Some people have said to me that when you go on holiday you should disconnect from everything and just relax. Whilst those two things seem at odds for me, I thought it worth some pondering...
Totally disconnect
Many years ago, when I worked a 9 to 5 job (well, flexitime), I would get home at the end of the day and not have to think about work until the next day, or after weekend, or after a holiday even. I could go on holiday and leave work behind.
Back in those days though, we did not even have mobile phones. It really was disconnecting!
Taking a phone
Later, I had a mobile phone. Indeed, I had mobile phones before many people I knew as I worked for a mobile phone manufacturer.
It was, however, still a normal job, and I could leave work and go on holiday. As holiday would typically mean taking the kids to a caravan park in Cornwall, the mobile was no use most of the time anyway. Coverage was not good back then!
These days, a phone is pretty invaluable, even if just for emergencies, or just calling a taxi.
Phones are smart now
What has changed a lot since those good old days is not just what work is but what a phone is, and the very idea of social media. Up until we had social media, disconnecting would mean leaving work behind when on holiday, and for a lot of people that is a key part of a holiday.
But social media, on smart phones, is about social, not work. And holidays are about social. So leaving social media behind sort of makes no sense. You want to tweet and facebook and so on about what you are doing on holiday, and stay connected.
So I am not sure it makes sense leaving a phone behind, but of course the phone also has the email and everything else on it.
Running a business
This is where things get difficult. My phone has my work email on it, and work chat accounts, and so on. I know some people manage a separate work and home mobile, but I just use the one.
In my case the team we have at A&A are more than capable of running things without me while I am on holiday, but it is very much not the case for a small businesses. My friends are both trying to take a holiday too, and have people covering for them. But it is hard. We all want to keep up with things just in case, and watch out for anything that is urgent or important. For my friends here there is the fact that the office is one man down, and that costs money. Some small businesses, like being a lawyer, you literally sell your time by the hour! A chance to keep up on work stuff, even if doing work a little during each day, is useful, keeps the money coming in, and so can reduce the worry of what you face when you get back.
Taking a laptop
It makes a lot of sense for people to take a laptop if they do feel they need to keep on top of work. But a computer can be useful for social things too. With cameras and memory cards these days I could take thousands of shots a day on holiday and not fill the card. But if I take a few videos, I will soon fill it. Having a computer, and even extra disk, means I can edit videos and store them off the memory card during the holiday. This can be nothing to do with work at all and just part of a photography / videography hobby. If you are doing some work, a laptop is invaluable though.
Simon with monitor, keyboard, and track pad
Laptops are fiddly...
Of course, laptops are not the same as a good desktop computer - in terms of nice keyboard, nice screen, big screen, nice mouse, and processing power (for things like video editing). They are a compromise. Laptops are great for taking to a conference, or a meeting, or some such, obviously.
If you only take a tablet, they are even more fiddly. Thankfully a hotel room will usually have a usable desk, so actually taking more is possible. But it is a bit crazy perhaps.
However, it seems I am not alone in the crazy - Simon brought a laptop but also a monitor, keyboard, and large track pad so that he could use a computer as and when he wants with some comfort. I am inclined to agree, perhaps with the caveat of where you are staying being suitable (e.g. staying in a room with a large desk).
What do you do?
Do you take a phone, tablet, laptop, or more?
P.S. I am sort of stuck in the cabin for now, or at least until I get some better pain killers, as I managed to fall badly last night and no way I can walk around Flåm. So actually having a nice computer here is quite good... P.P.S. Taking the snom/VoIP phone as well has been excellent, albeit mostly used by Simon and getting some random wrong number calls :-)
I am in this odd phase of a holiday all booked which is in only 9 days, 18 hours, 0 minutes, and 26 seconds away. Oh, do I have a countdown app on my phone? Maybe... I'm sort of putting off work I should do until after the holiday now.
Got a message from one of my cohorts today...
"Cagney's" is one of the restaurants on the ship. It seems I am not the only one "winding down".
