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Resignation - 22 April 1999

On Monday 19th of April 1999 I advised Chelsea Computer Consultants of my termination of employment. This means that I will no longer be with them after 3rd May 1999, having decided to pursue other opportunities. In some ways it is hard to leave because of the group of very talented, hard-working and friendly people whom I have had the pleasure of getting to know over my time with J.P Morgan. I wish them all the best in the future and encourage them to keep in touch with me via my email address director_cia@hotmail.com . Hear endth the journal ....

Gay Pari - 11 March 1999

I arrived in Paris on a wet Saturday afternoon and promptly hit the pavement to get some idea of what the streets of Paris were really like. Despite the rain I walked from my hotel in the Montparnasse area north to the Siene river, then around to the Eiffel Tower. Maybe the Empire State building has become a bit bliase now but the I was really struck by the elegance and beauty of the Eiffel Tower. My next day started out with a visit to Napoleon's tomb and the Invalides area of Paris. I also managed to take in the Musee Rodin which had many of the famous sculptures including "The Kiss" and "The Thinker" to name a few. On Monday morning I headed out to the Louvre, luckily my museum card allowed me to bypass the usual lines and go straight in. There is so much to see in the Louvre that it truly takes more than a single day to do it justice. The Louvre contains many famous works of art including the Venus de Milo and The Mona Lisa. After this I wandered around the Palais Royal and then decided to head to the Eiffel Tower once again. Since the stairs to the tower were closed I had no choice but to take the Elevator to the top. The weather wasn't real good but the view was fantastic. I hung around until night so that I could see Paris at night, which is even more spectacular. For day three of my trip I headed to Notre-dame but stopped at the Sainte-Chapel first which has some of the most fantastic stained glass windows that I have seen. I was a little disappointed when I reached Note-dame since there was building work going, which meant that much of the front was covered by a facade.
For the next few days I went to places such as the Musee d'Orsay, the Pantheon, Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Elysees and much more. By Friday I had seen just about everything that I wanted to and headed to the north of the city to visit Sacre-Coeur. After climbing to the summit of the dome I headed to the train station to catch the Eurostar under the Channel to London.
While in London I caught up with my cousin again and visited the British Army Museum and the Tower Bridge before returning home on the Sunday night. Incidentally, as I was flying back to the US Monica Lewinsky was arriving in London to promote her book - I missed her arrival by a matter of moments, but it didn't ruin what turned out to the best "mandatory week off:" that I have ever had !

Extra Holidays - 15 February 1999

Well it seems to be the time of year when everyone has to balance their budgets. For that reason CSC is forcing all its' consultants to take a week off before the end of March. Initially I wondered what the hell I was going to do for a whole week, then I started thinking...a week...A Week....A WEEK !!! Rather than just bumming around here I have arranged to go to Paris for five days and then catch the Eurostar back to London and hook up with my cousin in London for the weekend before coming back. The best part is that at the moment it must be low season since a return airfare to Paris is basically US$ 400 ! Which is amazing. So I am now in the process of scouring the Internet for any details I can find about Paris. I have also decided to try and teach myself a little of French so that I can at least try and communicate when I get there.

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Happy New Year - 30 January 1999

Well we did manage to have snow on the day before Christmas so now I have a "white Christmas". Unfortunately during the Christmas break I managed to pick up a dose of the flu so I was laid low - which wasn't pleasant. The weather over the Christmas - New Year break continued to be well below freezing. I wasn't able to totally shake my sickness by New Year so I decided to spend it at home, however I did manage to see the ball drop in Times Square ( even though it was on TV ! ). Oh well - maybe next year ! Things are starting to pick up once again after the holidays and everyone is now looking towards the Year 2000 and all the problems that it may or may not bring. It will be really interesting to see what eventuates. I have a feeling that there are not going to be many IT people allowed to take holidays during the first few weeks of 2000. In the meantime there is long list of things that need to be completed before the 31st of December so I expect to be busy making all these happen on-time.
I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year and all the best for 1999. It is hard to imagine that I have been over here for almost twelve months already. I would also like to thank all those people who took time to send me Christmas cards, they were greatly appreciated.

