Is this thing on?

During the last few months I have gotten myself another permanent residence (especially after they got WiFi), a Chinese restaurant here in Prague. I spend more waking hours there than I do at home.

Eating, drinking, socialising, and being on the Internet has occupied large parts of my life anyway, but I enjoy organising as well. Today the first major event I've helped with, a night at the Opera, will be live this night. For Opera employees in Oslo this may be familiar, the Underwater pub nearby the Opera HQ has opera nights Tuesdays and Thursdays, and have had it for years, and it is a favourite Opera hangout.

Still, the Chinese-Czech musical connection is fascinating and appealing, we'll see how it works out tonight. See you there?

At least until tonight when we, if in Prague, will find out. Opera's Håkon Wium Lie (nice interview), will count down to its doom.

And so it begins... On the circuitous route from the outskirts of Europe to the centre, going from Oslo through Linköping and Wrocław, Opera has finally reached Prague.

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Something fishy in the state of Czechia

Prague is uncomfortably hot in July and August, making its inhabitants looking for a way out in those months. I had finished a trip to Silesia in the northeastern part of the country ending up in in the castle at Hradec nad Moravicí.

When it was time to return home I was running late, and looked up which connections I was to take, found a bus would leave at 18:12, which I just should be able to make. There was a map of the village and surroundings I took a photo of and started my forced march towards the bus stop, largely through a forest trail. Sure I could use a map service, a few sort of work with Opera Mini, but the response time and the zooming works a lot better with a picture. 18:10 I got to the bus stop and then I realised I didn't know in which direction the bus was supposed to be going and I had forgotten where the bus was going to. I had done my search on my laptop, not my phone, and there was no chance it could start up from hibernation in two minutes or anything close. All I knew was the departure time, which made for curious conversations with the driver.

— Is this bus supposed to leave at 18:12?
— No, I am running a little late, I'm supposed to leave at 18:05
— Thank you, then I'm not interested

Running across the street to catch the next bus in the opposite direction, I got second in line after a woman and her friend, and overheard her conversation with the driver:

— Is this the 18:12 to Přerov, there's not another bus going there?
— Yes, it is. I'm just a little ahead of schedule
— All right, then. I'll have a ticket

My turn. Having just finished T9ing "Hradec nad Moravici" and "Praha" I still didn't know what stop I was supposed to get off the bus at. Together with the lady and the driver we came to the most likely one. She too was going to Prague, and had looked up the route on the Web. I realised I had turned into an Internet package that was blindly following a route some server had determined traffic from Hradec nad Moravicí to Prague should use. Like that package I knew my final destination, but had no idea how to get there, being dependent on good routers on the way.

Or getting my laptop and phone to respond, so after some minutes I knew that I was on the right bus travelling in the right direction (most travellers to Prague would return in the opposite direction, the one I was coming from), and that I was going off a little earlier at the stop U Žida in Bělotín. That was close to the railway station where a local train would allow me to intercept an international train going to Prague. The 19 minutes interval were ample time to handle the couple minutes bus delay get to the station, realise the ticket sale was closed, return to the motorest U Žida, get a refreshing , go back and cross the rails to the right platform, get berated by the loudspeakers from the unmanned station for not using the designated and safer underpass, and snap a few pictures. On the train I bought a ticket to Prague and was told that the main train was arriving only a few minutes after this train, which the IDOS site told me was correct, but as it was leaving many minutes later there was no rush anyway.

In the competition laptop vs phone it was a draw. Neither really measured up. Both got me to Prague in time, using a route no humans would have figured out, but neither provided me with the information I needed when I needed it. If the IDOS site had been a little more phone friendly the phone would definitely have won, but I still would have to type fairly long texts which the phone is unsuited for. Combined with geographical positioning I could have gone from "here" to "home" instead. The site tells about known delays for trains (only), but apart from actively monitoring that particular train I wouldn't know if the delay would cause me to miss a train nor would I be given a different route from there if it did. Such updates would favour phones.

I left the hotel in for the last time today. Except for my flat in Oslo this was the place I had spent most nights the last few years. I have never lived long-term in a hotel before, but I could get used to it. The reason I left was that I had finally gotten the keys to my own apartment, signed the lease, paid the rent. I miss having a reception so that I didn't have to carry my keys around, the two keys to my door are fine but the key to the entrance door is a huge brass thing that seems more appropriate for ceremonially giving someone the key to the city rather than actually unlocking a door.

Having an apartment on your own adds a sense of freedom, having two is better, but I am really not a home-bound person. Whereever I sleep is where my home is. I use to call a small bag with my laptop, chargers and other work equipment my office, and a slightly larger bag with clothes and toiletries my home. Having your office in one hand, your home in the other, and not really having decided where to go next, that truly adds to your sense of freedom. In that respect I don't have homes, I have forward bases.

Another definition is whereever my subscription to New Scientist goes is my home. In that respect the Opera headquarters has been my home for the longest time, but not anymore. I have now officially moved to The Wineyards (Vinohrady) district in Prague, in the vicinity of Žižkov, Vršovice, and Strašnice. With the huge Prague cemetaries to the north the neighbourhood itself isn't among the liveliest, though I can claim living next to the permanent recidency of Franz Kafka for instance, but the communications are great and it is a short walk to the widest variety of what Prague can offer.

The transition into a remote worker isn't too hard as I haved worked from the beyond before, but there will still be some days before everything is in order. Making it work should be fun.

Quick note from a hotel reception in Prague, a couple hours before after the second preview of Opera 9 and labs.opera.com launched and a couple hours before my flight to Oslo will do the same. The preview offer all the goodies like native search editors, BitTorrent, and of course Widgets. But I wanted to point out an Opera 7 feature that we knew wasn't yet up to its full potential, namely User Style Sheets. We are not quite there yet, but we are closing in on it (as will undoubtedly the airport gates if I don't get going).