Experiencing technical difficulties...

I seem to be having trouble with my pictures from the weekend.  For some reason, I receive errors when I try to view them on the computer or camera.  This isn't a good sign.  Some pictures do come through, some of which are below.

Hopefully I'm able to resurrect the others including the videos I took...

More to come (hopefully).

I'm not sure this needs a caption,
but without one this is the lone picture out

Outdoor concert

Getting ready for the big game

Here is an erroneous picture - grey bars shouldn't be here

Bringing in the cup

Oh Canada

Yours truly

Harinder, Udaya, Olivier (L to R)

The Biebs

Return road trip

7:25 AM - departure

7:44 AM - entering the 401, traffic moving well

8:15 AM - McDonalds breakfast, mmm hash brown ;)

8:46 AM - 4 hrs away

11:51 AM - snow on the ground, we must be travelling north. (Olivier says I should start each entry with "Dear Diary"... I didn't find this funny...)

12:14 PM - dear diary... Lol. Just entered Quebec - Olivier is back to driving aggressive, funny how that works

12:35 PM - entering L'Ile de Montreal

12:58 PM - home!

Road trip

1:25 PM - depart apartment

2:08 PM - entering Ontario

2:35 PM - filling up with gas, $77.23 - big tank

3:54 PM - just passed the University of Laval bus returning from the Vanier Cup

4:35 PM - sunset

5:10 PM - just passed a big apple. No word of a lie, 20 feet in diameter

5:31 PM - found a multi cultural radio station listening to Portuguese commercials

5:48 PM - just passed a big GM plant in Oshawa

6:15 PM - traffic going to downtown, wow lots of cars

6:30 PM - gas stop 2, have 9kms left on this tank... Filling up beside the Keg Mansion.

6:34 PM - just saw a coop car - multi ownership car

6:42 PM - stopped outside the eaton centre see photo

11:35 PM - at Brassai completely underdressed

The Blair Special

Friday night

So apparently I do have fans, people are reading my blog.  I wasn't sure, there were a few days where I could see that no one had read anything...

Today was fairly routine - at work until 7, home and make supper.  Talk to Gwen and then laundry.  (See post "Hmm... (New)").  As I left work today, I noticed that some Christmas lights were up and on. It got me thinking that it is getting close to Christmas.  This was confirmed when I was in the grocery store and heard Christmas carols on the speakers in the store.  I was thankful, the song wasn't Feliz Navidad...

Don't really have much else to write about.  It was a long week and I'm looking forward to the weekend in Toronto.  We will be riding in style - Jeep grand Cherokee.  Olivier said he wanted to be safe if we got into a crash, I told him of course we would in my Volkswagen.  Maybe he just meant he didn't trust my driving skill...

Next post should be from Ontario.  Remember to watch for me in the crowd - I will be the guy in the blue unitard.

Hmm... (New)

Didn't plan this too well... How do I get to the light to turn it off...

7:52 PM Thursday

It's almost Friday! Yay! That means its almost time to go to Toronto for the Grey Cup!

Monday morning I was surprised when I was offered a ticket to the Grey Cup from our business unit director. I don't know how he got tickets but was definitely interested. I responded right way saying I'm interested. There were three tickets in total. Through out the day one of my colleagues mentioned that he missed out of a chance for a ticket. Later on a different colleague was asking my plan to go.

I told him plan was to leave Saturday and overnight twice in Toronto before returning Monday. Unfortunately he had something on Saturday night so that wouldn't work for him so he declined the ticket. This freed up a ticket for Olivier who was upset he missed out. Olivier and I also went to the eastern final on Sunday.

So our plan is to drive down Saturday to be there for supper. We staying at a hostel downtown walking distance from the game. We will meet up with Udaya (our director) who will have the tickets probably on Saturday for dinner.

I'm pretty excited, Justin Bieber is playing half time! Lol. It's going to be a big party.

