Okay, so it's been a bit since I've posted. Things have been busy, as usual. But the trains have been mostly running on time, and filled with sneezy, coughing people. Consequently, I am working from home today.

So the other day at work one person was telling really bad jokes and wanted company, so he called out to other folks to tell jokes. He asked my Polish coworker and Greek coworker to tell jokes from their respective countries. Both declined, and he asked me, "Tell an American joke!" I respond, "Nah, I suck at telling jokes - ask someone else." Of course, some ass from across the room had to yell out, "America is a joke." I am certain that the person who made the comment was not really trying to be an ass. It was likely a combination of 1) They were trying to be funny, 2) They are ignorant about what life really is like in America, 3) They didn't actually think that was an offensive comment. Because I am a guest in this country, and I because I was at work, I said nothing. But, this is my blog, and this is my forum to rant. However, rather than point out all the many things I don't like about the United Kingdom, and England, let me instead say the following:

In the United States, Ray and I had a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 2000 square foot home with a garage, a deck and .35 acres of land in Cary. We had three cars. Specifically, a BMW M5, an absolutely fully loaded Chevy Avalanche (I miss my truck) and a BMW Z3 coupe as our run-around-town car. We each made more than the median income for Cary. We had a lot of stuff, like bikes and kayaks. And we always had money left over. I took a paycut to come out here, and since Ray is still getting paid in US$, we are living entirely on my salary. I walked away from a lot of stuff in America, so that I could experience another place. I, unlike a large number of immigrants to the UK, did not come here for a "better" life. I knew I would not find a "better" life than what I had in the US. I am not bemoaning that loss - it is something I chose willingly because, among the myriad reasons, you can never fully appreciate what you have until you don't have it anymore. There is no better way to grow than to just try something new. Granted, it doesn't have to be quite this extreme, but, the opportunity was there, and I took it. I see no need to point out all the endless shortcomings of the Great Britian and its government and its taxation and its socialized medicine and its people's attitudes, lack of patriotism, etc, etc, etc. I could explain why I think the United Kingdom is a joke. But that is not the point of me being here.

So, I’ve been kind of busy and haven’t have much of a chance to post anything, but, I am making time over lunch from home….

First of all, I have to say, Ben Folds rocks! We went to see him at the Hammersmith Apollo last night, and he was great! It was a lot of fun. He’s a good entertainer and there was just something kind of cool about seeing a North Carolina boy in London. One of the things that is really cool about him is the way he makes everyone there feel like he is just performing in front of a bunch of friends, having fun, telling stories, etc. None of the pictures I attempted really came out very well, but here is the best I could do.

Anyway, after the show, Ray and I made our way to a bus stop (not the closest one, but, hey, it was for the 220 and went in the right direction) and we observed a youngish lady squatting in a corner in an odd way. It took a moment to realize that 1) she was relieving herself there and 2) she was doing so there because she was quite drunk. At that point, I looked around and saw two guys in proximity to her, watching her, and, I assumed, looking after her. This next part happened over the course of the next five minutes or so while we were waiting for the bus. She eventually stood up and pulled up her pants and attempted to leave. She stumbled a bit, fell against a wall and stood there. She attempted to walk again and literally spun in circles several times, unable to walk in a straight line, and almost fell into the road. Luckily, she fell flat on her back, onto the side walk. She sat up and sat there for a while holding one of her shoes and staring at it. By this point we realized that she didn’t have anyone with her – she was all alone and absolutely wasted. I would think that she started drinking with a group of people. Most folks don’t usually just go into a pub and get that drunk by themselves. And yet, whomever it was let her leave the pub that way. The whole time I am trying to convince Ray that we have to do something. His rule is simple: “Don’t get involved.” I absolutely agree that we should not get personally involved. However, in my view, if somebody didn’t do something, she was in danger of being robbed, raped or murdered, or all of the above. The good thing was that she was stumbling around about 50m from a police station. But Ray didn’t want to get the cops involved because he didn’t want her to be in trouble, etc. Again, my thought was that it was better for her to spend the night in jail than to be killed. So, we had just agreed that we should go get a cop to help out when one fellow stops to help her up. When he started to let go of her arm, she fell into another pair of guys. They helped her up, put all her stuff back in her purse and the three of them walked her to the police station. She started trying to argue and struggle on the way, but they got her in there. I just don’t understand it. This is apparenly not an isolated incident because I remember hearing, on one of these crappy radio stations here, a female DJ recounting a story where she’d gotten so smashed she couldn’t find her way home and some random male stranger tried to help her out and get her home, but she couldn’t remember where she lived. What is the deal with this, people? I don’t get it. I mean, it’s one thing to drink socially. It’s even one thing to get drunk when you have friends and people around you to look after you. But to be that inebriated in public, alone, with no one to make sure you get home? What are you thinking? Why would you put yourself in a situation like that to make you that vulnerable? How crappy is your life that you would potentially throw it away like that? Maybe I am missing something? I don’t see how being in that condition could be a happy thing. Oh, well. Everyone has to choose for themselves what they want to do with their life.

