When in Texas, do as the Texans do...

So a few weeks ago I took a small trip back to Victoria to spend some time at work there to get back in touch with my colleagues, and to visit my friends for a few days.  While at home I was asked all sorts of legitimate questions from my friends and colleagues:

Do you have a Cowboy hat?

Do you ride a horse to work?

Do you own a pair of cowboy boots?

Much to my chagrin, I had to admit that I did not yet own a legitimate cowboy hat, or any boots for that matter.  I also took the opportunity to explain that Houston is a large city, and there aren't a lot of horses around for riding, and definitely not riding to work.

I returned to Houston refreshed and recharged from my visit with friends and decided to ask one of the guys at work and see if he would like to go do something that every Texan loves to do.....

Shooting Range?

He excitedly agreed. So we made plans to go to the shooting range that Saturday afternoon.  Saturday rolled around and he swung by my place to pick me up around 1:30 pm.  He decided it might be good to show me the ins and outs of his gun so that when we got to the range I wasn't a total Noob waving his loaded Glock around like a Hollywood Gangster.

Not that there is anything wrong with holding your gun sideways... but I'm not at that stage yet.  Anyways.  We got to the range around 2:15 and proceeded to sign in and figure out what we were going to do.  It was quite the place.  Guns everywhere, people shooting guns holding guns, concealing guns.  And for some reason... I couldn't help but feel oddly safe with all these weapons around me.

After some deliberation, we decided to just shoot my friends Glock .... annd ah we'll try that nice looking AR15 up there while we're at it.  Yea you might as well give us 80 rounds with that.

AR 15

We started off shooting the glock.  First we started with the target from 3 Yds away and shot a magazine.  Then moved it back to 7 Yds, shot a couple more clips.  Then moved it back to 12 yds and tried to hit the target.  Here are the results from our efforts.  I highlighted the spots that I was aiming at in the picture below:

I was aiming at: The head at 3 Yds, the shoulder and wrist at 7 Yds, and the throat at 12 yds

I think 3 Yards is my range.  Anyways, we moved onto the AR15 which.. was a blast.. no pun intended.  The results from that were pretty good considering we had the target at the very back of the range:

Results from shooting the AR 15 from 15 yds away.

All in all, it was a really fun experience.  I plan on getting my cowboy boots and hat sometime soon as well.. just for the record.   I placed the pictures from the shooting range in the following album:

Shooting in houston

Anyways, this is Colter.  Signing off,

Keep your earmuffs on and your gun down range.

First NFL game, check

So I've been down in Houston for a few weeks and i'm starting to get settled in to living.  I decided that I would refrain from posting about me doing nothing.. and that I would wait until I had some interesting things to throw on here.  What have I been up to for the past few weeks?

Well I recently went with the small team that I work with to one of the divisions in Denver for two days to give some training and have some meetings around some new upgrades and rollouts that are coming their way.  The flight was last Tuesday at 8 am.  Once again I had the joy of being on a plane / airline that managed to find a way to delay leaving the ground for an additional hour.. I have terrible luck with flying.  (Well... I guess since I always manage to land back on the ground safely... not terrible luck)  Anyways, we got to Denver and everything went pretty well.  Had a pretty interesting chat with my colleagues about the controversy surrounding the Denver airport.  Didn't really quite know what to think until I saw the strange murals.. and well.. I couldn't quite figure them out.  Maybe someone who sees this post can help me out.  Here are three of the murals that they have greeting you at the Denver airport:

The first one really took me off guard.  I'm not really sure what they were going for here... ah well.  interesting none the less.  A colleague and I had a pretty good conversation about some of the weirdness around that airport.  Anyways.  So yea, the trip went pretty well.. then we were supposed to come back to Houston on Wednesday at 2:30 pm.  Then I got an email saying the flight had been delayed til 3:30.  Damn.

*Bing*

You're flight has been delayed til 4:00 pm.

*Bing*

You're flight has been delayed til 4:30 pm.

wow.. ok.  You think they could've held off on the first couple and just sent me the last one.  Ah well, waited in the luxury United Club area with my manager as he has one of the cards you need.. so that was nice.  Free snacks and CNN.  I was mostly into the snacks.. but the CNN is ALWAYS entertaining.. wow.  It was all about Ted Cruz's all nighter to try to thwart Obamacare.. sweet.  And to follow up, there was a nice segment on how a mall in Narobi was attacked by terrorists and how the states was looking into what it would take to secure all of the malls in the nation.

*Bing*

You're flight has been delayed til 5 pm.

Damn.  We finally got on the flight and home by 9 pm.  Exhausted.

The rest of the week was pretty good, it kinda felt like a short week because the mid week trip made it feel like I just got back from a weekend.  On Friday I decided to take a look and see if there were any tickets left that were reasonably priced for the Texans vs Seahawks game on Sunday.  Woh.. that can't be right.  A reasonably priced ticket in a pretty good spot.  Done.

*Click*

Purchased the ticket on a whim and went to the game on Sunday solo haha... A little weird.. but maybe not for me as I don't have any friends down here (not complaining, just saying).

I got to my seats early, which was awesome because the stadium filled up pretty quick.

When the stadium was full I was finally seated next to a die hard Texans fan there with her husband and two children who throughout the game struggled between swearing at her team when they were screwing up and not "Cussin" in front of them kids.  It was pretty funny.  To my left was an extremely talkative and slightly (more than slightly) drunk woman who had brought her son to the game.  As the game went on, and the drinks went down the woman to my left formally introduced me to her and her son and informed me that she was a Senior Accountant with the Houston Texans franchise and knows all the players and cheerleaders.  She even showed me her cool badge that apparently can let her "sit on the roof if she'd like to".  With that said, after the game she took me along with her and her son and showed me around where the locker rooms were and got to see some of the players coming out.  Those guys are huge.  I couldn't imagine trying to catch a suicide pass across the middle and meeting one of those guys.. yikes.  Anyways, we strolled around the bottom for a while and then went our separate ways.  Made a pretty sweet connection and got to see some cool stuff that I wouldn't have seen other wise.. great day.