Now I just need make sure I finish my lecture that I'm presenting at Carleton University on Wednesday next week. Luckily the students change but the content doesn't ;)

After the lecture I'll pick Gwen up in Ottawa and we will drive back to Montreal.

Can't wait... :D

He shoots...

He scores!

That's right folks, scored the opening goal tonight.

I picked off a stretch pass from the defenseman to the forward at the red line. I took the puck wide and was looking for passing options - there wasn't any good ones so I continued down the boards and started to cut behind the net. Again, looking but no passing options. So I figured why not try my patented (well more like Gretzky's patented) wrap around. As I got to the opposite corner of the net I knew I would be trying my luck with jamming it in so I figure I would take it a little higher and try a shot.

Top shelf - didn't hit the goalie! As we skated back to centre ice, after a few congrats from the guys, I was thinking "hmm, wonder if my grandpa will still give me a dollar for my goal?" Maybe if I'm lucky, inflation and the cost of goals will have gone up to $2 or maybe even $5... Hahaha.

I followed up my goal with a tripping penalty... Pretty bad call, I didn't even touch the guy, I guess I intimidated him and he fell over. Really, sometimes the calls are close and can go either way, but this was simply a bad call. Oh well...

Mighty chucks lose a nail biter 5-4.

Football

Today was football Sunday.  I went to the Eastern Final CFL game with a coworker (Olivier) and his girlfriend (Julie) at the Olympic Stadium (ou en francais, Stade Olympique).

I drove to Oliver's place and we rode together to the game.  We parked about five minutes away and walked to the game.  We got there a little early which was alright, saw Rick Hughes perform some covers of some rock songs (en anglais - in English).  The football game was pretty good.  The Alouettes dominated the first quarter and in reality the first half.  However, they came out pretty flat the second half which allowed Toronto to catch up and gain a lead which Montreal unfortunately couldn't overcome.

There was 50,112 fans in attendance, this definitely wasn't a sell out, there were many seats in the upper deck which were still open and two beside me. I was kind of disappointed there was no "TRUE NORTH" shout during the national anthem, but then again the anthem was in French, that's probably why ;)

The crowd was loud but they didn't seem to have the same feel as a Jets game, there was no "Crosby's better" chant (don't know what the football equivalent would be... Probably something against Ricky Ray, Toronto QB).

Afterwards, we went for dinner to a restaurant called Grill Barroso which is a Portuguese restaurant that has amazing grilled chicken and home made chips.  We then went back to Oliver's place for a coffee and fruit cake (mine piece literally was that, a piece of cake, it was so big...).

Here are some photos from the game, hope you enjoy!

Rick Hughes performing before the game

Eric Lapointe at half-time

Alouettes on the offensive

C'est fini!

Saturday Morning Breakfast

Sweet potato hash with tomato juice

Bath Time

It's been a while since I washed my car, like close to 2 months is my guess.  It wasn't too dirty, mostly dusty.

After a quick bath in the garage, it's all shiny again.

Hockey

So I got to hockey a little bit early which is where I'm writing this post.

I had to get my skates sharpened, return the red jersey I bought because the Mighty Chucks had a spare #9, and figured I would buy some new red socks so I don where out my Flyer orange socks for next season (plus orange and red kind of clash).

So instead of being here 30-45 mins before I am closer to the one hour mark. Oh well, better to be early than late.

The week has been busy. We had one of our recent hires (grad from U of M) come out to see some planes with our certification Manger when he came out earlier this week for the smoke flight tests with me. Doug stayed until Tuesday night and then I was to keep Leo occupied with things at work. Overall things went well, we got him in 3 airplanes and he got to experience one of our review meetings with Bombardier.

I dropped him off at the airport today at 6:15 pm or so and then drove home, changed, got my stuff and now here.

I'm looking forward to the weekend, last night was kind of late with an inspection from 7-10 and then a late dinner with our business director who was also in town for meetings.

I'm going to the eastern final CFL game with one of my colleagues here, at Olympic Stadium. It should be a good one - Montreal vs Toronto.

