Thu04Jan20070230PM

Old Year, New Year

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Originally uploaded by Vitor Rodrigues.

For the first time in many months, I really gave some rest to my laptop during my vacations. Last week was spent mostly with family, girlfriend and friends. So, only now I got to do the review of the year 2006:

  •  started the year looking for a regular job to start after the end of my internship at IBM in Silicon Valley (my internship was going until August, but Visa applications need to be filed by April, so you need to have everything set by then).
  • after a few job interviews, got job offers from both IBM and eBay (received both within a 20 minute interval :-)).
  • decided to accept IBM’s offer. Although eBay’s offer was economically better, I really enjoy the work environment at IBM, I have most of my friends there, and more important than that, I was proposed new job responsabilities that made me prefer this position.
  • presented at some internal conferences about using a Wiki environment in a big scale software testing project.
  • presented at NPUC about using Wikis to give power to team members in the creation of an information repository for cross-team utilization.
  • hired as a regular employee in March, 5 months before the end of my internship.
  • published a IBM white paper on XML Indexing in DB2 9 pureXML.
  • decided to accept an opportunity for a 1-year international assignment at IBM Toronto Laboratory in Canada, from August 2006 to August 2007.
  • after 18 months in California, I finally enjoyed some vacations in Portugal, visiting some places I hade never been before, like Tomar, Sintra, Evora and Vila Vicosa.
  • move to Canada.
  • co-lectured a workshop at CASCON 2006.
  • visited New York for the first time.
  • published a techincal paper in the IBM developerworks website.
  • finished another soon to be published white paper also related with DB2 pureXML.
  • contributed to the DB2 pureXML demo.
  • came home for Christmas and New Year.

Lots of stuff happening, mostly at work. I have the feelling that I could have done more, but I’m still happy with the results. I did more/better than what I was expecting one year ago.

In the personal life, besides the long awaited vacations in Portugal, all the other events where caused by work or work related (look for job, move to canada, trip to NY).

 For 2007:

 

  • professionally: improve presentation, communication, organization skills.  Find time to invest in side/innovative projects. Read more.
  • personally: more local exploring. Sometimes there are lots of interesting stuff in the place we live that we ignore and only later we realize how interesting that place was. Start to read. Save more money (hint: no more gadgets :-)).

 

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Wed15Nov20061128AM

The longest shipment in UPS history - Part II

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Originally uploaded by vitor.rodrigues.
Just as a folow up on The longest shipment in UPS history - Part I, here is the picture of the box.

The tape with red letters is from canadian customs. They taped the top of the box, but they forgot the bottom so I almost lost some of my clothes :-)
I haven’t tested the used laptop and digital camera that were in the box, but I think I will never ship gadgets again. The only broken thing I found up to the moment was a photo frame. The laptop and the camera seem to be good externally, let’s see if they still work :-)


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Wed15Nov20061116AM

The longest shipment in UPS history - Part I

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Originally uploaded by vitor.rodrigues.
One month, was how long it took for UPS to deliver my package from San Francisco, California to Toronto, Canada. I was just trying to ship some of my personal belongings, mostly clothes I will need during the winter here in Canada. Since I had no space in my luggage to fit everything, I imagined that shiping it would be a good option.
Long story short long, here are the episodes that made it take so long:

  • October 17th: my package is shiped from California and i get my tracking number.
  • A few days later, UPS Canada gets the package and asks me for copy of my passport and work permit. I faxed it right away. 3 days later, someone else from UPS calls again saying that the fax machine had some problem with the toner, so I had to fax everything again. I did it, twice!
  • The package gets to Canada customs and someone calls me saying they need a copy of my passport and work permit. I say I already faxed it to UPS and they say it’s ok, they will get it from UPS.
  • I call UPS on a friday saying I will be in the US for one week and giving them my US number in case they need any more information during that week.
  • Canada customs rejects the package because they didn’t get my documents.
  • UPS US calls my Canadian number asking for my documents. I’m not at the office during that week, so I don’t reply to them. They start the process to send the package back to the origin.
  • I check the online status and see they are sending the package back. I call UPS and they forward me to the right department. I faxed all my documents to prove I’m legally in Canada and that I was legally working in the US before.
  • Package goes to customs again and stays there for a week, without either UPS or Customs giving me any reason for that every time I called them.
  • Customs releases the package. I call UPS to ask when will it be delivered and they say: "Today, at this adress….". The address was wrong. It had Branstane instead of Branstone. I told the UPS agent that the address was wrong and he said: "Oh, it’s just a letter, it’s ok.".
  • Package is not delivered due to wrong address.
  • November 15th, I pick up the package at UPS location.

I understand that an international shipment involves customs affairs, but if UPS employees had done their job well done, the shipment would only take the initial extimate of 7-10 days, and not 30 days as it did.


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