Churnalism

Over the weekend, I was at a training course, held at a London university (not the one where I did my MA). The training was for "investigative journalism" -- which the first speaker amusingly pointed out was a bit redundent, as in, isn't all journalism inherently investigative?

That speaker, Nick Davies of Flat Earth News-writing sort-of-fame, started his talk by reciting the three golden rules of journalism:

1. Be objective
2. Get both sides of the story
3. Use quotes

If you're nodding your head thinking: "yeah, sounds right" then smack yourself, 'cause you're wrong. Davies pretty well did a verbal smackdown on these three rules, and if you've ever fancied yourself a proper journalist (I once did...) then buy his book and get learnin'. (I'm only part way through it, but he's blowing my mind. It feels great.)

The first rule is the easiest to debunk -- who the hell is ever objective? The simple act of choosing what to write, and who to call and where to place it in your publication is subjective. By all means strive to objectivity, but realise you're going to fail. It's impossible.

But -- as John Pilger later pointed out -- you can pick what side you're on. I write about IT. No one sides with Microsoft. That's okay. They have enough power, and we should side with the less powerful, and lend them our power. (I don't think Pilger had B2B tech titles in mind while he was speaking, but whatever, we can't all be war reporters.)

The second rule I'd often wondered about at university. To start, there're never just two sides to a story. But leaving that aside, there's this idea that if a person (or group or government) says something is bad, then we must find someone to disagree, to bring balance to the story. Davies had a wonderful example for this style of journalism, which I'll paraphrase:

A journalist walks into a room. There are two men standing at two windows, looking out. The journalist asks both about the state of the weather outside. The first says it's sunny and clear. The second says it's raining and dark. The journalist writes it up and slams on a provocative headline about meterological disagreement. No one reading the story has any clue what the weather was.

Only one man was right of the two (unless the weather was seriously messed, which is a story on its own) and even both could have been lying. Why did the journalist trust the opinions of people, when that journo could have looked out the window and found the facts, the truth, about the weather for himself?

Simplistic example, sure. But why do reporters trust the government that there were WMD in Iraq (or in Iran) -- why didn't they go find out? Coulda been useful information to know, that.

A variation of this is if someone -- say, a government whistleblower -- makes a claim about some wrongdoing. Sure, you could get an offical source to deny it, but why? If it's true, why give them the chance to lie to you (and your readers) and to waterdown the truth with their own denial? There are good uses for right to reply, but why give that right to a major corporation or government? It's not like they need the help getting their views across, y'know?

The problem is that the claim has to be true. Right to reply is used so the time-crunched journo has less fear of getting sued when they run a story they haven't had the chance to truly check: "We don't know if the claim is true, but if we let the opposition speak, they're less likely to sue us for defamation." And staying in business has upsides, I admit.

The third rule sort of blew my mind. I'd had this thought rumbling around in my brain for a while, that the use of quotes was kind of unnecessary for many stories. A (shall we say) sister title of the one I work on has a much stricter editor than me (and by 'me', I do mean me). And they use fewer quotes, kind of only when it's really needed or brings something to the story. They don't have a bunch of crappy, PR, wanky quotes filling up their stories, they have facts -- which is exactly what Davies said.

If something is true, why do you need someone to say it as evidence, if that makes sense. It's either true, or it isn't (obviously some stories aren't so fact driven, but that's different and not really hard news.) If the quotes are for colour, yay. If they're for evidence... well, not yay. We often get releases which run along these lines:

"This [subject] is a massive, growing problem to companies, costing them billions a year, if not more," explained CEO of a firm selling a product which relates to [subject].

Well shit, y'all -- he said it, it must be true. Why bother looking into the costs of [subject] on UK business; why would he lie? It's not like he stands to make money if people buy his bullshit... oh, wait, he does.

Indeed, rewriting press releases (and wire stories) is one thing Davies takes on in his book. Davies calls this "churnalism" -- the churning out of stories, because of tight deadlines, etc.

Back in the day, when we had to fill space quickly, we used to call it "crapping stories out" or "shitting on page." (I admit the former phrase has made it's way to my current office...) And that's exactly what it is. So if lame-ass student journos at a shit university in Canada can figure this out, why can't the industry (and readers) see if for what it is?

Really, I've held three 'proper' journalism jobs (so far). The current one at a B2B, the previous one at a weird off-shoot of a German newspaper, and the Gauntlet, the aforementioned student newspaper I worked at during university.

Of those three, which job gave me the time and freedom to actually follow a beat and get to know who I was writing about? And which one insisted on fact-checking and subediting and having at least two eyes on every story before it went out? And which was fully written by journalists, not by PRs or wire agencies? Which one let me be a 'proper' journalist?

The answer is really no surprise. B2B titles don't care about 'truth' in stories -- accuracy yes, but then how often do we take Reuters and PR at face value, as tho they never get it wrong or never tell lies (respectively)? The 'German' place was no more than glorified re-writes, so don't expect much there. There was no concern if story was correct -- if it was from Reuters or AP or Dow Jones, it must be true! and if not, it's not our fault! don't sue! -- but if I left a gerund hanging around, there was hell to pay.

But the Gauntlet was a different story. I remember having a conversation during those four years, where the idea came up that we were practicing the best journalism we'd ever get the chance to do, that we'd never have such freedom. Sadly, we were right.

Yeah, we wrote a lot of crap. We were learning. But we cared, and took the time to try to get things right. I remember re-printing pages at 4am because someone (Nat, probably) found a single comma out of place. Perfect grammar, original ideas, breaking news -- these were all something we took pride in, often to a fanatical level. We were believers. And holy fuck -- those long, unpaid/poorly paid hours were some of the best, most fun times of my life, even still.

And sure, I could go back and read and re-read stories that go online at work, to make them perfect. I should, it's my job. But there comes a point where I've got to just get stuff up and move on, or work doesn't get done and hits don't get counted and ads don't get served. Don't get me wrong: I like my job. I get to do a lot of what I want, and they even funded my little foray into investigative journalism -- which wasn't cheap -- and I'm not being positive just because my boss probably still reads this and I don't want to get in trouble.

But how much of this 'proper' journalism can I push (and should I push) at a business publication? There's only one way to find out...

I'm not saying I want to try to turn a tech B2B website into a shining beacon of journa-tasticness to take on the Guardian and inspire wanna-be investigators everywhere. That would be crazy talk. But I'm paid to be a journalist, and I want to be a journalist, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Let's see if I still know how.