Test Tuesday

Today was spent mostly on one airplane. We started with a 3.5 hrs flight test and then a 2 hrs inspection.

The flight test was my first smoke detection and penetration test. The purpose is to verify that the baggage compartment smoke detector will detect smoke in 1 minute and that the smoke will not penetrate into the passenger cabin.

For the test, you produce actual smoke from a chemical reaction. One guy maintains the test machine in the baggage compartment (on these business jets it is aft of the cabin). Another guy stands up by the cockpit and gives a signal when the smoke is detected and alarms are sounded in the cockpit. My job (other than learning from Doug's training) was to watch that they were doing the test correctly and that smoke does not come into the cabin.

Overall, tests were successful. We completed three tests - one at 9,000 ft unpressurized, one at 35,000 ft normal cabin pressurization and ventilation conditions and one at 24,000 ft with minimum ventilation conditions and relatively normal pressurization.

I learned a ton - if only I had 10% of Doug's knowledge... which I am slowly accumulating. It was quite interesting to see how emergency decent is accomplished (basically put on the speed brakes and descend fast). Plus it is always fun to just stand in the cockpit entrance and watch everything going on to fly the plane.

Here are some pictures:

That's some blue sky at 43,000 ft

That's one clean wing

Northern Quebec at 35,000 ft

Well, almost time for bed. It was an early morning today.

Photos from today

Haircut

Centre Fuselage Section being brought in

Yep, that was the temperature when I got to my car today

Slow day Sunday

Today was a slow day.  I didn't really have much that I "had" to do, did lots yesterday - laundry done by 10:30am and then 6 hrs of work.

Today was another day where I would just wander around aimlessly to kill time.  My mission - Carrefour Laval, Costco and Loblaws.

I wasn't really searching for anything in particular, thought I would check out the mall to see if it was as big as the website made it sound.  And the website is true - it took me almost 2 hrs to walk around the mall at an average pace, stopping in only a handful of stores.  The mall was remarkably busy for a nice Sunday afternoon, but I guess that is what people do on the weekends - shop.

Costco was a zoo.  I figured as much when I was trying to turn into the parking lot and had to wait a few mins for cars to clear.  Parking was full, I ended up parking behind the building where there were a few open spots but people were parking everywhere.  I think this is the first time I ever went to Costco and left empty handed other than when I got tires or a tire repair.  It's weird wandering around and not buying anything.  Good thing I didn't take a cart with me into the store - I probably would have made an excuse to buy something or used the cart to make my way through the crowds, although I preferred the stealthiness of not dealing with a large cart.  My most memorable moment was seeing the 60 can box (that resembled more of a crate) of Coors Light that you can get for $58.  Great deal if you wanted to lug around 60 cans of beer with you in the store... me, I preferred my 6 bottles of Rickards Oak House beer that I got from Loblaws.

Loblaws was remarkably dead.  Maybe it was all the hustle and bustle from the mall and Costco that deadened by senses but it really was quite empty.  Other than having to wait in line for one of the three open tills, it was pretty awesome shopping.  I got the essentials - bread, sandwich meat, yogurt, frozen pizza, beer, lettuce, eggs, bacon, swiffer...

The drive home was more of an experience.  My route was supposed to be, link, but I decided to quickly abandon this when I saw what the Met (Aut 40 O) looked like - bumper to bumper traffic probably all three lanes.  So I took the scenic route, link.  I'm sure it took me longer but I wasn't frustrated by slow traffic.  Plus, I got to see more of the city this way.

Now, just relaxing.  I should start to make supper soon, but don't really feel motivated to do so.  Maybe in a few more mins.

