Who spiked the punch?

It wasn't until today that those jokes about "who spiked the punch?" finally make sense to me!

At the office today the sales team hosted a casual potluck buffet luncheon to get us in the holiday spirit. At which there was a punch bowl...

And after only one glass - I feel a little, um... peculiar... Which leaves me asking only one question:

Who spiked the punch? :)

PS. I was planning on doing some work this afternoon, but I think it's probably in the company's best interest that I do not. I heard that the customer service team is having a little gathering of their own. Perhaps I'll head down the hall to check that out. Maybe they'll have punch too...

Shopping for the Shopaholic

It being Christmastime I have been spending a fair amount of my free time shopping. And one thing is for sure - shopping in the US (all the time, but especially around the holidays) is a shopaholic's dream come true!

Parking: Even when I go to the mall during peak times (Sat/Sun early afternoon) I haven't had any trouble finding a parking space. Don't get me wrong, there have definitely been more cars in the parking lot recently, but it hasn't taken me more than 2 minutes to find a spot - ever.

Crowds: Once inside the mall, it isn't crowded in the stores or the aisles. There aren't long lines at cashiers, and it isn't too hard to find a sales person to help you. The malls I have been going to around here (Holyoke & Westfarms) are less crowded during the holiday season than Yorkdale is off-season!

Hours: The stores are open a fair bit later here to help serve their customers better. For example, Yorkdale Mall's idea of extended holiday hours is closing at 9:30pm each night instead of 9pm with 2 extra hours on Sunday. My new favourite mall Holyoke Mall is open until 9:30pm regularly and has extended their hours until 11pm during the holiday with 4 extra hours on Sundays.

Returns: In Toronto stores never accepted returns during the holiday season because they were struggling to serve all the customers making purchases. In the US this isn't the case. You can do all the same transactions during the holidays as you can any other time of the year.

Cyber-Space: We have been taking full-advantage of all the online vendors available to US residents. Back in Toronto there was a limited number of merchants that ship to Canada. And then there was always the hassle of paying duty and taxes which pretty much ate up whatever savings you made from ordering online in the first place. But since we've moved State-side we've been buying lots of goodies online - books, CDs, and electronics are our most frequent purchases, but we've also had some great savings with kitchenware and luggage. And each time we make a purchase it's from a different vendor - there are just so many to choose from! Another major benefit of online purchases is that they don't bear any tax! Which brings me to my next point...

Taxes: Okay this one is HUGE - in Toronto we were paying 15% in GST & PST, which was later reduced to 14%. In Connecticut the state sales tax is 6% and in Massachusetts it's 5%. So you're already saving about 8-9% just on tax alone. And in addition to this, there are several handy exemptions to these state sales taxes. In Massachusetts there is *no* sales tax on gas as well as shoes & clothing under $175. I think it's fair to say that I use this exemption at least once a week ( I work in MA so it's very convenient for me to gas up here). In Connecticut any clothing under $50 is tax-free and of course like in Ontario, groceries aren't taxed either.

Taxes - part 2: For the most part, taxes on income are lower in the US leaving you with more disposable income to go shopping with. 'Nuff said :)

Happy Birthday Christopher!

Yesterday was Christopher's birthday! To celebrate the beginning of his 30th year I treated him to an evening at Mohegan Sun. We decided to go on Saturday night because Christopher had his tax exam that afternoon and would be up for some fun to de-stress a bit. Plus, we had never been to the casino on a Saturday night so I thought it would be fun to go when it was busiest.

For dinner we went to Todd English's Tuscany. It was pretty good - reasonably good food for that pricepoint. I had the mussels and thought they could be better though. And if you order the Herb Frites be forewarned - they are more like tiny hash browns than french fries. The potatoes are cut into tiny cubes - pretty tasty, just not what I had expected.

After dinner we wandered around the shops trying to get ideas for last-minute Christmas gifts, but found nothing. I'm not exactly sure who does a whole lot of shopping in those stores in the casinos. Their prices don't seem to be that good and alot of this stuff is just bizarre. Like a rhinestone-encrusted matching bra & panty set hardly looks comfortable, but then again I suppose comfort isn't their main priority.

