The pothole, the cyclists and the lawyer

Hey, this is great. The Star is totally taking this guy to task for being a whiny self-centred moron. Seriously - take your screw-ups like an adult (not like a man, b/c I seriously doubt the Flygurls would appreciate the putdown). Anyway, ordinarily I wouldn't post the entire article, but the star will block access in 14 days and I want to make sure that this is still around. And, if any of my many lawyer acquaintances actually know this putz, tell him to learn how to bike rather than suing a bunch of people doing yeoman's work protecting a little-known but beautiful part of the countryside.
Seriously. This makes me angry (and most of you are fully aware of how passive-aggressive I am, so this is unusual). Take some responsibility for your actions. You choose to bike on a single track trail. You fall. That happens. It's supposed to happen. Otherwise there would be no fear and no challenge and no reward for actually pushing yourself. If you don't want that to happen, don't leave the spin class. Pick up bocce. How is this anyone's fault but his? Frankly, I'm amazed that he didn't opt to sue his bike manufacturer for not outfitting his ride with a pothole detector and avoidance system. Argh.

Thank you Slinger for breathing some common sense into this:
The Kolapore Uplands, 5,000 hectares of the Niagara Escarpment a little south and west of the bottom end of Georgian Bay, is the largest and roughest patch of semi-wilderness left in southern Ontario. Steep and rugged, what isn't cliff face or exposed rock is hardwood forest regrown since being clear-cut a century ago. It is a dreamscape for the craziest risk-takers, and since the 1970s, the University of Toronto Outing Club and the Kolapore Uplands Wilderness Ski Trails Committee have cut 60 kilometres of trails through it that are earnestly posted 'Challenging Ski Trails - Not For Novice Skiers.' They are volunteer organizations; the trails are maintained by volunteers; anybody can use them for free. Costs are covered by donations, which totalled $2,600 this year, and the sale of a trail map without which it is easy to blunder into even greater peril.
Since the volunteers' interest is solely skiing, in seasons when there is no snow the trails are left to fend for themselves. But in the 1990s the mountain bike appeared, and with it the mountain bikers who discovered in Kolapore the hellishly beautiful terrain that makes their testosterone-charged adrenalin bubble and boil. The best (that is, the worst) of the trails earn the highest mountain-biking accolade: radical. Presumably 'totally radical'' would be prying open elevator doors at the CN Tower and biking down the empty shaft. It's unlikely that the lack of maintenance for cycling is considered a drawback.

Then along came James Leone, 31, a Torontonian who, last Aug. 1, was on a trail that bikers grade as "easiest" when, according to documents filed in court, "suddenly and without warning his bicycle came to an abrupt stop" and he was thrown forward, "striking the ground with sudden and violent force." Plunging into a "hole in the ground, the depth, size and location of which constituted an unusual danger" might sound like something that's all in a day's (or five minutes') adventure for a mountain biker, except for one thing: Leone is a lawyer.
As one of the country's foremost legal experts explained to me, the first thing first-year law students learn the first day of civil procedure is, when you sue, "sue everything in sight." Leone is suing the outing club, the ski trails committee, the regional trails network, the local municipality and the province (which owns the land where he encountered the alleged hole) — everything but the sky above and the Earth itself. He wants $1,150,000 in damages for expenses and lost income as a result of a fractured vertebra he says he suffered, while his co-plaintiff — his wife, Ashley, who wasn't biking — "sustained a loss of guidance, care and companionship" she might reasonably have expected if he hadn't run into said hole.
Leone's stated position is that, whether they like it or not, the volunteer organizations and the province, by permitting the trails to exist on its land, are responsible for creating "a situation of danger from which the plaintiff, despite all reasonable efforts and precautions was unable to extricate himself," and that they "failed to take reasonable care to protect the plaintiff from the unusual danger, of which they knew or ought to have known." Leone and his lawyer declined several requests for an interview, so we don't know the answers to three questions I left on his voice mail. Was he alone? Given the seriousness of his injuries, how did he make his way from the site of the wreck? And how much mountain-biking experience did he have, or was this his first time?
These lead to other questions. If a hole in the ground was such a surprise, would he have been better off mountain biking on a sidewalk in Toronto (although holes abound in them)? If the hole was big enough to crack up in, how did he fail to see it if he was "exercising reasonable care for his own safety" as his statement of claim attests?
And how come nobody else crashed into such a big hole, or did they and just figured that's the way it goes?

