My Excursion Into Canada!

As many of you know, I finally started a new job. ;; I am a Senior Business Analyst for a Mergers and Acquisitions company. ;; I evaluate businesses to be bought by buyers that my company represents. ;; What this means is that I travel A LOT. ;; I drive from one appointment to the next. ;; My region is an 8 hour radius from where I live. ;; The great thing is that I only travel 3 days a week so I am home 4 and I making a good living (I hope there are tickets to Chicago still available in 2 weeks, when I get paid, WOOT!).

Let me tell you all about the wonders of GPS. ;; I borrowed a Magellan Roadmate 760 from a friend to try out. ;; How can anyone live without this wonderful product? ;; I rank this right there with TIVO as the one thing I will never be able to live without again. ;; You enter your coordinates (address for all you non-Sci-Fi people) and it then talks to me and tells me every turn I have to take. ;; You also know, down to the minute, when you will arrive. ;; You cannot believe the amount of stress this alleviates. ;; I just go where it tells me to. ;; Need a hotel? ;; No problem! ;; I tell it to find the one closest to me and it not only finds it but has the phone number for me so I can call and check the rates. ;; I can even ask for my favorite and it will tell me the closest one. ;; Needless to say, I am buying this one from my friend.

You may be wondering where Canada fits into all of this. ;; Well, the one drawback to GPS is that borders are not shown. ;; You do not know when you are crossing into another state or lets say.... country! ;; You have to be careful of what you enter into the GPS because it will take you there. ;; So last week I spend the whole time in Maine. ;; Beautiful place! ;; I had never been there so I really had no perspective as to where I was. ;; No worries though with my trusty GPS. ;; So I punch in the number to one of my clients and head on over. ;; I turn left onto a bridge and notice that I have to pay a toll of some kind to come back over. ;; Then the woman on my GPS annouces, "You have arrived at your destination!". ;; But wait, I am in the middle of a bridge over a river that had my full attention. ;; Something is wrong here. ;; Thats when I looked up to see the Canadian flag flying over what I thought was another toll taker . ;; I am trapped! ;; Of course I proceed to the welcome window and the guy gives me the old "Welcome to Canada". ;; I told him I do not want to come to Canada, I just made a wrong turn. ;; So he tells me to turn around but that I have to go to U.S. Customs so that I dont get arrested. ;; I turn around and pull back up to the Good Ole US of A and tell the woman what happened. ;; She then tells me she didnt see me go across so she has to see my ID. ;; "Not that I dont believe you, but I dont." ;; So I have to give the history of my life to the lady while I sweat bullets.

"Uh, excuse me, mam, but why are you putting on that rubber glove?"

Let just say that I will pay a little more attention whenever I make a left turn going northeast and make sure I bring a donut to sit on.

Grim

;;

p.s. j/k about the rubber glove thing, she didnt use one

;;