USA

Northern California. Truly a land of milk and honey sandwiched between the blue Pacific Ocean and the majestic mountain ranges of the Sierra Nevadas, with beautiful scenery and gorgeous weather, assuming, of course, you don’t mind the stop-and-stop-some-more traffic, totally unaffordable housing prices and killer earthquakes. I have loved Northern California since my first trip here back in 2002, when I was working south of Oakland in the sunny Livermore Valley to the east of San Francisco Bay.

I was back in Northern California again for a training course, south of San Francisco in Mountain View, sandwiched between Palo Alto, home to the prestigious Stanford University, and San Jose, California, unofficial capital of the Silicon Valley, the name given to the concentration of high tech companies that inhabit the cites and towns in the southern San Francisco Bay area.

At the end of my three day course, I pulled up my tent pegs and moved north to San Francisco for a weekend of R&R. Mostly the first R (assuming that’s the one that means Rest), as I am recovering from a cold and during the week had to get up at 5:00 am local time every day to take 3 hours of conference calls from the east coast of the USA before my classes started. I mostly slept and napped for a couple days in San Francisco, with a few quick trips out to the fantastic seafood restaurants that flourish in the city by the bay.

Picture taken in 2002 because I forgot my camera, but you get the general idea

Mostly, though, my mind was on sports. More specifically, it was on professional sports.

It’s natural to think about sports when in the San Francisco Bay Area. With the 10th, 14th and 44th largest cities in the USA (San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland, respectively) within an hours drive of each other and a total population of 7.2 million people in the area, there’s a lot of money out there for professional sporting franchises. That’s why there are a total of 7 professional, tier 1 sporting teams in the area. The Bay Area has two professional American football teams with the Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers, two major league baseball teams with the Giants and the A’s, The Golden State Warriors of the NBA in Oakland, the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League and the soon to be reinstated Earthquakes of Major League Soccer. In addition, the cities have teams in the USL Soccer League, two professional Lacrosse teams, an Arena football team and a minor league baseball team. None of that even counts the numerous collegiate programs with University of California at Berkley and Stanford leading the way.

The other reason my mind was on sports is with the arrival of autumn, a number of sports are starting up their seasons. The NFL American football league started their season a couple of weeks ago, NHL hockey is about to get underway soon and the NBA basketball season will soon be in full swing. Those sports that have been running through the summer, like Major League Baseball, MLS Soccer and the Canadian Football League are gearing up for their season ending playoffs soon. Autumn really is the best time for spectators of professional sports.

More than just watching sports, though, autumn is the time to think about betting on professional sports. I’m not talking about calling up the local bookie and putting money down on games, but rather the traditional “office pool,” where friends, co-workers and occasional sworn enemies sit down over a plate of chicken wings and a pitcher of beer and make selections for a season long opportunity to gloat to your friends how much you know about sports. (Or, conversely, spend the season as the goat in last place taking all the ribbing).

During my time in California, I completed an NFL draft, where I selected 16 players from across the league in hopes that the 16 I choose get more points than the 16 players the 10 other friends of mine chose. Of course, given that I was in California, I didn’t have a plate of wings in front of me, but rather a computer, as the draft was run online via Yahoo Fantasy Sports, one of the many websites that have sprung up to feed the estimated $6 billion dollars that is bet in office pools in the USA alone every year. In between my picks in the football pool, I was online researching my upcoming hockey pool. After the pool, it was off to the bar to catch a few of the last baseball games of the season as teams try and make the playoffs.

It’s been a tough few years for professional sports, though. The NFL is currently under a lot of fire, with star player Michael Vick recently arrested on charges of running a dog-fighting ring, former star O.J. Simpson arrested for a break-and-enter at a Las Vegas hotel, players like Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson being suspended for off-field thuggish behavior, and star coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots being fined for stealing opponents sideline signals. It’s hardly the image of heroic on-field deeds and role-model behavior that most sports try and portray.

One of the joys of my travels has been the opportunity to see sporting events live at the places they take place. From watching the Chicago Cubs in historic Wrigley Field to catching a Sumo Wrestling match in Japan, watching sports has connected me to the places I have been. It’s a connection that I share with the locals, who in many places feverishly and devoutly follow their local teams every move. I know what it is like to be in Busch stadium in October, wearing a red t-shirt and praying for the St. Louis Cardinals to take the lead, because I have been there. I’d hardly call myself a St. Louis Cardinals fan, but I was that day. While I may not understand the sport any better (I certainly can’t talk intelligently about Sumo or Cricket), I have felt the power of watching it with people who do.

