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.