Well, That Rots

Somehow, when I published that last post my template got trashed. I guess I'll have to fix it up later...

I think it had to do with Wordpress, which I was mucking about with a couple of months ago, since the crapped-out template had a reference to Wordpress in it.

Word of warning to those importing their blogs into Wordpress - back up your template first!

I'm Lazy and I Suck and I'm in Taiwan

I can't believe how lazy I've been about blogging. I guess it's like any good habit; once you get out of it, it's gone.

Anyway, tons of stuff has happened over the last few months. I took July and August off, and as you can see from the last post I made, we spent two weeks in Eastern Canada. Had a great time.

I've also been teaching all over the place. I did a three day class in Sydney, Australia. Which was very cool. David Suzuki was doing a thing in the next conference room which was kind of neat. I also met a couple of The Wiggles on the plane over. It was kind of funny since I told my kids before leaving that I would say hello to them if I happened to see them.

In October and November, I spent a month in South America. I taught courses in Bogota, Colombia; Lima, Peru; and Caracas, Venezuela. In between a couple of the courses, I had a week off which I spent in Quito, Ecuador. It was a great month. I met tons of great people, saw lots of wonderful things, and improved my Spanish immensely. I finally got my pictures up on flickr (although none of them are labelled yet). See the link to the right.

After getting back, I had a week in the San Francisco area which I always love. I had a chance to catch up with my friend John who lives in Oakland.

Now I'm in Taipei, Taiwan. I'm in the classroom, and the students are working on a lab. There don't seem to be a lot of questions, so I've got some time to kill. On Friday, I leave for London where I have another class next week, and then it's home for Christmas. Since I flew west to Taiwan, and will fly west to London and then to Ottawa, I will be able to literally say that I flew around the world this year. Kind of fitting with all of the international travel I've been doing.

I've done some sightseeing in Taiwan since I arrived early and had the weekend to kill. I spent some time on Saturday at Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world. There's a big mall there, and you can go up into the tower. One interesting thing they have there is that the wind damper (used to decrease the movement of the building under high winds) is open for viewing. It's 660 metric tons mounted across five storeys on steel cables and hydraulics. Kind of neat. The elevators move at 60km/h so it takes about 30 seconds or so to get to the top (over 500m). I also went to an electronics show and walked around for a bit. On Sunday, I hopped on the subway and saw Longshan temple. On Monday I visited Shilin Night Market. The night markets in Taipei are like malls, but instead of being indoors are in a series of interconnected alleys. There are tons of street food venders with all kinds of good food (imagine candy apples, but with fat strawberries, fried Chinese buns, and deep-fried seafood to name a few). I think I was able to identify about 75% of what I ate.

The labs coming to the end, so it's time to go.

Driving to Fredericton

We started our road trip yesterday with a 10-hour drive to Fredericton. We packed everything in the car the night before and got up at 5am to hit the road by 6am. The unfortunate thing about leaving that early is that you hit some rush hour traffic in Montreal. It wasn’t all that bad, though and we made our first pit-stop on the Autoroute 20 just south of Quebec City. We stopped and had lunch at a picnic area in Quebec with a nice view of the Laurentians and the St. Lawrence. From there, Lara drove us into New Brunswick. We got into Fredericton around dinner time and loaded up on a big lobster dinner (what better way to start a trip to the Atlantic provinces?).

I’m always amazed at how well our kids travel. I’ve talked to people who wouldn’t even dream of taking their kids to Montreal because the two-hour drive would be torture. The kids played with their games, watched movies, too naps and didn’t even ask how much farther it was until we were seven hours into the drive.

When we got into Fredericton, we first checked into our digs. Before the trip I was looking into places to stay and found that hotels were crazy expensive. I guess that should be expected with high-season, last minute bookings. We were also planning on camping, but wouldn’t have had enough room in the car for all the equipment (we were pretty full already). We decided that we would look at accommodations at universities. Many universities open up their residences for tourists in the summer months for a pittance compared to the price of hotels. We stayed the first night at UNB in Fredericton for around $40 for the whole family compared with about $130 for a hotel. The rooms are large and clean and get the job done, and there’s a kitchen just down the hall. There’s no AC and things get a bit stuffy, but it’s not that bad. Mankind survived for tens of thousands of years without air conditioning, so I figure we can do it for a couple of weeks.

Today we’re going to be touring around Fredericton’s downtown and tomorrow we’re going to St. John. After that, the plans get a bit hazy, but we’re planning on seeing the Bay of Fundy and the flowerpot islands, going to Digby, NS for some whale watching (and Digby scallops!), Cape Breton, and then PEI. Mostly, we’re just playing it by ear.

