Toronto

I’m finally settled in my hotel room here in Toronto. I’m staying at the hotel 18R, a nice 10,000 foot concrete-surface hotel with ILS approaches. Actually, it’s the Best Western, but its no lie I can see glide slope lights from my room (11th floor).

The room’s best feature is the gratis high-speed internet, which I’m making use of now. It’s a Bell Canada service called Data Valet. Only way it could rock more is if I got a real IP address to the Internet. But I can’t quibble.

I’ve had a long day, starting it at 4 AM and not yet finishing, as you can see. But I’m psyched just to have some breather time – just to be alone for a moment. I’ll finish a post and then crawl into that bed behind me.

Toronto is an interesting place. I was expecting it to be more beautiful than it actually is – at least, what I’ve seen of it. The weather has been gorgeous – it was 80 degrees F today with a steady breeze, though the breeze added chill around sundown.

What’s really surprising about Toronto is how much it reminds me of Austin, TX. Yes, Austin: that Texas town some-odd hundreds of miles away. I could close my eyes and the clear sky, ever-stretching highways, and funny-talking locals would convince me I was in Austin. The accent is different, though, I will admit.

The insane traffic has been the biggest surprise. I always pictured Canadians as polite and mild-mannered, but it is utter chaos on the roads here. Bumper to bumper traffic moves at breakneck speed, people abruptly change lanes, and absolutely NO ONE lets you in front of them. My rental car is a sweet Ford Mustang in a hideously bright shade of yellow. If I wasn’t already self-conscious about driving in a foreign country, it helps to have a car so visible it washes out the view of Mars. Thanks, Hertz…

The training I was sent here to do went well, all things considered. I was asked early-on if I had any kind of itinerary. Of course I don’t because I’m all about improvising. So that’s what I did. Luckily, I’ve got my coworker Jeff here to pick up the slack when I hit the tough technical parts. Mostly I held my own.

A few hours of being locked in a stuffy conference room and we were done. By that time, the main “combatant” in the company had completely changed his tune. It was to the point that I never would have pegged this guy as the one who gave us the most grief. He was all smiles as we left. For all the high-tech wizardry of the teleconferencing stuff I do, there is still no substitute for face-to-face meetings. No doubt about that at all.

We talked ourselves into going to one of the reseller’s customer sites to see our product in action. Jeff did surgery on the box, applying eight or so patches to the system. Each one took an agonizingly long time to finish, so we whiled away the time talking to our host, Herb.

Herb is a Jamaican-Canadian who immigrated 13 years ago. He was actually on the verge of falling asleep in front of us since he got only 2 hours of sleep last night. To my amazement, Herb lit up when our conversations somehow migrated to American politics.

Herb studied American political science in his college days in Canada. We spent the next two hours swapping views and opinions on the U.S. political climate. I consider myself to be somewhat politically aware, but Herb absolutely shamed me with his knowledge. I never thought Canadians could be more aware of American politics than Americans are, but Herb proved me wrong. He humbled me, plain and simple. And I’m not EVEN going to talk about the average American’s knowledge of our northern neighbor. I’m clueless about what’s going on in Canada.

Oh, and taxes. I heard an earful today about Canadian taxes. Yet Herb tells me that in this city of four million people, there are no ghettos. You won’t find a city like THAT in the States.

In spite of the rather unappealing sprawl around me (and the runway right outside my window), I wish I had more time to explore. The people are really friendly and the weather is nice (at least this time of year). I’ll have to bring Kelly along for the ride the next time around.