I've had 23 jobs in 26 years

I have spent -- don't ask me why, I blame Natalie -- the last hour or so trying to figure out how many jobs I've had in my life. This is no easy task. If the Gauntlet career counts as one, I've held 23. I'm 26. (If it counts as three, well... do the math.) Let's count them down, shall we?

1- Working for my mom My mom had a second-hand children's clothing store (second hand clothes, not children, tho there's clearly more money in the latter) which I worked in from four pm until six pm every day after school, starting in junior high. She paid me like, $4.50 an hour. Child labour, I tells ya.

2- Subway Realising my labour was worth more on the open market, I ditched my mom (I actually felt bad about it at the time, like I was selling out on my mom for $2/hour) and became a sandwich artist. This was back in the day of V-cut bread, which actually held all the shit in. And yes, shit is the right word. Don't ever eat a meatball sandwich. Really.

3- The Lake The summer after I graduated high school, I left my art behind me to work at the food stands at Lake Sicome, aka poo pond, for a couple summers. Okay, I'm not sure anyone ever called it that before I just did right there, but diapers were found in it. And, the second summer I worked there, it was shut down temporarily because there was too much bird shit in it.

But I digress. This was honestly one of the most stressful jobs I've had -- in the second summer, I managed 40-odd teenagers at three locations on my own. I used to find them making out in the freezer. They got more action than I did at that age... or any age. Later that summer, I got accused of theft, freaked out at my evil boss, and told her to never come back while I was there. She didn't. I'm scary when I'm angry.

4 - Esprit The first Christmas break of university, I worked at Esprit in Southcentre mall for one shift. They told me I had to make a certain dollar amount of sales each hour... regardless of whether anyone actually came in the store. I explained math to them and then never came back.
5- The Body Shop I shouldn't do retail. Here, I lined up bottles, so the labels all faced the same way. I wasn't supposed to do sales, just bottle alignment, but ended up helping a very nice lady who was buying skin care stuff for her dying-of-cancer friend -- "oh no, just the small bottles will do, she won't live that long". Then, one of the sales people swiped the sale. I quit shortly after. Fuckers. I still don't shop there, but I eat at Subway -- go figure.

6- Gauntlet May as well chuck this in here. I'm not sure it counts as work, as it was barely paid, and I would have done it for free. Some of the best years of my life, where I met some of my bestest everest friendests. Yeah, it was good times. There -- and it's the student newspaper, for those of you who haven't a clue what I'm on about -- I was the entertainment (Buzz! hahaha) editor, as well as features and web. I'll just count that as one, m'kay?

7- Liquor Barn The local liquor store, down in Deer Valley. I started work there the day after a rather infamous frat party -- the one and only I've ever been to. I was rather hungover, and the first thing that happened when I got to work was some idiot knocked over the vodka stack, sending Smirnoff all over the floor. The smell of alcohol when you're that hungover... I'm amazed I lasted the next ten minutes, let alone the next several weeks over Christmas working there. It was a boring, but okay job. No discounts, sadly. But I did get to turn away make-up coated teenagers for not having proper ID. They'll never learn: blue eyeshadow and four pounds of mascara do not make you look like an adult.

8- City of Calgary Call Centre This was fun, because I was good at it, and got to work with Kris and Nat and Mike and Bailey. We would make calls, trying to get people to agree to do a transportation survey. They would have to write down everywhere (ie, addresses) they and everyone else in their house went on a given day and how long it took them to get there. It was massive. And then, we'd call them, and they'd tell it all back to us over the phone. The highlights of this job were the voice-mail induced giggle fest with Natalie -- I still laugh when I hear that tone -- and a lady who included her husband in the study... even though he was dead. She drove him to the funeral home the day she took part. That was weird. We didn't have a code for that one.

It was a good company to work for tho, and I ended up doing a lot of adhoc stuff for them over the next little while.

9- Some random garbage company I did market research for a garbage company the next summer. I wish I was kidding. I had to go door-to-door to different small companies, and ask about their garbage pickup. I got paid based on how much information I got for each one. I hated that job so much. One day, a guy screamed at me -- little, young, blonde sweet me -- to get the fuck out of his store. I slipped escaping, scraped my knee, and totally gave up. I went to walmart and bought the first two harry potters (I think it was one and two, anyway) and sat reading them in my mom's Saturn in the parking lot, with the AirCon on... which totally drained the car battery.

Thankfully, Saturns are magic, and it regained power (I have no idea why I wasn't driving my mustang, other than it was probably getting a new engine or something.) I freaked and called my dad, crying into the phone about how much I hated my job.

His response was something along these lines: "Then why don't you quit? It's not like you're going to starve or something. You don't need this job. Why would you keep a job that makes you cry?"

That's bloody good advice, that is.

10- Some random adult learning charity I think I went from garbage-picking to this job, but I can't really remember. I can't really remember the name of it, either. But they let me do some cool stuff and paid me alright. And, during the G8 stuff in Kananaskis, the let me skip out to go watch the protests. I went with one of the older ladies who worked there to one of them, and on the way back, a homeless guy made a gesture and some comments suggesting we were lesbians. The older lady had no idea what he was on about. It was awesome.

11- Puralator Courier I worked there one Christmas, trying not to get crushed under falling boxes. I can't remember what Christmas it was though, which is rather frightening. A package came for a guy named Peter Pan. He was a tiny, old chinese man. So cute.

12- Social Sciences Call Centre Like the above call centre, but shitter. Rather than have to convince people to do a useful, interesting survey, I had to get people to do a boring, crap one written by stupid-ass social sciences students. As a social science student myself, these people made me hate my faculty.

13- Call-us-info I worked here with Natalie. It was horrible. Possibly even worse than canvassing about garbage pickup. The call centre we worked at was the only non-prison based one the company ran. Murderers did my job. Fair punishment, now that I think of it. But no, I was paid $8/hour to do marketing surveys. I often skipped questions out of boredom, but even if a supervisor was listening in I never got a performance mark below about 98%.

A dork that worked there asked me out. He started by asking if I'd seen the latest Star Wars film. I said I had, and that I hated it. He then asked -- via a poem on a piece of scrap paper -- if I'd go see it with him. I said no, because I'd seen it, hated it, and he was retarded. He kind of harrassed me a bit after that.

I was working shifts at the Social Sciences call centre, then coming to this one for a shift. I had a few 12 hour days. Natalie also worked at this hell-hole, and she was driving me home once when I flipped. I just lost it. Started yelling out the window at people from the car, sticking post it notes everywhere.

