In a politically-charged atmosphere you have to be really careful what you say because you never know what might be overheard. This extremely important lesson was played out today for me because of something I said offhand yesterday afternoon. Fortunately I was able to diffuse the situation (as best as I can tell) but I’m going to have to be very careful from now on particularly in an open room.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2006.
Tags: It Happened To Me, Lessons, Politics
I’ve decided to come up with a few rules for commuting in the summertime. The rules may not make much sense at times but the fact is that rules based on reality rarely make any sense. That’s what makes life so much fun.
Anyway on the ride home yesterday I came up with rule #1:
Given the choice between an air conditioned bus that may take you a little further away from your destination and a non-air conditioned bus, take the air conditioned bus.
This may seem like an obvious rule. Yesterday I had this choice presented to me – I could take the Bellamy bus (with a/c) and walk a little further once I got off the bus or I could take the Markham Road bus (definitely without a/c) and have to walk a little less. Seeing as the Markham Road bus is most often a very busy bus with people standing the whole way until I get off the bus (and not for lack of choice of seats either). The TTC gives the oldest buses to the Markham Road route for whatever reason and these have the manual air conditioning option – fan yourself or open the window and hope for a breeze. By following this first rule I was able to have a much more comfortable ride home.
Tags: air-conditioning, Commuting, heat, Lessons, rules, Toronto, ttc
The incredible heat has given me quite the headache this afternoon. I’ve had to dip into my supply of Advil Liquigel Migraine Relief. I haven’t had to do that in a while (fortunately). The bus ride home is going to be very uncomfortable but at least I have the coolness of air conditioning waiting for me at home.
Tags: air-conditioning, Commuting, headache, heat, Toronto, ttc, Weather
I think I’ve mentioned before how we have a stable of raccoons in our backyard. Since we have an enormous willow tree I suppose that’s equivalent to a Holiday Inn sign for raccoons because we have at least 2 who live in there and crawl down the trunk each and every night to wreak havoc on the garbage cans in the neighbourhood. Trust me, lock up your cans!
Anyway, the larger raccoon (and he is quite large) seems to be not as nocturnal as you’d expect with a raccoon. He’ll be wandering around the neighbour’s yard at around 6 or 7 PM just minding his own business. Then this morning when I woke up at 6:15 I walked into the dining room (to turn the air conditioning down a little) and noticed that the raccoon was out on the deck enjoying some leftover dip that we had thrown out. He seemed oblivious to the time of morning and even after my shower and just before I left home (around 7 AM) he was still out there chomping away. Naturally the cats were going crazy trying to get at him but he didn’t seem to care; he was having breakfast/supper.
They are weird creatures those raccoons; at least for now I have a way to keep them out of our garbage. The secret is elevation a la bear strategy. By hanging the bins out of reach it prevents them from being spilled all over the ground. It may seem like an extreme step but so far it has proven to be quite effective.
It’s been over a year now since we first brought Gryffin into our family. I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently. I still miss him a lot and it would have been interesting to see how he would have turned out. Of course had he lived we wouldn’t have had a chance to have Quentin and Eve in our lives and they’ve been a bowful of happiness; I’ve never met such outstanding cats and sometimes it’s hard to believe that we have four of them in our house. Other times of course it’s hard to believe that we only have four of them in our house.
I guess what I’m saying is that even though we love our four cats tremendously there’s still a hole where Gryffin was and I don’t think that hole can be filled no matter how much fun the other cats are. He will always have a place in our hearts.
When I think back on the week before we got Gryffin it’s very interesting how much of our current life and neighbourhood was with us then. The night we first went to the Scarborough Animal Shelter we discovered the wondrous restaurant known as The Bearded Chip. To get there we had to go almost by our house now to get there though we had no way of knowing that at the time. Also back then streets like Progress and Pharmacy seemed so foreign (living in the West End) but now they’re just run-of-the-mill streets that I travel almost every day (Pharmacy, not Progress). I wonder what streets I’ve stumbled upon in the last few months will play a part in our future lives? It’s definitely something to keep in mind.
Tags: bearded-chip, Cats, gryffin, pharmacy, progress, scarborough, streets, Toronto, urban-exploration
Via Joey I read this very funny (and true) comic about life before the Internet. It’s amazing how much of our lives have changed since the Internet became so widespread. Kids these days have grown up in a world that has always had Internet access and the next generation will have grown up in a world where there was always broadband access. It will be a different world in another ten years. We’re still in the middle of a revolution.
Tags: comic, Internet, Life, Technology
Fox has confirmed that there will be a fourth X-Men movie with more to come after that. I guess seeing as the current one did so well at the box office despite being mediocre in my mind means that they’ve realized that they have a license to print money with the franchise.
You may have heard that the TTC union has pulled a wildcat strike this morning. I’m very fortunate that I get a ride in the morning because looking at the traffic right now (and we’re not into the worst part of rush hour yet) it would take me a long time to get to work otherwise. I’ve had to coordinate with the people on the team whose only way to get in to work is to take public transit. Fortunately ours is a job where it’s possible to work from home because otherwise they might be forced to take a sick day or vacation day despite the fact that it’s not their fault they have no way to get to work. They’ve already given the union a cease and desist order which can lead to fines and/or jail time if enforced so we’ll see if this will lead to the strike ending today or for it to drag on for a longer period of time. We already have a smog alert today and the huge influx of cars that will be on the roads today will make for an especially bad breathing day.
Update (9:15 AM) – The worst part of rush hour has come and the roads are definitely straining to keep up. The traffic lights can’t maintain enough distance between cars which leads to an ever-degrading cycle. The DVP going southbound is almost not moving though northbound is moving fairly briskly. I’m definitely glad that I got picked up when I did because if it were an hour later then it would taken a lot longer to get into work.
Update (10:45 AM) – It looks like we might be able to get the system restarted for the afternoon rush at least according to this article. Seeing as it takes 3 hours to get everything up and running again I remain doubtful that we’ll see anything today but fortunately I should be able to notice buses on the road from my window here. Traffic has calmed down considerably and the highway and Eglinton are moving quite well now. If things don’t get restarted this afternoon though the drive home is going to be very ugly.
Update (1:30 PM) – So apparently my prediction of a non-PM restart seems to be coming true. The union officials didn’t get to the Labour Relations Board until after noon (whether that was on purpose or not is up for debate) so it’s looking extremely unlikely that we’ll have any public transit this afternoon. I’m very lucky in that I have a ride home tonight and a ride into work tomorrow because it’s tough to say if this thing will be resolved today at all; it might drag on to tomorrow. I like the caption on the linked article’s photo – a “congo-line” of commuters. I’m sure they felt the same way walking up Bay Street – “Hey it’s a party, let’s conga to work!”.
Update (3:45 PM) – Now they’re saying that “most TTC service” will resume by 5 PM today. We’ll have “many TTC buses” on the road by then and the Bloor/Danforth subway line should be up and running. I’ll believe it when I see the buses on the road. Even if we do have a lot of buses by then the commuting chaos will have already started. On the DVP it started around noon. I’m leaving in the next 10 minutes or so which should make the roads a little less busy than at 5 but it’s still going to be a slow drive home. Fortunately I don’t have to deal directly with the traffic; this time I’m just a passenger. I just saw a bus driving down Eglinton! I guess the people on those 3 routes (I saw 3) will be fortunate enough to have a ride home.
Update (9:15 PM) – Well getting home wasn’t as bad as I feared though it was incredibly hot outside and the van didn’t have any air conditioning. Fortunately though our house now has central air (more on this later) which I promptly turned on. It’s great having a shaded house because it kept the inside temperature to around 25 degrees but without any wind blowing the air around the humidity really builds so I turned it on. It makes for a much more comfortable evening and sleep. Tomorrow I expect to take the bus home again so we’ll see what the mood is from the public.
Tags: Cars, Commuting, pollution, smog, strike, Toronto, ttc, union, wildcat
When we buy groceries we like to buy as much unprocessed food as possible. For one it tastes a lot better when it’s unprocessed plus you get to try and create meals yourself instead of someone else doing the thinking. Over the past couple of years I’ve been more and more interested in this which you could probably track by my FoodTV hours per week watched.
Via Boing Boing I just saw a book that I should read called Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World. Linked from the Boing Boing post is another post about the dangers of high-fructose corn syrup. That’s one component of my diet that I know I consume more than I should; whenever you drink a can of pop there’s bound to be some HFCS inside. I’m trying to cut down by drinking tea instead of a Coke but it’s going to take a while to get there.
In any case the posts linked to above are definitely worth looking at.
Tags: Books, coke, fat-land, Food, foodtv, groceries, Health, high-fructose-corn-syrup
A classic movie from the 1980’s is The Wizard. It features some kids (including Fred Savage) working up to a grand championship competition with the new NES game, Super Mario Bros. 3. Essentially it’s a marketing vehicle for Nintendo but it is an entertaining movie nonetheless. Ian and I liked it though he found The Wizard’s (Savage’s little brother) saying “California” all the time to be a bit whiney. The Power Glove is also prominently featured, being used by the nemesis of the film and everyone was in awe of it.
In any case I found [via Waxy] the Wikipedia page for the film and news that they will be releasing it on DVD this summer. Also on the page is a breakdown of the many factual errors in the game scenes in the film. The disgust is almost palpable but that’s the reason fanboys exist.
Tags: nintendo, power-glove, super-mario-bros-3, the-wizard, wikipedia
It’s interesting how you find the cast of Grey’s Anatomy spread across so many other shows and movies. We were just watching You’ve Got Mail and discovered that George’s girlfriend on the show, Dr. Torres, was the cashier at the grocery store in the Thanksgiving scene. Ellen Pompeo has been in Friends and Old School among other things. Sandra Oh and Kate Walsh were both in Under the Tuscan Sun as a couple believe it or not. Also Sandra Oh had a big part in Sideways which I think is where her career really started to take off. Before the television show though you wouldn’t have thought twice about the people seen on the screen but once you’ve seen them all together you start noticing their past roles. The same thing happened for me after The Lord of the Rings came out; you’d see all of the old Viggo Mortensen roles on tv; of course the networks weren’t stupid and saw it as a chance to show these movies they’d bought the rights to but otherwise wouldn’t be able to get people to watch.
This is my observation for the day.
Tags: ellen-pompeo, grey's-anatomy, kate-walsh, Movies, sandra-oh, Television, the-lord-of-the-rings, under-the-tuscan-sun, viggo-mortensen
Last night during the time between I dropped Marcy off at the Liberty Grand and when I came back at the start of the dancing I had about 3 hours to spend. So I do what I like to do during such occasions; I drive around and discover new parts of town. Last night I had a chance to see The Distillery District (warning Flashiness) and The Don Valley Brick Works. Both were quite remarkable and I will definitely have to go back with my camera and photograph some of the sights.
The area where The Distillery District is located is undergoing a revival and over the next 3 years there will be a massive redevelopment project completed that will bring housing and shops to the lower Donlands. It will certainly transform the whole area. I ended up having a crepe (smoked salmon and dill) and some wonderful tea (pepermint) for dinner and walked around the area looking at the old buildings and poking through some of the dozens of artists’ galleries they have there.
I then went up Bayview from the lake to where the Brick Works are located. I’ve driven by them before but never went in to the park before yesterday. It’s a really neat place; they’ve preserved a lot of the old historical buildings and transformed the quarry and other areas into wetlands and walking trails. They even have a canine park especially for dogs. Looking at the old architecture I was reminded a lot of downtown Kitchener with the old factories that still exist there. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing which is probably why I want to go back with my camera. I have a feeling that the view from the Donor’s Lookout will be fantastic particularly around sunrise or sunset.