I am packed as much as I can be, which is also unusual for me. OK yes, maybe the packing is getting a bit OCD here. Being weeks away I have labeled every cable and attached velcro cable ties to each, and put in labelled plastic boxes, and well, it is almost like I am bored or something!
If I was a normal employee, this would be a couple of weeks of very low productivity for my employer. The irony is that I will get work done whilst on holiday too.
I also have a list of things still to pack, and keep adding to it - latest being my hat, which will be needed assuming it is sunny. I even listed passport, just in case I am so tied up being careful to pack what is on the list and I forget some of the basics. Yes insulin and needles are on the list too!
Is there a word for "fear of forgetting something". I bet there is.
Even so, I expect to do the new FireBrick release before I go. The latest alpha has been tested a lot and very stable, and the last bits are just about ready. Lots of work on the true random number generator in the FB2900, and the entropy from other sources for key generation. It has taken a bit longer than expected but it is important to get it all right. The ACME stuff is very cool and easy to use now.
The instructions with my insulin pens are pretty clear - store in fridge 2°C to 8°C. The in use pen should not be stored in the fridge but kept below 30°C (for a maximum 4 weeks).
Advice for flying is that you take the insulin in hand luggages as it could freeze in the hold. I have been on holiday before. I know the drill, or so I thought.
So what happened in Rhodes?
I am finally back from a week in Rhodes, a nice holiday with my wife this time. The villa was nice, and had lots of effective air-conditioning. The short excursions in to the outside where it was hot were OK. I actually got a bit if exercise even. The villa even had IPv6!
As normal I took two new pens in my hand luggage, put one in the fridge on arrival and one on the side (in an air-conditioned room, so well below 30°C) to have my daily dose.
I am lucky that at present I only need one dose of a slow acting insulin as my body does manage to make some still, with the help of some tablets. Indeed, a change of routine (i.e. my evening meal being late) will usually leave me hypo, and somewhat cranky!
However, in spite of the change of routine, and 2 hour time shift, I was not getting at all hypo. Indeed, I was not eating much at all. At the start of the week I felt mostly OK, but as the days went on I felt increasingly tired and even thirsty. What really gave it away was that I started getting spots, which is a sure sign I have high blood sugar.
Blood tests showed my blood sugar was indeed unusually high, even hours after eating. I was now taking the maximum dose of gliclazide to try and help matters. What was going on? I do not normally have to bother testing - I have a routine that works, but this week was not working.
I tried the other pen, but no better. It is a slow acting insulin, so I could not tell immediately if it was helping or not, could I?
By the time I concluded that it was also not working, we are on the last day, having slept a lot and thrown any hope of reading a book out of the window.
Finally home, gone 3am in the morning, having had one small sausage roll at the airport some 8 before, with a gliclazide, and nothing for about 4 hours before that, my blood sugar was still high. So I got a new pen from the fridge and had today's dose a few hours early before going to bed.
Well, I know now, that if there is a problem, then taking working insulin does indeed have quite a quick impact. This is useful for future reference I think. By 6:30 this morning, blood sugar low and shaking slightly (hypo), so time for some breakfast.
Now to get back into my usual routine again.
What did I do wrong?
The issue is that I don't think I did anything wrong. The plane was not hot, the taxi may have been a bit hot but that was like 25 minutes from airport. The rooms were not hot. I have a feeling the fridge may have been on the cold side, maybe too cold (i.e. below 2°C) so will have to take a thermometer next time maybe, but that does not explain the first insulin pen being broken. Maybe it was that short taxi ride in the hot Rhodes heat? Could that really be it?
Overall it seems something it a bit sensitive and the effect is not instantly obvious (well, not so much in my case, as I say I still make some insulin myself). It can have quite a nasty impact on an otherwise fairly enjoyable holiday.
What next?
There are cool bags you can get, but being a techie I am more interested in a tiny portable medication fridge - no moving parts or liquids so ideal for travelling. Yes, someone sells them! I think I will have to invest. I really do not want this happening again.
So, keep cool, and keep your insulin cool, especially when travelling.
