Online CRM stuff

In doing research for solutions for the alumni database project that I`m working on, I came across some interesting web solutions.

HighriseHQ and Network Hippo are some really interesting CRM applications. I tried out HighriseHQ and really liked it. I haven`t tried network hippo yet, but that`s on my list of things to do this week.

Stuff like this inspires me to learn more about web technologies. I wish I knew enough to setup up concepts like these quickly to make a pitch to potential partners and investors for new web technology ideas.

Some interesting ideas

I keep having these great ideas and get excited about implementing them, but I keep finding that other people had those same ideas earlier and already put a solution in place.

While I was interviewing with Torstar Digital, I came up with some ideas for improving Workopolis.com, one of their web properties. I thought that there must be a way to have enhanced resumes couple with some sort of generic online system for employee reviews. That way the system could rate people based on their performance as rated by their bosses. It would give additional information on top of the simple resume to help recruiters choose candidates to interview. I figured the same system could be used abroad in other countries so that skilled immigrants to Canada would have a rating to point to that would be familiar to employers here in Canada.

I also had that in mind when I was putting together my online resume. These days, recruiters get hundreds of resumes when they post a job. Sifting through them to find good candidates to interview is a time consuming and expensive job. The one-page resume formated isn`t enough anymore...you need something else to show recruiters. My online resume shows more detail in a way that`s easy for people to access and review. It also helps in trying to arrange info meetings.

I was looking into trying to develop a site where people could make similar online resumes easily and open the system up for recruiters to search through. A kind of giant resume book. I also thought of adding a performance review feature based on the U of Waterloo co-op evaluation form.

I started talking to people about these ideas and found out about two sites: whyhire.me and rypple.com. Apparently, these people had similar ideas put them into motion. What I had in mind was a little different (and in my mind better...for obvious reasons) from their solutions, but they already have something built.

I`m thinking about putting together a proposal for the Queen`s business career centre about implementing the solution for their grads with some other added features.

Back in Kingston

About a month ago, I was on my way to Ottawa for an info meeting with an engineering company. I made plans to stop in Kingston along the way and arranged another meeting with a company in town. The traffic on the drive was a lot lighter than I expected and I got into Kingston a couple of hours early, so I decided to stop by the business school and say hi to the MBA staff.

I ran into my old team facilitator from the MBA program and we decided to go out for lunch. I turned out that there were some changes that happened in the career centre and he became the director there over the summer. He was telling me about some of the challenges that he was facing. One of them was that the Queen's alumni weren't being utilized well enough in placing graduating business students in jobs. He wanted a database developed that would help in engaging alumni and help his department prospect jobs for students. He asked me how my job search was going and then asked me if I was interested in running with the project since he didn't have anyone available to make it happen. So we ended lunch with a verbal agreement on a 3-month consulting arrangement to get this database off the ground and I agreed to start 4 days later on Nov 23.

The info meeting in Ottawa fell through and nothing came of the other info meeting I had set up in Kingston so I left town earlier than expected to head home to pack a bag with some work clothes.

I've been working on defining the requirements of the project over the last 4 weeks...interviewing staff and asking them how they use alumni data and how they store it. It's a similar type of information flow and data problem to the one that I was tackling with my big business idea. People use data in a business process but keep track of data differently. You can gain efficiencies and better performance through a combination of behavioural changes and application of some technology. In the case of the business career centre, the goal is to place a higher percentage of students in jobs in a shorter time period. The final product will either be an adoption of an existing CRM database or a custom built system specific to the needs of the career centre. I'm leaning towards recommending a custom solution but there are other financial and time factors to consider. The new system should be up and running by mid-feb barring any issues.

It's an interesting place to be...My previous interaction with the career centre staff was as a student. Now I'm working with them in their office. The first week was a little surreal but I'm starting to get used to it now. I have to say that I like this type of consulting gig. I set my own hours and don't really have a boss. I just invoice my time and show results. I just have to find some longer term arrangements so I can finally stop living like a student and get to feel like a pro again.

Places I've been

Played with google maps a while ago and included a map of places I've been to in my life so far on my online resume. I figured it'd be a good thing to include here. There's a link in the side bar on the right too.