Certainly skiers have gotten hurt on the trails, some of them local experts, some severely — but nobody has ever sued before. Mountain biking ain't kiddie car. By suing, James Leone might make it so that nobody can do either. Even if he loses, chances are that the limited insurance the volunteer organizations carry will become so expensive they can't afford it, or it won't be available at all. This would force them to stop the work they've done for years. The trails would disappear. It is a curious thing, and it seems to be verging on epidemic — people refusing to accept responsibility for their own actions. If something bad happens to you, even if it happened because you did something beyond your abilities or plain foolish, blame somebody else. Nothing is your fault.

MakeZine.com:

Cool. Realworld, hardwear hacks.

Paddling Central Ontario

Toronto
"It's often hard to convince people that you can run white water in the Toronto region let alone the city of Toronto. The Don, the Humber and the Rouge Rivers all have some good white water runs in the in the spring, while nearby Dufferin Creek provides another option.
Humber - II-III/IV. Season March, April and after a long heavy rain. Put In just west of Weston Road just below the 401 - Take Out at Dundas. Located in the western part of the city, the river parallels the 400 before it crosses under the 401. It roughly parallels, and runs west of Jane Street for the remainder of its course. The white water section is located between highway 401 and Dundas Avenue and runs through Weston Golf Clubs before it's back into public greenspace in Cruickshank Park followed by Cruickshank, Lions Raymere, Scarlett Mills then James Gardens, Lambton Woods.
NOTE: There are a series of dams with wicked keepers on route, two are located on the section after the bridges. Scout the whole section and consult with local paddle shops before making a run on any part of this river. The river is prone to deadfalls, strainers and sweepers and the dams are potential killers. "

Wired 13.03: The Book Stops Here

One for Shawn. . .

Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!

Also, to add to my car saga, I went out last night to drive to a volleyball and it wasn't where I had parked it on First Avenue. Trying not to leap to troubling conclusions, I figured I had confused where I had parked it on Sunday. So, I jogged around the neighbourhood looking for it. No joy. And I'm now late for volleyball. So I call the parking hounds, and it's been towed.

Apparently the parking permit fell off the front window and the parking police issued three tickets (at $30 each) before having it towed ($140).

Buried Bridge in Toronto

Crawford Street bridge in 1917. It is now buried in the north end of Trinity Bellwoods Park.

Wish list

So. Some people have said posting a gift list would be both presumptuous and useful.
Here are some off the top of my head - please keep in mind that no one should feel any pressure to get me any of these items. In general, I'd rather spend time with most of the people who might be reading this (preferably somewhere cool, or unique, or exotic, or convenient, or scenic ) - so if you'd rather play outfitter, and design a trip, well, that'd be good too.

Better cookware
Canoe
Drill
Wetsuit
Sofa or sofa
Ottoman
mp3 player - HD based or flash
Tennis racquet
Art
DVDs
Digital Camera - ideally 5Mb and 10X optical zoom
Some good grips kitchen stuff

GigaPixel Camera!

Sweet. Not particularly portable though.

A Coder in Courierland

"Oh, right. So you want to be a bike courier? You read this whole article looking for a few simple tips to make the transition easier?" Well, here they are:

• Have two bikes. You don't want to miss a day or two's work every time something fails on your bike and neither do you want some asshole bike thief to deprive you of the ability to pay your bills with one fell swoop of the bolt cutter. Anyway, no matter how fast your primary bike is, it feels nice to switch it up every now and then.
• Buy a map. A good one. No matter how well you think you know the streets, you will be referencing it a lot. So don't buy a folding one, buy one that's bound like a book. Ideally, a water-proof one at that.
• Put some money away from the big paycheques so it doesn't hurt as much when you get the small ones.
• You will fall. Wear a helmet and then don't stress about it. That said: First learn to ride safe, then learn to ride fast.
• Capacity is more important in a bag than style.
• Don't bother packing a lunch the week of hallowe'en. Every secretary's desk will have a bowl of free candy on it.
• And finally: Be best friends with the dispatcher.

...and the final height was 152 ft. Cool.

Leaning Tower of Alaska 

The end of the ice tower, 1 

Just a little offroute.  

The Family! 

The Ides of March

So, Caesar had a bad day a couple of millenia ago, and now my birthday is cursed. But on the upside, at least it sometimes prompts people to remember it. Although frankly, I have my doubts about the siblings. In fact, I'd offer roughly 1:1 odds that neither remembers it, 2.5:1 that one of them remembers enough to make a phone call, and 5:2 that they mailed anything to me.

