US Business Trip 2008

A Mink Stole

2008-09-07T02:43:00.000-07:00

Or to put it another way - It's a wrap.

The flight home was uneventful. I had the meal which was not as good as a lot I've had and then went to sleep, for 5 hours or so. My neighbour was a self confessed "deal guy" from Vancouver who'd had a few hours in transit before this flight and was heading on to Brisbane afterwards.

I grabbed some duty free on the way in, since you can no longer carry it on board flights in Australia and then quickly through immigration. My case was off early and I went through the security X ray. Do you have golf shoes I was asked. Whoops I'd forgotten about them, since I'd packed in Houston and had been living off the top of my suitcase for 4 days. They took them away for cleaning and disinfecting. After that it was out tot the taxi rank and home again.

However, I feel Like I'm a visitor in my own home, as by Friday I had booked for a 1 week trip back to Thailand. Same project as earlier this year, so I be reviving that blog. In played golf on Saturday, not too badly for the first 12 holes but then fell in a heap and hockey on Sunday - the Semi finals - which we lost 1-0.

I have timed my trip to Thailand so I'll be back for the grand finals in 2 weeks, assuming we win the prelim final next week, while I'm away. I will also miss state training again. It's then only a few days from when I get back till I leave for the Vets Championships in Brisbane. I will be away for over a month, playing hockey, visiting friends in Queensland and family in South Australia before heading to Tasmania for the Mensa Annual conference.

With the possibility of a trip to Beijing in November, I could well have been away around 120 days in 7 months.

I've already qualified for the next level in the Qantas frequent flier program and the next trip to Thailand may give me enough points with Thai Airways to be potentially useful.

Surprisingly I've had very little trouble with jet lag coming home. Possibly the long sleep on the flight to Hong Kong plus the sleep in the hotel sorted me out. However, I'm still suffering from Wiper Lag. This problem arises when you hire a left hand drive car in the US and continually turn on the windscreen wipers when you mean to use the indicator. The problem reverses when you come home. My windscreens at least are clean.

I would walk 500 miles

2008-09-04T03:20:00.000-07:00

Or at least that’s what it seems like. I left the hotel about 9 and went up hill to Hollywood Road which has a lot of antique shops in it. It also has a temple dedicated to the gods of literature and war – an interesting combination. Just above this street, the apartment buildings start. These are huge and when the old airport was in use the plane used to fly down between them. I remember looking out the window and into people’s sitting rooms. On the way back I wandered through the street side market stalls – mostly food stalls – and had a banana and a watermelon drink for breakfast.

As I had to check out at noon I didn’t want to go any further at this stage so returned to the hotel and repacked my bag. I left both the suitcase and laptop bag at reception and headed out about 12, intending to visit the Peak. I decide to walk over to the station and went via the zoological/botanical gardens. On the way I saw a Callaway shop and decided to see if they had the FTi driver I used in Houston – they didn’t. It was hot and humid and I was drenched by the time I got there since as well as travelling a few km across town I also climbed a few hundred metres up the hill.

After a stop for a drink I headed to the tram stop, which turned out to be down hill from the zoo, and was soon on the tram to the peak. This is a very steep hill and I took some photos to try and capture the angle. The ones taken on the way down were better.

Things have changed since I was last there some 10-12 years ago with the sky tower now dominating. I’d paid for the combined ticket so I could go to the viewing terrace on the top. Before that I left the terminal and found there is a huge galleria shopping mall there as well. They also have a Madam Toussards there. I didn’t go in but posed with Pierce Brosman outside.

The view from the top of the sky terrace is spectacular but – and this seems to be a recurring complaint – it was too misty to really get good pictures. I took heaps anyway. You can see Honk Kong harbour and Kowloon in one direction and Aberdeen on the other side of the Island as well.

Once I got back down from the peak I walked through that part of the city visiting a few parks on the way to the railway station. I took a train to Kowloon and then realised I’d gone a bit further North than intended. The station there is another huge shopping complex and I had a great deal of trouble figuring how to get out. One exit was just for taxi drop-offs but the doorman there gave me directions to the Jordan St exit. I walked along Jordan Street until I got to a shopping area and had lunch at a small restaurant there – by then it was about 3pm so I was getting hungry.

After lunch I walked along Temple Street, which is nearby. They were just starting to set up for the night market. From there I went past the temple and through the jade market. Looking at the map I decided to head over to the hockey stadium, which it turned out is being repaired and then down past the university to the science and history museums. I had a look round the entrance to the science museum but decided against going in. I then headed towards the ocean terminal and on the way stopped and had my hair washed, cut and dried. I continued on to the terminal looking for the Callway shop. I eventually found it but they mostly had clothes and a couple of FTi clubs but not the driver I was interested in. There was another shop on the list, which was given to me in a shop in Hong Kong, nearby so I went to that one as well. They didn’t have one either but shortly afterwards I found a golf shop that had on. It wasn’t the right loft and it was about $800, much more than for the same club in Australia or the US.

By then it was after 7 so I headed to the nearest train station and took one to Central, then walked to the hotel. I had been walking more or less continuously for most of the 7 hours, except for the tram trip and the haircut.

I grabbed the change of clothing I had deliberately left at the top of the suit case and caught a taxi to the station, then a train to the airport. It seems the Qantas check in counter was as far as possible from where I got off the train. However I was soon through the checking, passport and security stations and once in the Qantas lounge I was able to have a shower and change into fresh clothes.

I have now had some sandwiches and other nibbles and a couple of weak scotch and cokes. It’s about 1 ½ hours till my flight leaves. It looks like I’m not going to be able to load this till I get home. I can get to the internet from the Airport lounge but not to my blog site.

Looking round and meeting up

2008-09-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

I had a wander around the nearby area. The hotel is in the middle of things in the Sheung Wan area and you don't have to go far before you see both the modern Hong Kong with its steel and glass towers and the tiny back streets with the street stalls and small businesses.

After walking down the main road and then up a steep alleyway I had lunch at a small restaurant picked at random. Just some stir fried beef and rice for $5.

It was about 3-30 when I got back to the hotel and read the email from Ruby, the Hon Sec from Mensa with details for dinner. I called Thomas, the Vice chair who was going to meet me to confirm arrangements. About 4-30 I headed out again and saw the Western Market, which is an old granite warehouse that has been converted to shops and then headed towards the central station, popping into shops at random along the way. I found the rendezvous point and with 40 minutes still to go wandered further to a book shop and chemist before returning and having a soft drink and reading until they arrived.

