Fri 8th April – Newark Airport, 7pm Eastern

Apparently I “look skinnier” in my passport photograph. In the photograph in my American passport, to be precise. This is what the lady from the TSA told me as I entered International Departures Terminal B at Newark Airport, for my pleasantly upgraded Upper Class Virgin Atlantic flight to the UK.

But more of that, and the subsequent disaster, later.

I’d landed at Newark at 2305h – just after 11pm – on the previous Tuesday evening; the flight was tedious but not actually bad, the Airbus’ seats actually being spacious enough to fit my knees behind the chair in front. The trip was considerably improved by being in the aisle of an otherwise unoccupied row of four: pad out the seats hollows with their respective blankets and presto, the row becomes a narrow but effective bed. Entertainment was so-so, not the full Virgin service, but with DVDs on loop, including the recent Lemony Snicket film which I’d rank close to par with The Princess Bride in terms of style, narration, and “what childrens’ movies ought to be like”.

So, where was I? Errr…

Tue/Wed April 5th & 6th – Chaos, Money, Booze and Sex

I landed late Tuesday night – 2305h – at Newark airport and escaped 45 minutes later, after the usual rigmarole; the immigration queue was a hoot, stuck in a line heading towards a fearsome dragon of an INS lady, she who savaged the three passport-holders before me, threatening them with the horror of being sent into a 101-like room where she gloatingly related that they could be detained for hours, quizzing them deeply about their time away from the USA.

I took my documents timidly in hand, and walked past the red line:

• Good evening, ma’am.
• Oh! Ohh. Ohhhhh, Hi… How are you?

Startled by this flirty, even sultry-delivered question, I was nonplussed, and answered reflexively and honestly:

• Tired. Very, very tired.
• Awwwwww… you take care now. [STAMP]

…and I was on my way. I was gobsmacked, but not as much as I was about to get.

The taxi that the hotel had furnished (and which I booked in accordance with my double-checked corporate instruction) whisked me in dark comfort through New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, to the hotel-hamlet of Rye Brook, for the three days of training which I was attending along with 400-ish other colleagues and partners.

It was approaching 0040h when I entered the hotel and I expended another 20 minutes trying to get receipts for both myself, and the cab driver.

By 0110h I had established that my roommate was to be my pal Julian, a pleasant former-public-schoolboy based out of our Hong Kong offices, and whom I had met and found I rather liked a few months previously. This was superb!

So: I had my room key/card, I had my bags, I had my directions, I was booked-in, and now it was time for bed; I negotiated the rat-maze of corridors, found the door, tentatively inserted the key, and… nada. Nothing. No click. Blinky little yellow light. Nothing else. “Bugger.”

Tap-tap-tap on the door. Thud on door. Bang on the door. Hammer on the door. Loudly. Repeatedly. Still nothing.

To cut the next hour’s travail short: I trudged back to the front desk, explained, re-explained, and got a new key; I was getting hot and flustered and tired by now. Returned to the room. The new key likewise did not work. “Bollocks.” I phoned the front desk from courtesy phone. A security guard was dispatched to help. I tried phoning the room. Zilch. The Security guard – a callow but professional youth – arrived, opened the door with magical key, and – [BANG] it’s bolted by a door catch. Various shouts failed to raise the occupant. We phoned the front desk. They assigned a new room. The security guy promised to check into Julian in case he’d died, or something, took me to new room, opened the door, showed me in, and held out his hand.

I shook it, warmly, and thanked him, pointedly. I showered, gratefully.

Roommate #2 – Wally – arrived merely 30m later, having just landed from North Carolina, and we crashed in our respective beds, out cold. The next day after significantly more confusion with which I shall not bore you, I was permanently assigned to Wally’s room. Hooray, stability at last.

My dearly beloved b’stard Julian was telling everyone at breakfast that his bloody roommate hadn’t turned up; apparently he’d celebrated his 40th birthday before catching the flight to Hong Kong, and by the time he’d landed and checked in, being so tired and after the two sleeping tablets there was nothing on this earth that would have woken him.

