Nath's Blog

In my last post we were still on our way to the Philippines.  I’ve been here for a few days now, and I’m starting to get used to the randomness and inefficiencies that the Philippine culture consists of.

But back to Singapore. After breakfast, we wandered around the airport.  We caught the skytrain to the other two terminals, had a wander around, continued our search for headphone adaptors, and eventually found a nice coffee place.  Over a coffee we did the readings, and had a nice long discussion about them, before heading back to Terminal 2 in preparation for catching our flight.

The flight to Manila was a little more turbulent than our flight to Singapore, but otherwise uneventful. Customs at Manila was more a formality than a thorough examination of what we were bringing in to the country, so in short order we were outside the airport, and catching a taxi to the Shalom centre.  This turned out to be an extraordinarily long taxi ride, taking around 1.5 hours to get to the Shalom center.  Traffic was bumper-to-bumper, and in typical Filipino style, appeared to be completely chaotic.  Apparently the traffic was worse than usual, because a film festival had closed one of the major roads.

The Shalom center was quite close to a major shopping centre, Robbinsons. It was there that we bought SIM cards for our phones, had dinner, and admired a pianist, saxophonist and bass guitarist ensemble ripping up some Christmas carols, before heading back for an early night.  We enquired about currency exchange, but unfortunately they were unable to help us.

The next day was Sunday, Christmas day.  This mean that a lot of the shops didn’t open till late.  We had a light breakfast at Starbucks, and by the time we got back, the van that would take us to Uncle Rudi’s place had arrived.

It took a few hours to get to Uncle Rudi’s place, and we arrived just after the afternoon bible study started, so we walked across the rice fields to get to the hall.  It was here that Phil, in his over-confidence about where we were going, managed to walk into a big patch of mud.  He got stuck, and with a bit of help, got out of the mud, minus his shoes.  His shoes were completely encased in mud – he had sunk almost a foot deep in the mud!  So we went back and he changed into some thongs before we tried again.

That night we enjoyed Aunty Leah’s cooking, and stayed up late talking with Dan and Uncle Des, before finally going to bed.  The youth conference was only around 30 minutes away, and we would leave the next morning after breakfast.

Two days ago, I loaded the backpack and suitcase I would be living out of for the next two weeks into the car, and headed off for Phil’s place.  Once I got there, I found Phil slightly agitated that the Children of the Promise CDs still hadn’t arrived.  We had planned on taking 50 with us to the Philippines, so it was a bit of a worry.

After some youtube watching and collecting of various PDFs for use in the Philippines, it was lunch time.  The CDs still hadn’t arrived, so it looked like we would be leaving without them.  But then, during lunch, they arrived! Two massive boxes.  Timon’s suitcase was frantically rearranged to accommodate the 50 CDs – quite a bulky addition.

There was quite a bit of traffic on the way to the airport, but fortunately most of it was heading the other direction. so we arrived in plenty of time.  It turned out we got out of the car at the opposite end of the airport to the Singapore Airlines check-in counters, we had a nice long walk.  There was almost no queue at check-in, so it didn’t take long to get that all sorted, fill out our departure cards (which I had to do twice, due to inadvertently declaring greater than $10k on the first one), and go through customs.

Then we had about two hours to kill, wandering around the duty free shops, looking for headphone adaptors for the aircraft plug, and at prices of various other items available for inflated prices.  Some drinks and food were also consumed while we waited to board the A380 that would take us to Singapore.

The eight hour flight to Singapore was relatively uneventful.  A meal, a snack, various beverage choices, and plenty of movies or tv shows to watch.  I elected mainly to read and sleep – I wasn’t too interested in the selection available.  But it turned out there was an interesting documentary on the Bugatti Veyron, which I watched between Singapore and Manila.

While waiting to disembark and Singapore, we wondered how many people would fit on the plane.  The economy row numbers went up to 62 (we were in row 60 and 61), and at 10 seats wide, that made for a lot of passengers.  So on the way out, Timon asked one of the cabin crew.  He told us around 400, plus first and business. Then he offered to give us a tour of the plane, which we gladly accepted.  We saw the capsule-like seating of first class, and the enormous armchairs that were the seats in business class.

Our first order of business once we got into the airport was to locate the transit hotel.  We had tried to book a room in advance, but were told that it was booked out.  Fortunately there was a cancellation when we inquired, so we booked it until 8am, and went to find something to eat.

