In 2006, Jane Pitfield, one of Toronto's mayoral candidates had mentioned the possibility of selling naming rights to subway stations as a way to help fund the system. As insane as it may sound to some, this idea did gain traction among some supporters in council and the media. At the time, I'd toyed with the idea of creating a corporate-sponsored subway map to raise some awareness around this woman's position, but as it became clear that she was unlikely to win, my interest faded.

However, the idea didn't die with Pitfield's campaign. Toronto City Hall has continued to toy with the idea of selling off the naming rights of public spaces to corporations, so Jayme Turney and Jonathan Goldsbie from the Toronto Public Space Committee started work on a campaign called City for Sale -- an advocacy campaign to raise awareness about the result of this line of thinking as well as push council on considering other options. When I heard about this, I contacted Jonathan to let him know that I had a fun idea in mind that might help them out, and after roughly a week of off-hours toying with Inkscape, and lots of help from the City For Sale volunteers with logo acquisition, "The Wrong Way" was born:

Full size version  |  Original source file (Inkscape SVG)

I'm back online! Yay for me! It's also really late though and I have to go to work early tomorrow (the hours were changed out from under me) so I really can't write much so here's the gist:

I went to Toronto and had a lovely time. It's funny the kind of perspective one gets on their home town by living elsewhere. Ask me about it sometime... I promise a healthy rant. It was wonderufl to see everyone again too, and not surprisingly, staying with Melanie was um... interesting. I reconnected with almost everyone and got to play tourist in my former home. I even went up the CN Tower (yay!).

Pictures of all of this will follow of course, but later. I need sleep.

My server (Moulinrouge) has been completely rebuilt and now sports a clean slate and a whack of services (Apache, Bind, DHCPd, Dovecot Imap, Exim, Fetchmail /w Procmail, MySQL, NTPd, Subversion and SSHd). My wireless is offline for now though since it would appear that I've run out of outlets on that side of the room. I left my good power strip at Melanie's so I'll have to go out and buy one tomorrow.

Things at the office are going very well. James and I are writing the Free software policy of the company and I got to write the preamble. When it's published, I'll post a link 'cause I'm rather proud of it.

That's it for now, to bed with me :-)

It's hard to believe it sometimes, but I just realised it today. It's been 3months since I left Toronto. Not that I've had time to settle of course. Only one month here in Vancouver, and while I'm well on my way, I'm no where near "settled"... won't be for some time I think.

Adjustments have been tough too. Sure it's still Canada but Vancouver is a very different place... at least for me. I've had to move back into the life I left, crowbar the new me into the old me's social circle. Some people still fit, others don't. And family... well we're always family, but it's taking them some time to get used to who I am now and not fixate on who I was when I left.

Living with the grandparents has been entertaining though. Aside from the fact that they're unapologetic racists, I've had pleasure of trying to explain to my grandfather that the reason his computer crashes with this program has performed an illegal action when he's looking at certain sites is not because they are trying to prevent it, but rather that his computer is running Windows 98 and is over 12years old.

I've also been able to "come out" to my grandparents with regard to my religious leanings. Until now, they were the only members of the family who didn't know that I was pagan and strangely enough, I was able to have a quiet, civilised conversation with my grandmother about it. She's Orthodox Christian, therefore she's not big on evangelism, so it was easier than one might think.

My grandfather still thinks I'm crazy for not believing in his god though, but he likes talking to the Jehovah's Witnesses so I don't take him too seriously :-)

For the most part though, I'm glad to be back. It's hard to explain, but the feeling I get when I tell someone that I'm going to the Vancouver Public Library is pretty great. It's a hell of a thing to live in a city with so much beauty. Seriously, Toronto people: come visit, see what I'm raving about.

Interesting things are happening down near the water on the East side of Toronto: someone is trying to build a Walmart. I rode my bike down there about a month ago and the whole area is being dug up in preparation for a sort of "power centre" (to borrow a phrase from Radiant City).

The new complex calls for roughly 2000 parking spots, yet claims to be an "urbanised" environment and Councillor Paula Fletcher isn't falling for it for a second.

Today City Hall denied Walmart permission to build its box down there and it did so in part due to support from people like her. It wasn't a big leap really, no one wants the damn thing there anyway so she's just acting as her constituents have asked. Frankly, I think that that area would be much better served by a mixed use residential/greenspace/commercial area, especially since it's right on what is possibly one of the prettiest bike lanes in the city.

Nice job Paula, keep up the good work. The fight isn't over yet (it rarely is with Walmart). The issue is expected to be brought before the Ontario Municipal Board sometime in the next month and sadly, that particular institution is not known for it's smart urban planning. If anyone has any ideas regarding how we might help the OMB make an intelligent decision, I'm all ears.

