Toronto

This past week I headed to Toronto, Ontario, Canada for an Information Systems conference that I had submitted a research paper to. My co-author Andrea is also a close friend of mine and former classmate during our doctoral studies at Pitt. We had to present our paper on Saturday but the conference started on Thursday and ended Sunday afternoon.

I drove to the conference and man was it a haul. The plane ticket was going to cost me 500 bucks and the trip would have ended up being almost 9 hours total time. The drive was about 13 hours and fuel cost me about $280.00 I figured even though I would be tired (and I was) it would be more convenient to drive than fly (plus I wouldn't have to deal with the Gestapo TSA agents at airport security). The one fact I can make with 100% certainty is that Detroit is a cesspool. I had to drive through Detroit on my way to Toronto and the area near the downtown bridge to Canada resembles a war zone/crime scene.

I didn't get out much while in Toronto but did make it to a really nice restaurant for dinner on Friday night. The conference hotel was the Sheraton Eaton Centre and it was very nice. The roads were terrible in Toronto but the people were very nice and seemed like a pretty safe big city.