While looking for something to eat, we noticed a giant Angry Birds stand in the airport.  It turned out that, with a receipt of greater than $120 SGD and a boarding pass, we could get a free stuffed Angry Birds toy.  Unfortunately they had no pigs left, so we got one of the red birds.

In the morning, after our wake up call, we showered and packed, then searched for a place to have breakfast.  We made enquiries about changing Australian cash into Philippine Pesos, but discovered that we would lose out on the intermediary change to SGD, so we elected not to change any cash there.

After installing Lion, I could no longer connect to my OpenSolaris NAS via AFP (to the netatalk daemon running on my NAS).

Fortunately, other people have gone before me and already solved this problem. I needed a newer version of netatalk (version 2.2.0 at the current time). I found a great guide that gives step-by-step instructions for downloading and compiling the dependencies here.

I had a couple of issues with it though.  Firstly, I had been getting this error message when running the configure script for netatalk before following that guide I linked above:
configure: error: The pkg-config script could not be found or is too old. Make sure it is in your PATH or set the PKG_CONFIG environment variable to the full path to pkg-config.

I thought that the dependencies listed in the guide would solve that issue, especially since they included the download, compile and install of pkg-config.  Alas, the configure script for netatalk was still unable to find pkg-config after installing it.  So I just added an environment variable to the full path as suggested:
export PKG_CONFIG=/usr/local/bin/pkg-config

Finally, when I thought I was done, I restarted netatalk and connected my MBP running Snow Leopard to the NAS, only to be greeted with an unusal message – “Something wrong with the volume’s CNID DB, using temporary CNID DB instead. Check server messages for details!”  Luckily other people have also experienced this error, and it was quickly traced to the /usr/local/etc/netatalk/AppleVolumes.default file containing the configuration cnidscheme:cdb instead of cnidscheme:dbd for each of my shares.

Today I needed to filter a security log to discover the source location of a particular user logging in.  It took me a bit of digging to discover the appropriate XML search filter, so I include it here for future reference:

<QueryList>
<Query Id=”0″ Path=”Security”>
<Select Path=”Security”>* [EventData[Data[@Name='targetusername']=’username’] and  EventData[Data[@Name='LogonType']=’7′] and System[(EventID=4624)]]</Select>
</Query>
</QueryList>

It’s been a long day. Before I went to sleep last night, I set my alarm for 4:54AM.  To understand why, we have to go back in time to early afternoon yesterday.

Around 3pm, I got a call from my boss.  A project in Melbourne needed someone with scripting skills, and they needed that person urgently.  Fair enough I thought.  I happily agreed to help them out, without quite realising what I’d gotten myself into.  After speaking with some of the guys involved in the project, I found that my expertise wasn’t quite aligned with their requirements.  We spoke about having a teleconference early Thursday morning, and the possibility was raised that I would have to fly to Melbourne to do the work.

Fast forward another 30 minutes, and the teleconference was happening.  They needed me on a plane first thing Thursday morning, to spend a couple of days in Melbourne.  No, it couldn’t be done remotely, and no, what the client was proposing wasn’t in line with Microsoft’s guidelines for the product, but they wanted it anyway.  And they wanted it right now.

So the next few hours were spent frantically trying to work out how to use the travel approval and booking systems. Oh, and they only accepted Amex to pay for the booking.

Finally, around 6:45, the booking was completed.  I had the email confirmations of my flight and hotel accommodation, and it was time to hurridly pack.  I was on a 7:15 flight, and the checkin had to be done at the airport.

This morning I got my ever-helpful Mother to drive me to the airport, and after endless taxiing, a 20 minute wait for our turn to take off, some slight turbulence, I arrived in Melbourne.  I wasn’t too certain about catching the taxi, but there were plenty of people in the line ahead of me to observe, so I think I managed a convincing performance of someone used to catching taxis.

Finally, I arrived at the hotel shortly before 10am.  One of my co-workers met me, and I left my clothes bag in his hotel room, before heading into the bright and shiny Melbourne office.  I met some more of the team, very friendly guys, and got stuck into it.  Had a quick lunch around 12:30, and then headed off to the client site.

It was located in a historical building, and our destination was in the basement, a room full of computers, presumably waiting to be sent to other locations.  Not exactly the most friendly of environments – definitely a step down from the office I’d just been in.  Still, I hacked away at code all afternoon, and managed to make some reasonable progress, before hitting a snag.

The script I’d been brought in to write was to automate a task.  All well and good, when that task works.  But when it fails to run correctly even in the GUI, and vbscript throws an error message which literally states “Generic Error”, you know you have some problems.  Solving them is tomorrow’s exercise.

