day 1 Ljubljana

from the castle tower
Originally uploaded by mikefranklin

I took a taxi to work, with my luggage, and endured several minutes of religious chatter on the radio. I left around 1pm to head to the airport to endure what I expected would be rather long lines.

Normally when I wait for a taxi near work, it takes a while – occupied taxis pass on my side of the road; unoccupied ones with preoccupied drivers pass on the other. But the moment I crossed the street, an empty taxi showed up and we were off to the airport.

There was no significant traffic, which I thought was odd, and the international terminal at Logan airport seemed nearly deserted when I got out. I was so early for my 5:40 flight that the Air France ticket agents had not yet arrived, so I stood — third in line — for about 15 minutes.

I had managed to reserve an aisle seat in row 50 of the 747, so I inquired about a more forward aisle. The agent asked if I wanted one in an exit row, aisle 14, which was much, much much better. It looked to be a good start to the trip.

There was no line at security, and so at 2pm, I settled in for a long wait, at a chair near an outlet, pulled out my macbook pro, and realized I’d forgotten the power cord. Uh oh. I called a couple of colleagues to see if they could verify I’d left it in the office, but it took four calls to find one who was still there.

I had left the cord in the office, and with three hours before my flight, I figured I had time to get it, and to endure the security lines returning to the gate. I left the airport, hopped into another cab, and went back to the office.

This cab driver managed to miss the direct route, and instead chose a longer route, where we had to wait in traffic. While other drivers have turned off the meter in similar cases, this one just mumbled, “I didn’t realized …” a few times, while the meter kept running.

Back to the airport, the fare was $36.45, and I left a tip of $0.55 for his stupidity, rather than the more common 15%. He didn’t seem pleased, but then that made two of us.

The security line was much longer this time — I had to wait behind 5 people, rather than zero. And now, I had two hours to wait, which I did online. Overall, it was pretty uneventful.

Turns out that row 14 was right next to the door, and I had about 2m of legroom. It was, overall, a rather dull flight (which was good). Hordes of people sitting behind me, and it seemed that there were different flight attendants passing through every few minutes.

Charles de Gaulle was rather quiet at 6am, and I took a bus from one terminal to another terminal, for my flight to Ljubljana. Then it was a bus out to a regional jet, where the “A” seat was both a window and and aisle, since it was a 1+2 configuration.

I had a moment of panic when my camera bag didn’t fit in the overhead compartment, but removing the umbrella and a jacket allowed me to shove it it with only minimal bulging of the compartment. It was another (thankfully dull) flight, with another bus ride to the terminal, and then a quick stop at passport control to answer the inevitable question, “how long are you staying?”, and it was off to find transport into town.

There was a small minivan – €5 to the rail station, €9 to any address in town, so I chose that over a proper bus + taxi. Two younger Slovenians got in as well, one with a Harvard backpack. I’d seen them on the flight, and had noticed a friend of theirs had a Harvard scarf, so I asked if they attended Harvard (though Slovenia seemed a far way to travel for just Thanksgiving).

They chuckled, and said that no, they went to school in Ljubljana, but had participated in a genetic engineering contest at MIT, then had traveled around the east coast a bit. Perhaps not surprisingly, the father of one of them was Czech, and came from a town about 15km from where one of my colleagues grew up, Ostrava.

I arrived at the one-room B & B about 1.5 hours early – I was to meet the daughter of the owner at 12:00 precisely, since she was a busy university student. I wandered around for a bit, with my luggage, looking for a SIM for my iPhone, but had no luck finding out, though I did get directions to where I might find one – over the triple bridge, and up the middle street – but I decided to save that for later.

I had lunch at a simple little place – friend turkey with mashed potatoes for a thanksgiving-esque flavor, and then wandered back to the B & B entrance. 12 came and went, with no sign of the busy uni student. At 12:20 I wandered over to the cobbler next door, explained the situation, and as I was asking about borrowing a phone, he just walked out, buzzed the buzzer, and moments later, the door opened.

*sighs* why do I sometimes miss the obvious path? The husband – I guess – was home, and let me in. I went back to the cobbler to retrieve my luggage (he’d thoughtfully brought it into his shop), and surprisingly ran into my flickr friend Tine (TEE-neh, both vowels of short duration), and a friend of his, who had come by to make sure he knew where we were meeting later.

