I’m pretty sure that I just got my hair cut by a gorilla. He fit the general description anyway – massive, hairy and mainly just grunts for communication. This is also the opposite of what most hairdressers I’ve frequented are like so you can imagine my concern.

I desperately needed a haircut and as I was on my way home from “Quantum Of Solace” I thought that I would just pop in to some new place in the CBD. I fell for the oldest trick in the book of walking in and saying “Is there an opening right now?” and having a beautiful girl tell me “It will just be a second if you’d like to have a seat”. I should have known immediately that Bigfoot in the corner wasn’t there to provide security. Sure enough two minutes later, “Pretty Young Thing” was working a pencil into her hair while answering the phone and “Gigantore” had his mitts on my head looking like he was about to crush a coconut.

I immediately regretted the decision to get a spur of the moment clip but was too cared to get up and leave because not only was this guy the approximate size of a rhino but he was also near razor sharp scissors. I accepted my fate (I’ve had a good life), squeezed my armrests like a first time flyer and hoped that by the time this was over I still had my head still attached to my head. “Tiny” reached into his back pocket and whipped out a pair of scissors like a friggin’ butterfly knife and started at me. I wasn’t sure if he was pulling my hair out or indeed cutting it but my head was bobbing back and forth like a manual driving instructor on day one. I was still hoping for the best/praying for a quick death when I decided that I should probably look death in the face like a man. As I unscrewed my eyes and saw myself in the mirror I realized that not only was I alive but I had just received a fantastic haircut. This not-so-gentle giant knowingly peered back at me in the mirror and said, “You like?”.

Since I was mentally noting something about a judging a book’s cover the only words I could muster up were “I like”.

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I'm back in Australia after a horrendous 7 hour stay in the Newark airport due to delays. For those of you not lucky enough to have visited the Newark Airport it can be best described as a mix between a small town bus station and purgatory. To kill the time (and not myself) I typed away about various evenings spent with the work group and the usual mishaps that follow those types of nights. Then I went back to edit them and realized that it appeared that all I did for the whole two weeks was sit in dingy pubs and drink beer. While I'm not saying that is far off the truth, it is only part of it.

In actuality the conference itself was fantastic. The speakers were engaging and down to earth and I really did learn a lot. Not only about how to do be more successful but also about the global scope of business and likely trends that will slowly trickle out of the US into foreign economies. I appreciate that doesn't sound particularly interesting but it was for me. I was the only representative from Australia and I had to constantly deal with people's disappointment after they realized that I didn't have an accent and was Canadian. I didn't realize that Americans were so keen on Australia. I know that Canadians and Aussies are like peas and carrots, after all, half of Banff's bar staff is Aussie.

It was great being able to share a drink with people from around the globe. A German guy admitted that the first CD he ever purchased was in fact David Hasselhoff so I guess some stereotypes are true. At one point I was sitting at a table of five (in a bowling alley no less) with people that worked in Hong Kong, New York, Dusseldorf and Toronto and I thought that was pretty cool.

Back to Craig In Australia

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On Saturday I managed to get aboard the scenic train from Newark, New Jersey to NYC. The rundown factories and rust covered train tracks were highlighted by the miserably rainy day. It was a terrible day in fact. The kind of day that you think to yourself "Am I ever glad that I'm not aimlessly wandering around New York".

Five of us booked a hotel room in Manhattan that was approximately the size of a large microwave. We checked in and made our way to Time Square to look at billboards. No really, that's pretty much all we did. Well, not counting getting rained on and splashed by taxi's. I really wanted to get into the New York spirit and enjoy the place but it just wasn't in the cards and the guys I was with were even more miserable than I was. To perk things up a bit we went to the place guaranteed to get us in a good mood, Ground Zero. Oh wait...it was one of the most horrible sights that I had ever seen. Without exaggeration, the hole in ground is the size of Ireland. I didn't (and still don't) know what emotion came over me but it was uncomfortable and the only word to describe it would be an almost mute and pained "wow." I could go on for a long time about this part but I'll not bore you.

So we decided that since Ground Zero didn't cheer us up we should go and get thoroughly drunk. Several pitchers and two gigantic pizzas later I was having a great time and enthusiastically declared that New York was a fantastic place. The group had renting a back room in some club and about 20 people from the conference showed up so I spent most of the evening yelling into ears at close range.

I woke up on a couch having decided that sharing a hotel room and using a bath towel as a blanket was slightly below my minimum comfort expectations. I made my way back to the hotel in the morning and I was pleased to note that one of the guys had finally come out of the bathroom (locked himself in it all night) and the couple in between the wall and the bed weren't there anymore. I swear it was just like a university road trip all over again with the exception that this trip was entirely by train. If anyone was wondering if a 90 minute wait in a train station followed by another 90 minute train ride cures a hangover I can assure you that it does not. Hopefully this "work" conference ends with a liver transplant.