Christopher played some Pai Gow Poker. This is my favourite casino game. When we were last in Vegas I played this for 2 or 3 hours while Christopher was in the poker room and when he came to get me I was up about $5, so I just tipped the dealer my $5 and walked away dead even, plus having ordered fancy drinks all night. This is my kind of game! (I know - I'm pretty lame when it comes to gambling) I'm glad to have found my game - you can play Pai Gow for quite some time and not be down too much money. It's a nice slow-paced game where you are only playing against the dealer, but the dealer has to tell you how to set up your hand if you ask. And it doesn't matter if you show your cards. People will commonly ask each other for advice.

Other than Pai Gow Poker, I like watching craps and seeing the excitement of the people cheering and the dice being tossed. But it makes me really nervous to play. The first time I played I quickly won about $130 and then decided to stop. When I asked Christopher how long I had been playing for, he said 'um - about 15 minutes?'. I was shocked - it felt like ages! I was just so anxious with every roll of the dice I suppose.

On Saturday I had a fun time watching Christopher play craps. There was this crazy old lady at the table and she was really entertaining to watch. Earlier on in the evening I had watched her get kicked off another one of the craps tables so I was kind of leery of her because I didn't want her to spontaneously get angry at us for some off-the-wall reason (you never can tell with these gambling addicts).

The woman spoke with an accent and was constantly talking - saying stuff to herself, the shooter, the dealer, anyone who would listen! And the poor dealers - she was often just tossing chips onto the table and muttering her bets. Because she didn't speak up and address any dealer in particular as she was doing this, very often the dealers wouldn't place her bets quickly enough and she would get upset, and other times they just couldn't understand what bets she wanted made with her accent.

Some other funny things she did:

• pulled out her cellphone and took a picture of the dealer (I don't think this is allowed at all)
• took a banana out of her pocket and placed it on the rail as she was trying to fish something else out of her pocket
• pulled out a fistful of chips from her coat pocket that she didn't know she had
• unwrapped some chocolate covered strawberries she had (yes - in her pocket!) that she had undoubtedly liberated from the buffet
• say things like "show me the money!"
• leave to go the bathroom - instructing the dealer and pit boss to continue to make all her bets for her (and she had a system going - this wasn't just a "let it ride" type of woman)

All in all it was a fun evening and a nice break for Christopher during a strenuous exam schedule.

G-Dub's Hood

This past week I was in Washington D.C. for work. I have only been to DC one other time - back in Grade 7 for our American History trip. This trip was almost cancelled because of the Operation Desert Storm - I remember how lame I thought this was when they announced this to the class, and how happy we all were when they told us the trip was back on a few weeks later.

The weather was great this past week - it was a little cold, but the sky was blue and clear each day. One afternoon I had some time to walk around and check out some of the sites. Everything is so well signed in the city and the streets are organized with letters & numbers (N-S streets with letters and E-W streets numbered). Even without a map I never had any problems getting around and seeing all the sights.

I enjoyed a late lunch one day at a tapas restaurant called Jaleo. It was delicious and the prices were totally reasonable. I had a huge bowl of their steamed mussels for only $6.95 - so yummy! If you happen to be in DC I highly recommend this place if you're in the neighbourhood.

PS. I know I've been a little behind in my posting, but I've caught up. Check out what we've been up to for the past few weeks below.

December in NYC

December is a super-popular (read: expensive) time to be in New York. Lots of tourists come into the city to do their Christmas shopping and see the holiday decorations that all the big department stores (Macys, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdales) put in their store windows. I had a business trip to NY scheduled for the last week of November/first week of December so I was lucky enough to be able to see some of these sights.

On Wednesday, November 29th was the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Since this tree came from Connecticut I thought it would be fun to check it out (funny how I'm slowly starting to think of myself as from CT). Unfortunately the rest of Manhattan had the same idea! I have never been in such dense crowds - it was nuts. The NYPD had to shut down access to Rockefeller Plaza as well as many of the neighbouring streets for safety reasons - there were simply too many people inside and if they allowed more people in, it would only get worse. When I arrived, they were no longer allowing anymore people in to see the tree, just out. It was sad to see the disappointment in little kids' faces when their parents told them that they couldn't see the tree. But I suppose that's better than children getting trampled on by the crowds.

After my tree-viewing attempt I decided to head out and grab some dinner. My friend who lives in the city recommended a few restaurants to me, and the one I tried that night was Sushi Samba, a Latin American-Brazilian-Japanese restaurant. Its claim to fame I suppose was that it was mentioned on one episode of Sex in the City. While the food was good, I don't really get the whole fusion cuisine thing. I mean, there are so many great styles of cooking - does combining several together really make things taste better? I guess I'm just traditional - I like authentic Japanese, Indian, Greek, {fill in the blank} food they way they were meant to be.