The room was small, but warm, and had wired internet. Did I have a cable? of course! Who travels without an ethernet cable? The “breakfast” part turned out to be a tiny kitchenette in a closet – cereal, orange juice and powdered coffee. After a brief nap, I went out again to meet Tine.

We walked up to the castle behind the B & B, I knocked over a postcard holder, then we ascended to the top of the tower for a nice view of the city. It looked large … but the population is only about 200,000 or so (just under 2 million in all of Slovenia). We wandered around a bit more, and I found the SIMobile shop and bought a SIM. The clerk was quite helpful, and even the other one had some useful advice. As we left, Tine chuckled and said that I seemed to make friends everywhere. Indeed, I do try…

We had dinner at a “traditional” restaurant with an odd waiter (though only if you understood slovenian), and parted company. Turns out the SIM didn’t work immediately in my hacked iPhone (as expected), but I apparently needed to do more work (which wasn’t expected). argh. I decided to wait until the morrow, and then I promptly went to sleep.

About time for lunch now, then off to wander. With any luck, Danny and Eva will be arriving around 9:30 tonight, and the wedding party (there are perhaps 30-40 people total), are meeting at the triple bridge around 10pm. Specifics of the wedding day (tomorrow) are still a bit vague, but hopefully I’ll find out more tonight.

day 7 manchester

vanishing point
Originally uploaded by mikefranklin

Manchester turned out to be bright and sunny for my first full day there. I wandered into the Apple Store in the Arndale Mall and missed Stuart – the enthusiastic master of ceremonies for the Opening Day’s events of the previous year. But I did find Dom, the genius who had replaced the top case of my macbook.

He didn’t remember my name, but I was surprised that he did remember the various problems my macbook had. He provided some suggestions on where to go to eat, drink, and wander, which I promptly forgot by the time I left the store.

I probably ate at EAT, being a creature of habit, and then had a latte at the adjacent Starbucks. And then I wandered up to Albert Square which had regrettably been taken over by “fashion week” tents, and really messed up dreary, overbearing presence of the city hall.

Mid afternoon I met up with Nathan, and we wandered about before heading to back to Starbucks to meet Nik, and from there we once again went to the Apple Store to check out the iPod Touches.

From there, Nathan went home, and Nik and I parted company before regrouping to eat at some fine Italian restaurant near St. Peter’s Square. ‘Twas an enjoyable finish to a pleasant day of wandering around.

day 6 departure to manchester

bedroom #2

Originally uploaded by mikefranklin

Ah, the pleasures of sleeping on the floor in the living room. I was woken inadvertently by the newly returned flatmates, who were up for their first day back at work. I had a pleasant breakfast with birthday-girl Eva, said goodbye to her and Danny, and then after a bit headed off to Euston station for the ride north.

The Hammersmith and City line — convenient to Shepherd’s Bush — didn’t connect directly with Euston, but the station was just a short walk around the corner from the nearest tube stop. I could have taken the tube directly to Euston, but it would have added a lot of time, and several line changes.

On the train, he fellow across from me prepared for the journey to Manchester by getting out his Blackberry, his cellphone and his laptop, all of which kept him pretty busy. The fellow next to me brought out his cellphone … and a variety of magazines emphasizing scantily clad women, though he did look like he was reading the articles. Interestingly, neither of them were able to complete a phone call: there was always at least one interruption of service as we sped towards Manchester Piccadilly.

Transportation costs are interesting. I paid £12 for a taxi from Piccadilly to my hotel (£6 for the ride, £6 for the luggage, apparently). Had I come from the airport, I could have paid £3.50 for a train to Piccadilly (for a total of £15.50), or a taxi directly (about £20). All things considered, the train + taxi is not such an improvement, and less so considering that the train station at the airport is at least a 10 minute walk from baggage claim.

Premier Apartments had upgraded me to a two-bedroom two-bath suite, for some reason. The receptionist was a bit surprised that I was paying only £79/$160 a night (I’d booked 6 weeks earlier), and noted that people were now paying £99 for a one-bedroom suite.

My assessment of the hotels in Manchester was that the £50/night ones were only by the airport (thus too far). There are £60/night hotels in town, but reviews where overwhelmingly negative, except by people who just wanted to crash after a night (or two) of drinking. Around £70 there were reasonable low-end chain hotels – i.e. a bed + bath, so for £79, I was getting quite a deal with a suite including a kitchen and a washer/dryer.

