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.

Wall.E...Un'Review'd

Bananas. Bread. Whatever vege is on my list. Canned stuff. Packaged stuff. Efficient as a robot through the sections. Never backtracking. Done in minutes. Dairy and meat, if meat, the very last, logically. Before that, on to my favourite ten to fifteen minutes of getting groceries early Saturday morning at my friendly neighbourhood Great Canadian Superstore. Electronics and DVDs!

Wall.E, the latest Pixar treat recently released to DVD and that BlueRay, on the playbill, playing from 14 inches through 42, across all those nifty display teevees. A couple sets set to closed caption, for the hard of hearing, and...me. I'll pop up CC just so I won't miss something in some mumbler movie.

I wouldn't presume to review Wall.E. Didn't buy Wall.E, though I will, sometime. And didn't properly watch it, as such. No couch. No munchies. Not catching it from the start. Only stood there, in the electronics department at Superstore, likely longer than my ten to fifteen, taking it in, between the dry goods and going for milk and meat...or eggs. I'm a flexible, even opportunistic, omnivore. A proper review may pop up here, sometime, for I could do with the writing exercise. But for now then, only proper to leave that to the proper reviewers.

Nooo, mine only in passing like a review. Really, only jottings how I felt about the bits I saw, which had an immediate effect on me. Even though I didn't catch Wall.E from the start, I got it. Immediately. Hit me, just the same as Silent Running hit me as a kid the first time I saw it.

Wall.E's humankind have messed up as badly. Used up the good Earth. Our very last hope germinating in an old boot... .

Now, Wall.E...not the little robot, Wall.E, who's the hero in every way here...but the movie, the movie as idea that is Wall.E, is just this side of eco-heavy-handed. If Silent Running was Bruce Dern's flower power fist held high, Wall.E is the cartoon hand slap across the face. But it's the same message. Can't help myself: I'm wired to like messages along with my pop culture. And Pixar's delivered again, in that wonderful way of theirs, the right dose of lightness and humour, blended with wow'ing technical beauty, that makes it easy to swallow the spoonful of preaching message:

Know where the OFF button is...

Get plenty of exercise...so we aren't outlived by the cockroaches, and the things we've left on when we go.

Love Among the Imported Produce

She invited me to step out, brave only that little, which was a lot, dance some even…take a chance…as if Busby Berkeley really made the world.

Saw her beaming at me from the banana table, far from her Guatemalan plantation life. She didn’t say her name, of course. But it had to be…Carmen…or, Miranda. Miranda…that fun-loving party gal on the Chiquita banana sticker.

I’d felt something missing before Miranda. Needed that little extra jazz. And Miranda only ever easy-going, expecting only my commitment to the sunnier side of life.

My Saturday night on the town…Miranda.

And, home, Sunday morning…the Land O’Lakes girl, though she still won’t tell me her name…for before her I’m simply content to kneel.

Saturday, Nov 15 '08...What to Rant About...hmmm?

About eighty pounds…That’s all it is. Felt more like…eighty-four. Just tapped the numbers through the calculator here at work. Saturday groceries hauled home in back of the pick-up. Two boxes’ full. Groceries in boxes, rather than twenty pounds of potatoes, and the rest, tumbling about the back of the truck. Also easier then simply carrying in a couple boxes.

Nothin’ there, not really, to rant about.

Grey November morning over Vancouver. Raining round the edges. Mild enough that after hefting in a couple boxes I feel it refreshing running round in a t-shirt.

No rant there…Nope.

Of course, I could work up a full head of steam over my hair-raising adventures bicycle commuting…but I don’t wanna go to the dark side. Not today. It’ll leave me surly as a sith, and I want my head light…comedic, even…because I have my bit for Mage Hunting to edit, tonight, or Sunday, and some plotting to plot; and…possibly even satirical I’d like to plot that plot.

It’s the bike, Monday through Friday. The pick-up on weekends: for the picking-up of things, and gadding about the greater distances. Just gadded the short stretch in to work. A bit of work I want cleared. Blew kisses at the lane-swervers who clearly feel fifteen K over the posted speed limit’s still unbearably slow.

Oooh…careful…almost a rant there. I want to rant, y’see. Only not so I burst a blood vessel.

I did my civic duty this morning – Yesss!

After hefting in potatoes and milk, and whatever I’m having for dinner tonight. Usually, I’ll study the great political issues, listen to the…um, dignified debates. Usually, prepare my list of names: voting for a version of Vancouver’s city council balanced, left and right. But, not this election. A small, hushed-up matter of public money for bailing out a 2010 Olympics developer. So, I voted as only I could…marked the names of every opposition candidate.

As if that should make all the difference...

There. A…rant.

Still Learning

Haven’t updated before now, obviously. Not for having nothing to post. Got the projects going well enuf…maybe too many, all at once…my own fault that. No, haven’t posted because I hadn’t a clue how to post it. Might’ve noticed I’d resorted to listing fave books, movies, games – cutesy, empty…whatever. Better, then, simply to stop.