On Thursday night Christopher came into town to meet me and we spent the rest of the weekend doing touristy things in the city. We went to FAO Schwarz, saw the coolest model railroad at Citigroup Center, checked out Rockefeller Center & the holiday decorations in all the stores, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, had cheesecake at Juniors & shared a giant Reuben at the Carnegie Deli, saw AvenueQ and watched the Raptors beat the Knicks at MSG! The whole weekend was super fun - the weather was unseasonably mild so walking around town was very pleasant. It only rained a tiny bit on Friday afternoon.

We were in NY in August and it was really hot - December is definitely a more enjoyable time of year to visit the city!

American Thanksgiving

For US Thanksgiving Christopher and I made our first trip back home since we moved down to Connecticut. I was so excited to go back and catch up with old friends. Our schedule was jam packed trying to fit in seeing as many friends and family members as we possibly could, as well as trying to hit our favourite restaurants for cuisine we have not yet found a suitable replacement for in the US (mostly Asian food).

A summary of the weekend - I'd say it was a very successful trip:
- saw both sets of parents, obviously
- ate lunch with 3 of my cousins (and 3 of their little ones)
- had dim sum :)
- took my parents to see Wicked for my mom's birthday and enjoyed a wonderful pre-show meal at Hiro Sushi
- saw Christopher's friends' new Subaru WRX STI and Toyota RAV4
- used up a free night stay at the Pantages Hotel that I won at a golf tournament this past summer for ladies' closest to the pin
- was treated to a yummy lunch at my old fave Congee Star by my old colleagues from work - thanks guys, I miss you!
- coffee-talk with a couple friends catching up on all sorts of gossip :)
- took care of some errands: safety certified our car so we could buy it out (which we also did), got an oil change, did some banking, returned some defective dishes back to William Ashley (be sure to check your china patter very carefully - I was shocked to see the kind of defects they let out the door)
- spent 2 nights in Toronto catching up with several good friends
- enjoyed a great home-cooked meal at Chris's parents' home

Our next trip back home will be over Christmas (Dec 23rd - Jan 1st). If you're gonna be around, let us know - we'll get together for some Holiday cheer :)

The Great White North

I used to think that Americans were ignorant about the Canadian climate. Too many times I have been in a conversation with someone from the U.S. and they make a comment about how it gets so darn cold up in Canada. And while I was always polite and just laughed off whatever they said, I often wondered to myself how our neighbors to the south could think that our weather was so drastically different than theirs - especially since I grew up in the GTA and there is a good portion of the States that is located further north than Toronto.

But I was wrong. Now that I have moved to Connecticut I understand why Americans think Canada is so cold. It's because it is.

It is the middle of November, in New England (not in the South or anything) and I see kids running around in T-shirts at recess. I find myself constantly overdressed - at work, coming home from the gym, walking the dog - all the time! It's starting to really aggravate me, especially when I don't have a layer on that I can just take off. And mostly I'm annoyed with my inability to dress appropriately for the weather. When I get dressed in the morning I put on what I would normally wear on a mid-November day in Canada - turtleneck/sweater, blouse & jacket, golf shirt & hoodie, and I am always too hot!

Tomorrow's high in West Hartford, CT is 66 degrees, but in Toronto it's only 53 (and yes I am trying to 'Americanize' myself by using Fahrenheit instead of Celsius - I can use the practice).

And it extends beyond attire. I find myself cooking dishes that are more suitable for a colder climate. Now that it's November I'm using the crockpot more, making more soups, and generally heartier meals, because that's what I would do in Canada! Perhaps eating this heavier food is what is making me feel too warm all the time...

While it is true that the similarities between the U.S. and Canada are vast, sometimes the subtle differences (like a few degrees in temperature) can make a world of difference.

The OC

This past weekend Christopher and I enjoyed a weekend away in Ocean City, Maryland (perhaps this is the original OC?). After being away in Dallas for a week at a trade show it was a nice treat for the both of us. The weather was great, highs between 63 and 72. We managed to get in 2.5 rounds of golf Friday - Sunday before the rain across the entire eastern seaboard rolled in.