At my own, later, hurried breakfast I sat next and introduced myself to Jacqui and Eric – Canadians, they work for a partner company. Jacqui was pretty, petite, pony-tailed and brunette, wearing a cream business suit and an ornate and slightly ostentatious pair of wedding bands. Eric was tall, pleasant, slightly geeky, and quite unaware that he had a dollop of shaving foam in his ear. I later found that it is not really possible to politely indicate to someone that he has shaving foam in his ear. We three chatted for a while, and then I bailed to get a coffee and find a seat for the opening sessions.

I am not going to write about the sessions – that is material for elsewhere – but they were interesting, and I learned a great deal, although perhaps I learned even more by meeting my new colleagues.

I learned first to get used to the question: “Which accounts do you work for?” – which I must have been asked a few dozen times over the three days. It seemed to be a ice-breaking, team-bonding, even caste-related question, akin to “Which is your favourite series?” for Trekkies, or “Who do you support?” for Footy fans.

If that sounds a bit tragic… well yes – but it’s true. It’s rather like dogs, sniffing each other to find out what they’ve been up to, and then you drop a bullfrog like me into the midst of the pack:

“Well I don’t really work on ‘accounts’ per-se. Not in the traditional sense. I just ‘know stuff’ and help out where I am needed, worldwide.”

…and no-one is quite sure what to do. You get this… look. This “where’s your tail, strange green doggy?” look. The next question was usually: “who’s your boss?” and that’s when things would get really amusing.

Rapidly I worked out that the best way into a conversation was to frame my role in terms of how I could help them – “…we’re troubleshooters. Technicians. Experts. We survive as soldiers of fortune in the Sun Microsystems underground. If you have a problem, if no-one else can help, and if you can find our cost-centre number, maybe you can hire…” and that worked.

The questions piled up:

• “How do I sell Grid?”
• “How do I sell Security?”
• “Have you got a card?”
• “Who do you work for, again?”

We had a big communal dinner – one of the better ones I’ve had at a conference – and I vacated whilst the other guys set up a poker game, over dessert. I relocated to the hotel bar – or “pub” as the hoteliers insisted upon calling it – and waved “hello” to Jacqui who had let her hair down and was cracking open beers with a couple of guys at a small table.

The bar was not exactly packed, but it was busy, not least due to the Heineken sales conference which was occupying the same hotel at the same time. I spied Darryl and Hal, two Distinguished Engineers with whom I work but had not really had a chance to previously talk, so I sat with them. We chatted pleasantly, including the stories of civil war and strive amongst Hal’s Wikipedia entries, plus the proper selection of local beer and wine, and the usual gossip about other colleagues.

After a while the DEs had their fill and excused themselves, so I pulled out my camera, took some photos of the neon lighting, and nipped to the other end of the bar, again passing Jacqui who waved and smiled at me, still chatting, now idly twining her ruffled hair into ringlets about her fingers.

Feeling doomed to nerdishness, I went to hang-out with the other Grid geeks, plus the corporate lawyer who wanted to talk about data destruction. She was very nice, and very cool, as were the rest of the team with whom I got to chat. We swapped war-stories, anecdotes, and once again I fell into my new role of Chief Analogist (as PJ calls it) – to explain Grid history, philosophy and security. It’s good to work with smart people.

The clock swung around to midnight – truly, I shouldn’t have had to see that twice in a row – and I needed to sleep. I left the pub, popped downstairs to doublecheck the morning opening times for the hotel swimming pool, and trudged up to the fourth floor – along the walkway, down the hall, swinging round a corner and smack into Jacqui, who – now somewhat unbuttoned – was sat forward on a low chair in the corridor alcove, surfacing, gasping for air from the long slow kiss delivered by the unrecognised man kneeling at her feet, cradling her head in one hand, cupping her breast with the other.

