Oh, by the way, I eventually made it here to New Hampshire (see here if this confuses you). I left the Westin in Halifax at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, opting for the hotel’s Town Car to get there ($53) rather than a repeat performance in the “visits every hotel in Halifax” $16 shuttle bus. I was at the airport and in line by 7:05 a.m., which was miraculous, and had a nice chat with the driver to boot.

Despite the ALL CAPS warning on my Air Canada itinerary that the latest time I could check in was 90 minutes before my 8:40 a.m. flight, there were no Air Canada staff in place until 7:15 a.m. — in other words, 5 minutes past the deadline. They seemed unapologetic about this, and I was none the worse for wear in any case.

Customs was open this time (again, see here) and pleasantly free of lines, so I was in the U.S. departure lounge by 7:30 a.m.

When I ordered a cappuccino at the coffee shop/bar inside the waitress looked at me like I was insane: they had coffee and that was it. I had a cup of tea. Similarly, when I ordered the “bagel and fruit salad” I was told they had no fruit salad and that I could substitute an apple if I wanted. I stuck with a bagel. Sometimes you pine for the consistency of a Starbucks.

It was like Old Home Week after a while, as all my old friends from the cancelled flight to Boston the night before regrouped for the morning flight down. We left on time, arrived 25 minutes early, and I was at the Hertz counter by 9:30 a.m.

Hertz was having a bad day, and the #1 Club Gold system had imploded by the time I got there, so the promised “step off the bus and into your car” glide was interrupted by 15 minutes waiting with a bunch of other frustratees until my car was ready. My “Toyota Camry or Similar” turned out to be a Toyota RAV4, a vehicle with all the downsides of an SUV and none of the get up and go. It also smells like vomit, which is never a good feature in a car.

By noon I was at [[Yankee]] and as the day continued, I didn’t even get a chance to set up a makeshift workspace, as meetings began as soon as I arrived and lasted until quitting time. The highlight of the meeting day was taking the wraps off the new Content Management System we’ve been concocting for the past several months. I ended up spinning a more-complicated-than-it-needed-to-be metaphorical tale of “content baskets” and cut up a perfectly good printed copy of Yankee Magazine in the process, but in the end I think everyone got it, baskets or no.

Today was another long day here at [[Yankee]]. Had breakfast with expat Canadian Gerry Hull at The Bagel Mill where they make their cappuccino “American style” (i.e. way, way too much coffee, and limp foam). It was good to meet Gerry, and to find out that, in his own way, he’s a part of the Wayne Green Universe of southern New Hampshire. And he’s got angora goats too!

We had our first bona fide video conference today, as one of our flock was at home in southern Massachsetts for a dentist appointment, so teleported in with iChat A/V running on her MacBook. It mostly worked — there were a couple of bandwidth bottleneck-related fuzzifications, and we lacked a wide-angle lens on our end to get everyone in the conference room “in the picture.” But I did get to experience the upsides that video “telepresence” offers over just being on the phone.

The Dublin General Store, where I had lunch, as been renovated (again) and was in fine form: they made me up a hummous and smoked turkey sandwich and were over the moon about being able to squeeze two protein forms into one wrap.

Tonight I’m rendezvousing with Lou from Utah who’s flying in as I type; he’s doing some work with [[Yankee]] and this will be our first chance to meet.

Tomorrow is another day of meetings, and then a long slog back to the Island with an overnight in Halifax. If I get back to Charlottetown by my scheduled Friday morning arrival time it will be a pleasant miracle.

Via Robert comes even more airline news: Halifax will again be an Icelandair gateway. Nothing is showing up on their reservations site yet, but methinks this might be a way of getting to [[reboot]] this year while avoiding London and Frankfurt and getting to see Iceland at the same time.

Update: There’s a special page on the Icelandair website specifically for booking from Halifax. Looking at dates in late May and early June, looks like the lowest return fares are in the $700 Canadian range, all taxes and fees in, which isn’t bad.

The Westin Nova Scotian charges $12.95/day for Internet access in the room. Fortunately for me some kind neighbourhood sole with a Wifi access point named “carlito” charges nothing. Thanks carlito!

It’s 6:00 a.m. and I’m up to get ready to catch a cab back out to the airport. With luck, the next time you read something here I will be in southern New Hampshire.

