Slight change of plan

Although London was loads of fun, and I really enjoyed living so close to a bunch of good friends, the weather was getting a bit miserable, and repeated conversations along the lines of “I’m really lucky to be able to work from anywhere” made me think a winter away was in order.

So I was really looking forward to my trip to San Francisco to see friends, followed by a few months in Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, it seems the US immigrations officials didn’t believe that a chap going to a Carribean Island with a rucksack full of flippers, boardies and diving magazines could possibly be going for a holiday, rather than doing gainful work.

We’ve been really careful to make sure that everything we’re doing is above board from an immigration and tax viewpoint, but despite my best efforts, and after 4 hours of interrogation at San Francisco International, I was put back on a flight to the UK, not to return until my O-1 visa comes through.

On the way back, I was considering writing the idea off and hunkering down for the winter in London, but I’m all set up for some Christmas sun now, so decided instead to look for a cheap flight somewhere when I got off the plane.

I’ve always been drawn to the idea of rocking up at an airport with nothing but some innoculations and a passport, and seeing which crazy last-minute cancellation deals the airlines are offering. Word of advice: don’t. Everyone was very boring, and there were no last minute deals to be had – the best I found was £900 to Cape Town.

Instead I decided to tick off another continent, and found a nice cheap EasyJet ticket to Marrakech for tomorrow (Saturday) morning.

Although not quite as warm as Puerto Rico, it should be a more interesting, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll probably stay in a hostel for a few nights at the start of the trip, then get a little apartment, same as I did in Nicaragua, if it makes sense.

House in Hackney

With the visa wheels still turning, I decided to make the most of my stay in England by moving down to London, where lots of old and new friends are living.

After a couple of weekend visits testing the water, I started looking for a place in the Dalston / Old St / Hackney area (because that’s where the cool kids live) on the 1st of October. I was amazed by how easy it was; 30 minutes after my Gumtree ad went up, I was already getting phone calls about places which fit the bill. That first weekend, I’d found a great place just west of Hackney and moved in that Friday. The whole thing took a week, start to finish!

I’m sharing the house with three Aussies: Tom, Anna and Nick, all from Melbourne. We have the bottom two floors of a converted Georgian house, with a kitchen and living room on top and bedrooms and bathrooms downstairs. I have a little double room with a window onto the garden; it’s still quite spartan, and I’ll probably keep it that way so that I can still travel light when the time comes.

Good gracious, London is fun. It’s strange getting used to the idea of regularly skipping really good nights and interesting events, just because there are so many options all the time: brilliant.

Pat and Emilie’s wedding

Last weekend was the wedding of two of my good friends, Pat and Emilie, who I’ve been staying with off and on in San Francisco for quite a while now. They’re both originally from the east coast, so they held the ceremony and reception in a town called Kent, Connecticut (about 3 hours north of New York) near where Pat went to school. And it was indescribably awesome.

All the groomsmen were staying in a great little fishing lodge right by the river a little way out of town, which smelt of sap and leather chairs. Having got the red-eye over from San Francisco and arrived first, Justin (the best man) and I nabbed the best beds, said hello as the rest of the wedding party began to trickle in, then headed off to the rehearsal.

The rehearsal probably left me more confused about weddings than before, as the priest was barking his instructions about the myriad different responsibilities of groomsmen, how they differed from ushers, protocol for leading in family, leading out the bridesmaids (all 15 of them!) and when to stand and sit, all in an echo-y church with a full-on thunderstorm raging outside. I was hoping everything would fall into place for the real thing…

After the rehearsal we headed off for an unbelievable dinner laid on by Pat’s mother. Everyone got a pouch of seafood, with a lobster, clams, mussels and the tenderest sweetcorn I’ve ever had. I managed to sneak a second lobster too: textbook manoeuvre. It was great to talk to lots of Pat’s friends and family from when he was a nipper in Manhattan, along with Emilie’s boss and a bunch of her east-coast bridesmaids who I’d never met before.

However, the real fun started after the groomsmen retired to the lodge for chit chat and drinks. What happens in the lodge stays in the lodge, but suffice it to say that a well thrown marshmallow leaves a mark, and hanging onto the bonnet of a rental car while it bombs round a field is difficult.

On the morning of the wedding, the bridesmaids were up at 6am to get their hair and makeup done. The groomsmen were up at 7am, and still managed to fit in a row on the river and breakfast in town before getting suited and booted for the church.

The wedding itself went completely without incident: everyone was where they needed to be and it all went off without a hitch. I have never seen someone as nervously excited as Emilie was outside the church, waiting to walk down the aisle.

After some photos, and narrowly avoiding another thunderstorm, we jumped onto buses and headed out to the reception, which was at a gorgeous house a few miles away. I’m running out of superlatives, but it was a great night. All the stuff you hope for: delicious food, a few drinks, dancing like extras in Miami Vice, a stunning location and a tent full of interesting people united in their happiness for Mr. and Mrs. Buckley.

I hate my job…

My job is so fucking unbelievable. I’ll try to sum it up by first telling you about the folks I work with…

See it all at reddit.com.

Posted via web from An Englishman in San Francisco

Passport stolen!

… by bureaucratic inefficiency.

As soon as I got back to the UK, I sent my passport in to the US embassy in London to try and get my visa stamp, hoping to get it back in time to shoot straight back to the west coast. Unfortunately, my optimism for quick and easy processing was once again ill-placed, and I still haven't got my passport back.

