Ontario - 2025
Trip to Barrie Ontario I will never forget.

Day 1 - Great Start
Its hard to rest when you are worried if you will wake up on time. ⌚ Father time beat me this day. I will begin at the beginning of the day. I woke up at 4am, with around 4 hours of sleep. With the limited amount of sleep, I was surprised I was awake as I was. I got all my gear ready the night before, and I'm ready to do this. I had to see how much sleep I got the night before, it wasn't much. But it would work for a bit. My grumpy ass all ready to leave I got downstairs of the apartment around 15 mins before the uber was meant to be there. When I checked the app, I noticed he was already there waiting for me. So I shot him a message in the app, and he was happy enough to pull around and get started early. He was tired. I am almost certain that the begging of my day, was the end of his. But he was cool. Yawed most of the drive to the airport. But he helped me with my bag which was nice. I did sit beside him, not sure if most people sit in the back of a uber but I wanted front seat. 💼 The Airport Arrived to the airport with plenty of time. Walked up to the bag check, attempted to check my bag, but it wouldn't actually take my card. Not sure if I not focused because of the sleep withdrawal, but it then screwed up the app. So I had to wait in the bag check line. Great. While waiting forever, a fairly large family was in the express line, the next line over. There was a mentally handicapped gentleman in this group of people, and I believe he got very nervous and threw up twice all over the floor. Luckily he was far enough away for our line not to be involved directly in the splash zone. No idea what he ate, but it was bright green with what looked like cheezie chunks. Amazing. I knew from this point on, this trip was at least going to be interesting. ✈️ The Plane It took off, it flew like planes do, then it landed. Upright. I did watch Napoleon Dynamite for the first time. When I landed and turned airplane mode off on my phone, I got a message from my mother in a panic. She was just watching the news and saw that there was a person shot at the airport at Terminal 1. Police where everywhere, and terminal 1 was shut down. Well the departing side of it was. So I was fine. Told her I just landed, everything was fine. The shooting happened on the departing side of things. I was on the arrival side. The first thing I remembered from the previous trip to Newmarket a few years ago with Conor, is that Toronto has really nice signage. It tells you where to go like a high way does. You find the thing you want and start walking. Just need to keep looking up at the signs. Found my bag pretty quick at the return, and was able to find the car rental place without much effort. 🚘 The Car Now to be fair I am not really a car guy. I don't keep up with cars, and I really don't know much about the various "consumer" models. I like fast cars like most guys, but I just don't care about the every day car you know? The car rental place gave me a Hyundai Kona. Neat looking car is what Ill say about it. It tries to look futuristic without really being it. But hey it had Apple Carplay so it worked for me. However I do miss my Mazda. It doesn't really have much power too it. I put my foot down, the revs went super high and she was getting loud! She had a mad little engine in her! The rev's keep climbing and climbing and the speed was barely moving. Acceleration was so slow. I really miss my Mazda. The gauge cluster is somewhat interesting. Its full LCD which is... ok... But I feel like the info given isn't that good. My Mazda has a display I can switch to that gives me info about the cruise control, but this does not. Not really a fan. But what I do actually somewhat like is the touchscreen. Its not bad. It must be 120hz. The smoothness on various things like Apple Carplay actually look real nice. I do like that. At the same time, its touchscreen. I am used to the Mazda control wheel so I don't have to look and poke. I have often reached for the scroll wheel and realizing its not there. If anything, it reminds me of my Micra on stilts. I know that this is more or less the path cars are going these days, In all consideration its not a terrible car. Its just not for me. Again I miss my Mazda. The only thing good about it, is its auto cruise control. The thing that keeps you from a certain distance from the car ahead of you. The Mazda has this feature but its not as good as the Kona. The issue with my car is that if someone changes lanes into my line, my Mazda will slam on the breaks pretty hard to maintain a distance from the other car, than to use it as a buffer. This ruins the cruise of the guy behind me and then... Well traffic jam. I will often turn my auto cruise off or press down the accelerator when I know someone is entering, just until I can get back to the distance I have set. 