Well, it certainly took a while...but I finally made it to Canada! On Wednesday evening, I was greeted by Eskimo girls who put a lei of maple leafs around my neck as I got off the plane. I was given a traditional Moose Biscuit (don't ask...), passed the entrance exam (list 25 synonyms for the word "snow"), and took a taxi to my hotel.
It's been years since I've been to Toronto, and one thing really struck me on this visit. I have never seen such a diversity of ethnic groups in a single city! My taxi driver was from India. The girl who checked me in to the hotel was from Poland. The guy who served my drink at the bar was from Ireland. There was a cocktail waitress there who was from Thailand. The guy who tried to steal my wallet was from Puerto Rico. It really is a very diverse city!
Wednesday evening, I helped our team (Marvin Viegas and Brett Barnes) set up the room for Thursday's presentation. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed straight to my room because I had a 12:00 a.m. conference call with a customer in Abu Dhabi. By the time I went to sleep, it was 3:00 in the morning.
I woke early and had to help with our "Road Show" presentation on Thursday morning. These presentations happen all the time with our company, and I've done hundreds of them over the years. Basically, one of our salesmen will send letters to dozens of clients and potential clients inviting them to a presentation and lunch. We use the time to demonstrate our latest products and answer questions that they might have. Afterward, we feed them lunch and then everybody goes home. Hopefully, the clients didn't just come for the free food and we'll see an order from them in a month or two...
I was totally exhausted from staying up so late the night before and I returned to my room to take a nap. Brett and Marvin had better things to do than hang out with me that evening, so I had the night to myself. I wound up walking around looking for a place to eat. I settled on a Thai restaurant and ordered Pad Thai. I asked for it"medium" on the spice scale...I probably should have ordered "mild." It was a bit hot...
The next morning, Marvin picked us up and we drove to one of our major clients in the area...the Toronto Police Department. These guys were nice enough to give testimonials for us at the "Road Show," and now they wanted to show off their brand-new training campus. It was quite impressive! As you can see from the video clip, we were shown around all the various training facilities (fake urban neighborhoods, fake houses, etc...all used to simulate the environments that cops will find themselves in).
We were supposed to be able to fire Glocks at the firing range, but they were in use at the time, so we weren't able to. The cops thought it was pretty amusing that I (a Yank) own and shoot a Glock of my own.
Gord, our host, told a story that I thought was sad. He said that a few years ago, the cadets were instructed to keep the training facilities clean. So, they would fire their weapons in the simulation areas at the academy, and immediately pick up their spent shells and put them in their pockets. The habit became so ingrained that they started finding dead police officers who had been involved in real-life shoot-outs...with spent bullet casings in their pockets or even in their curled hands. They were actually picking up spent casings in the real world during actual shoot-outs. So now, during training, the casings lay on the ground and are picked up later.
Enjoy the video. Please start leaving comments! I need a bit of feedback from these posts...otherwise, I have no way of knowing if anybody is watching them!
Also, please keep checking the blog. I leave on Thursday for England, South Africa, Namibia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt. I plan to blog during the entire trip!
Oh, and when I'm on this extensive trip, don't expect the high-production video that I made for my trip to Canada. For Toronto, I used my home machine to do all the editing and music overlays. When I'm overseas on the next trip, I will only have my corporate laptop...and it's not as capable as my home computer when it comes to editing video. So stop bitching already, OK? Jeez...
2 comments:
Robert, Keep up the good work, i'll keep reading it if you keep posting!, safe travels to africa
Hi Capt Bob- I am an old friend of Lorraine's and she told me to check out your blog. I am a hardcore, mainly third world traveler. I just had a friend of couchsurfing.com stay with me and he is driving his Landrover around the world. If you don't know about couchsurfing.com it is an online community of hardcore travelers who offer a couch or an extra room when they are passing through-or you surf someone else's. You can go anywhere in the world and there are people. You can just check out people's interests and ask them for good places to go-hiking, sailing, geocaching, partying, etc. You can just sign in to possibly meet someone for coffee or an outing. Get way if aren't traveling to scratch the proverbial itch. Max's website, Global-Detour.com tracks him. You might be crossing paths. He sells yachts when he's not traveling, and is always looking for good company. I am on Lorraine's FB page. Btw- I have lived MANY MANY years in Kenya in the bush and the coast for my business there. If you want any hints...ask!
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