The family and I have just returned from 2 weeks in Spain over at Xavia on the costa blanca. It was a bit of a journey of discovery for baby sam as he is only 6 months old. We flew from Southampton too so a lot less travel hassle. Fly.Be managed to not give us the seats I payed for and prebooked on the way out so that got a little tends as Sophie was going to be sitting on her own somewhere on the plane as we were all dispersed across the cabin. Its not like we were late or it was full either.
Anyway, the airport wait was a bit tedious as per, as Southampton is a bit small. We got there in one piece, to massive 30c heat. Picked up the hire car, and drove for 90 mins to the james villa place we had. These have always been great for us and this was no exception.
We had a great time with the pool. Sophie can now swim without arm bands which is veyr cool indeed.
I had a little shock that my small amount of n95 usage led to my phone being cut off in Spain. A few quick tweets and mobile rss seemed to be goign ok. One day it stopped working. I used Jan's phone to call t-mobile. Someone, somewhere, and not me, had racked up £2,000 worth of data bill. So it was a little tense coming home and trying to sort that out. Data is expensive when roaming, criminally so, £7 a Mb. So I was being careful and only using about 0.5mg a day if that. So the day that something supposdly did 128mb on my bill was a shock!.
In the end I figured I would have to pay and then try and claim it back through some sort of legal action. However, in trying to pay t-mobile were not able to accept a £2k payment on a credit card online or on the phone. I ended up at an accounts department, who thankfully recended the bill, back down to what I expected it to be.
Clearly this is a worry that it has happened. Apparently companies just bill one another, no itemization, so there was no record of any usage time or places. I am not sure what the solution is, or how this happened. I just know that I am not that daft, or that rich to do something that mad on a mobile in europe.
So its back to the world. Back to the stress and joy of the metaverse and big corporations.
Having had 2 weeks to contemplate contributions/minor celebrity and family I now know that something need to be sorted damn quick to pay for or acknowledge all the work that has been done. So far I have been very very patient.
This time last year (well post may) I returned to work to a massive push to stop me doing anythign with virtual worlds. That was an insane time with a few people who I hope have realized that they may have been wrong. Me, I could have taken the job I was pished into and sat in a corner on my own stitching mail bags (or the digital equivalent). If I had then I would have not had the chance to do all the things that have happened, and get the company so far into this. So I woudl do the same again. I am hoping that the blockers would look back at that time and say, well you know he was right after all.
So far I have not even hit Second Life yet. I have been resisting in order to slowly immerse back into the web.me world. I am not sure the complete cut off via the phone suspension did me any good, it is good to feel connected and have a little sense of world. Thats different from fielding every work call which is not a good idea.
Best part so far though, coming back from a 100 bhp hire car to the scooby 225 bhp :-)
So monday, back to the office, see people and have some tea, deal with emails and try and figure out what the next few months bring.
Customer visits, internal metaverse, second life personal appearences, press and tv, presentations, belgium, netherlands, san jose, london, barcelona, guest blogging, jan back to work, sophie starts school, 40th birthday..... gulp.
I may not get the what you or I might expect in terms of company recognition but it is certainly diverse and interesting. Not sure I could find the same job elsewhere.
Lets see where the journey takes us all :-)
