Category: Travel

The shooting incident on Friday at Terminal 3 in Los Angeles (LAX) airport that left a TSA agent dead shattered the sense I had that airports are safe inside the security zone.  Yes, it’s illegal to bring a firearm anywhere inside an airport building, but of course that does not help to stop anyone bent on shooting people.  In this case TSA agents were targeted. They are not armed, so the shooter got into the secure area and all the way to the food court by the departure gates before getting shot by police. He confronted one passenger with his assault rifle, asking if he was TSA, and then moved on. What was the motive? Who knows? Does it really matter? Another 50 or 60 people will be killed across the country this weekend in gang violence, domestic disputes, by mentally ill people and in accidents, pointed out Tom Ridge, the first head of the Dept. of Homeland Security, in an interview on CNN.  We are our own worst enemy.

Here’s a poster from the hotel advertising the hotel restaurant and bar, called Pi (as in the mathematical symbol).  Check out the happy hour* that runs from 3.14 pm to 6.28 pm : very geeky. I’m not so sure that think and drink go well together, though!  Those blocked ‘Br’ and ‘Ba’ are chemical symbols, for bromide and barium respectively.

*Happy hour means you get your booze at half-price, or at least at a discount.

I’m in the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Denver : not very fancy, but comfortable and newly refurbished.   Hey, and they have oatmeal for me in the morning.

P.S.  It’s official.  We received the good news today that we (my firm, PwC) beat out 5 other competitors in our bid for the work at Union Gas in Ontario province in Canada (the one I made two trips for up to Toronto).

There were no mountains or landscape in sight when I work up this morning after falling asleep on my early morning flight.   And sure enough, we never saw the sun all day here in Denver : unusual for a city with the reputation of the most sunny days in the country.

Once I looked into the background of the train station/ plaza/ hotel complex that is under construction at Denver airport, I discovered that there had been a lot of trouble with its design.  Check out this cool animation from the Denver Post.   The original design from star Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava had to be modified somewhat after he withdrew from the project.

It is nice to check out of the hotel at the end of the work week away from home.  No matter what happens at work, there will come a time where you say : now I have got to go.   I have been staying in the comfortable but old(er) Warwick hotel here in downtown Denver, but will move over to a Hilton Garden Inn hotel from next week on.   Maybe I can get my oatmeal on the run there in the mornings? Time will tell.

I’d better enjoy coming home this Thursday night, because for the next several weeks we are going to have to stick around until mid-day on Fridays.   We are pushing hard to get all the design work for our project done before the disruptions of Thanksgiving and Christmas (good disruptions nonetheless!) are upon us.   The year 2013 is running out on all of us.  Yikes !

It’s good that it’s a short walk from the hotel to my office building.  It has suddenly become cold here in the mornings (29 °F/ -2°C).  And : there some snowflakes  in the air coming down from by lunch time.  Nothing that stuck on the pavement or streets, though.

 

I was on United 244 as is usual these Monday mornings.  We left on time at 5.40 am but the pilot had some turbulence to deal with at the landing in Denver.  I noticed four or five emergency vehicles next to the runway, which made me wonder if there was a concern that some airplanes could skid off the runway.

On Saturday morning we did a little tour of historic downtown Ellensburg (the established in 1883). We stopped for a short time at the Kittitas County Farmers Market as well. Then we went to Central Washington Univeristy’s Tomlinson Stadium for a football game.  The CWU Wildcats took on Dixie State University (from Utah) in its annual Homecoming contest. Homecoming is the tradition of welcoming back alumni of a school.

 

Bryan and I drove out to Ellensburg on Friday (two hours and some from Seattle, depending on traffic).  Bryan’s dad Dale received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater in Ellensburg, Central Washington University.

 

Thursday’s trip home from Denver went without a hitch.  There was a shortage of Yellow Cab taxis at Seattle airport, though.   The driver told me that they are sometimes kept away from the pick-up points, and then three or four flights arrive at the same time.

 

 

 

 

I had a window seat this morning and slept all the way to Denver.   There was snow in the city and at the airport on Friday (it’s early for snow here), but not a trace of it remained by this morning.

This picture is from Thursday’s taxi ride out to Denver airport.  I looked up, and there it was : a cobalt blue horse out on the plains – so out of place it looks like an alien creature. Turns out it has been there for five years already, and despite criticism is likely to stay, as NBC’s Today website reported here.

Here’s Denver depicted in Starbucks coffee mug format. There is snow for the mountains in the forecast for Friday, prompting speculation that some of the Colorado ski resorts may open earlier than usual this year.

The week, that had me in and out of three hotels and three cities, is finally done, and I’m leaving the maple leaf country.

I need to get a Nexus card to speed my way through customs here.  My US Global Entry credentials is not enough. One would think that it’s good enough, but no : you get through the US Customs in a jiff, then the Canadians that handle the airport security line say no! we don’t care.  Go stand in line with those 300 other people for security. Ha!

 

 

We did our thing all day in several one-hour work sessions with the effort to win the contract for a big gas utility.  All told, we pulled together 31 hours of presentation material last week and last weekend – no mean feat.  We packed it in at 5.30 pm and made it into Toronto shortly before 9 pm.  My colleague and I will stay over and go to the PwC Toronto office tomorrow.  We have to send out an updated set of documents to the prospective client.

It was quite a journey from Denver to Detroit and into Canada.  I got into Detroit at 10.00 pm, and had to navigate to the city and the Ambassador Bridge into Canada and on to the little town of Chatham where I’m meeting my USA colleagues and PwC Canada colleagues tomorrow.   I pulled up at the Holiday Inn Express at exactly midnight local time in my rented white Chevy Impala.

Our project office is on Sherman street in a bland office building in downtown Denver (it is modern inside, and I am not complaining about that) .. but check out this spectacular building in the Moorish Revival style right across from it.  (Confession : I had to look up the building’s style on line, I’m not that smart about architecture). I guess the days of building in red brick and in the Moorish Revival style are gone for good? All the more reason these buildings should be protected from the wrecking ball.

 

DIA stands for Denver International Airport. Back in the ’90s when the newly opened airport had trouble with the baggage carousels, a sarcastic newspaper heading read : ‘DIA is DOA’. I did not get a rental car for this trip – so it was great to just sit back in the taxi.  It’s been a blue sky and cool weather week; a welcome respite for the Boulder residents that have to clean up after the flooding.