From Canada with love

From Canada with love,

I recently had the pleasure of being stopped at the Canadian Customs inspection depot in the Edmonton airport flying in from San Jose. The lady behind the counter was, for the lack of a better term, a bitch. I have been to Canada for my job several times and never had I recieved such a hard time getting into this country. I have done work in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and now Edmonton but this was different I guess since the new immigration and border laws went into effect.

I found out that if you are going to Canada for work, you should always say that you are having a meeting or observing something in your field. They don't feel so threatened by this and will let you pass without needing a work permit, invoice or god forbid a visa. The lady behind the counter was in some kind of powertrip according to my project manager Jay. I just let him handle the situation and get her the paperwork that she was requesting for our work up there.

We left the nice sunny and warm weather of San Jose for Edmonton which froze the second night that we were there (in September). I don't even want to imagine how frickin cold that it gets up there if it is freezing there in early September. I am from Indiana so I know somewhat about cold weather and its effects on people. We went to do our work in the Edmonton Arena (Hail Gretzky) via Gretzky Blvd and Gretzky Lane. I think that they may have named a road for Messier but it wasn't near the arena. Jay said that it wasn't that cold and that I am just being a wimp about the weather but I pointed out that if the Canadian's that live here are wearing coats I should be as well. Did I mention that I did not bring ANY winter clothes on this trip? Anyway, I thought that since it is September 2nd it would be somewhat comfortable, brisk weather up there. I guess that I was correct in that assumption but I underestimated the degree of briskness. Jay was nice enough to stop by the Goodwill there so that I could pick through the Canadian junk there and find something to keep myself warm. I love going to the Goodwill stores but this was entirely different than the ones in Jacksonville or Indiana. There were so many hockey sweaters that they had their own section! I thought that was pretty cool but who really wants a "Rays Autoparts" hockey sweater? If I hadn't already purchased a Charlestown Chiefs sweater this year I might have picked one up. I bought a zip up hoodie and we were off to a very fine Thai restuarant named "Haong Long". This was probably the finest Thai food that I have ever had and I must recommend the coconut rice especially.

After this we were off to Calgary (3 hours away) after working until 4 in the afternoon the next day. We finished our work there but it was kind of scary to say the least.

As you can see from the pictures to the right I was working up in the rafters of the arena. That big thing on the right is a center hung scoreboard. This paticular one shoots fire out of itself since they are the Flames. I am not afraid of heights but for some reason I was getting dizzy when I was walking on this catwalk. I needed to have a seat somewhere else for a moment. On the long drive home I realized that I was just suspended about 150 feet above the ice and for some reason that bothered me. Imagine that. I got through the task just fine though, in fact I am kind of proud of myself for not wimping out of this situation. I don't know how many other people would have been doing what I was doing up there (testing equipment) and been fine with it. After this we got back into the car and drove back to edmonton (3 hours) at 9:15. This put us back into our warm beds at 12:15 am but I failed to mention that our departing flights were at 7:05. This meant that we would need to get out of bed at 4 to make our gates. All in all it was a good trip and even more so a learning experience in dealing with the Canadian border patrol upon entering. Take my advice to heart and happy travels.