View Places I've been in a larger map

Political ads

Some Liberal minds are starting to get it. The person who came up with this idea should be promoted to the federal party level. I'm not really attached to any political party but I do think the current conservative federal government needs to be called out on some of their fiscal decisions and the myth of them being fiscally responsible needs to be debunked.

I originally found it on this blog through progressivbloggers.ca, but here's the video in any case:

Toronto Zoo

I was in Toronto for a weekend for a get-together. Decided to go to the zoo with a couple of friends on a nice sunny Sunday afternoon. It was really busy! We walked around for about 3 hours...also managed to roll down a hill for a bit of fun.

Cormorants?

With the fall season setting in, a lot of water birds have been flying through the area catching fish along the river. I go for walks sometimes along the waterfront and see lots of them. I was driving by one day and saw a whole bunch of cormorants (I think) sitting in a single tree. I happened to have my camera with me and stopped to take some pictures. As soon as I got close though, most of them got skittish and flew away. I took these pictures of the ones cool enough to stay on the tree:

Work

Well...I'm finally working again. An old employer contacted me about helping them with a large order of machined parts that they received. The needed help programming their cnc machines and designing the work-holding fixtures. We figured out a short-term contract arrangement.

It's nice to be working, but it's a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. I started this blog after I quit working there because I got tired of the atmosphere and knew that I could do better than working there. There was limited opportunity for growth and learning and the place is rife with complainers. I left there because I had a chat with the owner about growing into larger role, but he told me he was happy with my productivity where I was and there wasn't much of a possibility of me growing into a management position or playing a larger role in developing the business. I quit a month after that discussion and decided to go to India and the Philippines to figure out what to do next. That journey eventually led me to the MBA at Queen's. I never thought that I'd be back in the same chair doing the same work again. I'm trying to make the best of the situation, but this turn of events isn't helping my morale. Hopefully, something will develop soon.

Reading articles like these doesn't help either.

Madrid?

I've been getting a lot of hits from Madrid lately. I don't think I know anyone there but it's nice to see some people exploring around the site. Feel free to make a connection...

Sailing around Toronto, NYC/QCYC Open Regatta

I had a chance to sail in the National Yacht Club / Queen City Yacht Club in Toronto this past weekend. I got a ride on a boat through a friend on a big C&C sailboat...over 35ft long. I'd never sailed on a boat that big before so I was looking forward to the experience.

It was a really nice boat with enough cabin room to stand up straight inside. The inside was nice and there was a galley and shower. I guess the boat was designed to be a compromise between racing and cruising with enough sail control and rig to be raced, but also with enough creature comforts to be able to cruise it around comfortably.

It took 2 people to manage trimming the large genoa. There's almost no way to physically reel in the sail to close to trimming position. One person had to tail the sheeting line with another to grind the winch. I alternated with my friend between grinding and tailing. It was hard to know when to stop grinding because the most effective leverage position was to face the stern without seeing the genoa. The skipper had to call out when the sail was in the right position...there's a real danger of damaging the sail and poking a hole through it against the spreaders. Sails that big are really expensive! I also helped out on the foredeck with launching and dousing the asymmetrical spinnaker.

It was neat experience overall, but I found that I was detached from the race and couldn't keep track of our tactical position. The boats in the fleet are also different and there was a handicap rating similar to PHRF. It was hard to judge your speed and point relative to other boats since some where more like sport boats than cruisers. I much prefer one-design racing I think. It was also really nice to sail around with the Toronto skyline in the background. Here are some pictures:

Bayfest, Port Rowan

I was at a friend's cottage at Turkey Point for Labour Day weekend. We decided to drive to Port Rowan to check out Bayfest there. We heard that they used to have old school frog and minnow races for kids and thought that it might neat to check it out. Unfortunately, they don't do that anymore due to some animal rights issues. It was still neat to check it out for a couple of hours or so. The weather was really nice.

