Archives for October, 2005
October 25, 2005
I’m sitting here in the port of Marseille, and figured I’d click on my laptop to see if maybe there was a stray internet connection.. and sure enough there is. Strange, considering there isn’t much around here and wifi radio connections aren’t really designed to travel a long way. Maybe the fish have a transmitter? 
Anyway, I spent the day wondering around Marseille and just generally having a good time. Cara would say I was "shuffling", which I suppose is a rather Corsican way of walking around when you have no particular reason to do so or place to go. I did lots of people watching, which was fun because there are a lot of interesting people here. I happened to be in a main public square at about 12:00pm, and that was when lunch "started". The square (and the many surrounding outside eating places quickly filled up with the local worker-bees who seem to relish the minutes. Lunch at most places for most people consisted of either a pasta dish or meat. Always two courses (an "appetizer" and then main course), and then a dessert. For drinking, the most common was red wine, then white wine, and then beer. Few people drank water, although "perrier" was the choice when water was delivered.
Lunch lasted about 1.5 hours for most people. Quite a long time, especially to someone like me who (when I worked in the corporate world) rarely took a lunch break at all — preferring to eat at my desk so I could leave that much earlier. Here, I get the feeling that "work" is a lot different then back in North America. It appears people who work together are actually "friends" of a sort. They work together, have lunch together, and from what I understand from our cousins, many of them get together "socially" after work, too.
One thing I did find a bit funny yesterday was when I was in the shipping place’s office. I was there when "Elodie" arrived, and the first thing she did was "make the rounds" and give a "kiss kiss" greeting to every person in the office (7 of them, including the boss who had his own glass cage office). Now I don’t know about you, but that would really drive me nutty if I had to do that every work day. Not to mention that in Canada or the US you’d quickly get slapped with a T & A lawsuit if you even *thought* about approaching a girl in the office for a "kiss kiss" good-morning.
Anyway, I’m sitting in the van right now and preparing to have a bit of a snack. My aunt gave my some "Terrine de Chevreuil aux Airelles", which I think is some kind of goat patte. Not sure, but I bought a baggette (bread) and Cara packed a knife for me.. so that will be my nice snack and perhaps dinner if I like it.
I arrive in Bastia at 7:00am tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll get a good night sleep tonight. Wish me luck finding a plug!
October 24, 2005
I’m writing this from the top of some hill in Marseille. There’s a big (famous, I’m sure) church up here with a huge gold (looks like gold to me) statue overlooking the town of Marseille. I have no idea what is the name of this place or anything about it. Nothing. All I know is that there were a *lot* of steps to climb to make it up here, and I’m glad I sold my old heavy laptop and bought this lighter (second-hand) one 8 months ago.
This is what happens when I travel without Cara. I have no idea what I’m visiting, where I am, or the significance of anything I see. All I know is that I’ve been to Marseille and I’ve seen a lot of stuff so far. Usually when people ask me if I’ve seen [insert famous thing or place here] I’ll look over to Cara and ask her if I’ve seen it or done that or whatever. I don’t keep track of things like that.
Mostly because I don’t care. I just like the travelling part and the seeing part. The remembering and understanding what I’m seeing part I usually leave to Cara.
I should have brought the camera, because the big golden statue and the church is actually kind of pretty.
Speaking of "stuff".. I am very happy to report that in the back of the van lies four blue and white rubbermaid containers. 1.03 square meters of Henri and Cara’s stuff. After a rather dreary night on the boat (yes, I actually did trip that kid, and it worked because he never came back) I arrived at 7:32am and drove off to find the shipping place. Folks, if you’re ever in Europe and decide to use "mappy" to try and find something.. you should know that it only gives you about 25% of the streets you’ll actually see. This means that if you’re anything like me you’ll get very very lost and wind up seeing more of the city then you want to at that moment.