I met up with the Mensa people at an MTR station. They had travelled there from the office but I had walked from the hotel, which was about 1 station away. Thomas and Jackie, the treasurer met me and we walked to the restaurant. It turns out this was closer to my hotel than the station and I had a short walk home afterwards. It was some time before the Ruby joined us as she'd been in a meeting at work. We had a traditional Chinese meal with several dishes shared. When we arrived they bought us tea and the others rinsed off the plates, bowls, spoons and chopsticks in the tea. Not sure if this is a health thing or a tradition or possibly both. We had fried squid, a beef stew, chicken pieces and a scallop stir fry. Apparently this particular restaurant is one of the oldest still operating in Hong Kong.

Part way through we we joined for a while by another member who was at the restaurant with a different group. There was also some excitement when an elderly man turned up. He is a famous food critic and was treated like some minor pop star or sportsman, with lots of people trying to take photos, before the minders asked them to stop. Later on he posed for some and this is him with the member, Elain. Thomas explained it by saying everyone in Hong Kong worked too hard to have time to play or be interested in sport and so forth but everyone ate, so a critic was as well known as sports stars elsewhere.

I got back to the hotel around 8-30 and 9 and watched 3 movies before finally getting to sleep about 1 am. I slept soundly till 8 this morning so maybe jet lag won't be so bad.

A night on a flight

2008-08-31T23:02:00.001-07:00

We left SF about 1-30 am. I’d already changed my watch to Hong Kong time, which was 4-30pm. The problem with flying across the Pacific is not just the long flight but that your biological clock gets thrown out of whack as well. Given it was another 2 hours to Houston time from SF this means I’m 11 hours out when I land.

Unlike the trip the other way where you tend to stay up as long as possible then go to sleep, on the way back you try and sleep as much as possible. It will be 6am when we land, so the 1-30 to 6am “by the clock” night is about 13 ½ hours long.

Fortunately Cathay has installed the new business class sleepers on this plane and I was again in the upstairs cabin. Each “seat” is more or less a J-shape and the seat folds back to horizontal. A bit better than the Qantas capsules. I was able to get about 8 hours sleep and then and other 2 or 3 where I was lying down with my eyes closed, hopefully getting a few naps in. I still feel like crap and, amazing but true, couldn’t even eat all my breakfast. I have had a mild but persistent headache, which doesn’t help. Unlike Qantas, they didn’t supply us with PJs and it was too hot with my jeans on so I took them off. There was no one up on my occasional trips to the loo and my T shirt was fairly long anyway.

The seat has a quite large LCD screen – the biggest individual screen I’ve seen on any plane so far. It’s about the same size as this laptop, which is 15.4”. It seems a shame not to have watched more movies, although I did watch a couple of TV show episodes over breakfast. They are calling us to turn of laptops now.

We landed on time and there was virtually no queue at passport control. However for some reason the guy checking mine called his supervisor to check something. It was OK in the end but it took a few minutes for the process. My bags were off in the first couple of dozen and were put through the X ray machine by security. I didn’t see whether they were doing it for all westerners or random people but some other passengers had walked straight through.

This is my first time in the new airport and it is very clean modern and efficient. I took the MTR train to town, which is very smooth and fast. They even have a row of lights in the arch over the passageway showing you your progress. The sun was just coming up and there was mist on the hills. The new airport is on a different Island and we passed through several tunnels under the harbour on our journey, which took 24 minutes. They security mess on the windows interferes with taking a good shot unfortunately.

A taxi ride to the hotel cost about $3 and fortunately they were able to check me in early. The room was stifling – nearly 30 degrees and I stripped off and got the aircon working. The room is (shall we say) compact. There’s not much storage space and the bed fill most of the floor space. The bathroom is also a model of efficiency (ie small).

It does have a decent sized TV, with heaps of movies to choose from, with 5-speaker surround sound. I just put the TV on, lay day on the bed and had another 4 hours sleep. It’s now 2 and I have had a shower, called my Mensa contact who will hopefully have an email for me later with details for dinner, checked emails and updated the blog. I suppose I should get out and do some sightseeing, shopping or whatever.

A bridge too far

2008-08-30T23:58:00.000-07:00

I finished the last blog entry which was written in the hotel lobby and packed up my pc. I left it at the front desk and went across to the chemist to get some drinks and nibbles to take to the games night. When I got back I thought I'd try too call Mum and Dad. I collected my case and laptop and set up up again and decided I'd call Kathleen who was picking me up to tell her what I was wearing. When I got through she siad she was at the front of the hotel so I had a quick repack of the computer and went out to meet her. It was just before 6-30 and she asked if there was anything I had got to do because of lack of time or transport.

In the end we decided we'd actually go across the Golden Gate bridge which I had just looked at earlier. On the way we passed through the Civic centre which she said had some impressive buildings. The city offices look like a state capital building and just behind it was the Ballet Theatre with the opera house a bit further away.

Our next stop was by the site of the World fair from early 1900's or thereabouts. That's the Greek temple looking building. After that it was across the bridge to the lookout on the other side. I took a shot of the city centre which again is obscured by the fog. This is caused by the warmer air from the bay mixing with the cooler air from the ocean and not caused by pollution.

We then headed further inland through Marin county and eventually across the Richmond Bridge back towards Berkeley and Oakland. This bridge is 4 to 5km long and has the lanes for the opposite direction on top rather than alongside the ones we were on.

It was a rather large detour and after the better part of an hour I saw a sign that said were were 2 1/2 miles from where we started. I just checked with Google Earth and it seems we went 35 miles to get back to that point.

The games night was well attended with 25 or so people there. Several boards games were in progress by the time I arrived. We had some snacks and then joined in a game of 20 questions in the bedroom. There were really too many players for this to flow smoothly and a lot of the questions were rather America-centric so I had no idea who the people were, as well as being bought in 1988 so the references were some what out of date.. I tended to do better with places and things but was at the end of the scores rather than the front. Eventually someone won so we could stop. I chatted with a few people but it wasn't too long before we were heading for the airport, this time crossing the Bay bridge and arriving a bit after 10pm.

Check in was very quick with hardly any queues at the business class counter or at security. I checked into the BA lounge which is used by Cathay passengers and connected to the net. I talked to Dad for a bit and now have about an hour left before we fly off, so I guess boarding will be a bit before that.

