Month: July 2007

The Move

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The move went as well as you could expect. No major issues, but I was very worried about the movers showing up with enough time to move me out while i still had the elevator. Apparently my building only gives you 2 hours to move out, and my movers weren’t the most prompt group even though they suggested scheduling them first thing in the morning to prevent just what i was worried about them (not being there when the elevators were mine). They showed up and got everything out around the time i had been given.

My mom showed up with Zach to wait with the couch that my sister decided she finally wanted. I ended up leaving around 12:30 with all my stuff gone, my mom and Zach hanging in an empty apt while Carrie was getting the moving truck. I took my luggage with my clothes for my parents place with me in a cab and went to work. The rail road home wasn’t too bad, but dragging the big luggage was a bit of a pain. SInce both my parents are at my sisters this week i have their apartment to myself. The down side is that it is hot in most parts of the place except for the living room and their bedroom, and i can’t find any wifi spots to connect to so to be on the internet on my laptop requires me to plug into my dad’s cable modem in his really hot office.

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Packing

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Not much to report since i haven’t had much of a life since i got back from France. I have been spending most of my free time trying to pack my apartment for my move on Tuesday. My place is a huge mess. Packing sucks, and it is not the cheapest thing to be doing either. Who knew box’s were so expensive. Thankfully my Mom brought me a ton of them from my sister that she had left over from her move. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough so i had to go out and buy a few more. I just want this to be over and to be in my new apartment.

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France Trip Recap

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Wednesday and most of Thursday were taken up by work at one of our companies offices near Lille. It was a massive place. It is weird getting used to going to a place like that when the office I work in only has 90 or so people. Thursday night we ended up heading back to Paris on the TGV and walked around the area by our new hotel until we found a sidewalk cafe to have dinner at.

My boss and I also had to figure out a way to get on a conference call with our team back in NY while at our hotel. The call could have turned into an hour long thing, so mobile phones and hotel phones would have been very expensive. We ended up using my macbook and skype to call our conference bridge. It was an interesting use of the technology we had at hand. The hardest part was getting the high speed connection in the hotel to work. Connecting to Skype worked flawlessly once we were online.

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Friday the morning was spent trying to go sight seeing but work took priority so we didn’t get out of the hotel until the afternoon. We hit the Louvre and got lost walking around there for a few hours. Then we walked to the Eiffel Tower. It was crowded so we didn’t go up. The line was really long. I got some decent pictures though.

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After that we had a decently hard time finding a cab back to the hotel. We hit dinner near the hotel at another cafe, and then at night meet up with some people from work who were finally in Paris from Lille.

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A Very Long Day

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It feels like monday night but it is fact Tuesday night in France. I am in Lille, France. The red eye last night was ok. I took some stuff to help me sleep and it worked a little but not completely. The bose noise canceling headphones also helped but it was still a long flight.

Once we got to Paris, we were able to goto a hotel and get a Day room. It is basically a room you pay for during daylight hours so you can shower, sleep, etc. We landed like 7AM local time but didn’t have meetings until noon so we needed a place to go and relax. That room made all the difference. I was able to take a shower and just lie down for an hour. I didn’t sleep but just able to relax on the bed was all i needed to get through the day and even end up at dinner at 10PM local time.

We had our meeting in Paris after we got a bit lost walking around to find our office. We then toured a data center for a bit and then our host took us to the train station so we can catch the TGV to Lille. The TGV was awesome. We got biz class on that also, but it probably wasn’t needed for the hour long trip. That train is fast, and quiet. I always like trains but this one was really cool.

Once in Lille we hit the hotel and then went out for some dinner. We ended up meeting up with some other people from our office and had dinner together. I didn’t get back to the hotel until late. It is weird when it is like 10PM and there is still some daylight out.

I am off to a much needed sleep in a bed.

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Ready To Go

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I haven’t mentioned it before (or did I, now i don’t remember) but I am going to France today. I have a flight later this evening (a red eye) and then I am there with my boss until Saturday. It is my first trip to France, or mainland Europe for that matter so i am a bit excited.

I don’t like red eye’s since i can’t sleep well, so this flight will be interesting. The bright side is i get to travel business class so hopefully I can sleep when the seat reclines allot but not 180 degrees. More details as the trip unfolds.

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