Once settled, I took a quick tour of slightly-rainy Manchester, stopping by the Arndale (site of last year’s early-morning wait for the opening of an Apple store), and the Manchester Cathedral, where I was pleasantly surprised to find an organ and choir practice going on. I kept trying to find wifi from The Cloud, from which I’d purchased unlimited access, but even though it was supposed to be available around the Arndale, I was unable to find it.

Later, I got take-away at Nosh, an Asian restaurant across the street from the hotel, and that was pretty much the end of my day of my first day in the fine city of Manchester, UK.

day 5 london

parliament

Originally uploaded by mikefranklin

Tuesday dawned grey and a bit damp, but I’m getting used to it.

The temporary flatmates left at 4 in the morning to head to the airport for Spain, and I didn’t really get back to sleep. Danny and Eva left, and just after I’d finished uploading – and just before I was going to take a nap, the permanent flatmates returned from their 6-week jaunt across Europe, most recently from Oktoberfest.

Quite the voluble couple, they were as well an energetic whirlwind of cleaning up and putting away, and then making breakfast. “Do you want some? Don’t be shy!” hey, who can resist a second breakfast?

After that I was ready for a nap – I think I’ve not quite been getting enough sleep (yep, Mike the party animal) and may have a touch of a cold, perhaps from my lovely seatmate on the flight over. Feeling better I headed off — once again — to Piccadilly Circus to meet Andrew.

I texted him, but as we found out later, he didn’t receive it for over an hour. I waited a bit, then had lunch at EAT, texted again, didn’t get an answer, then wandered over to his office. After calling one of Andrew’s colleagues, the security guy let me upstairs, where I met Andrew just as my previous two texts were showing on his phone.

He was busy at that point, so I wandered off towards the Thames, in a light rain mist. I decided it was time to head toward Sloane Square so I could meet Danny and Eva for a movie. I was texting with a friend who chuckled that it would be easier if I had gps on the phone. I said it was easier just to text: “what’s the nearest tube station?” He told me, and off I went. I’d earlier run into some other Americans who were not so fortunate – not only did they have no one to text, they also had no map.

Sloane Square turned out to be just two stops from where I was, so I had ample time for a decent meal at a french cafe in the square. Duck confit with a nice Rioja Crianza, with a cup of tea to end the meal. The maitre d’ recognized the iPhone on the table, and asked if I’d gotten it in the States, since he knew it wasn’t out yet in the UK. I gave him a brief demo, though I’m not sure I made another sale

I walked up Kings Road to the Cineworld movie theater to watch Kenny, a satirical documentary about a slightly dysfunctional aussie “plumber” in the business of corporate toilet rentals. £9/$18 seemed bit steep, but it was fun. Eva arrived just after the preview started; Danny arrived just as the movie was starting, and two friends of theirs arrived just a few moments later.

After about 10 minutes of, er, toilet humour, one couple left, leaving the five of us and two other people in the theater. Or maybe three. Overall — it was pretty funny in a bizarre sort of way, with a bit of poignancy thrown in for good measure.

After that, Danny rode his scooter back to the flat, while Eva and I took a bus — my first double decker bus ride. I prepared for departure the next day, then went bed, dreaming sweet dreams of dreary gray skies…

day 4: london

it rotates!

Originally uploaded by mikefranklin

Monday was a bit grayer and wetter than the weekend. I finally dragged myself out out of the flat around 12:00, to meet Andrew for lunch around 1:30 in Piccadilly Circus.

Stopped by a Starbucks for a chocolate croissant and latte, and sat next to a Swede who seemed to be on the verge of buying display space for her jewelry products in London, Germany and Sweden, all from a comfy chair.

Got to Piccadilly a bit early, wandered around in the grayness and then met up with Andrew to see his office. The office was pretty small – it fit 5 people and their desks, barely. And of course, they all wanted to see an iPhone demo … and afterwards all wanted to buy it when it comes to the UK.

One attempted to show me his snazzy Nokia N95, but it crashed after about 30 seconds, and he had to reboot it by removing the battery. Ah, technology is grand. Oh, and the battery only lasts 1/2 a day or so.