A Day round the Bay

2008-08-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

I awoke far too early this morning after a late night. I guess my getting up was still on Houston time (2 hours different) even if my going to sleep wasn't.

I stayed in bed and watched some stupid film for a while and then gave up and got up. There were a number of emails from Mensa people offering various levels of assistance but one girl who lives South of the city ( and the airport) offered to pick me up from the hotel, take me to the games night and then drop me at the airport afterwards. I called her to accept her offer and got an answering service but she called back later and gave me some advice on getting an all day pass and places to see.

I had to check out by 12 so I decided to do it before I went out so I didn't have to worry about coming back. It was about 10 when I got under way.

I picked up the pass at the chemist across the road and then tried to get on the cable car to Fisherman's wharf. By the time they were getting to the stop by the hotel they were full and someone in the queue said she'd been waiting 30 minutes already. I cleverly walked down hill to the previous stop and then a couple more (down hill is easy) till I got to the start. There I saw queues 100's metres long. I consulted my map and took the street car up Market Street instead. The first one was only a few minutes and was fairly empty. This took me to the ferry terminal and a tram took me the rest of the way along the piers to Fisherman's Wharf. I wandered aound Pier 39 for a bit taking photos of the areas, the seals and Alcatraz. Unfortunately it was slightly hazy so the distant shots are as clear as I would have liked. I then had an early lunch at a nice restaurant at the end of the Pier with a view over the bay. I had the Crabs 4 way, which was an appetiser size meal with some cold crab legs, a crab cake, a hot crab dip and a crab spring roll.

From there I walked along FW. There were various museums, a submarine and sailing ship amongst otehr boats in the various harbours and even some kids doing rap dancing on one street. I then wlaked along the bay towards the bridge and over the hill past Fort Mason. Once I'd climbed the hill I could see the Golden Gate Bridge but once again the haze prevent a clear picture of it. I got to the bottom of the hill and jumped on the 28 bus, which took me to the bridge and then South to the Golden Gate Park.

I got off there and walked with a couple, daughter and grand dad that I'd talked to on the bus. We walked past the Rose garden and through the park to the Japanese Tea House where they met up with cousins. There was a bridal party having photos taken in by the tea house who proved that you just can't have too many brides maids. I continued on through the Botanical gardens.

Once I left there I wandered for a few blocks and then jumped on another tram thinking it would take me to the Haight Ashbury district which borders the park. However I was disoriented and it was in fact taken me a right angles to where I thought I was going. It did however return me more or less to my starting point. Thsi had taken me about 3 hours.

This time I waited at the second cable car stop and got on the first one which would have taken me all the way to Fisherman's Wharf again. It does go up some very steep hills and the intersecting roads are also very steep - typical of the ones you see in the SF car chases in movies. I got off a bit before the end and caught a bus back towards China Town. I was pondering on the need to look at this area given my imminent arrival in Hong Kong and in the end found that the stop I got off was only just before the street the hotel was on. I went back there and had a rest for a bit. I then got a vitamin drink and went to union square where I sat in the sun and drank it. I wandered through Macy's and Victoria's Secret but wasn't really interested in buying anything so I've come back to the hotel to check email, up date the blog and kill the last 90 minutes before I'm picked up.

Carnivores Rule OK!

2008-08-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

Last night at the Brazilian restaurant was a real experience. It was also the first place I’ve eaten that was not part of a chain. It is a gaucho style restaurant and vegetarians need not apply. There is a fairly extensive salad bar in the form of a buffet and we all loaded our plates up with our choices. But the real emphasis is on the meat.

Waiters circulate around the restaurant stopping at the tables to offer various samples of meat from long skewers. It is very good quality too. To help them to know when you are ready for more you have a card the size of a drink coaster that can be red or green side up to indicate if you want more.

The choices included sirloin and flag steak, fillet mignon. Bacon wrapped chicken and steak, lamb chops, chicken legs and also some pork and salmon, although I didn’t get round to having the latter 2. I’m not sure if we were even offered salmon.

Like any barbeque where you can have repeated servings it is easy to eat a lot more than you would if you were limited to a single serving but it was excellent. I also had a couple of Mojito cocktails. I think the cost per head is around $50 but it is an entertaining evening and the 4 of us had an enjoyable time. I suspect it wouldn’t be much fun on your own or even as a couple.

It was about 10 when I got back to the hotel and I had to put through a load of washing. This took about 1-½ hours so it was quite a late night.

This morning I woke latish and by the time I’d packed my case it was about 10. I took a quick trip to the supermarket to buy some more of the hair product I use, which is less than half the Australian price here and a book to read on the plane.

Once at the office I prepared an invoice for the month and sorted out the expense claim before revising our working documents with the notes from yesterday. I then drove down to the sub place to pick up lunch and adjusted the expense claim to include that.

It was about 1-30 when we started our final round table discussion, really finalising and clarifying the points already raised and getting some idea of the priorities. The plan is to release a new customer version once these enhancements are completed and some of the more complicated or less well-defined enhancements will have to wait. We already started talking about some new stuff that is definitely not going to happen in the short term.

It was after 4 when I left and the GPS predicted arriving just after 4-30. This turned out to be fairly accurate and with a shuttle bus leaving soon after I’d returned the car it was just before 5 when I checked in. This was an hour be fore the flight time. But the time I’d passed through security and got the gate they were already boarding so being first class I just walked on. It was still a half an hour before we were due to leave and they served us a pre flight drink. We left the terminal right on time but I was surprised to note that it was 25 minutes from then until we actually took off.

We will land in about 40 minutes and I had accidentally pulled the power cord out of the socket during the meeting so the battery is getting low.

It has only been in the last couple of days that I started getting a decent night s sleep which fits in with the rule of thumb that it takes a day per hour of time difference. Now I’m about to reverse the journey. At least this will be in stages rather than in one 30 hour trip like the journey here. Also the last leg from Hong Kong to Perth won’t involve any time change.

It is one of the facets of modern air travel that you can travel so far in such a short time. It takes a while for the reality to sink in and you realise it may be years before you came back to the same place again, if at all.

