Tim Hortons USA Vs Tim Hortons Canada – It’s The Little Differences

This is a post I am writing after my road trip to the Syracuse, NY area – as I mentioned yesterday, I was there for the weekend. While in Syracuse I, being a Tim Hortons coffee drinker in Toronto (although I do frequent many other coffee houses, Tim Hortons is a good, simple go-to) I was delighted to find that there was one relatively close to our hotel in Syracuse, NY. But, as The Simpsons mentioned when they ripped off Pulp Fiction, it’s the little differences when you go to a popular place in a different country (or in The Simpsons’ case, city).

As an example of what I mean by this check out this picture of me below.

If you zoom it in to full size of the picture you will see that:

Weekend In Upstate New York, New Haircut

This weekend finds me in the Syracuse area of New York. I came out here because it is midway between New York City and Toronto so some friends of ours didn’t have to drive all the way to Toronto but we could all still chill with each other for the weekend. We ended up today at the park you see in the Map above in that beach (obviously artificial) in the Google Maps satellite view inset – Green Lakes New York State Park.

We set up our little camp site a little bit away from the water because the signs said you weren’t allowed to bring a grill onto the grass further over, closer to the artificial beach. We had a bunch of beverages and a bunch of meat and it was a gloriously hot and mostly sunny day here out in Onondaga County, east of Syracuse.

The man made beach was pretty glorious – I have a feeling the entire beach area – water included – was made by man or altered by man in some way (as there was a huge shallow end and specific deep ends). We all went for a glorious time in the water and spent some time on the beach just enjoying the view of the glorious gorge where the Green Lakes State Park is located.

Launch Of The Toronto Rocket

I went yesterday to see the “launch” of the new subway cars called, fittingly the ‘Toronto Rocket’.

The new subway cars were specially built by Bombardier for the TTC. They are new and definitely improved. The launch of this new route of train took place at Downsview Station at the northern end of the Yonge-University-Spadina Line which is where the new train will be running as well as it’s brother reasons when they are put into service. (The rollout of these new trains is not all at once but rather it will be done incrementally.)

There were a while bunch of municipal, provincial, and federal bigwigs at this event along with tons of media and some guy I can only describe as Captain Canada – you’ll see him in one of the pictures below. If you know who he actually is…. please let me know!!! 

A Favor To Ask: Help Me Blog For & Road Trip With Mobilicity CEO Dave Dobbin

OK, to be fair, this is the second contest in 3 months I am asking you to help me out with a contest. But I think all y’all know that this is the contest for me. Also, I wanted an excuse to add my video for the contest to this blog. If I win this contest, I will also finally be able to go on my epic road trip that I didn’t go on when I didn’t go to Chicago.

The contest is to be the official blogger for a road trip that Mobilicity CEO Dave Dobbin is taking across Canada.

According to the contest description the winner will receive

…a road trip with Mobilicity’s CEO, currently anticipated to commence from Toronto on or around July 15, 2011 and concluding in Vancouver by or around July 30, 2011 (the “Trip”). Transportation to Toronto will be provided (if the winner resides outside Toronto) and transportation from Vancouver (if the winner resides outside Vancouver) will also be provided.  

….Prize winner’s attendance and participation in the form of documenting the Trip via social media are mandatory.

As my regular readers know (I hope!) I am a pretty good blogger and am a total social media addict so this would be superfantasticawesome for me. 15 days with the CEO of Mobilicity. As a phone and gadget geek that is like a dream come true!

Anyway, without further ado – here is my video. I hope you will “Like” the video on YouTube and support me in this endeavor!

#PlayBookCHI Story Revealed & An Unboxing

As you all know from my posts here, here, and here I entered in the @BlackBerry contest on Twitter called #PlayBookCHI and eventually I did win one of the 50 PlayBooks they gave out to people who got the #PlayBookCHI hashtag retweeted with the @BlackBerry handle plus their own Twitter handle the most times.

I told you all that if/when I won I was going to road trip out to Chicago, IL for the #PlayBookCHI party and be able to blog more from the PlayBook itself once I had it in my hands. But you never saw any blog posts about a road trip to Chicago and you never heard anything from me about the device except for my Thank You post where I blogged from the PlayBook. This is because I didn’t end up making the road trip to Chicago.

So here is the full explanation – at least as much as I can give – finally, along with some unboxing pics of the device you helped me win (and which I ADORE).

I was all set to go to Chicago on Thursday morning until I realized I had a very important and personal matter to attend to on Friday afternoon in the Greater Toronto Area making it very difficult for me to be able to drive to Chicago, party at the #PlayBookCHI party, and drive home in time to attend to the above stated matter. I was all the more disappointed when I found out that a breakout new DJ who I have been really wanting to see named Avicii played the #PlayBookCHI party! Epic Fail by Dan! However, there are a couple of silver linings to this sad tale of Dan not being able to take his road trip:

I Won A BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK! Got To Get To Chicago To Pick It Up & Party Thurs!

W00T! W00T! Remember how I asked you folks last week to help me in my endeavor to win a PlayBook from BlackBerry at their #PlayBookCHI party? Well guess what folks…I won a PlayBook!!! As you know already all last week I was getting people to tweet and retweet my name on Twitter (@TheDanLevy) along with the BlackBerry account (@BlackBerry) and the name of the party, #PlayBookCHI.

Well, today, just as people had predicted would happen, I got followed by the BlackBerry account out of the blue at 7:01pm Toronto time. As I said, people had already told me about this happening when they won a PlayBook from the #PlayBookTO event which I went to last week so I was somewhat prepared for this to happen. To be fair, I didn’t know if I was for sure going to win but I had a sneaking suspicion judging from the amount of times my name appeared with the #PlayBookCHI hashtag thanks to all you beautiful people.

Then, at 7:06pm I received this message:

Congrats! You’re a winner in the #PlayBookCHI contest! Pls respond via DM w/ your full name & email address ASAP!

Direct message sent by Research In Motion (@BlackBerry) to you (@TheDanLevy) on Apr 25, 7:06 PM.

Dan's Prospective Toronto-Chicago Road Trip For #PlayBookCHI

That Happy Dancing Snoopy above doesn’t begin to describe the gigantic smile that crept onto my face when I saw that Direct Message (aka private message). I am still waiting for the email with all the details but I am expecting it shortly. It is actually going to be one heck of a trip because my best friend who lives in London England decided this would be a great weekend to come home. As well, one of my other best friends – the three of us were like brothers in high school and in the year after when we all went to Israel together – is in town for Passover with his wife and kids. All three of us in the same city at the same time hasn’t happened in about 7 years so it is going to be a rush back to Toronto right after the PlayBook Chicago Party to hang out with the old crew which will be sweet!

OK, truth be told I probably will spend some time in Chicago…maybe go to a White Sox or Cubs game if they’re in town and definitely see my friends Matt & Ari who I haven’t seen in years either. Hmm, maybe the move should be to go to Chicago on Wednesday and not Thursday. Decisions decisions! Sort of wish I didn’t have to drive there but if I could afford a flight to Chicago then I wouldn’t really need to win a PlayBook in the first place now would I? Also, the trip is going to be EPIC with me blogging and tweeting my way there and back.

Basically, this is shaping up to be one busy next few days! WOOO!

Oh, also, if any of you have retrogradations for what I should make the hashtag for my trip to Chicago on Twitter I would love to hear it. #DanDoesIL? #DansPBRoadTrip? #DansDebacle? #DansDebauchedDrive?