Eventually, I found the place and the nice lady was helpful enough to immediately find Yohanne, who spoke great English. I also learned a new French word, today. I have no idea how to spell it, but it sounds like "fir" and means "street light". So anyway, Yohanne took my 200 Euros and then gave me a slip of paper. I can’t say that slip of paper was all so wonderful. You’d think for 200 Euros they’d have it embossed with an official stamp or something — maybe even some of that nifty silver glitter-pen writing or something. But now, all my paper had was some chicken scratch French writing that would supposedly get me into the warehouse AFTER I found the customs people and had them stamp it.
So off to the customs people I went.
I also found out how to say, "You can’t miss it" in French, but this convenient phrase has since left my mind in search of other more appreciative people. You see… I did miss it. I must be a moron, because after 3 hours, 4 different customs buildings, about 3 different helpful people, and even one "follow me in your van and I’ll lead you there" 25 minute drive (which, incidentally, led me to the 4th and yet incorrect customs building), I finally found the place. How did I find it? Simple. I walked into a post office and asked them how I would go about receiving a package that had arrived from Canada.
Bingo. It turns out that there is a 5th customs building in Marseille that is used for importing personal effects. Ya… makes sense, to me too. The little booth/window I needed was on the 3rd floor and the lady was actually very nice and helpful. I think she felt sorry for me.
She had me sign 6 (yes, that’s a SIX) different forms, and then put a big stamp on the paper from the shipping company. He stamp was quite nice. It had three different ink colors and some very official looking animal thingy design along with some room for her signature. I think it’s one of the coolest stamps I’ve every seen, actually. I should have got her to stamp something else with it, because they warehouse people took that paper and kept it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
After the customs, I decided to celebrate with a cold drink. I splurged and bought a "temptation" tropical can of some kind of fruit pop. It was very tasty. OK, I’m sure that tidbit of gastronomic delight was just what you wanted, right? Hey, it’s my blog and that can of pop (1.50 Euros if you’re interested) was a very good pop.
So now I brought out the map that the shipping guy gave me, which had a little marking of where I needed to go and pick up the pallet of stuff. No problem, right? Wrong. Of course, the place he marked was not the right place. It was close, but not as in the office-next-door close. It was close as in about one kilometer off close. That’s not very close unless you’re planning to drop a nuke on Marseille.
Especially when there are 900 little side streets within that 1 square kilometer and nobody has ever heard of the place you’re looking for.
I finally figured out to stop and look at a phone book, and of course that had the address of the place I needed. I brought that to a pharmacy (where I also bought some allergy pills because I forgot mine back in Corsica — along with my pillow!!), and asked for directions. She gave me precise directions, with a nice red line to follow on the map.
In 10 minutes I was pulling up to the warehouse. I entered the "reception" and immediately walked back out. Folks, there was a WALL of smoke. I don’t mean just a little hazy.. I mean like you couldn’t see past the wall of smoke to what was on the other side. Picture two sets of doors. The first set is the outside doors, where you walk into.. and then you’re in a little walkway area and you have the second set of inside doors. Well, inside this little walkway area was the wall of smoke. I can’t figure this out, but somehow they had managed to route the ventilation of the office into this little area, and of course they were all smoking in the small office. It was really kind of amazing, and the first time I’ve ever seen that happen.
I entered through the wall of smoke and through the inside doors into the office. They all laughed when I entered, and then offered me a cigarette. I don’t understand French humor.
Anyway, it was no problem to get the pallet, although I was a bit surprised when the guy in the forklift actually tried to drive the whole pallet right INTO the van. I’m not a "space visualization" guy, but you’d think someone who stacked trucks with pallets for a living would be, right? Wrong again. This guy must have been one-eyed, because that pallet was definitely not going to fit. No matter how hard he tried, how many times he backed up and tried again.. it was still not going to fit.
Finally, I made some "cutting" motion with my hands to try and get the guy to understand that we could just cut the wrapping (holding the boxes together onto the pallet) and load them into the van by hand. No, he was going to try again. A few more times. Finally, he realizes it isn’t going to fit. He hops off the fork-lift and cuts the packaging and then walks away. Nice. So I loaded the containers onto the van, went back into the smoke-office, signed where I needed to sign in order to get the gate lifted so I could leave…
… and now I have our stuff!
