Calgary or Bust! Part 3

     There is not much to report today because all I do is sit in the office and work while I'm here but the view of the Rocky Mountains driving to the office is spectacular. It really does look like this.

Calgary and the Rocky Mountains

     In the morning, I go down to breakfast at the hotel at 7:10 AM and scarf down my food because the manager who is riding with me is already down there doing work and he's already eaten. Then about 7:25 AM I'm out the door with the manager heading to the office. Today I didn't leave the office until after 6:30 PM with the manager who is riding with me but that's because we went out to dinner with some other workers. Tonight I got back to the hotel around 8:30 PM after eating dinner at Earls Barlow Trail restaurant. I had the Bourbon mushroom steak with a Pale Ale. It was really good.

Earls

     Speaking of dinner, I had a strange experience while at dinner.

Sorry! Sorry!

     I went to the Lavatory and was standing at the urinal and heard a girls voice. I turned and here is a girl wearing a short black dress who works there picking up trash on the floor in the Lavatory within 4 feet of me! Then she proceeds to check the paper towel dispensers and said Sorry! Sorry! a couple times.
     I thought I was back in Antwerp Belgium again in the Lavatory!

     I'm tired so it's bedtime and then another long day tomorrow.

Calgary or Bust! Part 2

     Day 2 in Calgary...
     This will be a short update to my travels, er, non-travels in and around Calgary. The office I'm working in turns out to be about 3 miles from the hotel so around 7:30 AM I drove to it with one of the managers.
     Picture where you work and now picture where you park. Picture a normal office building near the airport with normal parking for cars. Now picture this...

Hourly Parking Receipt: $8 for 8 hours

     Yes, it costs a person $8 to park in a normal parking lot and that was good only until 4 PM. Of course I was there until 6 PM but I didn't get towed. We are miles from downtown and they told me it costs $45 a day to park downtown. Unreal!
     Here's an interesting fact. All the doors to the offices have a lego looking square on the door and then the tenants name and suite number is "lego'd " to the door like the example shown below. This is what the STAIRS door had on it.

Lego Office Door Signs

     I guess they save money this way.
     BTW, the view of the mountains this morning was spectacular but of course I was driving and could not take a picture.
     After I got to the office, my company laptop somehow picked up a malware virus. I have no idea how. I never use it off the company network. I spent hours today trying to get rid of it. I finally think I got it after scanning it about 50 times and rebooting it countless times. Damn you! You virus and malware creators! You know who you are!
     Now I will show you is how the plumbing sticks out of the floor in the hotel. It doesn't go into the wall. I think it's because it is so cold here that this prevents the pipes from freezing.

Hot and Cold Water Pipes and Drain in the Bathroom

Toilet Water Inlet

     My wife told me I need to be on the lookout for a Looney Loon coin. I did a search on the Internet and sure enough they have them here but so far, I have not received one. I guess they have several versions of them.

     I worked a lot of hours today. It looks like I won't get any sightseeing or any Looney Loon looking done while I'm here.
     Oh yes, one final thing. Tonight when I drove back to the hotel there were hundreds of geese flying in formation. They were going every which way and some formations had only two flying on one part of the V and maybe 35 on the other part of the V. It was a strange sight to behold. I thought geese flew south for the winter but these must be "Canadian Geese"...Gotcha! This is a true story though. Here's a link so you can learn about the geese.
     Until my next update, see ya!

Calgary or Bust!

     A few weeks ago I agreed to fly to Calgary, Alberta to help out the team there. This story is about the trip out and oh what a trip it was! But first...

     On February 22, 2014, the Michigan Brewers Guild held the annual Winter Beer Festival in wintery Grand Rapids, MI. Close to 4,000 beer enthusiasts endured cold temperatures and solid 20 mph winds to sample beers from Michigan brewers. It was great fun and this is me at the beer festival. The scarf came in handy Dee...