😴 Pure Exhaustion Once I arrived, I was ready to go. Amped to get things done. Walked around the mall a bit, looked at all the stores, and the food court. Quite the interesting selection. I couldn't find the new store location, but after asking one of the girls at the Pseudio, she was able to point me in the right direction. I did walk right buy the big construction cover thing the store was behind. Ooops. Spoke with Joe, the foreman, and none of the cabling was done yet. No power or ethernet. He did say he would get his guy to get it done soon. So I went to the two other stores, let them know who I was, and then ripped down their old networking gear before the GoCo take over happened. Good to get all that stuff done now! Threw it all in a box (including a spare POS laying around) and told them to ship it back to Head Office marked for IT. After that I went back to check in, Joe said it still wasn't ready. No problem, I went to get some lunch. I knew there was a Chick-Fil-A somewhere close by. So I walked through the food court. Nothing. I went up a floor thinking it may be two layered. It wasn't. Couldn't find it. So I settled for Cheezed! A interesting little sandwich shop that serves grilled cheeses. I honestly forget what I ordered. But it was really good. Cheese was all melty and gooey. I should have taken a picture of it. I sat down to eat it and noticed something. I realized I was already tired. It had snuck up on me and now it was starting to show. So I brushed it off and went back to work. I went back to the Pseudio, and grabbed all the equipment I had shipped to them on Monday. They had a little dolly wheel thing which was fine. Arrived at the new store, and started unpacking a cash. Trying to get it ready. Still no power or ethernet. The GoCo installer was there too, and after meeting him, agreeing on a place to put the access point, I went back to unpacking the cash. After unpacking Cash 1, that feeling overwhelmed me. I was exhausted. Drained. Done. I started to grab the second monitor for Cash 2 and gave up. Said nope fuck it. I couldn't keep going. Told the data / electrician guy that I was leaving before I left, told him to contact Conor if he needed anything. I got the to the hotel, unpacked and then just passed out. Hooked my Ally up to the TV so I could play 5 minutes of Skyrim before a short nap. Picture of the hotel room before I made a mess of it. The brick wall is fake by the way. The Weather Arriving in Toronto wasn't bad. Warm. Nice and warm. I like the heat. I think when I landed, it was around 15C which was like a hot day in Halifax. When I was in the mall taking down the networks, I made my way outside to move the car and it was pouring rain. I got a bit wet, but I grabbed my jacked from the car going back in. Then I get out, and its super sunny. Beautiful. And like 20C. It felt amazing to be out in the sun again. Nice warm sun. Stayed sunny right till the very end too. I think the next two days are going to be majority of rain. Which kinda sucks. But its fine. Days in Ottawa look real nice. 🌯 Food Laptop, Ally, and the empty wrapping of a Fat Bastard Burrito After my short nap, I knew I needed some food. Found a place on Google Maps called "Fat Bastard Burrito". It was just up the road and I knew I needed it. Before I ended up there I visited a local cannabis store. When I walked in, she greeted me right away, and helped me out with picking a single. She even gave me a pack of rolling paper for free with a discount code on the back. Cool place. After scoring some drugs, I then got my Fat Bastard Burrito. When I got back, had half of the joint, then came back inside and devoured the burrito. I didn't think I was going to eat the entire thing but it didn't stand a chance. At this point I knew I was getting dehydrated too. I was drinking a lot of water from one of them paper cups. I did end up checking on the Meraki switch and saw that it, and the VPN was online. After that, and fighting the weight of my eyelids, I ripped off my stinky cloths and jumped into bed, with my eyes closing before my head hit the pillow.

Day 2 - Work work work.
