Death in Whitby

Ever thought about how you would prefer the moment of your death to happen? Would you want to go like Butch and Sundance - into that hail of Bolivian bullets? Or like Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, your body just giving out in a long slow sigh?
I guess what you want is dignity. The Romans and I guess most warrior civilizations wrote of a "glorious" death, but death with dignity is probably the more appropriate goal in this day and age.

Dying in Whitby wouldn't be very dignified. Especially if death came in the form of a pudgy hoser driving a GM truck drinking a tim horton's coffee. Hmmm... pudgy hoser or grim reaper, pudgy hoser or grim reaper... yeah, give me the grim reaper anyday.

Thinking that dying on my bike in Whitby would be the worst way I could possibly leave this life, I've given up biking for the Durham part of my commute. I'm now biking through Toronto to the Go Station, leaving the bike locked at the station, riding the train to Ajax, and getting picked up - in a car - to be driven to work.
Although I would much rather be telling you that I was on public transit instead of in a car, I don't feel too bad about this. The co-worker I'm riding with drives everyday from right beside the Ajax Go Station to the university anyway, so I'm just hitching onto a car trip that was already being made.
And Whitby, and the Durham region in general, are not fun places for bikers in the winter. There are no bike lanes anywhere in this place, and they seem to let snow/ice encroach quite a bit into the right hand lanes, so it was often at the point where I needed 1/3 to 1/2 of the lane and that just doesn't fly in Durham (the home of GM and pudgy hosers in track pants drinking coffee while they steer).
I figured disgression was the better part of valour and that I needed to get off the bike this winter - ergo the carpooling.

I don't have much other news actually. My job has been busy as hell and I don't have much relaxation time these days. I haven't even been thinking of the petition at all.

I hope all of you are doing well, and I look forward to mid February when the petition starts getting wrapped up and we hand stuff over to Olivia Chow. Hopefully I'll be able to blog and surf YOUR blogs again in the near future.

And this is just a P.S. - if you've seen March of the Penguins you'll find this really funny. It's a commercial for the French version of the movie, which, because they're actually emperor penguins, was titled "March of the Emperor."

the right to bear arms or arm bears, whatever the hell I want to do...

Here are a couple things that a friend and my brother sent me.

From my brother, a "Bill Of Rights For Future Generations" which apparently came from Adbusters back in 2004. Thanks Matt!

We, the people of the future, like the twenty thousand generations who came before us, have the right to breathe air that smells sweet, to drink water that runs pure and free, to swim in waters that teem with life, and to grow our food in rich, living earth.

We have the right to inherit a world unsullied by toxic chemicals, nuclear waste, or genetic pollution. We have the right to walk in untamed nature and to feel the awe that comes when we suddenly lock eyes with a wild breast.

We beseech you, the people of today: do not leave your dirty messes for us to clean up; do not take technological risks, however small, that may backfire catastrophically in times to come. Just as we respectfully ask that you not burden us with your deferred debts and depleted pension plans, we also claim our right to a share of the planet's ecological wealth. Please don't use it all up.

We, in turn, promise to do the same. We grant these same rights and privileges to the generations who will live after us; we do so in the sacred hope that the human spirit will live forever.

A curse on any generation who ignores this plea.

And this is from Smut. I have no idea what this website is, but a series of bike/motorbike photos like the one below are from Lords of the Logistic.



No Bike Gets Left Behind!!!!!!!!!

listening to the moonlight sonata

I'm basically snowed under at work and working lots of overtime so I won't be blogging very much this month.
Here are some quick notes:
The biggest flock of geese I've seen so far this fall/winter was headed northwest!. Holy jumping, it's 10 degrees celsius today, and will be 12 degrees tomorrow. As nice as this is for my commute, this is nuts.

The cycling petition is currently in paper form at the Toronto MEC store, and should soon be at the Winnipeg and Edmonton stores. It should also be at the Toronto Grassroots stores. We're trying to get paper versions of the petition signed through January and February, with the hand off to Olivia Chow happening in March.


And for a nice visual treat to look at each time you log on and see that I haven't updated yet, this is from the astronomy picture of the day. This picture is of the remnants of a star that exploded 10 000 years ago. The tail end of which (this pictured end) has been nicknamed "The Witch's Broom."