Ocean City has a great boardwalk - similar to Virginia Beach. A long wide boardwalk made out of actual planks of wood (not concrete) that you would see on TV. And similar to Virginia beach there is several hundred yards of beautiful sand between the boardwalk and the water. They must work really hard maintaining this beach, because it is definitely not natural. According to Wikipedia, the beach restoration programs were started in 2002 in the OC. They haul in tons and tons of sand from offshore and bring it up onto the beach. This is how the fine soft sand ends up all along the beach instead of only along the water's edge. Great for sunbathing! I can only imagine how packed this beach is during spring break and the summer!

On Saturday after golf we gorged ourselves on all the junk food the Ocean City boardwalk had to offer. Caramel corn from Fisher's Popcorn, boardwalk fries from Thrasher's French Fries, fresh squeezed lemonade... it was fabulous!

One of the other culinary treats that the OC has to offer is steamed crab. Even though November isn't in crab season, many of the Ocean City establishments still offer steamed crab imported from other waters. My crab fest (Christopher isn't really into eating crustaceans with his hands - but I love it!) took place at Bahama Mama's. Their crabs arrived at our Kraft paper-covered table steaming hot, thickly coated in a salty-spicy crab seasoning that went perfectly with a cold beer. A trip to OC is not complete without crab, and Bahama Mama's is a true gem! Forget all those 100+ item all-you-can-eat joints, this place is where you want to go (and during crab season they do offer an all-you-can-eat option that includes several sides & BBQ chicken along with their yummy crabs).

Catch Up!

Hopefully Christopher's NFL picks have been keeping you all entertained :) I have been travelling a fair bit this past month (Calgary - Indianapolis - Los Angeles - Dallas) and using that as an excuse to neglect our blog (but you don't have to tell me, I already know, it's weak at best). I've posted a few catch up posts below in attempt to make up for my absence.

Last weekend Christopher's parents came down for a visit. This was their first time down to see us since we've moved. The weather wasn't the greatest - but we still managed to get it all in.

On Saturday it was pouring rain across the entire state. In West Hartford we received 1.78 inches of rain that one day! To stay dry we tried to stick to indoor activities. First we went to my favourite bakery - Panera Bread. There's one close enough to walk to from our house, but to stay dry we drove the 3 blocks. After brunch we headed over to West Hartford Center to do a little shopping, but the heavy rain had us heading for the car after our first store! On our way to the mall instead, we decided to go to the outlet mall in Westbrook, CT. Closer to the coast the rain was much heavier. In comparison, on Saturday Westbrook received 2.77 inches of rain - over 50% more than West Hartford. After a little shopping, we went to the coast since we were so close. We were quite surprised to see that many of the houses next to the shore were completely surrounded by water! And while several of these houses were built on stilts, there were still some that appeared to have basements. I can't imagine how these could stay dry, but I guess I'm sure they're used to it if they live so close to the shoreline.

On Sunday the rain had stopped so we did the Heublein Tower Hike. This short hike is 1.25 miles up Talcott Mountain, ending at the Heublein Tower. It was a little windy out, but it was a beautiful day and the sky was nice and clear so the view of the foliage and the surrounding area was picture-perfect. We finished off the weekend with a nice home-cooked meal at our house. It was nice to be able to make a roast and play hostess. Cooking for two, I don't make many roasts since we can't eat that much and get tired of leftovers quickly.

PS. We got to play one of our favourite card games with Christopher's parents this past weekend - Wizard. If you like euchre and bridge it's a great game to check out. One of the things we like about this game is that it isn't dominated by the same player time and time again. Each time we play it is very competitive and is always lots of fun. Last time we played I wasn't in contention at all, but this time I was lucky enough to be the victor :)

Happy Halloween!

I have always had a thing for Halloween. I'm not exactly sure why, but I always have fun decorating and carving pumpkins. Plus it's fun to hand out candy to the kiddies and see their cute costumes!

One of my colleagues was telling me about his sons' costume ideas. His younger son came up with the idea to go as an old suitcase. They have an old suitcase at home and they were just going to cut a hole for his head, and arm & leg holes. How cool is that? And he came up with the idea all by himself!

Nancy & Christopher's Halloween Statistics:

Number of trick-o-treaters that visited us: 82

Price of pumpkins in Massachusetts & Connecticut: $0.37-$0.50/lb (much more expensive than Toronto. My 3 pumpkins cost me $25 this year, but last year I took advantage of the Loblaws pumpkin sale, buying 7 pumpkins for $2 each!)

