Andy McDandy Vent Page

In August 2011, I posted about my trip to/from Niagara Falls.  In that post I made comment of how hard it is trying to board and depart the train with a bicycle because of the center bar in the doorways.

Not only did I send a copy of that to GO Transit but have also emailed them several times since then, especially since the weather started become warm enough for bicycling.

Today, almost a full year later and STILL that damn center bar is there in the doorways designated for bicycles.

Will GO Transit ever start listening?  My guess is an absolute NO!.

Some exciting news here today.  The second massive tree that our hateful city called Oshawa wanted removed came down today…well most of it anyways.

A couple of weeks ago, myself, my friend (the home owner) and my cousin took down the massive front tree, the one I wrote about in the previous blog titled “City of Oshawa Hates It’s Residents”.  Below are some pictures of that day where we took the tree down all at once then quickly got it cut up so we didn’t block the road for too long.

Today I took some videos of the backyard tree coming down.  I will add photos as I get them from my friend (the home owner) who has some saved on his digital camera.  If you are wondering what I used to record these videos, they were all done on my Motorola RAZR smart phone then I had to convert them into Flash so they can be playable directly from this site.

Very recently I finally witness first hand just how little the City of Oshawa really cares about it’s residents.

I have been living in Oshawa for about 5 or 6 years now and being a public transit user, I have overheard many times people complaining about the City of Oshawa not giving any care to it’s residents.  Instead the city only seems to cater to one entity in Oshawa and that is Durham College/UOIT.

Having never experienced anything to indicate what others were saying, I never really believed it until now.

I live in a house where I rent the basement from a friend.  On the property was a large tree that leaned towards the road with a large limb extending across the road.  Many times since my friend purchased the house he has tried to get both the city and local hydro to help in bringing down this tree but both absolutely refused to help.

Not having much luck and my friend now trying hard to avoid bankruptcy, I decided to contact the city councilors and mayor myself requesting help in at least bringing down the one limb stretching across the road since the city has access to equipment like bucket trucks.  I explained the current financial situation and that the total time for one city employee to setup and make one cut would be no more than 30 minutes.  My friend and I could handle the rest including disposal but feared how we could get that one limb down with the hydro wires to the house running parallel with the limb.

The city response at first was somewhat positive having received a response from a couple of the councilors but it quickly turned out not to be positive at all.

The councilors passed my request on to another department with the city and in the end my friend ended up with a threatening letter from the city bylaw office demanding he take not only the front tree but also the backyard tree completely down and waste removed from the property with in 21 days or be fined.

To pay someone in removing both trees is about $6,000 which is impossible for someone who is already struggling financially but the city doesn’t care.  In other cities and towns in Ontario, if you ask for a little help in something like this, the city/town will be more than happy to help you out because they care about their residents.

As of today, June 16, we have been successful in bringing down and removing the front tree.  It involved blocking the entire road but we did it.  Now just the back tree to do which won’t be easy since it’s limbs stretch out over another building and the main cable/phone lines for the homes on this side of the road.

Conclusion:  If you have any thoughts of moving to Oshawa, Ontario, just keep in mind that you as a tax payer are shit to the city and will be treated as such when you need assistance.

Well, on Saturday, May 26th, I went for a long bicycle ride with a friend and for the first time, my cousin.

The ride started fairly well, I met up with my friend who was coming from Bowmanville and we proceeded to cycle towards Ajax.  There we would meet up with my cousin who is cycling from Scarborough.

I was doing fairly well, at least in my opinion, until close to the Whitby Marina where I started to really feel the lack of cycling over the Winter months.  Stopped in at a local Metro where I grabbed two Gatorades.  I also got a box a girl guide cookies and I know, not the best thing to buy but the little girl was so cute and these were the original chocolate and vanilla cookies, something that I have not seen sold in many years so I couldn’t resist.

Cycling from my place to East Oshawa then to Ajax at Hardwood Rd. along the waterfront trail was 25km and boy was I exhausted.

After a nice 10 minute break waiting for my cousin to arrive, we then proceed East to Bowmanville.  The plan was to end at my friend place and take in a swim and maybe a burger or two off the BBQ.

Well…By the time we hit the Whitby/Oshawa boarder, I was so exhausted I honestly thought I was going to collapse.  My back and shoulder blade was sooooooo sore plus my hands were getting extremely numb, needless to say I had to stop many times and lay down on the ground so the pain in my back would decrease enough for me to continue.  This also allowed my hands to get blood circulation back.

Many times I wanted to quit but my cousin would not allow me to.  We ended up stopping at the store inside the Darlington Park Camp Grounds so I could get some much needed food in to me.  This nice break also allowed my back and shoulders to get a bit of a relief before continuing onward.

We finally made it to the Bowmanville boarder and once again I was about ready to collapse but once again my cousin would not allow me to give up.  Finally we made it to my friend place but it was now after 11pm.  The total distance was just over 60km and in case you do not believe me, check out my enodmondo tracking map at: http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/58699898

Below are some pictures taken during the ride by both myself and my cousin when his phone battery became extremely low.