I left Charlottetown at 4:45 p.m. en route to Halifax on an Air Canada Dash 8. A mechanical problem with the original plane caused them to substitute a new plane, with a new flight number, and this caused the departure to be a little late. When we arrived in Halifax the ground crew wasn’t ready. And so by the time we hit the gate it was about 5:45 p.m. Just before we deplaned I was told that I needed to see the Customer Service desk about my flight to Boston.

The Customer Service desk had a line-up of about a dozen people, so I continued on into the U.S. connections area. And ran smack dab into a giant closed gate in front of a deserted security checkpoint. I was trapped in some sort of vortex between the U.S. and Canada, and there didn’t seem to be any doors that would take me back from whence I’d come. I cried out. A helpful security guard arrived and told me that customs closes at 6:00 p.m. sharp, that I was out of luck, and I had to walk to the other end of the airport to rebook my flight.

So I headed to the ticket counter, stood in line for 20 minutes, and found out that, indeed, I was stranded in Halifax for the night, rebooked on the first flight out tomorrow morning. They booked me a room at the Airport Hotel, and then went to see if they could fine my bag.

An hour later, it finally emerged that (a) my bag had actually made it all the way to the plane (which is a violation of international law, isn’t it?) and (b) the flight to Boston ended up being cancelled anyway so (c) my bag was waiting down at the other end of the airport.

I hoofed it down to pick up my bag and then headed to the Airport Hotel (yes, it’s actually called the “Airport Hotel”) shuttle. Except that the shuttle was busy being loaded with about 17 dozen senior citizens with 5 giant bags each. So I caught a cab.

At the Airport Hotel they told me that they had no record of my reservation, that Air Canada had made a mistake, and that I’d have to go back to the airport. I tried phoning the Air Canada reservations number to see if they could help, but after an extended debate about whether I should have had my “booking reference number” at hand, I was told that this was “an airport issue” and that I’d have to go back to the airport.

So I went back to the airport. In a shuttle bus filled with happy Newfoundlanders who, earlier in the day, had headed to St. John’s, made it within 10 feet of the runway at the airport there, only to be turned back by weather to Halifax. They were going to the airport liqour store for “provisions.”

Back at the airport I was greeted by the ever-helpful Christine (perhaps the kindest and most helpful Air Canada employee I’ve ever met; she’s also from Newfoundland) and she dropped everything to find me a room somewhere. She finally found a room at the Westin here in downtown Halifax, this time with a real confirmation number, and sent me off with a handshake and thanks for being a gentleman and not losing my cool. This woman deserves an award.

Next onto the “Airporter” shuttle bus and into Halifax. It seems that the Westin is the absolute last stop on the run, so after visting every hotel in both Dartmouth and Halifax we arrived at the Westin about 9:30 p.m. Six hours after leaving home.

I’ve just had a fantastic club sandwich from the hotel’s room service, and I’m scheduled to head back to the airport at 6:30 a.m. for an 8:40 a.m. departure to Boston. I have no faith that will actually happen, but it’s worth a try.

I count myself lucky: the flight I missed because customs was closed was eventually canceled, and not everyone on that flight could get out in the morning because the morning flight filled up quickly. So there was a silver lining.

The irony of all this is that I specifically chose to fly through Halifax because, now that they have U.S. Customs pre-clearance, the trip wound be much faster and absent of the hassles of connecting in Montreal. Oh how wrong I was. Air Canada, the Halifax Airport and the U.S. Customs Service are going to have to work some flex into the system if this is going to work.

Lessons learned: people from Newfoundland are really nice; don’t get angry at Air Canada staff and they’ll warm to you; travel on the east coast in wintertime is always an adventure.

Interestingly enough, [[Johnny]] just emailed that Delta has announced direct Charlottetown to Boston flights starting in June. This will provide a complete Air Canada-free solution for getting to Boston, just what Rob was looking for this morning.

I just finished taping a short segment for tonight’s [[Compass]] about the change back to calling the show [[Compass]]. It’s all very Möbius loopy. Ironically, I’ll be on a plane to New Hampshire when the first reborn hour-long show airs tonight, so I’ll have to watch on the Internet once I get to the [[Jack Daniels Motor Inn]] in Peterborough.

I just want to take a moment to lavish praise on S3 Browser, a graphical user interface for Amazon’s S3 storage service. It’s exactly the tool I needed yesterday to help me get a handle on our our network backup to S3. It works. Thanks.