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Judging from the appearance of the bowling alley that I was just in, I would guess that the fine locals of Manville invented bowling and haven't renovated since. You would never have believed that the Egyptians invented bowling some 7000 years prior.

The group decided to go bowling and partake in a team competition where the playing field would be even (no self respecting person is a good bowler) and perhaps more importantly, where the beer was cheap. I knew that I was in for a fantastic evening when I walked to the bathroom and there was a 15 year old kid smearing an inch of "liquid" around the men's stalls and out into the hall with a dirty mop. I opted to go out the emergency exit in piss in the parking lot which appeared to be the norm as 2 other guys were doing the same. I wasn't fully blending into the locale though because I wasn't slamming back a beer whilst I was publicly urinating. But I digress.

I posted a stellar 71 and 62 (not the worst) so I decided to hang em' up while I was still on top of my game and settle in to enjoy my warm beer out of a plastic cup. Everyone was having a great time and I think that this night was the key gelling point for the group so far. The scenery and local people watching provided plenty to laugh about. Everyone got pretty deep into their cups and it was getting late so naturally we thought it best to go to a different pub.

As I walked into the "new" pub I asked "Didn't we just leave this place?" At some point over the previous 4 hours I had obviously gained the ability to block out the sound of repeated bowling pins falling. I was happy to note that the beer did indeed come in a glass (significant improvement) and our merry band of 20 idiots quickly dominated the poor bartender. No matter what you ordered Jimmy poured a Bud from the taps. The ride home in the company van made me a little homesick for the crowded Monday morning trains but we managed to make it back to the hotel after an acceptable 4 U-turns. Morning came quickly indeed.

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There may be hope yet.

It was a strange turn of events that lead me to be in America for arguably the most historic election in American history. Despite the fact that I was sitting in a dreary, basement, piss stinking pub in suburban New Jersey I realized that the world was changing (unlike this pub in the last 20 years). I was with a group of friends that were still trying to get to know each other so deep political debates were kept to a minimum and the exchanges were generally limited to weather and beer stories but it was still obvious that everyone had an eye on the morphing red and blue map on the TV.

I was good and drunk by the time that I got back to my hotel room shortly before Barack Obama was officially the victor. When it was announced on CNN (followed belatedly by FoxNews) I had a strange euphoria sweep over me. I was a Canadian who lives in Australia, sitting in a hotel in New Jersey, drunk on Irish beer, watching a black man be elected into the White House. It was at that point that I poured myself a bowl of Cheerios followed by a Tylenol with a Gatorade chaser.

I'm sure that a the beer helped but when I was watching Obama deliver his memorable acceptance speech "Yes We Can" and actually felt an emotion that I'm not sure that I have ever felt about America....hope. The significance of this outcome cannot be measured both domestically and worldwide. I hope that when I am an old man I will be telling my grandkids about this point in time that put things back on the right track.

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So the first night with everyone at the conference went as expected. Sitting around the hotel bar drinking Bud, watching football and acting like idiots. There were people from all over the world but the funny part was that after a few brewski's (I'm trying to blend in) all the Canadians were outside in t-shirts, in November, playing basketball and freezing our asses off. The evening eventually lead to poker and more beers which then lead to a sluggish morning. A pretty standard work related evening.

Tomorrow is the election so I'm sure that we will change things up and sit around the hotel bar drinking Bud, watching the election and acting like idiots.

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I'm in the States at the moment for a work event that starts tomorrow so I have been left to fend for myself, jetlag and all. Somehow when I flew across the ocean I went back in time (more than I actually did) and became a university student for the weekend.

I arrived at the hotel Friday night around 3am but I couldn't sleep because I was hungry so I went to find a McDonalds (never hard in America). I slept all day Saturday like I was horribly hungover except the headache and nausea were caused from jetlag and Double Cheeseburger combo not a night of fun and liquor. Needless to say, I was craving the ultimate hangover cure…Honey Nut Cheerios. I managed to find a grocery store so I thought that it would be wise to buy snack food for the week so I bought cereal and milk.

After being exhausted from my 3 minute walk with a heavy bag (large milk) I got back to my room a managed to stay in my bathrobe the rest of the day. Yep, I like a good bathrobe. Ahh the university memories...good times.

I began to get annoyed with the 24-hour election coverage on every channel and televangelists are only funny for so long ( I chuckled for over an hour to be honest) so I decided that I should probably be productive. I powered through some work material, unpacked and ironed all my work shirts so I’m calling it a productive day (can I get a Hallelujah?). Really, as far as Sundays go I’m about par for the course. I'll explore NYC next weekend.

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