Tralfaz

Category: blog

  • European Travel Log – London

    Quick Edit: I forgot how awesome it is to have yummy Ale served at the “proper” British temperature. ‘Muricans just don’t get proper ales.

    The Austria and Germany portions of this trip went well. Successful demos and sales training. Today I moved to London for a couple days before heading to Yarnton for a seminar on Tuesday.

    I am staying near Waterloo on Lambeth road at the Novotel. Pretty awesome location, near a shitload of great sights and things to do.

    The weather is a LOT warmer than I expected. 50F here this afternoon. I almost was too warm with my winter coat on. Traffic wasn’t too bad, it is a Saturday after all. I got to the hotel about 1:30 and headed out for a stroll.

    The London EyeI thought I might enjoy doing the London Eye. Um, holy cow, the line for that makes Disneyland seem barren. Even the “Fast Pass” line is oppressively long. I didn’t even look up how much it costs. Took a few pics and walked by.

    The Parliment building is cool, and recognizable, and listening to Big Ben chime the hours was fun. I expected there to be more boating traffic on the Thames.

    Lots to see and do. Of course, it isn’t all unicorns and chocolate.

    Novotel hotels used to be nice. This one is not cheap ($250 a night US) and you get almost no amenities. Yes, there is free internet, but it must be a 128K fram relay line for all the free users to share. I lasted about 10 minutes before I caved in and bought the upgraded internet. BReakfast isn’t included (a rarity in Europe), and for $32US I will walk down to a bakery for a pastry and a coffee, thankyouverymuch. But, it is in a great, convenient location.

    Cabs – I love the charming “black” cabs, and I got a chatty driver. Took about 15 minutes to drive to the hotel from Paddington station. Yes, I could have done it via tube, but I would have made a lot of mistakes and it would have taken me an hour or more to figure it out. So I cabbed it. Cash only (which will make it tough to expense), and 17 pounds. Yikes. I have to remember that it is ~ $1.80 to 1 pound.

    Heathrow Express. An absolute joy. Certainly cheaper than a car, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it to take my credit card. So another 21 pounds flew out of my limited stash. At this rate, I will be eating McDonalds for all three meals by Monday. (I think I was just using a bad ticket kiosk)

    Tomorrow I will walk the royal gardens, go to the natural history museum, stroll the riverfront, drink a few pints at a public house, and explore the tubes.

    Mind the gap!

    Monday I head up to Oxford for a day, then back to London (for a much cheaper hotel), and day trips for the rest of the week.

  • Irrefutable evidence of getting older

    I have been denying that I have been getting older for some time. I have been able to wave off a lot of symptoms.

    Heart attack, plantar fasciitis, difficulty losing weight, osteoarthritis in my thumb. No problem. There is a fair amount of grey in my hair, but the red hair is good at hiding it.

    But now I can no longer deny that I am getting old. Today I found some grey eyebrows. Evidence staring me in the face when I look in the mirror. No doubt about it, I am getting old. It is down hill from here.

  • News from the Road

    I am in Europe for a few days (almost 2 weeks, really), and as usual, there are some petite observations.

    In Austria, a lot of people smoke. You almost forget how it used to be, but a trip here has reminded me of smoking in restaurants and bars. Oh joy. I guess I will not wear this Sweater again on this trip.

    There are two types of trips:

    1. Those that over schedule you: every minute of every day is planned. Of course, reality settles in, and some appointments will shift or be missed. These trips are hectic, often 5 countries in 4 days, no more than one night in a hotel, and guaranteed chaos.
    2. Those that spread it out too much: Plans change, schedules don’t align, and you find yourself with some downtime. I honestly don’t mind this, because I often can be super productive in these times. Often without internet access, being time shifted so that there is little overlap with the home country. It can be a good thing.

    Of course, regardless of the type of trip scheduled, the local team will feel like they failed you if they don’t keep every minute packed.