On Monday evening, [[Compass]] will again be called [[Compass]]. Proving that common sense, bolstered by a seemingly endless series of inane weblog posts and the dedication of Compass adherents inside the CBC (you know who you are), can prevail.

I have always been a big fan of the Brio carbonated beverage. Contrary to what I’d always thought, it seems that Brio, despite its Italian-style packaging, is only sold in Canada — in Italy it’s called Chino, after the small bitter citrus fruit that provides its distinctive taste.

It’s hard to describe the taste of the chinotto fruit, and it’s certainly not something that everyone enjoys. It’s sort of like drinking mild paint thinner, but in a pleasant way.

A few weeks ago I was happy to find a Prince Edward Island source of a chinotto beverage — the San Pellegrino Chinotto brand made in Italy and imported into Canada by Nestle Waters.

Because the Chinotto is sold in non-refillable cans and is carbonated, it’s technically illegal under Prince Edward Island’s Litter Control Regulations. As such, I’ll leave it to you to figure out where to get your clandestine Chinotto high.

I had lunch at the new [[Town and Country Restaurant]] in [[Charlottetown]] today (regular readers will recall that it closed in December of 2006 for renovation after a change of owners).

I suppose it’s never fair to judge a restaurant on how it does on its second day open; this is analogous to the “alpha testing” phase of a software project, and there are bound to be bugs.

And there were bugs.

I had to wait too long to be seated, and then another 10 minutes before my order was taken. My drink took another 10 minutes to arrive, and the food followed about 20 minutes later. What should have been a 30 minute lunch took an hour. And I wasn’t alone: several tables were working on a “have to be back at work at 1:00 p.m.” deadline and lodged complaints after sending obvious “putting jackets on because we have to leave soon” pantomime messages.

The staff were pleasant about all this, offering apologies when they noticed that there was something to apologize for (which wasn’t enough of the time). I’m sure if I return in a week or two the machine will be humming and these first-week service problems will be gone. I hope.

The new sign in the window promises “Canadian and Asian Fusion” food. The menu (see a scan of the take-out menu here) is thus an interesting amalgam of old standards like the “T&C Special Burder,” “Hot Hamburger” and “Poutine” with new-fangled cuisine like “Oyster Motoyaki” and “Kerang Saus Padang.” There’s also a good portion of the old Lebanese menu, including falafel, shawarma and shish taouk.

I ordered the “Fried Rice Plate” which was described as:

Indonesian Fried Rice mixed with sausages served with sate and shrimp.

In reality this was “spicy rice with chopped up wieners.” There was one tiny shrimp included, about the size of a quarter. The rice was well-spiced, but the presence of the wiener chunks, which provided me with flashbacks to uncomfortable grade 2 “hot dog days,” detracted from my ability to enjoy it fully. The tiny sate (choice of beef or chicken; I had chicken) was excellent: hot, well-spiced, high-quality chicken.

The promise of additional Asian Fusion delights is enough to make me overlook the service lapses and the wiener orgy: I look forward to returning to sample “Balinese Curry,” “Chicken Paprika” or “Tori No Karagae.” Or even “Classic Canadian Club.”

The restaurant is open odd hours: seven days a week from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. and then again from 4:30 until 8:00 p.m. They offer delivery “within city limits” and it’s free for orders of more than $25 (phone 892-2282).

If you miss the old Town & Country you’ll be happy to find that The Sea Treat, at the corner of Euston and University, has expanded its menu to include Louis’ Chicken and Rice Soup and a good selection of Lebanese dishes. You’re also more likely than not to find Louis and Faida there having lunch, waiting on tables, or just keeping in touch. The Sea Treat has become a regular Sunday afternoon lunch stop for [[Catherine]], [[Oliver]] and I.

I’ve been on something of a House binge recently, watching an episode or two from season one every night. Like most everyone else with the same affliction, I’ve become a Hugh Laurie fan. I’ve also started having dreams that I’m suffering from bi-cortical sub-cutaneous leeching syndrome.

The television channel cuatro, which airs House in Spain, produced a special called House Unplugged which, of course, is available on YouTube. If you concentrate really hard you can hear the English under the Spanish.

And if watching Hugh Laurie overdubbed in Spanish is your thing, HouseMD.es has lots of clips.