I am now in my hotel in San Francisco. The flight landed about 8 and I swapped seats so I could sit by the window as we approached the airport. There was fog hanging over the city itself and along parts of the peninsula but not at the airport. There was a bit of a wait before our bags starting coming out. Fortunately mine was about the 8^th one so I headed up a couple of flights of stairs, and across the bridge to the air trains. These go in a loop in both directions connecting the terminals, parking lots, BART (train) station and rental place. Both trains left just as I arrived but this gave me a chance to get some warmer clothing out of my bag. I was just wearing a polo top and skorts as it had been 107F in Houston. However it was much cooler here. The easiest thing to do was to grab my Qantas PJs and put them over my existing clothes. There was a queue to get tickets at the vending machine and then it took a while for me to work out how to get a ticket. I hadn’t pushed the note into the slot far enough the first few times. I made it to the train with a couple of minutes to spare and had an uneventful trip to Powell street station. My Google maps print out gave me directions to the hotel from there. It is only a block from Union Square but it is mostly uphill from the station so I was quite hot by the time I arrived.

My room here is somewhat old fashioned, with a wooden chest of drawers and desk. The bathroom is quite tiny but there is a walk in robe that is probably just as big. An incongruously modern LCD TV sits between the 2 doors.

I had not heard from the Mensa lady who was going to show me around so I looked up the contacts on their web site. My first call seemed to indicate I’d got the wrong number but I then called the local president. He confirmed the number was correct and told me of some events on tomorrow. My second attempt at the other number got me someone who at least knew who I was after and got a message to her. She called the hotel number and apologised but she’d been called out of town and wouldn’t be back. Alan, the President, however is contacting other members to see if anybody can meet me during the day. In any case, he will probably take me to the games night from the local Bart station and then back to the station in time for me to get to the airport.

By the time this was sorted it was nearly 11 so I decided against going out for a look around tonight.

MALLS <> SMALL

2008-08-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

I realise my previous post probably didn't convey the sheer scope of shopping here. The Woodlands Mall is on a block approximately 1 km in length and probably 2/3 of that in width. It has a ring road that goes around the main mall area which has the speciality shops as seen in the photo below plus 4 department stores and a Museum. This shot is taking from just over the ring road of part of the mall.

In addition, there are several large stores at the front of the main entrance and 6 or so restaurants. On the outside of the ring road, but still within the same block are numerous restaurants and a large electronics shop and a jewellers.

Just across the road to the North is another shopping precinct. This follows the style more familiar to us say along Leach Highway or Scarborough Beach road. Where the shops are along a strip with parking in front. Again there are at least half a dozen restaurants in the area as well.

To the West of the Mall, is market street, which is the Subiaco/Claremont type area with upmarket shops and again a multitude of restaurants.

The photo with the statue and horses in it is in front of another of these strip shopping centres across the other side of I-45 which is the main interstate highway between Dallas and Houston. This has 5 lanes each way on the freeway part in the middle with 3 lane frontage roads either side. My journey to the office is along the frontage road heading South. I come back through the back roads since I would have to got further south to get to the other side of the freeway before heading back North to an exit near the hotel. This photo is typical of the tree lined back roads in the Woodlands.

That particular strip had a sports store where I found a pair of Reeboks of the same model as I was wearing - on special for $30.

Every restaurant seems to be part of a chain, even ones that look like they might be privately owned.

Tonight we try yet another different cuisine - a Brazilian restaurant. So far I've had Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Australian (allegedly), Mongolian and an variety of American options.

Today we had another long session finishing at 6-30. There is no doubt in my mind or the minds of the engineers that we have achieved breakthroughs in defining enhancements that would have been difficult if not impossible to do via email or even over the phone. As long as we can make the money people understand that.

The other day, Richard once again mentioned going to Beijing and suggested November might be about the right time.

Time to get ready for dinner. I've definitely been putting on weight this fortnight.

The second week

2008-08-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

It was back to work again on Monday. I’d woken up at 2 am with an idea of how to speed up plotting of raw data. It was 4am before I got back to sleep. When I got to work I thought of a variation of this to sample auxiliary data as well.

It was quite busy today with a couple of engineers in from the field, both of whom I’d met in Perth. We all went out to lunch, again at the Indian restaurant. That evening Patrick – one the engineers - and I went to A so called Australian restaurant called the Outback. It was as Australian as apple pie. Apart from a liberal sprinkling of Australian terms one the menu – Kookaburra wings, Tassie prawns etc, it was the same food you’d get at any number of other food chains. Having said that I did have a nice steak.

Tuesday we had a big meeting from late morning till late afternoon. They ordered in Mexican so we could keep working though lunch. That night Tony, Lisa, Patrick and I went to a Sushi restaurant. Lisa has food allergies so there was a lot of discussion with the waiters to make sure she didn’t get anything that could affect her. I has the surf and turf. This was unlike the similarly names dish you might get in an Aussie pub. ie a steak with a couple of prawns on top. My meal was a full lobster tale with a small piece of steak.

My cold took a turn for the worse this week and I had to get some cold tablets. This did seem to get me through the night on Monday and again last night. Today I worked through some of the bugs and enhancements we discussed yesterday. Lunch was at Vietnamese Noddle bar. After work tonight I drove around the area taking some photos of different buildings and other sites. I went back to the mall and bought a scarf for someone back home and then picked up some crab and salad for dinner.

On the Panther Trail

2008-08-25T16:23:00.003-07:00

I had a lazy Sunday morning. I got a load of washing done and watched a bit of TV. I tried to call Tony to see if he could play golf but didn’t get through, so went to the super market and bought a salad for lunch. I tried Tony again later and he said he wasn’t feeling up to it so I headed off by myself.

This time I played the other course – Panther Trails. It is shorter but a lot trickier. I continue to be impressed with this course. They even provided free range balls for driving practice as well as the balls for the chipping and putting areas. The carts also have a couple of towels and a handful of tees provided.

This course really does need a cart, as there are a number of occasions when the next tee is quite a distance from the last green.

I was supposed to play with someone at 3 pm but he’d already hit off by the time I got there. A father and son pair arrived before I’d hit off so we joined up and we caught the single on the 4^th tee and he joined us as well. Apparently the singles in front of him had all joined up so this slowed everyone down. In the end it took 4 ½ hours for the round.

Robert and Robert Junior were playing of the black tees and I started on the whites but changed to the blues when we caught up to Fred since he was playing from them. I had a 42 going out but a 50 coming home. Again a number of lost or unplayable balls was the problem. I did manage 1 birdie on the par 5, 9^th after hitting the green in 2 with a hybrid 4 from 208 yards out. Mine is the closer of the 2 balls in the photo above.

