Now what?

I’m feeling kind of lost. A little over a week ago, my dragon boat team competed in the Alcan DB festival. We’ve been training and preparing since late January. I’ve been training since last fall! Then just like that, the weekend was over. Two races on Saturday and three on Sunday.

Then a few days later, I found out that my gym shut down without any notice. Just like that, I didn’t have a gym.

So now, I find myself with no gym and no dragon boat races until September. It’s a weird feeling after being so focused for so many months.

I need an end goal. Something to strive for. What could that be? I guess my options are:
• sign up for the FCRCC outrigger program and maybe get into the race development
• sign up and train for a 10K run
• get into something new like tennis

Or I could just veg out and not do much of anything.

Back to YVR

Yesterday was another productive day with Glencore. Two of their operators - one who does crude and another who does gas blending - spent time explaining their work process to us. We also met people from Triple Point, the makers of PhysOps which is the application Glencore is deploying to manage their movements. Then we spent the rest of the time outlining the documents they want the Navarik system to produce through the life cycle of a voyage.

They fed us sushi again for lunch which was delicious. And Bill, Richard, Chris, Mary, and I went out for dinner to a tapas place in Greenwich. I had a good time; conversation flowed easily. The Glencore group is a pleasant bunch to spend time with. I mean, it’s not hard work to converse with them.

Greenwich was surreal. It just oozed money. Not just rich money but wealthy money. Like private jet money. The women in the restaurant looked like they were all wearing designer clothes and had hair stylists on-staff to coif them for a night out. Just gorgeous and stylish women. Yes, I felt frumpy, indeed, in my west coast flip-flops.

All in all, a good visit with Glencore. Hopefully, we get the business!

Today is travel day. White Plains, NY to Chicago to Vancouver.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, my luggage got left behind in Chicago. It wasn’t only me; there were around ten other people whose luggage didn’t make it to Vancouver. My bag was delivered to Bill’s place on Saturday since I was going to be racing all day. Bill brought it to the office and voila, I was reunited with my luggage by Saturday evening. Thanks, Bill!

Stamford, Connecticut

My first trip with Bill in almost two years. We’re here to meet with Glencore, who is interested in our solutions.

We flew here last Tuesday. We caught the 8:18am flight from Vancouver to Chicago where we had a two hour stopover. Then it was a one hour 45 minute flight from Chicago to White Plains, NY. The nice thing about travelling with Bill, the super elite aeroplan guy, is the access to the Air Canada and Star Alliance lounges. It totally beats waiting in the regular gate area.

It made for a long day, though. I got up at 5am and we landed at White Plains at 4pm. As we were approaching the Westchester County Airport, I saw the many mansions that dot this obviously high income area. Martha Stewart, David Letterman - they live in Westchester County. I’ve never seen so many mansions in one area before.

Stamford is about 30 minutes from White Plains. We got to the Marriot Stamford after 6pm. Bill and I had a detour - we passed a sign that said Open House so we popped in to tour the gorgeous house that was for sale for $2.1 million US. The real estate agent was all over Bill! The house was grand, the workmanship was top-notch. The kitchen was amazing and the masters bathroom was like a spa. Sigh... How the other half lives...

Today, we met with Glencore. We discussed and got a demo of the system, PhysOps, they are planning to roll out in the near future. We showed them Shell Navarik and Cargo Watch. For me, my focus was to study how they define and model a “voyage”. I learned a lot today about the world of shipping and I’m glad I was able to come with Bill for these meetings.

Other highlights so far...
- Somehow I qualified for access to the concierge lounge where there’s free food and drinks
- I wore a blouse and skirt to work for the first time in a gazillion years
- I ran for about 45 minutes around Stamford after work today

20/20 vision

This morning, i had my eyes examined. The last time I had this done, I was still employed by Placer Dome. That was around six years ago. Anyway, I’ve been noticing that my vision is blurred and I’m not seeing things are sharply as I used to. So I made the appointment and wished for the best.

Turns out I still have 20/20 vision! I’m very relieved. The eye doctor said the blurry vision is due mainly to eye fatigue and dryness. So I should blink lots and rest my eyes regularly. Staring at the computer screen tires out the eyes so I have to be more diligent about taking breaks.

So glasses are still a few years away, thank goodness. I’m quite happy to be the anomaly - a computer professional with 20/20 vision.