groan: getting up early (6:30) is not much fun…we breakfast and make it in time for doro’s train. from the station i take a taxi up to the lab. a huge mail file awaits me (and this was just a two week vacation…) and it takes three attempts to synchronize before i realize that postfix on my office thinkpad has a mail file size limit of about 50MB — not quite up to the task; after hitching that up to 5GB (to be on the safe side) I finally manage to download my mail. sigh.

after lunch my colleague mike and i leave for zurich airport: we are off to the UK again and are not sure whether the train service disruption of the weekend is still causing delays in getting to the airport…we leave early (better safe than sorry). we pass through oerlikon just fine and everything seems to be back to normal again.

at the airport they have changed passenger routing again…we spent some time trying to find our way to the british airways check-in…manage to locate them, get our real tickets, check through customs and security and head for the departure gate. on our way we notice that not only the displays in the check-in area are dead but also the displays at the gates. two of them (side by side) are just booting as we walk by: both are powered by a separate PC running a copy of windows xp…wow…assuming about 1000 displays all over the airport that translates into 1000 windows xp capable PCs each with its own copy of and license for windows xp: that’s easily CHF 1.2M…now, if we had taken linux we could run on cheaper PCs and wouldn’t have had to fork over license fees for windows xp, so we might end up at around CHF 400K instead…but, hey, it’s just our taxes…

19:39 UK: in the car to winchester and to our b & b at the wykeham arms. although we left zurich about 10 minutes late we were 10 minutes early in london heathrow…just to wait for a “certified” guide to lead the aircraft to the dock to show up…then we had to wait for the dispatcher (aka the certified person to operate the finger-dock)…only to disembark the airplane through the rear exit…”welcome to london heathrow”.

the wykeham arms is as welcoming as ever…after unpacking we meet in the pub part, have a beer and sit down for dinner at 21:00…the food is excellent — again (and as others have noted before)! finally to bed.