Markus’ Blog

Following up on a recent post I have to say that this morning’s US immigration procedure at YVR was the toughest so far.

Not only did the officer ask me what kind of business this trip was about (company meetings), he wanted to know

• what excactly these meetings were about
• if I would actually work on any product or write any code while in the US
• if I had ever thought of moving to the US (the answer to that would be “Hell, no!”) or if I had ever applied for a visa
• why I needed to meet people face-to-face and why we wouldn’t just do phone conferences

I’m sure there were a few more things that I am forgetting right now, but I think these points describe the scenario pretty well.

While I completely understand that it’s their job to make sure that people coming into the country are not going to do anything illegal (if they were to admit it) and that they are paid to ask certain questions and that these questions are given to them by the Ministry for Homeland Security, there is a point when it starts becoming ridiculous.

If the company pays for me to fly to San Jose, rent a car, stay at a hotel, etc. then that sould probably indicate that no, a phone conference won’t quite cut it, right? Which company would go and pay for their employees to fly all over the place if the issues at hand could instead just be solved over the phone?

Yes, we do phone conferencing once a week, but every 3-4 months it just make sense to meet face-to-face.

And what’s all that “have you thought about moving to the US” all about? If I wanted to move to the states, I would just ask my company to apply for a greencard for me and move legally. Why assume that everybody is trying to screw the system? — What for? I don’t need to screw the system.

Oh well, I got through and that’s all that matters in the end.

It’s that time again — travel time, more specifically work related travel time. This time, however, I am not going by myself. My new team mate is going South with me to meet the other team members in person. And just in time so we get to avoid the cold for a couple of days — sorry guys.

Something crazy must be going on down in San Jose tomorrow, because my co-worker and I ended up in different hotels (though very close to each other), because mine was already booked solid for Nov. 29. It took a bit of phoning around to find a room as they all seemed to be booked solid for the day. I am curious to find out what it is that caused people to book all rooms in and around San Jose for tomorrow.

Like my two previous trips it’s going to be Wednesday through Friday (so three days, two nights) and it’s probably going to involve going for some nice food. Of course there’ll be enough work to be done to keep us from getting bored. It also means I have to get up at stupid o’clock tomorrow morning to be at the airport at around 6:15 or so. The plane leaves at 8:00. I’m so glad we’re not living in North Van anymore. Saves me at least half an hour.

Getting to work this morning was better than anticipated, considering that Vancouver tends to slip into chaos as soon as snow hits the ground (and sticks).

I only had to wait for about five minutes for the #8 bus. Even though we were going very slowly and even though three quaters of the way the rear doors froze shut (or something else kept them from opening) I got to work at about the regular time. Mind you I left half an hour earlier than normal.

I decided to take the #8 to Main and 2^nd, the #84 to VCC Clark and the skytrain from there. They said on TV that the skytrain was extremely busy and crowded, so I really wanted to avoid Commercial Drive Station. The plan worked out nicely. Commercial Drive Station was indeed a madhouse and they made several announcements telling people to move “all the way into the train” (yeah, no kidding!) and to not hold doors open as this will only lead to further delays.

It was slow going at times, but it all worked out.

We did some work on our condo today. Minor stuff, but still big, because neither of us is used to doing “handy” stuff around the house.

We put up a towel holder.

And hooks for robes. The first one worked nicely, drlling holes for the second hook, though, we hit a concrete pillar (hidden behind dry wall), so we couldn’t drill a hole deep enough for the screws to fit.

Means we have to go out and buy shorter anchors and screws and try using those. Bloody hell. If that doesn’t work, we have to fill the holes, re-paint and drill new ones. Fun.

Then we went on to hang up our key holder. We wanted it next to the breaker box, but didn’t want to risk drilling holes so close to wires. We decided to go for the opposite wall instead.

Funny thing is: we hit concrete again. So we said “screw it” and tried drilling holes next to the breaker box. That worked, at least well enough. No issues with the first hole and the second hole was almost deep enough before we hit concrete there again. The screw would fit, but the anchor was too long, so we simply cut the anchor and screwed the key hooks on anyways.

Now the key hooks are in the place we wanted them, but we definitely have two holes we have to fill and paint over.

Fun stuff doing work on your condo. Especially if you don’t have any previous experience and you end up with nice surprises like concrete pillars where you had no idea there were any.

Afterwards, I went for a nice walk in the snow to get some fresh air and stretch my legs. There’s a lot of that white stuff out there right now. It’s been snowing constantly for over 24 hours at this point. I took some pictures of the neighbourhood.

That’s the hedge by our rear driveway.

That’s 31^st or 32^nd Avenue. Can’t remember which — and I don’t know the area that well yet.

That’s a whole lot of snow on these branches, don’t you think?

Vancouver does have snowplows. lol Even if it’s not very many (for a city of its size): 27 according to their home-page. This is King Edward Ave.

That’s Mountain View Cemetery.

More of Mountain View Cemetery in the snow.

That’s our building, which means I had made it back home by that point.

Unusually early we got snow this year. Normally it doesn’t snow in Vancouver till late December or January, if at all. They were predicting snowfall starting this weekend and a drastic drop in temperature. And they were right. It started snowing lightly early afternoon and now, at five o’clock, it’s snowing quite hard and the snow actually sticks on the grass and on parked cars. The roads are still just wet.

That’s how it looks from our window right now. There’s going to be more snow tomorrow as it looks like. And we might just take the kitty outside to enjoy the snow, ’cause she sure likes it.