     On with the story...
     It all started at the gate in Detroit. The plane was supposed to leave for Denver at 7:50 AM but at 8:00 AM we were informed that the Outhouse, er, Lavatory in the rear was busted! They called the $h_t kickers anonymous, er, the Lavatory Man to add more "Bleach" as the pilot called it. We finally saw a truck labeled Lavatory pull up and heard sucking sounds, etc. At this point, the plane door had been closed and sealed for some time.
     All of a sudden, the plane door opened and a woman from the gate area came on the plane, proceeded  down the isle and grabbed a man 2 rows behind me and told him police officers were waiting outside the door. She said the pilot didn't want him on the plane. Why you might ask? It turns out he tried to pee while they were working on the lavatory and when the flight attendant told him to sit down, he said he had to pee. He'll be driving to Denver after the nice police officers get done with him.
     They finally closed the door again and we began to taxi after a one hour delay. Then the pilot ordered the plane to be deiced. There was no frost or snow on the plane. That delayed us another 20 minutes. Then we taxied to the hold line and the pilot revved the engines up much higher than normal idle and continued to do so for another 10 minutes. What the heck? Did they get too much antifreeze inside the engines? We finally took off over 1.5 hours late. 

     Oh, the plane was kind of small and the seats were really narrow. A rather large girl sat down in the isle seat of the row in front of me. She ended up having to sit sideways the entire flight. More on her below.

     We were just about to Denver when I happened to look up and between the seats I noticed the girl mentioned above with a finger coming out of her nose with...a booger!!!! OMG!!! Where it went I don't know because I needed to look out the window at that point.
     We ended up being over 1.5 hours late and as I was walking to my next gate, I heard an announcement that they were looking for someone to give up their seat and would give them a $400 transferable voucher, lunch and dinner and get them on a non-stop flight to their destination at 8 PM that night. It wasn't my flight or my hand would have gone up. Luckily I had a 2.5 hour connection but most other people missed their connecting flights.
     I boarded my flight to Calgary and the plane was an Airbus 320. It was a nice plane and looked pretty new. I sat down in my window seat and there was a young Asian man sitting in the middle seat. The plane was almost full when a large man came up to our isle and began to sit down. My eyes started watering from the odor he was giving off. Holy Cow!!! What was with flying today? I opened the air vent above my head full blast and directed it so it would cut off the odor before it got to me. Could I make it 3 more flight hours?

Alberta scenery from 36,000 feet

     Well, the views today were spectacular!

A mountain peak in Alberta

     It is amazing that the cities of Denver and Calgary are in the shadows of the US and Canadian Rocky Mountains. This is a view of the Canadian Rockies near Calgary.

Canadian Rockies in the distance

     After landing in Calgary, we taxied to the gate BUT there was no one at the gate. The pilot came on and said they told him a truck broke. We sat in the plane for another 20 minutes and finally the plane finished taxiing to the gate and we got off.
     After all the excitement I needed a break. Before landing they gave everyone a Customs paper for declaring what you were bringing in. It said "DO NOT BEND" at the bottom. I put it in my passport all flat.
     I went through Customs and my face got beat red when the girl asked me why I was coming to Canada. I got tongue tied. All I could think of was "This is my first time to Canada in a long time" and "My company sent me here". Gee whiz! She stamped my paper, gave it back to me and let me pass. I folded the paper up and shoved it in my passport.
     Then I found out that after picking up my baggage, I had to go through Customs again and I said to myself, "I'm in big trouble". I noticed that everyone was turning in their flat Customs paper that had been stamped. I pulled my folded Customs paper out and gave it to the girl and said "I'm sorry. It's my first time here in a long time and I thought we were done with that paper. She glared at me, unfolded it, pointed to the words "DO NOT BEND", bent it lengthwise and told me to leave. I left!
     On to the car rental place. It turns out they were really low on cars and I had to wait another 15 minutes for a car to be ready. They never offered a map to me and my GPS was buried in my suitcase, which is a pain to open because it has a zipper around 3 sides so I went out to the car (NOT WASHED) and proceeded to leave the airport and drive around for 20 minutes to find a place to eat. I finally found a little shopping center and found a bank there where I was able to change some money over.
     Upon coming back to my car, I found a really nice Mercedes 450 parked a foot from my door. He parked 2 feet from the other side so he could get out but left me a foot. Thank you very much! In other parking lots I noticed that everyone parks really close to each other. I don't know why.

The Mercedes out my car window

     After that, I opened the darn suitcase and dug out that GPS. I love you GPS! I found the hotel in no time flat. I got settled in and decided to find a restaurant to eat supper. I drove out of the parking lot...and remembered that my GPS was still in the hotel room. This was some day! After driving around for another 30 minutes trying to find a restaurant (there doesn't seem to be too many in this area), I found a Chilis and had a small steak dinner. It was really good!

Sirloin Dinner

     So now I'm in the hotel typing and it is 11:22 PM EST but 9:22 PM Alberta time. Thanks for reading!