I eventually stole a mug, left and never came back. Three weeks later, after not showing up for any of my shifts, they asked me to come back. I said no.

14- Random un-named educational publisher From there, I ended up at an educational publishing house in Calgary, which I shall not name, as the owner is probably the litigious sort. And, a bitch. I was basically her personal assistant. I booked her hotels, her cars, and her son's classes for university. She started to appreciated me after I got the retard into a full class (I had mad skills dealing with assistant deans). When I quit, they had to hire two people to replace me. Bwahahah.

15- Freelancing for my dad I've done my fair share of freelance stuff on the side, but this one covered about a year, so I'll include it. I helped write and edit e-learning shit for my dad's company. It was a cool project, but a bit awkward when your boss' boss is your dad, y'know? Especially when you're a slacker.

16- CMHA I then got a part-time job at a mental health charity as a communications coordinator. I actually rather liked this job, but we got a new editorial director, who decided my role should be full-time (yay!) and go to someone with a minimum of ten years' experience (doh!) so I started looking for another... At this point, I knew I was going to go away for my MA, so I just needed something for the summer.

17- Northern Horse Review I actually forgot I worked there until I looked at an old CV in my email. I part-timed here while working at CMHA for a bit, writing a bit, but mostly formatting stuff for the magazine.

18- The Track I ended up, on a whim, sending an email to the racetrack secretary at Stampede Park, explaining I'd never worked as a groom but had horsey experience. He replied within the hour, asking if I wanted a job. I got offered one with one of the top trainers (tho ended up working for his lovely brother instead). This was by far one of the best jobs I ever had -- and keep in mind I started at 6am every single day and shoveled poop. I would work there in the mornings, and then change in my car -- spray some perfume -- and go to my office job at CMHA.
I eventually (rather tearfully, actually) made the decision to go to Edmonton when the meet moved up there, and ended up living half at my grandparents' house and half of the time in my room in the barn. I loved every minute of it. I don't think I could have spent my life doing that work, but I loved that summer. And, I ate donuts for breakfast every freaking day, and was about 30 pounds lighter and in awesome shape. Wicked awesome, I tells ya.

19- Greyhound I did some temp work the first year I came back from London at Christmas. I had a month off school. I think I worked about a week. It was for a bus-based parcel delivery company, and I took the complaint calls.

People would actually call me, asking why their parcel hadn't arrived in Calgary from Halifax, even though it was sent overnight the day before. I would then explain to them that it was not possible for a bus to cross Canada in a day. Good times. I worked there a week, and called in sick one day to shop with my sister. So hardworking.

20/21- Internships Maybe these shouldn't count, but I got paid at both (booya! I hate working for free) so I'm gonna count them. First up, a Corporate Social Responsibility magazine, which I wish I still wrote for, but kinda burned that bridge by not handing copy in, and disappearing. Second, New Statesman, where I crapped out blog posts and a hilarious game and even managed to pull. Yay me.

22- Handelsblatt My first job after my MA. I was so desperate for work, that this actually sounded good. I got a good title out of it, and they paid alright, and the people were nice enough, but OH MY GOD it was so boring. For a play-by-play of my last day, click here.

23- IT PRO Hahahah like I'm going to say anything bad about the place I currently work, when they all read this shit. Actually, I like it most days. I don't sleep in late in the mornings the way I used to -- it's hard to get out of bed when you hate your job -- and enjoy most of the work I do, which comes as a bit of a surprise to me, given how often I hate my jobs (see above). I hit the point last year -- about 6 to 8 months -- where I start to get really bored of what I'm doing, and I didn't get bored. It was a weird sensation, to like a job -- well, one that didn't involve horse shit, anyway.

If you think this took effort to read, realise how much brain scraping it took to write. I honestly had to refer to CVs and Natalie to get this right, and I think I missing something from 2002. My brain is gone. Thanks, beer. I thought you were my friend...

Getting nowhere

I’ve never boarded a plane, spent six hours on it, and then got off it without going anywhere.

There’s a good reason for this: that would be stupid. It would be a dumb waste of a day, dontcha think?

Well. You can see where this is going. I’ve often moaned that British airports (I’m looking at you BAA – the British Airport Authority) are hell, and damn, I was right.

Day One
So I had to fly to Orlando, to attend a conference (storage and networking, whee!). My flight was at 1040am from Gatwick, connecting in Charlotte to go to Florida. As I inexplicably do before heading to the US, I didn’t sleep much (did that before Miami and Vegas – I don’t learn) as the Blackheath Triumvirate decided to have a flat warming party the night before, and I decided to have a few glasses/bottles of wine and night-bus it home after 2am.

Anyway. To get to Gatwick for 8ish, I had to leave my house by 7ish, which meant I had to be up for 6ish, as I hadn’t finished packing yet. So if you do the very simple math (or “maths” as they call them here in Bizarro world) I got about 3 hours of sleep. As I value sleep above personal hygiene, I didn’t bother to shower.

I tell you all that for context, so you fully understand how painful the next day(s) were.

Got to Gatwick, lined up to check in at Zone J, home to US Airways, who I’ve never heard of before (I don’t book my own flights…) but who clearly exist. I got to the front of the line, and the woman yelled at me for not having the address of my hotel – since when is the name of it ever not enough??? – and sent me off to the internets to look it up. Got back, waited in line behind a disorganized family, and finally got my boarding card.

Wound my way through the gauntlet of poking, prodding and scanning that is security, pushed my way through the WH Smiths to buy a few books – Obama’s Audacity of Hope and Nick Hornby’s Juno-like Slam – and water, and ambled up to Gate 23.

It was about ten minutes to boarding, but we clearly were going to be delayed, as it was snowing. Now, I don’t think a bit of flurries should keep any plane grounded, but the British can’t seem to handle it, despite it happening at least a few times a year. That said, this was a proper snow storm, unlike anything I’d seen here yet.

That in mind, I got a coffee, and a sandwich – my first food of the day, and helpful for my wine-filled, rather acidy feeling stomach – and found a spot to read up on Obama.

The airline then announced that the runway was closed, but would reopen for 11am, and we’d be boarded a bit after that. So we loaded up onto the plane, and got comfy. I happened to be sat next to a teenaged missionary, which sounds like hell on its own - a transatlantic flight next to a jesus freak? - but he was actually pretty cool.

Now, we’d been sat for a little while when our pilot announced that we’d have to wait for de-icing, which might take a while, but that he’d update us as soon as he knew.

Fair enough. We all chilled – hey, bad weather, it’s a delay, no biggie.