Torontoist has a great story dealing with the recent debate at City Hall over whether or not city-run vehicles should be permitted to sport those yellow "Support our Troops" ribbons. Frankly, I'm a big proponent of the "no" position, but I couldn't have possibly said it better than Ken Hunt:

At best, the yellow ribbon decals (like all the other ribbon campaigns) are merely a form of advertising. Putting on a ribbon is a way of acting like you're doing something, without actually making the effort to do anything. The yellow ribbon is especially powerful and popular because, like the Nike swoosh, it lets us affiliate ourselves with heroic actions and individuals without ever breaking a sweat.

Torontoist vs. Torontoist: "Support Our Troops", 2007-06-23

Of course, the post is considerably more fleshed out than this particular snippet, but I liked it so much I wanted to post it here.

I know, it's been a while since I posted anything here. Conveniently however, the reason for my absence is directly related to the topic of this entry: I blame the weather.

The hot, sticky, soup that is Toronto's "weather" between the months of May and September is the single strongest force pushing me out of this place and back to Vancouver. I've complained about the heat a lot here previously, so I won't bother going into it again. Instead, I thought I'd remark on the strange sort of sensations I've run into as a result of said stickyness.

For starters, suddenly everything feels harder. Riding my bike is more painstaking, walking down the street suddenly feels like a chore, and even sex carries the risk of passing out from the heat. The thickness in the air becomes a major barrier to everything you do in this city... even blogging.

It does lead to some interesting physical manifestations though. On days like this, I tend to take a shower after I get home, not to wash off the dirt, but to cool down and "un-sweat". However, because of the fluctuating body temperatures all over my skin, the shower feels differently depending on where it's targeted. On the back of my neck, it's cool and refreshing, but when it comes down on my head, it feels as though the temperature has gone up at least 3 degrees... The heat on the surface of my scalp is actually warming the water -- it's crazy.

The nice part though is that I'm using less hot water now. The A/C however is indispensible.

So, as mentioned in my previous post, I'm here at High Park enjoying the cherry blossoms. It's not as party-ish as I remember it from last year, but in all fairness, it's considerably earlier in the day than my visit back then.

I had an interesting revelation this afternoon. At this time last year, I was still working at Rydium. I was enjoying my brand new laptop so much so that I was taking it everywhere, just so I could blog about stuff.... As far as my laptop goes, not much has changed, but my personal life is considerably different.

My relationship with Melanie has been amazing so far. She keeps asking me to blog about how awesome she is, and I guess now is about as good a time as any. Melanie is pretty damn fabulous. It's a strange thing to spend a year with someone like her. You're still two very different people, but you both work very hard at trying to understand the other person better. I know that when she's upset, the best way to cheer her up is popcorn and diet fountain Coke with two straws, and she knows that I strongly believe that the Moulin Rouge soundtrack improves on any situation... even when you're laying quietly under the trees.

I guess that it's an inevitability of being with someone for this long: you start to get them, despite the giant walls we build around ourselves... It's a wonderful experience and one I'm happy to share with her.

Happy (belated) Beltane everyone.

There is a Cherry Blossom Party all day today in High Park. I went to this event last year and had a lovely time. I encourage everyone to come out to Toront's Cherry Blossom Party:

Looking to take a tour of a neighbourhood in Toronto? Or maybe you're just curious about the history of a pretty building on in Parkdale or Cabbage town? Whatever your interest, Jane's Walk is a free guided tour through the neighbourhood of your choice by a knowledgeable Toronto resident. Prominent Torontonians such as John Sewell and Adam Vaugn are on the list of tour guides, and some the list of neighbourhoods is also really diverse.

I'll probably be going to one, though I'm not sure which one yet. If you're interested in a particular trip, let me know and maybe we'll go together.

Thanks to Stephen for the link :-)

The Mayor has a plan to make Toronto greener. And while he thinks it's ok to install thousands of street furniture that use coal-fired energy to broadcast ads, he also has some good ideas too.

On the list are:

• Doubling the size of the tree canopy to 34 per cent, which would at least triple the number of trees the city plants every year from around 60,000 to 175,000.
• Cutting water consumption by requiring all homeowners to install a low-flow toilet, which uses 6 litres of water per flush. A conventional toilet uses 13 litres.
• Conserving 90 megawatts of electricity by 2012 -- enough to power more than 60,000 homes.
• Implementing an annual parking or motor vehicle registration fee to fund retrofits and renewable energy

All important goals, to be sure, but increasing the tree canopy has to have the greatest effect since it will reduce load on the sewer system (water retention in the soil), reduce energy use due to natural cooling in the summer time, and increase air quality... not to mention make Toronto prettier.

Anyway, the Star is doing an online poll on the above options, so if you're interested, you should check out their in-depth article (from which I copied the above items).