So it didn’t take two days. I already tried to change my ferry ticket to the one that’s leaving tonight, but it’s full. Supposedly. I don’t think it really is, but that’s an easier answer then trying to actually help the stupid English-speaking person when you’d rather talk on the phone, right? Right.
So I decided to just hang out in Marseille. See the sites, etc.
You’re probably wondering why I’m at the top of this hill area at this church thing right? Well, I tried for 1/2 hour to find a free wireless connection, but couldn’t find one. Since I understand how the technology works, I know that the higher you are the more likely you’ll find a signal. This place is the highest in the area, and thus.. here I am. And yes, I found a signal and so I’m writing in my blog and will soon pull out my packed-lunch (thanks Cara!), have some food, and work for a while.
Then it’s off to find a place to park for the night, sleep in the van, and figure out what to do tomorrow until the evening when the ferry leaves. I’ve got a ton of work to do, still, and I loaded my software development tools onto my laptop, so I can program "locally" without an internet connection. It’s not like I want to stay at this church/hill for two days, right? And using my cell to connect to the internet is a bit costly (about .25 euro per minute).
So life is good. Hopefully not crazy person is going to hijack my van, and I’ll get back to Corsica safe and sound. I hope Rebecca and Amy are having a good time. I’m sure they’re catching up on sleep and I think Cara is going to take them to Port Vechio tomorrow. It’s a pretty place so they’ll have fun. But maybe they’ll just go into Bastia and shop. Girls. :)
Oh, by the way, here’s a picture of the church I’m at. Isn’t google great? It’s called the "Notre Dame de la Garde".
October 24, 2005
Well, good news everyone! Sort of.
I’m currently on a ferry in the Mediterranean, on my way to Marseille. Yes, I’m sitting in the lounge area waiting for night and then morning to be over because I was too cheap to dish out for a bunk or room or even a "chair".
Well, by the time I post this I won’t be.. Because I obviously can’t post it to my blog until I get connected to the internet again, which will be tomorrow sometime unless the boat sinks, someone steals my laptop while I’m sleeping, or I accidentally roll over and smother her it.
You see, folks.. I decided that the cheapest and best way for us to get our stuff out of the clutches of the evil shipping/French people is to visit them, pay them lots of hard-earned (and some not-so-hard-earned) money, and then think evil thoughts about them for a while afterwards.
The ferry from Bastia to Marseille is an overnighter. We left the harbour at 8:00pm and we’ll arrive in Marseille at 7:30am. So night #1 is on the floor in a public area of the ferry. Don’t worry, I have a bag of goodies and I just finished watching a DVD on my computer. I was lucky enough to find the ONLY plug on the whole boat that isn’t under lock and key. Literally. There are locks on the plugs. Except for this one. When the lady saw me I think she told me that I wasn’t supposed to be using it, because she kept wiggling her finger at me and saying things in French.. but I was too quick for her and pulled a "frenchy" on her by replying back in English and saying "je ne parle pas la francais", which means… you guessed it, "I don’t speak a word of french so go away and stop bothering me."
Anyway, so now the DVD is over and it’s time for "bed". That means basically plopping over and falling asleep here in the hallway. Tomorrow I have a big day ahead of me. But I’m fully prepared — I hope. I have maps. I have names and numbers of important shipping people I have spoken with and hopefully will know where is our stuff. I have all kinds of paperwork to show who I am, where I come from, where I’m going, and that I’m not really such a bad person so please don’t give me any custom’s trouble. I even have a list of (hopefully) free wifi access points where I can surf the net and do some work once this whole thing is over.
Speaking of which.. I’ll be in Marseille for two days. Yes, that means tomorrow night I’ll be spending the night in the back of the van HOPEFULLY with our stuff. My Uncle was able to find a little mattress for me (I swear he has one of *everything* in his garage), and I took some blankets from our house. So things should be ok. I have been warned, repeatedly and separately, by my Uncle, my Aunt, my cousin, and then another cousin, to watch out for crazy people who apparently roam the streets of Marseille in search of rusted old vans with people sleeping inside. I told them I would try to park in a place where there is lots of light, and that seems to be a good idea.