Mmmm. Flushed complexion? Check. Half-lidded eyes? Check. Faint rictus smile? Check. No hint of any problems, thus none of my business. What is it about Canadians nowadays? I’m sure none of this sort of thing used to happen in P.E.I when I was growing up – they just used to marry their cousins, instead; also, someone had explained the term Canadian Ballet to me earlier that day. There must have been some sort of tectonic social shift in the past 30 years.

I swung into a nonchalant amble for the last few yards, cracked open the room door, wished Wally “goodnight”, and fell onto the bed with a muffled thud. I hope I didn’t snore too loudly. I never saw Jacqui again, she and Eric must have left the next morning.

Thu April 7th – “In Which We Pimp Ourselves, Meet A Pool Nazi, And See Swimwear Models”

Conversation over lunch:

• him: Yeurrr… this ‘pink lemonade’ is a very girly drink! Just look at it!
• her: Well, he’s got one! (points)
• him: Um… when you stand up, you’re going to be six-foot-four, aren’t you?
• me: …and a quarter. Yes.

So I got up at 0530h in order to have the hotel pool to myself for a while; the jacuzzi/whirlpool was exquisitely positioned in the furthest corner of the atrium, so that when leaning back amongst the surrounding foam of bubbles you could take-in the glassed vista of the entire interior building. It was just what I needed to help shake the fuzz out of my head.

Splosh – into the pool for a few quick lengths, and then a few slow ones, then a game of “how neutrally buoyant are we today?”

How neutrally buoyant are we today?

Rules: Expel the air from your lungs. Try and make sure to surface afterwards, otherwise things may get a bit unpleasant. Did you sink:

1. Not at all?
2. Like a dead fish?
3. Like a brick?
4. Like a large piece of concrete?

For me it’s generally (4) – when growing up, a gallon of milk per day will do that to your average density.

A few more lengths and this lady of pensionable age turns up, wraps herself in water-wings and a swimming-cap, and descends into the water. She starts a moderate crawl up and down the pool, and I do similar. After a couple of lengths, she gets within earshot of me and spouts in a Bugs-Bunny accent:

“Are you in the middle, or at the end?”

Not catching her drift, and being as we are both clearly at one end of the pool, I hazard: “Er, I’m at the end?“.

Wrong answer.

“You’re meant to be in the middle. You can’t be at the end. You’re not supposed to be over the line. You need to get to the middle. You can’t be on the end.” and she swum off, somehow contemptuously.

Pool Nazis. I hate Pool Nazis. I’d read about these people in the Observer some months ago, but didn’t expect to find them in America. I was in a side lane, and was actually displaced rather closer to the pool edge than my plaintiff. To swim in the middle of my lane would actually bring me closer to her. Ugh. There were three of us, in a competition-sized pool with four lanes and a big paddling area, and she had a problem?

I trod water to contemplate for a moment.

“Aw, nuts.” – and I went back to doing lengths. I didn’t have any more overt trouble, but I did get the occasional hard stare, seething at my potentially terroristic uncompliance.

Breakfast, presentations, meetings, introductions, etc – I snuck off into a corner with a couple of guys who were building out a customer briefing centre, provided some Grid schtick and showed them the “Security Home Videos”. They wanna put me on TV. On loop. Yay boys, happy to help, being on video saves me having to travel so much.

Heading back to the conference, I walked into a wall of men crowded around a banister rail:

“What’s up?”
“Models.”
“Huh?”
“Models.”
“Models what?”
“Swimsuit models!”
“Swimsuit models?”
“There!” (points)

…and lo and behold there really were three semi-clad women out in the courtyard by the exterior pool, plus a make-up artist and a photographer – a job whose title means, as any Pratchett fan will know, “someone who dances about, ordering everyone around the place as if he owned it.”. Very apt description, and the men – a mix of hotel staff and attendees of various conferences alike – seemed rather stupefied. I took photographs of all parties, found a rare corner of the building with GSM reception, and plunged into my voicemail followed by a 3hr meeting.

