iPhone users - give me the low-down

Calling all iPhone users.

I'm thinking of joining the mob. Thinking.

I need the low-down.  What plan are you on and why?  How much do you really download?  

Do you have one and regret it?

Jet-no star Service

Main Beach, looking towards Surfer's Paradise,  7am

Last week I was our quarterly management meeting, held on the Gold Coast. At the same time, Firegazer was overseas at a "strategy meeting" (meaning: company-sanctioned golf trip). We had to employ a live-in Nanny for the children. For some people this is easy. They ring an agency, a nanny arrives, end of story. Me? The thought of another person who is not related to me looking after my children for days on end is a little terrifying. Especially when she is a complete stranger. Anyway, I wrote copious instructions, the nanny arrived and I left for the airport.

You will understand that it was extremely important to me that for financial reasons the trip away be productive and for personal reasons that I arrived home when I said I would.

Enter the famous Jet-no star Service.

I arrive at the airport on Tuesday and check-in the required minimum 30 minutes prior to the official departure time. Those who have travelled Jetstar will know that you must do this regardless whether the flight is delayed from its official departure time or not. Sure enough, once I had checked-in I was told the flight was delayed an hour. Fine.

An hour and a half later we board the aircraft. After an additional half-hour we are told that there is a problem with the audio system and they would have to re-boot the aircraft. Can't fly with a dicky audio system.

Half an hour later, audio system still not functional. And the engineers can't fix it. No matter, there is a spare aircraft so we will offload and board that one.

Meanwhile our 7.30pm dinner arrangements are looking a little dicey.

At 8.30pm, three and a half hours after our scheduled departure we finally take off. When we arrive at the Gold Coast we have a funny story to tell at the dinner that we finally have at 10.30pm that night.

To lose one audio system, Mr Jetstar, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness

The management meeting was scheduled to run for three days but as I had children to return to and the others were going to spend the third day playing golf I decided to leave at the end of the second day. The Nanny had to return to her day job early on the Friday morning so I was to get home by 10pm on Thurs and then she would leave.  The kids had rung me each night to say how they missed me and PL said he couldn't sleep.  I said I'd be home on Thursday night and on Friday morning when they woke they would find me in my bed.

Again, the flight was delayed an hour.

And again, once on the aircraft after a half-hour wait we heard that the audio system wasn't working. Surely not. Am I an audio system jinx? This time I was on the last flight out. There wouldn't be a spare aircraft hanging around and we were about to miss curfew at Sydney airport.

I rang the nanny. Could she PLEASE stay the night and get the kids to school the next day? Luckily she could as long as she could get them to school by 8am.  The kids were already asleep so there was no way she could warn them I wouldn't be in my bed when they woke, like I promised.

Then the pilot spoke again. Not only did he confirm that we would have to stay the night but that there was some sort of fire emergency at the airport and the buildings were being evacuated. We would have to stay on the aircraft for the time being.

I was originally on a 7.30pm flight. At 12.30pm I arrived at our overnight hotel knowing that I had a 3.30pm wake up call to catch the first flight out the next day. I had a choice - spend 30 minutes finding some food or get an extra 30 minutes sleep.

Despite having not eaten since lunch I chose sleep.  I dreamed of never flying Jetstar, for business, again.  That is until next time I have to choose the cheapest possible flight.

Happy Birthday Dad/Grandpa!

... I trust this made it to your birthday present pile this morning.

I hope there's still enough chill in the air to make use of this in the evenings while you read your books.

What I've learnt recently

Now that I'm becoming accustomed to 'office speak' again I remember that the verb 'to learn' has a noun version -  'learning'.  

So here are my recent learnings.

Learning #1: Having a chef on your trivia night table is a good thing. That is until the MC fines your table $50 for having restaurant-quality food.

Learning #2: If you combine champagne and the general good humour that surrounds a school trivia night you are sure to come home with the class art prize - at great expense.

Learning #3: Champagne is safer than Sambucca. It's lucky I wasn't the one one our table who drank a bottle of Sambucca. She went home with prizes she didn't realise she'd put a bid on.

Learning #5: Wearing black all winter is a little bit, well, wearing. So I've splashed out on a summer party dress that is in no way related to black. It's long and I will wear it with red cork wedges.

Learning #6: Know when to give in, just a little. After 12 months of telling the tween that she should wait just a little longer before she reads Twilight I relented. She read it in 48 hours. Over two school days. She's on Team Edward BTW.

Learning #7: I'm more hopeless than the tween. I thought I'd quickly re-skim the books to satisfy myself that it was okay for her to read them and ended up re-reading them all, including the 12 released chapters of Midnight Sun, over a weekend.

Learning #8: Re-reading was a good thing. I've told her Eclipse and Breaking Dawn are out of the question unless she wants to have an embarrassing talk with me.

Learning #9: Talking human to human is almost extinct in the modern office.

Learning #10:  If I want to make a point in a meeting I'd be better off sending it via email across the table.

True story:  a couple of weeks ago I raised a point during a meeting.  After the meeting had finished I went back to my office to discover that the person who was sitting opposite me had responded to my question via email (via his BlackBerry) while the discussion was in progress.

What have you learnt recently?