Ikea poem

We went to Ikea yesterday, knew exactly what we wanted.
We received this today, couldn't wait to get it sorted.

Alas! What is this? This is not for us!
Called up the delivery man, hoped not to kick up a fuss.

"One of the packs is not ours",
a supervisor would call us in a few hours.

So what should we do? We want to get assembling..
I guess we could build the other pack, to keep our fingers from trembling.

Let's hope we get the other pack today,
to let every one be on their way.

Pic test 2

WOW those two pictures lookef awful. Hope this is better.

Picture test.

Viewable?

Mobile blogging

Hi! I just realised there's an app for blogging on my phone. Makes it easier and faster to post when I don't need a computer. Woo! Makes me more active, I hope :)

An evening at a restaurant

Sandra and I just came home from La Tasca here in Bournemouth, where we spent about an hour and a half eating a range of different tapas, including paella and crispy battered squid. We drank a type of Sangria which was really nice. I haven't had Sangria before (I know, right?!) since I don't like red wine, but this was really nice! For dessert we had strawberry and passionfruit sorbet.

Our waitress was really nice! Ended about every sentence with Sir or Ma'am, which felt a bit odd. The food was really good! I suggest you go to La Tasca if you're in Bournemouth and want to go to a restaurant! The meal we had would easily be shareable for four people. Yes, we are still quite full.

Did I mention this was the first time since Sandra and I got together about two years ago that we've been to a restaurant?

Here's three pictures from the night:

Us before we left. How cute are we?!

The tapas. My favourite must have been the paella. Or the squid.

Me being hungry for sorbet. Nothing else would have fit. Guess which one is the strawberry.

Bread and the UK

A while back, me and Sandra thought we had found the most Finnish-like bread there is in the UK. Danish style toast, to be precise.

One weekend evening I was out shopping for some stuff, including a new loaf of bread. I couldn't find our normal type and all the other sorts were just normal British whiter-than-white toast. Apart from one nice lil' loaf. Weight watchers' Danish style toast. Since anything is better than the really white British bread, and after approval from Sandra, I bought the Weight watchers loaf.

It would take a serious bread taste professional to be able to taste the difference between this loaf and Finnish bread! It's amazing! And it doesn't even contain anything dodgy (I think..). Woo! Favourite bread found!

Now let's hope that no one in my family finds out I'm eating Weight Watcher stuff.

Blog!

ACME Lack of updates 2000.

Have some pictures I'll upload when I get the time.

Thank you!

I love calm customers! They do as you say, listen to your advice and take you seriously. Woo!

Benchmarking

Had my first live benchmarking, or what it was they call it, today. My team mentor sits and listens in to the calls I take, to see how I'm doing and discuss about it afterwards. He wrote down plus and minuses during the call. I think he did it deliberately just to make me nervous, 'cause that's what it did!
Anyway, after the call he asked me how I thought it went. After my personal view of the case, he told me his version. He was impressed with how I dealt with the call after I got a possible solution to it. Calmly taking the customer through the troubleshooting steps and such. Woo! I know how to do my job yaay!

BTW, have I posted this picture before? Some say I'm the sleeping one, and the other one is Sandra, giving me angry looks due to my snoring.

Second day in the call centre

After the second day at work, I'm starting to feel more and more comfortable with every call. Feels good to able to help someone, and I don't even have to use the information tools we have.. like.. EVER. OKAAAY, I do get quite alot of help from a colleague who sits and listen to the calls, which I'm vety thankful for, but I think I'll do it on my own from tomorrow on.
Took a few Finnish calls today aswell, quite rare those. Wingardium levi-make-HTC-more-Popular-in-Finland-osaah!

What it is I do.

So, after three weeks of training, I'm moving up to the "real deal" tomorrow. The call centre, or beehive as a friend of mine decided to call it.
The last three weeks we've been sitting in a classroom, learning about WDS, HTC and wireless connectivity in all-ish of its forms. Oh, and customer service of course. This week we sat in the classroom and took calls and answered e-mails from customers having problems with their HTCs. This with constant guidance should we have needed it.
So tomorrow we're moving to the call centre, into our respective teams. We will still have guidance, obviously, but not as hanging-over-our-shoulders-watching-our-every-move kind of guidance. Feels good.
I'll be working in the Swedish team, taking calls in both Swedish and Finnish. There is one other person working at the company who speaks Finnish, and this person will go on vacation in a few days. More calls for me! Woo!

Christchurch

We went to Christchurch yesterday. We had the best weather. Not that bad weather would spoil the place too much, it's beatiful! Here's the proof:

 

Church Street

Castle Keep Ruins

Place Mill Bridge. ish.

I was about to call this post Photodump..

.. but there's not enough photos for that.But here it goes!

 

From the pier

Love doves

"Whaat's going on there?"

It looked at me the same way I looked at it.

Woo Internet!

We've finally got some decent Internet! We're with Virgin, and we've got fibre broadband, 100 TV channels and mobile phone packages. For less than £50 a month. Whaaat!

I'll go through my camera later and see what photos I have, if there's anything you might want to see :)

Blog downtime

I wont be updating the blog for some time, until we figure out our internet provider and such. Hang in there!

