Business Travel

Was a long day today ... wake up at 05:45, flew to Nuremberg today, actually via Duesseldorf with one and a half our wait time (no problem, my office is the location of my notebook). And don't ask ... it was actually cheaper than flying directly and actually i was able to have breakfast while working in the FTL lounge in DUS. It was fscking warm in Nuremberg today .... 10 degrees less would be really nice. But it was an really interesting discussion at the customer site: Four hours live demo Solaris. Now I'm back home and the unread mail counter is down to zero.

But that isn't the point i want to make in this blog entry. I've learned a thing in such meetings: Working with Solaris all day long make let you take some features for granted. You don't think that this or that feature is something interesting because it is just this way things go for you: You talk about the virtues of deduplication, compression, and the probabilities of a false positive in dedup, but the customer is enthusiastic about snapshot shiping with ssh and zfs send/receive. You talk about DTrace, but the customer is exalted about prstat -m.

This is the basic reason, why i started to dislike Solaris presentations with slides and prefer to use the presentation program "shell". Because while working with the system on the way that comes natural to you, you give the audience a much better insight into the system. And on the way you show all the small features ...

Hmmm ... dieser Teil des Artikels "Schlafentzug im Schlafanzug" erinnert mich an eine grundlegende Regel des transkontinentalen Fliegens. Man sollte immer zumindestens eine Garnitur Unterwäsche im Handgepäck haben. Es ist möglicherweise die einzig frische Kleidung, die einem bleibt, wenn der Koffer den Umstieg nicht mitgemacht hat. Habe ich bitterböse im Rahmen meines zweiten Aufenthalts in San Francisco lernen dürfen ....

Und kann auch helfen, wenn man sich wie der Autor des Artikels bei Merian mit irgendwelchen Schickimicki-Unterhosen die Innenseiten der Schenkel runiert hat Man mag ja von Feinripp oder zumindestens irgendeinem anderen Stoff halten was man will ... aber auf Flügen ist die Marke der Unterhose wohl totalegal ...

A few weeks ago i wrote about this strange behaviour of airline passenger to storm the aircraft as there would be no reserved seats in it or no kind request to start boarding with the rows in the back of the aircraft.

There is another interesting behaviour: As i'm traveling to the smaller airports with smaller aircrafts quite frequently (Canadair, Embraer or Dash-8 ... not capable to use a gangway), apron-parking is something quite normal for me.

You aren't allowed to walk over the apron, so they use busses to shuttle you to the aircraft. And here the strange behavior starts: No matter how many seats in the bus are still free, everyone tries to stand near the doors. Even when those spaces are overcrowded nobody starts to move into the aisles of the bus except the room is that overcrowded that people are forced to move into the aisle.

I assume airline passengers would still fight to be first in the row or at near as possible to the exists of the bus when 10 passengers are booked for a A380 flight.

Given the start of the day, it had all ingredients needed for a horrible day. I was able to reach an urban train by running through the already closing door today. I was in the train after the door had closed behind me,, however but by laptop bag was outside of it. I'm really glad that the train driver saw this and unlocked the door again.

Nevertheless my talk about Deduplication at the GUUG Spring symposium was much better than the tutorial on Wednesday. For interested parties you cane download the preso, but it's just in german language and the voice track is missing.

However i've learnt a thing today: At the last GUUG Spring Symposium in 2009 i've held a two day tutorial about less known solaris features. I got the usual CeBIT cold ... the extra strong variant that put me out of order for almost two weeks. What i didn't knew until today: The people considered to make bets when (not if) i would collapse in front of the class. My appearance must have been really horrible.

Ich hab mein Blog betrogen und hab fremdgeschrieben - als Gastautor bei der lieben Local: Die Hölle - die ist man selbst.

What's so difficult to understand at the concept of a boarding by seat row. Rows 1-11 are definitely not between 12-24 and interestingly there are much more people sitting in front of me as people sitting behind me shortly after boarding. And i'm sitting row 15 (as there is no row 13 in LH aircrafts, that's just 2 rows ahaed of me with people that were actually asked to bord first). Was the same this morning.