I forgot to take my camera and had to settle for taking pictures with my cell phone. I was pleasantly surprised about how well they turned out. I have a cheap phone so the resolution isn't good and details are hard get unless you get really close to your subject. Here are some of the better pics:











There was a family BBQ stand there too. They converted old oil containers that used to be used for oil-based home heating. They cleaned them out, cut them in half and mounted them on a trailer. They had room for 3 of these massive charcoal BBQs but only had 2 on the trailer. I tried a sample of their pulled port...really tasty! Here's what the set up looked like:

Niagara on The Lake

I went to Niagara on the Lake a few weeks ago to walk around and take some pictures. It's a nice scenic area. It's located where the Niagara River spills into Lake Ontario and there's a cool fort across on the American side at Youngstown. It's a nice romantic tourist spot and there were a lot of older couples walking around. It's also wine country and I stopped along some vineyards on my way into town.

I ran out of D-76 developer on the previous roll. I didn't want to mix a whole batch from powder again and decided to go with a concentrated developer that I can dilute on the fly. I decided to go with Ilford's Ilfosol 3. Can't really get it around here...had to stop in Burlington on my way to Toronto. I liked using it and the results came out great.

Here are some pics:

Around Niagara Falls

I decided to go to Niagara Falls for an afternoon and take pictures of the tourists. The falls are only about 20 minutes away. It was entertaining seeing all the tourists around and it was pretty busy. I have to get better at not being shy and asking people to take their picture. I passed up a few nice shots because I was trying to avoid confrontations...I still had a few good shots. Here are some:

Around Fort Erie

I moved back home to Fort Erie a few weeks ago. Not too happy about the move...I thought I would have found work by now, but the economic climate is still pretty bad and the job search process is slow going.

There's not much to do in this small town. I decided to pick up my camera and try to kickstart my photography again. I had some D-76 kicking around still and I was wondering if it was still going to be good. It'd been sitting in the basement in a tote box for about 2 years.

I went for a walk around the old downtown area...it's not big, only about a block long. The developer still worked, surprisingly enough. Here are some of the pics:







This one isn't of the old Jarvis st. area, but the yard of the old CL Sailboats company.

Electricity from Mud

I came across an interesting article about a scientist working on extracting electricity from mud...yes, mud.

Apparently the Geobacter protebacteria is key to the whole process. The little organism can breakdown metals and conduct electrons. You can read more about the little creature here.

Online Resume

I applied to a position with an online properties company and decided to do a web version of a cover letter and resume. The position was called "Strategic Innovator"...really fancy title, but basically had to do with generating/promoting new business ideas and managing the process of bringing them to reality.

I had an interview for the position a couple of weeks ago and still haven't heard back from them in terms of a second round interview. I'll give them a follow up call soon.

In any case, you can have a look at my online resume here. It's the same as the one I used for the job application but without the cover letter.

I tried something like this a few years ago around 2003 or so. The reception was mixed...some recruiter was having a bad day and scoffed at it, while some other people thought it was pretty neat. These days though, online interaction is a lot more prevalent than it was 6 years ago. Hopefully this time around the site will make it easier for people to forward my info and some more opportunities will come my way.

One neat thing about using Drupal to develop the online resume is that I can use Google Analytics to track the site usage. This gives it a lot more feedback on viewership than any of the job sites like Workopolis or Monster.

I'll also put a link in the side bar.

Entrepreneurship Links

I was going through some old bookmarks lately and came across this link from CanadianCareers.com, an old site but with some relevant info.

The first link contains some good resources for researching about starting your own business in Canada. There are a couple of links that test your entrepreneurial spirit.

The second link has some good general info about job search techniques.

Laser Sailing

I had a chance to go out on a Laser dinghy a few weekends ago. I've been thinking about buying one for a while now, but never sailed one so I had no idea what I would be getting.

It's a tricky little boat to sail and needs constant attention to wind and wave conditions. You always have to be working the sail sheet and rudder to keep the boat moving. You also have to keep shifting your weight along to maintain the boat balance. It's a lot of work, but fun when you get it going. It's also easy to capsize! Righting the boat and getting back on is easy though.

I'm now convinced that I want to get one. It'll be a good way to get a fun workout in in the summers. I can always start racing in dingy regattas once I get the hang of the boat. The only downside is that I wouldn't really be able to take people out with me. Maybe 1 person, but that would be pushing it.