Sleep is necessary for life, but the big city disagree. ⏰ Wake and Bake (I wish) A picture of the networking cabinet I get to work with. It doesn't use rack nuts or anything but self tapping screws. Wish I could move the shelves up closer but that's ok. Ill deal with it. Watched some reals on my phone, then finally got up, and had a shower. Best shower in the world. Got dressed then had some breaky. Coffee, muffin and some cereal thanks to the hotel. The hotel is pretty cheap honestly. Headed over to the store around 9:30 am since thats when the mall was open. Got there and Joe (the foreman on site) and another dude where the only people there. I started work and got the second cash up and running. 🍟 Lunch I'm just using filler as you can tell, but this is a picture of under the cash counter where all the hookups are. Each cash setup gets a full set of plugs, and 2 ethernet drops each. Chick-Fil-A is amazing. Best chicken sandwich ever. Better than Popeyes. Service goes hard too. Oh and the best sweet tea ever made by mankind. I went with the spicy chicken burger, waffle fries, and the sweet tea. Amazing. Even came with a wet nap. Oh and they just give you 3 sauces too. I used one and am going to save the other two. ⚙️ Setup A picture of the inside of the store without anything in it. I wanted to grab a picture of the ceiling showing that all the speakers needed to be hooked up. The cabling dangling from the ceiling is where they go. After lunch, I grabbed some more ethernet cables, stopped to get a big bottle of water and some advil. I was dehydrated, and hurting. Got in, other guy left and it was just Joe and I left. I got to work and finished setup on the second cash, got the stuff installed and we where ready to roll. Conor remoted in and we worked on getting the cashes prepped and rolling. Its now almost 4pm and we got both test transactions done on both POS's which means we are good to sell. I still have some work to do including cable management. But today was extremely productive. 🚪 Getting Ready to Leave Cash 2, and my laptop. As you see I have a version of this exact article open while I wait for things to happen. Im writing this now as I wait for both cashes to finish their windows check. Cash 2 has a problem with the search so running the DISM tool to make sure everything is good. Other than that, I am not sure if I want to do some more cable management, or just go back to the apartment and chill for a bit. Im physically tired today rather than mentally like I was yesterday. I need to come back tomorrow anyway to drop off the big folder full of goodies for the store. Left it in the apartment cuz I thought that was the best place for it. Most likely going to go back to the hotel room, watch a movie or something, maybe play some Skyrim and chill veg. I shouldn't need my tools anymore now that everything is done, so I may take the time to get ready for Sundays flight out to Ottawa. 🛜 Internet Sucks There is one thing I learned very quickly a long time ago in my tech career. Encryption is everything. I remember a time when I was playing around with FTP and my server locally. I had TLS turned off (at the time it was difficult to get a cert for local servers), which means I had no encryption with the connection. Its local, its not a huge problem. But I remember I was messing around with Wireshark when I logged into the FTP connection to my server, and was able to read the credentials in plain text via Wireshark. This terrified me. My password sitting there. Anyone can see it. Thats when I dedicated a lot of my efforts to encryption and keeping my shit secure. I was an early adopter with LastPass and when they had that massive databreach I moved to Bitwarden. I am tempted to run a local bitwarden instance locally but whatever. How does this story relate to the trip? Well another thing I learned is that an open network is in-fact just that. Open. Wide open. The issue with this is that its insanely insecure. Nothing is encrypted. At all. My hotel just has an open network. Its insane. I did join it to test with my VPN (full tunnel) enabled and yup. Wide open. Insane. So while I write this little section, I am actually waiting for a bunch of shit to download at the store so I can take it back there and watch youtube videos etc.. without DESTORYING my data plan. I still need it. Now sometimes when connect to one of those "open" networks it takes you to a landing page where you need to enter a password or accept a EULA. This was not the case. I connected, and immediately had internet access. Nuts. Luckily the internet is not so bad here at the store, and I hope that the Ottawa hotel actually has some half decent wireless. I was going to bring a LTE modem from head office, but I wanted more room to pack Gundam. Oh well.. 💻 The Laptop I am very grateful that work has given me a laptop, and it does work. The track pad is just gross. I hate it. I was thinking about bringing my small mech keyboard and a mouse but again... Wanted more room for Gundam. Oh well whatever, I think I may see if I can buy a Macbook Pro myself on some sort of plan. That way I can use it for both work and personal without having to worry much. 🍖 Fooooooooood Finally back at the hotel, just chilling, but I am getting hungry. The thing about a big city is that there is almost too many places to eat. Too many options. Just now also realizing its bloody Friday night so EVERYTHING will most likely be busy. But my eye is set on a sushi place just up the road. If its too busy Ill most likely wait. Well I ended up going to the sushi place, and I am glad I did. Spent way to much but I think it was worth it. This was the AK-47. Don't know how exactly it was made, but it was good. I believe they make the roll, then deep fry it completely, then put all the sauces on it and cut it up. Baller, would eat again. This was even better. This was torched butter fish with a bit of caviar on top. Smokey, buttery, and delicious! Over all, a great end to a pretty decent day. My feet hurt, my back aches, but I am happy and feeling good. Hopefully the rest of the trip follows suit.

