Marques's weblog

Australians are holier than you are

So when I got back to London I was greeted by the presence of Dana. She was here on here way to Rome in order to study photography. Pretty sweet really.

Anyways on Sunday morning we (Miguel, Dana and I) had planned on going to Church. It was actually more like 1:00 when we got there which meant we were running roughly 1.5 hours late. Now I had heard about Church and by no means is this you grandma's church, or even your parent's church for that matter. Well unless maybe they are Australian that is.

Upon paying the 7 pounds to be saved you essentially enter this huge frat party. Many people are fully dressed up as some random character. As we scarfed down out lunch outside we were bum rushed by a group of guys dressed as nuns. Upon entering it was really too much to comprehend all at once. There was rock music you could dance to blaring on the speakers and everyone had a beer. Usually this was accompanied by a sack of beers tied to their belt loop as well. I had been prepared that it was mostly an Australian crowd and it pretty much was. The only non-Australians were Kiwis, but they all look the same to me. Well except for the ones that look like Frodo I guess. They also apparently say "sex" differently.

There were huge screens above the crowd which displayed the masses and ordered them to "Show us ya tits!" and informed us of who liked to feltch. These images were all driven by cameras operated above the crowd. I can't say I saw how much someone liked feltching, but I definitely saw some people's tits.

This basically continued for like a couple hours and was interrupted by entertainment every once in a while. For instance there was a "professional naked dancer" which did like two shows. Honestly this probably killed the mood more than anything because the music was much slower and there is only so much you can get from a couple hundred people watching someone strip on stage. There was also a boat race (waterfall relay for Americans) and the final competition was of course a wet tshirt contest. Honestly that latter was again not that exciting because the place was huge. It all ended with a mass of girls moving to the stage to dance. It was at this point that we left.

The overall experience was quite weird. It should have been fun, but brought up too many questions like "Am I too old for this" even though I was not out of my element in terms of age. Also questions like "How many beers is it ok to drink on a Sunday afternoon?". We didn't really drink too much so that probably made it a little more of a damper.

It also brought us back to an issue Miguel talked about the night before. There are two actions that happen when a camera comes out. Some become more cautious, but in England the overwhelming response is to misbehave. It is insane how easy it is to get someone to whip out their breast when you put a camera on them. In the US this seems more like a spring break thing. Here apparently it happens at church.

Go to church

Here is the photoset. I have put it under night life even though the whole event closed down by 4pm. Still seems fitting though.

Nightlife - Church

Budapest - The photos

Here is the photo set from my budapest trip.

Budapest photos

Some favorites

The Danube


Parliament


Castle District


St. Stephen Basilica


Budapest will flash your face off

Budapest - The exit (d8)

I had planned a 4:30 flight so I didn't need to get up too early. This gave me time to catch up on sleep, send some email, and get the food item I had been seeking since I had arrived. Much to Elaine's hatred, the thing I like to do when I travel that isn't going up in tall things is sample the native's fast food. Since the ride into the city I had been wanting the Hawaiian shish-ka-bob that I had seen on Burger King sign. So I walked into Pest to find me some. Well mission accomplished, but I must say that they were not that great. From the first glance I thought they were just chicken nuggets with pineapple. No luck. These were actually low grade chicken chunks in some odd asian like sauce. I was greatly disappointed.

After that it was back to the hotel and then onto the airport. I was actually pretty relaxed from the walk around town and only left for the airport 2 hours prior to the flight. It was supposed to only take 20 mins to get to the airport. However as soon as I relax life tries to prove why I should not. Traffic was pretty bad because a lot of roads were shut down. To compound things this was causing the meter to really climb. I had about 6600 forint on me and the taxi was supposed to cost about 5500. As we wondered around on side streets supposedly avoiding traffic it was climbing and climbing. Eventually it hit 6000 and I had to start scheming for how I would pay the man. After another turn on the back streets the meter reached 6500 and somehow miraculously it stopped there. I kept glancing back expecting to see it jump a 1000 at once, but it never did. I don't really know how this happened since he didn't have a GPS or any means to enter my destination. Well we got to the airport I handed him a fistful of forint and I was off to London.

Actually not just quite. I was lucky enough for the plane ride to be late and so I was able to see Bolt win the gold. I couldn't understand the commentary, but through the replay I could tell they were talking about the show boating. My god if only he had tried for the whole race I wouldn't even want to picture how fast he would have ran. I mean I don't care about the show boating specifically. I just care that he stole what might have been one of the greatest sports moments ever from the viewing public.

Also we were delayed after boarding the plane. People erupted in dismay when this happened. In my head I was like "These people must never travel, huh?".

