Life in the Barracks

Well it's been about 3 weeks now since I moved in solo to our new place in London. The Woolwich area is not without it's charms and scary dark corners but on the whole I am liking this area immensely. I've done a little exploring and noticed that there is enough stuff here to keep the kids on their toes for months on end, including the puppy stream that goes by our windows. It seems that the only dogs that live near here are puppies.

The Royal Arsenal area is setup to be both modern and historical, there is 'Firepower' the Royal Artillery Museum about a block from our flat and the Greenwich Historical Society is next door. All around the development there are cannons and big gun placements that are left overs from the time when this area was exlusively under the Royal Artillery.

There is a nice pub in the grounds call the Dial Arch (www.dialarch.co.uk) and a set of cafes spread about. Also the usual stuff like a gym but extended with a Spa and wellness centre where you can go from aromatherapy to hot rocks and massage. I like the area and I think once the family comes over (probably November) this will be a place we may not want to leave to quickly....

 

 There is also the flat which has made this place what it is, a nice quiet building with great charm. I've met our western neighbours and they have a 5 year old boy - to which I am sure Sebastian will become attached. The Thames Clipper river service to my work has it's dock on the river right outside our windows. It's about a 30 minute ride in by boat but it's unbelieveably relaxing comparing to the DLR and Tube combination. 

Today is IKEA trip #1 day for the house. Time to get some of the other things we're missing in the place that fell outside of 'full furnished'. Our friends Jason and Tara are also submitting their paperwork for their flat, which is about a block away. Nice.

London ROTC (Part 2)

I have now a contract with my name on it that says "Hey You! Ya You! Come work here why don't cha?" and I say "Yes"

So with that we are now faced with the tasks of packing up the home in Canada (which Kate has been on like Donkey Kong) and me to find us a place with English Character but a new kitchen and bathroom here in London that is located near everything we need and friends.

Yeah. That should all be stupid easy.

Now I am about to go home to Vancouver for 4 days to help Kate pack up some leftovers and move a whole lot of stuff over to Vancouver Island to my parents house. Where it will stay for a few years while we are over in England and we try not to collect anything of Value that we want to move back with us.

I'm excited, are you excited? It feels a little itchy in here.

London and the revenge of the contract

Well here we are. Trip #3 to London and the final move is materializing this week. There should be concrete decisions with my name on them in days and the word is they will be the good kind.

I've only been here just under a week now and with 2 more to go there is a lot to be done to get ready. Finding a house, arranging storage at home getting a neighbourhood picked out here to live in and all that. Not to mention VISAS for the family and all the rest.

I did get out on Saturday a little bit, as I have been trying to limit some of my sightseeing so that we can do it as a family. I went to Westminster Abbey and have to say I was disappointed to have to pay £15 to get in but was completely fine with the result. The need for the price is apparent as the shear volume of people going through it causes need for continual upkeep and diligence. Photos we not allowed but being a tourist I did take some `covert`shots so I would have something to show for the trip.

Here they are.

Of course nothing compares to seeing the real thing; walking amongst the tombs of Kings, Queens, Hero's, and Poets and realizing the combined history in the Church is a little overwhelming. There is a real beauty to death and the workmanship and detail put in to the statues, monuments and tombs is astounding. Nothing I have ever seen is like these. The stone seems to have life, the robes almost look like they are flowing on the angels and one scene of death come from the tomb below to take the soul of man seemed like a frozen moment so real it could have continued right then and there.

Very much worth the trip and the admission paid.

Off again

Packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour five p.m.

Were I to be high as a kite the flight may go a lot better, however I will not be and it'll just be another sleepless 9hours of zombie TV watching. All in all this isn't a complaint, it's three weeks away from home and another blast of work in the UK. There may be an offer of employment settled or there may not be by the time I am heading home at the end of August, it remains to be seen.

While either outcome is good, the thought of moving the whole family to London right now makes me wanna have a stroke. There is so much to do prior to the trip, so much to rid ourselves of, so much to put in storage and even more to do in the UK to arrive and settle. Money is getting low at home and my worry has been on the incline for sometime now.

Still I welcome a move and welcome the opportunity for my family to experience London living.

I took the train to the airport today and have to admit the journey was simple and really quick, I went from east Burnaby to YVR in about 1 hour. Now however I have time to kill.... which I am doing with one of the single worst beers I have ever had in my life. At Milestones, the Palamino Pale Ale. This truly is bad beer.

At least there's bowling on the TV.