Then it was off to Wagamama for lunch where the waitress had been hoping for a quick order from me and looked a bit perturbed when I asked a few questions, looking for suggestions. But the meal was good, whatever it was.

Andrew wandered back to work, I just wandered. Went to a starbucks for another latte, and then decided I’d see if Nathan wanted me to get a pair of drumsticks at Hard Rock Cafe since he’d been unable to get them on Saturday.

It was quite the quest. No one seemed to know where it was, but people were utterly certain it was vaguely in the direction from which I’d just come. In the National Portrait Gallery, one woman tried to tell me where the Planet Hollywood was, while her colleague told her that “the gentleman is referring to a different location.”

Finally, I just spoke with Andrew who gave me the address — near Hyde Park Corner — so I wandered down there, got the drumsticks and a t-shirt, and wandered back to Piccadilly Circus, after another (non-caffeine) visit to Starbucks.

Met up with Andrew again, gave another demo of the iPhone, then met Ryan, and it was off to Nando’s for a chicken dinner, where Andrew kindly demo’d my iPhone for Ryan. They were quite fun to watch – a pair of bantering geeks. I appreciated all of it — and understood most of it despite Ryan’s northern accent.

Back to the flat, the flatmates were packing up to head to Spain for a few days, Morocco for a couple of weeks, and then back to London briefly before heading back to New Zealand. Then off to sleep, and woken up a bit as they were preparing to head off at 4am for a cheap flight …

day 3: london

matching.

Originally uploaded by mikefranklin

Sunday was much less complicated, as we were just meeting Andrew. Danny and Eva left by scooter to stop at some shoe shop to get Eva’s wedding shoes; I left around 12:30 on my own to meet Andrew in Trafalgar Square.

The sun had come out by the time I arrived, and the place was thick with pigeons and tourists. Andrew and I found each other easily enough, and we took a few pictures while waiting for the other two to arrive.

Danny called to say they were running a bit late, having stopped a some other shoe shop, so we wandered up to an EAT on Regent Street not far from Piccadilly Circus. The employee suggested the chocolate cookie over the chocolate brownie, and I must say, I was not disappointed.

We met up with Danny and Eva easily enough (after a phone call consisting most of “is that you waving? no … look to the right” etc.), and then walked down Regent Street. We went past the Apple store to stop at a Starbucks on a side street for a caffeine fix.

Andrew played with Danny’s new 135mm f/2.0, and I tried his “unlimited” internet SIM in my iPhone. I wasn’t able to get any internet, but the iPhone did manage to muck with the settings on his SIM, but I guess he’s gotten it back to the normal state.

Back to the Apple store, we wandered around a bit, watching the security guards and other staff watch customers taking photos and video, without comment. There have been reports of staff giving photo-taking customers a hard time — but we didn’t see any of that here.

Outside, we decided to head to Greenwich via the DLR — Dockland’s Light Rail — a driverless train which nonetheless had non-driving staff. We walked up to the observatory at the top of this hill. It was closed, but there was a great view of London off in the distance.

Down from the hill, we stopped at GBK (Gourmet Burger Kitchen) for a bite to eat, then headed back to our respective abodes so the non-vacationing group could get to sleep for work the next day.

Monday dawned grey and cloudy; hopefully it’ll be turn a bit sunnier as it has the past two days…

day 2: london

tribute to abbey road

Originally uploaded by mikefranklin

It was a fun-packed day of waiting, walking, meeting, and eating.

The original plan was to meet Adam, Nik, Andrew and Ryan around 12:00, then Nathan and Jimmy around 2:30. Andrew noted earlier that Ryan was out of town this weekend, so he was scratched out early. We planned to meet at Starbucks in Leicester Square, then proceed to a dim sum brunch in London’s micro-Chinatown.

As the morning ground on towards noon, Adam texted that he was on his way. Andrew texted that he wasn’t feeling well and would meet us around 2:30. Nik texted that he wasn’t feeling well and would likely get in from Manchester at 2:30 or so. As we left Danny & Eva’s flat at 12:00, I texted Adam that we were on our way…

Exiting the tube at Tottenham Court, we walked to the Leicester Square tube stop to find Adam, who couldn’t find the Starbucks which might have moved to a different location. A couple of Eva’s friends, Tina and Robin, were going to meet us for dim sum, but cancelled, so we instead headed to an EAT, which had no available seating, so settled on Cafe Nero across the street.

