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!