Hello from Toronto Bay,
Not quite as warm, beautiful, safe or free as Acapulco Bay but it is what it is.
I flew direct from Acapulco to the Bush crime family international airport in Houston and then had to go through the whole ridiculous process of going through customs and immigration and then through the full security theater of taking off my shoes, belt and emptying everything into a tray and faking an injury to avoid being xrayed and patted down just to get on a connecting flight to Kanada.
The lines, as per normal, were ludicrous. It took me a total of two hours to get through having my passport checked, then waiting in line for 30 minutes to have my bags checked and then another 30 minutes in line getting security checked again… all to end up back in the same airport taking my connecting flight.
I nearly missed my connection and all I could hear around me in all these lines was how everyone thought they were going to miss their connection.
It's amazing how private enterprise can take you 1,000 miles in two hours while the government will take you a few hundred feet in two hours just to have you right back where you started.
The plane, on the dreaded United Airlines and their third world aircraft and old, angry flight attendants was late for this reason.
The captain said, as though he has said it many times before, "Uh, ladies and gentleman, we are going to be delayed as quite a number of our connecting passengers have been delayed in customs and security."
We waited about half an hour as a few straggly and stressed out people came on the plane looking like they had just gone through a horrible ordeal and ran for their lives to make the plane.
Then the captain came on again after another 15 minutes and said, "I am sorry about the delay but we are now going to close the door so no new passengers can board. But, because quite a few still haven't made it through customs we are now going to have to take off their baggage as per federal regulations."
Another thirty minutes passed as they looked for their bags.
One passenger from Mexico said to me, "I am sure most of those people have made it here by now… but now we are delayed while they take off their bags anyway."
I nodded back and said, "It's the risks of flying through a third world police state."
She nodded back.
Finally we took off and I arrived to the Toronto airport to yet again go through customs and immigration and have my bag checked. All told, 6 hours of flying and 4 hours of government bureaucracy and impositions.
In both cases, in the USSA and Kanada, I did make it through the immigration passport check fairly quickly after I finally got my chance to be inspected. I have learned now how to get through fairly quickly. I now make a habit of dressing in business attire and actually forcing a smile and being nice with them.
In the old days I'd just wear whatever was comfortable and couldn't bring myself to be nice to them at all… which 9 out of 10 times meant I was sent to the "back room". I am getting too old and tired for that anymore and I now submit somewhat.
I also had another reason for dressing nicely on the flight, however. A TDV subscriber who has started an amazing new company, Me Creo, that can do 3-D figurines of people using about 60 cameras at once and a 3-D printer was waiting for me at the airport to pick me up and take me straight to their warehouse office to show me the process and do a 3-D figurine (which they call a 3-D selfie) of me.
It's a typical cool entreprenurial set-up, a bunch of guys still working there at 1am when I finally arrived. The idea has tremendous opportunities. You may wish to call them to franchise it in your area. Imagine, taking a photo in a studio in a matter of seconds that can create a 3-D figuring as tall as nearly two feet tall that is completely realistic and lifelike and having it created within a day or so. Wedding cakes? Special moments? Mother with newborn baby? The applications are endless.
I stood in the middle of an array of 60 cameras and they took one photo and the next day they provided me with this:
And from another angle:
Quite nice, as well, was that Ed, one of the partners in the venture who picked me up at the airport told me that his being a TDV subscriber for the last three years inspired him to start-up this venture.
By 1:30am we were done and I wasn't sleepy as I had slept on the plane since United Airlines had absolutely no entertainment units, power plugs or Wifi on my two flights so I asked, "What's still open for a drink?"
We looked out into the cold, windswept darkness with not a car on the road… "1:30 in the morning?" they shrugged.
I know Kanada well and knew that the chances of finding anything interesting or even open was pretty much not a possibility. So, I asked, "There are casinos with poker here, right?", thinking maybe I'd go play a few hands and wind down from a long day of work and travel.
They said there were two, but they are both about two hours away from Toronto.
I slumped.
"There is one, at the Woodbine, but they only have electronic poker," Ed told me.
