A Request to Whomever It May Concern...To Sweep the Arthur Laing Bridge...Please

Astounding, how convoluted it was to find out just who is responsible for street-cleaning the Arthur Laing. Nothing under, say, 'Who We Are', nor 'Transportation', at yvr.ca. Tantalizing nugget of old news popped up on google...Airport Authority considering a toll for the Arthur Laing...Logically, YVR must be responsible for upkeep then, since YVR hoped to collect those pennies. Seems only right then. But I wanted to be sure: pointless, you see, if I send off a request for sweeping the edges that pass for bike lanes to the wrong so-and-so. City of Vancouver? Or, Richmond? YVR? Some sub-contract? In the end, of all places, a link on Translink's site, the VACC, Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition, confirmed I had the correct answer to the puzzle.

If my tone sounds sarcastic...well, yes, that's intentional. Quite pleased with myself, actually, that I've managed any humour here, rather than that standard fare of cussing that usually fills those rants to the editor we're probably all familiar with. Believe me: as a commuting cyclist I have daily, and nightly, required need to exercise that end of my vocabulary.

Though frustrated, I'll refrain from going there.

I'll refrain, too, from moaning my litany of complaints...beyond these, yesss. These, the more unbearable 'lacks'. Lack of cyclist activated traffic lights. Lack of enforcement of the rules of the blessed road: kinda Numero Uno, this, because so many go'get'em road-zombies evidently lack any learning of civilized courtesies, as well as good judgment.

Sooo many lackings that it could perhaps fill every blog entry for months, well beyond icy January, and the salt trucks that 'sweep' that named bridge, and the sweepers that don't.

Aye, I will try refrain. Only the pertinent, then. The Arthur Laing Bridge sorely wanting its...perhaps annual cleaning away of beer bottle glass and car crash debris. Living as I do alongside both that bridge and Marine Drive, I've been treated once every weekend late night — all the long winter — to the orange flashing light and jet-engine wwhhrrrrrrr of the Vancouver City Combined Roadworks and StreetBallet sweeper...sweeping by. Along Marine Drive. Westbound. Then east. Such grace. However — ALL WINTER (Capitalization required for emphasis) — no such performance on that bridge...the bridge to YVR, and the unfolding vista of such enthusiastic spending on landscaping...Canada's westcoast air portal to the world. And where I work. I know the car crash debris by name, it has lain there so long. Some of it, enough of it, regularly now, makes a point of coming home with me in my tyres.

It's all become frustrating enough to keep me in my full-size, North American, polluting, traffic-snarling pick-up truck. And happily. Y'see...the bus, and that just assembled billion-dollar toy train, which goes where I work but not anywhere near where I live, simply will cost me too much to ride. Yesss, inexplicably, more than vehicle maintenance, insurance, and fuel, all combined.

But that's another Lacking for another blog, and another authority responsible.

Oh, certainly, I'm also posting this on my blog, for whatever readership might be interested, partly because this took some time, enough of a Saturday's measured fuming, and careful choosing of Canadian English, so that it should sound...Canadian, eh...never rudely snarky. And I'm bloggin' this, because I'm in that mood.

Thanks!...et cetera.

My Sky is Falling!

Well, no, not really any longer, though it was an upset I could've done without this morning. Good title, still.

So the upset has passed. Now, the How I'm going to have to adapt.

One year, since I joined Protagonize. Wow...and I have come to expect Protag will always be there, always part of my day, and every day. Protag's still there. Only I'm not so sure I'll be able to go there just whenever I'd like to, as in when I'm at work. And I suppose I've been very lucky...all of one year of Protagonize, while at work.

Overnight — really — my employer's IT folks plugged in a web filter. No memo email. There had been talk of enforcing internet browsing policy. Understandable, considering the bright ones in every circle who'll open every email, regardless of source, or download whatever, and not ever scan the thing first before running it — assuming they're even aware there's an antivirus app, somewhere, just begging to be used...and updated.

I digress.

I encountered this web filter when it blocked access to Blogger. Social Networking being the issue. The alarming issue. To my mind, nothing more social than Protagonize. I can do without FaceBook and such, but not my Protagonize!

Okay. Not my machine. I'm not paying for the internet access. And I'm being paid to do my job, not fill my head with writing, and reading...and writing. But it's not as if my visits to Protag stopped me doing the job.

I'm making excuses...like I'm guilty of something. I won't apologize for liking having my head in the writing, and ideas, all day. Feels like meditation. The best word. It's late. Of course, I'm home, posting this to Blogger. I've lost the thread of where this was going. But that's okay. It's writing...of sorts.