Anyways, here are some pics:











Geez...getting porky again. Need to start exercising regularly again.

Hobie 16

It was really windy here in Kingston a couple of weeks ago. I rented a Hobie 16 from Ahoy Rentals for a couple of hours. Once the boat gets up to speed, it's really fast and easy to sail. Tacking is a bit of a challenge though...you need to backfill the jib to get the boat to come around. It's a lot different and slower than tacking a mono hull boat. It's also easy to stall the boat and get stuck pointing in the wind and not going anywhere. I preferred gybing because it was easier and quicker, but got beaned on the head with the boom once. Have to duck really low.

In any case, it was huge fun! I want one!

2009 Richardson Partners Financial One Design Regatta

With summer rolling in, my itch to sail started getting stronger. I put out the word on to the Kirby25 fleet that I was looking for a ride at regattas. I got a call from Problem Child within 15 minutes of posting my note on the forum.

I drove up to Ottawa on the Friday night before the regatta to set up my tent and catch up with the other sailors in the fleet. I kept up my tradition of bringing a charcoal bbq and grilling my dinner.

We were expecting a lot of rain for the weekend, but the weather held up with a nice breeze and no rain. We packed in 7 races on the Saturday...a lot of work! The most I remember doing in one day in previous years was 5. I'd sailed with Problem Child before so we were familiar with each other. I gave them some tips about sail trim and race strategy and we did fairly well overall. We almost got a first on one race, but we made two extra gybes and gave the race to the fastest boat in the fleet. The last race of the day was pretty hairy with four boats coming together at the finish line. There was some bumping of boats and a protest, but it was all in good fun. Needless to say, I was pretty tired by the end of the day.

We woke up Sunday morning to a misty rain and no wind whatsoever. The race committee called off the race at 11am and I packed up my tent and drove home to Kingston early.

It was nice to be back racing again. Looking forward to doing more over the summer.

My Big Business Idea

Well, I started the MBA program with an entrepreneurship mindset and a big idea that I thought I could pull off by the end of the program. Unfortunately, while people generally like my idea, it hasn't really caught any momentum and my priority right now is finding a job so I can feed and house myself.

In any case, I'll put my idea out here and see what happens. If someone takes the idea and runs with it, so be it.

Basic Idea
Working in mechanical design and process engineering for 9 different companies, I have a broad perspective on how engineering departments use their design software and manage their data. I see four major pain points: software licensing, data management, sourcing of new suppliers or customers, and information sharing.

Mechanical engineering software is really expensive and can cost up to $20,000 per year for one workstation depending on what features are needed. If you have a design office with about 20 engineers, this can add up to a significant overhead cost.

Another consequence of modern mechanical design software is the amount of data generated. This data, usually in the form of solid models, drawings, FEA results, jigs and fixtures, and test reports have to be kept track of and stored somewhere. When you different software packages creating these different engineering objects, and different people using these packages, it gets tricky trying to store and manage the different bits of data. Different companies have approached this problem in different ways, but the basic problems persist: data duplication, server maintenance and growth, and ongoing development of a custom data management system. This also adds to overhead costs.

Sourcing new customers/suppliers and information sharing relate to time costs and are difficult to quantify. Developing a new business relationship with a new customer or supplier really has to do with building up trust with them. One way to build trust is to share financial info that gives a glimpse into the health of the company and the quality of the management. D&B has made a business out of this kind of reporting for over 100 years. This info reduces the time needed to decide on doing business with a new company, and hence, overhead administrative costs.

Another time costs associated with finding new customers and suppliers is the amount of time needed to find them. An ebay type online market would work. mfg.com and alibaba.com are working to fill this space. They're both great sites, but I think they're missing integration with 3D CAD systems.

Information sharing is a difficult thing to pin down as a cost. Not everyone can look at an engineering drawing and understand the shapes and mechanisms being depicted. Having a solid model where people can look at from different angles and show how the mechanism would work is invaluable and makes meetings run smoother. Having a CAD workstation devoted to a meeting room is not a good cost to have. There where different approaches to managing this problem in my experience. Creating a movie file of a flyby and animated kinematics was the easiest and least costly solution that I came up with. But overall, you can reduce design review meeting times significantly by having a solid model that you can manipulate easily.