Then he comes on again, to tell us that we’re seventh in line for the de-icing services… which should take two hours. Right.

Three hours pass, and we’re still sitting there. We boarded at 11am, it’s past two, and all we’ve had to eat so far is pretzels and whatever we brought on the plane, as they can’t feed us our meals, as that would leave nothing for the flight.

The de-icer guy starts working on the plane next to us. Doing ONE FREAKING WING takes him 45 minutes. Then he moves onto the other. Another half hour passes, before he lowers down his cherry-picker, climbs out, has an argument with ground crew – or so it looked – and then walks off. Right.

That plane leaves. We still sit. My row mate takes a nap on his fold-down tray. I get halfway through Obama’s book, not feeling too hopeful myself. Kids are running up and down the aisles, but being pretty good given they’ve been stuck on a plane four hours. The flight crew are jokey and funny, trying to make the best of things and prevent mutiny. Everyone’s still pretty chilled. I pull out my laptop, do some writing. It’s like being on a flight, just without the pesky movement.

It’s when we pass the five hour mark at 4pm that I start to get pissed off. I’m hungry and out of snacks. I’m too antsy to read or work. It’s late enough in the day now that I call my older sister on my mobile, just to chat and kill some time. After filling her in on my awesome day, and hearing the latest Mae update, and gossiping about the other sister’s wedding (she bought a dress! Etc…) I say to Amanda that I’m pretty sure we’re not going anywhere today, as flight crews are limited to how many hours they can work – and there’s no way they’ll be able to do a seven and a half hour flight after sitting on the tarmac for six hours.

I love it when I’m right. Yeah. The pilot comes on to announce that our flight has been cancelled. Nearly six hours after we boarded, we gather out things and deplane… back into Gatwick, which isn’t anywhere near Orlando.

Now, I’ve got people supposedly meeting me on the ground in Florida, so I call and update them, and then go stand near the desk to hopefully overhear some details about when the flight will be rebooked. Not much is forthcoming from the two yellow-vested airport workers. They’re on their radios a lot, and on phones, clearly trying to work things out. Rumours spread thru the crowd that the flight has been rebooked to 4am, that it’s been rescheduled from Charlotte to Philly… but nothing is confirmed.

After nearly an hour of standing at our gate, with people irritable but amazingly not mutinous, they lay out the plan. The flight will go at 9am the next day, but it will indeed go to Philadelphia, and not Charlotte – no biggy for me, as I’m connecting anyway and can just go home overnight. But everyone else is told there is a hotel booked in Brighton – about half an hour on the train – for people to stay at, and a coach to take them there, and food vouchers.

A lot of people would rather stay at the airport, but are told US Airways won’t reimburse them for other hotels, which is really very far from the right thing to say. Others say they’d rather just sleep at the gate, and are told they can’t. Also, not the right thing to say.

So the yellow-vested ones lead us back through departures, out of security backwards, and to the baggage reclaim to, well, reclaim our baggage. We hit the reclaim hall – which is pretty freaking big – and the yellow-vested woman just stops. We all stop around her. We don’t know what to do. We’re sheep. Tired, hungry sheep.

Someone asks her: “Which reclaim belt?” She replies: “How should I know?”

Not the right answer.

It eventually gets announced, and we truck back to the check-in desks at Zone J, nearly 10 hours after I last saw the place. You can imagine the scene. Couple hundred of the aforementioned tired and hungry sheep, all baaa-ing at the four US Airways employees, who are starting to get snarky. Despite the plan (as above), there is indeed no coach – people must make their own way to Brighton, and write to US Airways’ customer enquiries after the fact to get reimbursed. And, those food vouchers? Not ready yet – not what hungry people want to hear.

I stood in the mess for a bit, texting my boss to sort out if I should bother even catching the flight the next day – it’s not a very long trip, and missing one day is missing a lot – while trying to get someone’s attention to find out if I need to rebook, or if I can get connections to Orlando the next day. I manage to get someone to look at me, and she says “just a sec” before running away behind a door and not coming back.

I took that as a sign to just go, and come back in the morning. As I turned to head to the trains, I heard the ticket desk woman loudly say: “yes, just show up tomorrow morning to catch the flight, but turn up early – it’s going to be a mess tomorrow.”

I got back to Bermondsey nearly 12 hours after leaving the house. I was on three hours sleep. I was hungover. I was unshowered. It took me a little while to decide if I should indeed bother going, and in the end, I decided to try again the next day.

I showered, called my mom, called my boss, and conked out about 1030pm.

Day Two
When I woke up at 5am the next morning, I was confused. Where was I? Why was my phone (which I use as an alarm clock) going off so early? Had I set the time wrong? And then I remembered.

Back on the tube to the train to head back to Gatwick. Missed mine by a second (a train platform staff guy yelled, “time, love” to me, whatever the fuck that means) but I had a feeling there’d be more delays, so wasn’t too stressed.

Arrive at good old Zone J about 645am-ish. It’s packed. We weren’t the only US Airways flight to be cancelled – why did theirs get cancelled, when other planes took off? I don’t know – so it was a shit show. Passengers from that day’s flights, and from our delayed flights, were lined up past the Monarch desks, around the corner, along M&S and down the hall to Boots when I got there. And it just got worse.

Nothing you can do, right? I made sure I was in the right line, by asking people in the line, as US Airways staff were impossible to find (fair enough, they were checking people in.) But we did have line management, in the form of BAA staff in yellow shirts.

Standing in line behind the same people I stood in line when I checked in before, an extended American family, I flipped back into my Obama book, kicking my bags along the floor as I shuffled forward with the line. So far, I was keeping pretty cool. I was pissed off, and writing letters in my head, and thinking of ways to make BAA pay, but was well rested and fed and showered so I felt okay.

But then I guess M&S wanted us to stop blocking their storefront, and BAA is big on retail (don’t get me started) so they decided to clear a gap in our line so people could get thru. Fair enough. The gap was to be between me and the family in front of me who had a lot of luggage, and were annoyed at being told where to go, and the father (grandfather?) grumbled a bit. He wasn’t rude. He just grumbled. And muttered a little, and then did what he was told.

In response to his grumbles, the yellow-shirted airport employee then turns to me and says: “Talking to some people is like talking to a brick wall, I tell ya.”

All of my frustration from the day kind of peaked then. I snapped: “You shouldn’t be expecting much sympathy from people in this line, we’ve been waiting for the past day and a half.”

Okay, not exactly the worst thing I’ve ever snapped at someone. I then flipped open to read a bit more Obama, when she said: “Don’t take it out on me. It’s not my fault. We can’t control the weather. It’s the weather.”