Tina (from Australia on holiday), and Robin (from South Africa and currently working in London) joined us, and we had a merry time. I tried to use my Rolleiflex, but just managed to mis-load the film and waste a roll. Adam played with my iPhone, and then Eva and I started shooting each other with our d70s and d80.

Andrew texted that he wasn’t feeling well enough, and would meet us on Sunday. Nik texted that the earliest train would get him in at 3:30; Nathan texted that they were eating in a subway… and we decided to meet at the Leicester Square tube station.

Eva, Tina and Robin went shopping; Danny, Adam and I trooped off to Leicester Square to find Nathan and Jimmy without problem. We wandered into a less busy back alley so Nathan and I could exchange a 40D for cash, without too many prying eyes.

From there, we went to Paul Frank so Nathan could shop. As Danny, Adam and I were sitting outside the shoppe taking photos, a couple of older gentlemen walked out, and one asked me if there was “someone famous” inside the store that we were waiting for. er … Nathan?

As Nathan and Jimmy were finishing up, Danny went off in search of another friend, Matt (dude with the crazy eyes) who he’d recently met. The remaining four of us met up with them a few minutes later.

By then, Nik had arrived in Euston, and after a couple of texts, we agreed to meet at the Tottenham Court tube station. After a bit of waiting, Danny and Matt decided to get a beer in the pub across the street, while the rest of us waited for Nik. Jimmy played with my iPhone. And yes, of course he and Nathan are waiting in line to buy one when they appear in the UK.

Nik arrived, and the now five of us crossed the street to collect Matt and Danny in the pub, and we started off to the Regent Street Apple store. Along the way, we found a protest at the Playboy store, so stopped there to take some photos, and be amused by angry people in bunny suits.

The Apple store was immensely packed; we headed upstairs to meander about and take random photos. Nathan finally played with his new camera, Adam left to go home, and Nik, Jimmy, Nathan and I did a little Abbey Road tribute as a group photo, with Danny providing direction and taking the shot.

From there we were off to Piccadilly Circus, with Matt taking some crazy burst shots of Danny. After a bit of gawking, it was off to happy hour at On Anon where we met Eva, Tina and Robin. Various pitchers of mixed drinks arrived, but I barely noticed even the hint of a buzz, and Danny later chuckled and referred to them as “flavoured water.”

Two more friends of Danny and Eva showed up – St. John (who I’d met here in January) and his girlfriend Maria, from the north of Spain. Nathan and Jimmy left to stop by the Hard Rock Cafe before heading to Euston to catch a train back north; Nik left a few minutes later to leave directly to Euston.

A bit later Tina and Robin left for parts unknown, leaving just 6 of us: me, Danny, Eva, St. John, Maria and Matt. We chatted for a bit over another pitcher of flavoured water; St. John played with my iPhone. Then it was off to micro-Chinatown to have dinner at the HK Diner. Matt left not long after seeing cooked geese being hacked up (he’s vegetarian). I found that I did have a little bit of wifi access to The Cloud, which I’d arranged before left the US, but it was pretty limited in the restaurant.

Well sated, we all went our separate ways, and now it’s time to start another day…

day 1: heading to London

Mike on Rails.

Originally uploaded by mikefranklin

I arrived at Boston Logan airport about three hours before my flight to Manchester, UK. The check in line was immense and I stood more than 90 minutes before I was able to check in.

American airlines was clearly understaffed — periodically, someone would wade through the crowd looking for people on particular flight so they could be brought to the head of the line to check in for theirsoon-to-be-late flight. And that just made the rest of us later.

I waited in line with a family of 5 originally from Manchester who’d been living in the US for several years. When I asked about the kids’ accents, the mother laughed and said the grandparents in the UK found their American expressions “cute”. They kindly provide some suggestions for restaurants they’d like when they lived there, but I checked on my iPhone only to find that their suggestions no longer existed.

The flight was fairly boring. I did manage to get an exit row, and sat next to a lovely peripatetic British couple who were had most recently lived in Oregon, but had spent years in Germany as well. We all chuckled over regional accents, and reminisced about our various travel adventures. And I provided a well-received demo of my iPhone.