Since getting back to the hotel, I’ve wandered around Melbourne CBD, eaten Lamb Souvleki for dinner, follwed with some gelati.  All in all, it’s been an interesting experience, and certainly a welcome difference from my usual daily grind.

After updating Exchange 2010 to Service Pack 1, I had a repeat of my previous problem.  Turns out, I had to repeat the process for exppw.dll .  Only this time, I made a typo in the applicationHost.config file, resulting in numerous errors in the Application event log:

The worker process for application pool ‘CitrixWebInterface5.3.0AppPool’ encountered an error ‘Configuration file is not well-formed XML’ trying to read configuration data from file ‘\\?\C:\inetpub\temp\apppools\CitrixWebInterface5.3.0AppPool.config’, line number ’3′.  The data field contains the error code.

After finding the typo (a missing space) and restarting IIS again, everything was fine.

Something occurred to me as I sat at my desk yesterday. Is this really what I want to do? Go from a 20 minute commute to a 60 or 70 minute commute. Go from working with people I know, from environments I can work with in the middle of the night, from clients I have a good relationship with, from a friendly working atmosphere, to a cubicle farm, where everyone sits quietly at their desk, not interacting with people around them, working on faceless, distant client systems, that are as yet unknown to me.

These people I’ve been working with the past 3 years are my family. Even though I’ve almost never seen them outside work hours, spending 40 hours a week with these people has turned them into family. Family that I’m going to miss working with. Some of the clients I work with I know well enough to consider extended family in this analogy. I know who to call, and in many cases I’ve called them so many times I don’t even have to look up their phone number.

As I slowly pack up my belongings, it’s like I’m packing up my life. Separating bits of it into boxes, to be stored away for an indeterminate period of time. In less than two weeks, I’ll likely never see these people again. I’ll never again come home to this place I’ve lived the last three years. So many memories that will slowly drift away.

People will fade from reality into the mists of time. I’m going to miss them all – the annoying project managers, the incessant SDMs, the hapless users, the incompetent help desks, the colleagues that range from people to admire, to people that must surely struggle to find their way to work every day. They are the colour in this tapestry of life. A tapestry that will shortly be put away, incomplete, slowly unraveling.

I’m sitting on the couch at my sister’s place in Wellington, with the sun is streaming through the window, warming my feet. Right now, I’m wondering what to write. It’s been quite some time since my last post, a shortcoming I feel I should correct.

My life has been full of upheaval of recent times, something that’s not going to change in the short term. Moving cities is never easy. Moving cities within 30 days even less so. I’ve never moved all my possessions in such a short time before.

Right now though, that worry awaits my return to Australia. I’ve been in New Zealand since 1st April, firstly for a church youth camp on the book of James, and subsequently for a visit to my sister and her husband. It’s been a nice relaxing time. The weather has varied somewhat, between nice warm sunny days at the start, to cold, cloudy and occasionally rainy days in the middle, and back to warmish sunny days. I’ve caught up with old friends, made some new acquaintances, and become more familiar with Wellington.

Ok, so I still haven’t filled in the gaps from my last couple of posts. I’ll get there eventually. Maybe.

Right now, I want to write about my trip home. For my last two days in Korea, I stayed with Matthew and Priscilla, their two children, two hamsters, and Priscilla’s parents, in the biggest apartment I’ve seen in Korea. I’m sure there are larger, but not that I’ve been inside. Anyway, less than 10 minutes walk from their apartment is a collection of bus stops, including one for a bus that travels to the airport.

The bus I caught to the airport was clearly different to the standard buses. For one, it had the names of the airports it stops at written in English on the side. There were the huge luggage compartments underneath, where the driver stowed suitcases. Then there was the price. Where an average bus fare would be 1500 or 2000 Won, this fare was 8000 Won. Hardly extravagant, especially compared to public transport costs in Australia, but still higher than normal. Priscilla told me the trip would take about an hour, something I was a bit surprised about – the map at the bus terminal showed there were just 11 stops between where I was, and Incheon International Airport. She explained there was about 30 minutes between the last two stops – knowledge I was very grateful to have.

Clambering aboard, I paid my 8000 Won and settled in to a seat near the back. With the outside temperature around -1 or -2 Centigrade, the windows quickly fogged up. More and more passengers got on the bus as we travelled, and after about 30 minutes, we stopped at an airport. Fortunately I noticed a sign in English that had the name of the airport written on it. I don’t remember which airport it was, but it wasn’t Incheon International. That, combined with the unexpectedly short trip to this airport, and the majority of passengers remaining seated, was a pretty good indication I didn’t want to get out here.

Eventually I arrived at the airport, checked in, and navigated customs and baggage screening. I took a bit of a look around, and made my way to the gate in time to queue up to board the plane. In a repeat performance of my experience last year, after presenting my boarding pass and heading down the aerobridge, I had to present my checked on baggage for a cursory inspection. I’m not sure what the point of this inspection is – hand luggage had already been X-rayed as we entered the sterile section of the airport, and it wasn’t an overly thorough inspection. I wonder whether the workers there were paying more attention to passengers’ body language than what they were seeing inside the bag.

The inspection over, I headed into the plane, and took my seat. I was towards the front of economy – row 15, so I sat back and watched people pouring in, and disappearing into the depths of the aircraft behind me. Eventually, I discovered who I would be sitting next to for the next 10 hours. Two young kids, probably around 10 and 5, with the 5 year old boy sitting next to me. Wonderful. Then, to complete my nightmare, their mother disappeared towards the front of the plane. I was almost outraged, that a mother would travel business class and abandon her two children to the mercies of the strangers surrounding them in economy. Then I figured they’d probably sleep for most of the flight, something I planned to do also, so it wouldn’t matter so much.

The next 15 or 20 minutes weren’t much fun. The kids seemed to have one Nintendo DS between them for entertainment, and in between tirades of Korean, the DS was swapped between the two. Fortunately the kids got tired of this soon after take off, and the boy lay down across the two seats, with his head in his sisters lap. I was greatly relieved – the next 10 hours wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Then about 10 minutes after take off, one of the air hostesses came to chat to me. She said the mother of the two children was in business class, but wanted to know if I’d swap seats with her, so she could mind her children. I was understandably very reluctant to give up my cramped economy seat for the luxuries of business class, but soon I was on my way. What an experience business class was! Reclining seats, about as many hostesses for the 10 rows of business class as there were for the entire economy section, and a delicious four course dinner complete with tablecloth, glassware, menus, and some great wine. Later there were blankets, pillows, bottles of water, and the discovery that the reclining seat would stretch out almost flat, although still on an angle.

Business class was a great experience, one that I would almost consider paying for next time. It certainly makes the flight much more enjoyable. The perfect way to cap off a great holiday.

We’ll return to the story of my trip in the next post, but I wanted to take some time to write about the feel and culture of Korea.

Korea itself is a place of contradictions, of opposition and compromise. As a nation, they’re fiercely nationalistic, with good reason. Thousands of years of culture, and occupation by Japanese and Chinese, have left the nation very closed to outsiders. Except for the very rich, everyone drives Korean cars, trucks, and busses. Probably scooters too, but I didn’t catch the manufacturer of any of the numerous scooters around. There’s almost no foreigners around – except for the people I’m travelling with, I could spend a whole day out visiting tourist locations, travelling busses and subway trains, and not see another white person.

Yet this is a country where tens of thousands of US troops have been stationed for decades, where English is taught in school, and speaking English is often a requirement for a job. One would expect the ‘Western influence’ to be quite prevalent. And in some ways it is – misspelt English adorns signs (want some cooffee?) and labels in an attempt to differentiate themselves, English words written phonetically in Korean letters, busses and trains include announcements in American-accented English.

But in many ways Koreans ignore outside cultures. Although English is taught in schools, and required to differentiate oneself from the myriad of other jobseekers, for the most part people lack a sufficient grasp of English to interact in the most basic of conversations. Where American culture is apparent, it’s still heavily influenced by Korean culture. Numerous American restuarants exist, serving foods from an American heritage, albeit with a Korean twist. Steak with a side of Kimchi anyone?

Kids from university that we met at haeundae beach, having spent years learning English, can manage only basic questions – where are you from, how old are you, what’s your name. I’m not sure whether they understood our replies at all.

I find it amusing that one of the questions I was most frequently asked was about my age. Korean culture includes a deeply-ingrained respect for those older than them, typically using completely different words when speaking to someone older. They have difficulty guessing the age of foreigners, hence the question.

I’m sure there are many other examples of Korean culture that strike me as odd, I just can’t think of them right now. Milk comes in cartons of 930ml – just under 1 quart. Why not one litre? Standard international units of measurement are used, but frequently just converted from other forms of measurement.

I’m not sure how much sense this post makes, I’ll probably read it later and be horrified at my grammar and flow of thought.