Budapest - Missed music (d7)

Today was pretty slow and filled mostly with me time. The rest of the team got to go on a river cruise and then to a water park type place. I would have liked to go, but I had to head back to the EPAM offices and interview some leads, one of which will eventually report to me.

It was almost the case that I got to stay in town for a couple extra nights. Originally the plan was that I might stay through Tuesday and go to a separate city and interview them. I was kind of a excited about this because there was a huge music festival going on on one of the islands in Danube. There were some pretty sweet bands, but they were all playing on the weekend. If I could have gotten to stay I would have been able to see REM on Saturday and Justice on Sunday. I really wanted to see them both. This was all spoiled though when they brought their candidates to the Budapest office. Suck.

Sziget

Anyways I did the interviews and upon stepping outside I was glad to know that I would not be on any boat because it was about 2.6 degrees warmer than balls hot outside. Holy fuck it was hot... and it was only 11.

After the interviews I retreated to my room and did work. Eventually I took a nap, but I am not a napper so it wasn't the greatest. The rest of group didn't get to go to the park because surprise, surprise the lunch took too long.

Budapest - Busy bees don't like to wait (d3-d6)

So the fun was over and it was time to actually work and work we did. I don't want to go too much into it because we accomplished a ton. We were pretty much in session from 9 until 7 everyday and then dinner conversation would cause it to continue informally. On Tuesday me and a couple others talked about how to reshape some teams until like 3:00am. That was rough because I still had to clean up my presentation for the next morning. All in all little sleep was had.

This time was also good though because having open discussion with all the leads in the EU team really helped solidify where I feel I stand on the team. Also I think I grew a lot as a manager in a pretty short amount of time. Of course I still need to practice those points, but identifying them is pretty important. As I reflect on it maybe I enjoyed it because it is so much easier to judge yourself as a dev than as a manager. These meetings allowed me to better grade myself.

Even though I was caged up most of the week I did learn some other things. All food in Hungary is heavy. I guess I don't really know what isn't heavy, but nothing certainly seemed light. Vegetables were not that prevelent. I ate fresh fruit every morning and that was pretty much my only source of fruit and vegetables. Also they love goose. Everything has goose in it. All I could picture when I saw it on a menu was a little Hungarian boy running around the countryside chasing down what must be an unending supply of geese. I seemed really hard not to get a full meal. Like you couldn't just get a burger. I know that is not light faire, but more than these dishes. Also other than these extravagant dishes you could only get pizza. Everywhere had pizza, but after a while I no longer wanted pizza.

Mostly I learned though that it takes forever to get served in Budapest. Most people that truly know me, know that I truly hate to sit around eating a long dinner. Like I like your company and all, but for some reason I often have a hard time combining dining and socializing. I think it is because when you dine you have you attention forced on someone else where as in other cases you can look around, watch TV or do whatever. I just feel too confined. Well if you are like that with your best friends, it certainly doesn't get any better with your coworkers.

Hungarians seem to have sensed that about me and decided to break me through the slowest service I have ever seen. Technically I wish I would have seen more of the service because at many times it was non-existent. We would typically get to a place around 8:30 and not get out till midnight. I mean technically we were a large group at 15, but I don't think that should affect bringing wine to the table. In one place we were there for an hour before even ordering the appetizers and had only received one beer in the mean time. It was with this that I realized that a home in Budapest might not be for me. To top it all off it was extremely hot in a couple of the places.

Also it turns out that in Hungary you really can't just go to a bar. You have to go to a restaurant and sit at a table. This again doesn't really jive with my need for lack of constraints. After the worst of the dinner time incidents we just wanted to find a bar to let of steam and get quick service. Doesn't really exist, can't really happen. It was very much like China in this way and I think that spills over to other places like italy. That is less than exciting.

Other key points from the week involved waking up and seeing where Phelps was at. i think I missed all but the first of the medals which kind of sucks because there were some really great ones in there.

Budapest - Shoes and some Shame (d2)

Day two was mostly spent walking around the downtown area in search of sites and shoes. The shoe brand is from the communist days, but has recently been revived. The designs are simple, but come in a large variety of colors. The shoes turned out to be too small (no surprise) and very expensive (surprise). Actually everything seemed to be quite more expensive than I expected. A beer would likely cost about 5.00 USD for 1/2 liter where as in Prague it was about 1.50. These shoes were basic casual shoes (think pumas) and were running about 150 USD a pair. I mean they were sweet, but no thanks. Also they were quite narrow and that just doesn't look good on someone my size. People just expect me to fall over sideways or something when I wear too narrow of shoes.

