September 2013 – Page 2 – Willem's Planet

September 8, 2013September 8, 2013

Sunday/ Thinking in Numbers

My ‘Thinking in Numbers’ book has arrived, and I think I will like it a lot from what I have read so far. I have to make it an early night because the flight leaves frightfully early (5.15 am) in the morning. I am going to Denver – and yes, I know I was just there for my stopover back from Toronto! My new project is at an oil company headquartered in the city. The last time I helped an oil company convert their information systems to SAP in was in 1999. The crude oil price at the time dipped down to $18 a barrel. These days it sits at $110 per barrel and is heading higher.

IMG_8308 sm — My new book with some Canadian coins from my recent trip. The coins are from left to right : Toronto Transit Commission token (single fare on the subway); 5c coin is now the smallest denomination – no more Canadian pennies; caribou on the Canadian quarter; but the Canadian $2 coin with the polar bear on is my favorite.

September 7, 2013

Saturday/ back to the U.S.A.

IMG_8291 sm — I’m about to step onto Air Canada’s Embraer 190, the Brazilian jet. I was Denver bound, to catch a connection to Seattle. Each flight segment was about 3 hrs.

IMG_8285 sm — This way to the U.S. of A. .. sign at Toronto airport.

IMG_8301 sm — Check out this new CAD$20 bill. I would say it’s just about impossible to counterfeit. The bill is a polymer note, and was released in Nov 2012. The see-through plastic panels have holograms imbedded in them.

When traveling back to the USA from Canada, all the customs formalities are done in the Canadian airport, before one even sets foot in the USA. My Global Entry accreditation that I did for my trips to China is still valid (it is $100 for 5 years), and it came in handy today. I could bypass a very long line at the passport control by scanning my passport, looking into the camera, and providing four fingerprints. I was very tired, and the flights felt very long : one to Denver (3 hrs) and one to Seattle (3 hrs).

September 7, 2013September 7, 2013

Friday/ We did well ! (We think)

IMG_8210 sm — The Royal York station is on the green line, the one that I took to get to downtown. My colleagues were all headed to the airport, but were nice enough to drop me at the end of the green line some 4 miles from the airport (Kipling station). If you have someone to drop you there or pick you up at Kipling station, it ‘s quite a bargain : CAD$3, vs a taxi of CAD $55, between the airport and downtown.

IMG_8249 sm — Whoah! That’s a lot of green. The inside of a pan-Asian restaurant on Yonge St.

IMG_8272 sm — Here’s the throng of fans looking out for – Hugh Jackman? at one of 34 theatres that screens films for the 38th Toronto International Film Festival. (Say ‘tiff’ for short). I just saw the closed streets and the commotion and then found out what is was when I got there.

IMG_8245 sm — This is earlier in the evening, on Church St. There is plenty of new construction going on, but these old homes house businesses and display a lot of character.

IMG_8265 sm — Here’s a Grolsch-beer sponsored tricycle I found in downtown on King St. Two passengers are just exiting.

So there we were Friday, seated up in front facing a panel of about fifteen client team people listening and looking at to our presentation for 45 minutes (I only did 4 of the 26 slides). Then there was an Q & A for the next hour and 15 mins. We were not perfect (who is?) but we think we did well. We stumbled on one question, and was a little too vague on one or two others. So we shook some hands, and piled into the van back to Toronto. We felt good about our effort .. but for now it is out of our hands. I stayed over, only going out to Seattle on Saturday morning.

IMG_8214 vert sm — The Starbucks on Yonge Street close to the Marriott Courtyard is in a beautiful red brick building.

September 6, 2013September 7, 2013

Thursday/ six for the pitch

IMG_8190 sm — The conference rooms in our Toronto PwC office are named after cities of the world. There was Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, some others and hey .. Johannesburg, South Africa.

IMG_8196 sm vert — Another glimpse of the CN tower as we leave Toronto to drive to Chatham.

9-6-2013 4-54-55 PM — It was a 4 hr drive down to Chatham on Thu night in heavy traffic. Normally it’s closer to 3 hours. We ended up close to Detroit, in the southernmost part of Canada, wedged between Lake Huron and Lake Erie.