Well, yesterday was a great day for the Kids Help Phone 5km walk.  For the first time in I don’t know how many years, the weather was beautiful.  Years past the weather has been cold and raining so it was finally great to not have to wear pants and winter jacket.

I do feel that the Toronto Marathon took a lot of publicity away from the Kids Help Phone.  I don’t know if the Marathon organizers moved their event on purpose to steal away the publicity and donation dollars from Kids Help Phone or whether it was merely an oversight on their part.  Either way they should have done research first to make sure they would not be interfering with other fundraising organisations who are also doing outdoor walks/runs.

This year I managed to walk the full 5km with out stopping but it did come at a price.  I ended up with a fairly large and deep blister on the bottom of my foot near the big toe and second toe.  For the next few days it is going to be painful to walk but hopefully I will can get some money saved up and get myself new shoes from New Balance.  For those not familiar with New Balance, their shoes are made to fit in both the length and width plus have a great amount of cushioning in the soles.  When I first bought them years ago, my back pain did reduce to a point that was bearable again.

For those wondering how much I ended up raising, it was $85, $15 short of getting a free Kids Help Phone T-Shirt.  O well, I would rather get a visor type hat that says Kids Help Phone than a shirt which doesn’t fit.

Yesterday I went on my first bicycle ride of the year along the Oshawa River Trail down to the lake and back.  I was quite impressed with myself on making it up several hills coming back along the path.  In the past I usually had to dismount and walk my bike up these short hills but not this time.

After the short 10km ride my lower back and shoulders were aching even more so than usual so I figured I would probably wake up in complete agony but other than my shoulders still feeling extremely sore, my lower back and knees are at their usual pain level.

I hope to go bicycling again tomorrow, this time meeting up with a friend a couple of towns over.  Plan to meet at the Darlington Hydro Trail and walk a few laps.  Need to make sure that come May 6th I won’t be the last one to finish the 5km walk-a-thon for Kids Help Phone.  Reminder that if you want to sponsor me, simply click on the Bell Walk banner.  If not there, simply refresh the page and it will eventually come up.  Only 3 banners currently in rotation.

Well, I have been up since like 4am so back to bed I go.  Hopefully I can get a little bit more sleep before I start my day.

The other day while checking to see if MyFitnesPal app to connect with Fitbit was available yet, I noticed there was a Fitbit add-on called Endomondo available for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.  Since I have a BB I decided to check it out.  Apparently there are two versions of this app, one that is free and one that cost a very small amount of money, $5 I think it was.

Since I’m broke I downloaded the free edition, what’s the difference between the free and paid, well after searching the Endomondo website and finding absolutely nothing on this, even the hidden forum which doesn’t even exist at the Endomondo website, I decided to visit the app information page on the BlackBerry website.  There it was actually listed and the paid version actually has 4 extra features, the most important one being battery power saver option.

So as I said I downloaded the free version and gave it a try on Saturday when I was at a relatives and needed to visit the store.  The app talked about 30min in to my walk.  I didn’t know the app does this so of course it took me by surprise.  The app once again talked to me around the 1 hour mark but stopped recording shortly after that.  Now after reading the battery power saver feature in the pro, I can only assume the app stopped recording because of my battery power which was quite low when I closed the app after my walk.  My phone (Curve 3G 9300) was fully charged when I left my place so it was a shock to see just how much battery power this app used in just 1 hour of tracking.

I am hoping to use this app when the warm weather comes back and I can do my long bike rides again but I will need to purchase the paid version and see if this battery saver feature will allow me to run the app for up to 6 hours without my phone running out of power or will I need to rig some kind of solar panel on my mountain bike to get a constant charge to my phone?

You can check out Endomondo at http://www.endomondo.com

Yesterday I posted a small mention of heading to Niagara and my intention was to keep adding to the post through out the day from my Blackberry but unfortunately my Blackberry didn’t charge over night and therefore I had to turn off my cell to help save battery life until I could find a place to charge it.

Around 6:40am, my friend arrived to pick me up with my bicycle and we headed over to the Oshawa GO station.  When we arrived at around 6:50am there was no GO Transit employee selling tickets.  One person mentioned this to the GO Transit Security Officer who was there.  The officer appeared surprised and after a few minutes got in his car and left, never to be seen again.  My friend spoke to the VIA ticket person and was told that if no one shows up just to get on the GO train anyways but both my friend and I felt that would be wrong so at 7:20 when a GO bus came in to the station, he and I went over and asked the lady if we could purchase our tickets from her to which she kindly agreed.  I must say that I wish I had gotten her name so I could mention it to GO Transit because of all the GO bus drivers I have dealt with, this women was probably the most friendliest one in a very long time.

7:24am my friend and I got our tickets from the bus driver and we proceeded to grab our belongings from the van and went on to the train.  We chose the handicap car since there is no bar preventing bicycles from easily getting on and off the train but when the conductor came on board, he told us we could not be there.  He was not very friendly either, more bit of a grouch but what I don’t get is I have NEVER EVER seen anyone in a wheelchair get on the train of all the times that I have taken the GO since the wheelchair ramps were first brought out.  If GO Transit doesn’t mind people bringing bicycles on to the train in the other cars then they need to remove that damn middle bar in the door way to make it easier for bicycles to get on and off.  Leaving the bar in place is basically telling cyclists that we are not welcome on the train and that we should use our own car to take our bicycle to where we plan to bike ride.

