Packetfury.net

Here we go, a brand new year! 2010 ended in quite a strange fashion, so lets hope that 2011 is better for everyone! My sincerest wishes of health and happiness to everyone, especially my readers. :-)

I haven't written anything here for quite some time now; at the end of 2010 I was on a business trip to the US, one that didn't quite go all that well. A problem with my baggage led to a slight problem with immigration, but nothing serious. I flew from Nantes to Paris, then a direct flight from Paris to Charlotte, North Carolina. I arrived, my baggage didn't. With the heightened security measures before Christmas, Air France said that there was no way I was getting through the security checkpoints with 2 laptops, 2 embedded systems, enough cable to refit a small car and a battery. Would I please put it in my checked luggage. I did. The luggage arrived safe and sound in Paris, but never made it onto the Charlotte flight, despite the flight being about 8 hours late due to bad weather. I won't say who I was flying with, but it wasn't Air France. The more curious of you can check who flies from Paris to Charlotte. Hint: Charlotte seems to be their base of operations. Anyway, it took them about 4 days to find it, and they finally did. I got a phone call informing me that they had found it and that I would soon be reunited with my baggage; it would be delivered that night to my hotel. They phoned me while I was at the Charlotte airport waiting to board for the return flight. It landed 4 hours after I took off. I think we met up somewhere over Canada.

Anyway, I did finally receive my baggage, thanks to Air France.  So that was a business trip that was slightly more complicated. I managed to cook up a debug system with what I had, but I had the minimum with me. A tablet, a mobile phone, a power supply and a passport. The company managed to find me a laptop, and I could install most of what I needed, but with 1 gigabyte of RAM, I had to choose wisely. Forget about any C development while I was there.I had to simply get all the data I could, and bring it all back to the office. Interesting, getting debug information without a PC...

So anyway, happy 2011! All my best wishes to all of you! I hope 2011 will be a great year, I know it will be for me... Stay tuned :-)