I can just assume that some people consider themself as that important that they has to sit first. The last time i thought about it, i came to the surprising conclusion that all people will arrive in hamburg ... independent when you enter the aircraft at the location of your departure.

It's even stranger with intercontinental flights. The larger aircrafts need half an hour to board, you have already an reserved seat, even when you are late they will call you out at least two times and you will sit in this small aircraft seat for hours anyway ... why the heck is there such a crowd at intercontinental boardings right after the first call for boarding.

BTW: There seems to be a strange habit with occassional flyers. It looks like they all have bought something new right in front of their journey. Shoes that look totally new, small backpacks without any sign of usage ... strange ....

It's May 26, it's my birthday and as a birthday is a special day nothing can go wrong. Well ... nope not really ... but at first i want to thank you all for your kind greetings and congratulations.

Nope .... at first i was in Cologne today, giving a tutorial about creating a fileserver with OpenSolaris. But that was by choice. I like to fly as you know . After being grounded for months due to no opportunity to fly this was really welcome. As i wrote before ... if i get a job some day in the future flying around and doing presentations i would be a luck man.

The day started with a nice "<insert a lot of suppressed curses>" in the aircraft as a was able to spill a cup of airline tea into my lap. Thank god it wasn't my tea at home so it was hot but not hot enough for really significant burnings.

Such a day starting that way can't get a positive ending and it didn't got one. I don't know what happened to my demo installation but stuff i did a day before without problems threw interesting error messages, nothing went the way i want it and and the end i couldn't even remember how to diskpart iscsi devices on windows ... damned ... i will create a written tutorial to give the attendees the information planed for this part.

I hope my Deduplication talk on Friday will be much better ...

However i'm sitting in the Frequent Traveller Lounge now, waiting for my aircraft and i hope there will be no delays ... i wouldn't wonder about that ...

I'm still not sure about this situation. But it was a nice example how ubiquitous Blackberrys are: Flight LH71 from HAM to DUS. Message over the PA: "We've found a Blackberry. May the passengers check if they lost they phone?" At least half of the aircraft stuffing checks their bags or suit pockets but nobody stands up and asks for the phone. You really feel like a minority, when it can't be your phone because you simply don't have a Blackberry.

I assume that there was really a lost Blackberry, but this would be an interesting marketing gag ? In todays world everything is possible. A question just to show that almost all people important enough to fly are using a Blackberry? I don't need a fscking Crackberry, i have my Nokium

There is an old saying that you shouldn't write the laudatio for a day at it's beginning. I was happy about getting the flight this morning, but the problems started in DRS. As i had to get somewhere outside of Dresden, i was in need of a rental car, as it looked like a cab would be more expensive.

So i've tried to get a car from the rental company X. But they had just an S-class sedan. Thus i've opted for a different company and booked a car at the rental company Y. All was .... the problem started at the airport in Dresden: Rental Car company Y has no office at the airport. It just had an office at the town ... or to be exact: on the other side of the town. Damned. A cab? Well. I spend 10 Euro for a destination that is practially just on the other side on the airport (okay ... a little bit farther, but not much) ... for the money i would have to pay for the cab i would get a rental car. Rental Car company X they still hadn't a car ... no no-shows this day, but they offered me an other car ... will come later to it. Rental car company Z ... yes ... but just with summer tires. But i saw all that snow from the aircraft window. That wasn't really an option. Rental car company W ... the same. I looked at the cabs and thought "Damned ... i take the other car at company X". After a short discussion i got my car ... and this is the only positive about the situation: I've got an BMW X5 for almost the same price as the usual car.

Nice ... however i was half an hour late at the customer site (after getting the keys, going to the garage, learning how this automatic gear box can be forced in going forward. ). This was especially negative as this was planed as a short meeting anyway.

End of Rental company X soared in my view. Rental company Y ... well ... i will never try to book a car there again.