6 Weeks in 6 Paragraphs

A lot has happened in the last few weeks, but I’ve just been too lazy to write much about it. Here’s the executive summary.

Week of May 29, 2006
I taught a course in Mexico City this week. I arrived early on the Friday night and spent the Saturday touring Teotihuacan. I already wrote about that, so ‘nuff said. Unfortunately, I had a lot of work to do in the evenings so I didn’t get out half as much as I would have liked. I ate a lot of street vender food (the tacos were amazing) and didn’t get sick at all. After class on the Friday, I hopped in a cab and went out for a good dinner at Villa Maria. I slopped back a bit of tequila with it. Good times were had by all.

Week of June 5, 2006
My Uncle Ron lives in Morelia about four hours west of Mexico City, so on the Saturday, I hopped on a bus and went out to visit for a few days. The bus ride itself was pretty nice. The seats were comfortable and they showed movies. I watched The Dukes of Hazzard in Spanish. I had a great visit in Morelia. First of all, it was good to see my uncle again. He took me all around the area. We went to Patzcuaro to do some handicraft shopping, Tzintzuntzan to visit ruins, another town to look for pottery (the name escapes me at the moment), and Uruapan to visit some more ruins and a the Mexican national park. We also spent some time hanging around in Morelia. Morelia is a very pretty city that has been kept spotlessly clean. There are many great little cafes and restaurants in te downtown area as well as cathedrals, lovely architecture, and an aquaduct. It was a great mini vacation and I’m looking forward to going back with the family.

Week of June 12, 2006
I taught a course in Toronto that week. For the most part, it was same-old-same-old snce I go there all the time, but I did a couple of fun things. I decided it was a good opportunity to catch up on summer movies, so I saw X-Men and The DaVinci Code, and saw Mission Impossible 3 with Mez and Matt after a good Italian dinner in Aurora. That weekend, Lara and I took the kids to see Cars which was a blast.

Week of June 19, 2006
I had a few days at home and then left for Delhi, India on the Tuesday (I arrived on Wednesday night). I decided that I would get the sickness and jetlag out of my system before I had to start teaching on the Monday. I also wanted to do some sightseeing. On the Thursday, I did nothing and just hung around the hotel. The hotel was the Trident Hilton in Gurgaon about 45 minutes drive outside of Delhi. It’s a five-star, and was a great place to lounge, although quite expensive. I paid the same nightly rate as I did in midtown-Manhattan a few weeks before. That’s crazy expensive for India. The next day, I went on a tour of Delhi. Compared to a lot of what I’ve seen in India, Delhi has been cleaned up and modernized quite a bit. There are new parks going up all over the place and there isn’t as much debris along the sides of the roadways. My driver took my all over the city, and I spent a few hours in the Red Fort and Humayun’s tomb as well as a number of other places. The weather was unbelievably hot; it hit 45 Celsius that day (no, this is not a misprint). The next day, I went on a trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Words and pictures can’t describe how striking and beautiful this building is. There is also more to see than just the building itself. The entire site is stunning in its beauty and symmetry. I also did some shopping in Agra and bought more things than I had really intended.

Week of June 26, 2006
I taught class in Gurgaon, India this week. One of the IBMers who works there was having a birthday party and invited me along. Had some great food and conversation. We munched until about 10:00pm at which time dinner was served (I thought the munching was dinner). On the Wednesday, I got really sick and had to miss a day of class. It was the first time in eight years of teaching that I had to miss a day. I was able to teach the next day. I left to come home on Friday night (1:30am flight) and arrived in Toronto on Canada Day.

Week of July 3, 2006
We spent the Canada Day weekend in Newmarket with Lara’s family. Erica and Stephen were in town from Ireland. We watched World Cup soccer most of the weekend and did precious little else. It was awesome. I am now officially on vacation for the rest of the summer as I’m taking July and August off. The rest of the week, we didn’t do too much. We took care of a few things that needed to be done and spent some time by the pool. We also did some preparation for our road trip out east that we’re taking the next week. I didn’t do much, but that’s the point of vacation, isn’t it?

Aztec City

Today, I ventured out a little further and visited Teotihuacan, an ancient, ruined Aztec City about an hour outside of Mexico City. A few people had already recommended it to me. Instead of taking a tour, I decided to do it alone. I took the metro to the North bus station, and hopped on a bus to "Los Piramides". About an hour later, I hopped off the bus at the Southwest entrance.

