March 17, 2002

(Tom writing today)

A short one this week since there was some traveling going on. Some details below, more to follow...

Last Sunday we had a nice dinner at Steve & Bev Mendel's house in Mill Hill. Got to meet their two chicken-poxed kids - cute, even with chicken pox! And a great dinner and great company. Thanks Mendels!

As mentioned before, it was a busy week for me as there was an RFI (the precursor to a formal tender proposal) for a potentially very large project here in the UK. That took up most of my week. The group at work did go out for drinks Thursday night, so that was nice.

Toby popped home to Boston (and is there right now) to see her family. She mainly went because her sister and her two nieces were going to be there, and it seemed like the best opportunity to see them, since otherwise it might Thanksgiving before they get together again. So, off she went Thursday and is coming back tomorrow. I'm sure she'll have a report for us all. And, since she took the camera with her, I have no pictures for this report. I am hoping to get some pics from my trip from my traveling companions.

Meanwhile, I shuttled off to Hamburg, Germany for the weekend to meet up with Stephanie (friend and former coworker at ESRI Boston) and Ray C (another friend/ESRI Boston person). Ray was there for CEBIT, a mega-trade show for the computer industry, Steph was there with Ray to have a vacation. So, an early Saturday morning, a quick 1.5 hour flight and I was in a place where I had no idea what people were saying, nor could I read most of the street signs. I can do okay in French, and maybe get a little bit of Spanish, but German, with a few exceptions, is a tough one. Anyway, we met up at the airport and made our way to the downtown area and found ourselves a reasonably priced, clean hotel. Never mind it was 2 blocks from the Reeperbahn, the redlight district of Hamburg. Really lots of bars, nightclubs, real theatres amongst the strip clubs, XXX movie houses, etc. They say it is the safest part of Hamburg. Don't worry, we stuck just to the normal bars and restaurants (really!)...except for a visit to the Erotic Art Museum (not that great).

We also had a good walk around, seeing St. Michaelis Church, Nikolai Church (remains), the FischMarkt (a Sunday morning tradition with a huge open market selling everything from clothes to crafts to vegetables, meat and fish, and a few rock bands for entertainment). Great to see Stephanie and Ray. And, I had a great visit with Monika Weimer, an old friend of Peter's. Thanks Monika, for the great lunch and the ride to the airport.

My return to England was uneventful, and it was, of course, raining upon my return.

• Oxfordshire County has the worst mail delivery in the country - only 84% of first class mail reached its intended recipient within one day. Hmmm, that sounds okay to me, don't know what they are complaining about.
• My speeding ticket is confirmed (40 mph in a 30 mph zone) - the police notified ESRI UK (who leases my car) and they have to turn me in. Damn. Don't know what the fine will be.
• I am doing extremely poorly in the two NCAA pools that I have entered. I don't follow college basketball at all and it shows. Random picks would probably be doing better. Of course, I had to pick Penn to win their first round game, and of course, that was a mistake. One of many. Oh well.
• Some of the Euro (€) coins look just like those gold foil chocolate coins you got as a kid. They're not as tasty, but worth more.

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