That’s the snowflakes. That picture was an accident. The flash was on and I didn’t realize it. I wasn’t expecting it to turn out at all, let alone that nicely.

According to this article, a study performed for Discover America Partnership reveals that the US is the most unfriendly nation when it comes to treating tourists.

Impolite and boorish

The USA are, according to an international poll, the most impolite country of the world when it comes to tourists.

Given impolite immigration officers and complex immigration rules, the US was voted “worst” tourist destination by more than twice as many travelers as the next country, according to a study that was published Monday.

Middle East and Asia follow

The runner-ups are countries in the Middle East and Asia. And even within the USA, friendlyness seems lacking.

Fear from Officers Bigger than Fear from Terrorists

“The immigration procedures created a climate of fear and frustration that keeps away tourists,” says Geoff Freeman, president of Discover America Partnership, who ordered the study.

The investigation shows that fear from US immigration officers is bigger than that from terrorism or violence.

Boorish Behavior

More than half of all US travellers called immigration officers boorish. Two thirds said they were afraid of being arrested for minor mistakes in their immigration documents or after saying a wrong word to an official.

The polling firm RT Strategies asked 2,011 travellers from 16 countries.

The article then goes on to say that the French are “not nice enough to their foreign guests” either. Some more details about what the French are doing “wrong” follow (basically they are coming across as arrogant). None of it involves fear, though, let alone fear of being thrown into prison for minor mistakes.

Being a fairly frequent US traveller (several times per year), I can certainly understand people’s feelings. I have seen no other country ever treat its visitors that rudely on such a consistent basis — and over years. Yes, occasionally one does get a the friendly immigration officer. It has happened to me a couple of times. Some even have a sense of humor, God forbid. More often than not, however, it’s a fairly unpleasent experience dealing with US immigration (even if you’re not from a “terrorist nation”). The feeling one gets is along the lines of: “You are one lucky bastard that we (I) decided to let you into our (my) country today. You better not get used to it.”

Doesn’t make for the best advertisement. It means that those tourists with money and choices (usually exactly who you’d want to visit your country, because they spend lots) will be the first to stay away.

In my very skillful ways, I have managed to spill a glass of (tasty) red wine over my Sun Type 5 Keyboard that has served me well for the past six years. What a waste of good wine and a good keyboard.

The keyboard is trash now, of course. The power button on the upper righthand corner seems to be the only key that still works. That’s not very useful. So off in the trash it goes.

Since Sun keyboards can’t be bought at the computer store “around the corner”, I’ll order a replacement keyboard over the Internet. It’s going to be around $40 (depends on exchange rates). In the mean time I am using a keyboard that I borrowed from work. Luckily, we’ve many Sun keyboards sitting around, so it was no problem to get permission to take one. Without that opportunity, I’d be very sad right now and without computer for at least a week.

I finally got to ride on one of Translink’s new electrical trolley busses, a New Flyer E40LF. It has taken a while, considering that I am taking two bus lines twice a day, five days a week (that’s 20 bus trips). To be fair, they don’t have too many of them in service yet.

However, there are at least two on the #9 route, probably more, considering that I’ve seen them every day, mornings and evenings for the last two to three weeks or so and even on weekends.

The older busses (they are Flyer E900 models) were built in the early 1980s. To me they look more like they were built in the 1960s (if that). It may be just me, but the way the chassis looks (inside and out) — and I am talking manufacturing, not dirt or rust or something — doesn’t say eighties to me. Not even close.

Anyways, new busses are being deployed and one can see them in service more and more these days.

Apparently it’s been raining so hard and so much in such a short period of time that Greater Vancouver’s (and some of Vancouver Island’s) water supply got contaminated with unclean water.

Tap water has been brown and cloudy since the storm and could cause gastrointestinal illness, medical health officers said. [...] Residents are being advised to use bottled water or to boil tap water for a full minute before drinking, brushing teeth or washing food. Water should be boiled and allowed to cool before being put in another container or refrigerated.

More on CBC.

Yes, indeed. The suff that’s coming out of our pipes right now is pretty yellowish-brown and has a definite earthy, muddy smell to it. This is my first time ever being personally affected by nasty weather. Yep, even this little inconvenience is more than I’ve ever had to deal with before. So far, the side effects of storms, rain and other nasty weather have been something I watched on TV only.

Of course pretty much every single store is sold out of bottled water now. Mostly because people buy in bulk (completely unnecessarily, of course), as if there was no hope stores would ever get new shipments of bottled, clean water. Sure they will, it’s not like the roads were all washed away or the economy was destroyed or something.

I don’t like it very much when people “panic” in this weird way and start acting all irrationally.

Apparently, travel plans are coming up faster these days than we can go on trips. While I still have my next trip to San Jose coming up in a few weeks (and the honeymoon is getting closer), it’s already been decided by fate when the next trip after that is going to be.

Sometime around, but definitely including March 28, 2007. Why? Because the wife is a huge Josh Groban fan, a Grobanite since the very start of Josh’s career.

It so happens that, at this point, it is unknown whether Josh will be coming to Vancouver to perform here. It is know however, that he’ll be at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. How convenient that Hubby’s boss lives down there and that Hubby has to fly down every three to four months for a couple of days. End of November + 4 = End of March. BINGO!!!

Hubby’s employer now better not screw up these plans (not that the wife would be stopped by that)!