Last week ended up being a really good week, in many ways. My research team had our bi-annual feedback session with our leadership team, which I feel went very well, and the day after my daughter performed at Festi'Neuch. I was so busy worrying about the former that by the time the latter happened I was completely relaxed. Which ended up being 100% appropriate, as "The BANNED" completely nailed it. Check them out on Spotify!
On the following Monday, I started off for Canada.
It was a direct flight from Zurich to Toronto.
The flight was slightly delayed, but only ended up arriving about 10 minutes behind schedule.
This was just as well, as I'd planned on meeting Tomas - and ended up meeting John - on arrival. Immigration was really busy, presumably due to the World Cup, but Tomas had installed the ArriveCAN app (much like the very handy MPC app for the USA), which meant he breezed past us. I must install that for the next trip.
We were all staying at The Chelsea Hotel, conveniently located for the downtown of Toronto and the Autodesk office.
After settling in and quick shower, we headed across the street to The Queen and Beaver.
I remember from last year they had some fun football-themed splash thingies in the urinals. So they're not only there for the World Cup!
More of the team showed up, before long. A nice way to ease into the week.
I was in Toronto for internal meetings being held in our office in the MaRS district.
This office always brings back lots of memories.
I won't be able to post many pictures of our 3 days of meetings, but suffice it to say that the discussions were robust and engaging.
The meeting was attended by pretty much the full Research Engineering team from around the world.
The first day was mostly about sharing out the current research areas - something that's really important to give a matrixed team a broad overview of the organisation's various efforts.
In the evening we headed to Dish - I'd been there once before, a year before - where we were split into teams to prepare different courses of our evening meal.
These team-building events are always a lot of fun.
It's a great chance to connect in person with people we're otherwise only seeing regularly via Zoom.
Some of the jobs were harder than others. I found one that suited my culinary skills perfectly: chopping potatoes into quarters. Others worked much harder.
It really was a blast.
My manager, Tony, was really keen to cook the steaks.
The bar was well stocked and kept the drinks coming.
Once the various courses were complete, we sat down to eat.
It's always good fun hanging out with Gareth.
The dinner was genuinely delicious! Even the potato salad was decent.
The following day was mainly spent workshopping the use of new technology. It was really engaging.
England was playing Croatia during the afternoon, so Tomas… wore his German football shirt. I suppose that's appropriate given the nationality of the current England manager.
We went back to The Chelsea Hotel to watch the match.
We'd booked out The Elm Tavern. It was fantastic having the place to ourselves!
Tony is turning 50 at the weekend, so we also took the opportunity to congratulate him on this milestone.
And the match was fantastic. It was a nail-biter - as England matches often are - but the boys did good.
England's fourth came as a huge relief.
And the result has us set for success in this group, the toughest match (on paper, at least) now being behind us.
Dinner came later. Solid British fare, with a Canadian twist.
I don't think I've ever had a trifle this fancy.
At 9:30pm I was shattered. Some our our South American colleagues stayed up for the Colombia match, but I had to hit the hay.
In the morning I bumped into Charlie on the way to the office. She'd received lots of celebratory comments about Tony's balloons, but sadly no-one questioned whether this was her age. At least when we walked together it seemed more likely they were mine!
Tony clearly had to present with his balloons nearby.
This third day was largely a shareout of the previous day's workshop and an event wrap-up.
Seba is from Chile, but as they aren't in the competition he decided to go with the local team.
Thursday night was my one chance to catch up with old friends from the Dasher and Tandem teams.
Hali and Simon were my main "partners in crime" on Dasher 360.
It was an absolutely lovely evening.
It had been a year since I'd last seen many of these folks, so we had a lot to catch up on.
Simon joined Research from the Tandem team last year. It's been great having him onboard.
We went for a drink at a nearby bar called C'est What? afterwards. Their fruit sours were deliciously refreshing.
After a very pleasant evening I went to bed after midnight, but did manage to be up in time to hit the roof-top gym. I needed to burn some energy ahead of the afternoon's travel to Calgary.
The weather was very nice, so I took a few snaps.
The building opposite the office created a cool pixelated reflection of the clouds.
For lunch I met with a few research colleagues and Andrew Sonta from EPFL, with whom I'd be travelling to Calgary and on to Banff. We ate at a great Laotian restaurants called the Lao Lao Bar. We walked there through the grounds around the university - it was very nice.
I didn't take any photos of our lunch, but did remember to take a quick snap as we walked back.
After this Andrew and I headed to pick up our bags on the walk to Union station, from where we took the UP Express to Pearson airport. We flew to Calgary but missed our airporter to Banff, so we're sitting watching Turkey vs. Paraguay at the Marriott's bar, waiting for the next one.
In my next post I'll talk about my time in Calgary and Banff.
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