As many of you loyal viewer_ are aware, I’ve been working full-time in Kanata for a client since February. I’ve got an office, a pile of servers, and a door that apparently only I can open… Security dropped by yesterday to ask about that. I shooed them off.

The building is amusing. It’s called ‘TCC’, or ‘The Corporate Center’. See, it’s actually the old Alcatel Swansea campus, but they don’t need (most) of it any more, but KRPC won’t let them out of the lease. So Alcatel sublets the two office towers to the TCC company, who in turn sublets them as ‘flex-space’ to small buisnesses. So in a row of 20 offices you can have 20 different companies.

But that’s only where the fun begins.

Since the two towers are former-Alcatel-only space, and the 3rd lobe of the buidling is still their manufacturing and training facilities, all the infrastructure is setup for that role. So the electrical, phone and network systems are centralized. The physical security is limited at best. All hallways are common, building access is very liberal. (Need a prox-tag to get in after hours or from the back, but nothing stops you from walking in the front door at 4:30 PM and wandering around or hiding in a bathroom until everyone goes home)

Then again, who’s the enemy? Our neighbours are geese… The adversaries are stray golf-balls. So I’m going to start making a point of parking upwind and as far from the greens as possible.

There’s also the spies over yonder corn fields. They’ve got about 20 dishes and several transmitter masts.
Dell has a big building behind us. Evil. They took my red stapler.
I have a theory that all these buildings were supposed to be 5-15 storyes, but because of the 2001 tech-crash, the just capped them at whatever height there were at.

And finally, there’s Stealth. I’m afraid of Stealth. I’ve tried photographing it and have failed. More than once. There’s something about that building… something… stealthy. Actually, it looks really awesome because all of the glass is jet-black. It really is stealthy. I will photograph it successfully… one day.

What’s also really weird – for me, is that a lot of the roadways that were dirt or one-lane back pathes are now paved, lined 4-line thoroughfares. Makes route planning for lunch mildly confusing.

Quite fortunately for me, the building’s cafeteria re-opened the week I started working there. That was nice. When I worked for the City Of Ottawa, HRDC, Sedona and a whole other pile of companies, there was nowhere to eat, so basically you just sat at the same desk even more. Worked wonders for socialization. Anyway, these guys make decent, but somewhat pricey food. And they’ve got the usual selection of junkfood and even ice-cream bars. But no Mars bars. I’ve whined about it more than once to them. A travesty.

Till today.

Was getting my rocket-fuel (Pepsi) for breakfast and the lady (seems to be a mom, pop and son kind of op) tells me there’s 4 kind of Mars bars.
**raise eyebrow**

Hrm?

“Yes, I was at the store and was trying to get you the chocolate you like, but I didn’t know which kind you wanted, so you need to tell me.

Oh crap. Now I’ve gone and done it.
It’s like how the Gabriel Pizza at South Keys has changed the “Gabe’s Meat Fantasy” to the “Meatzza” because that’s what I always call it.

If only software and hardware manufacturers would be this adaptive to their market. Sigh.