Geeks Abroad

'Twas my birthday last week and I don't normally make a big thing of it, but was very pleasantly surprised when Dom and my lovely girlfriend Laura organised a surprise birthday party for me. Well I say surprise, but I was beginning to suspect someting was up when whispered mutterings were going on behind my back. The final straw was on the night itself when my housemate Jason had seemingly vanished. "Maybe he's gone to the shops to get chocolate milk?" suggested Laura. "He's been gone an awfully long time just to go to the Co-Op to get chocolate milk," I replied. "Um.... maybe the Co-Op has run out of chocolate milk and he's had to walk all the way to Tesco to get it...?" Now, anyone that knows Jason knows that he has an almost instatiable thirst for the sweet brown stuff that is Frijj chocolate milk, making this story far from impossible, but I knew someting was up and didn't push the point. As it turned out, he'd been with Dom sorting out the last bits of my party and both drinking a fair mount of beer. I had a great time and thanks to everyone who attended, thanks to Laura and Dom for organising and thanks so those that sent messages - Alan sent a very blurred video from Iceland and Dom read out a very entertaining message from Bob, Bex and Fuzz. Thanks to all of you guys and girls!

Anyway, I'm now in the States again - what can I say, America needs me.

This nearly didn't happen, following the litany of disasters that befell this trip, including, but not limited to:

• Our supplier cancelling and uncancelling the trip four days before departure, thus ensuring that nothing was booked with more than four days' notice.
• The Company cancelling my passes (apparently this is policy - every birthday as a special treat they reset your passes and stop you going to work). This necessitated meeting my boss on Sunday night in a dark car park so he could let me in to get everything I needed - inluding my flight times.
• Nat West's corporate card division failing to send me a replacement credit card, meaning I'm having to put everything on my own.
• Amex and Europcar failing to book me a car to get to Heathrow airport which meant that Laura (who is fantastic and I owe big time) had to drive me to Bristol Airport so that I could pick up a hire car to get me to Heathrow.

On the other hand, I've been in the States for five hours now, and I already have a game of Warhammer 40,000 arranged for Friday. This either makes me very powerful, or very sad. Or both.