To which I replied: “It’s not the weather. It snows every year. BAA is terminally understaffed. This is a staffing issue.”

Her witty, calming, professional rejoinder: “I don’t work for BAA.”

She is wearing a bright yellow shirt that says BAA across it. I point this out to her. She argues that she’s just a contractor, clearly not understanding that she should either just apologise for the trouble, or walk away. Instead, she stands there complaining to her coworker about what jerks we all are. Rather than risk my place in line by yelling at her and getting accused of “abusing” staff, I stand there, silently fuming, pretending to read my book, but unable to focus for sheer rage.

She leaves. The line doesn’t move, but people start joining it behind the American family. I point the unwitting queue jumpers out to another yellow shirt, who looks at me blankly. I have to explain it again before he understands that people think that’s the end of the line. Silly optimists. It’s actually about 150 people behind me.

At this point, it’s about 830, maybe a bit later. That 9am flight isn’t going to happen. No one comes to tell us the flight has been pushed back to 10am. We here rumours of it, but nothing official. A short while later, while I stand outside of M&S freezing from the chill coming off their fridgeration units – the retards finally decide to separate out the lines, and take us forward a bit. There’s still thirty or so people ahead of me, but it’s starting to look like I might actually get on this flight.

I’m still pissed off from the dumb yellow-shirted woman, but calm enough that I can read my book some more. Standing in the switchback queue next to me is a gorgeous family – a lovely little girl who has been nicknamed “princess” by others in the line, and her total hottie of a dad and beautiful mom.

The little girl is being lovely, not misbehaving at all. She’s standing with a stuffed sheep, poking it the nose and giggling. My mood lightens a bit. Then she looks up at her wavy-haired dad, and lets out this insane noise – at first it sounds like a wail, but then I realise she’s playing, not crying. She runs up to him again, and does it again – this time, it sounds more like a roar. Her parents are trying to make her stop “playing monster” but everyone in the line is giggling – how much did we all want to just let out a roar over the past day? – and she’s so cute. Her mom makes her stop – but then she looks up at me from her vantage point a foot and a half from the floor, sees that I’m giggling hysterically, and does it again.

Yeah, my mood was much helped by her cuteness. We continue curving thru the line, me flipping thru my book, with an actual smile on my face. At this point, the American dad/granddad turns to me and says that I have been so calm thru everything, that I’ve been the calmest person on our flight thru everything. I’m not known for calm, so this comes as some surprise to me, but I take it as flattery, as it’s always nice to be seen as in control.

Finally, boarding card in hand, back thru security, and back onto the plane. It’s weird seeing the same flight crew again, and they remark on it as well. A few delays getting everyone on board, but we’re finally off, to the applause of most of the passengers… While I was happy to finally, finally, finally be in the air… I still had 12 hours of travel in front of me just to get to Orlando, before turning around and doing it again on the way back a few days later… though thankfully, flying Virgin for the return leg.

I realise this is already an opus (hey, I’m bored, I’ve run out of books) but there’s two things that must be addressed before I end.

First: Snow is not enough of an excuse to shut down London’s airports. It snows at least a few times every year. Gatwick (apparently) has just one de-icer. Clearly, that’s not enough. BAA and the airlines are failing to invest in the equipment and staff that they need to deal with this stuff because it’s cheaper for them to just screw us passengers over now and then. It shouldn’t be. If everyone on these delayed flights could claim compensation, it would remove this false economy, but EU rules say such compensation is limited if the delay is due to weather and other unforeseen circumstances. But weather isn’t unforeseen – the BBC told me it would snow on Sunday. Why didn’t they get more staff in? Any good manager would. Much of the delays could have been avoided or at least better managed if the airlines and BAA were better staffed – but they get out of being held responsible because it snowed. Fuck that shit.

Second: After reading The Audacity of Hope, Obama has my vote (not that I have one). I dont' don’t agree on everything he says - not least a vague recollection he's anti-gay-marriage... is this right? has he flipped on this yet? - but if that book is an honest representation of who he is and what he believes, then we line up pretty well on most other things. So yeah: vote Obama, and read his book.

That is all. I'm going to finish drinking my mini-bar vodka and apple juice, and then pass out in my ridiculously plush bed now. And then wake up and work. Business trips are fun...?

Spice up your life

So! I haven't posted here in eons! EONS! Anyhoo, rather than finally finish my orkney posts, or write about interesting places like Moscow, I'm just going to write about the Spice Girls.

One of the oddest in the long line of crazy-ass free tickets I've gotten has been an offer to see the reunion tour at the O2 arena (formally the millenium dome) out near Greenwich.

Thing is, I never even liked them (which is a surprise to no-one who reads this thing, if indeed anyone still does.) I remember back in high school, when they were hot shit, having a ridiculous conversation with someone, which went along these lines:

School Friend: "The Spice Girls are even bigger than the Beatles."

Me: "No, they're not. Are you retarded?"

SF: "Yes they are. People will be listening for them forever."

Me: "Yeah, lets have this conversation in ten years, and you'll be wrong."

Now, on one hand, I was so totally right (as I often am). Uh, they're not bigger than the Beatles. Hell, the Beatles probably still outsell them, and they're half dead. On the flip side, ten years later, the Spice Girls are still selling out arena tours.

Okay, it's just a reunion show, it's not like their single took off. But I like the idea of reunion shows -- how they appeal to fans who couldn't afford the tickets back in the day... but who have the money now. What 15-year-old could afford Spice Girl tickets back in 1998? But a 25-year-old, she can. Such an awesome business model, nostalgia.

Right. Now back to the show. Being as this was a PR-special, we had box seats. (I know it's whoreish, but it's fun.) But really: free beer is needed to enjoy the Spice Girls, and the good seats were actually appreciated.

It was a damn hilarious show. Yeah, Sporty is the best singer, but she has no character, no sense of style. She must hate Posh "Mrs. Beckham" Spice, who can't sing at all -- who, indeed, didn't bother doing a solo when the other four each did one -- but who gets the most cheering of all. Hell, David and the kids showing up for their front-and-centre seats got more applause than the sporty one.

No, while the other four performed singles from their solo "careers", she just did a catwalk strut. But hell, that's what she's done for her solo career, so why not? Gotta respect the girl for it, in a twisted sort of way.

The other three were cute and better singers than expected -- though our publisher Barry is convinced they use that auto-tune tech to even out their voices. This isn't a surprise, but Barry having an opinion on the Spice Girls kind of was...