Time of first trick-o-treater: ~6:10pm
Time of last trick-o-treater: ~8pm
Number of pumpkins we carved: 3
Number of treats we purchased: 246
What we gave away: Doritos, Cheetos, Snickers, Hershey, Twix, & Kit Kat
Average number of treats given out per trick-o-treater: 2.33
Number of treats for pre/post Halloween consumption by Nancy & Christopher: 55 :)

Canadian Thanksgiving!

For Canadian Thanksgiving Christopher and I made our first trip back to the Great White North since we moved down to Connecticut. In the days leading up to our trip I was getting quite excited about going "back home" for the weekend, even though we were heading to Calgary, which is almost 4.5 times further than the distance from Toronto to West Hartford, there is something homelike about being back in the country with dollar coins and funny colored money!

The purpose of our trip was to celebrate Christopher's grandfather's 90th birthday. What a special milestone! It's hard to imagine how much has changed in the past 90 years and that being a single person's lifetime. As you can expect from a 90th birthday, it was primarily a family reunion. Which was great for us because we had the opportunity to see and catch up with so many family members all on a single trip. Plus, there were several relatives that I had only met for the first time at our wedding last year and it was nice to be able to spend a little more time getting to know them.

During our whirlwind trip to Calgary (for all of 46 hours in total: noon Saturday to ~10am Monday) in addition to the birthday party we also managed to fit in not one, but two Thanksgiving turkey dinners! One thing about Calgarians is for sure, they are nothing if not hospitable. Thank you to everyone for opening your homes to us, inviting us for dinner, giving us a place to stay for a couple of nights, and letting us drink your beer!

Nancy and Christopher go to White Castle

Ever since I saw Harold and Kumar go to White Castle I've been dying to go. Every time we went on vacation somewhere in the US, or I was traveling on a business trip I would always check to see if there was a White Castle nearby. But I've had no such luck since I rarely travel to the midwest/eastcoast.

This past weekend Christopher suggested going on a mini-roadtrip to pick up a rug at IKEA we had been waiting for since we moved in. It was in stock in the New Jersey store and on our way to Jersey, he proposed stopping at a White Castle. Naturally I said yes :)

Being White Castle newbies, once we were inside we were completely lost trying to order. Anybody watching us try to figure out what we wanted probably thought we had just escaped from the loony bin. What we were struggling with was the Slyders. The thing about White Castle is that it only serves mini-burgers called Slyders. And we knew that they were small (the patties are 2.5 sq. inches), but we had no idea what quantity was a reasonable amount for one person to order. Christopher was hoping the combo meals would provide some guidance, but they covered quite a wide range. The options were a 4 Slyder meal, 2 double cheeseburger Slyders, 10 Slyders, and one we can't remember.

We stood back and let a few people order ahead of us, both of us paying close attention to how many burgers were being ordered. In the end, Christopher got the 2 double cheeseburger meal with fries and a chocolate shake, I got the 4 Slyder meal (2 cheeseburger 2 hamburger) with onion rings, and then we ordered some mozzarella sticks to share. As luck would have it, we ordered just the right amount of food for the two of us. Despite being intimidated by 10 burger sacks, 30 burger crave cases as well as a 100 burger option, we ended up doing just fine.

Now, I am sorry to report that I am not a big fan of White Castle Slyders. I really truly wanted to love them - especially after such favorable endorsements from Harold & Kumar, but they weren't really my taste. I liked that they were small and soft, but I found the patties very thin and quite tasteless, leaving me rather unsatisfied. Christopher thought they were okay - he prefers White Castle = to McDonald's but that really isn't saying much since doesn't really like McDonald's at all. One thing that was kinda neat was that we were at White Castle #2 located in the Bronx. We believe this to be the second White Castle ever opened!

Our next target: how about the Monster Thickburger at Hardee's? If the White Castle Slyder has a polar opposite, this would definitely be it!

Wild On - Long Island

After returning home from a week-long business trip to the Wild West of Cheyenne, Wyoming I headed into Manhattan to meet up with some friends. Boy was that a quick change of pace. In Wyoming you can go for miles without seeing anything other than fields and cattle. It's also flat enough that you can actually see what the weather is going to be like in 2 days time. In New York all the tall buildings make this pretty much impossible.

We ordered in some sushi for dinner while we were enjoying some wine and getting ready to go out. With four girls in a Manhattan studio apartment it takes some coordination to get all of us ready and out the door. Especially when Michelle (the owner of the apartment we had taken over) was busily outfitting all of us with her extensive accessory collection as well as her own clothes. - thanks Michelle!