I’m spending the night in Marseille, because the shipping people told me that it would possibly take two days to deal with customs. Two days. Two days! I sure hope I don’t spend two days dealing with customs, because that’s a lot of French I don’t know. Day two will hopefully be spent wishing I had booked a ferry for that night, but how glad I am that I found some free internet. I have a ferry ticket for Tuesday evening, and I arrive back in Marseille on Wednesday morning at 7:30am. Good times. But now that I have the layout of the ship, I’ll be able to find that one unlocked plug before the stewards get to it.
Rebecca is in Bastia!! And Amy!!!!! They made it!!!! 
Their trip was pretty good, until they reached Nice. Then it went bad. Like as in let’s have a 7 hour delay and not tell anyone what’s going on type of bad.
Really. She was supposed to arrive in Bastia at 3:30pm, and at around 4:00pm Cara and I started asking where is the plane? Of course, there was no information and after a whopping 3 hours of waiting we *finally* were told there was a problem, and that they didn’t know what was the problem.
So to make a long story short, imagine yourself waiting for someone at a hick-town airport and the flight doesn’t show up. The people in the airport have no idea why, and you have no idea if you should drive the 45 minutes back home or if you should stay because maybe the flight might show up any minute from now.
We went home, and fortunately our smart-thinking Aunt phoned the airport in Nice and found out the problem. At 10:30pm or so the plane finally arrived and Rebecca and Amy were officially in Corsica.
Today, Rebecca met a few of the cousins (our neighbors) and sampled some Muscat (very good specialty of the area — an aperitif wine). They went to the camping (the place my Uncle — the one who recently died — built and where Philippe and I have "land") to see the sunset, and I think they’ll have a great few days without me.
Good stuff.
Well, that’s all for now. Some screaming kid keeps running into the hallway and I think I might trip him the next time he runs past. We’ll see.
Cheers!
October 20, 2005
Well, a while ago I finally got fed up and called the place where we shipped our pallet of rubbermaid boxes. So the guy tells me that there have been a lot of delays and yada yada yada he’s going to look into the status and find out what’s going on.
Sure.
So three days later I call him back and this time I demand to know what’s going on or I’m going to initiate a chargeback for the fees we paid and file an insurance claim.
30 minutes later he tells me that our stuff has arrived in Marseille. 
Moron.
So I call the shipping company in Marseille and try my best, in French, to ask about our pallet of stuff that supposedly has arrived and is somewhere in Marseille. After a while, the lady I was speaking with gets a little exasperated and hands me over to her ENGLISH-SPEAKING co-worker. (Don’t even ask why she didn’t do that to begin with…) This fellow proceeds to tell me that the ship with our container has arrived and is going to unload sometime during the week and I should call back on Friday. (This happened on Tuesday.) He tells me that the container will be trucked to their warehouse and needs to be unloaded and sorted, and that someone will call me when it is ready to be picked up.
I explain to him that I live in Corsica, and am thinking about how to get our stuff over here and he tells me that he was contacted earlier by the company we asked to look into clearing our stuff through customes and then forwarding to us.
So far so good. I’ll call on Friday. As instructed.
So on Wednesday, I hear back from the company we contacted to look into clearing customs and forwarding.. and they give me a price quote of 537 EUROS. That’s $643 USD or $757 CAD in case you don’t have your currency exchange calculator handy.
Holy Crap!
Keep in mind that we have already spent just under $800 USD ($941 CAD) to get our stuff up to this point. Yes, we’ve already spent $800 USD so far on this exercise of futile shipping.
So now we are told (for the first time, I might add) that we have to pay almost the same amount JUST to get our stuff from the shipping company to us in Corsica? I politely ask why it is so expensive, and am told there are fees being charged by the shipping company, fees being charged by the French Customs people, fees charged by this "forwarding" company for their services, and then of course there is VAT (value added tax) since we’re in Europe… AND.. she explains that this price does not include any extra fees that might be charged IF the Customs People decide to actually open or boxes and inspect things. It seems this is an extra charge.