Updates

We have now moved in to our basement; no longer do we dwell above with the day walkers. The change was swift and unexpected but when we found out the the tenants in the basement were leaving we snatched up the chance to save $500 on the same amount of space. There have been some challenges to deal with like the fact that there is only 1 bedroom. However I think we have made great use of the space in creating little areas that suit our needs.

With this space we have I think that our layout worked quite well. We made a few changes to our living conditions such as having a bookcase wall as a partition for our bedroom while the kids took the actual bedroom over. The addition of the closet under the stairs made a perfect toy room for the kids and they enjoy it a lot. Kate had to do some serious work to clean the sucker out though as it was not only a little moldy but had some serious funk.

On top of all of this the new neighbours moved in to our space upstairs. I say our only because as they were about to move in all the work that we wanted done ( baseboards, painting of the kitchen, repairing the wood around the rear door, light fixture changes, etc ) got done. SO it was a little heartbreaking to leave the space after that seeing it so perfect.

They have a daughter who is the same age and the same personality as Sebastian and a boy who is a little younger than Rigby. They have also just had a baby girl now 8 days old, so a full house but someone for Sebastian to play with daily (even if they do fight and occasionally hate each other).

This has been a fairly positive move for us, getting us in to a new headspace about living and also giving us the benefit of a live in play partner for the kids. Now if only I could shake that basement feeling of bugs being around all the time I'd be golden.

Trip 2

Tomorrow I'm leaving for London on the second trip. I've been for three weeks and back for two....

The previous trip was great, there was lots to see having not been in London since 1990, and lots to learn as I was working on all sorts of new stuff. Here are some of the sights!

So after coming home from London we went off to Vancouver Island to visit with my parents and that was a blast. The kids and I spent a week there going to the beach, park, mini golf, the working farm (including cheeseworks and winery) and then back home.

Had a nice birthday party with friends when I came home and now (the day after my real birthday) I am feeling the sting of leaving again.

It's come

Since the last post there has been a lot more uncertainty. We have sat and waited, learned that we would not get the London contract as it was explained and promoted and furthermore would be granted (maybe) a smaller 3 month contract.

Now that I've also gone through a round of 4 interviews with another company we have recieved the word of the 3 month travelling contract and I will be leaving this Sunday to London. It will be a 2 weeks there 2 here sorta deal and will mean stress on all of us. The end hope here is that our worth will be proven as we evolve Acer in the next 3 months and they will extend our contracts until the end of the 2012 Games. Then we will move over and live in the UK under the terms of our original contract offers.

I'm excited and aprehensive. I hate flying with teeth grinding passion and am not looking at 6x 10 hour flights as a good thine per se. I'm looking forward to scoping out London and seeing if we could be comfortable there, meeting the folks I worked with on 2010 again in London and all the new people.

Kate and the kids will be looking at camps and daycare and lots of visits with friends over the summer while I am going to be looking at spreadsheets and training materials. Woo. Not all bad by any means for me as I will get time in the UK and also the omg fun of coming home to my family 3 times over.

Waiting

We're still waiting on London to come through as there have been some issues with the process. I have now gotten my UK Visa and it wasn't that painful. I have the Right of Abode through my Mother and am able to live and work there now. Overall once I got my supporting documents together the consulate approved my visa in 5 days. With Kate and the kids it's going to cost a lot more and may take even more time.

With no real date for the position start or our move I'm feeling a little surprised at how comfortable I am after selling a lot of our stuff at our garage sale. We've gotten rid of our computer and other electronics, kitchen stuff to a tiny minimum and are losing more everyday.

When the move happens (optimism here) we will have very little going with us and very little staying here. It will be jarring, and exciting to do this move and there is still a lot ahead of us to get there. There's also the alternative where we face limited money short term ability to afford our place and a tight job market. (Pessimist)


I hope it's the first one.

Since you've been gone...

Well the Olympics and Paralympics are all over and done with.

Time has been winding down for me on this project and now I am just working on document readiness for the transfer to London 2012 as well as for my own next step.

The transfer to London.

At this point I don't have a signed contract, just a verbal offer of my new job with the London 2012 Games. It will be with ACER again and by the looks of it I will be there with the family for almost 3 years. It should be an amazing experience! We are very excited to get ourselves over and just start living in the City, learning the lay of the land and then getting ready for some holidays to the continent.

Sebastian and Rigby should come back with oh so cute English accents and Kate and I with the feeling of having been somewhere together. Here's hoping that there is no car breakdown or anything keeping us in a little hotel for a week on this trip. (Right Kate?)

