New Set of Wheels
So with about three weeks to go (eek!) until my much-anticipated move to downtown Toronto, I’m making big decisions about how my “downtown lifestyle” is going to go. One of those that I made a long time ago is that I would not have a car. Originally it was due to the absurd prices for buying a downtown parking spot (which has now reached an average of about $35,000), but now with Rising Fuel Costs, it’s all the more reason for me to ditch it and go the simplicity route. There’s also a lot to be said for a car-less life. For me, my car has really just become a point of stress in my life, so while it’s a great little car and I’ll miss it a lot, I’m not really going to shed a tear when I get to ditch that expense.
That’s why I decided to go shop for a bike, which I determined would be my primary mode of getting around the city 6-7 months of the year, saving substantial public transit costs, and giving me an awesome set of legs in the process! It took me several weeks of testing a whole variety of different bikes, but I finally settled on one that, like my Mini, I just fell in love with the moment I set eyes on it.
The Trek Soho S is an “urban” bike by their classification, one that’s ideally suited for city living, and is a single-speed - meaning not gears at all. Just me, the pedals, and the road. Again, getting back to that simplicity word, there’s something so pleasant about riding a single-speed that I never really thought I’d go for. I’ve always had a mountain bike with lots of gears that could take me up a 70 degree hill if I really wanted.
Then again, I’ll be living in downtown Toronto, an area where you’d be hard-pressed to find anything more than a 20 degree incline. Surprisingly enough, through my first few weeks with the Soho S, I’ve been able to tackle big, suburban hills in and around the city with little to no issue. It takes a little more gusto on the pedals, but I appreciate the workout.
Dear Toronto #2 - Video Games Live
Over at Dear Toronto, Episode 2 (Video Games Live) is now up!
Dear Toronto #1 - Snow Fort
Dear Toronto, the new video project I’ve started with Ryan and Rebecca has gone live
Let it Snow
I’m hearing that Toronto got hit with another round of snow today - I say keep it coming! Last winter was so grey, dry, and dull that the snow is really a beautiful addition to a usually bleak landscape in the winter.
My Second Home (for now)
Through an entirely unexpected series of events, I’m working and living in Denver for at least the next two months. I guess “living” isn’t entirely accurate since I’m lodged in a hotel throughout the week, and back in Toronto on the weekends. It feels like living, anyway.
Denver’s an interesting city. It’s much smaller in population density than Toronto, has much more sophisticated urban planning, and looks and feels generally like a “cleaner” city. That has its ups and downs, for sure. Maybe it’s due to its multiculturalism, but Toronto has this really vibrant, diverse feeling. As you walk through different neighbourhoods, you get the feeling of this kind of cultural tapestry.
The streets aren’t as well kept as Denver’s, but this allows for the development of lots of unique and interesting citizen groups, that take matters into their own hands. The Toronto Public Space Commitee’s Guerilla Gardener group comes to mind immediately.
I always find that the most compelling parts of a city are its outskirts; Misfit neighbourhoods like Queen West are something that Toronto has in spades. Granted, I’ve only been here a few days, and I’ve seen some cool parts so far (including 17th Street East), but I hope the time I get to spend here lets me discover some more interesting locales.
Art Hangover
While I didn’t take a whole lot of shots on Saturday night at Nuit Blanche with my SLR, this one is certainly one of my faves from Kristen Roos’ The Ghost Station project at the now abandoned Lower Bay Subway station in Yorkville. The irony of this shot is that this is an actively used subway car, yet it looks aged and abandoned.
I spent the entire night, iPhone in hand (which I plan to properly, and exhaustively review at some point still), sending text and photo updates over Toronto Hydro’s WiFi network live to blogTO, and it’s been getting a ton of good feedback from our readers.
For me, it was a really great experiment in several different kinds of technologies converging. In the early hours of the evening, I was ready to give up after having to deal with spotty WiFi coverage in central Toronto, but thankfully that got better as the night went by.
I’m sure I started to become a bit of a nuisance to friends I was out with for the night, stopping every 5 minutes while within range of a good access point to send a photo and sentence or two to the blog.
Part of covering these events as ‘media’ (however you define the term nowadays), is that I’m constantly looking out for interesting things to share, and while I get to experience it all, it can (and often is) highly demanding on my energy and attention to be passively or actively recording the information. I’m still feeling the hurt today of nearly a full 12 hours of walking, typing, and snapping. Was it all worth it though? Absolutely.
Now in Print!
I got a call from one of my friends last week, all excited when he saw my name credited in ‘Homework’, a feature on real estate in Toronto in this month’s fab magazine. I also contributed a photo to that piece as well as another feature on Leslieville.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really excited to have my name in print. Up until now, my writing has been limited (though it feels wrong using that word) to the virtual world, so I’m hoping to take on other new and exciting opportunities like this down the road!
Commuters GO Mad at Rush Hour Chaos
If you hadn’t heard it on the news already, there was mass crowding and chaos at Union Station as Toronto Police and GO officials faced the consequences of a nasty pedestrian fatality near Eglinton station earlier today.
Trains beginning at around 4pm were delayed or canceled outright just as rush hour passengers poured into Union Station only to face red and yellow text across the departure screens. Many sighed and cursed as they knew they were in for long delays, and because this wasn’t a first-time occurrence for many. In fact, it happens all too often both on GO Transit’s lines and the TTC’s subway tunnels. Why are we so acclimatized to this kind of thing happening that it barely even makes front page news in the papers?
TTC Fare Hike Incoming
Breaking on blogTO: TTC Wants to Hike Fares by 15 cents
Less ‘Burbs, More Urb’
Just as fast as I managed to get myself in at what might possibly be the most ideal working situation I can imagine myself having, I’ll soon be doing the same with my living situation.
As of Saturday afternoon, I officially have a small chunk of downtown Toronto real-estate held under my name, with the final papers to be signed next week.
With all the opportunities in the city, I opted to buy new, and will be moving in to a fantastic building in the St. Lawrence Market/King Street area next year in May.
I took it upon myself to get out early and take some nice shots of car while clean in the now winding-down summer (accept it, it’s easier that way). It’ll be going up for sale likely in late March to early April next year, at which point I’ll be delightfully car-less, so if you’re interested in a well kept, hell of a fun Mini, be sure to drop me a line sooner rather than later.
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Adam is a User Experience Specialist at IBM in Toronto and also produces content of all kinds around the Web.
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