Avaragado's blog

Evidence of my business trip is now available both here and there.

Caution: contains neon.

Back in Cambridge. I make that 61 hours away, and 12,000 miles covered. Not a bad average speed, 200 mph.

I think I’ve had no more than about seven or eight hours sleep during that time.

I’m about to get a few more, hopefully. In one of these strange, wide, flat things called “beds”.

The last few Mondays have been pretty weird:

• My last day at ANT.
• My first day at Bango.
• The day I said I wasn’t staying at Bango.
• My first day back at ANT.
• Hong Kong.

I wish I could say that the view from my room is of the lovely harbour and all the neon-lit buildings of the financial district, but it isn’t: I get a view of other people’s rooms. However, I have got some photos of the more spectacular view – assuming they’re not blurred.

My door buzzer went at 6:30 this morning. “Morning mate. Car for the airport?” I told him he was twelve hours early and went back to bed.

I now expect that nobody will pick me up at 6:30pm.

Remember, remember the end of September? When I thought I might be going to Hong Kong to do some training? And when it never happened?

It’s happening next week.

I fly out on Sunday night, arriving early Monday evening. I’m training all day Tuesday. And then I’m flying back on Tuesday night, arriving Wednesday morning. Needless to say I won’t be going into the office that day…

Old desk—check.

Old computer—check. Not touched since I left, so up and running again quickly. The mouse has scampered away though. I’m slumming it with a ball mouse temporarily (how on earth did we use these clunky mechanical beasts for so long?).

Old (20 in, best in the office) monitor—check. Reluctantly returned by Matt. Must nag the boss to buy more of these; can’t believe we’re still buying 17 in monitors for engineers.

Old chair—nope. I could tell it wasn’t mine as it sported a sticker with someone else’s name on it (left over from the office refit earlier in the year). I’ll make do.

Everyone seemed pleased to see me. In an “I’ve got a job for you” kind of a way.

I contemplated a number of titles for this post. It could have been “From B to A” or “The Universe unforks”. I settled on the quote above, from Kipling’s “If”, as that’s the only way to look at all this really. The subsequent line is “And treat those two imposters just the same”.

The Bango job hasn’t worked out; my last day is tomorrow. Yes, that was short. It was my own decision, if you’re wondering. Full reasons available over a drink sometime…

Tonight I had a chat with my previous employers, and they’re happy to take me back – if a little surprised (they’re not the only ones). So I (re)start on Monday.

Maybe then the bonkersness can stop for a few weeks, eh?

I hate 4x4s. I hate 4×4 drivers.

One or both of these reversed into my car in a car park last night. At least I presume so, as I was playing badminton at the time and they naturally didn’t stick around.

The evidence is the big dent in my bonnet and the slightly crunched Peugeot logo.

Now I didn’t actually notice until I was standing in the queue at the petrol station some minutes after I left the car park, so in theory it could have happened days ago. But I don’t think so.

Bah.