As I can easily fall asleep while on transit, I thought that it might be a great idea to take the red-eye from YVR to JFK, but with dinner being served at 2300h and a movie starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Williams to entertain me post-dinner, I got just enough minutes of sleep as it takes to develop a roll of film at a drugstore.
Flying into JFK at 0600h, I disembarked, found my way onto the AirTrain (Bombardier!), transferred onto the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) at Jamaica Station, took it to the terminus at Penn Station, meandered through the streets of NYC to the Port Authority Bus Station, boarded the CoachUSA to Mahwah, NJ, an hour away, and then took a 5 minute taxi ride to the Sheraton. It was 0930h when I checked into my suite where I had promptly dumped my baggage on the floor and face planted onto the bed where I remained for many hours.
When I woke up, I looked outside my south facing window from the twentieth floor and was surprised to see that I was in a hilly area bounded by freeways and highways. I ventured outside for a walkabout but I didn’t get very far at all. I couldn’t! I quickly realised that Mahwah was not built for pedestrians so the only way to get ANYWHERE is by motor vehicle. Absent were sidewalks, crosswalks, and skywalks. I popped into a convenience store at a gas bar and asked an attendant there if there was any way to cross Route 17 and sarcastically (or not) he responded by asking me if I could cross the road to the median, hop onto the cement barrier, and climb the fence on top of it.
“What kind of place is this?” I wondered. A butt-fuck of a place employing village hicks sans-high school diploma at the city engineering and urban planning division.
Walking back towards the hotel cutting across the large garden with a fountain, I saw a large flock of Canadian geese eating grass. They looked just as out of place as I did.
For dinner, I had my driver, Marie, take me to a Japanese restaurant called Mt. Fuji, as was recommended by the hotel concierge. It turned out to be a teppanyaki restaurant which was marginally palatable but didn’t have the authenticity. I had the chicken teriyaki with mushrooms stirred in with mozzarella cheese.
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
I woke at 0630h and got out of bed at 0700h to be down at the lobby by 0745h to wait for the Sheraton shuttle to take me to Nobel Biocare’s Training Centre.
We covered how to scan in and design single unit and three-unit bridges using CAD and Anatomic functions for each. We also had a tour of the production facility which was smaller than I had envisioned. It was really neat to see the milling machines in operation though. The robotic arm that filled the order into the tubes was also cool to see.
There were several others in our training group from Canada as well including a party of three from a lab in Saskatoon of all places. Gary, his dad, and his assistant Crystal were very nice folks and we all went out to dinner to a seafood restaurant called Virka’s. I had ordered the Chilean Sea Bass in onion and tomato soup which was to my satisfaction.
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Today was another full day of training. This time, we were being trained on how to design implants and bar-over dentures. My brain shut-itself off after lunch and retaining anything on a full stomach was impossible. I sure hope that the supplementary training materials and help menus will guide me along adequately when it comes time to actually doing some work back at the lab. I’ll need to do a practice case at least a few more times to get into the flow of things.
I didn’t feel like leaving my hotel room for dinner so I ordered pizza from Pizza Masters and had it delivered right to my suite. As I waited, I was channel surfing and found myself hooked on a cheeky quiz show called CA$H CAB. Ben Bailey, the host of this show, is also the cab driver, and the unsuspecting passengers in NYC who enter into his CA$H CAB are the contestants. The first $50 questions start off easy and after a certain distance covered, the questions become harder at $100 for each correct answer. If you manage to arrive at your destination without striking out on three, you get the “video bonus question” where you can double your winnings or LOOSE IT ALL. I was hooked to this mobile game show instantly.
On one episode, Bailey picked up two blonde woman caught by surprise when they realised that they were on CA$H CAB. The women turned to each other and said something to the effect of “Ohmigawd! I make fun of people who can’t answer the easy questions! They’re so dumb!” This comment came to haunt them in the end when neither one could answer which Canadian city two hours north of Seattle will host the 2010 Winter Olympics. Even if you don’t live in Vancouver, give a rats ass about the Olympics, and think that it’s just a silly sporting event like I do, you would have got the answer.
The pizza guy came a-knockin’ and handed me a huge box. I only had the appetite to eat a quarter of it that night and another quarter the morning after for breakfast. I’d obviously had a brain lapse and forgot upon ordering that I’m in America.
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