Taxi troubles

I woke up this morning to the sound of cars honking. I opened the window to see:

At first I thought it was just heavy traffic because of the snow from last night. But as it continued and progressively got louder, I looked more closely to notice that they were all taxis. It must be some sort of protest. At one point a guy had a bullhorn out his window with a siren going. And I don't think it was because the Habs won lastnight...

Oh Montreal...

An early Monday morning

It's the start of another week on the road in Montreal. We will see how long I will be gone, I'm thinking (hoping) to be back by Wednesday so I can play hockey. But we will see. 

The airport is sure full of people going to warm destinations - I'm guessing as much since I don't think many people would be wearing shorts just because of the mild winter weather we are having. 

I am, however, enjoying my new safety boots. 

Not much else to say, the line for Tims was super long so I don't yet have any coffee...

It's a small world

What are the chances that I would meet up with one of my old bosses from Boeing while in Montreal. I think the chances are pretty slim since Norine is working in Seattle on the Boeing 777 production line - a significantly larger aircraft than anything produced here in QC. 

I stumbled across this on Facebook last night. I saw that Norine was staying at the Marriott hotel at the airport, a 5 min drive from my hotel. 

I messaged her last night on Facebook and we decided to get together for a drink tonight as she is only in Montreal for two days.  I inquired with some of my coworkers where a good spot would be to have a beer and maybe catch the hockey game. Olivier told me to try out Pub Burgundy Lion, so we did. 

I picked up Norine and we found our way to the pub. Beer in hand, we discussed work, work politics, the challenges of being a manager, travel and life. I really had a great time - plus if we ever go to Seattle again, I could get a personalized tour of the factory ;)

Although I was hoping to catch the jets game on one of the tvs in the pub, there was no such luck. Nor is there any luck to get the game on my iPad - darn blackouts, don't they know that my Bell account is in Manitoba and even though I am in Montreal, I am a Winnipegger?  I guess not. Now I'm listening to the game on my phone, writing about how small of a world it is.

A day in the life...

I have had some requests for a good blog post so I had to save up from yesterday. Plus I needed to plan out what this would be. Hopefully it lives up to the hype and anticipation. 

7:01am - alarm goes off. I'm not ready to get up, even though I thought I would be motivated enough to go to the hotel gym. Who was I kidding... Snooze. 

7:10-7:46 - alarm and snooze until the last possible minute. Time for the shower. 

7:55 - shower is done. Time to get dressed. 

8:10 - dressed and shaved. I pack my bag and go down to grab a quick breakfast before heading to Bombardier. 

8:20 - not much has changed on Facebook since last night. Guess I'll check emails. 

8:22 - too much Tobasco sauce on that mouthful of scrambled eggs. 

8:30 - time to grab a coffee to go and make the drive. Not sure how long it will take me to get to a different Bombardier office. It's warm outside:

8:46 - well, traffic was nonexistent. I'm early but don't know where to go once I get in. Let me call some people and see if they can tell me where to go. 

8:55 - I guess no one gets to work before 9. I'll try to find my way. 

9:01 - met a guy I know (Usher)(not the singer). He shows me where I need to go. 

9:02-9:30 - surprise everyone by showing up in person. Meet new faces. 

9:30-10:15 - war room meeting. Not so war like, thankfully because I didn't bring any armour. But I did have ammo if needed...

10:15-10:30 - leave one Bombardier office and drive to a different Bombardier office. Leaving one:

10:30 - Park on the hill. 

10:33 - no waiting for the elevator! It's my lucky day. Otherwise I would be stuck here on the first floor for another 5 mins.

10:35 - arrive at an open desk within the Certification group. Find out that the plane is 2 hrs delayed. Ok, time to get some work done. 

10:35-12:10 - emails, phone calls, discussions, network crashes, emails. 

12:10 - I should grab something to eat, otherwise I won't get a chance until 5:30. 

12:18 - although I wanted a salad instead of fries with my panini, I won't complain. This just means I need to go to the gym tonight. 

1:00 - paperwork arrives, airplane is ready. It's go time. 

2:30 - back at my desk. One down, one more to go in an hour and a half. 

3:00 - calling in to a telecon. 

3:05 - this telecon is sucking the energy out of me...

3:21 - telecon is over (thank you!). Time to get some work done. 

4:06 - oh, you are waiting for me to get you to go to the airplane?  I was just getting work done, I can go whenever. 

4:10 - trying to walk away to the airplane, I get engaged in a different conversation with the certification group. 