Other interesting things… So, I moved from one place that never gets snow to another place that never gets snow. The net result being that it snowed this morning and Southern Railway is reporting: “Train services on all routes are being disrupted due to snow. Short notice alterations, cancellations and delays of up to (some random number between 20 and 95) minutes can be expected. Snow reported across the Southern Network. Various reports of weather related issues.” Therefore, I am working from home. I am pretty sure I could get in to work, but I have no desire to be stranded again like last week with the wind. I can’t trust Southern to get me home.

Well ,that’s it for now. Got bunches of work to do.

Wind and stuff...

So, we had a spot of bad weather yesterday that caused pretty much all the trains to not run. Which meant that I had to ride a bunch of buses from Wandsworth to Banstead. It wouldn't have been too bad, except that a lot of streets were blocked or flooded or whatever, so the buses couldn't necessarily take the best routes. This was further complicated when the S1 bus from Sutton to Banstead disappeared. I have no idea what happened, but the S1 going the opposite direction stopped 3 times before a bus going to Banstead showed up. Which meant waiting at least an hour, maybe more, for the bus to show up. Not fun.

On the other hand, at least I feel comfortable in the concept that I can get home if I need to when no trains are running. That doesn't sound like much, but, trust me, it is.

So, we celebrated my birthday as we normally do, by going to the beach. Only, instead of going to Kitty Hawk, we went to Brighton. It was pretty neat. Also, cold and windy at first, but after a while the sun came out, and it warmed up nicely.

We had lunch at an Asian buffet - Wokmania. I would most certainly recommend this restraunt to anyone who travels to Brighton and is hungry. The food was great and there was lots of it. Specifically, there was this pumpkin curry dish that was really good.

Then we wandered around a bit. We went down the Brighton pier, which was mostly closed for the season, and got some pictures.

Of course we ended up coming home to play Guild Wars for the rest of the evening. It was an absolutely perfect day.

So, I didn't have a chance to update last week because I was in a training class. Unfortunately, there weren't any openings at the place we usually get training, in London. So, was outside of Bedford in a place called Ampthill. I can't pronounce it right and I butchered the name every time I tried to say it. The whole thing kind of sucked because I just got Ray back, and then I had to be away for 4 nights. But, it was kind of cool because I got to be somewhere different. I was going to try to take pictures, but it's winter, so there just isn't enough daylight really. I did manage to get a shot of the flooded field behind the hotel, but the taxi was arriving, so I didn't manage to get any others. It was almost a vacation simply because I didn't have to get up until 7AM. And because I didn't have to sit on a train and fight crowds for 2 hours each way every day.

But, I also learned a bunch, which was really important. It kind of helps to learn about the software I support. Things started clicking into place and making sense as the week progressed.

Some things to note: Travelodge is a very discount hotel. I didn't realize this when I booked it, but I do now. Discounted as in, there is only one bar of soap for the entire week, one bath towel, 4 channels on the TV and no bathmat, no face cloth, no hair dryer and no alarm clock. All to save you money! (It's only costing £49/night). But, on the other hand, it was actually relatively clean, and they will give you all the tea you could ever want. I have stayed at far more expensive hotels that were far less clean than this one is. And it was right next door to a "Little Chef" which is a lot like Denny's, so I didn't have to worry about where to find food. Though, you have to be careful about what you order in a greasy spoon, just like in the US. (The omelet with chips turned out to be the best bet because it is freshly made rather than frozen in any way, then nuked.)

Well, I need to run as I am updating this over lunch. I've added some photos in http://picasaweb.google.com/jennifer.m.parker/AssortedUKStuff. Enjoy!