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Twas' the weekend before Christmas - 20 December 1998

Well with less than 5 days to go until Christmas Day 1998. It is a very strange feeling celebrating it here New York. The weather has finally turned cold, but alas still no snow insight. The major news here are the attacks on Iraq and the Impeachment of Bill Clinton. One worry is that if there are retaliatory attacks against the United States by parties sympathetic to Iraq, then there is a good chance that they may occur here in New York. It wasn't that long ago that the World Trade Center was bombed and it is a sobering thought that now instead of it being on the other side of the world, it is were I get off the train each morning on my way to work ! How much change a year brings eh ? The stock market over here continues to swing wildly in a period that is supposed to be quiet ! Obviously, we are not following convention here any more as everyone tries to work out what the New Year will hold. Most of the talk in offices and on the subways has now turned to the mad last minute dash to do Christmas shopping - it seems no matter where you are, people are the same - they always leave it till the last minute ! Problem over here is that there are just that many more people doing the same thing so it becomes a real battle to actually get into any of the stores to make that last minute purchase. All reports are that Christmas will see continued strong consumer demand, however there is an alarming trend in the number of companies laying off people and cutting costs. The strange thing is that the unemployment remains at record lows - yet another example of life in this "Bizzaro World" !

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Where's the snow ? - 7 December 1998

Well here we are fast approaching winter and the weather is decidedly balmy ! It is like late spring here at the moment, no need for a jumper even at night which is a real surprise. I have a sneaky feeling that winter is out there somewhere but at the moment everyone is enjoying the mild temperatures. The traditional Christmas tree went up in Rockefeller Centre last week, switched on by First Lady Hillary Clinton. From all reports you couldn't move at in in the vicinity of Rockefeller Centre that night. I would believe this since I happened to be in Midtown on Saturday and the place was packed with shoppers. It seems that many people bus in from outlying areas to come and shop in Manhattan, which just adds to the crush of local shoppers. Even trying to see the tree late in the afternoon proved near impossible due to the crowds and the street hawkers out in force to take advantage of this increased pedestrian traffic. From what I understand it will only get worse as everyone scrambles for that last minute present ! Things are beginning to quieten down at work as we approach Christmas, however there seems to be an underlying confidence that the Dow Jones will break the magical 10,000 mark before much longer. What happens after it reaches this mark is anyone's guess but most reports don't paint a very rosy picture, this may be directly affected by the Christmas sales retailers experience and from what see, it will be a bumper Christmas.

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Lounge and Kitchen in Hoboken apartment

Back to work - 21 November 1998

Well my short vacation is over and I am back at work. I spent a week of my vacation visiting my cousin in London. London really reminds me of home in many aspects and I think it is very much like Melbourne. Due to the onset of winter it gets dark quite quickly so I made sure that I got early each day to maximise the amount of daylight hours. The first day I hopped on one of the city tour buses and road around the town taking in all the sights. This made it much easier to decide what things I really wanted to see. After this I tended to concentrated in one area of the City. The highlight of my visit was a trip to the Imperial museum one of the many fantastic museums located here. I spent a whole day here closely examining many of the fantastic exhibits. I can highly recommend the London Tube system, which I believe is superior to the subway here in New York and even has a station directly below the terminal at which I arrived. I also discovered that London is a very expensive city in which to live and find it hard to comprehend how many people can make a living there when everything is twice as expensive as it is here in the US !
I have now returned to work and am actually located on a different floor from that before I left. As the business continues to amalgamate individual server teams into a single unit I have no doubt that there will be further changes.

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My room in Hoboken

Vacation - 3 November 1998

It has definitely been a while since my last update but things are pretty much the same. At the moment I'm on my annual 2 week vacation, having been here almost twelve months now ! I am planning to spend some time here in New York just winding down and then I'm going to London to visit my cousin. It will be good to go somewhere new and play the tourist again. The weather here is getting chilly and many people say that we are in for a bad winter ! I am really looking forward to seeing some snow at Christmas time - my first White Christmas. As for work they are now integrating all the sever support teams into a single unit to improve efficiency and customer service. This will mean a greater number of servers to support but should also mean a large pool of talent to support the machines. It will also allow the standardisation of environments and practices across all the machines, which in the long run makes them all much easier to support. I hope that upon my return from vacation this will be almost complete.

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