But the best part of the show -- save Scary Spice essentially humping the face of a man pulled from the audience, who was tied to a ladder (yeah, it was awesome and nearly made coworker maggie laugh to death) -- the best part was the male backup dancers... mostly because they were actually, y'know, talented.

(Sorry, no photos. I didn't bring my camera, and the Skype phone camera isn't quite that good... but should really be my next post, actually...).

Halloween and Fireworks

End of October is always a fun time in London, not so much because they're big on Halloween here (they're not) but because the local neighbourhood children make it sound like a freaking war zone, setting off fireworks constantly.

But while the UK is only just growing in affection for the whole Halloween thing, I'm somewhat of a long-time fan (as those of you who know me know, I put a little too much effort in.) That said, I haven't had a proper Halloween here yet. The first year, we did a Jack the Ripper walking tour. The second year, I was at a party, but I had about three minutes to throw a costume together, so while the party was good, my costume kind of sucked. And then the next year... another walking tour.

This year, though, we had a proper party at the flat. I couldn't decide what to be, not least because we'd originally planned a Mexican-themed party earlier in the month, and I was having some issues combining themes. In the end, I dressed up as a murdered tourist -- I think it worked pretty well. Lots of blood, socks with sandals, and even a fanny pack/bum bag. Good times. (More photos here.)

Party was good -- we had our own fireworks that night, and lets just I learned two things. 1) I shouldn't be trusted with these things. 2) The neighbour's garden is not half as flamable as it looks.

Then, later that week, we had a party for work at some hot-shit club. The theme was Saints and Sinners, so I went dressed as a devil in a blue dress -- not that anyone got the reference. I also dyed my hair red, just temporarily mind you, but liked it so much it's now semipermanent.

Anyway, good times. I'm off to another fancy dress/costume party this Friday -- starting to get kind of sick of them, y'know? Not unlike the fireworks, lighting up the sky outside my window...

Went to a fireworks display over the weekend, all part of the Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes thing. They didn't burn parliament in effigy, but there was indeed a bonfire (no naked chanting and dancing around it, which would have been fun or something) and fireworks. Some more pictures here.

Malta

I went to Malta at the end of September for some work thingamabob. I had to look it up on a map first (thanks, Google!). I knew it was Mediterranian, but exactly where I did not know. Anyway, it's apparently smack in the middle of the Med, south of Sicily.

Because of this, it's hella warm and sunny -- which probably explains why it's so crowded. It's about 7km long, but home to 400,000 people, making it one of the most densely populated places in the EU.

And, because of its handy location -- south of Italy, north of Africa -- it's got a cool mix of Southern Europe and Arabic culture, which shows in the language and the architecture.







Right. So the conference thingamabob was held at a posh hotel on a bay on the north side of the island. For some reason, when I checked in, they decided to give me the ambassador suite: two bathrooms, massive bedroom, sitting area, dining room, two seperate balconies -- and a rooftop patio overlooking the sea. I honestly considered barricading myself in that room and never, ever leaving.

And yes, I did use both bathrooms. I alternated.

Aside from listening to people ramble about ethernets, the group also travelled to the medieaval city of Mdina for dinner one night. Built on top of a hill, this fortress-town is actually still lived in -- but you've got to be descended from royalty to live there... and have a lot of money.

I had the glory of staying in my lovely room for just two nights. On the Friday, however, as the conference was over, I had to leave (or pay more money than I was willing in order to stay).

Me and a few other journos -- one of whom, like me, hadn't bothered to book a room for the weekend -- cabbed it to the capital city of Valetta. I figured that as this place is a pretty big tourist destination, finding a hotel/hostel would be easy. I was wrong. Accomodations in Valetta are few and booked months ahead of time.

After calling all the hotels and guest houses listed by the tourist office, I found one room in a hostel, handily around the corner from the hotel of the journos with better planning skills.

This place was a step down from the resort, however (anything would have been, mind you, but this was of the mind-your-step-b/c-it's-a-big-one variety). It had two twin beds, a shoddy dresser and a toilet in the hall -- but its window opened up into the historical old town. Looking out the window, down the steep street, with laundry hung out of buildings, and cats lounging on the stairs, it was hard to be too concerned about the quality of the bed.



Valetta is the "old town". All the buildings look ancient. We wandered down one side and up another -- it's a whole kilometer in length -- marveling at the steep hills and looking out over the harbour. Then we did what journos and PRs do when they get together -- we drank. Beer.

At one point, walking down the street, we came across a religious procession -- people in pope-like garb, leading a group of guys carrying a huge statue. Chanting and singing. On a Friday night. Down the main street. This place is rather religious.

The next day, my roomie John and I took one of the hilariously old-school Maltese buses south across the island. We stopped off, unintentionally, and saw some ancient ruins. Much older than Egypt's pyramids, our tour guide from the Mdina night had lamented that they weren't as popular. She suggested this was because Egypt is a bigger country. I suggest it's because these ruins are a pile of rocks, and the pyramids are marvels of engineering.

From there, we walked along the road to the sea, which was our actual destination. We were looking to take a boat trip to the Blue Grotto, a seaside cave with ridiculously blue water. Hopping onto our seven-seater motorboat, we bumped along on top of the water, past the little town, along the cliffs -- where Italian teenagers sunbathed, and seriously hardcore fisherman climbed down in order to set out their poles.

The water along the cliffs was a dark inky blue. It looked middle-of-the-ocean deep, despite being just feet from the shore. But once inside the caves, the water turned crystal clear, a blue like you'd see on a stone on a cheap ring. Along the edge of the water, the stone was purple and pink.

All that, while exceptionally pretty, had nothing on the water further down. There's a strange algae in the water, which makes it really insanely blue, and when the light hits in the right way, it's electric looking. Really wicked awesome. (Video here and here.)

After that, we bused it back through the little winding streets that cover Malta, and hooked up with the other two for drinks, dinner and more drinks.

The next day, John took off to catch his early flight, and Matt wrote stories (downsides of freelance), so Hillary and I wandered Valetta. We attempted to shop, but most of the stores were closed Sunday, as this country is very Catholic. We did attempt to wander a market, but it was so crowded -- with people and utter shit -- that we left to wander the town some more.

It was freaking hot out, and our energy waned as the day went on and we trekked up stupidly steep streets. We eventually found the palace, wandered in, and then were kicked out, because it was closed. It was a lazy, aimless day in the sun -- perfect way to spend holiday time, as far as I'm concerned.