DO NOT FLY CONTINENTAL AIRLINES!! DO NOT SHIP YOUR PETS VIA CONTINENTAL AIRLINES!!

Let me start by saying that the people on Continental’s Pets Desk, those folks who coordinate everything, make reservations for the animals and provide you with information, were really the only competent folks I dealt with through this whole thing. They were the only ones who did not actually screw up.

First, to bring the dogs and cat with us to the UK, we had to jump through a bunch of hoops for the PETS program. We had to start more than 6 months earlier, getting them all microchipped, getting them rabies vaccines, waiting 4 weeks before getting a blood draw from each to determine the rabies titer (to make sure that the vaccine was present in sufficient amounts). Then, we had to get a stamp from the USDA (which could have been done anywhere in those intervening months, though the documentation was not very clear about that, and I didn’t think of asking my Vet). Last, right before they leave the country, at least 24 hours, but not more than 48 hours before being checked in with the travel company, they had to get their flea and tick stuff and their de-worming meds. Now, realize this is for 4 animals. It’s a pretty expensive process for just one, but we have four. That is just the paper work part. Another inconvenience of this is that you are only allowed to bring the pets into the UK on specific airlines, such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, and, obviously, Continental Airlines.

We decided at the start December that I would come back for Christmas week to help transport the dogs and cat, with us flying back to the UK on December 30^th, arriving on December 31^st, so that I would have a day in between to recover before heading back in to work. On December 5^th, I made the reservations for us and the dogs. The one thing that we had decided was that we did not want to have to make the animals change planes. Because of this, we were willing to drive to where ever we could get a direct flight to Gatwick. First, we checked Virgin because they are really nice flights. No, they did not have room for the dogs on 30 December. We checked BA, and they were a bit pricier than Continental. So, we decided to take a chance with Continental. We had to fly out of Newark to get a direct flight, but we really were absolutely willing to do this so the dogs could have a direct flight and the least amount of hassle. So, I got everything set up. We have a rental mini van to drive up to Newark from NC, picking it up at 18:00 on 28 December and returning on 30 December in NJ. The morning of the Friday the 29^th, we have an 8AM appointment to get that last bit done at the vet’s office. We have a hotel in Newark that will take all 4 pets for the night of 29 December. We have an 18:00 flight, and the animals have a 20:00 flight to arrive in the UK on 31 December. Everything is good, right?

Around 16:30 on Thursday, 28^th, I get a call from Continental Airlines’ Pets Desk telling me that they were checking with the company that passes all the animals through customs, PBS, just to confirm that everything was okay. Out of the blue, the folks at PBS apparently decided that they were not going to work on New Year’s Eve. Or New Year’s Day. Hell, they decided not to work on the 29^th or 30^th either, she tells me. They’ve absolutely screwed Continental over. But, no worries! Continental will make this work! They have a kennel facility at the airport in Houston that will allow us to check the animals in and still meet all of the guidelines for the PETS program. They can be kenneled there for two days, at Continental’s expense, and then forwarded to Gatwick on flight 004. We decided that, at this point, it was too late to change carriers, etc, that we would just take that deal. We also decided that there was no point in going up to NJ after all. This meant we would essentially have an extra day, and could get some other stuff done. Then, we could just fly straight out of RDU to whatever connection was necessary to get to Gatwick, and the dogs would just go straight to Houston for a two day lay over. The lady at the PetDesk said that would be fine, I just needed to handle our human reservations first, and they would fix the pets’ reservations based on that.

So, I called the regular Continental number, explained the situation. This reservations person, Sue, first told me that there were no seats on the flights to Newark. Then I asked if she can get us to Houston on that flight. Nope, no seats there either. Well, we had to get our flights changed, one way or the other, so I told Sue that I would call American Airlines, because while I was listening to her confirm that Continental had no seats, I was also looking at AA’s page and seeing that they not only had seats available on 30 December from RDU, they had good seats available. She first insisted that there isn’t a flight directly from RDU to LGW, that there was no way that there could be because it wasn’t an AA hub, and some other reasons why there a direct flight to LGW had no right to exist from RDU. After I tell her that the flight exists and it is flight AA174, and that I am very familiar with this flight, known to folks in the Triangle as the Glaxo Express, that it leaves at 18:45, that I am looking at available seats, etc, she tells me that there are no seats available on that flight, either. Did she miss the part where I mentioned that I was looking at available seats on aa.com? But, I figured that it was something odd where there were not any seats available for Continental to sell. So, I, again, told Sue I would call Continental back to cancel my fully refundable tickets once I had our tickets with AA. Sure enough, after contacting AmEx travel, seats were available, we got the AA tickets (for quite a bit cheaper than the Continental ones), I canceled the Continental tickets, and everything should have been okay. Except that it was now after 17:00 and we had an 8AM appointment the next day with the Vet to get all the stuff done to the dogs, so I could not reschedule it. Not a big deal, because we would still make the “not more than 24 hours and not less than 48 hours” time frame. I called back the lady at Continental’s Pets Desk. She stated that I have to have the dogs checked into the place no more than 3.5 hours, no less than 2 hours ahead of time. So, at this point, it looks like everything is set and ready to go on Saturday.