Day 3 - Hobbies cost money
At least its not drugs. 🏪 Finishing Up at the Store View of the new cash desk, with everything assembled and ready to go. Went to the store, did some cable management, and then took a lot of pictures of the store and how everything is setup. Mostly just boring work nothing crazy. Chatted with Joe the foreman for a bit, then delivered some stuff to the Pseudio across the mall and then left. Inside the store with no stock in it yet (or speakers). 🍖 Lunch! Decided to grab lunch again at Chick-Fil-A because it was so good last time, and I had the same thing except I got a large sweet iced tea. So good I had to have more. But there is another reason I got the tea. I wanted to drive around Ontario a bit. A picture of heaven on earth. I got in the car and more or less muddled on my phone a bit trying to find a location to go. I know I wanted to go down to Panda Hobby, a nice little hobby store I bought online from one day and I wanted to see their stock of Gunpla. Without finding much else to do I said "fuck it" and ventured down anyway. Drive was long and boring. Highways are so straight here its insane. Its crazy to me how the highway is so straight but the entire highway is only 100km/h. Like at least bump it up to 120. 🤖 Gundam Once I got down there, I was SHOCKED at what they had in stock. I found at least 10 of them I wanted including an original Zaku I. I was overwhelmed at their stock. But I knew exactly what model I wanted. The RG Nu Gundam to go with my RG Sazabi. That and the Razer (not the gaming company) gate remover tool set. I've been eyeing it for a while now and really wanted it. Plus 2 sets of 2 action bases totaling 4 complete action bases. They won't hold the larger models but they will holder the smaller RG models which is exactly what I was looking for. Really cool Red Comet head next too the unicorn. It was quite big as well. An absolutely amazing build, damaged Exia with cape went extremely hard. I believe this was the Master Grade variant that was custom made. They had a huge collection of all sorts of unique models that I have never seen before. Not all are from the Gundam universe either. This was one of the models I was looking at. MGSD Gundam Barbatos. Amazing build! At this point, I was so thrilled to see all these cool builds. But this one really got me. This was the RG RX-78 from the original show with all the decals done, and the frame standing behind it. Super impressive work. No idea where this model is from, it could be custom, but I believe its the cross bones Gundam. Another cool build, and again really well done. I tried to get a shot of the gold dude in behind, but it didn't come out that well. No idea what it is or where its from, but it was sick as hell. The master grade RX-78 was cool too! This is a much better shot of the gold guy. I spoke to the guy at the register and told him he should open up a store in Halifax. Our store closed down and I was upset about it. He said he heard some people say that. Next time I need to bring a second bag for gunpla. ⌨️ Keyboard After dropping a bunch of money in there, I came back out and browsed for stuff on my phone. Not really finding much to do that wasn't going to close at 4pm that I could drive to and not feel rushed. I thought about going to the zoo, wasn't too far away but it was getting ready to rain. After browsing for a long time I stumbled upon a little keyboard shop. I instantly started the car and drove over. The area that I was in was a business park of some sort with a bunch of smaller companies, and to be honest, it was not really kept up that well. I drove into the parking lot and noticed a big sign that said "unauthorized vehicles will be towed" and thought "oh this must be employee parking or something" and moved on. Couldn't find any parking and the building it was at had no signage at all. Honestly I thought the store may have been bought out or something. So I drove around again, and drove around the entire building. Still no parking and I was getting sketched out. Didn't seam like a real good place to be in. Then I gave up, went up the road a bit in defeat and pulled into another parking lot and checked my phone. The hours for the shop said they where open, and their sight online was still active. So I drive back and re-read the parking rules and noticed at the top it said "customer parking". Im an idiot. Got out of the car quickly found the shop and I was in heaven. Keyboards everywhere. switches everywhere. It was glorious. They had keyboards on display and I tried all of them and found one with amazing switches and caps I fell in love with. So I came out with 180 switches and a beautiful set of keycaps that only cost me an arm and a leg. Hard to find, but an amazing little company. 🏩 Back to the hotel After all that, I decided to come back to the apartment. I could feel the exhaustion starting to creep up again. I thought about going to visit another store on the way back, but again, was getting tired. Final haul of what I bought. Switches and caps included. Once I got back, I decided to figure everything out before I got too tired, so I re-packed my suitcase and fit everything I bought in it quite nicely. The gundam box will not survive but thats fine. I don't expect it too. As long as the pieces inside are fine it will be ok. I packed cloths around it too just to make sure. Inside the box of the Raser gate remover & polisher kit. After all this, I decided to write the majority of this entry, and make sure I checked in to my flight, and paid for my luggage. Then I went over to Applebee's and had the Bourbon Street Chicken & Shrimp skillet. From their website this was their description: Let the good times roll with Cajun-seasoned chicken and blackened shrimp in buttery garlic and parsley, served sizzling on a cast iron platter with sautéed mushrooms and onions. Served with your choice of side. It was quite good.