The final hole seen below has an island green. My shot landed on the slope just short of the green and disappeared into the water not to be found. The side shot shows that you can't even play safe by deliberately playing long and chipping back.

It was hot and humid again today and if you were in a place where there was no wind, eg because of the trees it was quite stifling. I also seem to have got a decent tan over the 2 days refreshing my golfer’s tan lines. Well tanned on the arms to sleeve length except for the left hand due to the glove, and legs between the hem line and the sock line.

Once back at the hotel, I raced out to JC Penney’s to pick up more bras, while they were still on special and the went to TGI Friday’s for dinner. By then my supply of US$ was getting low but I had enough for some spareribs and salad.

I was asleep by about 10 but once again woke in the night, this time I worked on a speed up routine for plotting.

Actually, Houston - we don't have any problems

2008-08-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

I didn't get back to sleep this morning. It was 6-30 by the time I'd finished updating the last blog entry so it hardly seemed worthwhile.

I left for the Space centre about 9 and it took the better part of an hour to get there. Once I arrived I took a quick look around the museum cum kids playground part and then headed for the tram for the tour of the actual space centre. Outside it is particularly un-extraordinary. Not much different than a university campus or modern business park. Essentially just a lot of buildings with car parking and a bit of landscaping between them.

Our first stop was the building that contains mission control. In fact there are 3 different control rooms. We sat in a theatre arrangement overlooking one of them and had a 10 minute presentatio0n. It was quite interesting. Lots of computer screens etc.

The next stop was the space vehicle mock-up building where they have full scale models of different space vehicles and structures for training purposes including a full sized shuttle and two part shuttles. We were fortunate to see the actual lunar rover - new version with 12 wheels and it was taken outside for some testing so we actually saw it in action.

The final stop was Rocket park which has an actual Saturn V rocket in side. It was for Apollo 18 but the mission was cancelled so it was never used. It is huge but the capsule at the end (top) was so small. It wasn't much bigger than a 4WD car.

That tour took 1 1/2 hours. I decided to skip the theatre presentations but wandered through the mock up of the shuttle flight deck and through the museum. I also stopped in the shop and bought some NASA caps. I particularly liked the one that said "It's not Rocket Science (Oh wait, yes it is)"

It was just after 12-30 when I left and my GPS predicted a 1-40 arrival back in the Woodlands. I called Tony who told me he'd already dropped his clubs at the hotel. Once I got back I put one of my camera batteries on charge, since both were flat, picked up the clubs and then headed out to a nearby shopping area where I picked up a chicken salad and smoothie for lunch. By the time I'd finished there was enough charge to take the camera with me.

I headed or the golf course and was told I could go right on. There was no-one else booked so I couldn't join up and that the last group had hit off 40 minutes earlier. After getting the cart organised I had some putts and chips. They actually just have dozens of balls on the putting green and chipping green. So you grab a handful and use them and leave them for the next people. Can't imaginer that working in Australia.

The course was in very good condition, especially considering how much rain they'd had. Cart were strictly on the paths only but the greens were very dry but still quite soft so you throw the ball right at the green.

Tony's set consists of Taylor-made irons which I quite liked. Callaway hybrids which were ok as well, some weird wedges which I didn't like much. Ditto for the fairway wood. A Wilson putter which I got used to after a while and the Callaway FTi 9 deg Driver which I absolutely loved, once I figured out how to hit it.

I had a 91 which is 5 over my handicap. More than acceptable with borrowed clubs on a strange course and to be honest the extra strokes were probably putts while I was getting to used to the greens and the putter and a couple of balls in the water. I lost 2 balls in Water hazards and 2 in the rough - 1 was a provisional anyway which I didn't need. While looking for the second one, I found 6 other balls.

The course is very picturesque and in excellent condition. I could not believe that a public course could be so good and yet so empty on a Saturday afternoon. I caught up to one group of 3 one the 10th tee who waved me through. I hit my drive over the sand trap on the right, cutting across the dogleg and put my second on the green for a par. Don't you love doing that when someone calls you through. It took me about 2 hours 45 to complete the round. I could probably have played the other course and still taken not much longer that a normal Saturday round back in Perth.

Time flies

2008-08-23T04:01:00.000-07:00

It is already the weekend and I’ve been a bit slack in updating this blog. I think this is partly due to having other things to do after work, which was not the case in Thailand and partly to do with still being jet lagged and often too tired to concentrate on writing in the evening. It is now about 4 am and again I am wide awake. I’d hoped I was over the lag after sleeping more or less straight through on Wednesday night but the last 2 nights I have again had a period of wakefulness in the early morning.

Work has been rewarding and interesting with meetings most afternoons to discuss and work through various issues with the program and mornings spent working on the actual coding. Of course, some of the fixes are quite quick and are done more or less straight away during the meeting.

For lunch on Wednesday I went out by myself and found a Chinese buffet. The next 2 days we went out as a group, with different visitors from Schlumberger, once to the same Thai restaurant as Monday and then to an Indian yesterday. One was an ERD expert and the other a hydraulics domain expert, according to their business cards. The K&M guys and myself had a bit of a laugh at these titles and I asked if Expert was higher or lower than Wizard or Guru.

On Wednesday, I drove across to a shopping area across the road and found a golf shop that I wandered through for a while and then went on to the big Mall where I had dinner at a seafood place. I was quite restrained having just a crab salad.

On Thursday I took a diversion on the way home to look at the Pavillion. This is a major outdoor venue and last night they had Linkin Park and others and this Friday Tom Petty will perform. They also have the Symphony orchestra there. I couldn't see the stage area as it was all locked up. They have a couple of groups of bronze statues in the forecourt area.

I also had my first "driving on the wrong side" incident here. I'd driven through the back way and wanted to get to the main gate. I turned left on the road to go the couple of hundred yards to the entrance and quickly realised it was a 2 lane road heading straight at me. I quickly turned off in to the entrance way. I also went through a stop sign the oher day. They have 4 way stop signs at a lot of intersections in this area and also on some T junctions. I went straight through one of the latter. Also this morning I went through a red light when it changed to green, but just for the turning lane. Fortunately traffic is light and there was no danger in any of this situations but it is not how I normally drive and I felt at the minimum, a bit sheepish.