On the way to the metro, I took a chance on some street food; a tamal with chicken. I wasn't sure how street food would affect me, but I was doing fine so far.

Teotihuacan is a ruined city with two large pyramids: the Pyramid of the Sun, and the Pyramid of the Moon. The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world and sits to the side of the Street of the Dead which runs North-South down the center of the city. The Pyramid of the Moon is not quite as large, but sits at one end of the Street of the Dead. Also, at the southern end of the city is the much smaller Temple of Quetzlcoatl (a feathered serpent). Although small, the temple has some ornate carvings on it that make it worth climbing. The stairs are super-steep, so you might want to think twice about it if you're afraid of heights (like me). What seems fine going up is not so fine going down.

I spent the next hour so working my way to the Pyramid of the Sun (the entire site is over 4km from end to end so it's a ways to go). I took a bit of a back route and visited the museum there briefly. When you start to get close the the pyramid you begin to get a feeling for just how big it really is. It's a small mountain. I decided not to climb it because not only is it really big, but it's also really steep. Not very Greg-friendly.

Once you hit the Pyramid of the Sun, you are entering the Street of the Dead. The street is wide with walls running along both sides. The walls have stairs periodically so you can climb up and sit. Picture in your head what you think an Aztec City would like and that's pretty much what it's like. Very cool.

Once I got to the end of the street, I was finally in a courtyard at the base of the Pyramid of the Moon. I did climb this one. It's not quite as steep, and although it's not as high, it's built on higher ground, so the view is just as good. In fact, I think it's probably better since you're looking straight down the Street. After about 20 minutes up top, I climbed down, and worked my way back to the bus.

While waiting for the bus, I met a father-and-son-duo from Iowa. I chatted with them for a while on the bus.

On arriving back in the city, I took the metro to the main city square, the Zocalo, in the historical centre of the city. I saw the presidential palace (holy huge) and the cathedral (also holy huge), but didn't spend much time walking around. My legs were really starting to hurt (the climb down was murder) and I was getting hungry as it was about 3:30. I went to Cafe de las Sirenas just to the north of the cathedral for a little mole poblano. So far, I was two-for-two on the restaurant department.

After lunch, I walked a couple of kilometers down Avenida de 5 de Mayo, past the Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Alameda Central (a huge park). All of this to avoid having to change trains. The line running to the Zocalo was super-packed. I'm really surprised that nobody got pushed onto the track the platform was so full.

I took the metro back and then walked back to the hotel. I estimate that I walked about 17km all told. Ouch!

Gellin' in Mexico City

I left today for some work in Mexico City. I decided to go a couple of days early so that I could see the sights a little and settle in before I had to go to work. After all the hype about how Mexico can ravish your innards, I also thought I'd give myself some time to get over that.

My flight left Ottawa at 6:00am, so I had to get up at about 3:30. I hate that. When I have to get up that early, it's like I don't sleep at all. I keep waking up because I'm worried that I'm going to miss the alarm. Sucks.

The flights were pretty uneventful. Both were on time and the leg from Toronto to Mexico City was surprisingly short (only about five hours). Going through customs was also pretty uneventful as I had visited the Mexican embassy the day before to pick up a business card to work here for the week.

I took a cab to the hotel and after a couple hours of rest, decided I'd hit the street. I walked south of my hotel for a few kilometres until I got Coyoacan. Incidentally, this area of Mexico City was rated in the top five livable neighbourhoods in North America. There's a large park in the west end of Coyoacan called the Vivero. I walked along the edge of it and took a break in Plaza Santa Catalina. From there I walked down a fairly quiet, cobbled little street (Francisco Sosa) until I reached one Jardin Hidalgo. There are a couple of large plazas in Coyoacan that turn into markets on the weekend. I strolled around a bit and headed to Cantina de la Guadalupana for a bit of refreshment.

I'd heard that Chilangos (people from Mexico City) don't really eat until about 8:00pm, so I had a few beers to wait it out. By the time I thought it was acceptable to eat and asked for a menu, they told me they didn't have food at the time. I was getting pretty hungry since I hadn't eaten since breakfast, so I pounded back my beer and went out looking for other options. I had walked past a little place on Francisco Sosa called Cafeteria Moheli and decided to have some dinner there. Once I found it again, I settled in for my first Mexican meal - enchiladas con pollo con salsa verde. One of my favourites and it didn't disappoint.