4:20 - arrive at the airplane. Severely disoriented - is this not exactly where we were 3 hrs ago?  Must not be, different paint scheme. And different airplane type...

5:25 - almost done the inspection but need to check the main entry door. We can't close it because the technicians are touching up the paint. They will be done in 15 mins. Great, I know what 15 mins is in aviation time...

5:31 - what, they are ready to close the door? I like this 15 mins!

5:34 - inspection, c'est fini. Time to head back to my laptop. 

5:40-6:10 - emails, emails, discussions about Davide's work ethic (my colleague), emails, not crashing the network. 

6:15 - time to leave. 

6:30 - at the hotel. 5th floor please:

6:32 - Time to drop off my laptop, change and then go to get something to eat. I feel like ribs. And a salad. 

6:40 - I think if I take the lane to the right and don't go up and down this overpass I get to the same spot. 

6:41 - nope. I guess that's why it was an overpass. Oh well, detour. 

6:42-6:47 - nice neighbourhood (Côte Vertu). If only you could turn right on red...

6:53 - made it to Baton Rouge, 5 mins longer than it needed to be. 

6:58 - beer in hand, some college hockey game is on the tv - time to blog. 

7:22 - food is here. I shouldn't have ordered a salad, that was pretty big. 

7:51 - I'm full. I've paid. But my beer is still here. Guess I'll blog some more. 

8:06 - time to drive back to the hotel. 

8:21 - arrived at the hotel. It's quiet:

9:00 - talk to Lola. The maple salmon she made for supper looks delicious. I can almost smell it here, some 2,000 kms away. 

9:22 - time for the gym. 

9:24 - IT'S FREEZING IN HERE! (the gym)

9:40 - run complete - 1.45 miles in 15 mins at 1% incline. Need to stretch these muscles. 

9:45 - I'll grab the 30 lbs dumbbells, I need to work my back - too much sitting at a computer lately. 

9:55 - workout done. Time to finish the blog so my readers can enjoy. And I can enjoy some water. And this bed. Goodnight! 

Three points for #10

They don't often get the scoring summaries right but they did tonight. An opening goal assist followed by a second period pass shot goal and lastly a one time from the hash marks to top corner blocker side. 

If it weren't for the 4 goals I was on the ice for, we would have done alright tonight. That and maybe a few less penalty minutes but that's hard to come by when playing the team with the most PIMs, especially for our team...

Arizona Adam returns

It has been a busy trip. I arrived in Tucson at 1:30 and spent a total of 20 mins in the hotel. 

After grabbing a quick sandwich at Eegees, I made my way to Bombardier to get my inspection done. An hour later, I was done. Yep, 7 hours travel today for a 1 hr inspection to be followed with a 7 hr flight tomorrow. At least I found some pretty significant snags so it wasn't all for nothing. 

After work, I made my way to one of the local craft brewery's (Barrio) to meet up with one of the guys I worked with on the Medevac project - he is no longer with Bombardier but is definitely keeping himself busy as a contractor. 

After a few hours catching up, I made my way to Katie and Jason's. We then went to one of my favourite restaurants here in Tucson - Oreganoes. A few wings were had and then some pizza and pasta. 

That was Katie's pizza, no one else's. Hahaha

I'm looking forward to my flight to Denver tomorrow. Hopefully I can enjoy some more James Bond that can stream to my iPad, just like the flight down. 

Peterborough

It has been a while since I blogged. So much that I'm almost out of practice. 

This week has started with a short trip to Peterborough for some project design reviews with a customer. One project is coming due in January and the other (medevac) not until late 2017. 

After a travel morning, an afternoon long meeting followed by dinner with the customer, I was ready to get to work at around 8:30. But not after talking to Lola.

 Work started at around 9 and finished at midnight. Lola was working too. 

Arizona Adam - working

Lola working

Lola's dying plant(?)

Then, it was a matter of trying get to fall asleep after plowing through some work. That (sleep) didn't happen until at least 1:30am. 

Today started with breakfast at 7:30 and then a meeting with the customer that started at 8:30 and finished at around 2:45.

Looking sharp

Equally looking sharp

One of six aircraft we have approved and waiting for FAA approval

I am now sitting in the car in a Walmart parking lot while my coworker is meeting with a guy who has a minivan for sale that he is interested in. Good thing we have some time before we need to be at the airport. 

Well I should call into a meeting with Transport Canada to see how projects are progressing.