Amgen held their annual company meeting/getaway at Deerhurst Resort this year.  Of course I tagged along and took advantage of the free room and board.  Thanks Uncle Amgen!  :-)

Deerhurst Resort, in case you didn't know, is the birthplace of Shania Twain.  Okay, well, she's not actually born there, but Deerhurst's Musical Stage Show was the start of her career - she was discovered there and the rest, as they say, is history.

Deerhurst is a big-time resort and is very nice, however I don't think the rooms were all that amazing.  The room was very large, but the bed was... well, as Sara puts it: "It's no Heavenly Bed."  :-)  At $300/night, I'm glad I wasn't footing the bill.  The food was very good, though, especially their buffet.  I couldn't get enough of their roast beef - I ate about 3 portions more than I should have... but it was soooo good.

Sara and I went what I'll loosely describe as "canoeing."  We were paddling... well, actually I was paddling and Sara was admiring the scenery and occasionally dipping her oar into the water for a couple strokes.  I'm sitting there, struggling against the strong headwinds and lake current, grunting and cursing under my breath, and all I hear is "Ooooh, so beautiful!  Do you see that?  Wow, it's so nice out here, ohmigosh, is that a bear?"  Hah.  Musta been an enjoyable canoe trip for her.  When she started to paddle full-time, our paddle strokes were all out of sync and we were zig zagging our way across the lake and generally working extremely hard to go a very small distance.  Needless to say, we got pretty ticked off at each other.  We can look back on it and laugh now, but boy, we were close to killing each other on that little excursion.  :-)

We also got a chance to hike up a waterfall, which included a bit of rock scrambling.  I love rock scrambling - something about hanging onto cold, rough rock with your bare hands and jumping from rock to rock just utterly satisifies the primal neanderthal in me.  Maybe I've missed my calling as a mountain ranger.

After the canoe trip and waterfall climb, we relaxed on a pier beside a serenely peaceful lake.  Perfect opportunity for black'n'white shots...

Take a look at the pictures.

Posted some pics from my trip to Baltimore.  No shots of the shopping, but there's plenty of pictures of the nice Inner Harbor area as well as the Baltimore Aquarium.  Nice place, but apparently they're starting a promotion of $1 entry fee.  We paid $18/person to get in!  *grumble grumble*

Down there, everyone responds to "thank you" with a non-chalant "Umm-hmmm."  Even though they were pleasant and answered your question, that final response feels like such a brush off and just felt rude, like they're saying "yeah, whatever buddy."  Didn't like it; couldn't get used to it.

Other than that, everyone is soooo nice there - they'll say "excuse me", wait for your acknowledgement, and only then will they pass in front of you.  So polite - very unexpected from Ugly Americans.  Which makes me feel even worse over this event:  while shopping at the outlet mall, I stopped into the food court to get a drink.  I got some change back from my purchase, around 70 cents.  The customer at the til beside me is short some money and asked me if he could borrow a quarter.  He's a teenager and is very clean cut, not a trace of punkness in him.  He's very well mannered and asked me very politely.  I had no problems with his asking me, and it was not a bother to me at all to give up a quarter, but my Toronto-bred automatic rejection of beggars kicked in and I responded with "No, I'll need it later."  He was stunned, speechless with his mouth agape.  Being turned down for a little bit of change is probably an unfathomable event in his universe.  He's probably the type of person who volunteers at soup kitchens, thinking of how his high social position allows him to help his fellow man... and then, in a matter of seconds, I coldly crushed his idealism.  Now he'll become a cynical sonofabyatch, hating everything and always expecting the worst.  So much for me being the good-natured, friendly Canadian. *sigh* At least I got some great deals at the outlet mall.

Later, as we explored the harbour area, we stopped into a nice Marriot hotel for a quick bathroom break.  There were a ton of people there with some sort of convention ID tags hanging around their necks.  We couldn't make out what the tags said, so we started playing guessing games.  There were small children there so it was likely that a company decided to bring their employees to Baltimore for some sort of Employee Appreciation event.  It was hard to figure out what company it could be, as the 'employees' were composed of ... how shall I put this... "have-nots".  Lots of trailer trash types mixing with seedy urban elements.  An odd group, to say the least.  What company would be composed of such demographics?  We finally asked the hotel restaurant hostess about the group, and visibly uncomfortable, she responded in a hushed tone: "Um, yeah, they're from Narcotics Anonymous."  Narcotics Anonymous?  They're all drug users??  I've never heard of a support group for drug users!  It is a good idea, though.  "Hi, I'm Greg... and I do crack."

I wonder if the Drug Dealers Association of America was also having a meeting in town?  :-)