Dylan Schiemann

On April 7, we spent an amazing day at the former home of Louis XIV. High school history classes would have been far more interesting living in Europe. I wrote a report on the Sun King back in 10th grade. The palace, jardins, and more were the most lavish I’ve ever seen in my travels. It was a very chilly day, but we walked throughout the day, covering all corners of Versailles.

We returned to Paris in the late afternoon to do some shopping. We ended up at La Grande Épicerie de Paris the day before Easter, in a mad dash of people seeking gourmet food before the shops were closed for the holiday. We had a nice dinner at Chez Clement near Saint Michel, and then headed back to our flat late in the evening to rest before beginning part 2 of our museum pass adventure on Sunday.

In 2009 or 2010, I purchased a 3G internet stick from T-Mobile, which connects via your USB port to a laptop computer to get internet access over the cellular data network. In late 2010, I upgraded my Mac OS version from Leopard to Snow Leopard, and the device stopped functioning.

In April 2011, I went to the T-Mobile store and was sold a replacement stick that would work with Snow Leopard, and was assured it would work with OS X Lion. I agreed to a new contract and received an updated device.

In late 2011, I upgraded to Lion, and my internet stick failed to connect to the internet. I searched for months online looking for a workaround, none of which were successful. After many months of patience and frustration and paying $60/month to not get the service I expected, I contacted T-Mobile and requested a cancelation. I was told that the $250 early cancelation fee could not be waived, even though the device I was provided was likely to never work on OS X Lion or Mountain Lion. I was told to write a letter to T-Mobile’s customer care department (yes, a mobile phone company asked me to write a letter, the irony of which I’ll leave to you).

I wrote a letter requesting that my account be credited for the many months of unused service, since T-Mobile had no intention of living up to its end of the agreement (you know, selling a device that actually works when users logically upgrade their operating system). T-Mobile responded by misspelling my name, and saying no, and telling me I could transfer my account to someone else if I wanted. As if I would force a friend to take over this service.

I wrote another letter, suggesting that they could either cancel my account and refund me for the unusable time, or they could send me a new Mi-Fi device at no additional cost, and I would then continue paying until the end of the agreement.

Their response basically said, no, we didn’t read your email, we won’t waive the cancelation fee, and here’s an updated amount that you must pay us. Their letter shows a complete lack of even understanding the problem.

So, I’ve now paid >$700 for internet service that does not work, T-Mobile has no intention of making the device they sold in 2011 work with software released in 2011 or 2012, and they believe they are not responsible for anything, and that I am in breach of my agreement.

I see it otherwise, but I’ve had zero success getting anywhere with T-Mobile’s Customer “Care” department. Am I wrong to expect T-Mobile to make their device work with the recent versions of Mac OS X? I cannot imagine they would not provide updated software for Windows 8 for example. Or if I’m in the right, what should I do, as it’s not like this is a large enough expense to file a lawsuit?

As too often seems to be the case, I start off with great intentions on these trips, and then end up with a bunch of unfinished trip blogs as the trip gets busier.

So, I’ll spend a few posts recapping some of the highlights:

April 4

• Web-5 conference in Béziers. Had fun delivering the opening keynote on Dojo, making new Dojo friends, and catching up with others.

April 5

• Day trip to Carcassonne! Leita and I love playing the board game/iPhone app, and this medieval castle and town did not disappoint. The view of the Pyrenees on the train ride did not disappoint either.

April 6

• The conclusion of the Web-5 event had some great talks, in particular one by Christophe Jolif. PEM and the entire Web-5 crew did a great job organizing their first event, especially with a French air traffic control strike closing the nearest airport the day before the event was set to start.
• We then took the train back to Paris, and checked into our flat in Montmartre. We had an excellent dinner at Au Relais and walked around near Sacré Cœur

April 4th is the start of the Web-5 conference in Béziers, so on April 3rd we took the train to Paris. We’re happy we didn’t fly, as there’s a strike today in France by the air traffic controllers for the smaller airports.

We started by having breakfast (croissant, baguette, espresso, juice, etc.) at an amazing cafe, and walking around near Gare de Lyon. We then rushed over to the Montparnasse Tower… it was a sunny but hazy day, and with rain in the forecast, we decided it would be our best option to get a nice view of the city. The city did not disappoint, and we captured some nice photos of the city, and of course the Eiffel Tower.

tous à bord. We then took a nice train ride to Béziers, seeing a large section of the French countryside. The sun turned to rain by the time we arrived. After checking into our hotel, we did a quick trip around Béziers to see the Cathedral Saint Nazaire and a view of the L’orb river and the Pont Vieux bridge. We found another cafe before an amazing dinner with the conference speakers. It was great catching up with Robert Nyman, PEM, Sam Foster, Chris Barrett, and others at the event.

Photos to follow…

After 15+ hours of cars, planes, and trains, we arrived in Paris on April 2nd, for one night at least before heading to Béziers. We managed to avoid a variety of potential travel delays and arrived on-time for everything. We had a quick stop in London at the BA first class lounge to recharge a bit after the 10 hour flight from Phoenix, then a short hop to Paris. We then hopped on the RER B to get into Paris, and the RER D to end up at our hotel near Gare de Lyon.

