Training...
Thursday, October 26, 2006
So all the secondees left Chicago, in a bus, heading for the Q Centre just about 50 min out of town. This was the first time that we got to see some of the suburbs during the day, and they are exactly like the movies.
For example:
The houses are all pretty massive, but they are made out of wood, and they all have Halloween decorations outside and a 'hot tub' in the 'backyard'. They are all pretty similar, but the great thing was that none of them had security fences, gates or even walls (besides the white/brown pickets). There is just green everywhere, we drove past a couple of golf courses which would put PCC to shame on a bad day.
We also passed a "Gentlemen's Club" which reminded me if home!
So we eventually arrived at the Q Centre which is absolutely massive. It can hold up to 2000 guests and has 2 clubs, a miniature golf course, sports fields, a fitness centre, a games room and everything else you can imagine.
This is at the reception area:
This is the dam with the clubhouse on the left where the bar and clubs are:
So we had training all day (from 8 till 6) which was long and more boring than watching paint dry. But the cool thing was that when it came to meals, the yanks didn't hold out. There must have been about 20 different dishes to try all buffet (pronounced: buff - it) and there was every type of food you could imagine, from stir-fly to hamburgers to sushi to turkey to a stir-flied turkeyburger made of sushi. There was even a soft serve machine (no pink - only choc and white) with all the toppings including crushed M&M's. Then there is the 'soda' fountain, which is in all take-aways here. It is basically a coke machine and you pour yourself any flavour of any drink as much as you can drink - large is a 1 litre! We even had Haggen Dazs (or however it is spelt) ice cream fridges for tea time.
Besides the eating there was another big first for Robbie and myself… washing. Yes, I haven't washed before (thanks Rach) and it wasn’t that bad. We argued for about 15-20minutes on if the shirt was supposed to go with the whites or the colours, but besides that we managed. We even tumble-dryed - big steps!
So we had a few big nights at the local club - nothing great. The beer that they serve is mostly Miller Light (not that you would say so) and Sam Addams, which both taste pretty crap but they were on special ($8 for a pitcher - 2litres). On the last night we were there we caught a yellow school bus to a club called " The Cadillac Ranch", I so regret not taking my camera because it could have been Drop Zone 6000km's away. Ok, maybe not that bad, maybe Recess. But it was a fun experience, Rob and I ended up doing a Karaoke duo in the early hours of the morning - I think it was U2?
I had to take a pic with the view from our training room cause I basically stared at it all day (I can tell you how many leaves on each tree). It is fairly beautiful out here at this time of year.
So we left training in a stretched limo, like pimps... Accounting pimps. Here is a picture of the limo, and a picture of me getting used to the future.
So overall the training was fun, we ended up waiting at the airport for 4 hours due to another delayed flight, but eventually borded and landed in Boston at about 2 in the morning waited another 45 minutes for our bags and headed off to our apartments.
The moral I got out of the training week was, "Wash your pants inside out so you don't get those little white things on them that take forever to pick off."
If you've read this and want to leave a comment please click on the blue 'comment' below and leave a message.
Check out the Picassa Gallery for more pics and stay tuned for scenes from my next episode.
For example:
The houses are all pretty massive, but they are made out of wood, and they all have Halloween decorations outside and a 'hot tub' in the 'backyard'. They are all pretty similar, but the great thing was that none of them had security fences, gates or even walls (besides the white/brown pickets). There is just green everywhere, we drove past a couple of golf courses which would put PCC to shame on a bad day.
We also passed a "Gentlemen's Club" which reminded me if home!
So we eventually arrived at the Q Centre which is absolutely massive. It can hold up to 2000 guests and has 2 clubs, a miniature golf course, sports fields, a fitness centre, a games room and everything else you can imagine.
This is at the reception area:
This is the dam with the clubhouse on the left where the bar and clubs are:
So we had training all day (from 8 till 6) which was long and more boring than watching paint dry. But the cool thing was that when it came to meals, the yanks didn't hold out. There must have been about 20 different dishes to try all buffet (pronounced: buff - it) and there was every type of food you could imagine, from stir-fly to hamburgers to sushi to turkey to a stir-flied turkeyburger made of sushi. There was even a soft serve machine (no pink - only choc and white) with all the toppings including crushed M&M's. Then there is the 'soda' fountain, which is in all take-aways here. It is basically a coke machine and you pour yourself any flavour of any drink as much as you can drink - large is a 1 litre! We even had Haggen Dazs (or however it is spelt) ice cream fridges for tea time.
Besides the eating there was another big first for Robbie and myself… washing. Yes, I haven't washed before (thanks Rach) and it wasn’t that bad. We argued for about 15-20minutes on if the shirt was supposed to go with the whites or the colours, but besides that we managed. We even tumble-dryed - big steps!
So we had a few big nights at the local club - nothing great. The beer that they serve is mostly Miller Light (not that you would say so) and Sam Addams, which both taste pretty crap but they were on special ($8 for a pitcher - 2litres). On the last night we were there we caught a yellow school bus to a club called " The Cadillac Ranch", I so regret not taking my camera because it could have been Drop Zone 6000km's away. Ok, maybe not that bad, maybe Recess. But it was a fun experience, Rob and I ended up doing a Karaoke duo in the early hours of the morning - I think it was U2?
I had to take a pic with the view from our training room cause I basically stared at it all day (I can tell you how many leaves on each tree). It is fairly beautiful out here at this time of year.
So we left training in a stretched limo, like pimps... Accounting pimps. Here is a picture of the limo, and a picture of me getting used to the future.
So overall the training was fun, we ended up waiting at the airport for 4 hours due to another delayed flight, but eventually borded and landed in Boston at about 2 in the morning waited another 45 minutes for our bags and headed off to our apartments.
The moral I got out of the training week was, "Wash your pants inside out so you don't get those little white things on them that take forever to pick off."
If you've read this and want to leave a comment please click on the blue 'comment' below and leave a message.
Check out the Picassa Gallery for more pics and stay tuned for scenes from my next episode.
