Bridgend...

I cannot surpress a big smile while walking through this hotel. They have booked a room in a golf resort in Bridgend. My room has two kingsized beds and a complete setting corning overlooking he first hole of the course.

[ the taps are gold plated and the corridors adorned with suits of armour... ]

My cosy bedroom...

Yesterday I took an evening walk over a dark golf course (had a real Blair Witch feeling to it). When I came back at the hotel, all doors were closed.

[ luckily I found a bell to ring and they let me back in... ]

Because the hotel is not near any other facilities, I stayed in the hotel-pub to have some dinner. Having difficulty choosing which dessert to take, I', going to try them all. Yesterday I tried the white chocolate cheesecake and the apple pie, today I'll go for the lemon tard and the sticky toffee pudding...

Sticky toffee pudding, mmmm...

Cardiff

Arrived in Cardiff yesterday afternoon. Unfotunately no time to do any real sightseeing, I had some work to do.

[ just enough time to quickly check out the city centre... ]

Cardiff castle, only seen from the outside...

The good thing of being out on your own is that you can choose the spot where you are going to do the work. The hotel I'm staying appears to be from a Ikea catalogue, don't feel like sitting there the whole evening. Luckily Cardiff has enough smoke free (!) pubs where I can settle quietly in a corner and do some work...

Working with a meal and a pint...

Am currently at the new test location, ready for the third day of testing.

In the train

Today I've spend a large part of the day in the train. From Colwyn Bay to Cardiff. Luckily I had a direct connection, so I could just sit down, relax, read and even do some work. To make sure I would be able to run tests at all the locations, the gave me a mobile modem.

[ nice device, but I keep forgetting it is not my mouse... ]

The white thing sticking out is the mobile modem...

I can now even use the internet, e-mail and blog on the train...

English tea

I skipped the complete English breakfast this morning. Although I like to eat lots, I do not really want to do so in the morning.

[ tea and toast was more than enough for me... ]

I am familiar with the English style of tea and I have learned to directly remove any teabags. I was a bit surprised to find three teabags in the small pot...

Three teabags for very black tea...

After the tests I walked back home to the hotel. Despite the strong wind the weather was good, and Wales is just to beautiful not to explore by foot. Back in the hotel I quickly left my stuff and headed to the beach.

[ unfortunately it was complete dark when I arrived... ]

Just readable in the dark: to the beach...

First day of testing

One day down, three more to go...

[ the test went fine, no surprising results thusfar... ]

Directly after the last test I moved to the next location (Colwyn Bay). Checked into a hotel that can best be described as 'Faulty Towerish'.

The room had carpet everywhere, even in the bathroom...

Day of travel

Today I spend the whole day to travel to Wrexham, Wales. The day started with a pleasant surprise, I ran into an old highschool friend at the airport. She was just about to leave for the States for 2 years to do research into what it's like to be a daddy mouse in California.

[ good luck and have fun Trynke..! ]

After a short flight to Birmingham I changed from one small train to the next. Boy o boy, they have some strange timetables here.

[ small diesel powered trains that go every three hours... ]

The service from Chester to Wrexham isn't very frequent...

Tomorrow is the first of a series of user tests. The rest of this week I'll be traveling to different location in Wales for more tests. I mostly see the Welsh countryside through a train window...

I was treated to a beautiful sunset on the way...

Lunch list

I take my role as lunch coordinator very serious. Beside calculating the monthly lunch expenses and providing cheese slicing workshops, I'm also responsible for the lunch list.

Joining us for lunch? Put an X by your name!

A normal list would be dull and colourless, but not this one. I brightened it up by adding a pictures of eating colleagues.

[ am still surprised everybody allowed me to take a picture while they were eating... ]

Full moon..?

The total lunar eclips this week might not have been clearly visable through the thick layers of clouds, but at home I have my own little moon. And everytime a put the kettle on, I create my own miniature lunar eclipse...

[ and that is special, would't you say..? ]

My own moon look-a-like gas nozzle...

Feeding the ducks

What should we do with the dronken sailor stale bread in the office..? Feed the ducks in the canal of course! And bacause ducks are individuals too, we gave them names.