    In all my years of travel I have yet to find a sure fire way to quash jet lag. This time, I was up for 36 hours, and slept great my first night. I felt great the first day. Then last night I was tossing and turning until well past 2:00AM.  GRRRRRRR. Alcohol, melatonin, sleeping aids. All tried over the years, and all failed.

    Good food though. I usually push to eat local specialties and (usually) am surprised. Here in Austria and Germany, I will eat much meat.

    I rarely get to do any real sightseeing. I try to enjoy the weekends, but often I am so frazzled that I collapse in my hotel and just do work. This weekend will be an exception. I will be in London, and I will do some walking around. I have never spent any real time here, just flown in, and then headed north or west depending on the trip.

    Shopping. I am not a big shopper. Not much into the kitsch, and souvenirs. I don;t have kids, so no demand to carry stuff back.

    Well, it is almost Bier time, and I believe tonight we will be eating schnitzel. Yummy

  • “Silly”con Valley Neighborhoods

    More on the saga so far.

    This week we spent three days crawling around neighborhoods looking for places that fit the criteria:

    • They are livable – as in, we can walk our dogs in the evening without fear for our lives.
    • We can afford it – We do have an upper limit to what is affordable, after all. I don’t have early Facebook equity.
    • The commute doesn’t completely suck – Probably the hardest of all. The further away you get, the more affordable it is, but this is inversely proportional to the suck factor of the commute.

    On Monday we ruled out a few neighborhoods in San Jose. The fear factor and the feel of some of the neighborhoods was pretty bleak. We also ruled out Gilroy and Morgan Hill. Yes, some affordable options there, but my commute would be tied to Caltrain, and it is a LONG drive for when that wouldn’t work.

    But we did find some downtown areas that were well within the “livable” and “affordable” category. And it would be possible to commute by bicycle if I wanted, a bonus!

    Tuesday we went up the east bay. Started in Milpitas. Very little inventory, (but lots, and I do mean lots of foreclosures) but every neighborhood we looked at was ratty and run down. Likely due to the reduced tax receipts caused by all the foreclosures (people in foreclosure are not paying their property taxes either). A real turn off.

    Further up the east bay, we checked a few places in Fremont. The problem here is the neighborhoods were squiffy. Some really gnarly neighborhoods that made me want to drive through quickly, and some that were in the process of gentrification. But that process was not far enough along to make them attractive. Plus the commute from here is getting egregious.

    Last place on the east bay was to check out the Hayward/Castro Valley area. A colleague lives up there, and recommended it. Claimed it took him 45 minutes to get to the office. cough He must never do it in the commute hours. It takes 45 minutes with no traffic and being at the speed limit on the freeways. Big negative.

    We also went up the peninsula. Some people urged us to look at Redwood City. The few (very few) affordable places were east of El Camino Real. Very rough neighborhoods. Of course, west of El Camino Real are nice, but it starts at $1M and goes up. Apparently that part of Redwood City is the slums of Woodside.

    Lastly, there was one house in “Menlo Park” that met our price target. But this finger of Menlo Park is just east of East Palo Alto. EPA often fights for the “Murder Capitol of America” with DC. Yes, EPA is changing, but it is still not a neighborhood to covet.

    The Net Results

    The trip was a success. We accomplished:

    • We will be able to buy something that is affordable (if we hold our nose and not think about the price).
    • There are some neighborhoods that are suitable and should be in our price range (yay!)
    • We now know what we don’t want. The fact that we were able to cross a lot off our list will help tremendously when we are actually shopping.
    • The move, while scary, is not terrifying. Yes, it will be tough, and yes, we will give up a lot to move back, but it is going to be do-able.

    Now to the next phase. Getting ready to sell our house. We will likely need to downsize a lot of the detritus of our lives. It’s as good a time as any to streamline, so they say.

  • Moving Travails

    Moving from Phoenix to San Jose is going to be an eye opener. We currently have almost 2,400 sqft of house, not counting the garage. We will be lucky to have half that here (for 2.5x the price).