After dinner, I went back to Jardin Hidalgo. There was a Mexican Beatles cover band playing. They were the most spot-on cover band I have ever seen. In fact, when I first heard the music (She Loves You), I thought it was a recording. It was about three songs before I realized there was a band playing. They had the accents, the hairdos, and the clothes. If the Beatles were Mexican, this is what they would have looked like. I hung around a bit, grabbed a churro from a street vender and headed back to the hotel in a cab.

Tons of walking, and my feet didn't hurt. Thanks, Dr. Scholls!

NYC and why you shouldn't rub chilis in your eyes

The other day, I touched a piece of red Thai chili (cut up with seeds and all) and then proceeded to rub my eye. Holy crap did this ever hurt. You should never under any circumstances do this.

I'm in NYC this week and having a real cracking time of it. You can see some of my pictures from this trip here.

We had to cut our fishing trip short since I had to teach this course, and to be honest, I really wasn't looking forward to coming here. I just didn't feel like having to deal with the crowds and the bustle and all of that. However, once I got here, those misgivings melted away in about ten minutes. There's just so much to do and see (and eat) here that it's tough to hate it. True the crowds (especially on rush hour trains) can get to you, but it's not that bad once you get the hang of it.

There's all kind of things that I love about this city:

The city's pedestrian friendly and people walk everywhere (using their feet and everything! It's amazing). This is not something you see a lot of in the US.

The metro totally kicks bum. Anywhere, anytime, with very little waiting for trains. If you come, get a map of the metro and take it with you everywhere. Tourists and locals alike carry them. Mark up your map with your favourite restaurants and hot spots. Also mark the direction of major one-way streets (like Broadway) so that you know which way you're facing when you come out of the subway. I just did this for the first time this trip and it was a lifesaver.

Carry your camera with you at all times. Many times that you will walk around a corner and see a great view that you weren't at all expecting. Capture it!

I don't understand why the meal limit here is so high. You can have a great meal at a trendy restaurant without even coming close (provided you know where to go). Street vendors have good food at supercheap prices. It's not just hot dogs and pretzels either. You can get chicken on a pita (personal fave), shish kabobs, and all kinds of other stuff (the hot candied nuts are a favourite as well). When I get a chance, I will post an entry on my travelog with some of the good places that have been recommended to me. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've said that.

We're Podcasting!

I just finished posting the very first podcast of the Greg and Joe Roadshow. What's a podcast? It's like an audio blog. Joe and I meet a lot of people, so we figured that we would sit down for about 15 minutes a week and chat about some of our stories. I don't really know where we're going with it, but we have a few ideas for some other things we can add to mix things up. It's pretty bare bones for now, but we'll hopefully be jazzing it up a bit with some regular features and possibly even theme music.

To check out our podcast, click the "Greg and Joe Roadshow Podcast" link on the right under "My Other Blogs". There are instructions there for subscribing in iTunes.

I never did finish my travel entry on Toronto; it's in the works, but Lara showed up just after I started writing it.

I've been in Ottawa this week with tons of things to do, but of course none of them really got done. I threw my back out again, and I'm still not quite right. I've also been preparing for our big yearly fishing trip next week. Should be a blast, but more on that later...

Hanging out at King Eddie's

I'm going to be spending the weekend at Lara's parents' place and Lara is coming in to Toronto from Ottawa to pick me up. The course finished just after noon, so I decided to come over to King Edward's Arms to have a little lunch and hang out while I waited for her to get here. The kids had to stop a couple of times, so it's taking them a little longer to get here than I had expected. As a result, I'm getting a little drunker than I had expected. Such is life.

I'm going to be home in Ottawa next week. This is going to be a bit of a treat. I'm also going to be off the week after since that's the week of the fishing trip. It's going to be a short fishing trip this year since I have to go to NYC to teach a course. Maybe Joe and I will be able to squeeze out another day or so later in the summer.

Wrestling is on the TV right now here at the pub. I can't hear what they are saying, but man it's ridiculous.

I've got a little more time to kill, so I think I'll do a travelog entry on my other blog for Toronto.

Unfortunately, there were no more visor girl sightings. It could be that the mystery will never be solved.

Wierdos with Visors, Part 2

I think there was another visor-girl spotting this morning. I'm not sure if it was the same person or not, the visor was actually one of those hats you probably used to wear in the 80's. However, it was really big, was the same colour, and she walked kind of strange, like either she didn't have knees, or she was wearing stilts. She was going into our hotel. Hopefully she's not trying to track us down because that would be creepy.

Joe and I have been recently inspired by Ricky Gervais' podcast, so we were playing around a bit with podcasting today and managed to get one up and running, and subscribed to it in iTunes. Kind of neat stuff. We have a couple of ideas for podcasts. I'll post something here if and when we actually get anything up and running.