Day 4 - Panic, then Chill
Keep your head up, you will see the directions life gives you 🚘 The Drive In I was smart and planned out my drive the night before into Toronto. I got up around 5:30 to leave by 6:00 am. Made sure everything was packed in the right places, put on my sweater and coat, and away I went. Loaded my luggage into the car, brought the car around and dropped off my room keys. Full route to get to the airport. Took the 401 down to an Esso a few km's away from the airport to fuel up. One thing I like about Ontario is that they have those little gas pump leaver things so you don't have to hold the pump while you wait. Once the car was filled up and paid for, I continued on my way down Off the main highway to get to the Esso After navigating the hellscape that is the Toronto highway system for the airport and nearly missing an exit, I made it to the Enterprise rental return, and returned my car. Pretty easy actually. Last leg of the journey from the Esso to the drop of spot for the car. When I got to the gate, and following the nice helpful signs until the signs stopped. I knew I must be close to where I needed to go, but I simply couldn't figure it out. After looking at the Air Canada App for several minutes, walking around Terminal 1, I finally noticed on the elevator that there was a baggage drop off. Couldn't hurt. Took the elevator up to level 3 and I knew I was in the right place. I still remember some of areas from when Conor and I took our trip up there couple years back. Checked my bag, but the bag machine wouldn't send my luggage through. It thought about it then rejected it. After calling someone over, she informed me that I was in the international flights baggage check. How the hell was I meant to know that? After then going to another wrong baggage check, someone directed me to the correct one and finally the bag went. Dropped my water bottle in the garbage since I knew I couldn't bring it in (it was just a smart water bottle I was using), and continued into security. Got through security after the guy needed to swab my laptop which was weird. Good luck bud, its a work laptop and there is def no drugs on it. My gate luckily was the first one off the security station, and after grabbing a much needed coffee, new bottle of water, and some breakfast, I waited for boarding. Nothing to crazy happened. Plane went up, flew a bit, then came back down after struggling with some crosswind. No issues. Ottawa airport is nice and simple. Found the bag check easily, and my bag was I think the 5th to come out. Waited for Jamarcus to arrive at the airport and headed to the mall! 🛍️ The Bayshore Shopping Center Networking looking a little better than it did before. Got rid of most of the useless stuff that was still running. Big mall, big food court too. Quite impressive. Made it to their store and started ripping their old networking down. Not really any problems, got it done pretty fast all things considering then made my way to a little sushi place with neat little gifts. Picked up chopsticks and made my way to the book store. Ended up picking up "The Gun Slinger" since it looked neat and I heard good things about it. Been a while since I read a paper copy of a book. 🚗 Putting Around Not a bad hotel room! Visited Jamarcus's place for a little bit, met the cats, the dogs, and all the neat shit I don't have, then made our way to the hotel for check in. Hotel offered a free upgrade! I got a queen bed with a jacuzzi! Ended up playing a bit of Skyrim before starting this entry in the blog! 🍖 Supper Jamarcus was kind enough to take me out to supper to Lone Star, a Texas roadhouse. We have queso dip and steak fajitas! Food was really good although expensive. Got to hang with him for a bit and chat, but he had to go again so now I am back at the hotel room, and just finished putting all my receipt's together in my budgeting app so I can bill the company back! Tonight I get to chill in the hotel room and just take it easy. A well needed rest is required.