    I am already thinking about what will have to go. A lot of what I have packed in my garage is going to get nuked. It has mostly sat in a box, so I am not going to miss it.

    • My CD’s might get sold. Not a huge collection, but apart from some special ones, that I want to save (signed etc) they have been digitized and archived long ago. Bookman’s will get a bounty.
    • My textbooks. I will look long and hard at my physics and math texts. Most will get pitched. A few I still refer to, but the truth be told, they have been collecting dust for a long time.
    • My old computer gear. I have fond memories of my 8-bit days, and a couple old Atari’s and Apples. I fear they need to go adios. There are emulators, and I still have all the software, so apart from nostalgia, there is little value there anymore.
    • My paperback and Sci Fi collection. This is going to hurt. I have a lot of sci fi that I have bought over the years. Some collectors editions, a lot of old books long out of print. I will sort through the 8 or so moving boxes, and pick one to keep. The rest will go to Bookman’s. I have been using the reader for 6 years now, and I find that most of what I want to read is available electronically.
    • My second computer desk/workstation. I will likely not have room for both. One will go, and I will probably sell/use my second 24″ monitor at the office. It will make it inconvenient to work at home, but that is OK.

    This should help immensely if we get into 1,200 sqft. If we go much smaller than that, or only a one car garage, a lot more will get sacrificed. Probably some guitars and amplification. gulp

  • Notes from House Hunting in San Jose Area

    This week I am in San Jose/South Bay to “preview” prior to deciding to relocate. Since I spent the first 38 years of my life here, I don’t need much pre-viewing, so we are hitting likely locations to live.

    So far, I have pretty much dismissed the far south bay. Morgan Hill and Gilroy, while they are near and served by Caltrain, are just too damn far. I last lived at the north end of the Coyote valley, and it was OK, but still a long commute, even by light rail.

    I did find some great neighborhoods in downtown San Jose. Near the Japantown district are cute bungalows (small houses) that look fun, and some neighborhoods just north of Willow Glen are attractive and affordable. The whole downtown area has cleaned up a lot since I graduated from SJSU. Definitely like it.

    The Edenvale/Blossom Hill area is another strong contender. Older neighborhoods, but good feel, and it seemed like “home”. We did find some neighborhoods that genuinely sucked. Of course, when even in a sketchy neighborhood, a modest house costs over $500K, the trend is towards gentrification. Just not soon enough for our tastes.

    The Internet makes it cozy to sit at your desk and look for houses. MLS Listings, Zillow and Trulia are all pretty easy to navigate. But until you sit in front of a house, you fail to get a feel. One would think that real estate agents would invest in a decent camera and some classes on how to take a decent picture.

    Somethings I noticed on the road:

    • People here still can’t drive. Stupid maneuvers on the freeways, inability to merge on said freeways, crazy “california” stops. I thought Arizona had a lot of lousy drivers. But this takes the cake.
    • The infrastructure is looking old. Really old. Sidewalks are crumbling. Streets are rough. Not as bad as Tucson, but you can tell that some of the neighborhoods I looked in were from the very early 1900’s.
    • One thing Arizona gets right is the laws about how to deal with emergency vehicles. You pull over, both directions, and let them pass. I forgot about the past time here of chasing fire trucks and ambulances to catch their “green lights”. Insane at any speed.
    • Those “Keep clear” markings on the streets. Completely ignored. Traffic is bad enough, and it is difficult enough to merge cleanly, but blocking those areas is just selfish douchebag-ness. You are not helping, and you aren’t going to get there any quicker.
    • BMW must make a “California ONLY” version of their car. I swear in 2.5 days of driving around, I have yet to see a single BMW signal its intent. They must come without turn indicators here.
    • If you are in the right lane, and you want to make a left turn, it is OK in California to just cut across 4 lanes of traffic in 50′. No, really, nobody minds.