On Saturday, we try to finish up the last bits of stuff we have to do, but we didn’t really succeed. I did manage to get down to Fayetteville to return the air mattress, though. We didn’t have time to make one last run to the storage unit to drop off some tools, but we were out of time, so on my way out, I call my parents to see if they can help, which Mom says they will. I left the exterior garage door open for her. We got everything packed into the van, dogs, cat, suitcases, bikes, etc. We left the keys inside the house and the notes for the rental agent on the table and left through the garage after locking the doors from the inside.

Off we go to South Terminal Cargo 1 to the Continental Cargo place. Ray called en route to make sure of where we need to go, and “South Terminal Cargo 1” was the answer we received. We get there, look around, we do not see it. We see a Delta Cargo place, but no Continental Cargo place. In hindsight, sure, we should have called instead of looking around. But, no, we drove around to check the other cargo places. It turned out that there is a much smaller and lighter colored sign under the Delta one that lets us know that Continental Cargo is served here, too. By the time Ray called, it was 16:01, maybe 16:02, and, they informed us that they had closed at 16:00. When we pulled in front of the correct building, we were literally 3 minutes late, though no one had bothered to tell us that they closed that early. The only thing I had been told was no less than 2 hours before their flight. 4PM? What the hell? It wasn’t like it was even a holiday yet. The asshole (I stupidly didn’t get his name) refused to help us. Here we were, rented minivan packed full of all of our crap, plus the pets, and it needed to be returned within 2 hours. We had a flight in 2 hours. We had no where to go because we were moving. I literally begged for him to take the pets. That had no effect. I was exceedingly polite, I said that I understood that it was late, I told him that I knew it was Saturday evening, I said all kinds of nice things. That also had no effect. So, I started yelling at him and telling him that this was not how a business was run, that you can’t make money by screwing over your customers, etc... I did not expect that to have an effect, and I was correct. I asked for his supervisor, and he offered to give me the Pets Desk. I really should have held out for his supervisor, though that probably wouldn’t have solved anything, either.

So, I talked to the Pets Desk. The lady (I didn’t get her name either, because I was so pissed off) did what she could. She asked her manager. Her manager stated that they had no power to command Cargo to do anything, even to take my pets. I yelled at her for a while just because I needed to yell and the faint beeping told me that the call was being recorded. I did apologize to her afterward, but nothing changed the fact that I was stuck in RDU with no keys to our house. We had nothing in the house, no towels, no soap, no bed, no food, no soda, absolutely nothing - if we could even get in there. We had the dogs ready to be shipped then and we would have to jump back through those same damn hoops, pay a bunch of money to get them de-wormed and have front line reapplied by a vet, if we could find one at 17:00 on Saturday evening. We had to pay for an extra day of car rental. We had to change our flights. I had no buffer time between getting home and going back to work.

I know that it doesn’t require a great deal of intellect to do his job. I know that filling out forms and moving cargo is not a mentally taxing job. I don’t actually know what it pays, but since it’s a union job, it probably pays a lot more than what the work is worth. But I do know that it is probably a crappy, dead end job. I know that the man who was working on Saturday night is one of those sad, little people who feels he has no power over anything in his own life and enjoys taking advantage of the little bit of power that he comes across them in his job, in situations such as this, and he enjoys making others suffer like him. He was vindictively happy about not helping us, about essentially telling us to go to hell because they were closed.

