Tip the world over on it’s side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles
 Another new side of the working conditions in America…
I knew about Grandmother’s day, Fathers and Mothers’ days but I never heard so far of Boss’s day which happen to be TODAY…
So to my surprise this morning, I found a lovely note from our Admin Renee as well as a balloon floating in my office when I walked in.
Puzzled at first. Then smiling!
Made my day!Â
So as the previous post “hinted”, I am now the proud owner of an iPhone…Â
So a couple of days ago, Mike called me, on my landline, at the office, from his own office, literally 2 doors down.
Call transcript:
Mike: “Are you in your office?”
(Mental answer: “Obviously yes as you just reached me there”)
(Second Mental answer: “What are you up to? You normally walk directly in my office”)
Cyril: “Yup, am here!”
Mike: “Don’t move then”
(Mental thought: Either it is really bad or….. IT IS AN IPHONE!!!)Â
Two seconds later, Mike walks in, holding the now famous black box containing the most desirable technology toy available  these days, and tells me that I now have to do some research on media delivery and hands me the box…
Officially, this iPhone is for research only… and believe me, I will dissect the beast or at least its software in every possible way… but I must as well admit I am so happy I got it and so far, it hasn’t left my side…
Full report about the device and its flaws (yes there are some, even to an Apple Fan Boy like me) in a couple of weeks…Â
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It’s been almost 2 months since we’ve made it to sunny California and it is time for me to get back on the road for various conferences. Mobile TV conference last week in Texas and ETech in San Diego is on this week’s menu!Â
I must admit one thing though: I have been secretly dreaming of attending this event since Mike mentioned it to me several months ago. One of the reasons for this is that the name of Tim O’Reilly is deeply attached to my past online developer’s life and brings back many good memories.
Back in the days (I think 1996) while living in Paris, in one of my errands, I discovered a new collection of programming manualsthat for once where well written and all seemed to make sense to me and were not overpriced. I straight bought one, the first edition of “Webmaster in a Nutshell†and spent many many long nights trying to decipher it, from broken English into French and then trying to make sense of it in a Web browser! I then embarked in a new crusade which was to try to acquire every “XXXX in a Nutshell†book relevant to my activities, I could find (Unix, Linux, Perl, Java, etc). And to this day, these books are still standing on my shelves, in my Disney office.
And here I was this morning, sitting in front of Tim O’Reilly himself, about to be executively briefed, listening to some Peter Gabriel music in the background, songs I was playing in loop during these long coding nights.
Happy as can be!
After a terrible dinner (Yoshi, remind me to NEVER go back to this fake Sushi/Seafood place), I even managed to get myself on the center stage as one of 4 assistants to Arthur Benjamin aka the Mathemagician, one of the world’s fastest human calculators and mix square root with squared numbers. Don’t ask, but this was pretty a pretty embarrassing moment… 
 All Pictures: (C) Laughinsquid
Well, well, well… It is Friday and I have just completed my first week in my new job… Not that I haven’t been there before, but the office I sit in now has my name on the door, I have a computer on my desk and I don’t have to fight jet lag…
Monday, first day at school, felt weird, as if I was going to a new school or going to University… 50% excited, 50% apprehensive (if not scared). But Mike and the team made me feel like home and after a couple of hours, I was back to my bad habits, hacking my own machine to fight IS support disfunction (London account vs. Burbank account)
I love my new office and especially the view from it, thanks to being located on the 18th floor of the building: Warner Brothers and the breathtaking mountains…
Going back and forth from home to there is pretty simple as well… I don’t even need to drive as I can walk to the Studios, jump on the shuttle and be at my desk 10 minutes later. This gives me as well the luxury of playing with the squirrels in the morning. I need to get Thia there this weekend, she’ll be in heaven!
Many things had to be accomplished this week on both work and personal sides and I think we have done it all, at a cost: We are exhausted!
We now have a bank account, we have moved funds from the UK to the US (resulting in a confirmation call at 3:41am from our banker Raj), I have touched on a whole new tax system and fought several administrative non sense…
Still no social security number, but this shall be with us early next week… Well, had to give a bit of verbal abuse to the lady on the phone but it should be fine. And I thought the French Social Security was a pain to deal with!
More pictures from the new workplace in our PrettyPix section
This is it! Last day in the London office!
And as it should be, we ended up with the usual “Drinks in the officeâ€Â session, including the de facto bag of goodies, card often followed by the nonetheless classical session at one of the local bar with various friends.
So drinks at the office, pretty emotional as expected. Goodies: A diner at Katana, my favorite Japanese restaurant in LA (if not in the world) only second to Zuma in London as well as an engraved English Beer Mug that shall be delivered at some point in the LA office.
The rest of the night went smoothly. First pit stop at the Fire Station for a couple, followed by the unavoidable “Quick one at Smolly’sâ€Â where all the usual suspects where drinking as expected, including the 2 grumpy old men, Grant and Antony!
Only issue: Wake up call tomorrow is at 6:30 as I am taking Thia there for the day, to have lunch with my parents.
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