This will be a week with a lot of stress: Today completing two presentation. Tomorrow morning meeting in Hannover, then a customer meeting near hamburg at 14 o'clock. 19 o'clock HHOSUG presentation. On Wednesday meeting at 10 o'clock in Bremen, at 17 o'clock presentation in Berlin. Thursday meeting in Dresden, but because of strange airline pricing i won't fly directly, i will fly via Düsseldorf. Don't ask ... i couldn't believe it as well when the fares were displayed, this way it's cheaper and i don't have to wake up at 4:00 AM. Would be rather unamusing, when you get home at 23:00 the day before. But my CO2 balance will send me to hell. Friday ... 13 o'clock last presentation of this week, but that one is already finalized, as i wanted to hold it last Friday. So ... i may be possible that this week will be a rather quiet week in the blog.

Damned ... what a long day ... the second one this week. Monday was pretty much the same. Was in Berlin the last two days. As the own pillow is golden, i've decided drive back to Hamburg yesterday. The consequence: Leaving home at 06:30, getting back at 22:15. Both days. Somehow this was easier when i was 30 So sorry being silent in the blog yesterday

I knew i would be once confused by the big and the small S: Opensolaris SXCE (small S) won't have a build 128 as reported in this blog entry . OpenSolaris (capital S) will have an build 128 next week, thus you should see -128 packages in the next week. Small typo, big consequences. A big thank you to David Comay for the clarification.

Bisher war ja HAM-FRA so eine Monopolstrecke der Lufthansa. Das führte dazu, das man preisgünstiger nach New York kommen konnte als nach Frankfurt. Air Berlin will jetzt auf dieser Strecke mit der LH konkurrieren. Vielleicht führt das dann ja endlich mal zu etwas angemesseneren Preisen.

This was a rather long day. Could have been longer, our travel office tried to convince me that it would be a good idea to use the 19:25 flight from DRS to HAM. In that case i would boarding right now. After a meeting ending at 11:30. Thank you. But: No, thank you.

There weren't any seats in economy on the flight at 16:25.. It was friday and i assume, the flight was full of commuters. There was a business class seat, but Business is really fscking expensive and something for long distance trips. I'm collecting upgrade miles exactly for such trips. On short trips: not worth the money, same seats and the aircraft is in business as fast as in economy)

I was able to convince them to book a rather strange itinerary: 06:30 departure in HAM, 12:55 departure in DRS to ..... MUC ... and 14:05 departure from MUC to HAM. Due to the strange but neverending wisdom of the airline fare calculation department this was even cheaper than the normal direct flight in economy and i was earlier at home than usual. But this ruined my CO2 balance for quite a time. This will a big minus at the gate to heaven. On the other side ... i use trains, don't use my car to get to work. Perhaps i have a chance to avoid hell ... at least for this stuff.

At the moment i'm fscking tired ... i'm yawning since i left the airport ... my alarm clock ended my night at 04:00. Had to iron a shirt this morning. Just to add insult to injury: I was in bed at 11:30pm the day before. I'm getting old When i was less than 35 years old, i would go to Cinema now without yawning

PS: I will check this entry for errors tomorrow morning

Anscheinend ist endlich ein Ende des Wahnsinns in Sicht, die Leute nur mit Flüssigkeiten in 100ml-Mengen im Handgepäck reisen zu lassen. Dann kann man endlich auch wieder mit Handgepäck länger als einen Tag reisen, denn 100ml Duschgel sind bei 192cm ein echter Witz. Auf jeden Fall glaubt die Lufthansa, das dem Flüssigkeiten wegwerfen bald ein Ende gesetzt wird. Was für ein Problem das ist, sah man ganz gut nach dem Inkrafttreten dieser Regelung: Mülltonnen voll bis oben hin, vollgestellte Tische mit angebrochenen Wasserflaschen, zurückgeschickte Passagiere, weil die Frischhaltetüte nicht den Normen entsprach.