P.S. An "eating bugger all as you have no insulin" diet did not help as I am exactly the same weight as when I left. I think it must be the "sleeping all day" side effect that thwarted it.
Next week I am in Greece, Rhodes Old Town to be exact.
This will be a bit of a proper holiday as just myself and my wife. And before I have a load of people saying "don't post you are on holiday as you will be burgled", the house is not going to be empty, duh! It is, for a change, just myself and my wife going on holiday.
I am going to try and have more of an actual holiday. I am not going to be off line, obviously. I would never want the mountain of email and crap when I get back after a week of being off line. But I will be off line for many hours, much of the day, at a time.
It is warm in Greece, but a tad less so this time of year (I hope). The hotel where we are staying is nice, by the look of it, with air conditioning and internet if I need. A perfect place to read more of my Ada book.
My wife missed the cruise as she was not well, and the insurance for that is paying for us to have a nice little holiday now she is feeling better. One of the rare occasions I actually benefit from insurance.
I am actually going to try and relax a bit, but that means my staff, and even some of my customers, not hassling me for the week. We'll see how that goes!
It looks like it even has a piano - like being in cabin 14000 on the Jade all over again :-)
P.S. Only just spotted the picture of an ancient Roman torture/execution device over the piano. How odd.
P.P.S. Sandra says the weather forecast is 30°C all week, help me!
P.P.P.S. The flight was fine, the taxi was waiting, the villa is nice - see video
My wife missed the cruise as she was not well, so we want to sort a holiday for her ASAP now she is feeling better - understandable. She likes to actually go in and talk to people in Thomas Cook about booking a holiday. To some extent I understand that, and, of course, in theory, the people there should be able to advise her and arrange the whole thing. We have seen that they struggle with the cruise issues recently.
She had been talking to the staff there last week anyway to sort the paperwork for insurance claim over the cruise, and she did say she was looking for a week in Rhodes, now that she is feeling better. They said they would look in to it for her.
Well, yesterday, bank holiday Monday, we went in to sort out this holiday. The web site was very clear that they open at 9:30am.
That was, of course, a lie, and we wasted a trip... The sign on the door said 11am.
This was not a good start, but Sandra was still keen to get this all sorted so we went in a second time later in the day.
To say it was disappointing is an understatement.
All she wanted was a week in Rhodes town, close to, or in, the old town itself, in a nice hotel. Flexible on dates and not fussy on price. What could have been simpler?
Thomas Cook have the slowest windows machines and systems I have seen in a long time - it took forever for them to get started and look for anything. They had nothing on "Thomas Cook holidays" as such. Eventually, after some prodding, they started to look for hotel only. I had checked on my phone, and could see BA fly Wednesdays and Saturdays, so simple enough - Saturday to Saturday hotels in Rhodes town, 4 or 5 star, not rocket science. Surely a travel agents can work out that they can in fact book hotels and flights and transfers/cars, and construct a holiday. I actually thought that is what travel agents did!
But no, they could not find anything suitable. They checked a few systems even. They had hotels some miles from Rhodes town. They suggested they could look further and call us later - which is what they were supposed to be doing a week before. Sandra spends a lot with them - we booked two expensive cruises through them this year alone - you would think they would maybe have some interest in keeping our business - but the attitude was really not good, and just not that interested.
Sandra ended up storming out, at which I was not too surprised.
So, back home, I google for hotels in Rhodes old town - within seconds I found a 5 star hotel right in the old town itself, looks lovely, available on the dates we were looking for! I booked on-line and club class flight with BA and even managed to contact the hotel and book a pick up from the airport.
There were actually a long list of possible airlines for the flights, including Thomas Cook!
Maybe, finally, Sandra will give up bothering with Thomas Cook in future. I don't know what margin they make, but I do know how much we have spent through them this year.
As I say, I have just returned from a 7 day family cruise holiday on the Norwegian Epic - it was awesome!
OK, sarcasm over, it had challenges as I posted, but it is worth trying to put all of the niggles behind you and have fun. Sadly, for me, the biggest downer of the whole cruise was that my wife was ill, and no amount of insurance claim for her ticket really changes that. So let's move on and look at what was good.