    I am back at the hotel, and I am tired. Mexican food and Margaritas tonight.

  • Relocating back to Silicon Valley – The Good

    Hell has frozen over, and it looks like I am going to be relocating back to the Silicon Valley. I left there in 2003 to take a job in Tucson that I liked, and came to enjoy much of what Arizona offers. A couple times I flirted with going back, including a very tempting job offer.

    As we head out to “preview” the south bay, I would like to take a few minutes to reflect on some of the good things there will be about returning to my childhood and early adult home.

    • Family and Friends – Since I lived in the south bay until I was 38, I still have many ties to the area. My step father, and sister still live there. My other sister lives a few hours away by car in the Sierra Nevada foothills. I also still have several friends in the area. It will be good to reconnect with them.
    • Climate and Activities – I love the outdoors and the related activities. Cycling, hiking, scenic drives are all good stress relievers for me. Tucson had great (technically challenging) hiking, but the climate was such that you were limited from May to October due to the heat. It will begreat to have redwood forests, Stevens Creek Reservoir, Fremont-Older, and other great hiking. Being an hour or less from the beach will be a huge benefit (not that I am a beach comber).
    • The Food – Tucson had the best Mexican food I have ever had. But I struggled to find good Chinese or Indian food. The one Korean restaurant was so so, and everybody’s recommendation for Italian, “Caruso’s” doesn’t even rate a sneer. I know that the Bay Area has a much wider selection, and the ethnic communities do have far better restaurants and variation. Yum. And one thing that I greatly missed is good sourdough bread. Yep, Beyond Bread did a passable sourdough, but nothing, I mean nothing compares to real crusty, chewy San Francisco sourdough. Yum.
    • Business – I am not ever planning on leaving my current job. I love it, and at heart I am an instrumentation guy. But, after the barreness of Tucson, and the better but not great employment market of Phoenix, it is reassuring to know that there will be opportunities to find new challenges should I need to. Silicon Valley remains the epicenter of much of the tech world.

    There are some plusses to the move, and I will keep them in mind as I am hunting for neighborhoods, weighing commute, quality of life, and where I can realistically afford to live.

    Next post: The Bad

  • Anniversary of an Ominous Day

    Four years ago today was the classic definition of a “bad day“. I had been at the gym, doing my daily workout, but felt blah and off. I couldn’t get my heart rate above 100 (registered on the elliptical trainer), and I really had to force myself to do the full hour.

    I was uncomfortable on the drive home, but that wasn’t so unusual after a session at the gym.

    I stepped into the shower, and BAM it hit me like a ton of bricks. Shooting pains out the arms, huge pressure on my chest. I knew I was in trouble.

    Fortunately my wife panicked and called 911 (first bit of good fortune) instead of driving me to the ER.

    Once I was at the ER, they hooked me up to a machine, and voila, I was having a heart attack. You never saw so many people jump into action. Off to the catheter lab, a call to the rad tech and the cardiologist on duty, and I was fitted with a Stent.

    Verdict: Complete blockage of my right coronary artery. The angioplasty and stent successfully opened it up, and I began a long recovery.

    Every January 3rd, I pause and recognize the day that I was dying and dodged a major bullet. I was 44 years old. I was running 5 – 6 miles 6 days a week. I was hiking on weekends, and I was eating healthy. I had been battling high blood pressure for years, but that had been controlled via medication, diet and exercise.

    Naturally I recovered, went through my rehab (12 weeks), and even was able 8 weeks after the event hike to the Phantom Ranch and back out.

    To this day, I try to live life to the fullest. I am cautious naturally, but every day is a gift to be celebrated and cherished.

  • Travel Horror Stories

    Product management and product marketing are two fields where you can expect to travel often. Unlike sales, who usually have a territory, we cover the world and are called to travel widely.

    Horror StoriesEvery one of these jobs I have been in has advertised 25% of travel. And every one of them has underestimated the percentage of travel required.

