Milwaukee was an overall great experience. It served as a fine introduction to my new employer. It will be interesting to see how I fit into the culture of this company. I really hope that I excel at my job. Thursday the 15th was our Mentorship workshop. The mentor program is pretty good. Everyone is paired up with someone more senior in the company and basically that is the person that acts as their counselor, advisor, advocate, everything in the company... Any dumb questions - ask the mentor. Seeking career advice - ask the mentor. The manager on the other hand handles day-to-day operations and goals, objectives, etc. My mentor is great. He has a very senior position within the Canadian organization and he is a really personable guy. On that Thursday night after the mentorship workshop, we all went out to this funky fusion restaurant in downtown Milwaukee called Onyx. The food was good and the drink was excellent. We all got pretty looped that night. I was drinking my new favourite drink - Amaretto and Ginger, also G&T's, wine, tequila, a little bit of everything :) After the dinner, we went to a hip hop club called Eve. Good times there as well and the best part was that my mentor (who has 3 kids) and Marie-Pierre's mentor came out to the club along with one other mentor. So, all the other students kept saying that Canada has the best mentors and that was cool. Guess who I saw at Eve that night...

You ready? Latrell Sprewell And I did something pretty stupid at the time but very funny now looking back at it.

a: waiting for latrell to finish his conversation with some chicks
a: tapping latrell on the back (as I am up to about his shoulder blades)
a: Hey Latrell, what's up man?
l: turns around but doesn't really awknowledge me
a: Man, I am from Toronto and the Raptors are gonna kick your @$$ next year!!!
l: smirks, turns away in disgust and goes back to his buddies (without even hesitation)

So, that is my claim to NBA fame. Someone told me later that I was pretty lucky to not have been strangled by him or something. If you recall, he was the player who strangled his coach, P.J. Carlisimo a few years ago cause of some disagreement.

I left Milwaukee on Friday (left earlier than expected cause Marie-Pierre and I flew standby and got on the earlier flight. We had the same flight attendent that we had two weeks prior when we flew down. He was a pretty funny guy who obviously was sick of the Toronto - Milwaukee route and wanted out. He was so sarcastic the entire time saying stuff like "They (Air Canada) made $___,___,___ in profits last year and all they can offer you are these _______ pretzels." And when he was announcing something to the entire plane he said, "And if you have any requests or concerns, please hesitate to inform me" (instead of don't hesitate). I was thinking that he muswt be new and they've put him on this crappy flight to earn his stripes. Eventually, he will be able to work some better flights but for now, as long as he sticks through it, his job sucks.

Went to a bbq at Seema's house on Friday night. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet some cool new people. Met this one guy who used to work at Steve's Music in downtown Toronto and who now teaches guitar. Interesting... Then, I went to Mendhi, Masti, Masala last night - An Indian cultural festival at Harbourfront. It was pretty good but very crowded. Lots of brown people everywhere you looked actually. The food was so expensive - it was a rip off!!! $5 for Bhel Puri??? $8 for Tandoori chicken and Nan??? Where do they get these prices man? But Cristine, Florence and I were suckers and stayed there to eat. Meanwhile, my parents had the right idea and went to Gerrard Street for dinner instead. Good call Mom and Dad. I watched Spy Game last night with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. Good movie but I didn't follow the entire plot. It was a bit confusing but pretty interesting overall. I love seeing all that cool spy/espionage stuff.

Gonna go now and see what Sunday has in store for me...

back from milwaukee. sitting on my floor in scarborough typing on my laptop that is plugged into a very very slow dialup connection. we'll definitely have to look at high speed now though. overall, the trip was really great. learned a ton of new stuff and also was made aware of what i don't know. met some neat people. saw a new city.

i will have a proper blog soon...

hey folks...just finished a three day workshop on consultative selling. it was really cool and very informative. i am ready to go out there and sell, sell, sell. we'll see how that goes. thanks again to everyone who has sent me birthday greetings over the past couple of days. i am really grateful that you all are really amazing people.

tchao - how does working with boxes all day sound? that reminds me of my days at Intria.

wow dudes...i am 24 years old. that is pretty crazy. i am all gradumacated. i have a job. a pet fish. responsimabilities. geez, i am growing up right before all your eyes! today was an okay day but it definitely wasn't like spending my birthday at home. i am all alone here in Milwaukee (these new friends here from work are cool but it's just not the same as old good friends or family, you know?) today I was in Consultative Sales training class all day from 8:00 am till 7:00 pm. then, I went to Subway (woo hoo!!!) for dinner with a bunch of classmates. now, i am doing my laundry and working on a presentation about Nuclear Medicine that is due tomorrow. all in all, a pretty lacklustre day.

thank you very much to everyone who remembered me today. you guys are awesome!

by the way,
tai - yep, it's still broken
craig m - thanks a lot for the shout out last week
k - got your message that you got my message :)

happy birthday to me

Watched American Pie II tonight and I must say that it was a very silly movie. Not that great at all. The first one was so much better. This is probably the case though because it's all the same recycled humour so that is a problem for sure. It just wasn't funny the second time around and if they have an American Pie III, it will be even crappier. I will say however that Eugene Levy's character was priceless...The line of the night "By the way son, don't forget your p$n*s cream."

Went to Denny's for brunch and The Olive Garden for dinner tonight. I am eating out all the time and living the good old American dream. Man, the portions here are so big and there is just everything available. Everything has add-ons and can be supersized. It's kind of scary. Actually, I can see Canada going that way so that is kind of sad but hopefully it'll never get this bad. The thing that does make me laugh though is how well any product with "diet", "light" or "fat free" on it sells. All the guys here drink Miller and Bud "Light." What is up with that? I guess it's that whole psychological thing more than anything but really, the marketing works around these parts. I have seen more obese people here and in Boston in the last two weeks than I had seen in Toronto and Asia for this entire summer. This society is scary because it's all about consumption, consumption, consumption.

Last night started out really fun. We went to the Brewers-Expos baseball game (that the Expos won 11 - 4). We tailgated in the parking lot before the game (just beer, no bbq). That was fun and it was my first time tailgating. Then, we bought some tickets off scalpers who I had the following conversation with...

a: $10 for those tickets, those are junk general reserve uptop!!! We won't buy that crap. Give us 2 for $5
s: No way man, we'll sell these to someone else. Ya'll are cheap mofo's!
a: That crap is just paper man. The game has already started. No one is gonna buy that from you
s: We'll see about that. Look at those people right over there (points in front of him)
a: All right, we'll find someone else (we all start walking)
s: (comes running after us after a minute or two) Okay, okay...1 for $5 - how about that???
a: No, I said 2 for $5
s: All right fine but you guys are cheap!
a: Yeah, well you gotta get rid of that paper because otherwise you ain't getting nothing!

For the entire game, I was getting ribbed (and all week up till then for that matter) about being a Canadian. You know all the Canadian jokes... Anyway, in the ninth inning - Vladimir Guerrero, the right fielder for Montreal hit this wicked line drive home run over centre field. I was jumping up and down cheering really loud and I was definitely the only one in my section cheering (needless to say, I got some dirty looks). Then, to top it all off - I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my Canada Bandana!!! That is right, right there in Miller Park - I was waving my Canada bandana cause the Expos were socking it to the Brewers. My classmates were thrown aback by this display of patriotism and had a slight chuckle. I think that they probably didn't want to admit that they knew me at that time.

Tomorrow morning is the big golf tournament with the boss. Time to kick some butt and show them all the talents that this Canadian boy has...