We arrived at Union and transferred on to the Niagara bound train.  This train has two cars (should have been three going by the number of people with bicycles) where there is bike racks on the lower level and guess what…no middle bar in the doorway…if they can remove the middle bar on these cars then surely it can be done on the regular cars.

The train ride was quite pleasant and I now have an idea of some other areas I would like to bike around but not sure if I would take the GO unless they make it easier for cyclists to get their bicycle on and off the Lakeshore train.  In fact, I as well as other cyclists I spoke to, feel that the Lakeshore train on the weekends should have at least 1 car with the bike racks since most cyclists will travel by Train during this time.  I was also trying to get a group of friends together for this trip and if we did, we would either have to split everyone up amongst the train cars since the only area for the bikes can only hold 2 bicycles or everyone on one car with our bicycles blocking the seats and/or isle way which is not being respectful to other riders.

Shortly after 11am we arrived at the Niagara Falls train station and boy was I disappointed.  I would have thought that a station in a high attraction area like Niagara Falls would have a much more elaborate looking station.  Surely VIA and GO Transit could work together with Niagara Falls Casino, Marineland and other tourist attractions in the area to generate enough funds to improve the station.  One thing the station does need is some kind of shelter over the platform because if I was one of those people I saw using a walker and it happened to be raining when we arrived, they would have been completely soaked by the time they got to the actual station.  Why on earth the train stops so far away from the station is beyond me.

As we were leaving the train there was some nice people handing out maps for the area, this was great for someone like myself who has never been to the area.

My friend and I biked south along the Niagara Falls Parkway making short stops along the way so I could snap a few pictures before my cell phone completely dies.  Check out the photos below.  The Niagara Falls Parkway path is very long with no stores, water fountains or roadside vendors to purchase fluids from so if you decided to venture along this path South of the attraction area, make sure to pack plenty of extra bottles of fluids to drink.  I am surprised that along this very long route, Niagara wouldn’t have at least water fountains every couple km for people to refill their water bottles.  If the homes along this path are not on city water, the fountains could still get the water from the Niagara river right there with a filter system inside each fountain.

After riding along the parkway I was starting to feel extremely exhausted, mostly due to the problem just stated of no where to purchase more fluids so my friend and I decided to bike West along Sherk Rd. over to Sodom Rd then ventured North to Lyons Creek Rd where thankfully there was a chip truck selling bottle water.

After getting some water in to me, we ventured West again along Lyons Creek Rd to Stanley Avenue and proceeded North to McLeod Rd.  During this time I wished I had bought 4 or 5 bottles of water at the chip truck.  Had to make one stop along the way to take a 5-10 minute break to rest my back and knees which were really starting to hurt.

Once arriving at McLeod Rd, we proceeded West again to Drummond Rd and took another break at the 7 Eleven where I purchased two Gatorade2 950ml drinks for $4.  I drank almost both of them I was so thirsty.  After a 10 minute break we then went North up Drummond Rd to Lundys Lane and stopped at McDonalds so my friend could eat.  I was going to eat but after drinking all that Gatorade, I didn’t feel like eating anything so I just had a large Coke and boy was that refreshing.  We also managed to get a table that had an outlet so I could charge up my phone which was almost dead.

We stayed at McDonalds for at least 40 minutes then proceeded back to the train station.  We went East along Lundys Lane to Stanley Avenue, North up Stanley to Morrison since there was construction signs of Bridge Street being closed and proceeded East to Victoria then North to Bridge and East to the train station.

Arrived at the station around 6:30pm where we stayed until the train left at 7:20pm.  The total distance was 42km and that consist of both riding and walking.  Last night I was sure that I would be in extreme pain from this long ride but to my surprise my knee pain is at it’s usual level.  My lower back is hurting a bit more than usual but no where near as I was expecting.  My shoulders are much more stiff than usual and poor me, I don’t have a women in my life to give me a nice shoulder massage.

Well there you go, that was my day trip to Niagara Falls.  Will I go again, you bet but unless GO Transit changes their way and either add a bicycle car to the weekend Lakeshore trains or remove that damn middle bar in the doorway, I may actually look at driving to Niagara with my bike instead which would not only mean a loss of my $50 but also that of every friend I happen to gather up for the next trip.

My bike bent wheel got replaced the other day which is good news.  I have not yet taken it for a ride because I have not had much energy to do anything physical, not sure if it is the anti-depressants I am now on or what.  I still need to get a water bottle holder for the bike and I want to get a odometer so I can keep track and record my biking distance on My Fitness Pal.  Hope to have both items picked up today.

The folks at Unigine have created a brand new trailer for the up and coming game called Oil Rush which will be available for all PC’s (Windows/Mac/Linux) as well as PS3.  If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, do so because I think it will intrigue you to purchase this great looking game.  I do believe they are still taking pre-orders which will give you early access to the three PC versions.  They are now on build 0.65 and although I have not yet had time to check it out, those who have are impressed with it.

New Oil Rush Trailer