Day 1. Drove down to be there by 10 and arrived on time! The manager is off somewhere on business and the project
leader is at a conference in the USA so someone else from the team met me. Got me office which I share with 2 other
blokes, one who is away and the other just grunts. Went to get my photo badge but the system is a bit broken but got a key
to the office. Went to get my laptop but the bloke hasn't arrived yet. Back to the office and lucky enough I have my own
laptop so could play around a bit. Got introduced to everyone who I promptly forgot. Went down in the afternoon and got my laptop, Thinkpad T40 with 1.5gb memory and 80gb
disk and English WinXP, not too bad considering last time I worked here the laptop I got was a brick! No power cable though
but luckily the T43P I have in the car has a US power supply that works with it. E-Mail set-up, numerous userids and firewall
authorisations setup and I'm away. Product documentation printed off and some other stuff sent by mail and begin working. Finish at
19:00 and go to find my hotel which is about 15km away. Eventually I find it and check in and they want my passport which I
don't have and never carry anyway. Apparently because they're near an airport, new terror regulations mean they need certain
information. My German residents permit will have to do. Go to my room which is a small apartment with large single (or small
double) bed, telly, phone, work area, large fridge, sink, 2 hob cooker and cupboards with kitchen utensils. There's a bog and
shower as well. Absolutely starving so go out again to find a petrol station where I get a tin of Linsensuppe with Wurstchen and
some other snacky stuff. Back to the hotel (which is full of Africans, which got me worried! Some kind of asylum deal going on? Nope,
Andre Heller's Afrika-Afrika is playing nearby for a few months and they're the artists) and cooked my food. Ate, watched telly, went
to bed and slept.

Day 2. Work nice and early. Bored. Reading documents and begin my own plan. 11:30 some guy comes in and introduces himself and we
go to lunch, he buys me coffee which is okay. Try to get photo badge done again but the bloke is now off sick. Spend afternoon
browsing Intranet, boy is there some good stuff here which I download. On the way back to the hotel go to supermarket to pick up
food and drink. Evening meal was Bratwurst and fried eggs. Ate, watched telly (DFB Pokal; Offenbach vs Frankfurt,) surfed the net, went to bed and slept.

Day 3. Work nice and early. Bored. Reading documents and continue with my own plan. Lunch. Afternoon spent surfing for information
to do with what I'm meant to be doing. Decide to start new work plan. After work drove into nearest big town to the station
where I picked up a couple of English books and magazines. Evening meal was Bratwurst (cut into small bits) with Bauern Fruhstuck. Ate,
started to read book, watched telly, surfed the net, went to bed and slept.

Day 4. Work later today. Bored. Reading documents and continue with my own plan but decide to do some contigency ones as I'm still not
100% sure what they want me to do exactly. No lunch today. Afternoon was spent on the phone with a customer in Hannover and some
guys in Atlanta for my other contract as a system was down due to a suspect PCA card although after diagnostics I suspect they
have the wrong 3270 definitions for VM and so its trying to use a non-existent address as the master console, we'll see. Stayed a bit
longer today. Picked up a Subway on the way back to the hotel-apartment and had it with a pot of prawns, crisps, M & M's and choc-chip
cookies. Watched TV, worked on the PCA card problem by diagnosing traces, read my book, went to bed and slept.

Day 5. Packed my dirty washing and went to work. Continued with more documentation type planning stuff and still working on the PCA
card problem. This looks like that the 3174 and tape controller are causing IFCC (interface control checks) on the channel which in turn is causing the
wait state 1010, either that or the CP nucleus is kaputt meaing an IPL off of the alternate nucleus. Didn't do lunch but went back
to DA at 12:00 so I would be in time for the Friday Stammtisch and then down the pub.

See youse next week....