So to solve these issues, I came up with the idea of tying in an engineering software package with a web portal. The engineering software package would consist of a CAD system for modelling, a FEA package for stress analysis, and a CAM system for programming CNC machines. The web portal would be there for business functions: Data Management, Credit Reporting (tying in with ERP systems), an Online Market, and a 3D parts catalogue for easy part sourcing. The software package would be free and the web portal would have a subscription fee.

Here's the latest powerpoint slide deck that I did. The idea still needs to be massaged a little more and I need to work on my pitch. There's not much point in putting more work into it though unless I can sell the idea to a potential customer.

I've targeted a previous employer for the idea pitch, but I'm not sure if I'm proceeding with this yet. I want to put together a focus group of my former colleagues and peers to see if my assumptions are correct. I haven't approached them about it yet, but I might making some noise about it in July.

More about Bootstrapping

Here's a good write up about bootstrapping. The info there isn't mind blowing or anything that you couldn't find elsewhere, but the author puts it in blunt and simple form. Really good stuff.

The Ottawa Network

The Ottawa Network has events every now and then to get entrepreneurs around Ottawa to get together and discuss business topics. I went to the last one this spring, held at the Code Factory, to see if I could meet some people that could lead me to a job with a small startup company. I didn't get any solid job leads, but the discussion was really interesting.

The topic had to do with bootstrapping your business. The tree panelists were in full agreement about external funding: there is none. There are some VCs that are still investing, but only after a business is demonstrating revenue growth. Angel investors have been hit hard by the economic recession and are finding safe havens for their money. The only good way to raise funding for your business is by generating customer revenue. Basically, sell your idea to someone before you even spend a dime developing it.

Practically this means identifying your target first customer, meeting with them, and explaining that you can solve their problems if they explain them to you. At this meeting, your job is to sell them the idea using a presentation. If they like it, you can then start talking about a deposit to begin the work and subsequent funds to continue as the project progresses. But until you have a first customer committed, there's not much point in doing any work or spending any money.

Apart from that, I met some interesting people doing some interesting things. One guy in particular started a website called careerseer.com. It's basically a search engine for job postings for the Ottawa tech sector. It mostly has to do with the software industry, but there may be some postings that are more business related.

It's too bad I only went to one of these networking events. I knew about them when I was still in the MBA program, but never went to one for various reasons. I should pass on the info to the new class, especially the new ventures club members.

Night Shots

I was up late one night. The moon was bright and it was windy with some clouds blowing by. I went out to take a few pictures around the Kingston township. I was using 15 second exposures on ISO 50. It's a little tricky taking night pictures with an old digicam with a small screen, but these turned out ok.

CanadaBrainstorm.ca

Ever since finding about the Brainstorm Ubuntu site, I've had an idea of building a similar website, but for people to exchange ideas on how to improve Canada. I've been watching the news about Canadian politics for a while. I got discouraged at watching elections and how some issues dominate the campaigns. The central campaign issues, like same-sex marriage or public funding for religious schools, have little to do with the national interest of our country, but are really specific. It's a neat marketing/campaign trick by clever strategists to come up with a hot-button issue that everyone has an opinion on and that deals more with belief and cannot really be debated based on logical reasoning. These polarizing issues pretty much divide the voters into for and against sides pulling otherwise undecided voters into one political camp or another. Larger issues such as foreign policy, international competitiveness, inter-provincial trade, and environmental policy get drowned out by the media hype around the single polarizing issue. The end result is that we elect governments based on personal beliefs and ideals rather than a reasoned evaluation of their policies and platforms.

So one way to combat this problem is to define the issues ourselves in some sort of grassroots movement independent of any political party. So during campaigns, when political parties talk about what they think Canadians want, we have some sort of record that contains ideas brainstormed by the population for the kind of country that we want to live in. Political parties can then be evaluated based on how closely they match with the idea repository. These ideas also need not be limited to the realm of public policy. Private industry leaders can also take notice and work to fill a demand in an area that they see an opportunity in.