I didn’t even try staying-up past 9pm.

Fri April 8th – “America is Broken – Please Go Away, Come Back Later”

Last day of the conference: woke, packed, showered, unpacked, re-packed, waved Wally goodbye, tweaked packing, dropped bags in reception, and headed for the closing sessions. Filled a couple of pages of my notebook with names of people I’d met, and wrote lists of things to do when I got home.

Organised a rideshare with Claudius. Settled bills. Exited.

I felt quite ill during the Limo trip back to the airport – soft suspension combined with isolation from the environment, rather odd as I don’t generally get carsick – arrived at Newark, checked-in for the flight to London, got an upgrade to Virgin Upper Class and then settled-down to write some documentation and kill time.

The airport’s Starbucks offered a special hot chocolate drink named Chantico about which I had heard from my friend Rob, whose wife’s employer had been involved in the chemistry of the drink. Apparently “Chantico” contains a special, “all-natural” ingredient – and remember, kids, that both hemlock and arsenic are “natural”, so always be careful to doublecheck what people imply by that term – but anyway this ingredient is meant to prevent the tongue becoming “tired” of the chocolate taste, so that the drink remains strongly chocolatey all the way down the cup.

Intriguing. So I walk up and ask:

me: Could I have a Chantico, and a cheese danish, please?
them: A what?
me: Could I have a Chantico, and a cheese danish, please?
them: Excuse me, sir?
me: Chantico? One of… those… (points)
them: Ah! A Shan-Tee-Co. Sure!

…so evidently you have to be one of the in-crowd, indoctrinated by advertising with precise and correct pronunciation just in order to get one of these things.

It was vaguely disappointing.

The “Chantico” is a small cup – perhaps a double espresso volume – of hot, thick, very chocolatey, faintly gritty liquid, the general taste and texture of which reminds me of the “skin” that floats to the top of the (real) cocoa drinks that I make at home. It does do what is claimed, but it’s not special. It’s OK as a one-off experience, but I still believe that if you ever want/need a real chocolate jag, you should carry a bar of Lindt 85% instead.

Then they called boarding for my flight. Hurrah!

The next five hours proceeded as follows:

• go through security, get to the gate
• sit around for awhile, write some bloggy stuff
• board aircraft, take my reclining-bed seat, change into my pyjamas, have an apple juice
• wait
• feel the aircraft move, being towed away from the gate
• wait
• wait lots more
• captain’s announcement: Sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re having problems starting #4 engine. We’re having it looked at.
• more waiting; water served by cabin crew
• captain: Good evening L&G; does anyone on board speak Lebanese? Please alert cabin staff if you do.
• yet more waiting; for the third time flick through the in-flight magazines
• notice kerfuffle outside window, person trying not to be sucked into engine whilst investigating it.
• captain: Sorry L&G; the front half of engine #4 is working fine; alas the back half isn’t. We’ll wait for a tow back to the gate.
• wait a while
• feel the aircraft move, being towed back towards the gate
• hear/feel a thunderous BANG! shake the entire aircraft
• wait a curious while longer
• captain: Sorry L&G; the trailer’s towbar mounting bolts have just sheared. We’ll need to get another tow.
• wait, tow, disembark
• in the spirit of social engineering, follow the other “Upper Class” passengers into the Upper Class lounge
• wait

After a mere 90 minutes of tea and cookies whilst watching other people having hysterical hissyfits, I was given two vouchers – one for a taxi, the other for a hotel – and told to be back at 7:15am.

It was now 01:30am.

The taxi driver had a Carribean accent and more attitude than John Shaft; queue-jumping, grabbing my voucher, he charged up to the dispatcher, demanding that she stamp it so that he could get moving. She put him in his place – hilariously, and fair enough, too – but it all meant that I was just waiting longer and longer whilst he uselessly vented.

My bags were loaded into his black SUV, I sat down, and he floored it; we tore through the streets around Newark airport, him explaining the taxi rank system and that he’d been waiting 5 hours for a fare, and the fifteen bucks he’d get from Virgin would hardly be worth it. The vehicle rolled around bends, shot through gaps, all so that he could get back to the rank as quickly as possible.

