The Other Way

I like that my morning walk to the treed lane where I’ve parked the truck presents a choice…
Do I march, like a drone headed to work, following the sidewalk?
Do I cut across the park, instead?

Chose the way across the park, this morning. Most mornings, actually, when I drive.

Followed, that little less dronelike, the short twist of sidewalk. This twist inefficiently and playfully twisting, like every good park path should, it twisted me so I’d notice. Even as I rushed. Beneath maples. Passing the green. And weeds I call flowers. Crowding bright dandelions tilting their faces to the sun.

Two park benches, here, where the twisting path stops, and I leave it. Here, I step into sand and slow. A playground. Wooden fort and slide shining silver in the morning. And swingset: the chains darkened by many small hands.

I like that I cross a playground on my way to work.

Blogger Copy-Paste Broken in IE8?...Compatibility View Fix

I'll pretty up this post later, if it needs it.

I had a problem copy-pasting text into this blog.
'Paste' no longer functioned in the Compose window;
strangely, tho, I could paste in both the Title and Labels bars.
Guessed it had to be because of Internet Explorer 8, which I had decided to upgrade to...from IE6.

A very quick google-about returned the solution, from a very helpful IT human at Only Information Technology Matters

Way up on the browser page, beside the red Stop X-button, and green Refresh button, appears the handy green Compatibility View button. As another poster commented...I'm paraphrasing...it looks like a green sheet of paper, torn in two halves. Selecting that fixes this, at least.

Just...Passing

If it doesn’t belong to the architect, or site supervisor, then it’s a Canada Line construction worker somehow able to afford a shiny blue Mercedes sporty coupe.

I believe I’ve seen it before, parked with the other cars, pick-ups, alongside Miller Road west, where they’re jigging up the ramps and steps for that overhead covered walkway across to the train station. Usually busy trying to get clear of it all on my bike, so I can’t be totally certain. As a rider, I’ve trained my eye to simply register, then disregard the stationary obstacles. Drawn back to glance at one only if there’s a head sitting behind the wheel. Driving, today, safely enclosed in steel, inside my pick-up truck, so I was able to eyeball, some.

Just observations, today. Yeahhh, I wanna keep it there. I could…rant. Don’t wanna rant, tho. A rant’s so less than satisfying. Does little more than turn my face umber. Everybody has rants they might…rant about. I don’t even wanna go there. I…don’t…wanna…care. Part of the why why I’m driving. Don’t even wanna wear green any longer. Maybe just the once a year, okay, like everybody else.

Vancouver's Number One Most Livable City...

Arthur Laing Bridge evening rush. Northbound gutter, aka bike lane. 23 degrees C, but feels like 50. Passing interview with a walker...

"So whaddya think about Vancouver rating the world's Number One Most Livable City?"

"Oh, I agree, wholeheartedly. Everyone's so polite, and friendly. Always smiling, too. Everything's so affordable. I'm walking, because the sun, the heat radiating off the roadway, it's good for me. Only incidentally saving the two-zone bus fare. I would be only tooo happy to work one hour of the four I got today, plug that hour into Exact Change Please, but, y'see, this is sooo great...It's a dryyy heat, man. I see your eye, man. Is this gonna be on the news?"

"Sure thing. Left eye's the zoom feature."

"It's like sci-fi out there, man...Soylent Green is PEEE'PULLLL! Fade to black."

"Oh...'kay..."

I am playing, yeahhh, creatively bending reality to suit my needs. So? No more than some others have.

All's Fair in War and Nightmare

Let's call this multi-taskin', shall we, yesss.
Jotting down this.
Letting the radio gently recharge me.
And every other moment taking a moment to take out a resurrected orc I've managed to trap at his re-spawn spot.
While Avira updates anti-virus definitions. If 'defs' is what Avira calls those update files. I was using Norton for so long that I refer to all anti-virus updates, whether it's Norton, or CA, or MacAfee, or Avira...as 'defs'.

Radio softly playing CISL radio. That's a Yeah, A.M. radio, and not a thing wrong with that. Everything from Edith Piaf to Elton John. Neil Young's next up, they're saying.

Playing Orcs and Elves on Nintendo DS. Finished the game on Normal last week. Trying another play-thru on Nightmare difficulty setting. Died more re-doing the first rooms of the Entrance Hall than in the entire game on Normal. Orcs and were-rats respawn, y'see. Eventually figured out where to place myself at my advantage, so they can't surround and hack me down, and where I can take them one after the other.

Now I'm turning their respawning to my advantage. Trapped an orc as he respawns. As long as I can dance with him, carefully. Killing him is worth 11 xp, every time. Thanks to him I'm leveling up my character. Level 5, already. Hey, all's fair in war and nightmare.

I Feel Sooo Much Safer

Profiled him...probably.

Profiled as a security risk around one of Canada's airports.

