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...