"Well, drop me off there," I said, sadly.
Upon arrival I was informed of a multitude of rules to just enter. First I had to fill out numerous forms and provide ID just to get a player's card. The whole process took 15 minutes and I felt like I was applying for a bank account.
Once done I said, "Ok, now I can play poker?"
The man said, "Oh, no, now you have to go to the cashier."
So I went to the cashier and had to fill out numerous other forms including a part that asked me what I do for a living.
I said to the Asian lady working there, after another ten minutes of forms, "Do you know what you need to do to play poker in most parts of the world?"
She looked at me blankly and said no.
"Sit down at a table with some money," I replied.
"I don't make the rules," she said… and I responded that I didn't take it badly of her personally but couldn't believe it had been nearly 30 minutes now and I still hadn't even played a hand.
She asked me again, "What do you do for a living?"
I laughed. "I don't know… put 'businessman'".
She looked confused and called her manager out.
"What do you do for a living sir?" he asked sternly.
I looked at him like he was insane and said, "I don't understand why you care what I do for a living just to play some poker."
He gave me the same answer, "I don't make the rules but we have to know," he said.
I sat for a moment and then said, "How about 'government rabble rouser´"?
He looked perplexed, looked at me, then down at the form.
"Is that a real job?" he asked.
"I make money from it so I suppose it is a job," I replied, surprised he was even considering it.
He then went on to write down "government rabble rouser" under the title, "Occupation", passed me a card and finally i was given permission to play.
I wandered over to the poker area to the front desk and asked what games there were.
"You have to use your card on the computer," he said as though he didn't want to be there.
It was another long process and finally I was on a waiting list… in a poker room with about 20 people in it. All the tables were electronic. In fact, everything in the entire casino was electronic. Even the blackjack tables had a video screen dealer.
Maybe I am old fashioned but I like the idea of a human dealer.
All the players were terrible and I figured I'd stay for a bit and play. I asked if there was any alcoholic drinks to the man beside me and he told me, "It's 2:30am! Of course not!"
After an hour or so of playing I decided I better head downtown to my hotel before rush hour traffic started as it is truly horrendous in Toronto.
I arrived to my hotel at 4am and found I still wasn't that tired and was quite hungry.
"Do you have minibars?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"Is there anywhere to buy a drink?" I asked.
"Not at 4am!" he said as though it was just the way god designed the Earth.
"How about food, do you have room service?" I pleaded.
"Not at 4am!" he replied, again as though I must be from another planet where people can have a drink or eat when they like.
He did tell me there was a 24 hour convenience store a few blocks away and so I wandered down past all the homeless people and found they didn't have much of a selection and ended up buying a Snapple and a bag of chips for about $12.
I returned to my room at 4:30am in the pitch black, windy cold night and entered my room to eat my chips.
"Well, at least I can have a cigarette and hopefully pass out," I thought.
I figured the hotel room was non-smoking as almost every hotel room in Kanada now is but I threw open the drapes to open the window to find that they were all sealed shut for my own safety. Non-smoking signs were throughout the room and a smoke detector lay right in the middle of the ceiling.
I munched on a few chips, chugged down some iced-tea, sighed, and walked into the bathroom, shut the door, took off my clothes and turned on the shower to create enough humidity to smoke a cigarette.
As I sat there, with my cigarette getting wet, I leaned against the glass shower door and looked into the mirror, "So glad to be back in Kanada…" I thought.
UNTIL NEXT WEEK
I will be at the Bitcoin Expo in Toronto all week and headed off now to a cocktail party at Bitcoin DeCentral, a cool bitcoin incubator run by the conference's organizer.
After that I'll be headed back to Acapulco again for a few weeks which I am already looking forward to! And then it'll be on to Cabo at the end of the month for the TDV Wealth Management Crisis Conference.
The conference will have 24 hour food, drinks and pretty much everything else you want like a civilized country. I'll look forward to seeing a number of TDVers there. Space is limited and nearly sold out so if you had planned to join you should contact TDV Wealth Management ASAP.