In any case, looking for a job is a time-consuming process and I need some other way to feel like I accomplished something. So I built CanadaBrainstorm.ca using Drupal and the IdeaTorrent package from the Ubuntu people. The basic premise of the site is as follows:

Great innovative ideas for improving Canada are exchanged between people everyday. However, the majority of these ideas never reach public policy makers and industry executive-level decision makers.

A method for storing and evaluating these ideas is needed so that the best ideas can be accessed by political and industry leaders. These ideas can then be acted upon and brought to reality.


Anyone can create an account, log in, and contribute an idea or vote on one. I'm trying to publicize the site through facebook and personal emails. I'm hoping that some people will be keen on the idea and the site will generate some momentum. I have a section about me with links to my resume and this blog. Hopefully, some sort of job lead will come out of it as well.

I've included a link in the side bar. Please spread the word about the site and get involved!

MBA: Last courses and the end of the program

It's been a while since I last posted and the memories of the courses are fading fast.

Managing Innvation
Managing innovation was taught by Lib Gibson. She's also an adjunct professor at the Rotman school of business in Toronto. She presented some interesting concepts in terms of how to create business environments to encourage the flow of ideas. Much of what we discussed can be found in Peter Drucker's book Innovation and Entrepreneurship. We also discussed how disruptive innovations work, how to protect your company from being blindsided by disruptive innovations, and some interesting topics from TED.com. Overall, I really enjoyed this course.

The Tricolour Venture Fund
This was the highlight of my MBA academic experience and was run by Elspeth Murray, Peter Gallant, and John Molloy. Queen's has a Venture Capital Fund closely associated with the Parteq Innvotions, the technology commercialization entity for the university. We were split up into three teams and provided with a list of 9 different new ventures who are looking to secure funding to help their businesses grow. The first phase of the course was to do an initial investigation of the companies and decide on which companies to do a deep investigation and due diligence work to evaluate the investment potential. The second phase involved the due diligence work on the companies we selected through extensive meetings with the new venture entrepreneurs and management, and detailed research of the technology, market, and competitors. The companies we evaluated included:

• Skymeter - a gps technology company


• Shoeboxed.com - a digital receipts company


• iPeak Networks - an internet technology company


• SciSense - a medical device company

My team evaluated Xuuk, a fledgling start-up company that developed eyetracking technology for measuring how many people look at a sign and the length of time that each person looked. Really neat technology. The small management team had done a lot of work with the small amount of funding that they received up to that point. We recommended investing but our recommendation went to the investment committee who decide on the actual investment. This was a fun course that involved a real project with real companies and making an investment decision with real dollars. It wasn't just an academic exercise. I really liked it and it inspired me to seek work within the start-up area with VCs and on the government policy side. Unfortunately, the state of the VC industry is bad right now and work prospects are not good.

Marketing of New Ventures
By the time I started this course, the end of the program was in site, the weather was starting to get nice again, and my motivation for course work was incredibly low. I was the only student from Queen's to take this class, the other four students in the course were exchange students. I kind of liked it because of the small size and the company tours that we had. We checked out Mitel's technology incubator in Ottawa called Wesley Clover. We also did a live project to develop a marketing strategy plan for the Westbrook Golf Club in developing a new sports complex on their land.

The final days of the program were spent saying goodbye to classmates who were going on exchange, the exchange students who were with us for a few months, and a big party where we all wore white t-shirts and signed each other.

Over the last month or so, a group of us welcomed the incoming class (2010) and passed on some of the culture of the program, lessons that we learnt, and survival tips. We sent them on a scavenger hunt around town and threw a party for them. It was interesting to see them starting the program and wondering how we looked at this point last year. They're going to have a great year.

Convocation happened on May 26th at Grant Hall. It was a nice ceremony that started off with bagpipes. It was nice to meet the parents of classmates and introduce mine to some of my closer friends. It was fun, but also a little bit sad. It officially marked the end of our MBA experience and an end to one of the best years I've had to date.