Our destination for the evening was a party Michelle's coworker Chuck and his friends from Long Island were holding at a bar (I think it was called Gypsy Tea) in the Flatiron District. It was $40 to drink for 2 hours, but since we had already "warmed-up" at the apartment, we decided that it would be best to just buy our drinks individually. This ended up working out really well since Chuck was a great host and made sure we had drinks and shots throughout the evening. BTW - I'm not sure if it's like this everywhere in New York, but the shots at Gypsy Tea were huge - definitely the largest shots I've ever had. They came in old fashioned glasses!

Fast forward to the next morning: we wake up, still groggy from the night before and try to piece together the goings-on of our night out. Between the three of us I think we managed to cover everything - but barely! (J had left at 7am on Sunday morning to catch her train home - how she was together enough to do this still remains a mystery)

Michelle informs us that we have 30 minutes to get to Penn Station and catch the Long Island Railroad to meet some friends and embark on a shopping trip at the Tanger Outlet in Riverhead, NY. We quickly scramble to get ourselves together, head off to grab coffee, bagels, and water around the corner and take a cab to Penn Station even though it's a 10 minute walk from Michelle's building because we're running late.

Now I love to shop, but after such a late night the night before, none of us was really up for a full day of outlet shopping. And when I say a full day, I'm not kidding. If it's one thing Manhattanites don't mess around with it's shopping. We arrived at the mall at noon and we shopped until 7:30pm. Good thing we were able to get some rest on the train to Long Island, and nurse our bottles of water in preparation for this marathon of shopping!

I'd say our shopping expedition was a success - wouldn't you?


I *heart* Long Island- can't wait to go back!

USCBP - US Customs and Border Protection

What blog about immigrating to the US would be complete without an account of our visa-getting experience? I guess everyone's first US visa experience is always peppered with some excitement.

Here's our story:
On August 16th Christopher and I drove down to Buffalo, NY with the intention of getting our visas, for me a TN so I could work, and for him the spousal TD that would allow him to attend school in the US (but not work). The border official at the Peace Bridge that we got was extremely rude to us. After she asked us our citizenship and had taken our passports from us to inspect, she then asked the standard question inquiring about the purpose of our trip . I replied "I would like to talk to someone about getting a TN Visa". She proceeded to give me a hard time saying that I should rephrase what I had said, using the words "apply for a visa" instead. I guess asking to talk to someone about "getting a visa" is too presumptuous on our part. Or maybe I insulted her by asking to talk to someone else. But I knew from all my research online that those booth officials are not the ones that issue the visas. Anyways, I rephrased myself with the suggested wording "I would like to speak with someone about applying for a TN Visa". But she still wasn't happy. "Do you want to apply for a Visa or not?" she barked at me. "I would like to apply for a TN Visa" I replied. No response. She then moved on to her next target, Christopher.

She accused Christopher of being presumptuous by applying to the University of Connecticut Law School without having a visa first - saying that he had done everything "all wrong" (which we still totally disagree with). Afterwards she barked all sorts of things at us asking Christopher for a form we had never heard about before and telling us "It's my job to protect the border". In the end she sent us inside (which is all we had wanted in the first place) and we waited to talk to an immigration person who wasn't overly friendly but at least competent in his job, not rude to us and ended up giving us our visas. One thing he asked us was why we were trying to get our visas on August 16th when my offer letter stated my first day of work as August 28th. Taken aback, I meekly replied "I thought it would be prudent to get our visas prior to my first day of work?" Thankfully, this seemed to satisfy him. Plus the fact that the USCBP officer sitting next to him said "It's only 12 days from now" - thank goodness for him!

All in all, the whole thing was quite a harrowing experience. Christopher and I were chattering about every little detail on the drive back to Toronto. Over the next week we slowly recovered from our state of shock over the whole process.

Now, I believe it is possible to get your visa at the US Embassy or Consulate if you live far from the border. But, if you can steel your nerves for the worst and keep your tongue in check for a few hours, I would say that getting your visa at the border is the way to go.

McGriddle & the DMV

The DMV

I just received my new Social Security Number last week, so now I was finally able to head to the illustrious DMV to request a driver's license from the state of Connecticut.

Having heard all the horror stories (real and the fictitious courtesy of Seinfeld, the Simpsons, etc.) about ridiculous wait times and poor customer service we made sure we were fully armed and prepared for battle.

