Yesterday I told you all about my experience with Mr Chips and his interesting ideas on life, the universe and everything.

This was the source of much interest in the office here yesterday, so much so that we asked Ed to contact this guy again and get a bit more dteail on this massive government led conspiracy. Ed fired off an email to Mr Chips and half expected a response to come back saying somehting along the lines of “oh you fell for that one did ya - it was only a joke you know.

But that is not what happened. Instead Ed got hte following in reply from the great man himself:

Hey whats up Bud, it’s called the veri chip u can look it up on you tube. Prince Charles and his sons were among the first to recieve the implant.
We all need to hook up before you take off.

So there you have it - proof if proof were needed.

I have to admit though I still have my doubts, but hopefully this coming Friday he will be with us on our night out on the beers.

I intend to dress up in a full cyberman outfit and claim I was a recipient of the Mark I chip.

In my time here in the US over the past 2 years I`ve met some intersting, if strange people.

There was of course crazy Buffalo Bill, then the Red hair man, various people who thought I was Australian and many others.

Last weekend saw another worthy addition to my list of crazy, we will call him Mr Chips.

To be fair I didn’t actually meet this guy, it was my colleague Ed, but I`m assured that what I`m about to tell you is the absolute truth.

Ed was, this last weekend, having dinner with friends. There were a couple who he had never met before. One guy in particular, Mr Chips was a teacher and for the most part seemed to be a fairly intelligent, articulate and interesting person.

Until he started to talk to Ed about the great Chips conspiracy.

Ed was a little suspicious of this guy when he stated that 911 was a US government conspiracy, and there was absokluty no way it could have been anything else.

OK, we`ll let that one go.

Then the big one.

“You know about the microchips since 1975 dont you?”

Ed was confused.

“Everyone born in the Western world since 1975 had a microchip inserted in them at birth”

The guy was serious.

Allegedly, all midwives are trained to insert microchips into all newly born babies for “tracking purposed", but they`ll never admit to it - NEVER.

The thing is - microchips capable of such trickery made in 1975 must have been the size of a bus.

To be fair though he might have a point. you know how the only people ever to be abducted by aliens are rednecks born in a barn with no midwife in attendance to do the chipping. Obviously the US government is setup to deal with such people when they become aware of their existence and send in the aliens to do the chipping procedure.

Of course we all know where the aliens do their probing

We are - as I type this - trying to arrange a meeting with Mr Chips so I can ask about his other philosophies on life.

Its sure to be an entertaining evening.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I was nearly mauled by a trainee drug detecting dog at LA airport. Last weekend I cracked open one of the boxes of confectionary that had the puppy all excited and I thought I would share the experience with you all …. kind of.

Belgium is known for chips with mayonnaise, beer, goats, Jean Claude Van-Damme, chocolates and little else.

Turns out that this is pretty much all you need, particularly when the beer is as strong as 13% and the chocolates are this good and colourful:

Just for the record, the pink and green one was made entirely of marzipan, of which I`m not particularly fond, but I ate it anyway and found it pretty good.

The others were great too - all of them!

So its a good job I`m going back to Belgium in a couple of weeks so I can stock myself up again.

And then look forward to getting attacked by the sniffer dog on my way home .

I`m getting quite used to this staying in Belgium chateuxs. There was the
Pietersheim where I stayed last December and my latest trip to the land of chips and goats where I stayed in the Hotel Saint Jean near Mons.

A very nice place it was too:

So I`ll have to get started and book my next chateaux for my next trip over to Belgium on 28th March. Wherever it is it certainly has some competition to live up to.

Also in the news this week my parents have arrived over from England to come and visit me. They flew in to Vegas, are currently in Vegas and will come over to see me for a few days later this week and then go back to Vegas, but they are definitely coming here to see me

I got back to my apartment in California yesterday evening after a crazy 5 days. Saturday saw me take a taxi from my apartment to Fullerton station, a train from Fullerton to Los Angeles, a bus from LA to LAX airport to catch a flight to Amsterdam, change terminals, get a flight to Brussels, a train to Mons and then a taxi to my hotel.

I did all this because on 12th February this year I was told that on 31st March I would be made redundant.

So I pressed the panic button, lit all the fuses and sat back to watch the fireworks.

Some went off with a bang whilst others fizzled away into nothingness.

More or less immediately I had an interview for a contract job in the Hague, Netherlands and was offered a very lucrative position for 5 months more or less immediately.

Then my current manager came back to me and said they want to extend me here in California until the end of June.

Then the reason why I had to travel to Belgium and back within the space of 4 days.

I got a voicemail asking me to attend an interview in a place called Mons. I had to do a technical test on the Monday and if I passed (50% threshold) I would be asked to attend an interview the next day.

So come Monday morning I`d been travelling for 30 hours and had 4 hours sleep - perfect time to undertake the 2 hour written technical exam. This turned out to be a big mixed bag of questions. Firstly on .NET, then on DOS commands, then database normalisation, theoretical OO principals, writing in-depth SQL statements and a few other things.

5 of us went in for the exam.

only 3 of us passed.

So I went out around Mons to drink copious amounts of beer to celebrate. Wonderful preparation for the interview the next day in front of the 5 man technical board.

I`ve still not heard how the interview went, so I`m assuming it went badly.

So yesterday I flew back to LA with a backpack full of Belgium chocolate. This confused the trainee Labrador sniffer puppy who was on guard sniffing everyone who got off my plane - after all we had just arrived from Amsterdam. The puppy just could not help himself with the scent of the chocolate and leapt all over me. I freaked out of course thinking someone had stuffed their contraband in my bag during flight and was about to be arrested for carrying drugs, but to my surprise the handing officer apologised and I went on my way - with an increased heart rate.

And now I`m back here at work, fresh as a daisy I`m sure you`ll understand.

First email I get this morning is from the HR person at the company where I went for the interview.

Not good news.

They want me to go back to the same place on 30th March….

….. for another interview for a much more senior position.

I`m not sure I can even be bothered with the way I feel today.

Did I mention that they sent me over to Amsterdam, an 11 hour flight, on a cargo plane???? I wasn’t expecting first class, but a CARGO PLANE???

Talk about penny pinching.

So I might actually go for the next interview, if only to see how they plan on sending me there next….

…. Fedex perhaps?

What are you up to this weekend?

Going to the match? Shopping? Relaxing in the garden or going out down the pub on a sunny Sunday afternoon?

I wont be doing any of the above.

This Saturday I catch a flight from Los Angeles and fly to Amsterdam. I then catch a flight to Brussels. I`ll be there from Sunday evening until Wednesday morning.

Then I fly back to Los Angles and arrive back in time for work on Thursday morning.

Oh joy.

I just cannot tell you how much I`m looking forward to it all.

Why am I doing this you are probably not going to ask ……

I`ll let you know next Friday.