Not that I'm bitter or anything. Here's an open question - how inappropropriate is it to list gift desires publicly? Now that I've had a job for a while, I've bought a bunch of toys for myself already - and the number of affordable toys I desire is declining somewhat. So, is it bad form? Is it massively presumptuous?

Postscript: not 2 minutes after this was posted, Wallis Minor called :)

NOW: T.O.'s 100 best bars

NOW's third annual lineup of T.O.'s most essential dives, gin joints and watering holes.

Oops 

Ragged Falls revisited

A picture from the Ragged Falls post. This is one of the reasons we thought it might be impossible to paddle. Apparently, and not surprisingly, we were wrong.

From past family summer vacations... This one was the Asulkans.  

Handwritten Clock

Click and enjoy

PubliCity

In Toronto alone, there are over 100 documented local
photoblog sites listed on toronto.photobloggers.org (a hub for blog activity in
Toronto), and thousands more from around the world are listed on photoblogs.org
(a global directory of photoblogs and resources).

And they're having a public show (well, a real-world show).

"Work wife" vs Real life

An essay on that key person you have at work:

"The people we make fun of are the people we don't want to become. By telling a work spouse who we aren't, we're telling her who we are. For many men, this qualifies as intimacy. Admittedly, the intimacy of a work marriage is often based on stuff that no one else would get. With your work spouse, it's all inside jokes and finely honed impersonations that can never be fully appreciated by an outsider. It is the very essence of You Had to Be There. Although a lot of work-spousal activity happens in public places - at a conference table, in a meeting - the mental place you go to in those moments is a zone that no one else, other than you and your work spouse, will ever enter. When someone you both hate does something profoundly annoying or stupid, you look at each other instinctively, move an eyelash or swallow a certain way, and everything is thoroughly grokked and agreed. "

In lieu of the NHL, we present Youngblood!

"On the flip side, you can't have a better final game than Youngblood did: Two goals in the final 10 seconds of a championship game (giving you a hat trick), plus, you cold-cock the guy who maimed your friend, and you go home with the coach's daughter. The end. Think about it ... what sports movie character topped that performance in a single night?
Roy Hobbs and Rocky Balboa had to go to the hospital; Paul Crewe had to go back to jail; Danny Noonan was stuck with Maggie; Jimmy Chitwood was stuck in 1950; Henry Steele still had to transfer; Kelly Leak had to drive the Bears all the way back from Houston to California; I mean, you can keep going down the list, and I guarantee that nobody was riding higher than Dean Youngblood that night.
3. That reminds me, in the mid-'80s, Rob Lowe played a champion rower at Oxford, then he played a hard-partying saxophone player, then he played a hotshot Canadian hockey star ... and nobody ever questioned this chain of events. Strange time to be alive.
4. Given that there have been six original hockey movies made over the past 30 years - 'Slapshot', 'Youngblood', 'Mighty Ducks', 'Mystery, Alaska', 'Miracle' and the delightful 'Sudden Death' - and all of these movies are loved by hockey fans to varying degrees, it's safe to say that you can't screw up a hockey movie.
So let's start making more of them, please. Now that professional hockey has done an Exit Stage Right, we need more Russell Crowes and Paul Newmans. We need more Ed Lauters and Kurt Russells. Heck, we even need more Rob Lowes."

First Descent of Ragged Falls

Wow. A bunch of us paddled the Oxtongue River and portaged around this. In fact, we had a lunch next to it. And even though the water levels were reasonably low, this looked completely undoable, in that the risk factor looked lethal.

Finding The A-team

A practical joke on Craig's List. Great responses.

I love it when a plan comes together!

The top of Mt. Babel, looking towards Mt. Temple.  

Ashbridges Bay in winter 

NB - this is not my picture. I borrowed (and I'll link back as soon as I remember) it from here: http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/archives/photos_landscape/050213_1034.shtml where there is a tonne of great shots. Anyway, I did go for a walk here and it is very interesting - although it was better in February, when it was fully icy, like the next shot - also borrowed as I forgot my camera.  

The Pugly Awards

Fun concept - recognizing the best and worst of 2004's developments in Toronto. And wow, I think I voted 70/30% in favour of thumbs down. Just goes to show that there's a lot of crappy condos/office buildings in Toronto.