Oh the Places You’ll Go
One of the interesting things about the place I’ve worked at since moving to Montréal is some of the places I’ve been required to visit/investigate for different projects. Unfortunately we no longer do work with most of these clients so my excursions out of the office have been greatly reduced. It’s not my intention to boast. I just find that these places and the aggregate of them to be too interesting not to share. Let me know if there are any you’d like me to elaborate on.
– the top of the Molson sign in Montreal
– up inside the cupola of Marie Reine du Monde
– inside the new control center for the STM
– inside the power plant of a hydraulic dam
– underneath a 300 foot long, 20 foot diameter rotating furnace
– up in the technical grid a few television studios for two major Canadian networks.
– a gold mine
– deep inside a couple paper mill factories
– deep inside a couple beer production and bottling facilities
– inside a facility that bottles and labels wine
– a facility that bottles water and carbonated beverages
– a facility that makes and packages yogurt
– a bread factory
– under the stands and behind the scenes of a traveling circus
– 60 feet up in the air with only a 3 inch grid of 1/8″ thick wires separating me from freefall.
– banging holes in a store in South Beach, Florida
– climbing around inside vacant store in mid-town Manhattan
– a store on State Street in Chicago (plus a free weekend)
– Toronto
– Philadelphia
– Chibougamau, Québec
– Redondo Beach, CA for 10 days in February
– Albany, Georgia on the anniversary of a major civil rights event
– Atlanta, Georgia on their biggest snowfall in ten years (by the way, I was also there for there for the previous biggest snowfall in ten years)
– London, England for two weeks learning a computer program (actually this was at my previous job before arriving in Montreal)
Though as interesting as this all sounds they only occured occasionally and may sound better on paper. For instance at one of the beer bottling plants I spent hours climbing around a bottling machine taking measurements and taking photos. By the end I was soaked in and smelled like week-old beer. Not to mention that it was incredibly hot and I was very thirsty. That wonderful day ended with a fast food supper in a crappy hotel room watch VH1’s Top 100 One-Hit Wonder countdown. So with each one there is generally some good with some bad.
Chicagoan in Montréal 
The STM control center would be interesting. And all the others too of course.
Wow! All I ever get to do is sit at this stupid desk.
Lucky you.
tornwordo: Actually it wasn’t up and running yet. It was a big space with a blank wall. Our job was to help find a way to keep the guy changing the light bulbs up in the ceiling from falling to the floor below.
blork: In truth, other than going to meetings I still spend over 95% of my time at my desk. And I really haven’t gone anywhere special in the last couple years.
One place I forgot to mention is the inside of a yogurt factory. It was interesting because everywhere had the super strong scent of strawberry yogurt. You almost felt like you were eating some with every breath.
Actually there was also a bread factory. That place smelled really nice, but was also very hot.
Banging hos in South Beach sounds unlike you. Um, wait a minute… 😉
That’s a pretty impressive collection of experiences. I just have to know more about the “60 ft up in the air” one — something I could never do myself I’m afraid!
I was in Atlanta exactly a year ago, and the weather was pretty bad too — snow, sleet and fog. I hadn’t exactly packed for that, either.