We are looking at houses all over London now and trying to focus on an area, but not knowing when we are going for certain is making it a little hard to grab a spot. If you have any suggestions of areas to or not to live in within the M25 let me knnow in the comments. I'm thinking Zones 2-5...

Torch Relay and other Awesomeness

Cypress Mountain - World Cup Halfpipe Jospy, Adrian, Me, Terry and Sean John Furlong carries the torch to Vanoc Olympic Flame relay in New Westminster Jospy, Adrian, Terry, Sean, Michael and Parimal

The TOC and stuff

Plus there is me on TV :) 

Feb 22nd

Nights in the Technical Operations Centre are strange, the thrill and buzz of the Olympic events from the day slow down and fade. People talk not of the technical side of things but of their families and homes across the nation and around the world. There are people here from Spain, England, Pakistan, Brazil, China and the USA to name a few; also from Manitoba, Ontario, PEI, Alberta and the Yukon in Canada. I’ve heard stories about dog sledding and cliff jumping, skiing in the Alps and snowmobiling the back country. The diversity of the Olympic Games is shown in this one room. It’s a point when Acer’s computers start to show their other side, as people begin to watch movies, play games online and go on to social networking sites for entertainment. Our systems move away from their day to day of delivering the technical and begin delivering the multimedia experience instead.


Feb 17th

Starting out the night – a 12 hour shift ahead; the Technical Operation Centre is watching the end of the Men’s Hockey games and I am settling in counting how many open trouble tickets we have between the venues. It’s astounding that with over 6300 PC’s out there we have 6 tickets open! That’s 0.15 of a Percent that are experiencing trouble. I would challenge any IT shop to show us those results.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

27 Minutes away from finishing a 12 hour overnight shift in the Technical Operations Centre. I spent a good portion of my night making work and looking for things to accomplish. It’s hard when all this Acer equipment keeps on going without fail, as a tech I want something to fix.

Feb 16th

I was on an overnight shift today, working in the Technical Operations Centre and at one point took a walk to the helpdesk to see how things were going for them. One of the helpdesk supervisors was leaning back in his chair and the rest were looking relaxed and comfortable. The remark came. “This stuff, your computers… can you go out and enable a kill switch or something? Nothing is breaking and we’ve got nothing to do”. I said “Sorry fellas; I’d rather see you bored than busy”.

It’s been truly amazing how this has all come together in the last few weeks, the people and the equipment. We have thousands of computers out there, checking in workforce, providing info to broadcasters and delivering results. Day after Day we are watching the helpdesks at all the venues smooth out and reduce, proving that our systems are working at peak performance. We are in fact delivering excellence.

Feb 15th

Today at Whistler Olympic Park we had a service call where a woman with one of the NOC’s was watching her team on the Ski Jump; she got so excited she jumped up and spilled soup on her TravelMate laptop. Our tech investigated the call and upon inspection he decided that although it was still functional; it was full of soup and we needed to replace the laptop. Well the customer was adamant that we not take this machine away. She insisted that if an Acer machine could stand up to this and keep working that she wanted to keep it until the end of the Games.

Feb 14th

Tonight we watched the Women’s hockey on the big screen in the TOC, Canada VS Slovakia and the absolute trouncing they handed out was intense. 18-0!! Can you believe that? An Olympic record set not in time or distance but in how many goals they put in that net. It was almost hard to watch; knowing that this was the first ever Olympic appearance for Slovakia and they were up against the greatest Women’s Hockey Team in the world. It was a rough first day but hey, some times trial by fire breeds success in the ashes.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The worlds fastest track for Bobsleigh, Luge and Skeleton is now in service up in Whistler and the Atletes are flying down that track. There has been the unfortunate tragedy of the Georgian team losing one of their own; still the look on the crowd is one of sheer joy for the events. There’s rain and snow and it’s dark right now at the Whistler Sliding Centre but everyone is cheering, smiling and loving every moment of it.

During the World Cup sport event, a number of us here were lucky enough to be able to be track side while the training was going on. A few of us even tried in vain to take some pictures of the blur that was Men’s Luge. It’s truly astounding that these Athletes are able to hurdle down the track at beyond highway speeds and come out the other side. This is one sport where you have to understand that it doesn’t just take skill, training and quality sport products to compete. It take’s courage, nerve and someone… a little crazy.

Feb 13th.

In the last few days I have been privileged to watch the opening ceremonies of these Olympic Games in person, the first 24 hours of competition on TV and the Technical Operation Centre come %100 operational at work. It’s been amazing; the emotions felt during the opening ceremonies as a Canadian and as a member of Acer and Vanoc were immense and swelling with pride in both my country and our work.

Watching Biathlon, Speed Skating and Luge today I knew as the cameras panned over the commentary positions that those were Acer computers, handled by Acer’s staff in a building deployed by people that I have worked closely with over the last year. Similarly I was overcome with the same pride. I have never; in my life known such joy as this work has given. Such satisfaction in the job, the people and the product, it saddens me to know that even as this the Games are just beginning it is in a sense almost over.

A friend of mine once spoke of live music as something so special it was magical. That the tune that was created was something of only that moment in time and once heard, even by a million people, it would never be again. In a way I can liken this thought to our days here. There are moments of sport excellence that exist for that second, that tenth of a second only. The only difference is that here, like a studio, everything has replay button and we can watch the greatness unfold again and again and again….

Set your creep factor to Stun

First things first... Rigby smashed my iPhone. She was so cute when she did it too. She was playing on it, laying on the floor in the Rogers store while I was changing my airtime plan, shortly she became bored and wanted to go back to her game of 'Jump off the stand for the giant iPhone display'. Asking if she was done I reached out to take the phone from her when she tossed it to me, I watched in slo-mo as it took a dive about 3 feet in front of me on to the tile floor. That's when the screen cracked. It still works though.

In the end I got a new phone, the HTC Dream and am slowly unlearning the iPhone. The android system is quite good and I am slowly finding little apps in the market that work for my needs. The creep factor came in yesterday when I downloaded LAYAR. It's an app I am told exists on the iPhone too. LAYAR is a augmented reality application for finding what you need near you, restaraunts, subway, coffee, movies etc etc. I tried out a few of these and then came across the Tweep finder. This layer adds locals around you that are tweeting currently. From there you can point the phone in the general direction of them, see the GPS coordinates, distance to them from you, their picture, the time they tweeted and then you can open their twitter stream to see what is going on with them.

I managed to find some grade 10 girl sitting at the McDonalds who had just broken up with her boyfriend and was talking with a group of people online about how a) broken hearted she was b) annoyed with the bitch that he was with now and c) how she sucks at Math 10. Although I didn't actually go find her or anything, I could tap the GPS location and get the pin on the McD's across the street from my location.

Creep factor 12

I am now rethinking not only owning this application but the way that I tweet, like maybe only tweeting when I am about to run off to a different location.

If I can blog 12 times in 25 Days

I can hit 200 posts before 2010!!

So let's get it on.

On the first post before christmas my true work brought to me a Technical Rehearsal and a headache!!

I am currently on shift in the operations centre for the 2010 games waiting for some sort of mysterious disaster to strike on one of the venues. Will it be a computer needing reimage? Or a VTM trying to do something they shouldn't? Only the overseers know.... any they ain't telling.

I have finished hiring for my work (for now) and although I have had a %10 drop off in staff over the last year due to them leaving, us letting them go or not accepting contracts we are still 91 people strong and have a grat team together. The guys from London 2012 for Acer are here right now as are a number 'big wig' guys from the Acer corporate. I'm doing my best to just do my job and make myself known as the guy who gets it done but secretly I just want to beg all of them for the chance to go to London.

We are interested in this idea, Kate the kids and I. We want to try out living in Europe even if it does mean singing 'The Final Countdown' everytime I think of it. The cost of living is huge, the transportation situation is dire and the air quality is second to most but! It's not Canada and it's not the USA so right away it's gotmajor brownie points. We will see what comes, when it comes. Who knows? We may be here for the next 5 years instead.

Sebastian needs Surgery on his eye to correct the muscles that are causing his one eye to turn in. We patched him and have gone through a few different pairs of glasses however the Doc says it's time to go in now. Sebastian informed me that all surgeons are horrible people because they cut you and put you to sleep and give you needles. This was said prior to bed last night.

I'm not going to argue. At least... not here.

A whole bunch of cy's

Uh huh....what ever that means.

I built a log hutch today. It's nice, about 6 foot tall by 5 foot wide. Means now I have to go on a chopping spree to get the logs in there and drying from all the rain we've had. I also replaced the step that got smashed from one of our friends slipping and falling down the stairs. He slipped and bailed and his butt totally took out the step.I felt bad but apparently he got some wicked air and he got over it about 3 days later. Then I put cut shingles up the staircase to improve the grip and kill the slippyness.

Now I just got to shingle the wood shed and it be done.