We brought with us:

• EVERY piece of identification ever issued to me (passport, birth certificate, lease agreement, piece of mail to our new address, etc.)
• Cash - for bribes. Just kidding - the DMV only takes cash or personal checks and I don't have my new checks yet (a story for another day no less)
• my iPOD
• a variety of reading material

We also did our homework and researched which DMV locations were known for faster service. Interestingly enough, this local article evaluating the Connecticut DMV wait times in mentions an illegal license-selling ring that was busted in 2004 as one of the reasons behind slow service. Call me naive, but I can hardly imagine anything of the sort in Ontario!

Christopher also insisted that we wake up early on Saturday so we could avoid the rush (they open at 8am). So, we dutifully set our alarm to 6:45am since it takes 45 min to drive to Waterbury, the DMV office in CT with the reputation of the shortest wait times.

Now, I know that Canadians like to complain about their Ministry of Transportation woes, and they often liken them to the American DMVs. I just want to provide some perspective on this. The GTA has a population of 4,682,891 which is served by over 37 Vehicle License Issuing Offices and service kiosks. In comparison the state of Connecticut has a population of 3,510,297 and 10 full-service offices, 5 photo-license centers, & 4 satellite offices with limited services. Even Wikipedia has a section on the DMV reputation in pop culture!

All complaints aside, my first DMV experience was rather lackluster. I was in and out in about an hour, but I have to go back sometime next week because Immigration needs to review my application, and they don't really work on Saturdays. Oddly enough, the officer seemed rather surprised when I told him that I wasn't going to wait and that I would just come back another time. And this was after he told me that 9 times out of 10 Immigration won't get back to you on the same day, and if they do, it'll be at least 2 hours. As if I was going to waste a precious day of my weekend sitting around at the DMV!

McGriddle

Because we got up so early to go to the DMV, we left the house without having breakfast. After we were finished at the DMV my stomach decided that it needed to be fed. Since we had another errand to run at the bank back in West Hartford by noon, we only had time for something quick. I then decided that I was going to try my first McGriddle.

When the McGriddle was introduced back in 2003 I was skeptical to say the least. Now, I generally enjoy my breakfast bacon or sausage with syrup. There's something about the salty-sweet combination that my tastebuds like, similar to prosciutto ham and melon, mmmm :) But what I couldn't get over was the syrup-egg-processed cheese combination. Yuk! I can't even fathom how anyone would like this, but I had 2 roommates in university (out of 5 girls living in the house) that I believe liked syrup with their eggs, so if this is a representative sample, there is a fairly large demographic that would enjoy the McGriddle. Which would explain why the McGriddle has done so well and continues to be sold in McDonald's across the nation. Having passed the test of time on the McDonald's menu I decided that I needed to give it a chance.

My first bite was actually okay. It was soft and warm and it didn't make me gag (which was what I was fully expecting). About halfway through I had to take it apart and eat the contents separately (I had ordered the sausage-egg & cheese) because by this point my brain had communicated to my tastebuds that they weren't too fond of these flavor combinations, but that on their own they would be palatable.

Would I order it again? Probably not. If I were ever to order another McGriddle it would probably be the sausage-only one. No cheese and egg, which as I had expected, was what I didn't care for.

All in all, my first McGriddle and my first DMV trip were both quite underwhelming. I was fully expecting the DMV to either be surprisingly painless or unimaginably horrid and I thought I would either love the McGriddle or want to spit it out. Neither was the case this fateful morning, but I certainly can't complain about that!

Garbage Day Etiquette

Since we don't have a garbage-day calendar, we have to rely upon our neighbors for cues as to when garbage day is and what sorts of things will be collected that day (recycling, yard waste, etc). In our first week here we noticed that on Thursday evening houses in the neighborhood had deposited both garbage cans and blue recycling bins to their curbs. Most houses around here put out their garbage earlier than our old 'hood in Toronto (6pm vs. 9pm). This is good for us as there are lots of examples of the extent of the items we can bring to the curb for pickup on Friday morning.

Our First Garbage Day:

Seeing as we had just moved, we obviously had a TON of garbage and cardboard boxes to bring to the curb (professional packing services use a TON of newsprint to wrap and protect your stuff as they pack it in the cardboard boxes). So, this left us with the decision as to how many garbage bags filled with packing newsprint could/should we put out at the curb for our first garbage day.