Keeping ourselves ever vigilant...the order of the day, these days.

Suppose he fits that profile, too. Clothes don't cost more than his bike.

Can't see if he's not wearing a helmet. Possibly a fine if he's not...Officer's discretion.

Suppose he'll have to pay any fine out of any earnings he might've gotten from that big bag of recyclables slung over his shoulder.

Maybe stopped him because of that big sail of a bag...danger for him and others. But then he shouldn't be allowed to proceed...right?

Probably just fit some profile. I feel so much safer.

Actually, I don't.

Not QuickJot...Sat, June 6 '09

Morning light just right. Cloudy, but in that milky way that warns you'd better take the shot before that sun boils it away and ruins everything. I've been meaning to snap a pic of that caboose on the tracks along SW Kent. Light's been wrong too many Saturdays. Too hard. Earlier, it'd be too low, in my eye. Later, too high. Figured the tracks should glow silver this morning.

Only go this way Saturday morns now, for groceries. On weekends, early, Kent's quieter than Marine Drive. Later on weekends, of course and weekdays, Kent can be as frustrating as any busy urban road: people in a hurry, the politest phrase for them, these who've ducked those other people in a hurry who've chosen to keep to Marine Drive.

I've always preferred Kent, tho, as in liked Kent. Kent meanders, follows the river; a river I'm very fond of, industrialized and siltbrown tho it is, six hundred miles from its Rocky Mountains green source. Kent's efficient, as roads go. It's like an old track, paved where truck traffic required it paved, and built for the mills and such down here along the river. People in a hurry to be elsewhere leave where Kent ends, west and east, head up into the city. But Kent doesn't seem to end where it shows on the map. The railway stretches on, for one. Walkers have worn trails alongside the track. Footpaths disappear in forest.

One thing I saw today, the other thing: driving has its drawbacks when it's photo'snapping I'm wanting. Gotta park the thing...somewhere...out of traffic. I'm much more agile on that bike. I'll be back.

Share...What Road?

Me got car. Me go. Me go fast. Teevee say so. Uh'oh — guy in way. No can wait — Foot on gas — teevee say so. Me no brake — Nawww — Naw, Me swinggg — Me pass. Me go — Me go fast.

Yeah, enough of that funnin' about, good tho it feels. Making a character from just one of the characters in my every day out there. Although, and only completing the thought there, I might have intro'd the piece reeeally appropriately, keeping to the theme bumping the edges behind my eyes, and done my best David Attenborough...decked out for a safari...his smile and soothing voice reassuring that it's gonna be all right...

"A moment with an automobiler. We are in Western Canada. It is morning, and the automobilers are on migration. This one is...a very brief moment. We might feel privileged to have witnessed this moment, however brief. It is rare, indeed, to record for, you see, this species has become brakeless."

Yeah, okay, the point. Waited almost one month for THE shot. Really, it is like wildlife photography, out there. Not much unlike John and Janet Foster squatting in a buggy blind in Canada's north woods. Waiting for days. Cameras at the ready. Waiting on an osprey's nest, and the eggs to crack.

Yup. My subject just about the same. Comes and goes as it pleases. Wild life.

QuickLot...Fri.Late, June 5 '09

Snapped the snap. Earlier this week, they suddenly filled-in one potholed shoulder alongside Miller Road. Where one section, as YVR calls it, of bike lane ends. Where the bike's expected to...share the road...with those who will not.

Okay...usually will not.

Ohhh, do I dare hope all the talk's not just talk?

Share The Road?

Camera's with me, as always is now. Deep puddles in cratered gravel shoulder reflect roadway nicely. Snapping pix of Miller Road's bike lanes in sections, as YVR calls them. Waiting for the perfect snap. The speeder, steel and wheels the closest to road-edge, and impossible for any cyclist to share the road with. Share the Road...riiight. What committee thought that up? So here, a couple snaps of reality, to go along with a rant.

Then a moment with a roadie. Passing pretty green Cannondale.

"What're y'takin' pictures of?"

I explain. Substitute "Going in a letter to YVR" for any yada'yada re my blog.

"Yeah," he says, "they'll try t'get by ya, if y'don't take the lane. And then they'll just about run y'down, they're goin' so fast. Nice up ahead, anyway."

"Yeah," I say, "four lanes and even faster, like they stuck Steveston Highway on one end of a beat-up old road."

"Yeah" — he's smiling — "last year."

"Last spring, yeah."

"Like everything round here's half-finished."

"And nothing on their website about when they'll do the rest."

"Well, maybe this year."

"Yeah, we can hope."

This should've been up over a week ago. Been busy. Overnight, they filled in these potholes. Topped them up with sharp gravel. None of it looks especially graded. Doesn't look as if the thirty-year old other half of Miller Road is about to be re-paved. But I can hope.