Lots of work
Hello everyone, unfortunately I've got STUFF ALL to put up at the moment as I've been working pretty hard again. Work has sent us to Manchester and Birmingham in the last three weeks for migrations, and they've both been quite difficult so it's starting to take it's toll. I've also just been told that for some bizarre reason, we'll be working nights for the next two weeks to migrate the next site. No impressed! I think I'm going to just have to take a day or two off to get some 'me' time.
So yeah, Birmingham was pretty average. We weren't actually in Birmingham itself, but more in a smaller township just outside of it called Solihul. While the area was nice, there wasn't exactly a lot to do at night etc. Having said that, most nights we were working quite late and so we wouldn't have had a chance to do anything anyway! The one saving grace was that the hotel had a full gym, pool, spa and sauna, so I made use of those three or four times.
This migration will be one that I remember though, but mainly because by the end of the third day, people were getting very annoyed at different tools not working (leaving us sitting around). As always we pushed through and had everything working on Monday morning however it wasn't without a few tough incidents. This meant that everyone was so wound up Monday night for our usual post-migration drinks, everyone hit it hard. We ended up drinking ourselves completely silly, but it was one of those things that had to happen as towards the early ours of the morning, the floodgates finally opened and everyone had a big crack at each other. Two guys almost started punching on! This was 'healthy' though as it cleared the air a little and meant that we could work together for the rest of the week.
I was on the early shift for work on the Tuesday morning, and I swear that I woke up still drunk that morning and went to work. I didn't pull my head together until about 11am! (bad form...!).
The remainder of that week was spent mopping up the migration issues at the site, and this was real boring (local IT type stuff). On the Thursday night we decided that we _had_ to out for one of the guys birthdays, and so we headed into Birmingham proper. The first place we'd been directed to by a friend of a friend was called the Barracuda Bar. Being 27 years old, I was easily double the age of all the locals in there!! (some other deployment guys are 33/34, so they prolly felt even worse). It was SO crap, just full of tiny teeny-boppers with shedloads of makeup and bad music. Still, drinks were ludicrously cheap (something like 3 quid for 3 beers) so we stayed and drank a while before kicking on.
The second place we went to was a club that had been recommended by the staff at the site we'd migrated. It was called Subway, and it's a gay club so in the usual tradition, they play the best music. Lots of old school dance music, plenty of new stuff... all good. We danced until the wee hours before heading back to the hotel to crash. The next day most of us got up with time to spare to get the train, but one of the guys on the team slept through the alarm and almost missed it! (he literally ran up the platform as the doors were closing). All of us were feeling a little worse for wear :)
One of the most interesting bits of Birmingham is a central town area known as the 'bull ring'. The name comes from the fact that in the past there was a massive cattle market there. Now it's been turned into shops and stuff, but being quite new it has some interesting architecture (new mixed with old). This building is actually a Selfridges store (big Myer/David Jones type store) and these little discs aren't actually lit themselves, they are simply highly polished to reflect lights on the street set up to illuminate the building. I thought it was pretty neat.
Oh, and I got a piece of trivia off a taxi driver one day which I also thought was interesting. Apparently Birmingham has more canals than Venice!?!
Next was Manchester. Nothing of any note happened in Manchester and the cold weather meant that we were not too game to venture out. As always however, we did end up going out on the Saturday night.
One of the local IT guys lives in Manchester but works with us in London quite a lot. He gave us a quick walking tour of the central nightlife areas before we headed into one for some drinks. There are actually some nice nightspots in Manchester, with some of the bars facing onto canals or parks etc. There were also plenty of people out and about too which gave the place a good vibe. After sinking a few beers, we pressed on to a club which our guide used to DJ at (he actually is quite well known and plays in many clubs now).
The club was called the Electric Chair and it was really good. The music they played was 'typically Manchurian' according to our guide, and it's known as Electro-Clash. Basically it's dance music, but a little more edgy and rocky than house music, and not pop-y or anything like most clubs play (no Beyonce etc there!). Unfortunately I'd pulled some huge hours the two days before and so I piked around 2am, the other two kicked on till 5 or so. The next day I was fine though while the other two looked like death warmed up.