We arrived at the Sheraton and I gave him a couple of bucks, wished him “goodnight”, walked into the reception to be greeted by a British school-science-teacher-type – the sort who naturally looks like “Q” out of the Bond films – whom I’d met in the taxi rank and who opened with “It’s the wrong hotel”… at which point I knew that fate was not finished with me yet.

What the hell – it still beats being in a plane crash. It transpired that there were two Sheratons on diametrically opposite sides of the airport, and several others had met the same fate in the past few hours. We cadged a lift from the guy driving the airport shuttle bus – a much more sedate ride, chatting interestedly about the kickback systems that New York doormen and concierges have in place – before finally arriving at the correct hotel.

Hurrah! It cannot get worse! I collected my bags, thanked the man, and walked up to my fourth reception desk of the day.

I got my room: 1229, on the card-access-only (?) executive 12th floor.

I got into the lift, tried pressing the button for the 12th floor, but nothing happened. Inserted my card into the slot and still nothing happened. Tried doing both, and still nothing. Wiggled cards, hammered buttons. Various permutations. I got to the 11th floor without hassle, then started a descent and punched the 9th floor to stop myself going further down. A security guard on the 9th helped me for a while, but eventually I caved and returned to the front desk for advice; they sent me with Dwayne, a older security person, who showed me that they proper route to the 12th floor involved inserting the card, wiggling it vigorously, and banging on the fascia a few times before hitting the button for the 12th floor.

Obvious, really.

We arrived on the 12th – Dwayne hung around to check that my card worked in the door of 1229, it did click and [BANG] onto the catch, the room already had someone in it.

It was at that point where I believe I broke through exhaustion into a stable pool of fatalism. To quote Bruce Willis: “How does the same shit happen to the same guy, twice?”. Dwayne called out through the door jamb, got no reply, and speculated that the occupant may be dead (sound familiar yet?) and phoned down to reception to get me another room. Oh yes, very familiar.

They put me in 1212. The clock read 0300h. The flight checkin was to be at 0700h. A total of 3.5 hours to justify the $120 that Virgin were playing for this club-level room, no breakfast provided.

Insane. Time to hit the shower and use all the towels.

Sat April 9th – “Departures and Arrivals”

She said: “You must be jinxed!”, and when leaving the bus caught her flappy coat in the door mechanism, confirming her theory; it was 0645ish, and this gorgeous flight attendant and I were catching the shuttle bus from the Sheraton to Newark, swapping notes on what brought us here. I offered to put my pretzel through the TSA x-ray machine, but they actually agreed that that would not be necessary. I didn’t get an upgrade, I got stung six bucks for a danish and a pot of what turned out to be longlife synthetic pseudoyoghourt glop rather than the real squirted-out-of-a-cow stuff for which I was hoping.

I flew back to London sat next door to a Spanish fashion model – nice girl, long slender hands, who wrote-up her diary entries in bright green ink and a looping hand, we compared the effectiveness of each other’s noise-canceling headphones – and the in-flight meal was a soft tortilla wrap stuffed with a wad of cheap smoked turkey breast slices, the whole wrapped in clingfilm/saranwrap, thoroughly soggy and cold from being soused in the melted icewater from a defrosting freezer compartment.

The whole was about as appetising as a used condom. I opened the toilet door and trashed the lot. I couldn’t bear the smell.

The UK immigration guy welcomed me home, and told me not to worry, because you can happily travel on a passport that is up to four years past its expiry date – apparently.

fbzr anzrf unir orra punatrq sbe boivbhf ernfbaf. nyy gur erfg vf gehr.

Pictures: [www.crypticide.com]

A short note, regarding the pictures: It was a financial services training conference. They gave out jellybeans with the coffee. I suppose that it was inevitable that at least one person was going to sort them. I just happened to find him…