The other connection that watching sports has with travel is thanks to the multiplication of TV channels that came with the introduction of cable and satellite television. With so much time to fill, sports that otherwise would be unknown to the world are beamed into our living rooms 24 hours a day. I find myself watching kite surfing or rock climbing shows, not so much because I have an interest in the sport, but because they end up being half travelogue. These are sports that take place in beautiful and natural settings in far flung locations, and watching a group of Swiss youth tackle the mountains of Malaysia ends up piquing my interest in a trip to the Malay Peninsula.

Two of the sports I have started following, though I’ve never seen live, are Formula One racing and the Dakar Rally. Partially it is because I grew up with my parents being involved in car racing, so the appeal of cars going really fast was bred into me at an early age. The other reason, though, is that they hold their races in far-flung, exotic locations. Formula One just finished up the Belgium Grand-Prix after swings through Italy, Turkey and Hungary, and then they are off to Japan and China before ending the year in Brazil. The Dakar Rally runs from Lisbon, Portugal to Dakar, Senegal, though the Atlas Mountains and Sahara Desert.

Neither event is without controversy though. As global warming and climate change grow as key issues in the public’s minds, the environmental costs of moving the large amounts of equipment required to support these events, in additional to the carbon thrown off by the vehicles themselves, become of greater concern. In addition, the Dakar Rally, racing through the towns and villages of some of the poorest countries in the world, exposes the local population to some danger, and in 2006 a 10 year old boy was killed when trying to cross the path of the race, the fourth documented case of a local being killed, though it is assumed that more have died during the race and have gone unreported.

The “international” sport that I watch that is under the most fire is the Tour de France. The Tour was riding high back in 2004 when I first started watching, with Lance Armstrong on his way to winning what would be his sixth of the seven consecutive races he would win. I started watching mostly for the travelogue aspects of seeing the French country-side, and in 2005, after my first trip to France, it was an opportunity to relive that trip.

Then, in 2006, the day after American Floyd Landis won the Tour, it was released that his blood sample showed increased levels of testosterone, and he was stripped of the tour win. 2007 has been even more disastrous for the tour, with 1996 winner Bjarne Riis admitting to using the banned substance EPO throughout his career, including during his win, and fellow 1996 rider Erik Zabel admitting using EPO as well when he won the Green Jersey (the points leader). Within the tour itself, riders Alexandre Vinokourov and Cristian Moreni were caught doping, and their respective teams dropped out of the race. Then the race leader Michael Rasmussen was fired for lying about where he was training.

The French media decided to kick the tour while it was down - Liberation, the national newspaper, announced "La Mort du Tour" - The Death of the Tour - on its front page and said the race had been “emptied of all sporting interest”, and France Soir ran an obituary notice announcing the Tour's death at "the age of 104, after a long illness".

All this talk of dope brings us back to San Francisco, and America’s pastime, Baseball. As I stated earlier, two Major League Baseball teams are in the San Francisco Bay area, including the San Francisco Giants. The Giants most famous player is Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds just this year surpassed Hank Aaron as the all time leader in home runs, and currently has 762 home runs. Barry’s chase for the record has been mired in controversy, and many people in the media and the general public have been very negative towards Mr. Bonds.

Back in 1974, when Hank Aaron was close to surpassing Babe Ruth’s all-time home run mark of 714, there was a lot of controversy as well. The controversy in 1974 though, was the question of whether an African-American should break the home run record, and Mr. Aaron even received death threats. Barry Bond’s chase is getting a negative reaction due to the accusations of using banned substances like Human Growth Hormone and steroids. There have been accusations that the “witch-hunt” against Bonds is racial motivated, as other players like Mark McGuire or Jose Canseco who likely took banned substances didn’t have negative reactions when they were banging out the homers, but I’m inclined to think that it’s more a matter of timing and the visibility of the home run record that has brought the negative reaction down on Barry.

Barry Bonds isn’t alone in being tarred by accusations of steroid use recently, though. Most recently, Toronto Blue Jay Troy Glaus has been accused, as has Rick Ankiel, previously 2007’s baseball feel good story of the year. Ankiel was a pitcher who after flaming out, refocused himself on hitting and became a home-run slugger for the St. Louis Cardinals. It was a happy story about a boy who, despite setbacks, worked hard and got to live his dream. Then Ankiel was named in the same report that named Glaus to have received human growth hormone, and the previous feel-good story became another black mark on baseball.

