Well, its been an interesting few days. On Thursday I headed to Manchester, NH to do a video for one of our products at work. As I mentioned in a previous post I wasn’t looking forward to being in the cold or driving in winter conditions.

The trip to Manchester was mostly smooth. My Air Canada flight left about half an hour late because one of the pilots wasn’t legally allowed to fly for that time. Like he was more away after sitting in the cockpit for another half hour? I know its not the airlines fault, but it really is easy to dislike them. Even before the Celine Dion song. My connection in Toronto was pretty tight as it was and it took forever to get my bag to go through US Customs. Fortunately for me, the flight was delayed and the Air Georgian Beech 1900 just arrived as I got to the gate. I was pretty sure that my luggage wasn’t going to make it but surprises of all surprises it was on the carousel waiting for me.

The training was taking place in Hancock, NH about 45 miles west of Manchester. The drive there was pleasant enough until I had to pull off the main road. It was a few miles down this road that was basically sheet ice. Honestly I have no experience driving in these kinds of conditions. I live in Vancouver and won’t drive if there is more than a couple of flakes on the road because people don’t know how to drive in it. I count myself in that statement.

I only made one wrong turn along the way and figured it out quickly so I got to the training about half an hour late but was proud of myself for not killing or embarrassing myself horribly. We headed out to the ice mid-morning and as you can see I managed to keep a smile on my face. I did manage to embarrass myself after lunch trying to back out of a snow covered parking lot by forgetting to take the parking break off. Not something you want to do in front of about 25 firefighters and the instructors. Oh well, no one including me has died of embarrassment.

The day went really well. I am looking forward to checking out the footage when I get back to Vancouver. I did get a little lost on the way back to the hotel but some really nice people gave me perfect directions back. My 36 hours in New Hampshire went by really fast and I lived to tell the tale.

Name the TV show: Miami is nice, so I’ll say it thrice. I’ll give you a hint. It was sung by Rose Nylund and if you know what it is you are as old and possibly as gay as me.

Now here I am in Miami. I got in Saturday night and immediately felt at home. Even at the airport. The baggage carousel was broken and it took more than half an hour for our bags to come out. I’m sensing a theme.

The Miami Boat Show was pretty cool. There were some very beautiful boats at both the Convention Center and Strictly Sail. I’d love to have one but would need to win the lottery to afford one and someone to drive it for me. I had some very productive meetings and have some things to follow up on.

Today was my first of two vacation day in Miami. I would have taken more but I want to be back home in time for Northern Voice. It rained a little bit this morning but cleared up to be a beautiful day. After doing a walk about in South Beach I headed for the beach and spent a couple of hours basking in the sun. Now that I have had some dinner and a couple of beers it feels good to relax for a bit in the cool hotel room.

Its going to be hard to go back to go home after being in paradise. But I have to admit, it was really easy to get over the cold after being in 80+ temperatures today.