At passport control in Manchester, the line for americans was 1/10 the size of the line for everyone else, and moved at 1/5th the speed. The questions were sort of amusing — who was I staying with, how did I know them (”erm, flickr.” “oh, right!”), etc. I quickly found my bag and was off to The Station (as it was called on all the signs) to catch a train to Piccadilly station in town. I paid the ¬£3.40 fare with a ¬£20 bill; ticket machine gave me ¬£16.60 change with heavy, single-pound coins, rather than bills. I then clanked my way to the train.

After a short ride, I dropped my bag at the Left Luggage site – ¬£6 for up to 24 hours, after it was x-rayed by a fellow who was on the phone before, during and after x-ray – and then wandered off to Starbucks to wait for a friend. Conveniently, they were offering free wifi that day, so I caught up on news, mail and flickr (not necessarily in that order), while nursing a nice latte to help recover from jetlag and lack of sleep. I could have been in the US for all I knew but the, ah, wide variety of interesting hair styles kept reminding me I wasn’t.

We’d planned to head to the Arndale to the Carphone Warehouse to get a cheap SIM for my recently unlocked iPhone, but we managed not to meet: I did notice some milk-froth on my nose, so I might have fallen asleep into my latte, and not been recognized . I decided I didn’t want to wander off to the Arndale, so I just walked across the hallway to Vodaphone to get a SIM. The fellow kindly allowed me to test the iPhone with a SIM he had in his pocket, though I had to use a bent staple – rather than a paperclip – to get the AT & T SIM out.

The right text plan was a bit difficult to discern: my choices were £15 for 500, or £10 for 200, with 10p for additional ones. I figured I might send more then 200 Рwhich made the £15 the better choice (2 x £10 gives me fewer texts for more money, and £10 for 200 plus 50 x 10p give me far less for the same price). And a I added on a bit for voice as well.

Back to Left Luggage to retrieved my bag, I was then off to find the train to London Euston. The train ride was generally uneventful, though I did send a bunch of texts to friends to let them know I had a phone. Conveniently the international numbers (e.g. +44 7123…) which I had in my address book worked fine so I didn’t have to re-input local versions (07123…).

One passenger near me caused a bit of excitement by neglecting to have a valid ticket. The ticket fellow asked for payment and identification, neither of which the passenger provided. He threatened to call the transit police, but since we all left the train without mishap, I guess there was no followthrough on that. There was some debate by my seatmates about whether it was “fair,” but of the ticket guy, an older woman merely said “he’s just doing his job.” Indeed: is it so hard to travel with a non-expired ticket?

In a rather long taxi queue, I had a pleasant chat with the people near me about how they thought American was expensive. Sort of amusing. The cab driver didn’t know how to get to my destination offhand, but he pulled out his trusty book of streets, he found it, and off we went. ¬£20 later, I was deposited at the right address in Shepherd’s Bush.

I was greeted at the door by a smiling Danny who had taken the day off from work to wait for me. My memory is a bit bit fuzzy for the rest of the evening due to lack of sleep and jetlag, but some of the high points were: getting the wifi to work on the phone (with WEP) immediately – but spending more than an hour with macbook before Danny shut off security; being invited to Danny & Eva’s wedding in Slovenia at the end of November (”we need a photographer”); trying to figure out a plan for Saturday via conversation, IM and texting; and playing with a bit of camera equipment.

I took a short nap; Eva returned home from work, and the rest of the evening flew by as we (re)made plans for Saturday, and discussed how best to get me to Ljubljana in November. We pumped up the air mattress, which apparently started deflating moments later after I’d fallen deeply asleep: I awoke nearly flat on the floor.

Saturday has dawned (at least behind the clouds), but I’m sure the day will be sunny enough meeting some of my London friends – and a few Mancunians as well – who have wandered down.

Apple Books – great customer service

Exceptional customer service really sets Apple apart from any other book printing services I’ve used so far. And while they may not get things sorted out the first time, they always have on the second.

One book I had printed had an ink smear on a page. I emailed Apple: the money was refunded, and they offered to reprint (and recharge) if I so desired. I did, but the second book had a different colored smear on a different page. I emailed Apple again, and 49 minutes later the money had been refunded, with an offer to reprint if I wanted. I did, and the third book came out perfectly.

The refund is key. All other services have offered to reprint (though Blurb took a month), but none have refunded first, then offered to reprint.