I headed back to London that night, catching a RyanAir (it's like a bus, that flies!) flight that arrived at Luton at midnight. The queues for passport control were weirdly long, and then I missed my train, so had to take the coach back into Oxford Street, where it was (of course) raining...

More Malta pics are here.

Vegas, baby!

In the continuing saga of random places PR firms and their tech clients send me -- see: Malta, Dresden, Miami, Seattle, Prague, Amsterdam -- I spent a week in luxury at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Strip in Vegas.





What a weird place, Vegas. It’s like Disneyland for adults. Everything is fake and sterile and commercialized… but hey, it's still hella fun.

The first day I arrived, I barely managed to leave my hotel. It was pretty big, okay? I stumbled jet-lagged through some random mall over to the Luxor, which is pyramid-shaped and Egyptian themed. It’s cool looking, no doubt. But I’m not sure I’d want to stay there – the slanting interior feels weird and the echoing chamber a bit cold. Then again, what do you expect when you theme your luxury hotel on a tomb?

Anyway, there were banners up everywhere promoting Nicky Hilton’s birthday bash (the night before, shame I missed it) at the Luxor’s club, LAX. Amusingly, in small(er) print at the bottom of the banner, just underneath the number to call for tickets, the promoters advised that anyone with a Luxor room key had automatic free entry – wow, exclusive, that.

Right. The next day, as the conference hadn’t really started, I took a stroll down the strip, passing all the ridiculous hotels – Luxor’s take on Egypt, Excalibur’s take on mediaeval England, MGM Grand’s take on Green. It’s all very tacky in a luxurious sort of way. It’s like Britney Spears – rich yet cheap.

I eventually made my way most of the way down the Strip – it’s about an hour walk – where I found the Fashion Show Mall, so called because it’s a mall which has fashion shows, which is rather brilliant. The shite dollar meant my pounds went twice as far as normal, so I could actually afford to buy things. Things which cost money. This hasn’t happened in a while, so it was exciting.

Looking to extend my sterling even further, I hopped the amsuinigly named Deuce bus to an outlet mall, which wasn't really worth the $5 travel card, but killed a few extra hours before I headed back to the hotel, where I must have gone out for dinner, but don't remember. I was jetlagged then, and still am now. At some point we ended up at the top-floor bar, with a view out across the strip, which was pretty awesome. But that might have been Sunday. I really am confused.

Monday, the conference started, which kept me busy all day. I didn't even leave the air-conditioned hotel (again) until dinner, when we went to the Harley Davidson Cafe for food. I'd like to think it's just a stereotype, but servings really are bigger in the US than the UK. I got about half way through my burger before calling it quits.

Tuesday -- again, no going outside until post-work, at which point I met up with my aunt, uncle and cousin. I had three sets of aunts/uncles in town, and managed to meet up with one (my phone was being weird.) After that, we (journos, etc) headed to some bar called Pure, where we'd booked their rooftop area. It was pretty cool... until our time ran out, and they made us leave. I guess we weren't cool enough to overstay our paid-for welcome. After that, we hotel-bar hopped from some divey-Irishy-thing to the Venitian, where we drank to much and nearly fell asleep at the table. Getting back to the hotel, one journo named Tony wandered off to the casino, and showing a marked resemblence to Calgary-Tony, won $200 at poker.




Wednesday, more work. (Noticing a trend?) I did get a spare half-hour to go look at the hotel's aquarium... they have sharks (video here). And a turtle. Maybe more. The evening event was intriguing, however. It was the conference's big gala dinner, where they got all 4,000 attendees into a big warehouse room (made me think of grad at the Big Four) to shovel food into our faces, before pushing us off to a ballroom to take in the glorious sounds of none other than grammy-award winners Hootie and the Blowfish (video here and here). This really, really amused me. After actually watching all of Hootie's performance, we went to the casino. I was up $13 on a $1 bet, but lost it all after an american tried to pick up on me. He was cute, but clearly unlucky.



Thursday, after doing some writing, I did something I'd been wanting to do all week: go to the pool. Mandalay Bay's pool area is ridiculous. They have sand! and a wave pool! and a fake river, with a current! And, best of all: sunshine -- sweet, sweet sunshine. After a boozy lunch, a few of us headed off to the airport, where we sat for three hours, waiting for our delayed flight. I love air travel.

After sitting through a ten and a half hour flight next to a very attractive, incredibly stupid couple, we reached Gatwick, where the plane had to land on autopilot because the weather was so shit and foggy that no one could see. Ahhh, England.

More pictures are here.

Dresden

As I got back from Dresden today, lugging my bags down the road to my house, a pirate ship was sailing down the Thames. Cool. I mean, Arrgh! Avast!

Anyway, I went to Dresden for some decidedly non-pirate-related work stuff, namely the launch of a high performance computing (HPC) server thingy, and then the start of the International Supercomputing Conference.

As the crazy-ass PR people flew me in too early, I actually got to see a bit of Dresden. Superficially at least -- as I didn't see all that much -- it's a lot like Prague, which isn't really surprising, given they're rather close together.

I didn't know much about Dresden -- and I still don't, to be honest -- other than the bombings in WWII. And all I knew about that was that the British flattened the place, killing 35,000 people. Now obviously the Germans weren't exactly innocents in that war (something about a holocaust, picking a fight which killed a generation of young men, that sort of thing) but turning a city to rubble from the air is such a horrible thought that it's really rather captivating, especially given how proud the British are of surviving the Blitz. I'm not really sure what my point is -- I guess I just find the damage done to the other side rather intriguing after hearing about it from the victors so often. Then again, maybe it's just my Eastern European ancestry speaking up...

Anyway, much of the city has been rebuilt, altho weirdly only in the past few years. I guess the Soviets weren't really up for it?

The Frauenkirche, which I amused myself by calling the Frankenchurch, was almost completely wiped out in the bombings. Rather than reconstruct it postwar, the Soviets left the rubble either a) as a monument to war or b) because they were cheap. So the pile of rocks, bits of statuary and whatnot sat there. No one took anything. Some people started organizing and numbering it, apparently (according to wikipedia). It stayed that way until 1992, when they finally started to put it all back together (not my photo, obviously):




Anyway, I knew none of this when I walked past it. It looks pretty cool from the outside, and I happened past at 6pm, when the bells were ringing. People were streaming into the church, so I thought hey, what's going on and went inside. I'm a follower I guess, but not of the sort that were walking up the stairs. I realised upon entering that a service was starting and wanted to take a better look at the interior, so I plunked myself down into a pew and enjoyed the show.


