— Musings —02.02.2011 11:31 AM
W@AL: Do the right thing, Rob Ford
I survey the snow-bound streets of Yorkville, and make a heart-felt plea to His Worship.
That is a big snow-covered rock behind me, by the way. It cost $250,000. Barbara Hall did it.
— Musings —02.02.2011 11:31 AM
I survey the snow-bound streets of Yorkville, and make a heart-felt plea to His Worship.
That is a big snow-covered rock behind me, by the way. It cost $250,000. Barbara Hall did it.
As much as I could care less about Barbara Hall, don’t hate on the Big Rock in Yorkville. Here’s some reasons why:
– $250,000 is squadoosh in terms of city building
– it’s a landmark………”hey, meet me at three at the big rock, ok?”
– it’s a reminder of the Canadian Shield that our city sits on
– it was part of a super-cool art installation during Nuit Blanche
– in the summer, it’s a place for people to congregate and have lunch
– kids love climbing it
Big rock good.
“Squadoosh.” I love that. I’m going to use that.
I stand corrected!
That one line of argument is now worth squadoosh.
Squadoosh. God, I love that word.
While I sympathize with your embarrassment about Mel calling in the army (I have friends?!!! who still tease about it), my family was very grateful. My first husband was dying of cancer at the time and he wanted to die at home. Our nurses and palliative care doctors, who made sure Rick had enough morphine to cope with the pain, were delayed hours trying to reach our home just north of Yonge and Eglinton. It got to the point where we were being told that my husband should probably be in the hospital rather than at home.
Once the streets were cleared with the extra help, there were no more delays and my husband was able to die at home with his family around him.
Still embarrassed? A bit, but for us, it made a world of difference.
Thanks for that. But the comment was obviously intended to be funny. My apologies if it offended you.
Well, Snowmaggedon this wasn’t. It looks like the worst of it passed to the south. Chicago’s been hit bad, but for us the snow has been an annoyance at worst.
But I suspected that today’s weather wasn’t going to be nearly as bad as some people had feared. I could tell because the accumulations the forecasters were forecasting were below the 1999 snowfall which made Mel call in the army.
For reference, most forecasts were calling for 20-30 centimetres of snow — less than a foot. We’ve had worse snowfalls in memory. The only real concern was the presence of high winds whipping the stuff up and shutting down visibility. But that’s still less than what Toronto had to plough in 1999. The storm of 1999 was actually two storms, in quick succession, which dumped over 50 centimetres of snow on the city. That’s getting close to two feet, and I don’t care where you live, that’s going to cause some paralysis.
The city has also seemed to have learned from its mistakes in the 1999 event, when accumulations shut down the open sections of the Toronto subway and took significant portions of the bus and streetcar network offline. The TTC soon figured out what it needed to do (heated third rails, extra equipment, et cetera) to keep the system online even during the big event. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. As of the time of this writing, the TTC is listing no major service disruptions in its system. Back just a few years ago, the Scarborough RT would have been taken offline at least. But today it’s still operating, all exposed to the snow.
If anybody wants to remember the famous Storm of ’99, here are some pictures from that day.
Oh, c’mon, it’s winter in Canada, adjust!
I am not at all offended, sometimes there are circumstances (emergency vehicles not being able to reach people who are very ill) requiring ‘extreme’ action.
I do appreciate your humour and look forward to it daily!
I’ve heard it said that after a major rain storm in the summer of ’98,
Lastman requested the navy help Toronto from the 1mm of rain on the ground.
He was turned down because Chretien had already booked the canoe that weekend. 🙂
I appreciate that opened TO to a lot of jabbing but I thought it was OK for our military to be involved in their country in that way. I would OK with seeing more of that kind of thing where it can happen, from coast to coast to coast. An expression of national pride and connectedness for service men and women and civilians alike.