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Our last day was nice, we went to a Thai restaurant with the whole team, and just wrapped it all up again. On Thursday we had already had a wrap-up meeting with Monika and went out for cocktails Wednesday evening. My intuition and my common sense say that 2 Margaritas and a business discussion don't mix, but I hope I wasn't too bad... We did come up with some feedback and creative ideas for improvements. I mentioned KbTS with is not really suited for Getty, but the point we hopefully did manage to get across is that lots of steps could be automated. We also helped the Getty people solve another puzzle: Why was I sent to Seattle! LOL
I outed myself as the new super-teccie-allround linguistic analyst, and I have the feeling that my first "client-faced" assignment has been relatively convincing. I just have to drop "Arabic" into the conversation and they're all mine! Heehee.

Thursday evening Licia asked us out for dinner, bless! She is very sweet. She also gave us cards and chocolate for our farewell! We went to Chiso again (the Getty-favourite Japanese restaurant we had been to for lunch the other day). The food was extraordinarily good!
But in general, I liked all of the food in Seattle. They cook just like I would -- with lots of ingredients and sauces: fish topped with artichokes AND goat cheese AND capers AND basil-lemon sauce AND sun-blushed tomatoes AND pesto! Perfect! LOL

Friday night Ines and I went to the Fish Place again and really splashed out. I haven't done the maths yet but apparently we were still under our limit... We had meals and wine and dessert and port and coffee! LOL
Ines has left me her receipts, because she's not back before mid-March so I can already get the finances sorted. I guess I'll just sum  up ALL our bills and divide them by two. Most bills are split anyway, so I hope Accounts will accept it.
Which reminds me: I still haven't received the money for the Frankfurt flight on my bank account. But my credit card charges have already been booked off. Shite, I hope they'll sort it out soon!

Saturday

I have returned to the UK! The trip wasn't half as bad as expected. I haven slept for 24 hours, but has decided to keep going. I have to stay up anyway, because British Airways is hopefully going to deliver my luggage this afternoon. LOL It somehow didn't even make it out of Seattle...

The trip to New York was fine, even though I must confess that I have never heard anything quite as outrageous on an airplane as Song's security announcement (Song is the name of the airline, in case you're looking for the grammatical coherence.). I have the urge to file a complaint, and can't believe nobody else has done so yet. They have a woman's voice with the thickest Spanish accent inform the passengers about life vests and oxygen masks, while castanets and flamenco steps are heard in the background. They even have some "Spanish jokes" strewn in! I was speechless. It wasn't only completely pointless and unrelated, but also extremely sexist, racist and unfunny!

New York's JFK Airport also surprised me -- by its lack of organisation. They don't have any signs so I had to ask three times where I was supposed to go for my connecting flight. You could also freely walk in and out of the security areas, which I found rather interesting... I only caught a glimpse of the skyline from the plane, it the was brightest sunniest day. I will have to visit the place soon, even though everything "New York" makes me feel rather sad at the moment.

On the flight to Manchester I got upgraded to a seat in Business Class -- in the first row -- which means extra leg room and snazzy foot-rests and impossible-to-find extractable monitors and food trays.
I was offered a free tabloid and --bingo!-- got a Daily Scum with I a two-page spread of a completely news-free article. I can't help but admire the skills of the author. I'm not going to quote from it because it is truly cringe-worthy shit and makes me want to vomit. I'm serious.
I managed to watch The Wedding Crashers for some light entertainment. Then I saw part of Walk the Line and also started to read James Frey's My Friend Leonard, which means I've quite had just enough drug-addict media for one day.
I need some wine. I've just been to  Waitrose and bought lots of impulse foods: strawberries, anchovies, chowder, pizza... (It's only 10:45). I should also have picked up a bloody Sunday paper, for the TV programme. I forgot!

Tomorrow they are expecting me at work, and as Muriel is on holidays I am already booked for numerous problem-solving activities... yuck!
Apparently Amanda will also make public that only one person has been chosen for the Linguistic Analyst position. I'm shitting myself! What are the other two going to do?!

I am still banned from the Forum. And don't tell me it's a technical problem. I've checked: all the IP addresses I have used with my profile in the past are blocked, AND my login itself is denied access.
So if nobody tells me soon why I am unwanted and what on earth I have done, I will take my Blog Website down!! LOL

Ines and I agree that Getty are very much focussed on the human effort. In many ways their approach is just the opposite of SDL's technology-based forward-looking approach. The vocabulary translation does make it necessary to have a strong human input. But if we at SDL were faced with a HUGE task like the search-terminology translation, we would not even consider a human-only approach. We would say: "But that would take 15 months...!". Getty, on the other hand, would probably be ready to pay for 15 months human translation work!
However, I should be able to come up with some technical improvements. It would just hurt too much not to! LOL

I have all Sunday to myself now, and I don't know what to do. Jetlag is confusing. I can't sleep now or I won't be able to sleep tonight... I am already quite dizzy though. And I feel too weak to clean the house. I would unpack and wash my clothes, but I can't do that before the clothes actually arrive! LOL
I guess I'll make some phone calls. But I'll have to wait till people get up!

I am worried. Of course I am. I'm worried about George. I also worry about stupid selfish things like gigs getting cancelled that I have already booked tickets for. And of course I worry about March. It is affecting my ability to concentrate on work. I have been concentrating on work quite a lot in the past 4 years. It was the main thing I needed to concentrate on. Now I'm worried I may not be able to do my job if anything major happened. I haven't worried much in the past 20 years. I guess I was taking a "break". But it never stops, does it? No, I'm not that stupid.
What I still don't get is that attitude of "kick'em when their down". What is that supposed to achieve? An addict will always lie. But that's not a moral issue.

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