We're going out to the Madison House around Bloor and Spadina (in Toronto) tonight. I haven't been there in years. Hopefully it will be warm enough to sit outside on the patios. That would be sweet.

Easter Bunny Stew and Wierdos Wearing Visors

I'm in Toronto with Joe this week getting trained on some new stuff that's going to be big in the next year. Unfortunately, I threw my back out on Sunday (yes, again), so it's been a bit difficult to really stay focused. I have to teach this in a few weeks, but I'm sure that I'll have lots of time to fill in the gaps over the next couple of weeks.

I'm hopefully going to have some good international travel this year for work. I may be going to Mexico City in May, and we're also looking at some work in Scotland, Isreal, and India. Very cool.

I was at the grocery store on the weekend and they had rabbits for sell in the meat section. I'm all for that since rabbit is delicious and I don't think that enough people eat it. I kind of thought that it was a little soon after Easter.

There was a guy walking around here with a big visor on. It was kind of like a motorcycle helmet without the helmet. He was crossing at a light, and I don't really think that he could see where he was going with it on as he was kind of stumbling around. It was kind of wierd and funny at the same time. Maybe I'll see him again this morning (we'll go to the same place for breakfast). If so I'll try to get a picture and post it.

Night School

I’m teaching this week north of Atlanta, but instead of the normal 9 to 5 thing, it’s got a bit of a twist.  The client is a large Indian outsourcing company working for an insurance company here in the US.  Since they are on contract during the day, class is running from 2pm-9pm.  At first, I thought this was going to totally suck, but it turns out that it’s actually kind of cool.  In the morning, I kind of hang around, go out for a coffee, hit the grocery store (I bring my dinner in since we have a very short dinner break), and just lounge.  Class goes by really fast for some reason; maybe it’s because we’re in a small room with no windows, so the passage of time isn’t readilly apparent.  Also since the students have all been working since 8am, they’re not in much of a mood to stay a whole lot after class to do extra work (last night, they even had a call at 10pm).  Sweet!

I was planning on going to the Atlanta Aquarium this week and spending some of my free time there, but it didn’t pan out.  I picked up a bit of cold (small room, lots of people and stale air), so I didn’t feel much like it in the end.  Also, I got hit with a bunch of conference calls; people taking advantage of my new found daytime availability.

One downside is that I haven’t been able to hit a lot of restaurants while here in Atlanta (and there are some good ones).  I might go to Fat Matt’s BBQ and blues club tonight if I’m wired after class, but I have to teach again at 8am since I’m flying home tomorrow night.  We’ll see what happens.  I can always sleep on the plane.

Back in Blog

I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged in two months.  My year-end summary that I posted wasn’t really intended to be the end of the blog, but it almost turned out to be.  Hopefully, now that I’ve gotten off my duff, I’ll start writing regularly again, even though I’m sure I’ve lost whatever scant readership I ever had.

I’ve been very busy this year.  I’ve been out teaching almost every week in various places.  I had always been thinking about the different things that I would have blogged about, but instead of “back-blogging”, here’s a summary of what I’ve been doing since the New Year.

• Spent a week in New Jersey and took the train into Manhattan for dinner a couple of nights


• Went to Atlanta for a couple of days.  Saw some good live blues music and had good BBQ at Fat Matt’s


• Drove seven hours to Poughkeepsie in downstate New York instead of flying.  It wasn’t as far as you’d think.


• Taught a three-day course in Pittsburgh.  Forgot to pack pants and taught in jeans all week.  Honestly – who forgets to pack pants?!?


• Taught in Dallas at a large airline’s corporate headquarters.  Charlie Pride (country and western legend) did a small concert one lunch hour in the lobby.  I’m not a C&W fan, but that was pretty cool.  Also had some wicked food.  Dallas/Fort Worth has a lot of good restaurants (including Angelo’s – my new favourite BBQ place anywhere)

And that pretty much brings me to this week.  I’m currently in Bloomington, IL about two hours out of Chicago.  There’s not that much to do, but with a little help from my students, I’m finding some of the good local places to go to (most of the places that you can easily spot are chains).  I’m going to spend a lot of time here in Bloomington over the next month or so; probably three more weeks after this one.

My rental car this week is probably one of the biggest vehicles I’ve ever rented (other than a moving van).  I’ve got a Chevy Uplander with three rows of seats and a DVD player.  It’s so big that when I put my backpack in the back seat, the amount of empty space is almost comical.

That’s it for now.  Here’s to reinstating old habits…