed. Shops close very early in Amsterdam, apparently. This did not make me happy, as I now had to go scavenge for food. I came across a deli that looked promising, but the only meat that seemed Richard-friendly at first glance had a mixed spice rub so I didn’t really want to chance it. Luckily, I have noticed three things about the Dutch.
They love bicycles.
They love to smoke (everything!).
They love steak.
Never in any country – including the US of A – have I seen a higher concentration of Argentinian steakhouses. I counted 4 visible from a single intersection – two being of the same chain and across the street from one another. So I didn’t starve, but my diet is still shit for this trip. I would have much preferred the bagel, but what can you do.
I did manage to make it back to my hotel at a decent time and the rest of my evening pretty much went according to plan.
I woke up with a mild hangover this morning, courtesy of Amsterdam’s finest. The construction noises didn’t help either. Breakfast was, if possible, even worse than yesterday and I didn’t stop burping it until close to noon.
Michel and Isabelle dropped their luggage off in my room while we went for a canal cruise this morning. It was a nice, easy way to wake up and then we parted ways. They picked up their luggage and took the train to Rotterdam to continue on their merry holidaymaker ways and I took the tram to the conference to see all the fun I’d been missing there.
Apparently the food here is horrible too (though I had no plans to sample it). I chatted a bit with the booth folk, uploaded my presentation to the speakers’ presentation system and then took in the poster sessions and the exhibitor hall. A few posters caught my eye and I found out that a company working in Victoria is planning a massive hiring spurt for software developers so I could have a job in Canada in the next few months if I wanted one. I’ll have to keep them in mind when my contract is up because, were I to come back to Canada post-EBI, the two places that I’d consider are Montreal and BC. The exhibitor booth is shockingly barren of good schwag. Everybody is only giving away cheap-looking pens. T-shirts, people, t-shirts! My preferred conference remains Javapolis, but I don’t think Ben will allow me to attend this year (and it was my turn on the rota too!)
The plan for tonight is to be a good boy. I’m going to go grab a bagel from the shop I found yesterday and then head back to the hotel. I want to go over my talk a few times and have an early night.
The conference program held nothing of interest for me and Michel and Isabelle – who I had not seen in ages – were in town. So I didn’t go to the conference and made the tactical decision to waste my time with fun friends instead of wasting my time trying to not fall asleep in a dark auditorium listening to recycled keynote lectures. We shall speak of this no more.
I woke up to a very noisy hotel room. I’d always been led to believe that Ibis hotels were good. Hopefully, this is the one exception that proves the rule. To put it bluntly, this Ibis Amsterdam Central has no redeeming features except that it’s close to the train station and that the rooms have 4 walls and a bed. Right now, the hotel is a construction site because planned renovations are taking longer than expected. I woke up to the pleasant noise of an impact hammer and various drills. The breakfast buffet has to be one of the worst hotel breakfasts I’ve ever had the displeasure to have. The “eggs” are so bland that the amount of salt and pepper needed to add some taste to them is frightening. They would also make good wallpaper paste. There is no bacon. Let me repeat this. There is no bacon. This might be very North Americal of me, but THERE IS NO BACON. This is a crime against humanity. Ok, so I exaggerate a bit, but it doesn’t change the fact that the decor is cafeteria-chic and looks onto train tracks and that the food is even less appealing than the decor. Like the rats from Ratatouille say: “food is fuel”, so I managed to find some things to eat.
Michel and Isabelle were still a bit jetlagged so they said they’d catch up with me around noon-ish. I didn’t want to waste too much sunlight to I went to the Rijksmuseum. The Rembrandts are… stunning! I’d never really looked at one. The light, the detail, the vibrancy of them! Beautiful. Took my breath away. There were also some Vermeers (he painted The Girl with the Peal Earring – but that painting is in the Hague) that were impressive, but Rembrandt steals the show.
After that, I went to the Van Gogh museum to wait in the queue while Michel and Isabelle were en route. Amusing moment: two French tourists were waiting behind me. One said to the other: “everybody is so civilized. Everybody is waiting quietly and nobody is cutting in the queue”. The other replies; “we’re not in France here”. :D
Finally the dynamic duo arrived and we met up and chatted about silliness while we waited to get in. The Van Goghs were impressive, but less so than the Rembrandts. What was impressive is the sheer amount of them. Pictures I’d only seen in books, not two feet away from my nose with only a little metal rail separating us. I didn’t know that old Vincent had had an Oriental period where he tried to replicate the Japanese woodblock print style. I bought a really cool poster of one of those.
We went to a “diamond museum” afterwards which was one part small, tacky exhibit room and nine parts large, tacky shopping area. The stuff was not particularly nice and bloody expensive. We went walkies after that with no real aim in sight.
