Same here. We did get picked for thorough inspection once on a bus between the Amtrak station in Seattle and the Via Rail station in Vancouver. Still quite friendly so I asked why us. Was told it was random - they always do a couple of the tourists to see if the others start acting nervous.
Now getting into Ireland in a camper van in the '70s was a different story :-).
Likely Burlington Ontario, not Vermont. Less than what, 50 miles?? from Buff.
I've likely crossed the border 50 or 60 times each way. Generally pretty good going both ways, but definitely less trouble coming north than going south.
I've also crossed a lot of other borders and the worst had to be between Zambia and Zaire. If you wanted it to ta hours, it was necessary to leave a 20Kw note in your passport.
You ever try to take tools to the US from Canada to do a job???
I carry tools with me every time I drive across the border. When questioned I just say "would YOU drive THIS to Florida (or where-ever)ut tools?? We were going to Florida with our friends in their 2000 Camry - and the US border agent said , with incredulity - "in THIS?"
On 09/09/2014 7:46 PM, snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca wrote: ...
...
I had toolkit in back of car when driving as well -- but an obviously professional service toolkit and spare parts isn't _quite_ the same as a toolkit in the car boot...particularly when one is traveling by air... :) I assure you they treat it much differently.
------------------------------------------------------ "Morgans" wrote:
----------------------------------------------------------- Bought a Seafarer 30 with a Yanmar YSM 10, one lunger in Fairport and spent a year there, then spent 3 years in Cleveland.
Moved west to Lorain and finally Sandusky.
Nice part about it was that Rondeau was about 52-54 miles across Lake Erie from any one of those locations.
The farther west I moved, the shorter the trip to the islands.
Put-In-Bay was it's own reward.
Understand there have been a lot of changes to Rondeau and also Kelleys.
Lew
And to make clear, they're particularly aiming at the non-resident who's on business that's not supposed by reg's to be doing work that residents are supposed to be able to be doing...that the customer doesn't have the expertise or the desire to do the task at hand is immaterial to Customs... :)
Exactly.
Back in '84 myself and another engineer went on a trip to Calgary to troublshoot/fix some problems in the Novatel Cellular phone network. Before I left for Canada, it was made very clear to me that
1) I was going there for "meetings". 2) I was to carry no tools. 3) Any boards/parts I had with me were "samples".A month or two earlier a couple field-service techs had made the same trip. They had taken their toolkits and told customs they were going to repair some cellular base-station radios. That did not go well.
I've been to Canada on business a many times since then, and it's always the same drill: meetings, no tools, samples. That's always been pretty much the truth, but you don't want leave any doubt.
I did make the mistake of taking a piece of test equipment and a computer (this was in the pre-laptop days, when a portable computer was more like the size of a standard carryon suitcase). I didn't have any trouble with Canadian customs, but somebody forgot to file the right documents with US customs for the gear. Due to time constraints, I had to leave the gear and have the customer ship it back to us. To get it back into the US, we had to pay import duties that amounted to more than the stuff was worth. Unfortunately, there was proprietary information on the computer -- otherwise we would have let US customs keep it.
On 09/10/2014 12:28 PM, Grant Edwards wrote: ...
Oh, I've a zillion of those kinds...was pretty new w/ a new firm thru which was running consulting contracts (after the coal analyzer gig) doing coal flow measurement testing with utilities to develop a flow monitor that could be used in individual coal lines to the boiler. One cooperating utility was in England. So, when got ready to do the testing on their unit this new company had a shipping department and shipped products all over the world so I figured they'd know what to do/needed be done. Turns out that was bum assumption; they shipped it but without any customs paperwork. Took me most of two days at the import impound station at the Stansted airport to get it out from behind the cage at DHL...
As a very young lad out of school only a few years, met a fellow at an ANS conference in Toronto from Chalk River Laboratories after presenting a paper on employer's incore neutron detectors with which we were having some issues. This fellow's area of research happened to deal with similar detectors so he offered some free testing in their facilities to see if could uncover some root causes. Anyway, not knowing any better, I just rolled it up and put it in a bubble-envelope and put it in first class outgoing mail. My they got upset in receiving when opened it at Chalk River!!! :) I got quite a bit of feedback on that one...and he never did learn anything useful to help us in our problems, besides.
When working for an Test Equipment maker, one of our local Techs went into Canada with a tool box and boards. No problem getting in and working. The problem was getting back into the US taking the US tools and boards back to the US. Customs 'Stole' the boards and tools. Held him at the border for 18 hours and then released him. He lived in up state NY anyway - just a pain. If it were me, two or three missed planes on the way home...
He was servicing IBM Canada and was snagged. From then on the method was to ship in whatever and take nothing. Bring nothing and ship everything.
Mart> >>> On 09/09/2014 7:46 PM, snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca wrote: >>> ... >>>
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