Monthly Archives: October 2006

Dealing with Amazon

This last week has been a little stressful. In part due to having so much to sort out from moving here but also from dealing with incompetent people. I’ve ordered the HDTV I wanted from Amazon (they were cheaper than everyone else) and took the free 5 days shipping. The courier chosen to deliver this expensive electronic item was Eagle, yeah I’d not heard of them either. So on day 7 (of a 5 day delivery) the item shows are expecting to be delivered that day. I wait in, nothing, so I call them. This is where the fun starts….”oh, sorry someone was supposed to call you to arrange an appointment, how about between 10 and 2 tomorrow”. Well okay, one day, who cares.
Picture 5.png
So on Thursday I wait at home for the TV. About 11:30 I get a call from Eagle. “We wanted to let you know not to wait in today as we are unable to deliver the item”. What? erm, 2 days running! So naturally I ask why this is the case. “We can’t find the TV”. “TV, how did u know it was a TV?”. From here things only got worse, Eagle lost it, Amazon weren’t informed, Eagle said they found it, Amazon told me to call Eagle, Eagle had lost it still. After about 2 hours on the phone Eagle admitted to Amazon that they had lost it and a new TV is being sent to me.
I hope the guy who has my TV is enjoying the full 1080p picture. aaggh!

So the woman from Eagle helpfully declares on the phone “It’s not our fault your TV was lost, you should direct your complaint at Amazon”. WTF? How can Amazon be blamed other than for the fact they use a courier company who’s incapable of moving some boxes around the country.

“Some progress”

In the words of Wilf from Gunner Palace, I’ve made “Some progress” this week. I now have a temporary California Drivers license, valid for 2 months while I take the “behind the wheel” test. So now on to getting a car loan, bring on the fun, wait… pain, wait… … … unhelpfulness, of dealing with American banks.

American needs the Transit Van

America really does need the Ford Transit Van. The vans over here are very large in actual boy size but they don’t seem anywhere near as big inside as your standard Transit.

Ask anyone in England and they’ll tell you that a Transit is one of the most exciting things they’ve drive, probably one of the quickest thing to. We’ve all been passed by a white Transit on the M6, after all. The Ford E-350 used by U-Haul is nice as far as a basic truck goes. However, it’s heavy, ugly and small on the inside.

…more to come later…

Still sunny

3 weeks into October and it’s still sunny. Oh am I glad I moved to California from rainy Manchester.

Look at the blue skys. This is a little in contract to the dense fog that burnt off during the morning.

U-Haul, if you’re American

This weekend I had to collect a lot of furniture. Rather than pay the large delivery costs I decided to live the American dream and hire a U-Haul van. Simple, right? Book online, get a confirmation via SMS with a collection time and reference. Well, that was were the good experience ended.

Having made a reservation I don’t expect to stand in a queue for 20 minutes with all the people who’ve not taken the time to make a reservation. Then the guy claims that they would only rent to someone with a California drivers license or an International License. Nikki came to my rescue once again by being the one to drive the van on her California license. Continue reading →

D600 GPRS settings on Cingular

After a considerable effort I’ve managed to get GPRS working on my D600 on the Cingular network. This has been a real pain but finally it works and I can get to Gmail from anywhere.
Here’s the settings you need:
Continue reading →

HDMI

Are expensive HDMI cables really worth it? Today I purchased what I considered to be expensive HDMI (M->M) and HDMI to DVI cables for my new home cinema setup. However, these were at the bargain end compared to the pro stuff. We’re talking $100 to $500 for a 6ft cable which has gold plated connectors!
I’ll give more info when I’ve tried out these lower cost cables.

Party in the city

This weekend we went up to San Francisco to a party at Gerry, Emily, Gabe and Holly’s new house. Right my the freeway they have an amazing place. A single townhouse split into 2 apartments with a shared garden. Gerry had rigged up a projector to show music videos on the metal wall at the back of the garden.

Unfortunately I had one too many glasses of Sam Adams Octoberfest beer. A little later we went onto the club, Pink. I remember very little of this but apparently we had a very good time, hehe.

Shopping

All I seem to be doing lately is shopping. Thankfully Nikki is being very patient at being dragged around shop after shop. When in TJ Maxx (which as the same as TK Maxx in the UK) Nikki had fun with hats
Nikki Hat
Isn’t that just a good luck 😉

Hollister for lunch

Today I went to Hollister for lunch. At 55 miles from work it’s not exactly the most obvious place to go. Thankfully Greg, one of my co-workers, has a plane that needed a bit of exercise. The flight takes about 30 minutes during which you can enjoy the amazing views and look down on all the rich peoples houses, complete with pools and tennis courts. For lunch we headed to the Ding-a-Ling cafe at Hollister Airport. Now they do make a tasty burger.
Like an idiot I forgot to take my camera and Greg doesn’t allow phones on the plane so the D600s 2MP camera was no use either.
Good job I’m not superstitious as it is Friday 13th.

Found an apartment

After a week of worrying about not being able to find somewhere to live I’ve found somewhere. Isn’t it always the way that you find an apartment in the places you least expect. In a little street not far from downtown Mountain View this small complex has plenty of character. The unit is a corner unit at the rear of the property so it’s nice and quite. I’ll still be able to walk to downtown Mountain View for a beer or to the park to lay in the sun.
A happy end to a great weekend.

Redbull Air Race & Fleet Week

I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a while now. Fleetweek in San Francisco.

Pictures are here:

We even made it only TV, see my head there at the back? 😉 Shaw and Jessica are more prominent. Unfortunately Nikki is completely out of shot.
Shmoke on

More to follow later….

Partying in Downtown San Jose

Nikki wanted to meet up with her friend ‘Tree’ in San Jose. He’s a Cop in the San Jose Police. We met up with him, Chester and Loren at Hotel DeAnza. After a nice pint of Murphy’s it was off to AP Stumps for dinner. Now this place was nice, a little expensive but worth it. The wine is also good.

After dinner we joined up with Chester and some of Nikki’s friends who used to hang out in the bar she used to work in, Fuel. An interesting and loud bunch 😉 I actually had a really good time.
To round off the evening we all trooped to a different, somewhat dive bar called Johnny V’s. If I was on my own I certainly wouldn’t be going to this place. From the outside it looks like a biker bar. On the inside, it looks more like a biker bar. However, they were playing some interesting dance music…unusual for that area.

American Administrative System

Today was my first run in with American government offices as well as other institutions. The best place to start is probably with the visit to the Social Security Office. Everything in America is dependent on having a social security number (SSN), which is similar to a National Security number in England. A SSN is required to, be paid from work, get a driving license, open a bank account, get a loan, be credit checked, etc. Without one you simply don’t exist. So, I’m thinking this is going to be easy, i have a valid visa. Oh how wrong I could be. Not only is there a large form to fill out but after waiting for 30 minutes to see someone I was told,

“you’re not in the system yet, it could take 10 to 30 days for your status to be processed. Please come back when you’re in the system”.

Continue reading →

Hanging Art

This weekend I helped Nikki install art at the salon for the next show. Of course this was after some hearty breakfast with Nikki and Rudi.

With one of the artists not sending all of his art from Texas, and the local artist being organized this installation was relatively quick.

Jaywalk Blog

Babblings of a grumpy Englishman in California