This is CJAM,

Signing off

Houston, we had a problem...

Wow, so I just looked and it's been almost two years since I posted anything on this blog.  Well, no better time than the present as they say.  For those of you who don't know, I have moved to Houston recently to work for six months and I'm going to try and keep this blog while I'm her
e for those who are interested in what I'm up to.

But lets not put the cart before the horse, you might be wondering how my trip down here was...

My flight from Kamloops was originally scheduled for 7:35 am on Monday September 2nd, the Labour Day holiday in North America... whoops. (Probably shouldn't travel on those types of holidays next time, noted)

Monday September 2nd:

5:15 am 

Woke up to the great smell of fresh pancakes and fruit prepared by my loving mother.  Man I love coming home to visit.


6:30 am

Made it through air port security in Kamloops and into the waiting berth for my flight which was scheduled to depart at 7:35 am.


7:10 am

The staff at the Kamloops air port informed me and the other Air Canada patrons that our flight was cancelled due to mechanical failure and that we would not be leaving to Calgary until 9:15 am.  No big deal, I can reschedule my connecting flight to Houston when I get to Calgary.

Asside: I have flown out of Kamloops 3 times in the past 5 years.  2 out of those 3 times I have had my flight cancelled due to technical / mechanical difficulties.  I'm not sure what's going on with the planes going to Kamloops.. but I might start flying out of Kelowna.

9:25 am

Fly out from Kamloops air port on route to Calgary International air port.


11:35 am 

Arrived in Calgary international airport.  At this point I had missed my connecting flight to Houston, so I had to re-book my ticket.

"Just stand in that line over there and we will re-book your ticket" the Air Canada rep says.

"Oh you mean that line full of angry people waiting for the one and only woman trained by Air Canada to re-book tickets?  Sure, that sounds nice."


1:30 pm

After standing in line for about an hour, I got my ticket rebooked for 5 pm and got a free meal... well... $10 towards a meal.  I think $10 will get you the bun of your burger and a glass of water.

So I went and had something to eat and proceeded to customs... a little nervous as this is the part everyone at work had been talking up for so long.


3:00 pm 

I round the corner of the customs hall to see the line up for customs is completely empty.

"My lucky day", I think to myself.

I get to the customs agent and let him know that I would like to apply for my TN Visa, he looks at my paper work and escorts me to the secondary screening room.  So much for the short line up...

So I sat in the waiting room for about 45 minutes as I got to watch the border guards grill people and escort them back out of customs.  There were four people in there with me, and I watched one by one as 3 out of the 4 were refused whatever request they were looking for... oh boy.. didn't anticipate this.

 "Colter McQuay!" The lady behind the desk shouts

I proceeded up to the desk and listened to the woman tell me that it was necessary that I had a letter from the company that I was to be working for in the USA.  I explained that our company has sent multiple people from Canada under the same premise with the same documentation and pleaded for her to go through her regulations again to be sure.  She said she was quite sure and had an escort come get me from customs.  She said I would not be flying today.

4:40 pm 

I rebooked my flight to Houston for Friday September 6, 2013 @ 1 pm (fingers crossed I can make it)

4:45 pm 

Called the office in Victoria and explained the problem.  They instructed me to get a flight back to Kamloops and that they would look into the matter from their end.

8:15 pm 

Departed from Calgary on my way back to Kamloops.

8:25 pm 

Arrived in Kamloops, short flight eh? (The flight is about one hour long with an hour time change)

9:30 pm  Played night bocce on Sun Rivers golf course with my buddies to try and unwind, it definitely worked.

Tuesday:

The next day I went golfing with my friend Jim and around 3 pm my work called and explained that the letter that I needed would be at an office in Calgary by Thursday night, so I would be able to catch my flight on Friday down to Houston. 

  

Thursday:

I left Thursday at approximately 2:30 pm for Calgary.  I arrived in Calgary at 4:30 pm, I spent the night in Calgary at a friends house.

Friday:

8:00 am 

 I took a taxi to the office for 8:30 am to pick up the signed letter of endorsement for my visa. 

9:00 am 

Checked into my flight and went immediately to customs to try this all over again.  This time I had an older man with glasses who seemed to know what he was doing.  After spending some time reading my application he called me to the desk. 

Shaking his head while reading the documents, he looks back up at me and says:

"Not sure why they couldn't give it to you the first time, this letter is nice... but its not necessary"

Nice.  Really Nice.  

10:30 am 

Had breakfast in the airport diner.  Food wasn't actually as bad as I thought it should have been.

1:00 pm

 Lift off!  On route to Houston!

5:50 pm 

Arrive at the Houston International Airport.  I collect my bags and go find a cab when a cab driver approaches me and asks me if I need a cab.  Perfect.  Little do I know that this cab driver was actually out here to pick up some dignified business person and he got his times wrong and was really supposed to be there at 5 am the next day.  So I got to ride in style on my way into town:

I wish I could have put a Canadian flag on the front corners of the car.


6:30 pm -  Home sweet home.  The furniture has already been delivered so I have a bed and couch and things.  Awesome.  But no bedding.. darn.


8:30 pm - Having eaten some dinner at the pub next door and having nothing else to do with myself.  I decided to retire... to my sheetless bed where I soundly slept under a pile of my own clothes for the night.


It wasn't quite how I anticipated the journey being, but in hind sight.  I'm glad it was a story that could be used to start up this blog again.  I look forward to writing more about things that I'm up to down in Houston and wherever else I go to.