We had a surprising amount of energy, so we took a short stroll that ended up lasting about 4 hours and many miles around the Seine. Some highlights from this walking tour:

• Started at Gare de Lyon and walked through the Marais region
• Large Juliet statue near the Bastille metro station
• Through the Place des Vosges right before it closed
• The typical amazing French architecture and museums throughout this area
• Excellent galette at Creperie Suzette
• Walked past the Pompidou Centré
• Some amazing graffiti near an older cathedral
• Excellent building (hotel or theatré?) lit up in blue
• Notre Dame cathedral and the Cité
• Saint-Michel and the left bank
• … and so much more…

Photos to follow when I find a more stable internet connection.

Today begins the start of our two-week journey to Béziers, Paris, London, and Rouen!

There are many reasons for this trip:

• Web-5 conference invite. I’m invited to deliver the opening keynote on April 4th
• Leita’s French heritage. This is her first ever trip to France!
• London Ajax User Group. I helped start this group when I was living part-time in London, now I’m back to deliver a pair of talks with James Thomas about AMD, and to show Leita a few highlights of London.
• A Fun Vacation. It’s been many years since I took a vacation where I wasn’t trying to work every moment that I wasn’t checking out a tourist site.
• And more…

We’re starting our journey on British Airways, in the lovely Club World. As the only airline with a non-stop flight to Europe, we’re lucky enough to have seats on the upper deck in part due to my about to expire BA Gold status. We then have a short flight across the channel to Paris. To get to Béziers, Rouen, and back to London, we’re taking the train so we can see more of the French countryside.

To make this trip as amazing for Leita as possible, we did far more advanced preparation than normal: travel books (mostly Rick Steve’s) an extensive TripIt itinerary, French 1 lessons from Pimsleur, a museum pass, train tickets, etc. We found a cute little flat to stay at in the Montmarte region of Paris via AirBnb.

We’ve been careful to plan without over planning the trip, by giving ourselves many ideas and options, but leaving plenty of time open for random strolls and cafes. And we’ve managed to pack pretty lightly so we’re not lugging massive suitcases on the various trains.

We leave tonight!

Conference season is in full swing. Here are some upcoming events where I’ll be attending and/or speaking:

• ESRI Dev Summit. Palm Springs, CA, March 26-29, 2012. I’ll deliver a talk on Dojo, as well as a 1-day Dojo Workshop. There’s also a golf tournament!
• Web-5. Béziers, France, April 4-6, 2012. I’ll deliver the opening keynote on Modular, Mobile, and Reinventing Web App Development. There’s also an event with a local wine maker, and promises of stinky French cheese.
• London Ajax. London, England, April 10, 2012. When I lived in London, I helped start the London Ajax User Group. I’ll be back to deliver a pair of talks on AMD with James Thomas as a warm-up act for our upcoming IBM Impact session. As is typical in London, the talks are simply the opener to a lively discussion to follow at a local pub.
• Phoenix Mobile Festival. Tempe, Arizona, April 21, 2012. It used to be incredibly difficult to find web events in Phoenix, but with JSConf and more happening in Scottsdale, this is the year to be here. Not sure if I’ll be speaking yet, or just attending this event.
• IBM Impact. Las Vegas, Nevada. April 29-May 4, 2012. I’ll be delivering Star Search: Dojo 2.0 and HTML 5 on May 1 at 10:45am, and Beyond Dojo: The Rise of Asynchronous Module Definition (AMD) on May 3 at 8:45am. On May 2nd, there’s also an unconference, for which I’ve proposed Socket to me! WebSocket and Dojo’s Socket API.

A busy couple of months for sure. I hope to meet you at one or more of these events!

Random nutshell thoughts through the end of the stay in Antibes, France.

ClubWorld 747 vs. 777

I much prefer BA’s 747 over the 777 I flew on, simply because the upper deck experience is so much more quiet and calm, and you have more space around your seat.

Duty Free

Heathrow airport has to be the only place where the prices of products sold is the same or even less than shopping in the city. I’ll never understand the duty free scheme.

Arriving in Nice and Antibes

I had no idea what to expect, and no idea how amazing Antibes would be. I took far too many photos, so here’s a random sampling.

The view from breakfast, thanks to the incredible Robbins family for being amazing hosts at their villa:

Incredible sunsets are common, and these pictures do not do them justice:

I spent most of my days walking, running, and swimming along this path:

Antibes has an amazing Marche, among many other great buildings:

SFR and iPhone data fail

SFR was my worst experience ever in trying to get a reasonable data plan and SIM for an unlocked 3G iPhone. Several visits to their store, 40 euros spent, and I ended up with 11 minutes of phone time and unlimited data for 24 hours, and no way to really resolve this. Next time I’ll choose Orange, I just couldn’t find their store.