[ bread for Pim, Mina, Tessa and Thijs... ]

These are not the ducks we feed, but they are colourful...

Hiking weather!

With the beautiful weather we had this weekend, you just had to go outside for a walk. A few weeks ago I blindly selected a random hiking trail on a map, which we walked today.

[ somewhere between Tilburg and Breda... ]

Somewhere near here we spotted five does...

Apart from the poor catering (sorry!) we had a good time and the hike ended in the favourite cafetaria of Frans Bauer.

Valentine UPC

I hope the postman delivered my package on time at UPC. What is more romantic than receiving a digital TV box on Valentine day..?!

Sent with love...

I hope to make someone happy with it, happier than it ever made me...

[ oh, I hereby would like to give UPC and you a big Valentine hug... ]

Hang on to that bridge!

I have seen them for some time now, but I do not often have to wait for the bridge to close on this side of the water.

[ and you can best appreciate them if the bridge is up... ]

Three painted people, hanging on for dear life...

UPC is sweet!

Wow, never thought I would say this, but UPC is sweet! The movie with the challange to find me has been successful!

[ I was called the same day by Jasper from the webcareteam... ]

Everybody loves the webcareteam...

With the help of my UPC customer number I mentioned in the movie they were able to trace me and call. Jasper explained to me what I should do to get rid of my digital TV box.

[ all I need to do now is find time to actually do it... ]

And what dit we learn? If you ever have a problem with UPC, save yourself the trouble calling an expensive 0900 nummer to receive a sub-optimal answer. No, you should try the following:

• Start your own blog


• Share your UPC problems with the world


• Patiently wait for Jasper (do leave your customer number)

Jasper, thanks again!

Happy peanutbutter

I opened a new jar of peanutbutter and creatively took out a serving to put on my bread. When a colleague wanted a peanutbutter sandwich the next day, he didn't dare to take any...

[ it became a bit too personal... ]

Smile, your going to enjoy peanutbutter...

Webcareteam UPC

If you want to see how cute UPC is, you must meet their webcare team. They do their upmost best to help all the customers of UPC, eventhough they might not have requested to do so. Since I'm blogging about my troubles with my digital TV, I've attracted quite a few new visitors...

[ just look here if you have no idea what I'm talking about... ]

Click image for moving pictures (in Dutch)...

I'm very curious whether this (in Dutch) will make UPC give me a personal reaction. If it comes to that kind of thing I'm quite old-fashion, anonymous reactions to a blog post are not considered an official reaction.

[ I'll just wait some more... ]

Ladies..?

I thought is was all over, but they are back...

[ or is it the start of a new plague..? ]

I found these three ladybugs in my bedroom...

Luckily they look cute, are easy to catch and allowed to share my balconny with Conny.

The return of Conny..?

After the letter it has been quiet on my balconny. I hadn't seen a sign of Conny.

[ until today... ]

Hey, hi there on the other side...

I'm not sure it was caused by the nice weather, but Conny is free to terrorise all the balconnies again...

Hardrock karaoke (2)

After a long office meeting yesterday it was time for some fun and relaxation.

[ and there happened to be another hardrock karaoke in Amsterdam... ]

The hardrock setlist

With the help of a live band a number of courages (or drunk?) visitors gave their best shot at wll known rock classics. Some were quite good, others were less talented...

Tangerine-bunny (2)

Inspired by my tangerine-bunny, a colleague of my went about to create her own version this morning.

[ getting creative with fruit: fun and healthy..? ]

If we keep going like this, we'll end up with a whole tangerine-farm...

Tangerine-bunny

When you're peeling a tangerine you should always try to keep the peel in one piece. Besides this being a fun exercise, it's also highly practical.

[ you only need to throw away one single peel... ]

Looks like a bunny hiding underneath a large tangerine...

