The Definite Article

So, I lost my cell phone yesterday. Left it on the number 3 Lothian bus somewhere between Gilmarton and Canonmills. So I had no alarm. So I was late for work - not that late, but late. So I just barely made it on to this conference call.

I hate conference calls. They're an excuse to not do real work.

The place where I'm working now has 1 project manager for every 1.3 techincal people. Most techies have six or so projects, so most project managers have seven or eight projects. As you might expect, it takes two years to deploy fresh toilet roll to the men's toilets, including an eighteen week testing phase. It's insane.

Losing my phone made me feel like an idiot. Carol flew in today and I was supposed to meet her at a Starbucks on Princes St. (the upstairs one, with a full view of Castle Rock and Edinburgh Castle). Without my phone, she had no way of calling me to let me know when she arrived, so I was going to have to wait for her from basically 1430 until whenever she showed up.

Plus, I'm basically homeless here, looking for a flat while I stay with friends. So I'm calling letting agents and having them call me back. Which they can't do, because I left my phone on the bus.

Anyway, I get to work, have this call, get my picture taken for my new security badge, get in a car and drive to a back-up data center to unrack some Nokia IP710s that had caught fire. (Little known fact: Nokia IP710s catch fire. They are an electrical and fire hazard. Do not buy them.)

On the way out, I call the Lothian Bus company and, lo and behold, a driver turned in my phone! I'm surprised and feel extremely lucky. Of course, my phone had a pay-as-you-go SIM with only 12p on it, so someone might have turned it in only after they realized it was worthless.

So on the way back we stop and pick up my phone. Then we go to look at a flat quickly, before lunch is over. Well, the letting agent, in this case Broughton Property Management in Edinburgh, had told me to call if I was going to cancel. I hadn't called, hadn't cancelled and was looking forward to viewing this flat, at 7 East Claremont, down in Canonmills.

Well, no one showed. We sat around for about ten minutes and then I called Broughton Management. "You were asked to confirm and you didn't." the woman said when I called. "Sorry, but no one will be out to help you." Then she hung up the phone.

What arrogant shits! As if there weren't fifty other letting agents in Edinburgh! I don't need their service. I'm the customer, for Christ's sake! Argh! So frustrating. And they lied to me!

Anyway, I was hacked off, so we didn't call them back, just went back to work. I skipped lunch and went to Starbuck's to wait for Carol.

When she showed up, I realized that yes, it was worth getting out of bed this morning. She looked beautiful! Such a great site for sore eyes. I'd post her picture here but I have strict orders not to do it, so you'll all just have to come visit me in Edinburgh to meet her.

Anyway, Carol and I caught up a bit, exchanged Edinburgh numbers and I went back to work and she went over to her friend Brigitte Wallace's place.

At around ten until six, Adam and I pile into his car to race over to another flat we're supposed to be viewing at six. Well, it should only be ten minutes away, but Princes St is a worse snarl than usual and it takes us half an hour, so we get there at 6:15pm and the agent who was supposed to show us the flat is gone. I can't really blame her; I'd have left, too, if someone were fifteen minutes late, but it still sucked.

So we went and had a few beers and flirted with the pretty French waitress who brought us our drinks, then Adam went home and Carol dragged me out to dinner at Chez Jacques - passable, although her dinner was better than mine. Their menu is a little heavy on seafood for me, the chicken was poorly done, with a lousy balance of flavors. You'd think chicken, sundried tomatoes and chorizo would be a natural match but they somehow ruined it.

We left and Carol refused to come home with me, saying that it would take advantage of Roddy's hospitality. She may be right. At any rate, I came home and Roddy was just leaving for Francesca's.