In Toronto there is a 6-bag limit, but since we didn't have internet access at home the first week we were here, we couldn't look up the West Hartford limits. I know it sounds crazy, but I didn't want our neighbors' first impression of us to be "the house with the mountain of garbage" making us seem like some ridiculously wasteful household or something. As I was calculating just how many weeks it would take for us to dispose of all our post-moving garbage by putting out 6 bags per week, in a bold move, Christopher decided to put out ALL 27 of our garbage bags! So we did, and just hoped for the best.

BEFORE:

AFTER:


Woohoo! I can't believe they took EVERYTHING. Thank you West Hartford Environmental Services!

Labor Day Weekend

On Saturday night Christopher and I braved the remains of Hurricane Ernesto and headed into Manhattan to meet my university classmate and her husband for dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village called Palma. She was in town presenting her first paper at a conference and it is soon to be published. So cool - congratulations Allie!














It was neat being able to take the train in and be transported from our suburban neighborhood to the buzzing metropolis of New York City. It'll come in handy when the Raptors or the Blue Jays are in town or when we have a craving for "real" Chinese food :)

Here's a quick pic I snapped of Christopher and the Empire State Building right out front of Grand Central Station before we ran inside to catch our train. You can kinda see how rainy it was that night!








On Sunday we had dinner with longtime friends of my family. Their daughter lives about 20 minutes from us and her parents were down visiting for the long weekend. Small world! It was nice to catch up with them. As they were updating me about their family they told us about their one daughter who is closest in age to me, that is now a police officer. And boy does she sound ruthless! Apparently when people plead with her as she's giving them a ticket and ask if they can get off with a warning her response is "Warning, ticket coming!". I could not stop laughing when I heard this, but I can only imagine being on the receiving end of something like that!

On Monday we enjoyed the calm after the storm and headed out for a beautiful round of golf at Blue Fox Run in Avon. It was slow (as can be expected on a holiday Monday) but good times nonetheless. As we crossed over to the back 9 we walked over a bridge crossing the Farmington River and saw some canoeists and kayakers paddling along. I'll have to look into where we can rent these from and plan a nice little day trip for us.

First Day OTJ

It is always very interesting to see how different companies handle a new employee starting on a particular day. I have started several jobs (full time and summer) throughout my career and I find you can learn alot about the office culture based solely how they handle your first day on the job.

At one place I worked that was fairly unstructured new employee starts were always quite interesting. First of all, the rest of the team rarely knew if/when a new employee was starting until they showed up for their first day at work! At which point, we needed to scramble to do the following:

1. Find them a place to sit
2. Clean out all the old junk (boxes, computer equipment, etc.) that was being stored in their new cubicle
3. Order their computer, cellphone/Blackberry from IT (which would have an ETA anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months)
4. Get them set up with a temporary computer, begin requesting various access logins and passwords from IT
5. Take them on a tour of the office, showing them where the washroom & cafeteria are, introduce them to people
6. Find them something to do, background info to read, etc.
7. Make lunch plans to take them out for their first day :)

One summer job I had, they were completely unprepared for me. It was actually quite funny. Upon my arrival, my supervisor found himself needing to address item #1 of the list above and find me a place to sit. But this ended up with 3 guys carrying a large old wooden desk (similar to a school teacher's desk, rectangular with drawers on either side - all wood and quite heavy!) from one lab through the lunchroom and down the stairs to the basement lab where I would be working.

This week marked the end of my first week of work at my new job. I was happy to find that my new office seems quite organized. They had a temporary laptop ready and waiting for me (my actual laptop is on order), my desk was nice and clean and the drawers had been filled with office supplies. And I had someone that was ready to train me on my new responsibilities (or is it just that he has been eagerly awaiting my arrival so he can slough off these tasks to me? hmm...). By Wednesday my PDA had arrived, pre-programmed from an off-site IT office. And the people and office culture seem to reflect this level of organization. They're quite methodical, structured and very organized. Just my kind of place. I think I'm gonna like it here!

Inaugural Post

Seeing as I enjoy reading all my friends' blogs I thought I'd give writing my own a shot. I've always been hesitant to start a blog because I'm not overly confident on my ability to capture anything interesting that is going on in my life and also because I can't imagine my life being interesting enough for people to want to read about it. Together those two combined make for a pretty sad blog to read.

But when I decided to take a new job in Massachusetts and move us to West Hartford, Connecticut I thought it might be interesting to log our adventures in the US, if for nothing more than posterity. And of course I will try to sharpen my writing skills to keep you all entertained with our goings-on.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy our blog!