The embassy can't give me any information, good or bad, so I don't know how long it will be before I'm able to travel. Although I'm increasingly inured to leisurely paperwork processing by now, this delay has been a particularly frustrating one; I've missed Christoff's whole family visiting San Francisco, Alex's birthday BikeBQ (first non-ironic sighting of the <blink/> tag in a while , a mini-festival this weekend to the north of the city, Pat's bachelor party and a bunch of other bits and pieces.

Currently scheduled to get back to San Francisco on July 28th, although I've already had to push my flight back twice – that plan might change!

All my Yosemite pictures

Are a Flickr set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69148053@N00/sets/72157620959491413/

This post earned me cake

Currently at the South by South-West conference in Austin. I saw a fantastic talk from Larry Lessig this morning advocating campaign finance reform as the first step to fix America’s broken democracy.

The event’s been brilliant so far; lots of interesting talks on interesting topics by interesting people. The only real frustration has been the labyrinthine Austin Convention Center venue. The architect seems to have deliberately hampered any attempt to get from the 4th to 3rd floor – there’s a variety of lifts, escalators, even staircases, which go to one floor and not the other. Very confusing.

On the plus side, when trying to get to the 4th floor just now I ended up in the 3rd floor bloggers lounge, where they’re giving away free cake. So this post is justification for the delicious sponge cake I just took and demolished.

US visas: why so easy?

As I expected all along, my O-1 visa came through today, so I am now free to live and work in the United States for the next three years.

To be honest, I’m a little surprised at how easy it is to come by a work visa nowadays: although my case was a no-brainer, perhaps they should think about raising the bar. Perhaps 2 Nobel prizes rather than just 1 would keep out the riffraff?

Either way it is great news and it’s a massive relief for it to be sorted; even not getting the visa would have been better than interminable limbo.

I’m sending waves of good energy and positive karma to my co-founder Amir and lawyer Chris for all their help.

WINchester

I spent last week in Winchester, staying with my friends Rich and Su, after a brief spell in Cambridge with Amir and Kirsty.

I have now recognised my various homestays as a veiled excuse for quality testing group-play video games. It all started in Nicaragua with Lee’s rum-fuelled Guitar Hero III, followed by real-ale and kebab-fuelled WiiTennis against Amir (I absolutely dominated him, BTW, no matter what he says), a cheeky bit of Samba di Amigo with Kirsty (at which she obliterated me), and finally a good few hours of Tangfastic fuelled Guitar Hero World Tour at Rich’s.

Now staying with parents in Bury where group play video games means shouting the answers at VCRed episodes of University Challenge.

I stopped in at my house in Southampton, which is being well looked-after by my tenant, to pick up mail and found I’m now eligible for my freebie Cambridge MA. That means it’s been 10 terms since I graduated – I’ve been out of university longer than I was in it! Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be around to attend the dinner and pick it up… whether that matters I don’t know, but I am definitely going to refer to myself as Mr. James Brady BA MA (Cantab) MBCS at all times from now on. Makes referring to oneself in the third person much more fun.

Frrreezing

The trip back from Costa Rica went off without a hitch. Only two things of note: the first was the delicious hot cinnamon bun I had at San Jose airport, made all the better by the preceeding 2 months of endless beans and rice combinations. The second was the fact that I managed to accidentally smuggle a knife onto two international flights.

My carry-on bag was checked by security normally in San Jose (X-ray machine, cursory search by the man in gloves) and again in Houston (more X-rays, more poking and prodding). It was only after I’d cleared security that I went to get out my phone and realised my Leatherman was in the bag, complete with 3-inch razor sharp blade.

Considering how much of a hassle security is, you’d at least expect them to find a large, lethal block of metal in an otherwise pretty empty bag…

Back in England, I went pretty much straight to my niece’s naming ceremony near Nottingham. A nice little excuse to get the whole family together and see the Welsh contingent who might otherwise have been a stretch to visit. The newly named Bea was very chilled out throughout the proceeding, as all the kids were I suppose. Perfect nap timing by the parents left them all in an angelic daze.

I spent Christmas with the parents up in Bury which was nice and relaxed, although there’s not really too much to do up there any more so I left to come down here to London pretty sharpish.

I’ve managed to wangle a free place to stay in Mayfair, which is pretty sweet. The offices of one of our investors has a spare bedroom which was available over the holidays. It’s actually not particularly convenient as most of my friends are either in Hackney or Canary Wharf – pretty much the other side of town – but I’ve enjoyed mincing down Oxford Street, delivering dismissive snears to as many mono-lingual tourists as possible. I went to Cambridge, dahling.

New Year’s Eve was relatively low-key, compared to some of the craziness of San Francisco, but great fun. I spent the evening in a bar with a bunch of friends and friends-of-friends before heading back to a house party, staying up till the early hours sipping peppermint tea.

My plans for the next few weeks are still pretty unclear. I know I’m going to Cambridge tomorrow, and Winchester after that. Depending on how quickly my lawyer can get the visa application in, I’ll then either go back to Central America – maybe Panama – or head straight back to San Francisco.

Looking forward to leaving this climate! It’s pretty much a 30ºC temperature difference Nicaragua to here, and getting more… -10ºC in London today!