Wednesday, I tried to print some softcover books through Aperture and ran into a bit of a problem. I’d only done hardcovers before, and didn’t know where the soft/hard cover option was. I hadn’t reviewed the manual, but I assumed that it was somewhere at the end of the process. It wasn’t, but by the time I realized that, I had uploaded with 1-click purchasing, and had received an email confirming my purchase.

Well, no problem: it stated I had 90 minutes to cancel my order. When I got to my order page, no orders were listed.

No problem: I just emailed support, including a link to a couple of screen captures showing my username in the confirming email, and my username with no orders on the order page. But four hours later I received an automated email that delivery was temporarily suspended because a connection could not be made to luigi.corp.apple.com.

No problem: I figured Apple would just sort things out somehow.

Thursday morning I received a reply from apple, which in part reads:

Thank you for contacting Apple Photo Services Customer Support. I’m very sorry you had difficulty selecting the Softcover book option for your order.

I apologize for the inconvenience, but I am unable to cancel or modify your order at this time. Book and print orders are processed after a 90-minute waiting period, after which Apple is unable to cancel or modify them.

If you need to cancel or modify a future order within 90 minutes from the time of purchase or would like to check the status of your current order as well as your order history, please visit http://www.apple.com/internetservices/yourorderstatus and sign in using your Apple ID and password.

For future orders, please be careful to choose and review your order before finalizing it. Once you open your book in iPhoto, justclick on the Themes icon at the bottom of the screen, and select the Softcover option.

Clearly the person had not read my email, since I’d tried to cancel my order, but couldn’t, and was using Aperture, not iPhoto.

I reviewed the manual and determined that the cover option was selected via one of two similar buttons within aperture. There’s not really any indication that one is selected, other than text no where near the buttons.

I wrote back to apple and explained the problems again, provided an image of the soft/hard cover option buttons for future reference, and then suggested that actually reading the email would be helpful prior to replying.

Friday I received an automated message indicating that my three hardcover books had been shipped.

Saturday afternoon, I received a reply from Apple:

I’m very sorry that you were unable to cancel your order because it did not show up in your order status. I also apologize that we sent you steps to change your book in iPhoto when you are using Aperture.

I have issued a refund for your order in the amount of $154.36…

Again, I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. If you have any questions, please reply to this email and we will assist you further.

Thank you for being a loyal Apple customer and have a great day.

er, wow?

I’ve been refunded for books which I have yet to see, for a mistake which is essentially mine.

Pretty amazing, and a key reason why I’ll continue using Apple for any future books (the first being quality, of course).

day 6: life’s a beach

ready for adventure
Originally uploaded by mikefranklin

Tuesday is it? More of the same – good food, good friends, great weather. oh, and screaming children.

Another lazy morning, fading into a lunch of leftovers after the kids were taken down to the beach at low tide to check out the tidal pools.

At some point, I realized that we all had video cameras, so I pointed out out that we could video chat. Steve and John had MSN, of course and so I installed Mercury, a not so great MSN client with video for the Mac. If failed to work, as they were using some newer version of MSN video which Mercury didn’t support. I convinced John to try skype, which eventually downloaded after we rebooted the toaster. He grumbled through all the installation screens, hoped he didn’t have to publish the contents of his PC due to some obscure GPL requirement, and then we had a video chat from across the table he chuckled that he’d tried to establish video chats using MSN with his in-laws, but had always failed. “Why is it, ” he asked, “do microsoft products suck so much?”

I opened photobooth – which no one had seen – and the kids (and adults) had a great time with that. Daddy never looked so funny…

After lunch, we all headed down to the beach for some short-duration kayak trips for the kids, which were fun to watch. Steve’s gift of a reflector for my flash was quite helpful for producing better-lit photos. Really quite a lot of fun.

Back at the the house, the kids were mostly fed. I consumed a piece of pizza destined for one of the little ones, but she managed to find some other source of food. And then it was again time to to start preparing for dinner, which was fairly straightforward: bread from the day before with the usual spreads. Cherene made scallion biscuits and with Annette’s help the chicken with sticky sesame sauce; Steve made yellow-pepper soup from several incorrect recipes (which I eventually corrected, once I realized), and I prepared the pomegranate-glazed carrots. And we finished with a strawberry gelato I’d made earlier, from slightly overripe strawberries.