Go East Young Man

I just got back from a full week of training at our Bell facility in Vancouver. Now I could try to make a joke and say it was more saltines and rock salt but it actually wasn't. I also wish I could say that I am now an expert on our 5500 switches but I think that will come once I take down the Olympic network a few times. Hopefully, "they" will let me play with the switches before the actual games start. There's no better feeling than to have a switch go down during a competition and make the repair without feeling the pressure of the world and the eyes and cameras of the media. Some of you may have already experienced the joy of following that reality TV series for weeks (where hockey players don figure skates), only to see the blue screen of death for the last half hour of the series. Apparently, there was a power failure or something at our favourite cable company in Toronto and many of the affiliates out west missed the finale. It had nothing to do with my 5500switch training by the way. Should you hear complaints from our Olympic athletes, then you can start pointing fingers.

Now you might wonder why there are no pictures in this post. Mainly because I didn't want to get my camera wet. My boss was kind enough to drive me down to Vancouver on Tuesday morning as he and his assistant had a meeting in the same building as I did. So why is this blog worthy? It is natural for the driver to get a fairly good understanding of where he came into a new city or at least know where north is. I was the passenger however! I was just looking out into the grey and wet oblivion on my trip into Vancouver. I looked at my travel arrangements that day and saw that I was staying at the Westin. "Oh great," I thought, "I will get a heavenly sleep!" My boss did tell me that I wouldn't need a car and that the Westin was just a few blocks away. So we parted ways with me carrying my laptop bag and the smallest rolling suitcase that I had in Whistler.

Once I found my "Goldrush" room at the Bell building, I stowed my luggage in the corner and we all introduced ourselves at the meeting. Everybody was impressed (and some envious) of the few pictures I had taken of the snow. Lunch came quickly and many of us went to the Keg which was just around the corner. Once our first day of training was over, I asked the instructor for directions to the handy dandy Westin. She proceeded to draw me a picture on the white board and, with the Bell building and Keg as my only reference, I grabbed my rolling suitcase bag and shouldered my laptop and headed out to my "heavenly sleep."

It took a few blocks before I started to feel like a twenty-first century bag lady. I was looking for a good shopping cart but I think they were all taken! My directions were to walk a couple of streets one way and a couple of blocks the other way. On the white board it looked like you would have to go south and then east because everybody knows that south is on the bottom of a drawing and north is on the top of a drawing. I pulled out my handy GPS we all call Maggie and was worried that I hadn't given it enough time to charge. Didn't matter, there was no signal anyway! Now I could have jumped into a cab and suffered the stare of some foreign driver because my trip would have been a couple of blocks but I decided to call somebody else that is famous for his "short cuts." My father-in-law Hugh! Thank God for the 10-4! I called my handy dandy travel guide and was asked which Westin I was booked in at. "You mean there's more than one" I asked? You'd think that since most of Vancouver is on a flood plain, it would be fairly flat. Just try wearing your Whistler approved "Wet-Skin" jacket, toting a fully loaded rolling suitcase with a laptop strapped to one shoulder and a cell phone stuck to your ear with the guy on the other end asking "Well, where are you? I think you have to go east." You find out quick that there are enough inclines, especially when you've been going the wrong way and you have to go up and down them twice.

I had a lovely dinner with Catherine on Thursday night at the Burgoo restaurant. I thought it would be a nice treat since I had the use of a vehicle. I pulled out my handy dandy GPS Maggie and wouldn't you know it! Same thing, I was driving in ever increasing concentric circles around city blocks to try to find a decent satellite signal. Now I was a twenty first century bag lady driving a car with no clue where I was going, just like your typical cabbie anywhere. When I told Catherine about this adventure she said that I should just remember the mountains are always due north. Only on a clear day!

It's been nearly two weeks now that I have been in BC. I can count the number of times I have seen the sun on one hand and still have fingers left over. I definitely have not seen the mountains as a backdrop for Vancouver and my GPS "Maggie" must be upset with me! My Gillete Mach 4 razors are starting to look pretty good on my wrists! I've told all the guys that I'm still not sure that I'm in the mountains! I could be anywhere! The sky is always covered in a grey mist so you don't see much of anything beyond a couple hundred feet. I've got one week and I will be going east, as long as I can find the airport!