The public hasn’t turned their backs on baseball yet, and hopefully they won’t. There is something really special about the relationship between baseball and America. Football and NASCAR may draw more fans and sell more merchandise, but I love going to see baseball games when I am down in the USA. There is a feeling, when sitting in a ball park on a sunny afternoon, eating a hot dog and drinking a beer, of connecting with over 100 years of American history (which is almost all of it, when you consider how young the country is). The slow pace and the smell of the grass remind me of picnics. The jovial chatter between fans is like a Sunday dinner. The national anthem playing as a slight breeze lazily wafts the Stars and Stripes out in center field call to mind a gentle kind of national pride.

Baseball is America, and it is a sport that is connected deeply to the spirit of that country. Watching a game, live and in person, is an experience is the essence Americana. As a traveller, I can think of no better way to connect with the American psyche then sitting an uncomfortable chair on a cool night and listening for the crack of the bat.

The sun is high in the sky, reflecting off the Detroit river as I sit outside enjoying lunch on the steps of The Riverfront Promenade just outside the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. It's a beautiful day in the summer of 2007, and sitting on these steps make me think about to a beautiful day 10 years early, in the summer of 1997, when I was in about this exact same spot looking out on Detroit River.

On that day, I had wandered down from the cramped conference room full of consultants to get some air and some perspective. Back in 1997, the area along the riverfront outside the Renaissance Center was a parking lot, and I had to weave my way between cars to reach the water's edge. I had just started travelling for work, and was seriously questioning my ability to spending 4 days a week on the road. "Could I see myself doing this 2 years from now?" I asked myself. The answer was no. I'd do it for a bit, and then get out, get a job that kept me in Toronto and at home.

10 years later, I'm still on the road. So much for the 2 year plan.

---

In July of 1997, I left my job as a computer programmer at one of the big banks in Toronto to join a management consulting firm. Management consulting, for those that don't know, is (according to that fount of knowledge Wikipedia), "the practice of helping companies to improve performance through analysis of existing business problems and development of future plans," which sums it up as well as any other description I've ever seen.

I work for a company that signs short contracts (usually 3 to 6 months) with another company to help them solve a specific problem. For me, this has mostly revolved around computer systems, and their application to customer care and marketing organizations.

Back in August of 1997, I got staffed on my first project. It was in downtown Detroit, working at the Renaissance Center, a series of 7 buildings located on the Detroit River. I wasn't so impressed with Detroit at the time. Back in 2004, when writing about my impressions of Detroit in August of 1997, I wrote the following:

Detroit is a weird place. During the day downtown Detroit feels like most downtown places. There are lots of people walking around in business suits, enjoying being outside on a quick break from their jobs.

However, as soon as 5 o'clock hits, the entire downtown area clears out. The cars flee off to the suburbs, and leave downtown Detroit empty. The bad areas of Detroit seem to ring the city core, and thus people want to make sure they are on the other side of those areas before night falls.

This exodus leaves downtown Detroit eeirly empty. There are wide, 5 lane streets that you could lie in and nary a car to run you over. Restaurants shut down for the evening because there is no-one left in town to serve. It's like those movies where the hero wakes up and finds they are the only person left on earth.

Hardly an endorsement for the place.

As I stated, I was also a little wary of consulting. By mid-September of 1997, I was pretty sure I couldn't hack it. The travel was mind-numbing, turning the experience of getting onto a plane equivalent of catching the subway to work, all the magic of travel washed away. The hours were long, and the work was intense. By October, I had arranged with the company I was working at to station me in Toronto on a long term assignment instead of having me get on a plane every week.

It wouldn't last. Within a year and a half I was back working as a travelling consulting, a road warrior again.

---

Almost 10 years later, here in the present, I get assigned to a project in Detroit. It's not the same client as my last trip here in 1997, and I'm at a completely different management consulting firm than I was 10 years ago, but I am back in working again in the Renassiance Center, just steps from the Detroit River and in the heart of downtown.

A lot has changed in 10 years. Downtown Detroit is a very different place now. A new football stadium and baseball stadium have been built in downtown, replacing the older stadiums outside of the city core. Add to that the 3 casinos have opened up and the hockey arena (which has always been downtown), and the nightlife has greatly improved. A 5 story high attrium, called the Wintergarden has been added to the Renassiance Center complex, facing the river and letting out onto the The Riverfront Promenade, providing access to the riverwalk along the Detroit River.

Comerica ballpark, bringing baseball into the downtown core

Cadillac Square, downtown Detroit

Statue of one of Detroit's most famous citizens, boxer Joe Louis. Well, at least a statue of his fist, which was really the most impressive part of him...

