Tuesday 5 August 2008

Day off

Yup, the client has indeed closed their office today, so I get the morning to chill out in my hotel room, then I'll meet up with a Geotrace colleague this afternoon. The storm wasn't quite as bad as predicted, but it is raining heavily at the moment, but the strong winds haven't hit downtown Houston (yet). Being America, there is non-stop coverage of the effects on the TV! Here's my contribution:




You can't see the rain, but you do see how grey it is, visibility was much greater yesterday. It is raining heavily, I'm not sure the little umbrella I brought would be much use.

Monday 4 August 2008

Edouard update

Woohooo, I just had a call from one of my contacts here and tomorrow is basically cancelled because of the weather. We'll see exactly how bad it is, but from a Geotrace perspective the office is closed, unless employees want to go to work; I will need to double-check with the client in the morning to make sure they are thinking that way too, but there is a good chance I'll be spending much of tomorrow on the phone to customers and watching the rain fall from the 21st floor of the Magnolia Hotel, Houston.
Oh, booo. As the customer was expecting three days of work from me, unless I can cram that down into two days, I might be expected to stay here on Friday and not fly back on Thursday as planned. Not my fault, Ola!!! I'll try to get it all done in two days! (Lucy is coming round on between Wednesday and Friday with her new boyfriend, so maybe it's OK if I have to stay, but I'd rather be coming home)

Lizzie the walker!



We had a welcome visit from Cath, Nick & Elizabeth yesterday afternoon; Lizzie is walking, climbing and tumbling now, which was an eye-opener for us. Lara was very happy to see Lizzie, if the number of kisses was anything to go by, although Lizzie didn't take too kindly to Lara pulling her hair, quite understandably.

Houston update - hold onto your hats



I've arrived in Houston today after an uneventful 9 1/4 hour flight, apart from a bad back giving me a lot of gyp. I checked the weather forecast at the end of last week, it was suggesting 100 degree temperatures with a chance of showers, which is normal for this time of year. By the time I arrived this afternoon, that has escalated into a Hurricane Warning. Tropical Storm Edouard is in the Gulf of Mexico and will arrive in Houston tomorrow, either as a strong tropical storm or a "junior" Category 1 hurricane. It's a good job I packed an umbrella, although in a news conference this afternoon the Mayor of Houston was hinting to local businesses not to pressure employees into coming into work tomorrow...
Seeing as hurricanes are a fairly common thing round here, they do prepare well for them; the mayor was saying that the binmen will visit as usual tomorrow, as it's good to get the rubbish off the streets before the 60mph winds arrive, but that citizens should be quick to secure those bins once they've been emptied, as they make great missiles once the winds get hold of them. While you're at it, secure your BBQs and patio furniture too.
Other than that, Houston is very much Houston. It's hot and humid, it took nearly two hours to clear immigration, I'm staying "downtown" (i.e. amongst the skyscrapers) in a nice hotel rather than in the sticks, 20 miles away, in a motel-hotel-type thing near the Geotrace office, as the company I'm here to see is "downtown". I've had my two free beers (happy hour is from 5.30 till 8, it's all businessmen, those that aren't up in the rooftop gym, anyway). I'm thinking I'll go for a walk later to the office building where I'm working tomorrow, it's only six blocks, or half a mile, away. Bet I'm the only bugger walking to work tomorrow!
The time difference is 6 hours behind home, so I'll hopefully have a Skype webcam chat with Olga & Lara around 6am here, or noon in Wycombe. I'll have been up for hours by then! As I'm due to leave on Thursday night, I'll just have got over jetlag in time to go home and get it again. Assuming Eduardo lets me out on time......... Read about it here