Toronto Trip and Small SMG Group

Hi all,

Recently my brother went on an adventure to Toronto with some friends. They went to a board game convention and toured a number of local attractions, including the CN Tower and the Ripley's Aquarium. I haven't been to the CN Tower since I was a child. It used to be the World's Tallest Tower, but was surpassed and became the World's Tallest Freestanding Tower, maintained that title for 32 years, and is now merely the world's tallest structure in the Western Hemisphere, and the ninth tallest free-standing structure overall.

He says I oversold the invisible floor. Before I went, I was under the impression that my fear of heights was based on survival, and that once I reached a height where I knew I could only go splat, my anxiety would not rise further. In fact, I guessed that, if we got high enough that things looked surreal enough to seem like a map, it would be unrealistic enough to alleviate some fear.

That was not my experience on the invisible floor. I realized that my fear increases proportional to my position to the Earth, regardless of survivability. But he says that the scuffs and scratches on the glass made him feel like he was on a platform and not hovering. Maybe the glass was fresher when I went on it.

I have wanted to go to the Ripley's Aquarium for a long time now. Apparently everything is ramps to be wheelchair accessible, and they will dim lights for people with sensory issues. I don't require accessibility, but due to my line of work, this is a major selling point.

Last weekend I did a couple of Safe Management sessions. Attendance was an all-time low. We were supposed to have ten people, but only six showed up, and the next day, only three people attended the physical implementation portion.

I received a really confusing call from the person who oversees Safe Management. It sounded like she was offering me a day off due to low attendance, but after I hung up, I realized that she had said that I might get the second day off, when I know that day 2 is the re-certification day and the one with higher attendance. I also noticed she said that I could take a day off but was worried about how I would feel presenting on my own.

Everything seemed to make sense, but after the call I realized that I didn't know if Saturday or Sunday might have a facilitator off, and I didn't know if it was me or my coworker that might get it off.

I opted to just show up. I brought my laptop and an oldschool USB of the Safe Management slideshoiw from when I did my original Train the Trainer. I figured I have a key to the WALES building, so worst comes to worst, I park a group around my laptop at WALES and host a super low-key training session.

Turns out it actually was day two that had less attendance, due to the fact most people were first-timers and only aiming for partial-certification. My co-facilitator seemed kind of impressed that I was ready to go solo with my makeshift resources. We both wound up doing the full two days.