I'm now back working in London, so I'm hoping to catch up on some sleep. Oh, and I've booked my flights to Canada over new years for snowboarding... wooo!! All I need now is a decent snowboarding jacket for the -20 degrees weather!
Anka
So yeah, Birmingham was pretty average. We weren't actually in Birmingham itself, but more in a smaller township just outside of it called Solihul. While the area was nice, there wasn't exactly a lot to do at night etc. Having said that, most nights we were working quite late and so we wouldn't have had a chance to do anything anyway! The one saving grace was that the hotel had a full gym, pool, spa and sauna, so I made use of those three or four times.
This migration will be one that I remember though, but mainly because by the end of the third day, people were getting very annoyed at different tools not working (leaving us sitting around). As always we pushed through and had everything working on Monday morning however it wasn't without a few tough incidents. This meant that everyone was so wound up Monday night for our usual post-migration drinks, everyone hit it hard. We ended up drinking ourselves completely silly, but it was one of those things that had to happen as towards the early ours of the morning, the floodgates finally opened and everyone had a big crack at each other. Two guys almost started punching on! This was 'healthy' though as it cleared the air a little and meant that we could work together for the rest of the week.
I was on the early shift for work on the Tuesday morning, and I swear that I woke up still drunk that morning and went to work. I didn't pull my head together until about 11am! (bad form...!).
The remainder of that week was spent mopping up the migration issues at the site, and this was real boring (local IT type stuff). On the Thursday night we decided that we _had_ to out for one of the guys birthdays, and so we headed into Birmingham proper. The first place we'd been directed to by a friend of a friend was called the Barracuda Bar. Being 27 years old, I was easily double the age of all the locals in there!! (some other deployment guys are 33/34, so they prolly felt even worse). It was SO crap, just full of tiny teeny-boppers with shedloads of makeup and bad music. Still, drinks were ludicrously cheap (something like 3 quid for 3 beers) so we stayed and drank a while before kicking on.
The second place we went to was a club that had been recommended by the staff at the site we'd migrated. It was called Subway, and it's a gay club so in the usual tradition, they play the best music. Lots of old school dance music, plenty of new stuff... all good. We danced until the wee hours before heading back to the hotel to crash. The next day most of us got up with time to spare to get the train, but one of the guys on the team slept through the alarm and almost missed it! (he literally ran up the platform as the doors were closing). All of us were feeling a little worse for wear :)
One of the most interesting bits of Birmingham is a central town area known as the 'bull ring'. The name comes from the fact that in the past there was a massive cattle market there. Now it's been turned into shops and stuff, but being quite new it has some interesting architecture (new mixed with old). This building is actually a Selfridges store (big Myer/David Jones type store) and these little discs aren't actually lit themselves, they are simply highly polished to reflect lights on the street set up to illuminate the building. I thought it was pretty neat.
Oh, and I got a piece of trivia off a taxi driver one day which I also thought was interesting. Apparently Birmingham has more canals than Venice!?!
Next was Manchester. Nothing of any note happened in Manchester and the cold weather meant that we were not too game to venture out. As always however, we did end up going out on the Saturday night.
One of the local IT guys lives in Manchester but works with us in London quite a lot. He gave us a quick walking tour of the central nightlife areas before we headed into one for some drinks. There are actually some nice nightspots in Manchester, with some of the bars facing onto canals or parks etc. There were also plenty of people out and about too which gave the place a good vibe. After sinking a few beers, we pressed on to a club which our guide used to DJ at (he actually is quite well known and plays in many clubs now).
The club was called the Electric Chair and it was really good. The music they played was 'typically Manchurian' according to our guide, and it's known as Electro-Clash. Basically it's dance music, but a little more edgy and rocky than house music, and not pop-y or anything like most clubs play (no Beyonce etc there!). Unfortunately I'd pulled some huge hours the two days before and so I piked around 2am, the other two kicked on till 5 or so. The next day I was fine though while the other two looked like death warmed up.
I'm now back working in London, so I'm hoping to catch up on some sleep. Oh, and I've booked my flights to Canada over new years for snowboarding... wooo!! All I need now is a decent snowboarding jacket for the -20 degrees weather!
Anka
posted by Anthony Hawke at 10:12 pm
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