OK, I can understand that the company would charge a fee for THEIR services.. but what are all these OTHER charges? Crap. That’s a lot of money. I’m starting to think shipping wasn’t a good idea and maybe we should have just used Canada Post.
So I’ve got lots of time, right? I was told by the shipping company to call on Friday for status.. but I decide to call them today (Thursday) to ask about this "extra money" issue. I don’t like surprises and want all the info I can get right now. So I call the shipping company, but this time I am smart enough to ask if there’s someone who speaks English. I’m in no mood to dork around in my Franglish with someone who is trying to learn English from their customer who is speaking French. She passes me to someone else….
Oh, by the way, I should mention here that it actually costs MONEY to call anywhere in France. Yes, you have to pay per call. So each time I call these people (or anyone) it is costing me a per minute fee. So let’s be sure to add this into our total amount we’re spending here… 
So I am now speaking with someone who speaks English, kind of. I try to ask if there are any "other" charges that I might have to pay before I can get my stuff from them.. and she tells me "of course". Like I’m the idiot who should know better then to expect that the amount we paid to the shipping company in Canada would actually cover the WHOLE cost of getting our stuff shipped to the destination where we can pick it up.
Duh. Right? Stupid me. (More sarcasm)
I proceed to ask how much, and am told that there is a 185 EURO ($221 USD or $261 CAD) charge by THEIR SHIPPING COMPANY for the work that is required to unload the container, have it trucked to their warehouse, and then "dispursed" so my stuff is removed from the big container and stored somewhere for me to pick it up.
Oh.. and by the way.. there is a 20 EURO per DAY additional charge for storage if you go over your 6 days of "free" storage at their warehouse. AND.. she tells me that since my stuff was delivered to the warehouse on Monday our "free days" run out on Sunday.
Don’t get me started to explain why I spoke with someone on Tuesday who said to call back on Friday (at the earliest), and then find out our stuff has been in their warehouse since Monday.
Morons.
So… then I ask her if she thinks there will be any charges for Customs. Yes.. there is a 50 EURO (I’m tired of exchange, you get the point) charge just to submit the customs paperwork, and then another 50 EUROs for the Customs People to process it and actually do the paperwork. So we’re looking at EXTRA fees, at a minimum of 285 EURO just to get our stuff out of their warehouse.
Now I still have to figure out how to get our stuff out of their warehouse and to Corsica. I can continue to bleed money and hire the forwarding company, for a small fortune… or I can maybe go get our stuff myself.
This is where things stand now. I found out my cousin has a van, and I am in the process of trying to track it down so I can measure it’s hight and width, so that I can get accurate pricing from the ferry company to see how much it will cost to bring the van across. My idea is that it might be cheaper for me to just take the ferry across to France, drive to Marseille, try to figure out Customs, and then bring our stuff back in the van.
Couple of issues:
1) The lady from the shipping company said to plan for at least 2 days of dealing with Customs. That’s not a good sign, and likely means there will be a problem.. and my poor French is not going to be helpful when dealing with it.
It also means I’ll have to spend at least one night in Marseille… and at this point I’m just too cheap to spend money on even a hostel room so I’m thinking that the van and a blanket will suffice. Spending money on ferry tickets, gas, road tolls, and food is enough. I can sleep in the damn van. I’ve got a blanket. A red one. I just washed it yesterday 4 times, so my allergies don’t go crazy.
2) The ferry doesn’t operate every day, at this time of year. Thus, I don’t know if there will be one when I want to go back. I could be stuck in Marseille an extra day or so waiting for the ferry unless timing works out well. At the moment, the ferries are going every other day.. so at the most I might have to spend two nights in the van.