Trip to Europe, the rest

It's been a while since my last post and the story of my trip is starting to fade. Here's a quick run down of the rest of the trip.

Amsterdam
Amsterdam's a cool city. I know it's a cliche place to go and party, but it's still a good time. The tourist area, especially the red light district, is over-hyped in my opinion. There's a lot more to the city than the party spots. We walked around the city away from the tourist areas and there are some really nice neighbourhoods to walk around in and soak up the atmosphere. I'm sure it's a really beautiful place in the summer time. We checked out the Van Gogh museum and the science centre and took a canal boat tour. I didn't really take many pictures of the place though.

Brussels
Brussels was my favourite spot. It was mainly untouched by the world wars so a lot of the old building are still there close to their original state. The grand square is amazing. You don't really see it until you walk into it and once you're there it's awe inspiring. Especially when it's all lit up at night.

Here's a stitched shot that I modified into black and white and tried to give it an old look:


There are some cool spots around the city and I'm sure you can spend a whole week there and still be looking for places to explore. Le Cirio is one of the coolest bars I've been to. It's got a really old feel to it. The bartenders are old guys that are pretty funny. A La Mort Subite (the sudden death) was another cool spot. It seems like it's been a place were people have gone for an after work drink for years. Has some of the best beer I've ever tasted. The peach beer is really good.

Bruges
Bruges is the most well preserved medieval town in Europe. If you haven't seen it, check out the movie "In Bruges"...it shows how scenic the area is and it's a good movie. It was a bit of a time warp going there...really slow pace. We climbed up the bell tower and had a good lunch of crepes. We also stopped in one of many chocolate stores and had some really good hot chocolate.

Here are some pics:




After the day trip to Bruges, we hung out in Brussels for another night and then hopped on a train back to Mannheim.

Meinz
Germany has a festival called Carnaval. Not sure what it's fore, but I think it's the same idea as Brazil's carnival...last party before the lent season. We took a train to Meinz because it was recommended as a cool spot to check out the festivities and it was less than an hour away. Overall, it was a really fun day. We got dressed up and checked out the parade and the atmosphere.







Heidelberg
Heidelberg's another cool little town about a 30 minute train ride from Mannheim. It's got some cool little bars and an old castle at the top of a hill. Really scenic. Unfortunately the weather was cold, rainy, and cloudy. Still cool to see.

I was pretty wiped by the time end of the trip. The flight home was good...I slept for most of it. Overall a great trip.

Trip to Europe, Berlin

The elective courses that I want to take are scheduled so that I was frontloaded with two courses in January and early February and backloaded with three courses in March and April. In between, I had 6 weeks of free time...well mostly free time. I got a job as a teacher's assistant for a 4th year commerce course on management of new enterprises and the Tricolour Fund is an ongoing project course.

3 of my classmates were on exchange in Mannheim, Germany, for a couple of months. They had some travel plans laid out and talked me into going over there and travelling with them for 10 days. It doesn't take much to convince me to go on a trip anywhere...I just checked my finances and made sure I didn't have any outstanding deliverables for the fund or my TA work.

I met up with them in Mannheim on a Friday and that night we took a train to Berlin. Berlin was an interesting place. Apart from the old buildings like Reichstag, it felt a lot like Toronto...except with Germans. We spent a couple of days there...had an awesome dinner at a rustic Italian restaurant and went to a club. We checked out the historical sites...the holocaust memorial put a somber tone on the second day...kind of depressing combined with the cold snowy weather.

Here are some pics in any case:

A square in Mannheim


From the Reichstag




Sometimes the people around you make a picture...it's worth putting them in your shots. Here are a couple from around the Brandenburg Arch. You get some surprises like this one...


...or you can people watch and take some interesting ones.


Had to stop and check out this Bugatti


There are some really nice spots around the area...like this pano shot of the museum and cathedral (forget the names) near the arch


(I forgot to set the camera to manual so the exposures were all different. Had to photoshop it quite a bit to even things out...)

Of course, had to check out the wall...


Next was a brief stop in Rotterdam to have some lunch with some other classmates on exchange and on to Amsterdam...