Christmas List

I guess this would be a convenient place to have my Christmas List, so here it is:

Adam's Christmas list

Wine rack (I like this one from Crate & Barrel, only $35)

New wine glasses (qty 4 is good)
Bicycle pump
Planet earth dvd box set (blu ray)
James Bond Skyfall DVD (if released)
Robert Ludlum books
Black dress socks
Dress shirts - 16" neck, 34/35" sleeve, solid colour or pattern
Golf club covers
New hockey pants
New skates (my shoe size is 8.5 or 9)
iPhone armband
New snowboarding mitts (prefer removable liner)
Small tool chest for on top of my work bench in the garage

Video games:
PS3:
Call of duty world at war
007 legends
LA noire
Portal 2

Wii:
Mario kart


Added 15 NOV 12:
New hockey bag with skate pockets on outside

Added 16 NOV 12:
New Korn CD - the path of totality

Added 25 NOV 12:
Black leather gloves

Added 28 NOV 11:
White undershirts size M

My run today

http://www.mapmyrun.com/view_workout?w=202689487

Location

Wants to leave work

But I can't, computer is running some shutdown scripts... Why on a Friday when I already stayed late is it that I have to stay later?

Finally done. Going home now. Weekend here I come ;)

Tires

Killing time

I have hockey tonight at 10:30 so I have some time to kill right now.

Today was good, had a day long process map meeting where we really only spent an hour looking at the process map but had some good discussions.

Afterwards I went for dinner with two of my coworkers, both from Winnipeg but in Montreal for different reasons - one guy was here for the process mapping while the other is here for aircraft testing. It was good to spend time with them and catch up on things back in the Winnipeg office.

I can't wait for the weekend where I can catch up on my rest and laundry. I seem to be getting enough sleep each night (I was in bed at 9:45 last night) but I really need to stop the work aspect. It's tough when you don't really have much else to do other than check emails yet at a certain point you need to draw the line and turn the work brain off and relax from the daily stress of dealing with customers.

We will see what the weekend brings but I'm thinking of heading off the island to Laval to check out the shopping there and just to get out of the busyness of Montreal.

Maybe I'll make ham for supper on Saturday, that would be good...

Waitin for tires

Today I'm getting winter tires installed. I spent part of the weekend looking for the best deal and ended up going with a deal from Canadian Tire - four tires installed on my rims for $487. I was originally looking for (at least) steel rims for my car but this deal was too good to pass up.

So I dropped my car off at Canadian tire at 6:00 and was told it would be ready at 7:30. I went to get something for dinner thinking this would kill some time. Of course, Murphy's law prevails - I ordered honey seasame chicken stir fry from Jack Astors thinking this would take time to make. No word of a lie, 5 mins after I ordered, my meal was ready... So much for killing time... And here I thought my order would take more time than my second choice - chicken fingers and fries... Boy was I mistaken.

After dinner I went back to Canadian tire and wandered around. There must be something wrong with me, after 5 mins of wandering I was done. Guess I didn't prove my dad proud on this one, lol.

So now I write this in the waiting room with French hockey news on the tv. I don't know what they are reporting on, I just heard Lemieux and Gretzky and try had highlights for the 87 Canada cup, must be reruns. At least they aren't running a simulation of a hockey season from a video game and reporting highlights on it like they were last night on Off the Record... See what happens when there is no NHL hockey? We go crazy...

It sure is dark outside

That is the one draw back from the time change, the fact that it gets dark super early. I guess it doesn't help when you leave work at 7:10... So much for going to the gym tonight, I'll do that tomorrow after I get my winter tires installed.

Cooking supper:

Running in Westmont

Just finished a run outside in a 4*C Montreal fall Sunday afternoon. I forgot how much a slight incline adds to your run...

You can check out my route below:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/view_workout?w=200724725

Many houses for sale in this area. I was curious how much they go for. So, I looked up some of them on the Internet. Prices range from $850,000 to $1,700,000... No wonder I liked them...

Did I make enough?

I guess I'm still learning how to cook for one... Oh well I'll have chilli for a few days this week ;)

Tradeshow Photos

Bombardier's Booth

Eurocopter's Display Helicopter

Embraer's Display - full size mockup

Honda's Booth - F1 race car in the foreground, HondaJet mockup in the background

Our Booth

Orlando and the Biggest tradeshow I have ever seen

There are trade shows and then there are TRADESHOWS. Holy man, this one was massive.