The floor which we were in on Thursday for our preparation had even fancier technology in the meeting rooms : big screen projectors descending from the ceiling at the touch of a button; and little microphones on the table to speak into for those conference calls where someone is always too far from the phone or speaking too softly. Andrè our presentation coach was at it again, and we went through several dry runs. We also went through a list of anticipated questions, and practiced who would answer, and what we would say. By 5.30 pm, the five of us that were going to present to the client on Friday, piled into a van with our luggage and all. We had to pick up our 6th team member at Toronto airport, and then headed out to the town of Chatham where the gas utility company’s headquarters are. No fancy hotels there; we stayed in a Comfort Inn (which was very comfortable given that I only got 5 and 6 hours of sleep the previous two nights). Friday was going to be a big day.

September 4, 2013

Wednesday/ prepping

We spent all day going over our presentation materials, and we had a coach to critique our presentation methods as well. Said he : ‘I know it’s not easy, but you have to boast a little and sell yourself!’, and remember : at the same time the client should feel they want to hire you, that they want to work with you (so don’t come across as arrogant) ! I spent a little time after work walking around the office in downtown Toronto, but then had to go back to the hotel and catch up on my sleep.

IMG_8155 sm — Twin high-rise condo buildings as seen from our offices on the 16th floor. That’s Lake Ontario with a little sail boat visible between the buildings.

IMG_8161 sm — This is the view looking out in the opposite direction .. there’s the Fairmont Hotel, with lots of construction going on in front of it around Union Station (regional trains; there is also a metro train system in the city).

IMG_8169 sm — Here’s our logo .. the PwC offices are in a new glass and steel building, some 30 floors tall.

IMG_8176 sm — I love this metal inlay in the Union Station entrance hall : a tribute to Robert Stephenson’s Rocket steam locomotive.

IMG_8175 sm — The CN broadcasting tower is in the downtown area as well. I hope it does not attract too many lightning bolts in heavy weather !

September 4, 2013September 4, 2013

Tuesday/ arrival in Toronto

IMG_8132 sm — Dinner was a Tim Norton’s chicken sandwich on ‘brown’ bread. They say ‘brown bread’ here (whole grain, as opposed to ‘white bread’), the same words I was raised on in South Africa.

IMG_8135 sm2 — Here’s the lobby of the Royal York Fairmont where I am staying. It is smack bang in downtown Toronto, across from the PwC office, and defiantly standing its ground among the new high rises around it. It is after all the grand hotel that the city was built around.

My travels on Tuesday went without incident. I stopped over in Chicago; and made it through Canada’s customs at Toronto airport without getting sent to the ‘problem with passport’ checkpoint (even though I have a US passport now, they black-marked me for ‘trying’ to get to the Canadian side of the Niagara falls in 1995 with my South African passport). Of course there’s French everywhere. Fin de trottoir, goes the French for ‘end of walkway’ in the airport, for example. I only arrived at the hotel in downtown Toronto after 10.00 pm. It’s always a challenge to get a decent bite to eat at that time on a week night, but there was a Tim Horton’s (Canada’s more-or-less equivalent of Starbucks, a fast casual restaurant known for its coffee and doughnuts) open right by the hotel.

September 2, 2013September 2, 2013

Monday/ laboring on Labor Day

IMG_8101 sm — Seattle-based clothing store Nordstrom offers socks with the Space Needle woven into them. Should I have gotten a few pairs?

It was Labor Day here in the USA and Canada, but there was no rest for the wicked (me). We have our work cut out to meet a deadline on Wednesday for a proposal that my firm is making for a big two-year project. In the meantime, I’m off to Toronto tomorrow to go and sit in on another proposal, for the so-called oral presentations. It is somewhat like a job interview and therefore a nerve-wracking affair, but I’m just there to answer to technical questions they may have. Others in our party are familiar with the terms of the contract and the bid that we are making. I even went shopping for a new pair of pants or two, and ended up springing for a snazzy new jacket as well.