Search with Google

Custom Search

Saturday, April 25, 2009

On Riding in the East End

I know, I have not posted in a little while. I am actually working on something but I've been busy at work lately, well I'm always busy, but now its just insane, not Ronald Regan, sleep through meetings insane, more Barack Obama, I cannot believe what a huge mess you idiots left me insane. No nobody I work with is an idiot who handed me a mess, I just feel swamped and under fire, I suspect a great deal like the senior people in the Obama administration.

Have I mentioned I really like President Obama, I know rating a president after one hundred days is a lot like rating a restaurant on quality of the bread they put out before the appetizer, but still, it is so refreshing to hear the President of the United States actually level with the people. And the part where he said something to the effect of "Look I am disgusted with this torture business but let the justice department and the attorney general do their jobs. We have these agents for a reason let them work free from political interference and we will have much more satisfactory results." Some how in a hundred bajillion years I cannot see the previous president doing something like that, probably because he went out of his way to slime his predecessor.

Anyway I could go on for a while about how good it is to see a President of the US who is so inspiring for a change, but I actually wanted to talk about the ride I did this morning, and here it is, or see below.


As I was riding up Altona Road and just North of Sheppard I noticed a new housing development, The Chateaus of Altona Forrest, for the second time. I went up the same route with my brother two weeks ago, at that time we turned for home at Taunton, this time I went much further, but anyway, when my brother and I were riding up Altona and he noticed the development he said something interesting, housing developments are often named after the very thing they destroy.

Well in the spirit of people in glass houses not throwing stones, my home is built on what was a pile of mud, prior to that it was the Greenwood horse race track and prior to that my Grandfather had not been born. I guess the point is, urban sprawl is a really bad thing, and anyone who doubts that must be in the home construction industry.

Its actually pretty frightful how long it takes to get into the country side now, when I was young highway 16 was the demarcation between the sprawl and farms, now it is Elgin Mills. When my father was just a little younger than I am now it was Steeles and at one time nobody lived east of the Don River. I know seven million people who live in the greater Toronto area need lots of space, but does everybody need to have a fully detached house with a driveway and quarter acre lot? I get by with a lot less, if we all got by with less I suspect many of the problems we are faced with today would be a lot less too.

No comments: