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Just after writing my last blog, I thought about what I would say to the mayor if I bumped into him on the street. What better place to get inspiration that his Web site ? There, he blogged about day seven of the strike, not unlike I did. Only, while my post talks of how I'm surviving not having buses, his post was deeply soaked in the unfortunateness of this whole situation, how reasonable he is being, and how his new plan is all about improving safety. After reading a few of his posts, I decided to write him a letter. And after the letter wouldn't send through the site, I just faxed it to him (yay for that nifty feature I never use on my printer). My letter was strong in its neutrality: Faced with this transit strike, many people have flocked to Web sites and Facebook groups looking to get around town. I am sure there are some great success stories proving that Ottawa is a great place with great people. We have heard extreme stories in the news of how people c

Day five was fun. I arrived at work an hour and a half early (when rides are offered, you don't really want to push your luck). This allowed me the opportunity to sit down and have breakfast with a coworker. Subway breakfasts have become boring ever since they stopped actually preparing eggs and stopped carrying round 4" buns; they're microwave-ready egg patties leave me with an underwhelming 'meh'. I learned that there was freezing rain going on, so thankfully another coworker offered me a ride home. On Day Six of this wondrous OC Transpo bus strike, I did the inevitable: I walked to work. With a car, there are half a dozen different routes to take to get there, and two buses (that take the same basic route). That said, there's no convenient way to actually walk there, not without having to overshoot and circle back, or walking from point A to point B to point C to the Destination. It's all very awkward, and a lot of it has to do with how poorly planned ou

I went to Cornwall (city south of Ottawa, on the Ontario-New York border) to make sure a window was installed at my friend's house. Aside from a brief visit to Niagara falls in the early 90s, this is the closest I have ever been to the US. It took about an hour and a half to get there, and all I could think was "in an hour and a half, I could almost get from home to Carleton University, and back by bus and O-Train". Or not, since it was the third day of the strike. While there, my friend's dad and I begun work on a project that we have. A while back, I may have hinted at something cool I was working on. My friend's dad writes lots of articles about Nepal. What I had done for his birthday was edit and compile a number of them and make them into a book, using Blurb software. The end result was very good. We've decided to use it as a starting point to refine the book and make it sellable. We worked a bit on it, changing a few things here and there. We would have

The benefit of not having buses is that I won't hear the early morning bus go by if I'm up at 4AM and 5AM. I haven't been up that late in a long time. I had to go to school for a meeting, so I walked. I brought along my newly-acquired snowshoes so that I could take the bike path that cuts through the Centrepointe area. This path is faster than taking any major roads from my house. After the recent blizzard, I figured the path would be travelled, but difficult (hence the snowshoes), but to be surprise, it was completely ploughed! On my way home, I donned the snowshoes and walked around Centrepointe park - at least until the battery in my camera died. Is walking a realistic alternative to public transit? It is in some cases. For instance, the walk to school was a pleasant one, given that the weather was nice. And to be honest, it isn't something I've ever done. The only time I had not taken the bus to get to school was the one time I biked along that same path earlier

I've decided that I would like to blog everyday. It's not the first time I've said that I'll do that, but now I have a reason. Ottawa is currently in a public transportation work stoppage. In other words, the buses are on strike. OC Transpo is on strike. If you're keeping score, we're two weeks away from Christmas and dead in the middle of exam season. My mom has never been able to drive, so the bus has been my primary means to move about the city for school, work, shopping, socialising, entertainment, and on occasion, sleep. This strike is going to make it extremely difficult for me to make it to work, even though I don't live all that far from where I need to get five days a week. It's not within walking distance, but it doesn't take all that long in a vehicle. If this work strike lasts nearly as long as the last one did - 24 days in 1996 - then I'll be walking to school, which is a decent 40-minute walk, at best when bike paths ar