Tony and Lisa had me over for dinner on Thursday. They have moved into this new house in just the last few months. It is a large 2 story place and most of the houses in the Woodlands area are like this. There are 3 bedrooms around a living area upstairs with the master downstairs, along with an office, formal dining and sitting areas and a huge kitchen with informal dining and living rooms. Of course there is a pool with a spa as well as an outdoor eating area in the back corner. The garage houses an Audi and the new toy - a Porsche.

The Woodlands itself is a pretty high-end area. It was carved out of a forest and the major roads in the area are still tree lined. The residential areas are off these roads, hidden behind the trees and are generally have only one or two entries so there is no through traffic or are on winding country lanes. The roads within tend to be loops and cul-de-sacs.

There has been a lot of rain this week with a tropical storm over Florida extending its influence even this far away. They have been having rainfalls measured in feet over there and the TVs has had images of streets well underwater. They were predicting 30” in some areas in yesterday’s weather forecast.

Yesterday was the first day of sunshine and with temps around 90, the humidity was also high. Hopefully it will stay dry and I’ll be able to play golf this weekend.

Yesterday’s lunch and meeting was with Paul, who is part of the software team for Schlumberger. Schlumberger is a major oilfield service company, originally well known for their wireline logging services but now expanding into many other areas. K&M was a private company that specialises in drilling engineering and in particular in extended reach and horizontal wells. In May, it was sold to Schlumberger, so essentially we are all working directly or indirectly for that company. It seems to have been a good match as well as obviously a financial triumph for the owners, one of whom has bought a plane with his windfall.

The meeting with Paul is typical of the synergy that has come from the sale. They also have software that deals with similar areas as the TAD software I have developed for K&M. They have been impressed with some of our features and are looking to improve their product by implementing some and at the same time we will be able to take some of their features and algorithms into our product. Paul is transferring to Beijing later this year as that is where they have their major software development centre. My throw away line about getting to visit China was received with serious consideration. Do I sense yet another blog in the future?

Yesterday, just about everybody was gone well before 5pm and once our meeting was over, I was almost chucked out so that the remaining couple of people could lock up and leave. I was hoping to play golf this weekend so decided to look around the golf course, one of which I drive through on the way home. It is one of those courses that winds through the residential area so that they have a lot of golf course side lots. This makes it hard to find out where the club house is and I drove around quite a lot before finding it, after talking to a couple of people in the area. The first one is a private course and several of the guys in the office are members. Weather permitting, they are suggesting a Sunday afternoon game. I also found the public course – two courses in fact at a resort and within a mile of the private course. This also looked pretty good and I may get a round there this afternoon. It's not cheap - $85 per round at both courses, which includes a cart and $40 for club hire. However, Tony has agreed to let me use his clubs today and after 2:30 the green fees on the public course drop to $45.

I’m planning to visit the Houston Space Centre in the morning. I haven’t managed to get there in my previous 2 visits but this time I at least have my own car. This assumes I’ll wake up early enough after I (hopefully) get back to sleep shortly.

Last night I headed for the mall with the idea of buying some new bras. It was a waste of time shopping in Thailand since they just don’t have much in my size but I felt I’d be well within the normal range here. I bought one pair with the thought that if it was comfortable I’d get a whole heap before I go back. The jury is still out on this.

I had dinner at Landry’s seafood restaurant. This is a bit further upmarket than the previous fish place. In the end I had the fisherman’s platter and a Blueberry Mojito. This is a Vodka/Blue curacao based cocktail with lime, blueberries and mint floating in it. Very nice and quite refreshing. I had thought about an appertiser but gave it a miss. A good thing too as I couldn’t quite finish the main course. They do give very generous servings here. Any earlier thoughts of desert also went by the wayside.

The office

2008-08-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

The office was originally a small private house with a garage on a large block and is one block West of the main I-45 highway. It has been extended a number of times and has a large area with cubicles for the engineers in the latest extension. There is a conference area with overhead projector which is wehere we are having meetings.There's a kitchen area near the front which has a well stock fridge and pantry. Soft drink and junk food - the lifeblood of America.

I went to sleep about 11 on Monday night and was woken at 2am by a phone call from Australia. I didn’t get it in time to find out who it was but I was wide-awake after that. I decide to call David since it was mid afternoon at home. He said they’d found the leak, which was under the slab, and they had to dig a hole through the concrete in tmy bathroom to fix it. The insurance will cover everything but the actual repair of the pipes. I’m sort of glad I’m not there.

I couldn’t get back to sleep for ages and let me tell you – there’s a lot of rubbish on TV in the middle of the night. I did catch part of the Men’s NZ Germany hockey match at the Olympics though. I did finally drop off about 5 and woke up at 9-30. By the time I had a shower and got to breakfast they were packing up, so I grabbed a juice and some Danish pastries and drove to the office. I’d checked the area on Google Earth during my awake period and found the GPS had sent me on a 6.5 mile trip home from the office. I found one through the back ways, which was only 3 miles.

Today I started on some of the fixes and upgrades we identified yesterday. About 1 Brandon took me down to a sandwich shop where I got a large sub with steak cheese and onions (a Philly steak) for lunch. This turned out to be quite large and I could only eat half. After lunch the 2 of us spend most of the afternoon in the conference area going through some of his problems and upgrade ideas. Again it seemed no time at all before it was time to leave.

I stopped at the super market on the way home and then changed into my gym gear. I got the pass to the gym next door and walked over there. It was quite big and at that time of day quite packed as well. The cardio machines were upstairs and probably 80% or more were in use. They don’t seem to have Cross trainers like I have at home or the more common rear wheel drive version in Australian gyms. They have something similar but there’s much more ankle movement than I like. I decided to do a session on the treadmill instead. I did a mile in 12 minutes, which was enough. I then tried their pseudo cross trainer but didn’t like it so I went back to the hotel. Their exercise room has more or less the same choices so there doesn’t seem to be any advantage in the gym. There is a huge room with various weight machines but I'm not interested in those either.

I had the other half of the sub for dinner and fell asleep watching TV. I got up and had a shower and am now watching a show called Highway 18 while typing this up. This is sort of like the Amazing Race, except the challenges are all golf related. The teams are chipping on a beach, putting in a basketball court as well as driving to golf courses and playing a hole. They have to replay it until they get a par or better.

Lost in the Wood(land)s

2008-08-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of my rental car and one of the hotel or at least the wing of it where my room is located. I actually have the ground floor, front room on the left in this picture.