First day over

After my first day at WDS, I can only say I love it! I get to talk mobile technology all day, and learn new things about the same topic AND I get paid for it! Woo! And what a lovely bunch of people that started today. I think I will enjoy this job very much!

After a training period of four weeks, I'll be put in front of a computer with a headset on my head, and be ready to take calls and e-mails from people having problems with their HTC handsets.

AND we get to move in to our flat tomorrow. Life's good. It'sgoooood.

Paperwork

So, last paperwork I'm able to fill int now is soon done. I'll get a national insurance number as soon as we have moved in to our new place, and I've had a 'Evidence of identity' interview. Let's hope I'll get to do that asap, so I get my pay!
I don't feel nervous just yet, mostly eager to start actually. I want all the info! Now! I'll give you a bit of info about my work when I know just about everything. I have mainly the basic info at the moment, so.
Well, I need to finish the paperwork now!

I'm a bit worried I'll be overdressed on Monday, when my new job starts. The information I got did say smart/casual, and this is it, right? Right? Oh well, I think I can manage one day as overdressed. At least there'll be something to laugh about further on.

This is me in my workwear. I thin I'll need a blazer.

Tomorrow, I need to check up how to get to work from our hotel on Monday morning. Shouldn't be too hard, I suppose.

Success(-ish)!

Woop woop! We've signed a few papers, and now it's up to my references whether we get the flat or not. Since I've always been a good boy that shouldn't be a problem. We agreed to sign a six month contract, and we'll probably try to find something bigger during that time. But for now, this flat is great.

We have been walking around alot today aswell, and riding around with letting agents and taxis, looking at flats and discussing music. It's been quite a fun day actually, but tiring aswell. We viewed a truly amazing flat aswell, together with another couple, but they had the holding fee with them. Honestly it suits them better, since it was a ground floor flat and one of them is a wheelchair user.

I spoke about the view yesterday. Heres a few pictures.

Sort of panoramic view

Viewing properties

Our first appointment was at 10am. I really had my hopes up for this agency, it had sounded so promising when I had email correspondence with them. However, the flats they would have had free had undergone some refurbishing (violence against grammar?), but it wasn't finished on time, so they didn't have anything in our price range.
Our next appointment was at 1pm, so we had some time to kill. we decided to drop in to some other agencies and see what they have to offer. We set up a viewing for 12:30pm, but that flat wasn't really anything to hang in the Christmas three (fun expression in Swedish..) And the 1pm was cancelled..
Our next one at 3:45pm was quite a nice one, not quite ready to move in to just yet, but it does look promising.
Our last one for the day was about to cancelled on the spot, because the agent didn't have the right keys with him. Anyhow, we got and viewed it. The owner of this really nice flat had decided to have some semi-major work done on it in the last minute, so it wouldn't be available for another couple of weeks..
Then we decided to go back to our hotel, via a news agent to buy a local newspaper to view private lettings. No luck. But now we have a few more promising properties, and we'll call the agents tomorrow.
Wow, we've done alot today.. And walked quite a few kilometers. More tomorrow. Let's hope we have a place to live soon!

PS. Some, if not all, agents wants six months of rent in advance, due to certain circumstances we can do nothing about. Woo.. DS

PPS. The view from the shoreline! It's amazing! Gaaaaawd!!

On board WiFi

Quite nice with onboard WiFi. I just had to check it out.

Moving day

Ye mighty moving day is here! We leave for the airport in half an hour, then it's an about two hour drive until we're there. My older brother will be there aswell.
I'll fill you in with travel info either tonight when we're there, or tomorrow. We have quite a few days full of things to do in front of us.
We'll arrive at London Gatwick at 5.50pm, and the bus towards Bournemouth leaves at 8.10pm. During the wait we hope to find something to eat.

This is my luggage. Note: the small bag to the left is a laptop bag suited for a 17,3" computer.

Higitus figitus fin

Well, not quite fin yet. Still a few things to pack. I'm quite tired right now, so I think I'll go pack. But Jarkko Nieminen is playing tennis! Procrastinating? Me? Noo. I'm moving tomorrow! Can't believe it! Not one bit. It's still lovely though!
I had some e-mail contact with my coming employer today. They wrote 'Looking forward to meeting you next week!". My first thought was 'Naah, it's not next week, is it? It's the week aft.. Waait. It is next week! Crazy!"

Still packing

Could use some medieval magic right now.

Getting ready

I have now packed the first of two bags that will be my checked baggage. Still have some bits and pieces left at my old flat, and as soon as I get that home, I'll pack the other one. I don't want to know how much it weighs..

The other day, me and Sandra decided we wanted ice cream, so we left for the store. About half an hour before it closes. It takes at least ten minutes to get there. But we made it, and enjoyed our ice cream and the view. Amost as the sky was on fire.

Feel tha heat, takin you higher.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Flow Park again. This time with my brothers. They saw the pictures from when I went with two colleagues, and wanted to go aswell. Fun fact: While in Flow park the last time, I mentioned that I needed to take my brothers here at some point. And ten minutes after I uploaded the pics my brother called and said they wanted to go. I didn't even have time to ask them :D

By the way, here's a picture from the farewell party we had last Friday. I had a blast! The place's name is Prima. And that's a great name. because the place was really prima :D

Few of my former colleagues. Woo Party Woo!