Cruises are strange things...
One of the biggest plus points of a cruise is the reliability of the "floating hotel" you get. It is the consistency that comes with you as you go from country to country. Whatever conditions you find, you can always go back to the room and have the butler get you a pepperoni pizza, and sleep in a reasonably comfortable bed.
If I was trying to visit Italy, France, and Spain in a week by any other means I would have to keep packing and unpacking, would have a range of hotels and quality of hotels, and it would be a lot of hard work. A cruise solves that. For that alone I recommend them as a concept (even if not recommending NCL's craziness).
This trip we had some bad weather, not that bad, but enough to make sleeping harder. It was only a couple of nights. Usually it is plain sailing.
Rooms
We booked in to the Haven, which is the top two decks on the Norwegian Epic. As Sandra was not with us I agreed to swap rooms with Mikey and Victoria, so they had the two bedroom cabin with Mikey's mum and I was on my own. It was almost certainly the right thing to do, but meant I could not set up a laptop, as no table, or living room even. Eventually I ended up with a chair in the bathroom by the bath and the laptop on a make-up table - but I looked good :-)
Bulter
One of the nice things in Haven (more so on my last cruise) is the Butler. He would do things when you asked, like getting Pizza, or breakfast, or even just clearing the table. OK I only asked him to clear the table on the last day as an excuse to get him to the room and give him a $100 tip.
Ports
Cruises have some sea days (not docking at a port) but we only had one at the start. The rest we docked at a port. Mostly this is dock in morning and leave in evening, but some are funny, like Palma, which docked in afternoon. You can go ashore, look around, and come back, as you need. Unlike airports, the process is pretty informal getting off and on the ship.
Surprise!
What was really fun, and made my day massively, was when we docked in Rome. We decided not to bother with an excursion (we have all done Rome before).
I left the Haven area as some guests were being shown around, as Rome is a port for starting a 7 day cruise in its own right. They were having trouble getting in ti the Haven area. I moaned that the mag card readers on the door were crap, and walked on to the deck 18 "Posh club", noting oddly some laughter behind me. I thought little more of it.
Then, we went down to eat in the Haven restaurant, and had a table, and again some laughter. Massive double take - my mate Mike, and wife and two kids, were sat there on the next table. They were the ones I had just walked passed!
It was great to meet them all again. Mike had this booked months ago, kept it quiet, and even turned off iPhone location sharing just in case. They had been in Rome a couple of days before. That really made my day. Thank you all for sharing our holiday. They now have two more days and disembark in Rome. Excursions
Obviously, in any port, there will be a range of excursions. All bookable with your concierge, or via the app on the phone. These are a tad tricky - they are often more expensive and less flexible than doing it yourself, but they are simple.
We did a tour of Herculaneum. It was hot. The tour guide thought he was funny and laboured every point way too long. He could have reduced each five minute ramble to 30 seconds, and the whole tour be less than an hour rather than two. I gave up and went off taking video rather than melt any longer. However it was really interesting. I have made a video of my walking around and used his first talk (before we even got in to the ruins) as the sound track...
Sadly I left my phone on the bus. That was fun. We called it, and managed to get the driver to bring back to the port. After a lot of calls and messing around we met him and I got the phone back (gave him a €20 tip) and managed to re-board with 8 minutes to spare!!! Close call.
On ship
The ship also has a lot on it - not just a pool and slides and climbing wall and so on, but also bars, and restaurants, and shops. It is big. The Haven has exclusive areas, a separate pool and hot tubs. Not as good as your own private hot tub, and actually, this time, I did not even get my swimming shorts out of my case. Of course there are sun decks, and Haven on the Epic has a private sun deck, no children, and a bar... The "posh club".