    Pro-tip: If they tell you while interviewing that you will travel less than 25%, they don’t know what product management is.

    Yes, we travel a lot, to a lot of places. Our IRL friends often think this is glamorous, and it was the first couple of years. But then it becomes a grind.

    Fortunately, most travel is innocuous, and you are more likely to die of boredom waiting for planes, trains and automobiles than have a hair raising experience.

    Thus, when something goes wrong, it will be a disaster:

    Travel Agent Insanity

    Today, most of my domestic travel I handle with the web based reservation system. It is usually efficient, and I have some control.

    However, it hasn’t always been like that. When I first started in this career, we were at the mercy of the corporate travel agency. Being people, and having an “interest” in how they processed our travel, they would direct us to their preferred carriers and hotels (nb: places that gave them a commission or kickback)

    Today it is better, but incompetence still rules the day. Some blunders:

    Tickets not issued: this really happened. Circa 1999, I was flying to Japan in February to present a paper at a technical conference (I used to be really really smart). I booked the trip in November once I knew the paper had been accepted, knowing that I needed to be in Tokyo. At this time, I was quoted a pretty good fare (I don’t recall ever spending more than $800 round trip from SFO to NRT until 2006 or so).

    So far so good.

    I get to SFO on Saturday to catch my flight. I check in, and the counter agent sees my reservation but it wasn’t ticketed. apparently the agency didn’t ticket it because they thought I might not travel. So, it is Saturday, about 90 minutes before boarding time, and I am on the phone (on hold) waiting for an agent. Mind you this is in queue at the check-in counter, as I had no cell phone then. Then I get the message that I had been on hold for the maximum time they allowed for customer satisfaction purposes, that I could leave a message and an agent would get back to me.

    Excuse me, I am at the airport, 90 minutes before my flight, I have a reservation, but the ticket was never purchased, and instead of answering the fucking phone, you dump me to voicemail?

    Fortunately, I called our group administrative assistant at home, who got on the priority line and got my ticket purchased.

    Today, I would just whip out a card and buy the ticket, but back then, if it wasn’t charged to the corporate card, it wouldn’t be reimbursed.

    Going home wasn’t an option, as we co-wrote the paper with a large semiconductor manufacturer whose name begins with ‘i’, and is the largest IDM maker in the world.

    Stupid routing: Once I was traveling to Busan South Korea from my home in Tucson Arizona. The way the ticket worked was that I flew through LAX to NRT, then switched carriers to get to Busan. I thought nothing of it when I booked the ticket.

    I get to the airport to check in, and I get my ticket to Tokyo, but since the carrier from Tokyo to Busan was different, I needed to check in there. No big deal.

    Except that it was a big deal. Apparently, you can’t check in more than 24 hours in advance, and I missed that by about 3 hours.

    So, I get to Tokyo, needing to catch a flight to Busan, and I have 45 minutes between flights. A legal connection my idiot travel agent swears.

    What I had to do: Land in Tokyo, go through customs, pick up my bags, go to the check-in counter at the other airline, check-in, go through immigration control and security, and board my plane. All in about 45 minutes.

    Yes I made it, but the stress was incredible. And the irony is that the travel agent didn’t understand why it was stupid. And his fault.

    Botched Instructions: One time, I was on a trip to California. I was in meetings, and supposed to return on Thursday. But I needed to extend the trip a day. So I called the travel agency and had them change my flight out on Thursday to be Friday. Seemed clear to me.

    bzzzt: Wrong answer. The doofus travel agent canceled my return trip, and canceled my flight to Austin, TX the following Monday. So I had a trip with a flight into San Jose, and returning from Austin the following Friday (and I was already in San Jose). Nothing in the middle.

    When I called up livid, he said he thought I wanted to cancel my return from San Jose and my flight to Austin.

    I asked him if he thought how I was to get from San Jose to Austin, he thought I would just drive. Just 1,716 miles by road. Idiot.