Isabelle is an even bigger shutterbug than I am! She’s always snapping away at random things. The memory card on her camera is rated for a few thousand pictures and I’m certain that she’ll fill it in before the end of their trip. She kept telling Michel to “act natural” when she wanted to pose a scene with him in it :)
We had tea and lunch at a little bagel shop and then we went walking along the canals and in the flower market. Isabelle kept saying “photo opportunity” but the first time she said that, Michel heard “hippopotame chauve” which, translated, means “bald hippopotamus”. We kept teasing him about it. The weather was off and on. Raining a bit then a bit of sun, then more drizzle. Lather, rinse, repeat.
We went walking in the red light district. In daylight, it’s not really a pleasant sight. The hookers are past their sell-by dates and the whole area is grimy. Isabelle waned shortly after to she went back to her hotel while Michel and I made plans to sample some of Amsterdam’s finest, have dinner then see the red light in hopefully better light (when darkness would hide the worst of the grime).
The coffee shops are very generous in their portions and we discovered tat Amsterdam’s finest is potent as hell! We sat on the banks of the Gentlemens’ canal and shared a doobie. Now granted, it was a big doobie and had no tobacco in it to cut things down, but still. da-yum! I hadn’t been that stoned in years! We managed to fight back the giggles and had dinner in a nice steakhouse near Rembrandtplein.
Even though the night-shift of hookers in the red light is of better stock than the day-shift, it still leaves something to be desired. If I’d been single and carefree, there would have been only three or four ladies of negotiable affection that would have tempted my fancy in the dozens and dozens that we saw. The district is also packed with drunks, dopeheads, pickpockets and generally smelly and unpleasant tourists. We didn’t linger. Michel hailed a cab and dropped my off at my hotel on the way to his.
I talked with Katy on the phone, watched the olympic highlights and went to sleep.
It occurs to me that I am traveling with not one, not two, but three stuffed toys in backpack. This is two more than usual:
You see, one Bobbles always lives in my backpack. He likes it there and has moved in permanently. One Bobbles is for Isabelle, cause Bobbles rocks and she is now converted to the cause of the blue owl. Parsley, Katy’s lion, must follow me in all my Katy-less travels. He keeps an eye on me to make sure I don’t get myself into trouble (or so I’ve been told).
I’m in the plane right now typing away on my eeeee. They’re doing the safety schpiel. Man, dutch is a funny-sounding language :) Think of the Swedish chef with a stuffy nose.
Security at Stansted was a breeze. I’m getting used to the routine – just dump as much stuff as you can in your backpack, smile, say yes sir, no sir, thank you sir and not much else. The less fuss you kick up, the easier it is for everybody
Travel time is 45 minutes and I should exit in Amstredam in the same lovely wet weather as is currently in stansted.
I’m not even close to Amsterdam and already I begin to understand why the country wants to clean up its act and start attracting a better class of tourism not hell bent on fucking every hooker in sight and smoking everything imaginable. The plane is half-full with lads and yobs who fit that exact bill. They’re loud, obnoxious and plain stupid. It’s at times like these when I’m happy to have good headphones.
The idiots next to me are either stoned or halfway pissed – and it’s not even 9am. I must be getting old if I find this behaviour objectable. I mean, I know I’ve been in similar state before, but at least I had the good graces to not acting like a raving maniac in public spaces.
The people besides me are real classy lads and ladettes. Things I never want to hear in an airplane now include: “come on, I dare you to smell my dirty knickers” and “woah man, look at that stewardess’s ass. It’s so tight! Man, she’s fitter than I am”. Classy, like I said.
Border control and luggage reclaim went without issue and I managed to make my way to the correct train platform to get to the central train station. I knew that my hotel was close to the train station, but I didn’t expect my hotel room window to be right above the train tracks with the squeaky steel-on-steel brakes for the intercity trains. It’s probably a good thing that I’m used to sleeping with earplugs because I think that I’ll need them.
The room itself has 4 walls and a bed and not much else to its credit. Still, it’ll do for 3 nights. There’s no mini-fridge, which will be a serious pain in the butt though. At least there’s a kettle though so I’ll be able to have tea.
I was supposed to meet up with Michel today but he texted saying that he was getting over a migraine, so I was on my own until 5pm when he’d give me a shout to see how he was feeling. He said that we would probably be able to do dinner. To be efficient, I took the tram up to the conference centre to register in to HUPO and pick up the conference materials. After that, I went walkies and got lost wandering around central Amsterdam. I managed to snap a few amusing shots here and there and spot a few places that I want to go back and explore properly when I have the occasion.
5pm came and went and no text from Michel. I went and had a pint of Old Speckled Hen in an English pub (sad, I know) and took a load off my feet. He did get back to me a bit later, saying that they were going to have dinner with a friend of Isabelle’s that was in town from Belgium and asked what I thought about spending the day together tomorrow. No biggie. I came back to the hotel, ate a bite while watching the Olympic highlights and now I’m going to work on my presentation for Wednesday.
I’m online, but just for a bit. The wi-fi is 6 euro an hour or 24 euro for 24 hours. Madness!