I managed to get back to sleep after writing the last entry and got up about 9. After a long overdue shower, I had breakfast and got ready to go to the office. I tried to enter the address of 26110 Oakridge Drive The Woodlands into the GPS with no success at all. I tried all sorts of methods and eventually got a hit of Oakridge Forest Lane in Spring, which I knew was possibly the correct town at least. This turned out to be a private house in the middle of a residential area. I headed back to the hotel and after searching a couple of phone books and the Internet finally found it was Oak Ridge Drive. This time the GPS found the place, which was, as I suspected, not that far away. This frustrating exercise wasted more than half an hour and I’m sure I could have got there pretty easily using a street directory instead.

I met up with Tony who introduced me around. It was good to meet the people I’d exchanged emails and phone calls with over the past few years.

I set up my laptop and after a bit of a chat with a few people we headed out for lunch – at a Thai restaurant.

After lunch Tim, Brandon and I spent most of the afternoon discussing various problems and enhancements of particular interest to Tim, since he is on his days off and was in the office just to talk with me. It was soon 5-30 and everyone else had left so we did too. I did not actually start work on any of these today.

I went to the big mall just near the hotel and wandered around till nearly 7-30 and then found a supermarket where I bought some drinks and bathroom stuff.

About 8 I headed across the road for dinner choosing Genghis Khan – the Mongolian BBQ place. This turned out to be another restaurant chain – just one I had not heard of before. You get a bowl and choose your own meat, seasoning, vegetables, sauce etc which they then cook for you. It wasn’t too bad and I had a margarita as well. It has become a sort of tradition for me to have a margarita when I arrive in the US. Ok – “tradition” is maybe a bit of a stretch but I have done this the other 3 times I’ve come here. Last night I was just too tired to have one so I made up for it tonight.

Walking back to the hotel I was lucky not to twist an ankle or something when my foot went into a hidden sprinkler hole on the grass verge. I was OK but it gave me a bit of a shock.

When I got back ,I tried to find the laundry that I’d seen on the hotel plans. I asked a woman who was walking up the hall way. She had a worried look on her face and she said she couldn’t find her room and wasn’t even sure she was in the right hotel. I went to the desk to track down the laundry (it was on the next floor) when she turned up. It turns out she was not in the right hotel, which explained why she found somebody else in “her” room. There are 2 Residence Inns in the area with the other one just around the corner. This would explain why the GPS didn’t get me to this hotel precisely and why I got different addresses off the Internet from different websites. It turns out this is quite a common problem according to the girl at the desk, who then had the group of us there laughing at some of her tales.

I also noticed that we can get a free pass to a gym just down the road on weekdays. I looked at the exercise room in the hotel but there are only a few machines and no cross trainer. With no hockey for a few weeks I’ll need to do something else and it is very easy to over eat here. I f I don’t exercise it won’t be too hard to pack on a few kilos.

Home on the range

2008-08-18T03:38:00.000-07:00

My plane out of LA for Houston was late again, this time by about 30 minutes, although they did make up some of that time on the flight. The so-called First class on Continental is roughly the same as the business class on the smaller planes inside Australia. Ie the first 3 rows are 2 wide instead of 3 wide and a bit more legroom. Our seats were also of leather rather than cloth and our alcoholic drinks were free. I had 3 scotches and since they bring you little bottles instead of pouring the spirits in, I was able to have relatively weak drinks and have 3 2/3 full bottles for later. A good thing too, I was thinking as I checked out my rental car later. 3 full strength drinks may have been too much.

Usually your bags are first off the carousel when you fly business/first but mine did not appear. I checked with the baggage service, who advised me to wait another 10 minutes and then come back. The second clerk found my nags had already arrived, in a minute or so of checking the computer. Not sure why the first guy didn’t find them.

Houston Airport is big – they have lots of land – and the rental cars are separate with a shuttle bus there from the terminals. I thought I’d be getting a 2-door sports car, based on the picture on the web site, but in stead have a Saturn VUE, which is a SUV. A bit like a small 4WD car in Australia, but without actually having 4WD. It has a V6 engine.

The GPS wanted me to take the tollway but I had picked up that the cars have Eztag, which automatically charges you when you go through the tollgates. If you use this once, the rental company then charges you 2-50 per day every day for processing even if you don’t use it again. Since the office is quite close to the hotel, I knew I wouldn’t need it and heading t for the I-45, the main highway North and not a tollway.

I then made a wrong turn heading for Houston rather than Dallas when I got there and was told to proceed south for 0.7 miles and do a U turn. I eventually got to the hotel and they couldn’t find my reservation, so I had to get out my laptop to find the email with the reservation number. It turns out the booking was in the name of the office manager on the computer, and not my name or the name of the girl whose credit card was used, although all 3 names were on the paper reservation.

The room its self is a largish studio apartment with a kitchen, desk and lounge area as well as the sleeping area and bathroom. It’s a big L shaped area but quite well set out. It is designed for longer stays than a normal hotel room. There is free wireless Internet here as well. There’s no restaurant at the hotel itself although they do provide breakfast.

It’s only a couple of km to the Market street area, think Subiaco or Claremont - Restaurants and posh shops, although most of the latter were closed as it was Sunday night and a large mall is just across the road from there.

It had been about 35 hours door to door with only 5 or 6 hours sleep, so after a Mexican meal, I headed back to my room. I really needed a shower but I was so tired I just went straight to bed at about 9.

At 11, I was startled awake by a call on my mobile from one of the guys on a rig in WA. I managed to get back to sleep until 3-30 and then gave up and got up. I scanned the TV but since I don’t need a steam cleaner or cheap jewellery (or hymns and preaching) many of the channels weren’t very interesting.

I called my parents in Adelaide where it was around dinner time and have now updated this blog.

I’m going to try for a few more hours sleep before I get up for the first day at the office.

A long weekend

2008-08-18T02:24:00.000-07:00

I knew Saturday was going to be busy. I had golf and a hockey game before heading off on my journey.

Golf was pretty ordinary, a few good holes too many bad ones. I expect this will continue until November when I can finally get some regularity to my game. This international jet setting has meant I’ve hardly had more than 2 games in a row since May. I raced home once we finished to get a few chores done and change for hockey before heading back for the presentation. Unfortunately when I arrived home my son had some bad news. It seems a water pipe has burst in my en-suite bathroom and part of the carpet in his room were soaked. By the time I’d contacted plumbers, insurance company and carpet dryers I was so late for the presentation, I might as well not have bothered. I did win a nearest to the pin on one hole but as I wasn’t back in time they didn’t give it to me.