It's a protestant church, and very different from the gothic cathedrals and anglican spires I've seen so much of. To start -- and maybe this is a function of when it was really built -- but the interior is marble... but it all looks fake. Like someone painted the pillars to look like marble. The decorative bit behind the altar is green and pink and shiny gold while the second and third floors of pews curve in soft colours. Basically, its all fluffy and soft -- is it supposed to make people think of heaven? I don't know. But it's pretty, in a slightly tacky way.


The organ was amazing though and the service started with some music. I've never heard an organ that large played before. The range and depth of the sound is amazing -- easy to see why it's so common in churches. The rest of the service was, obviously, in German -- which probably helped, actually.

I also spent a bit of time wandering the Zwinger Palace, which is home to their Old Masters Art Gallery (more on that in a separate post), and walking through the old town. I won't go into it; just check out the photos.



Of course, the thing with these cities is to try and see more than just the old parts, so I did wander to the north side of the river to look around a bit and walked around my hotel's neighbourhood (much further north).


Dresden, like much of the Eastern part of Germany, has high unemployment. It's obvious this isn't a healthy city from the boarded up, graffitied buildings. The places along the street between my hotel and the tram were half abandoned.

I was walking down the street at one point, and one building had boarded windows, the next was a clean, nice-looking, functioning office, and then the one after that had smashed in windows and spray-painted walls. I saw a rather well-dressed girl walk up to the building after that and open the door with a key -- it was her apartment. Can you imagine that in Calgary, with it's real estate boom? Apartments next to derelict buildings?

Cinder block: for when boards just won't do...

Aside from the perfectly efficient trams, many people seemed to use bicycles to get around. Despite the unemployment rates, a lot of bikes were not locked up and the ones that were had just flimsy cord locks, often not locked to anything but looped through the wheels. Can you imagine that in London, with it's theft rates? Leaving a bike just lying around?

Anyway, I woke up at 6am in a different country. I'm tired. I'm going to bed. Sorry if this post rambled. More pics are here.

Miami

So I've spent the last few days in Miami. And by Miami, I mean a suburb-ish place called Doral, at a resort called, appropriately, the Doral Resort.

This was all for a conference -- I was working, a'ight? -- about image capture/digital documents.
I flew in on Sunday and arrived completely exhausted -- not a surprise given a rather violent lack of sleep and a delayed transatlantic flight. After having dinner (fantastic red snapper, so good) with fellow journos/PRs/analysts, I crashed in my room.

The next few days pretty well consisted of going to sessions, sneaking away to the pool, and drinking with random people. Not bad, although I never actually left the resort -- no trip to Art Deco South Beach for me.



Although the weather was a bit shite -- they got the rain they've been needing -- it was natuarlly a billion times better than London. I may actually have gotten a bit of a tan...

Anyway, while I would have been quite happy to spend the next few days bumming around South Beach -- which I never got to see -- I then flew off to Seattle/Bellevue, for a Microsoft thingy...

More photos here.

Last Day!

In honor of my last day of work (here – I’m not retiring) I thought it’d be amusing to keep track of what I actually do (a la the classic Tony post).

9:15am – Arrive at work, say good morning to the building manager, admire the new Christmas tree in the foyer and then haul my bike up to the first floor. My “official” start time is 7am.

9:17am – Turn on computer, check email. Hotmail, not my work email. I forget to open Outlook most days. There's just no point.

9:20am – Change out of sweaty cycling clothes. Return to office and reply to emails, read some Fark, check blogs.

9:43am – Part-time guy Tom arrives. "Good Morning, Tom." His proper start time is 9am. Continue farting about on the internet. Read the BBC news site.

10:01am – Fire Drill. Go outside, stand awkwardly with people I sort of know, debate telling them it’s my last day.

10:02am – Go to shop instead. Buy lunch, painkillers.

10:10am - Return from shop. Make cup of tea. Have breakfast (rice krispies).

10:36am - Start working on my first of three pages (One, Two and Six). Pick a story from Reuters (use one about how much Baghdad sucks right now). Copy and paste it into word, spell check it, copy and paste it into layout program, cut it to fit, write headline/kicker, pick and drop in photo. Finish page.

10:52am - Start writing this. Check email again. Read more online news. Look up squash lessons in Calgary.

11:08am - Check Reuters, to see if anything new has happened. Pick stories to use as leads.

11:10am - Fiddle with Blogger some more. Switch over to their new Beta, which hopefully sucks less than their last version.

11:24am - Start working on other two pages. Change Page One layout. Drop in lead story (Oracle is buying something) and second story (German economy doesn't suck). Decide to flip their spots. Copy and paste German story into word; spellcheck and use find and replace for all formatting changes, so I don't actually have to read the story. Something about a trade surplus, according to the headline. Do same for Oracle story.

11:35am - Tell Tom which stories I took. This is the bulk of the conversation we'll have today: "Uh, probably just taking Oracle."

11:36am - Start working on the other blog.

11:47am - Go to toilet.

11:49am - Start working on Page Two. This is the news/politics page, so I like it. Running a story about Annan's comments on Sudan as the lead and an EU/Turkey story underneath.

12:12pm - Main stories are done. Trying to pick a front page photo, and then need to fill up the news briefs on both pages. Look at pictures of the damage the London tornado did yesterday.

12:24pm - Have snack.

12:37pm - Page Two is now done, and I've decided to run a photo of Australian fires on Page One. Two more spots to fill on Page One, and I'm done.

12:44pm - And... done. Now just need to proof Tom's stuff. Our deadline is in half an hour, so I think I'll get it in by then...

12:50pm - Done proofing and now exporting pages. Tom is almost finished too. Which means he gets to leave. Given it's my last day, I hope it's not awkward. I hope he doesn't try to shake my hand or something lame.

12:54pm - Just a quick "See ya Nicole," from Tom and he's out the door. Thank god. He may be quiet, but I give him credit for not being false. Time for lunch.

1:03pm - British sandwiches suck.

1:17pm - Buddy from Germany calls to tell me I can export the PDF. I now have nothing work-related left to do.

1:48pm - Finish my post for my other blog. Fax something to the new place of employment.

1:57pm - Clean out desk.

2:08pm - Go shopping. Not much else to do.

2:42pm - Back from shopping. Bought nothing other than a Starbucks Gingerbread latte (grande, skinny, no whipped cream).

2:52pm - Write leaving note to boss and coworker.

2:58pm - Check email. Change clothes. Get the hell out of here.

Yeah, that wasn't that interesting, was it?