    Ended up re-booking my return, and my entire Austin trip. Of course < 6 day advanced notice meant that my return from San Jose was $800 (when my entire ticket was $250 before), and my trip to Austin was $1,400 (when it was $300 RT before he messed it up).

    Naturally my boss wasn’t amused. Neither was I.

    Canceled Flights and missed connections

    Nothing is worse than that sinking feeling when you are going to miss a flight. Perhaps a meeting ran long. Or traffic snarls prevent you from getting to the airport. Whatever the reason, it can be a sucky day.

    Those are things that you ultimately have some control over. But there are a class of insanity that will screw you even if you do it all right.

    Canceled Flights: It used to be that flights were never canceled unless there was a DGR (damned good reason). A DGR would be a Typhoon headed for your destination. Or a plane crashed on the runway at an airport. Rare, and special.

    But now the carriers are maximizing their revenue by ensuring that seats are filled. All too often, an underutilized flight will be canceled, and the luckless passengers will be crammed into the next flight. This happens all the time now (cough US-Air cough, cough United cough). Last month I got my ass out of bed at 3:30 to catch a 6:30 flight to be in San Jose by 8:30. Of course, they canceled my 6:30 flight due to “mechanical” troubles (the trouble being that it was only about a quarter full), and instead crammed us all into the 8:30 flight. Got to San Jose at 11:30 (one stop instead of non-stop).

    This used to happen a lot when I lived in Tucson. United would get you to Phoenix, then cancel the last flight to Tucson at night, so you would end up renting a car and driving the 2 hours home.

    Even Southwest, a carrier that almost never canceled flights is getting into the game.

    The worst one for me was a flight to Dublin (via London). British Airways, direct from PHX to LHR. Departs at 9:00PM. Except that when I got to the airport, it was delayed 6 hours, and wouldn’t depart until 4:00AM. Of course, that fouled up my connecting flight, so I got to stay in the LHR hotel, and get up at 4:00AM to catch the first flight to Dublin. Fun.

    Once, I was flying to Taiwan. There was a Typhoon, but as I checked in for my first flight to Tokyo, the agent said all was well, that the Typhoon wouldn’t interfere. Lies. The typhoon camped out on the Taiwan island for several hours, so I got to spend a night at the Narita airport, before getting on a plane at 5:00AM specially for us to get to Taiwan the next day.

    Missed Flights: Of course, since flights are fuller, and the advent of baggage fees means that people are trying to carry on way too much baggage, this makes for fun if you happen to miss a flight.

    It used to be (and as an elite traveler) pretty simple to get on another flight later. But this is no longer true or applicable. If you miss a flight, it will often take 5 or 6 hours, and as likely as not a bizarre connection to get home. Oh, and if you miss an evening flight, I hope you enjoy the hotel they put you up in.

    This usually means that you get to spend some quality time at the customer service desk. It can be entertaining to see the people in front of you reading the riot act to the customer service personnel, but it really isn’t helpful to yell at them. They didn’t make the plane late, or decide to cancel the flight. They are victims as much as you are. Be polite to them, and they may give you an extra meal voucher.

    Summary

    When you put as many miles on as a typical product manager, you are bound to experience the best and worst of travel. At one point I flew so much international United Airlines flights that I got free upgrades to business class almost every flight. That was choice. Of course it no longer happens.

    With the advent of telepresence and webcasts, the demise of the need to travel has been foretold, but in the end, a good fraction of what I do requires making personal connections, and that means going out to visit customers in their native environments.

    As long as I will be traveling, I am certain I will continue to amass horror stories.

  • Google Authentication Shenanigans

    Is it me, or has google been fucking with their gmail authentication today?

    I swear it has kicked me off my webmail 4 or 5 times today. Won’t remember which accounts are logged in.

    At one time it got me stuck in an authentication loop. Over and over, prompting for my password.

    Grrrrr. This has happened before. Hope this gets fixed soon.