Hockey was disappointing as well. We lost 1-0 where a win or a draw would have guaranteed top position at the end of the minor round and promotion for next year.

Since we didn’t have any water I showered at the club and then drove home to finish packing, updating my laptop with latest changes from the desktop and so forth. The carpet guys had come and had the heater blowers going on David’s carpets. All his stuff was in the family room and lounge room. Hopefully the plumber will come on Monday and be able to fix it on the day.

Will a departure just after midnight I called the taxi a bit after 10. When it hadn’t arrived by 10-30 I called again and they assured me it would be there soon. They also advised not to use the Automatic response for airport bookings but to talk to an operator in the future. I hadn’t flown out on a Saturday night and normally find taxis arrive within 5-10 minutes.

In the end we arrived at the airport just after 11 so it wasn’t an issue. Check in was reasonable quick and I was in the security queue when they called our flight. A number of us rushed to the front to get through quickly. I got to the top of the stairs and was looking for the boarding pass to check the departure gate, when someone behind me said I’d left my passport at security. The folder it was in had slipped out of the laptop pocket in the x-ray machine. I raced back down stairs and got there before the PA announcement telling me to go there came through. It turned out it had been a check-in warning not a boarding warning, in any case.

After collecting my thoughts and taking few deep breaths, I headed for the Qantas lounge where I ordered a drink and has a few snacks. I hadn’t had any dinner because of the 7pm hockey game. Ironically all my panicking was unnecessary because in the end we were 2 hours late leaving. There was a problem with the emergency lights and we kept getting announcements that it would be another 20 minutes. Finally the announced that they were taking another plane and they then had to transfer the baggage etc. the plane wasn’t particularly full at least. It was a 767 and the business class was similar to the Thai flight last month. By the time we’d got up to cruising altitude and had supper it was close to 3 so I decided to stay up and watch the movie – The Los Vegas one with Cameron Diaz and Ashton. It was a light enough chick flick for that time of night. I probably had an hour’s nap.

My 5 hour transit in Brisbane was now cut to 3. I took the train to the international terminal and after the usual security and customs queues I went to the Qantas club again. Although the seating on the Thai plane was nothing special, their check-in procedure for first and business was very good. There we had our own counter and customs so we were through in 5 minutes. It seems there was a separate queue for business and first in Brisbane but since I didn’t check in there I didn’t have the pass.

The Qantas club was pleasant and quite busy. When I headed for the boarding gate there was another long queue and yet another security check. Once through that it was upstairs to the business class cabin. I sat next to a Canadian doctor who had been at a conference. The service was excellent. They bought us pyjamas for the flight and She changed even before we took off. I waited a bit on the basis that if the take off was aborted for any reason and we had to evacuate, I didn’t want to be in pyjamas.

We had the capsule seating that I experienced on my Qantas flights to Singapore 2 years ago when I went to India. Movies were on demand as well.

We had a nice meal and I watched a couple of movies – The Bank Job and Ashton and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay. By then it was 11 pm LA time and I went to sleep. These seats flatten out but don’t quite get to horizontal. Still, it’s very comfortable and sleeping is a lot easier than in cattle class.

I woke a few times and about 2-30 couldn’t get back to sleep so watched Kung Fu Panda and then had another nap for an hour or 2. We had breakfast about 5 and I watched some Family Guy episodes before they shut down the entertainment system.

We landed about 7-15 and customs was empty till our plane arrived. We were through that quickly and my bags were off early and I was out of the International terminal in short order. I’d checked my bags and walked to the domestic. I had a brilliant but belated realisation that I could probably have caught an earlier flight but by then it was too late since my bags would not get there till my scheduled flight anyway.

There was a special queue for Business first this time to get into the terminal and this time I had the right pass. Security at the domestic terminal was quite heavy and I was randomly selected for a check. They went through my handbag and computer case, in plain site and without any threatening or intrusive attitude and I then had a scan and a pat down. I suppose it indicates they are not just picking on Middle Eastern looking men, which was one of the points in the H and K movie I’d watched earlier.

I then headed for the Presidents club only to find out that first class tickets do not get you into these in domestic USA. International tickets apparently do qualify but as Continental and Qantas aren’t in the same group, that didn’t help.

I changed my shirt in the public loo and am now sitting in a café typing this up. No Internet yet so I’ll load it later but at least it has helped fill in an hour of my 2 hours wait for boarding.

I guess I’ve had 4 or 5 hours sleep since leaving and I’m now 10 hours out of sync with my body clock, with another 2 hours difference to Houston. I expect I’ll be jet lagged for a day or 2.

I had called Tony, one of the guys I will be working with, from Perth before I left and on his advice I have got a rental car waiting for me in Houston, with GPS included.

Not another oversea trip

2008-08-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm achieving a personal best, and I'll soon be off for my 3rd overseas trip in 4 months. This time I'm going to the US and more specifically Houston to do some work with a long term client.

I was last there in 1999, so this is not exactly frequent flying. A trip was proposed early this year around Easter but with the NZ hockey hockey trip and unavailability of their people, it was postponed until after I got back from Thailand.

As well as the 2 weeks working, I will have 1 day in San Francisco, so I'll just have time to do the main tourist things, and 2 days in Hong Kong. I have been to HK twice before but the last time was about 1996 before it reverted to China and before the new airport was built, so I expect there will be some changes. The Olympics will be over by the time I arrive so hopefully it won't be more crowded than normal by then.

Since my last trips I have joined Mensa and I am currently Vice chairman in Australia. I have contacted the US and HK branches and hope to catch up with members during my trip.

A week ago I finalised the travel arrangements. I am again flying business class and using a Circle Pacific ticket. These tickets require you to cross the South pacific one way and the North Pacific the other. Hence you travel Australia - US - Asia - Australia or vice versa. There are options to include Chile as a stop over as well. You do need to make 2 stop overs hence the need to stay in HK on the return trip.

The airfare is not much more than half of a straight return fare to LA and, interestingly, a round the world ticket with 4 stopovers is not much more. I tried to get a couple of my UK clients to pay for the difference so that I could fly to London and spend a few days with them but they declined the offer.