marc.vic.max.elliot

I got back from Sydney yesterday and on the way through customs had my first “excuse me sir can you step over here” moment!

It started of when the guy in immigration wrote an “M” on my card when they sent me towards customs.  Sad though it is I noticed that the “M” was not the norm as they usually write an “F” on it.  I have no idea what either of them mean by the way…

Anyway I get taken over to a table and get asked all sorts of questions on what I do, who I work for and where I’ve been.  After handing over a business card and an itinerary of the sales event that I had been to the customs offices disappears into a large mirrored room with my passport.  I wasn’t worried at all, I just found it interesting that in all the travelling I’d done that this was the first time I’d been picked out.

When the officer came back he explained that they had had a chat to me because of all the travel I had done over the last 18 months and that they did it to ensure that I was in the business that I said I was and travelling for the reasons I had documented.

It should be interesting to see what happens when I get back from Sydney (off again next week) and back from Prague (off the week after)

I’ll let you know 🙂

Here’s another shot I took while I was away.

I’m in the hunter valley just outside of Sydney , Australia at a work function at the moment and whenever I come to australia I wake up far too early.  This is the fruits of my 05:30 rise this morning……

Max does a number of daily chores around the house (usually) and in return he gets pocket money (allowance).  He’s been saving up this money and any other cash that he’s been given for a while now to save up for the Lego Aiport and this week he had reached his target of $120!

This set is 692 pieces and even at five I reckon he completed at least 60% of it on his own with another 10% just us moving things slightly so they were right.  Good lad 🙂

Yet another Labour Day public holiday missed because of travel to Australia.  I worked out that I have had one Labour Day public holiday in the last six years because I’ve worked for companies based in Australia and they don’t have the same holidays and seem to organise things for this week 🙁

Here’s what I’m up to over the next month:

• Sunday 26th October – Fly to Sydney for a sales conference in the Hunter Valley
• Thursday 30th October – Fly back home
• Wednesday 5th November – Fly to Sydney with Vic to watch the Phoenix play
• Saturday 8th November – Fly Back home
• Thursday 13th November – Fly to London
• Sunday 16th November – Fly from London to Prague for a technical conference
• Thursday 20th November – Back to London for a few days
• Monday 24th November – Fly from London to home
• Wednesday 26th November – Get home! yay!

Phew………

I said yesterday that we had cut Elliot’s hair.  We had cut Max’s hair and Elliot had gone on and on about wanting his the same so after deciding that at worse all that we’d have to do is wait for it to grow back we cut it.  Here are the results (and one of Max too :))

Still here!  Not much happening really – same shit different day.

Vic has just got over two weeks of school holiday hell and being really busy with her cards business but nothing really stick out.

Oh, we cut Elliot’s hair so I’ll post a picture soon 🙂

Got a spare 10 minutes and 47 seconds?  I thought this was very funny – so did over 66,482,738 other people…..