Detroit is a city that has had some hard times (and probably has a few hard times ahead of it, given the amount of business that is associated with the automobile industry in the city), and the downtown core in 1997 reflected that, but 2007 brings a revitalized city. The spirit of Detroit has been restored, and I mean that both figuratively and literally.

The Spirit of Detroit is a large bronze statue created by Marshall Fredericks, located just a few blocks from the Renaissance Center at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. The 26 foot high seated figure who holds in his left hand a bronze sphere emanating rays to symbolize God and in his right hand is a family group symbolizing all human relationships, was recently refurbished in 2006 at a cost of $100,000.

---

So too has my own goals and dreams changed in the 10 years since I last stood on the banks of the Detroit River. Back then I wanted a big house and a fancy car and a high paying, powerful job. I dreamt of vacations at a cottage north of Toronto. And I knew that I didn't want to travel all the time for work.

Now in 2007, I'm happy with my rental apartment in downtown Toronto, sold my car last year because I never used it, dream of vacations in faraway places and I still spend a better part of 4 days a week on the road, visiting clients and helping them "improve performance through analysis of existing business problems and development of future plans."

I look at myself 10 years on in this business, and I am older, probably a little fatter and definately have less in the way of hair on my head, and I can think to myself that 10 years has both made all the difference in the world, and 10 years haven't really changed a thing.

This is my 100th blog entry on this blog. Yay! In celebration, the Overlords of the Internet threw me a party and showered me with gifts. Here I am dressed up and ready to accept my accolades.

Okay, not really. I was down in Orlando, Florida, for a wedding. That's why I was wearing the suit. Try not to notice that the sleeves of my shirt are too long.

It was May 5th, or Cinco De Mayo as they say in Mexico. Cinco de Mayo is regional holiday in Mexico. In the USA, however, the good people at Grupo Modelo (makers of Corona) and Tequila Cuervo La Rojeña, S.A. de C.V (makers of Jose Cuervo) have turned into a big excuse to party.

As the wedding wasn't until 6pm, I decided to have a little early afternoon Cinco De Mayo party myself. Okay, it was just me in a dank bar drinking a double shot of tequila and chasing it with a Corona, but when you have to party, you have to party.

Downtown Orlando was a surprise for me. I'd only once before been to Orlando, and that was just out in Disney World, so I was surprised to find downtown Orlando a little lively. Not super lively, just a little lively.

Here's some pictures from Orlando:

This fountain in Lake Eola is the symbol for the city.

Moss covered trees are common in the Southern USA.

Downtown Orlando - I liked the shiny building.

Palm trees are not something I see often in Canada

Cool fountain in a roundabout just east of downtown Orlando

After wrapping up in Seattle, I was called down to Atlanta, Georgia for 3 weeks. I must admit, that after 3 months shuffling back and forth between rainy, cloudy Seattle and gray, cold, snowy Toronto, heading to a location down in the South of the USA was a nice change. The weather was excellent while I was there - mostly sunny and warm.

Atlanta, Georgia was originally founded as the terminal station of the Western and Atlantic railway, part of a trade route running from the Atlantic Ocean to the mid-western USA. In those days it was called Terminus, but after a few more name changes took on it's current name of Atlanta (feminized version of Atlantic) in 1847. Strange for a city to be named after an ocean over 4 hours away by car, but whom am I to complain.

It's railway connections meant that Atlanta was an important supply hub for the Confederate army. It was captured in September of 1864, and the Union army (under the direction of William Sherman) burnt the city to the ground in November, a scene famously played out in the novel and movie "Gone With The Wind." The city was rebuilt, and adopted the phoenix as it's symbol, as they both had risen from the ashes.

I was feeling a lot more like the ashes than the phoenix when I was in Atlanta this past trip, though. It's probably a little unfair, though, because I had been to Atlanta before and when I was there I was pretty burnt out on travel at the time.

Burnout is something that can happen to all travellers, whether for pleasure or business, while on the road for a period of time. It could be the feeling that you are in constant motion, and yet not really moving anywhere important, or it might be the sensation of travel becoming a chore or routine.

I spent more than 13 months in Atlanta in 2003 and 2004, and by the end of the project I was pretty frazzled. I tried to keep myself up on the road, turning my business trip into a fun adventure by going to see local sporting events like Braves baseball, Hawks basketball and Thrashers hockey, seeing the world headquarters of Coca-cola and CNN, hanging out in the fun neighbourhoods of Little Five Points or Buckhead and even going to see the Mid-town Music Festival.