Food
There are a lot of restaurants, and the food is mostly good. There are some extremes though! The Haven restaurant was pretentious as hell, so much so I found nothing on the menu I would eat - that is until I found they had a children's menu :-) The other extreme is the Garden Cafe which is, well, amazing. It is crazy, with thousands of people milling around. It is a buffet, and they have all sorts, pizza, chips, indian, chinese, the lots, all just buffet style. We did have a snack there a couple of times, and one time Mike's family had dinner there at peak time, and said it was a total zoo! Don't get me wrong, it is totally "down to earth" food and not at all pretentious, the opposite. So mostly food I like, but if you can go to the specialty restaurants I would rather...
The steaks in Cagney's were really good - we went there (all 8 of us) for Mikey's birthday. The Italian place was really good too.
Oddly the chinese style restaurant, which was really quite good, was one of the complementary ones, though we (in Haven) had priority seating.
Drinks
It was strange - we had lots of bars and could drink as much as we liked of normal alcoholic drinks, all included in the price, but I probably drank a fraction of what I do at home! I drank some cocktails, which were fun.
Gift shopping
There are, of course, lots of shops. Oddly, if you want diamonds, or watches, you are sorted. Loads of them!
The shops were slightly odd - they insist, even at sea, on charging 21% Spanish VAT, but they also show prices without VAT and have a "no refunds" policy, neither of which fit with being subject to EU law. The prices are also a joke, they start at 40% off the marked price when not having a 50% off sale the next day. However, you can get some nice gifts, which I did.
Casino
Well, like any casino, a way to lose money, and all that matters is how quickly you lose it. I lost $100 very quickly on four spins of roulette. Mike lost $100 with him, Mikey and Victoria, playing blackjack, but took nearly an hour to do it. Well done Victoria splitting two 3's, getting 7's on each, and then getting aces on each... But end of day the money went. Was entertainment, so worth every penny.
Reading
I took a lot of the time to read more of my Programming in Ada 2012 book. I will do an Ada blog some time when I have finished. I managed about a ¼ of the 1000 pages. Maybe I was strange, being in the bar, in the posh club, in the shade (obviously) in a shirt, reading an Ada book and drinking a cocktail. But that is me...
I have a couple of very long standing (aka suffering) mates, and we did a thing last year which we hoped to be the start of an annual thing. We went to LA and Vegas.
Mike organised it and we had 1st class flights to US. That was pretty cool. It made the flight pretty bearable, but still for like 9 hours, was hugely expensive. It was good though. We had fun in LA, and even introduced a barmaid to marmite! We had fun in Vegas. I went hunting a new camera, nightmare, and I probably caused annoyance to my mates in doing so. I have it now - Canon, please don't do a new camera in next three weeks.
It was an awesome holiday, and I was really appreciative that I was not doing the driving (LA to Vegas) to be honest. I also appreciate how much Mike paid, but the whole trip was great fun.
This year, I am carrying on the tradition, and have us booked in a couple of weeks on an 8 day cruise. We were lucky, Mike found the trip after we all tried the web site(s) repeatedly. We assume a cancellation to get this cabin for this price on two weeks lead time.
This is not cheap, and neither was last year. It is each of us saving up to afford this, and then only just. It is all about making something memorable and worth the money. You only live once, and it is really nice if we can afford to live, occasionally. This year a series of favourable events mean I can manage to pay. I suspect Simon is bricking himself for next year, but to be fair it is not about the price but the experience and being with friends for a week or so, and so no pressure :-)
The "cabin" (aka "stateroom") we have booked is fucking awesome, sorry. Hot tub, piano, ten times the size of all but two other cabins on the ship (one of which is the other one like this, there are only two). You could throw parties in this. I'll get pictures and videos. I could not believe our luck when it came up. The web site then made it impossible to book it and I spent well over an hour in Thomas Cook today while the agent there (that we know quite well now) sorted it all. Well done.
It is the Slartibartfast tour - and yes, spell checking understood Slartibartfast! Norwegian fjords. With any luck some northern lights. We'll all be working to some extent - that is the nature of each of us running a business, but the open bar and wifi will help with that. I may be working from the exclusive hot tub with open bar, sorry...
Really I can't wait. It is going to be so cool. My wife is jealous and I just know I'll be paying for that somehow.
