Del's blog

People singing in the correct tune for a song's video clip except changing the words to match what is actually happening in the video clip.

At home today on a day of after my epic week of sleep deprivation. Long story short, worked an overnighter over the weekend with a release and whilst things were smooth there were a few hiccups. And as I'm on out of hours support this week lucky me has had to wake up at like 4:45am three days in a row...

But it's not all bad, learnt all about classloaders in the process which is good. Plus I now know the feeling of Jar Hell!

Other than that I really have to get a roll on my travel googling. Otherwise before I know it it will be 11 weeks from now and I'll be wandering Saigon in a daze...

So I spent some of this weekend helping my aunt book domestic flights in the U.S. for her and my uncles trip in December/January to catch up with my cousin who's over there at the moment. The travel agent had quoted a particular price, but based on my travel research last year for the big trip I was sure we could do a fair bit better.

So after doing some searches on Priceline.com we began the adventure of booking the tickets. Except since we wanted to pick seating too, we went through the airline and not Priceline.com as Priceline doesn't let you specify exact seats.

Now I thought it would be pretty straight forward except for the technology issues we came across. Continental Airlines booking was pretty straight forward, but US Airways and United were a somewhat nightmare effort to get the booking completed. Perhaps coincidental, but maybe not seeing they most likely share the same booking system as they have codesharing agreements.

US Airways has a site where Purchase does not work if you have multiple tabs open to their site. Except they don't tell you before you buy, only after you click and sit there for ages... so not trusting airline sites when their systems fail (had an experience with Singapore Airlines a few years back), it was time for a Skype call to the US. Another failed attempt later, another phone call deciding to do it over the phone for an extra $25 per passenger... Poo to all the US airlines that charge you extra $$$ for everything - bags, baggage etc! Eventually got those tickets sorted... getting names etc right was funny what with American versus Australian accents...

As for the United booking experience... it tanked as well, but at least when I rang they had record of all passengers and payment details etc so it was on hold and all I had to do was verify some info. And since I had like a another 3 sectors to book I did it over the phone, as since they already had the details correct I didn't have to freak that they might get the spelling wrong. On the up note at least they didn't charge any reservation fees like US Airways.

Meh and along the way Verified by Visa... argh I can't stand it. Read Wikipedia article section on criticism. It looks totally fake/phishing style and it's a pain to have to enter details + remember yet another password.

A cool thing though in the whole process is Skype is awesome. Freecall US numbers are free to call... so convenient!

So I've gone from potentially 5 weeks of solo travel through Vietnam and Laos to now having company all of the way. Em's arriving in Laos on the morning I arrive and I managed to talk my dad into coming to Vietnam as he was thinking of visiting the relos in Singapore. So now he gets to spend 3 weeks backpacking it up the coast with me before going to Singapore for a week.

I must say that since solo travelling can get lonely at times it's definitely tops that I won't be myself. Friends/family to share random train adventures, confusion and funny moments with is always so fun. Can't wait!

So I think I've completed the 'Circle of OS' and am now currently sitting in the Mac camp. The decision to make the move to Mac was for a number of factors - curiosity, iPhone OS programming, learning new things, and of course one cannot forget the eye candy that comes with any Apple product.

As with my move to Linux a couple of years back, there's always the initial confusion with a new OS. And with the Mac there's also the added learning of new keyboard shortcuts! I must be getting somewhere though as it seems I'm in the habit of now pressing the Mac combos at work on my Windows machine!

Along with all the above is learning Objective-C the Cocoa framework and getting a grasp of the Xcode IDE as hopefully will start playing around with some iPhone dev.

From the blogosphere. Been keeping very busy with work, sport, planning next adventures and more!

Check back here in 8 weeks - 12 weeks and hopefully I'll start posting entries of my travel plans!

I'd been meaning to do a wrap up post but never got round to it. Got some time this evening so here it is.

So all in all, trip was awesome... liked America way more than I expected. So for the best, worst and oddities...

Best

• Disneyland
• Las Vegas
• Zion National Park
• Budapest - partly due to the Hungarian currency tanking whilst we were there, and hence us becoming 'rich' and stuffing ourselves silly at dinner...

Worst

• Way too many tourist bus type tours in Prague
• BMW museum - I'm not a big fan of cars...

Oddities
All of these are from America...

• Prepaying your petrol before you filled. This was actually quite a pain. Firstly the things in gallons, your driving a car you don't know how far the mileage goes on a tank, and you can't use the machine at the bowser because you have an international credit card and hence 'enter your zip code' doesn't really mean much.
• Petrol stations where you have to pay for an undisclosed amount of air?!? To add weirdness the air filly things didn't even have a gauge, so you couldn't tell how much more you needed to fill the tyre.
• Lamingtons in Budapest

Oh and there has to be a list dedicated to best food experiences...

• The Buffet at the Bellagio, Las Vegas
• Menza, Budapest. Best food ever, so much so 3 of 4 nights was where dinner was had. Deviated once and it was terrible so decision made, to eat where it was good.
• Chocolate butter kek from Aldi, Munich - and they have the exact same ones here in Aldi, imported from Germany but with a different name... Tastes good 'cos the EU have a law where chocolate has to be at least 25% cocoa solids... the Aldi chocolate - 35%

Today included a visit to one of the many thermal baths that exist in Budapest. A visit to one of the more touristy oriented ones was made so no nudie bathing required (more traditional baths have different days for males and females and are in the no bathing gear sense).

The 37.35 degree celsius water of one of the outdoor pools was really nice and warm. Like a huge never ending bath... and with fountains and jets as well!

Also went on a tour of the Parliament building which was quite pretty and nice, with lots of gold things...

Tomorrow is actually Hungary's Republic Day so it will be visiting some museums and the zoo and stuff, as most other stuff is closed. Found some of the museums closed a different day this week to stay open tomorrow.

Anyways that's it for tonight.... (and maybe the trip)

So in a Budapest Macca's drinking hot chocolate as it has free wi-fi! And it is fast. Budapest is a nice change from Prague and Munich. It's not as touristy, easy to walk around and the food is great and cheap (when compared to Prague and Munich). You can have a top sit down meal with drinks for $25 AUD approx. Which whilst I could not afford to eat like that every day of this trip, seeing we're at the end it's like a 'why not?' Especially thinking about 27+ hours it will take to get home.

What has been a little :-( is that most of the European countries visited have taken to maintenance works of things which has scuttled some of the pretty building views... but not all at least.

Oh also, Budapest marked the staying at an easyHotel which is from the 'easy' group brand that Stelios (of easyJet fame) created. For a 7x8 square metre room (the smallest) it is surprisingly big - maybe about the same size as the hostel room in Hollywood. At $120 AUD for 4 nights I can't complain.

Postings tomorrow night from Macca's on the nightly hot chocolate run...

And windy at times over here, so jackets, gloves and beanies are in use. Prague is a very nice city but it has lots and lots of tourists. You can tell it when you are stuck between swarms of tour groups with their leader flying their 'flag' and also at the absurdity of the costs of things. Things that were free as early as 2 years ago now cost like $20 bucks to go in! For example some churches cost just under $10 bucks to go in... which for me is just a little too steep. It was good in Munich as you could visit things and they were reasonable and or free. Prague is just a little over tourist-ed...

That said have enjoyed it, and am leaving tomorrow morning to Budapest. Can't wait to get home though...