The prom was a lot of fun and the dancing was over quite quickly. There was none of the questionable “dancing” this time and that’s probably because it’s a different bunch of students this time around. The venue was really fantastic and if the batteries had not died on the camera last night I would taken some pictures of the lobby, the ballroom and the courtyard because they were all noteworthy. We got home pretty late though and stayed up much longer than we’re used to. We had a nice treat this morning with a brunch at Sisters which is quickly becoming our favourite restaurant in the area.
Tags: architecture, Cameras, corktown, distillery-district, don-valley-brick-works, libery-grand, Pictures, prom, restaurants, sisters-buffet, Toronto
I just bought tickets for Marcy and I to go see Etta James on the 27th of June at the Hummingbird Centre. It should make for a great concert and an early birthday/end of school year present for Marcy. I’m looking forward to it though the “convenience fees” from Ticketmaster aren’t really appreciated. At least I don’t have to win an auction to get my tickets.
Tags: concerts, etta-james, hummingbird-centre, Toronto
The last three days of this week I must make my own way to work and today I discovered how important it is to have little-to-no waiting time in between the three buses that I take to work (and back again). On Wednesday morning I had some delay between all three of the connections and it took me just over an hour for the door-to-door trip.
Yesterday however was one of those ideal rides to work; at least as ideal as riding on public transit can be. The first bus was right there when I got to the bus stop and it was an especially aggressive driver so we got to the subway station quite quickly. There my second bus was already waiting and as soon as I got on we left the station. Once we got to Eglinton the light was in my favour which is the key I use to determine in the morning whether I can stop for a coffee or not. My last bus was waiting for me at the other side of the light and that bus is early enough so that there aren’t many Leaside High School kids on the bus so we sailed to work. Door-to-door this time was only 40 minutes.
This morning it was more like Wednesday than yesterday. I had to wait at each connection point and the worst was with the Eglinton bus. I just missed the previous bus (probably the same one I took yesterday) and I had to wait. Busy routes like Eglinton tend to not be able to follow their schedule as posted so you could have a bus on time and then the next bus is so far behind that the bus after that one is right behind it. Then you have a choice – take the first bus which is probably full and will have to make a lot of stops or do you take the second which might be forced to pick up more people since it’s emptier. I think the right answer is it doesn’t matter because there’s a chance that the first bus will empty and then blow through the rest of the stops (until yours) because it’s so late or the second bus might pass the first bus because each and every stop there is someone on the first bus to get off.
These are the things I think about while I commute to and from work.
Once again we return to the series:
The leaves take the water, the first sip emanating wisdom’s light, where TeaMind is polished. It shines, pervading the universe, teaching us once again, that a true cup of tea is more than it seems. And so are we.
—The Minister of Well-Being
Things come full-circle again, as this is the same passage as was found in the first in our series. It’s appropriate as the original (blueberry green tea) supports prostate cancer research and this tea featured here (pink grapefruit green tea) supports breast cancer research.
Tags: green-tea, Lessons, pink-grapefruit, Republic of Tea, sip-for-the-cure, tea
Well remember how my glasses were last a couple of months ago? I found them and it was almost exactly two months to the day that they reappeared in my life. I have my suspicions on where they’ve been because I’m almost positive that the place I found them was a place that I so obviously checked many times before. My guess is that the cats have been toying with me. Perhaps they saw how tired I was looking and decided that the fun was over. I was wearing my contacts in the intervening time and my eyes felt really tired and I think that 2 months of wearing nothing but contacts was slowly wearing me down. Now that I’ve worn my glasses for a couple of days I feel much better though I know that I should be getting more sleep. That’ll have to wait. For now I’m just glad that I have an alternative to wearing contacts.
Tags: Cats, contact-lenses, contacts, glasses, Health, sleep
Today is our second wedding anniversary! Happy anniversary to us. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been that long. Time sure flies. In any case it’s been the happiest times of my life and each and everyday I feel grateful and comforted by the fact that Marcy is there with me. We make a great team (as I’ve said before). I can’t wait for the next two, ten and fifty years because I know that they will be full of excitement, challenges and lasting memories. I love you.
Tags: anniversary, love, Marriage, years
Recent Comments