3) Clearing Customs. I was told to bring a long list of papers, including proof of my current employer that I was employed by them in Canada for the last 6 months. Sure, that’s easy to do when you are the OWNER of your company and not an employee… The problem is that if I declare myself a self-employed, then it will start a paperwork trail that will lead to them asking the next question of how am I supporting myself in France? Well, I’m self-employed. Ok, that’s great… except that in France there is a law that you MUST register your business, no matter how large or small, if you are self-employed. And then I would have to pay registration fees (in the thousands, not hundreds), social taxes, and a host of other "business related" fees and taxes. PLUS, it would be mandatory to register for a VAT number and I’d have to track that, too….
So, I’m going to maybe fib a little and write myself a nice letter that says I’ve been an employee of my company for 6 months, and NOT bother to put that I am the owner… and I’ll "sign" it from a fictional name. I’m sure God will forgive me eventually.
So, to recap.. basically, it is going to wind up costing us about $1200 USD to $1500 USD to have our stuff arrive in Corsica. I’m not happy about that, but I am sooo thankful that several people helped us out by giving us cash before we left. That cash is now proving very handy, and I really appreciate it! Thanks!
OK, I’m going back to work now, and I’ll update as soon as I have more news. Hopefully my next update will be from me sitting on the other side of the couch.. thanks to my wireless network that will hopefully be set up once I have my stuff!
October 20, 2005
OK folks, you’ve all been asking for an update.. so here it is. 
First, I’ll explain why I haven’t posted a new entry for a while.
I’ve been working!
Yes, I know it’s hard to believe because I usually worked so little back "home". (That was sarcasm for the more dim-witted of you.) On a side note, I have no problem to insult my loyal blog readers.. it’s my blog after all and if you have nothing better to do then come here and ask for updates then I think I deserve to insult you. 
So ya, I’ve been working.
"Doing what?", you ask?
Well, a few different things. If you haven’t already clicked the What I Do link at the top of this page, you probably don’t know what I do.
I own a business that does "internet stuff". My businesses name is long and involves toads so I’ll just jump to the meat of things. Basically, I have a big (to me, but not when compared to monster companies) website hosting business, small domain registration business, internet consulting business, and I sell some software that I wrote a while ago called "SnippetMaster".
It’s this last bit that I have been working on literally day and night for the last few weeks. My "breaks" come only when some other need presents itself (like setting up new customers for hosting, answering the occasional helpdesk request, or fixing some problem for some client, or eating one of Cara’s yummy meals, visiting our pink bathroom, or sleeping. Even sleeping is pretty much work for me, however, since I usually stay awake with lines of programming code going through my head and trying to figure out what is causing that infernal bug I’m trying to fix…)
You see, my software is outdated. It still works well, and does what it "needs" to do.. but I haven’t updated it to keep up with all the new web browsers and other new things that weren’t around 2 years ago when I wrote it. And so… many of my customers are asking for an update. They want new features. They want it to work with Mac browsers. They want multiple users. they want ability to edit more then one snippet on a page. I have a looong list — trust me.
So I’ve been literally sitting here in my "work zone" for 15 - 20 hours a day for the last week trying to get the software updated and fixed up so it’s just perfect. I hired a developer to handle some of the work, but a lot of it is stuff that only I can do since it would cost too much to hire someone to "learn" how my crappy coding was done the first time around and to fix it up and then actually be productive. Part of my problem is that I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to programming, and so I’m spending a lot of time getting things just right, instead of just hammering them out and then sending out buggy software.
Here’s a picture of me working in my "office". All I can say is that I love my laptop, and can hardly wait until our container is finally here so I can set up my wireless network and have some freedom to work elsewhere instead of tethered to the corner of our couch. Pretty soon I’ll have my cell phone enabled with wireless internet, and then I’ll be able to actually leave the house and work while away. Isn’t technology great?
So that’s why I haven’t updated my blog for a while. I’ve been just crazy busy, and I wanted to get things finished and released to my beta testing team before my sister-in-law arrives on Saturday.
But.. it looks like that won’t happen.. AND.. see my next blog post about the status of our "stuff".
Cheers everyone! Life in Corsica is good.
