Monday August 08, 2005
export TZ=Europe/Dublin I've moved, no longer the hot sunny days of Menlo Park in California, I'm now working from the Sun office in Dublin. Why? My US VISA ran out and I don't have (and couldn't easily get) a green card.
I officially moved last week but it has taken a few days to settle in and get back on line properly, well almost I still don't have any internet access at home yet. It was an eventful journey to say the least. Not the worst but it could have gone smoother. The biggest complication was that we were traveling with out cat (Reka), the we being my wife (Bronwyn) and I. There is now a European pet passport scheme which means we can avoid putting cats, dogs (and ferrets) into quarantine when they arrive in the UK or Ireland from other European countries for from certain other parts of the world including the USA.
DEFRA has exensive documentation on how the scheme works, unfortunately I got slightly miss led by something one of the USDA vets said. This meant that the tick & tapeworm treatment was administered too soon before the flight out of San Francisco to London - it is supposed to be more than 24hrs before but no more than 48hrs before. This mean't we had to overnight at Heathrow rather than travelling on to Dublin that day. Not a big deal I though, it only took us 30 minutes of quick phone calls use of an internet kiosk in the airport and we had all our flights rearranged, a hotel booked and the checkin for our accomodation in Dublin sorted out all to happen the following day.
Well it was all too easy, despite asking British Midland BMI three times to verify that our luggage had been put on the flight to Dublin the following day it turns out it wasn't, the flight was just too full. It did turn up at the house at 1500 the following day, but I'm not impressed with BMI at the moment. Not because they didn't load it but because I was told it had been loaded.
While I didn't particularly like the idea of spending yet another day in the same clothes to go to work for the first day (Thursday, I started this journey on Monday), what I was most concerned about was all the stuff for the cat that I had packed into my suitcase to make her first day in Ireland as easy as possible: her litter tray, the brand of litter we had been using, wet and dry food.
So BMI screwed things up a bit for us, but hats off to the great customer service at Avis. Thanks to Avis Reka had a temporay litter box, litter and food that evening. One of the staff at the Avis desk gave us a small box and directions and a map to the nearest 24hr Tesco store (it was 2000hrs local time when we arrived at the car hire). Thanks for your help Avis, just wish I had taken the name of the person who helped me out (sorry).
So now that I'm in the office for a full day I can finally now: export TZ=Europe/Dublin and get back to my day (or is that evening now) job.
This is a personal weblog, I do not speak for my employer.
Bummer. Now we won't be able to drag you down to UUASC meetings in LA. Or, it'll at least be tougher.
Tell me where I should go if I make it to Dublin!
Posted by Matt Ingenthron on August 08, 2005 at 05:42 PM BST #
Posted by Ghee Teo on August 08, 2005 at 06:07 PM BST #
Posted by Tim Foster on August 08, 2005 at 07:11 PM BST #