Earlier in the day Jacqui had stated that she just wanted to find a bar to sit down at and watch the Olympics. I made the joke that this would only happen we found a TGI Fridays. This was a half a joke and half quite serious. Little did I know how right I would be. Next to the shoe store was a TGI Fridays and it has the Olympics on the big screen. Luckily we got there just in time to watch the US team do a dunkfest on the Chinese team. It was just ugly, but then you all know that because you have like 20 outlets to see everything Olympics. I had three channels pretty much all showing the same event but in different languages. Problem is they were all not English. So we sat there in awe of our power and then left when it was over. I mumbled "i'm sorry" to the employees encased in flare as we left. It felt a little dirty, but hey we need and American oasis. This is a long discussion so I won't go into it.

The night was capped off by meeting up with the rest of the coworkers and getting a great dinner on a boat on the Danube. Again we got to enjoy another beautiful Budapest sunset before the heat which followed.

Budapest - Hills and Huts (d1)

So I know I have been off the grid lately. Some has been to no interweb access at home, but most recently this can be attributed to me being in Budapest. I was there for the EU leads offsite. Budapest was picked because currently that is the location of our offsite initiative. It gave us a chance for the leadership in Bellevue and London to be in the same place while familiarizing ourselves with our work force.

Budapest

The offsite started on Monday, but I arrived early on Saturday with Jacqui and Maricris (both from Seattle although Maricris is moving to London) so that we could get some site seeing time in. Upon arriving we were greeted with marvelous weather. We were lucky in that the trip was bookended with good weather while only the middle was going to be dreadfully hot. The cab ride from the airport was quite relaxing. It was about 2:00pm and the city seemed to be free of traffic. There were no large motorways or anything, just a boulevard into the city. I was immediately impressed/surprised that the city seemed refreshed where I expected to see the staleness left over from communism.

I learned this in my 2006 travels, but Budapest actually used to be two cities separated by the Danube. Pest is more commercial side while Buda is the more historical one. This became immediately apparent when we started to cross the Danube and were greeted by Gellert Hill and the multiple monuments which adorn it. We were staying on the Buda side and were along the Danube at the base of the Castle District.

Art 'Otel

After getting checked in we decompressed for a bit and then made our bid to conquer the sites of Buda. We started with the Castle District which is perched on the smaller of the two hills looming over Buda. After a couple of switch backs we were greeted with a great view of Pest. We walked around a bit, but the district as a whole was quite sleepy, and there really wasn't much to do. I had a real hard time trying not to draw comparisons to Prague, to which it seemed quite similar. It was probably unfair, but the best I had to base things on. The one notable thing which separated itself from Prague was that many of the buildings had well decorated roofs using tile work. Some churches in Vienna had this as well, but not to the degree of Budapest.

After getting a very slow lunch (hints at what was to come) we attempted to head to Gellert Hill. This was initially blocked by the effectiveness of the castle walls, but eventually we made our way over. This hill was quite a bit larger and definitely satisfied my need for going up in tall things. From there you had a great vantage point to see how the river winded through the city. It was from there the differentiation between Budapest and Prague definitely became more apparent. Prague seems to have very little green space. Actually any green space you see in Prague is without a doubt a cemetery. This is a very serious statement. Budapest by contrast seems quite lush. Gellert Hill itself was a large green space and from there you could see many others like Margaret Island.

After enjoying the view and sunset as much as possible we stumbled down the hill and got ready for the night life. We set off on our mission with travel guides which both seemed to be in a competition for most useless. We had a rough idea of where we wanted to go, but still could not nail down any places there that would be ideal. After much wondering we found the place that we had settled on only to find it closed down. We settled for an italian place and sat down for the first of what would be many heavy meals.

While it was good that we found a place, we had to find another and once again this required wandering. Eventually we stopped in a bar which could point us to the places we had been seeking. While it was not the first place we went, we ended up on Buddha Beach Club and that is where the night ended. Actually it began there too. This was the ideal place to kind of soak in Budapest. It was situated along the Danube and had little huts where you could just sit and stare out at the buildings lit up along it. The music was super cheesy, but hey it is central Europe. So we sat and drank beer and prosecco until late and then danced till close at 5am. By the time we had walked home it was 6am and that meant we were lucky enough to see the sunrise as well. It was kind of funny that we saw the sunrise because at the previous sunset I had joked about how sunsets are better than sunrises because sunrises are too much work.

Eventhough it was only one day, the first 20 hours left me with a quite a great impression of the city.

People and anniversaries missed

So over the last two nights I have had two good examples of where I miss the group back in Seattle or the group that used to be in Seattle. Today is Justin's 30th birthday. For the first couple years I knew him he changed his mind every year as to when it was, but it actually is today. It is no surprise that he is one of the people I miss most so being away for his birthday kind of sucks. I did get to talk to him today though, so that was cool.

Here is a photo from one our great nights out when we took Kaup to go see Electric Six.