Anyway… We were lucky that I had left the garage door open for my parents. I had forgotten to lock the handle on the door from the garage into the house. So, it turned out that we had a place to sleep, despite the lack of something to sleep on. Luckily, Hertz had no problem extending the reservation, and AmEx travel was able to get us good seats again. The Pets Desk rescheduled the dogs for the next day, the next flight. The fact that the dogs and cat had been treated at 8AM on the previous day meant that they either needed a 6AM flight or they had to have there stuff done again. Of course, the cargo place would not open until 8AM, so that means the pets have be treated again. The catch is that it should be at least 24 hours, but not more than 48 hours before being checked in with the travel company. And it was Saturday. Obviously, our regular vet was out of the question. That leaves only an emergency vet clinic or the Banfield vets in PetSmart. Well, it turns out that most emergency vet clinics do not have things like FrontLine on hand, so PetSmart was our only option. So, I started calling those. While the Banfield chain of pet hospitals is actually is open on Saturday, it was now almost 18:00 and everything was ready to close. The one in Cary was open Sunday, but couldn’t help us because they didn’t have an appointment until 15:00 Sunday, a time when the dogs should already be checked in. So, I kept calling places. I finally find that the Banfield in Durham had a slot open at 13:00 on Sunday. There were two problems with this: 1) technically, the pets could be rejected for having the stuff less than 24 hours before being checked in and 2) this was cutting it fairly close. But, I figured it was better to take my chances and just take the appointment. Sure enough, it ran fairly close, so that we ended up getting there around 15:05. The guy at the cargo desk (a different one) actually had the balls to ask why we took so long to get there. Obviously, if his colleague hadn’t screwed us over the day before, then we never would have been there to bother him on New Year’s Eve, and I let him know that. He started to tell us that he wasn’t supposed to take us that late, despite the fact that it wasn’t 16:00. The last animal should have been tendered by 15:00. I snapped at him again. He ended up doing the paperwork, but he charged me $225 for the kenneling. I told him that it was covered by Continental for their earlier mistake, and he refused to take it off. Oddly enough, someone at the Pets Desk must have been watching the transactions because they called him and told he had to take it off of there. (He did not because he claimed not to know how, but it does not matter because the Pets Desk people are straightening it out for me.) After all of this, having to run photo copies for him, having to label the dogs and tape up their boxes, having to do all this other stuff that he should have been able to do, our dogs and cat made their plane

Finally, something went fairly right. He finished up all the paperwork by 16:15, giving us just enough time to drop off the rental, drag in the 4 bags and 2 bikes and 2 backpacks, get checked in and get to the gate with about 5 minutes to spare. Of course, AA, as usual, was courteous and efficient. It’s not the most comfortable flight. It’s not the greatest food. Even the entertainment isn’t that great. But, the staff is always helpful and friendly, and for that reason, I would choose to fly AA over Continental any day.

Now, fast forward to today: Tuesday, 02 December 2007. I should have gone in to work today. But, because I did the paperwork to check in my dogs and Ray and I have two different last names, and because handling all of them really is a 2 person job, I have had to work from home today. Luckily my boss is pretty understanding. It was surprisingly easy to pick them up from cargo here, though, since they got in at 10AM , we kind of expected that they would be ready by 13:00 or 14:00 at the latest. But because of all the dogs that had to be held until today, they weren’t ready until 15:30. Still, all I had to do was show some ID to prove that I was Jennifer Parker, sign 3 forms, then go to another door, ask someone there for my dogs, then back the car into a big door, then wait, then load the dogs, then pull back into the parking lot, then load their crates. Still – that whole process only took 20 minutes. Not bad considering how much we went through to get them here in the first place….

We now have 3 dogs and one cat that are not very happy. The poor cat acted like he hasn’t seen a litter box in ages. And the dogs had to go badly, and then went nuts when we gave them their food and water. (They had 4 bags of food strapped to the tops of their crates and they came back with 3 and ¾ bags of food strapped to the top of their crates.) The poor things are depressed and very unhappy. But, then again, it’s got to be kind of traumatic to be shoved into crates and stuck on a noisy thing for 2 or 3 hours, shipped to a kennel overnight with out anyone they know, stuffed back in a crate, thrown back on a noisy thing for 10 hours, then back into an area with a bunch more people they don’t know… Well, you get the idea. That may not be as much because of improper care as it is just different care. Though the lack of eaten food and the vigor with which they are currently attacking their food bowls concerns me.

Moral of the story: Don’t fly Continental Airlines. Don’t ship your pets via Continental Airlines.