Month: June 2012

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.