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2002-07-24 Entry: "Last Minute Preparations"

Thursday - Last work day in the UK, but with the packers coming, it's not as if a lot of work will actually get done.

So I make it into work, goof off for a couple of hours, download a few things that I don't need or won't have a chance to look at, and then head home to beat the packers.

I say beat, as I still hadn't had time to sort out the last of the stuff that was going. Fortunately they appeared slightly late (although not by much) and so I had a chance to grab pretty much everything.

So they finally turn up and start boxing things - and will my CDs / DVDs be safe? Considering they didn't just pack them and then stuff the box with paper - they took four at a time and wrapped the parcel of four, packing these parcels in the box, before finally padding the box out. I think overkill was the word I was looking for!

Anyway, I was slightly concerned as I'd been given an allowance of two cubic meters, and I was slightly worried I'd go over. Even with leaving the surround sound amplifier behind (which I probably wouldn't have been able to get an adaptor for anyway), I was slightly over - but only by a single (small) box, which was pretty good all considered. Of course, I did forget the mask I'd bought in Italy a year earlier (that'd been languishing under my bed), but otherwise everything went.

So, when the packers finally got away (it took about two and a half hours, and I'd stupidly thought it'd be about one) I dashed back to work for my leaving presentation. Which again heralded a poor turnout... there's a theme here somewhere! Anyway, after the obligatory praise from the boss I'm departing, and me managing to dodge a proper speech, I'd received a book (the Xenophobe's Guide to America) and a DVD (the Microsoft Encarta Reference Library), which could have saved me packing a dictionary but that had already gone...

Then I faffed around for another couple of hours, attempting to write everything out to CD so I actually had all my mails and code I might want to reference. That was unfortunately an unmitigated disaster, as the first CD crashed halfway through. The second meanwhile didn't have a complete archive - just the important stuff. I'll just have to live without...

The evening was spent by me desperately trying to pack the other suitcase and fit everything that was left in my room into the single solitary box I'd allocated myself... it did force me to be ruthless and throw out far more than I'd intended though, which is probably a good thing on the whole!

And I've definitely drifted away from the blonde fixation, as watching Batman and Robin (which, okay, is terrible), Alicia Silverstone (who I'd usually consider pretty yummy) was just annoying - even in the rubber batsuit... I'll need to watch Clueless or Blast From The Past when I'm settled in to see if it was just the film or whether she also is no longer an attraction.