The flight down was good, basically on time. This was the first time in a long time that I had to check a bag (well technically it was 5 days since my Tucson flight, but that's irrelevant). When I got to Orlando, my bag actually beat me off the airplane. I got tot he carousel and basically walked up and grabbed it off the belt (my walk was a little more fast paced when I say my bag about to go around the far side and I would have to wait for it again.

I made my way to find my co worker Udaya so that we could grab a cab to the hotel. We got in the cab and arrive at our hotel (Wyndham Orlando Resort) about 30 mins later. We got checked in, took the golf cart shuttle to our building (# 10, hmm... Fitting, never thought if that sooner...) and then went and grabbed something to eat as it was 8:30 and I hadn't eaten since lunch back in Winnipeg which was a pizza lunch in the office for a lady who was going on medical leave for some reason, don't know exactly why but I'm assuming it is something to do with her rheumatoid arthritis.

(Side note - I love westjet flights from Toronto to Montreal or vice versa free beer and wine to compete with Porter airlines).

Where was I, oh yeah dinner. We went to a place called Kobe Steakhouse, a new Japanese steakhouse just across the street. I had cashew chicken, it was good but couldn't eat much because it was pretty late and I lost my appetite, kind of like I'm thinking is going to happen today when I get home at 930 or so...

Afterwards, back to the hotel and to bed. The next morning started early, Udaya invited me to go or a run with him... At 6 am... I figured, sure, why not, what's sleep on the first night. So, 6 am we started out on our run (route here). The weather was a balmy 48*F, remnants of Hurricane Sandy. We returned at 630, showered and then went for breakfast before getting on the shuttle at 830.

We got to our booth and did a quick orientation (and I met all of my colleagues from Wisconsin, some whom I met previously but most I had not).

Most days I spent time just manning the booth. I was involved in a few meetings with existing and potential customers. For the most part, I felt kind of useless because I don't know a lot of the technical details on our products. But, I generally know enough to answer vague questions and if the questions got more technical j would get someone else who knew lore than I did. If course, if it was engineering and certification that they were interested in, I was their man. But most times it was not....

One meeting we were asked when. I could move to Peterborough to support one of our customers. Afterwards Udaya and I were laughing saying that I must have made a good impression last month when I was there... Don't worry, I'm not going to Peterborough. I suspect this customer was maybe the one who sent a recruiter after me a couple years ago looking for a "certification engineer for a southern Ontario client"...

Overall, I learned a lot and got to meet some new people and reconnect with some people I dealt with in the past.

Just to give some context here, this conference is SO BIG that:

• There were two full size helicopters on display
• Many full size mockups for Pillatus, Hondajet, Lufthansa Teknik, Cessna, Gulfstream and Embraer business aircraft.
• Pratt and Whitney had several engines on display
• Some companies had cars they were raffling off, I think there were 6 in by he convention centre.
• I took this video of a model/mockup Boeing Business Jet (called a BBJ)

• Honda had one of their race cars on display
• I would claim that Gulfstream had the largest display, however Bombardier wasn't far behind

There is so much to talk about... I'll post pictures tomorrow.

I was a little disappointed that I didn get to the static aircraft display where they have actual airplanes, that flew in, on display. I simply ran out of time... Too bad because the biggest airplane from Bombardier was one that I had inspected a few weeks ago, don't worry I let people know this, including Udaya who was going into a meeting with the customer where I told him the aircraft serial number.

Today was pretty calm, sounds like numbers at this tradeshow are down quite a lot from what is usually seen. I saw one paper that said the numbers yesterday were down 4%, only 24,000 people showed up... We figure a lot of this has to do with Sandy and the impact this had on international flights and flights from t eastern seaboard.

Flight from Orlando to Toronto was a little delayed but nothing major. Toronto to Montreal was an hour late but I made it here.

Now, at 9:50 it is time for supper.