Digitale TV (3)

Hahahahaha, UPC is so adorable! It appears they have special staff that browses the internet in an attempt to pro-actively help people. Through my last UPC post (see post of yesterday below) someone used the comments (in Dutch) to give the follwing reaction:

Dear,

From your story I deducted that the administrative termination of your unused mediabox has already come into effect. The only thing you need to do is return the box. Since the box is still in its original packaging, and the returnbox is only meant for the box and remote control, you can also return the box in its current state.

Please return the box to:
antwoordnummer 6000
3600VA Maarssen

I hope I sufficiently informed you.

WIth kind regards,

UPC

Webcareteam

Reaction from the 'webcareteam', I get all warm inside...

Dear 'webcareteam', I really appreciate that you've read my blog and have taken the effort to respond to my post. I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. I'm unable to consider your response as an official answer to my problem. Your helpdesk promised me to sent me a bigger box, a box I'm still waiting for.

Also, the response number (antwoordnummer) you mention in your comment doesn't correspond with the response number printed on the return stickers I received together with the too small box. I therefore have to conclude that I haven't been informed sufficiently.

[ but I really appreciate you trying to repsond in this way... ]

Ps. I you ever respond in this fashion again, please stop calling yourself the 'webcareteam'. I'm really sorry, but with a name like that it's hard to take you serious. I now have the lovely image of you at work. With your colleagues in a big room, sweet insence smells, tranquill music, colourful tie-dye t-shirts and 'free hugs' for all during lunch breaks...

Puddle jumping

"What a foul weather outside," said a colleague today when he was looking at the rain pelting down into the canals. I didn't agree with him, I really wanted to go outside...

[ I had an urge to head into the rain and jump in a big puddle... ]

I so wanted to do this today... Image source

On the way back home I really had to control myself. I almost made a big splash in a nice puddle next to a traffic light.

[ what held me back, lack of nice rainboots..? ]

Digital TV (2)

I called with UPC to cancel my never used digital TV subscription. They promised me to mail a special box I could used to sent the box back. No problem...

[ wow, that sounded easy... ]

I waited for the return box to arrive. Today I found it on my doormat. I immediatelly started to fold the box together so I could quickly and neatly return the digital TV boxset.

Something tells me this won't fit...

As soon as I realized this was not going to work, I called UPC. I explained that I would love to get creative and make it fit, but than I couldn't guarantee that it would arrive in working condition. The helpful UPC call service lady talked me out of trying, she would make sure I was sent a bigger returnbox...

[ I will wait patiently... ]

Tea disaster

Sometimes I'm not as handy as I would like to be, today was such a day. I trioed to pour myself a cup of tea, all of a sudden the teabags just popped out of the thermos flask.

[ together with a flood of hot steaming tea... ]

Do computer mice like tea..?

The stupid thing about my spillage is that I didn't react by trying to get some paper towel to clean it up, no I first had to take a picture.

[ so I could let you share in my tea sorrows... ]

Bad cat..?!

I found a mysterieus letter on my doormat. 'Inhabitant 2nd floor' was written on it in a neat hand that reminded me of my grandmother. In the envelop was al letter in the same neat handwriting, about Conny, my balconny cat.

Inhabitant 2nd floor, that's me...

The letter contained a heartbreaking story of my neighbour, three houses down the block. The letter described how 'my' cat was terrorising her balconny early in the morning, attacking her own cat and entering her house through the cat flap!

[ the poor neighbour was unable to sleep because of it... ]

Conny even demolished her improvised barrier between balconnies. She requested from me that I would make sure 'my' cat wouldn't be able to bother her again. I sent her back a neat letter explaining that Conny isn't mine, but my neighbours cat. I hope they can work it out so Conny will leave her alone...

No spaceship

Yesterday I conducted a couple of usability tests for a project. This time not in a high tech spaceship, but behind a dinner table in someones livingroom.

Low tech usability lab: less buttons, but not less effective...

Missing a towel..? (2)

Un-be-lie-ve-ble! Today I just happened to look behind the radiator again. And yes: another towel! And this one definetely doesn't belong to the office.

[ not a business-like white towel, but a colorful red one... ]

I don't know where socks go that disappear from washing machines, but towels are bound to end up behind the radiator in our office!

I'm now keeping a daily watch of this place...