Also last night I cheated on Chris Clark and saw Combichrist without him. The show was great, but it had certain elements missing to it. I didn't get cranked up on Sparks or Jaeger before the show. I didn't really mosh (mostly because there wasn't a pit). I didn't sprain my ankle (mostly because I didn't mosh), and I didn't end up completely sweating through my shorts. Chris left Seattle today so good luck in NYC. I will see you in 3 weeks.

Here is Chris and I getting ready for GWAR. That sweater just doesn't quite fit.

Finally today represents what would be my 6 year anniversary in Seattle. I don't know how I feel about such a date, but it should probably be noted.

Cue overly loud intro music

So few will probably get it without explanation, but this is a reference to The Office. It is hard for me to watch the intro without Yachi's voice saying "Maaarrquesss turn it down. Its too loooooud." Technically I am not very good at converting the text in to Yachi's voice, but you can picture it. This is partly because I watch the TV at a volume a "couple" steps higher than herself, but also because the very end of the intro really does become obnoxiously loud.

Anyways to the point of this whole post, I have finally posted pictures from the office. They are on my flickr account which I am really trying to use. There is a plug in that will export directly from iphoto to flickr and this gives me the best chance of actually maintaining photos there. If it could only sync I would be in heaven.

As you can see from the photos, the office is wide open. There are very few barriers and the only thing that protects my "me space" is a little green thing that is not even fully attached to the desk. Everyone at the table is on my team so when there are any issues that I need to speak to them about I just turn and say "I have an issue I would like to speak to you about". Obviously this can be quite distracting at times, but the immediate turn around really helps so I am still unsure where things sit in terms of productivity.

The problems I have with it have less to do with the openness and more general design issues. For instance I have worked in an open environment before and it was nice because there was adequate meeting rooms to aid privacy. Here there are few conference rooms and they are always booked. There are these green thingees which are meant for small meetings, but I am kind of already too big for them. Also I am too loud for them (but you already knew that). We also have phone booths (the old London office had these too) to use for personal phone calls, but as they clearly state inside, these too are not sound proof. For the most part I have been able to cope, but having phone interviews is a little weird because other people tend to overhear the questions you are asking. Afterwards they tell me how they would answer the question and I do my best to try and not un-hire them.

Another complaint is that IT thought they were doing us a service by putting fancy plasmas in the conference rooms. Problem is they are quite small and useless for reading a document from anywhere but the front couple seats. It just makes no practical sense.

Finally the space is already too small and we have only been here 2 months. Our group is supposed to grow and I am already gluing my divider down in preparation. The 2 months is at least one month longer than it will take the new Bellevue offices to run out of space with its new offices. That plan seems to almost rely on attrition to fix the over crowding. Problem is they will probably get their wish.

The office actually reminds me a lot of the Seattle Public Library. It looks great and has bright colors that make it look cool, but it doesn't quite function like you would expect it too. This all being said I still like it more than the Bellevue office and when you throw in the surroundings it is almost impossible to beat.

There is shopping and food everywhere as soon as walk out of the building. For some reason I though that our offices were in Picadilly Circus before I got here, but they are actually in Covent Gardens. The area is pretty touristy, but I can get past that. It is close to Leicester Square which is where all the big movie premieres are. It is also situated among an innumerable amount of theatres. Within a 5 minute walk I can see any number of performances like Hairspray, and Spam-A-Lot. Chicago is on the same block. Not my thing exactly, but still cool.

Of course it satisfies the after work drink requirement too. Usually we just go on Friday's but as you can see from the pic there are plenty of people in the streets drinking even on Thursdays.

On a (long) side note, I am also making an effort to geo tag my photos. Some of the tagged photos are pretty rough. For instance I have put up my Beijing photos and at this moment they are all centered on Beijing. I am not ready quite yet to place every single photo at the location it was taken. However for place like London I am trying to be a little more specific.

One of the primary reasons I kind of wanted the iphone was because it will do his automatically. I have found it to be a little sketchy, but as long as it gets one right it is easy to fix the others. Doing my other camera has proved a bit trickier and I have found a solution though using google earth.

This ended up leading to a personal triumph. It will be boring to you so feel free to skip this paragraph. For some reason using the application to update the exif info on my photos was not working properly due to an error. After investigating I found that there was a way to suppress the errors however this wasn't really an option with the program. Luckily I was able to find the perl script which was doing the updating and alter it so that the warnings were ignored. In the end this was really simple to do, but still felt like an accomplishment. One because I don't really know perl that well and it kind of goes to show that language knowledge is pretty transferrable. Secondly it makes me feel better about not writing my own application to do this sort of thing. Being able to program is supposed to give you this power, but honestly I am too lazy to do anything about it. It was good for me to find a problem and then work through to a solution.

Here are some flickr links.

Office photos

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