Cannes

Cannes was amazing, though I prefer Antibes. Cannes is somewhere between Santa Monica and Dubai in terms of chaos and luxury. So much of it has inspired the California experience. I had amazing sushi with Matt and Zanete.

Live Music

Matt, Isabelle, and I went to a short concert in the basement of a random pub in Antibes. The band played a mix of modern and classic rock, with the lead vocalist having a decent voice, and switching up his intros between English and French. Matt is a dancing machine.

Katara Yacht

The world’s tenth largest yacht was docked in Antibes. Insanely large.

Perfect Food

An amazing selection of food, from baguettes to amazing poulet to sushi to other French classics. My palette was more than satisfied. Fortunately we walked and ran and swam as much as possible.

Dojo Beer

Had a chance to see Ben again, and also meet PEM and his colleague from doyousoft.

Difficult to Leave

The most difficult part of Antibes was leaving. I really did not want to have to get up and go on to London. If it wasn’t for the London Ajax Mobile Event the next day, I might have missed my flight.

I’m embarking on a few week trip to Europe to attend the London Ajax Mobile Event, Nikolai and Vikki’s wedding in Amsterdam, deliver a couple of Dojo talks, and stay with friends between.

Here are some packing and travel tips that I’ve learned over the years:

• Underpack, by starting to pack in advance. If you pack last minute, you’ll take way more than you need, and then be really uncomfortable on trains and other transit that’s not as super sized as it is in America.
• Call your credit cards in advance. Let them know what countries you’ll be in, so you don’t get hassled with fraud alerts.
• Don’t bring much cash, just use your ATM card as needed. Buying currency in advance just never seems worth the hassle to me.
• Print postcard address labels in advance. And then actually send some postcards. No one gets fun mail any more, and having the addresses already printed out on labels improves the odds you’ll actually send them out.
• On hot summer days, don’t pack anything that will melt while waiting outside. And pack any liquid tubes in separate plastic bags.
• If you want to pack more stuff, consider vacuum-seal plastic bags for things like t-shirts. Just don’t go over your weight allowance for your luggage.
• Use Seat Guru to decide where to sit, TripIt to store all your trip details, mobile boarding passes where allows, and FlyerTalk to get the scoop on your airline.
• Fly business class. This point is simply here to mock Peter Higgins. Lounges and fast track lines are awesome. Long lines, not so much, but not the end of the world.
• Have fun and stay happy, and you’ll get better service than if you’re a douche bag. Just talking to people, asking how they’re doing, where they’re going, etc., can lead to a much more enjoyable journey. After all, you’re not the only person to ever have a problem when traveling, or to have lost luggage, canceled flights, etc. Don’t be the obnoxious, loud-mouthed, stereotypical American traveler.
• Get lost and then find your way back. It’s especially fun in Asia.
• Do what the locals do, or what is invented somewhere. At restaurants, ask for recommendations, and try eating anything once (expect cats and dogs). For example, try something besides spaghetti and pizza in Italy.
• Learn at least a few basic phrases in the local tongue. Hello, goodbye, please, toilet, thank you, you’re welcome, and taxi are all useful.

There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about the ideas in this post, just some recent thoughts reminding me of one of the lessons I learned earlier in life: consistent hard work in small steps is a way to accomplish seemingly impossible goals over time.

It’s one of the few universal lessons I learned from graduate school and from my hammer throw coach, and by far the most valuable. When you face an insurmountable problem, it is indeed insurmountable if you try to solve it all at once. The Getting Things Done movement provides some useful techniques for how to not get distracted and manage these steps, but it’s doing the steps themselves that matter.

For example, about 15 months ago, I was tired of my 10-year-long struggle to slim down after bulking up during my days of hammer throw. I decided that every single day, I would plan to workout, I would drink even more water, and I would eat in a slightly less conventional manner. Life would occasionally get in the way (as it always does), but rather than planning days off from working out, I would plan to always work out unless something major interfered, and even on those days, find a way to stay active, or even do very basic yoga movements and other stretches on long airplane flights. Basically anything to keep it going.

The result: 50+ pounds lost (~23kg for the rest of the world), 11 inches (28cm) off the waist, a body mass index roughly half what it was on February 1, 2010, and a closet of clothing that doesn’t fit.

This approach applies to almost everything you do in life, from learning to do yoga or meditating, to planning a large trip, or to business problems like solving a large technical challenge, revamping a service, planning a conference talk, etc. It’s the commitment of making a subtle change or putting in some amount of effort every day, and reducing the impossible into a set of very small doable steps that makes the biggest impact.

For more challenging problems, many people insist on solving the hardest problems first. In some cases this is true because if you have a truly unsolvable problem given your constraints, you’ll do a lot of busy work for naught. That said, few problems are truly unsolvable, and so if you mix easily solvable problems with your more difficult challenges, the positive momentum often helps you complete the difficult portions more easily due to your ongoing confidence and success.

For Facebook readers, this post was originally from http://dylanschiemann.com/2011/06/05/small-steps-create-big-changes/.