I was staying outside of the city itself in Alpharetta, and getting out was a bit of a chore, and so instead of heading out I soon found myself mostly getting takeout food for dinner, working out in the gym (I was in training, at the time, for Kilimanjaro and was walking 4 to 6 miles per day on the treadmill) and watching TV.

I was suffering from travel burnout, described by Doctor Marie-Annette Brown, professor and researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle in an article written by Jack McGuire in 2004 as "duplicating the same symptoms seen in mild depression and various forms of anxiety," a "mind/body malaise," whose symptoms include low energy, weight gain, tension and irritability, difficulty concentrating and decreased interest in sex.

(Okay, I didn't suffer from that last one, but that could be because of my general inability to obtain sex. I'm sure if I was offered sex on a much more frequent basis, I might actually become less interested in it... Okay, maybe I'm not sure about that.)

My malaise presisted until January of 2005, when I was able to hop on a plane and about a day later, land at Kilimanjaro airport, just outside of Arusha, Tanzania.

Returning to Atlanta brought this all back to me. Which isn't really fair to Atlanta, because it sounds and looks like it could be a very interesting place if I could have just gotten myself motivated to see the place. I'm afraid, though, that Atlanta has most likely been spoiled for me. I couldn't get out of my funk the entire time I was there, and could only find reasons to complain about being on the road again, rather than enjoying the opportunity to see a new place.

Luckily for me, my Atlanta project wrapped up quickly and so I am back in Toronto and soon off to another location - hopefully one I haven't been to that can reinvigorate me and my love of travel. Actually, that's probably lucky for my regular readers as well that I won't be spending a long time in Atlanta, otherwise you'd be forced to read my whining about travel for a long time, instead of something interesting.

Cheers, readers!

Greg

Post-script:

Resources:

Feeling burnt out yourself?

Here's a nice article on preventing travel burnout while travelling ( Prevent Burnout While Travelling), some tips on coping with the daily grind of business travel, and finally Jack McGuire's aforementioned article on Travel Burnout.

On Monday, March 12th I flew in to Seattle from Toronto, and after a full day of work, was tired and didn't feel like doing anything elaborate for dinner. So I just wandered across the street from my hotel to the Subway sandwiches for some dinner. The man behind the counter had an eyebrow ring and a tattoo on his neck. Someone with a tattoo on their neck wouldn't be able to get a job in a Subway back in Toronto. But out here, on the left coast, it's all cool, man...

The Pacific coast of North America, encompassing the states of California, Oregon and Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia are often sterotyped as liberal, laidback and alternative, at least compared to the eastern coasters in New York, Boston and Washington D.C. (the other Washington). This is a sterotype that has a certain amount of truth, whether it is drug decriminalization in Oregon, gay politicians in British Columbia or tough pollution restrictions in California.

Whether the liberal bias is true or not, Seattle is not helping it's case with one of it's art installations.

In the area of Fremont, just down the street from a massive art installation of a giant under bridge troll...

Is a statue of Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bloshevik and head of the communist USSR from 1917 until 1924.

Why, you ask, is a statue of Lenin, communist leader, placed in a public square outside a fast food Taco restaurant? The statue was created by Emil Venkov in 1988, it stood for less than a year in Poprad, Slovakia before being toppled in 1989.

Seattle resident Lewis Carpenter bought the statue as part of a business venture to open an eastern European restaurant in Seattle. He died before his restaurant got going, and his family donated the statue to the Fremont business district to display until someone buys it. Asking price: $150,000.

That's the how - but I know what you are really wondering is the why. I'll leave that to the Freemont Chamber of Commerce to explain, as written on the plaque accompanying the statue:

Lenin in Freemont: Right or Wrong?
The presence of this sculpture has evoked a wide range of responses. If are is supposed to make us feel, not just feel good, then this sculpture is a successful work of art. The challenge is to understand that this piece means different things to different peple and to learn to listen to each other and respect different opinions. From an artist's standpoint, all points of view are valid and important.

Are Outlives Politics
The sculpture is placed here in the Artist's Republic of Freemont, as a symbol of an artistic spirit that outlasts regimes and ideologies, and as tangible prrof that art does outlive politics.

---

And with that, my entries on Seattle end. On Tuesday we had a client meeting that went well, and on Wednesday we completed our work and I caught a flight for the last time back to Toronto. I said goodbye to the 8 people who I have been working with for the last two months, and that's all. It's sad to say goodbye to people you have been working with over the past two months, sharing a office with. But that is part of the consulting gig - always moving on.

And so I move on. And new adventures await, some place new...