I’m so new at this bloggin’, and clumsy, clueless…however am reading blogs that feel right …some of them, writers’ blogs. They’re the thing I’m interested in.

Point is: Figured out some basic, obvious truths about author blogs – the blogs posted up by writers either professional, paying the bills and feeding themselves on the sales of their words, or those near enough there.

When either Pro is between projects, perhaps taking a deserved break after sweating out four hundred pages, or say exploring the next buncha ideas, that blog sees constant, usually fascinating updatings – “Outlined first 3 chapters last night…" – “Neighour X, who I hate, will make the ABSOLUTE BEST villain – Here’s why…” – and so on.

But. Inevitably comes the day the blogs go silent. The glimpses inside his or her writing process stop. Perhaps a terse posting – “Will be busy the next 6 mos”. Naturally – when actual writing needs doing, all the talk about writing should stop.

Yes. So. A dawning. The Pro’s scribble over their blogs – use the thing as a mental notepad – as should I.

And if a mess…what of it? I’m working out details. Valid use of any blog. And not the What I Had for Breakie kinda empty thing I’ve sworn never to do and dreaded this becoming.

Of course – use it for working out the next thing I’m thinking about. And…this something I want lighter than a complaint letter, tho that exactly what it’ll be, in fiction form – me griping about my hellish commute…which will perhaps set off chuckles in folks facing truly hellish commutes.

Less than 3 miles each way…and I had, ‘til recently, preferred my…velocipede.

Doing my bit as...Citizen

Figuring I might do my bit, my bit as…er’um [clearing throat, a mite embarrassed, perhaps really just wondering how close to Fool I’m nearing]…doing my bit as citizen: I signed-up to have my email box visited by surveys from Our Regional Transit Authority. Y’see, part o’me, naïve me maybe, still wants so to believe that an unelected authority beyond all expectation cares, and public input might make all the difference…

However…cynical me understands enough and distrusts enough. Just the same as some dark dark satire, all that conscientious public input – for all anyone might know of it – filed away under Public Relations Exercise. We do live in these more interesting times…as another However. Never before as simple to speak and possibly be heard, thanks to this new-fangled thingy called bloggin’ on the worldwide web.

Perhaps my posting this here leaves no more ripple than I’ve said it twice. I’m satisfied then this at least is once more than an ignored statement filed away under No.

Today I answered to my mind one of their more relevant surveys: it actually cared to ask would I ever ride the thing – and the why’s or why nots…dot dot dot:

I’ve lived in Marpole almost 30 years.
Worked at YVR almost 30 years.
Waited for light rail, or whatever the thing would eventually be named: and cheap round-the-clock service logical in any ‘world class city that never sleeps’.

Imagine – no more standing one hour in rain and cold, because I had to work late and it’s no longer rush hour on transit’s clock.

I have used the 100 Bus to and from work: bus stop one block over from my home.

Considering how crime seems to love riding the trains, it’s probably just as well that Canada Line is over one mile out of my way.

Canada Line goes where I work, kinda – Doesn’t go where I live. And your ‘Airport Surcharge’ adds insult to the already absurd fare – because some genius drew a fare zone line in the Middle Arm of the mighty Fraser.

Yesss – some PR starting up that airport workers won’t have to pay that surcharge. Logistically, that implies permits, or ID: oh, cripe, enforcement, more infrastructure, and more cost – again.

I stay with this Translink Listens – still input my two-bits’ worth – because I want transit to work.

But I will only ever use transit as my very last resort – because it costs me too much to travel hardly any distance at all.

I know I’m not the only commuter to say so.
I know – inexplicably – Translink cannot seem to grasp this.

So…I bike to and from YVR. And on those days when I’ve lost my nerve, because of…construction, or YVR tree-planting, or free-range taxis, then I drive my pick-up [a utilitarian vehicle much loved in North America] – because that’s cheaper than paying two-zones on transit.


Currently re-reading bits of:

The Prince,
by Niccolo Machiavelli


Current diversion(s):

Age of Empires, Age of Kings (Nintendo DS)

Archers + High ground = Victory!


Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 (PC - PC's basic, so it's this FS version, or I'm grounded)

Virtually flying around the world, because it says I can, and in a small Cessna, because it’ll be very interesting ocean crossing in my little Cessna. Wanting to post screen captures from my flights, but have still to check that publishing such pix doesn't constitute some definition of theft as far as Microsoft cares.

Meanwhile, just my log, minus all those numbers, course headings, and time notations, that make navigation such fun:

Um…only time enuf for plotting out gps way-points.
Too tired. And I don’t fly on auto-pilot.
Chaco Canyon is the next where!
And northwest to Shiprock.


An Admission

[The following section appears in my author profile on Protagonize. It's my content, I like it, and don't wanna change a word: just right that I say where first posted]

…I contracted Chronic Seriousness right after puberty. It has since shadowed my every heavy step.

Determined to remedy my sad condition, I've begun a flexible course of treatments, nothing too intense for my brittle constitution, because as with all medicines too much too soon of any good thing can be as bad…

Currently dosing with:

Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett