Just when you thought it was all over, here is the second part to my business trip. I usually try to make two days of it because there and back in one day means getting up at 05:00 and returning home at 23:00 which is a good 18 hour day.I woke up by my phone alarm at 06:55 and so quickly check the BBC news with it, not much to note except on the technology page. Seems Samsung and Apple have been told to meet up and resolve their differences in the presence of a magistrate. About time too the whole patent war thing is stifling innovation, and competition, and it is only the consumer who is losing out.
For breakfast I had a bowl of fruit, mushrooms and eggs complete with some toast. I skipped the coffee because it never tastes good, and I can get one at work soon enough. The usual eclectic mix of elevator music from many eras was being played in the back ground. It is a long time since I have heard Alan Parsons Project “when I’m old and wise?”
Weather was typical April shows when I left the hotel after checking out. The day could turn out to be a busy day we are rolling out Office 2010 to all our users, mostly citrix. Despite everyone attending a refresher conversion course there is bound to be some carnage for our helpdesk.
As expected there were some teething problems but a couple of hours most things were fixed or under stood, things had settled by lunch time. I was on the 17:15 flight to Luton so left the office at 15:15, everything is an hour later now the clocks are on summer time.
Airport security was busier I guess because it is later and a more convenient time to fly and because we are heading into spring. I distracted myself by typing the blog entry and the wait seemed trivial. I was through with an hour before the flight was due to take off.Being busier I skipped the queue in Starbucks and for went a coffee. Whilst queuing to pay for a paper in W H Smith I spoke to a young guy trying to decide whether to go for an additional white chocolate truffle bar, I warned him about the damage it might do to his teeth, he agreed. Turns out he was on a day trip from Edinburgh to the Titanic exhibition in Belfast, in my time a school a day trip never involved a flight. I wished him well.
Someone was maintaining the flight information board and I was able to get a sneak peek (see picture). Seems they use Danware to remote control the devices which run Windows Embedded.
Unusually the flight was called at departure gate 26 new for me and the end furthest gate in the airport, so I was again able to get to the front of the cattle class queue. The flight looked like it would take off on time.
There is a sign at the departure gate which list some of the things you can’t take on a flight, these include fireworks, and gas cylinders, as you would expect, but what about poison, what does that cover? There is probably chemicals in the electronic kit you can take on aircraft such as laptops and mobiles, that contain poison. What about the lithium in the batteries and the exotic chemicals in the chips they contain?
We boarded at 16:51 there were loads of speedy boarders, and looking at the cattle class queue it looked like the flight would be quite busy. Then I had a stroke of luck the front boarding steps were closed but opened as I got level, I managed to get a front row seat. Who needs speedy boarding!