On The Next Mayor

Robert Ford got elected mayor on Monday, in retrospect I have to admit, much as I find the man detestable I can see why so many people voted for him. I wrote the following in a comment in the Globe and Mail web site, I think it sums things up nicely.

I live in Toronto, but would never vote for Ford, as an avid cyclist and firm believer in the importance of immigration into the city I would never want a man like that running things. But I suspect the reason a lot of people did vote for Ford was frustration, salaries are stagnant, debts are increasing, the cost of living is only going up, the value of homes is expected to go down.

In this personal financial disaster, garbage men go on strike so that they can keep bankable sick days [In 2009 city workers all went on strike for about a month], city councillors (mine, although I didn't live in the beach when she got elected) are using my property taxes to sue people, and general waste on the part of council (who voted themselves a raise during a recession and major strike). Well anyone who wasn't promising to hurt those who would go on strike, or even better those who voted for a raise whilst the rest of us were hurting, couldn't possibly expect to do well.

I have to admit, I am not keen on my choice of language, "anyone who wasn't promising to hurt those" is quite a bit more violent than I like, but on the other hand that does seem to embody the spirit of the Rob Ford revolt. Still I have to wonder, all of this talk, reducing taxes, cutting waste, finding new efficiencies. What will Ford do when he realises that he cannot possibly save more than a percent or two from the city budget without really making those less fortunate among us, those who need city services like public transit, really start to suffer? Somehow I suspect the Ford years are going to be marked by a new level of stratification.

I hope I am wrong.

On Ranting, An Addition

Like most old media news sites, the Globe and Mail allows for people to comment on articles. Well I am of the opinion that the Globe and Mail's comment section must surely be the most heavily loaded with grumpy curmudgeonly old farts web site out there. Holy smokes, what a bunch of complainers and right wingers! They should have a pop-up on the, Join the Conversation, link, the pop-up could read: all hope abandon, ye who enter here.

What else is going on? No much, I went for a ride on Saturday, it was a nice ride, but too short. It was widely expected to rain on Sunday so I slept in, which I have to admit was nice. (It would have been nicer if the boys - cats - would let me keep sleeping, but they decided that I ought to get out of the bed and they can be very persuasive.) It did rain on Sunday, as expected, so I did not feel all that guilty sleeping in and then doing house work.

The bike frame that caused my hit counter to spin a couple weeks ago will go up on ebay. I'd really like to sell this thing already damnit!

Oh yes, Toronto is electing a new mayor today, must... restrain... myself... Rob Ford... is... a... won't... say... it...

Ah ha! I didn't call the councillor from Etobicoke North a total douche bag! Oh ooops. Anyway at this point we've all heard the arguments why Ford was an accident, but, the angry ranters who seem to populate the comment section of the Globe and Mail are running rampant all over the polling stations. I fear to wake up tomorrow and discover that fat incompetent is my mayor, but it happened once before and we survived that idiot, barely. If Rob Ford becomes mayor maybe Leslie and I can move to London, Boris Johnson rides a bike, and it sure would be nice to watch Top Gear without adverts.

On Destructive Rantings

Okay with a subject like that, and given that right now my thoughts are of the upcoming municipal election, one might expect I would go after the highly bombastic, bullying, obese, wife abusing, drug addicted, DWI (in Florida in 1999, same time he got busted for pot) candidate for mayor (and ahead in the polls) Robert Ford.

Now in fairness, whenever Mister Ford opens his mouth he reminds me of the guy who sold me my beat up used VW Jetta. (I ended up needing to do all kinds of work to make the car road worthy, because the dealer was a liar and a crook, hey he was a used car salesman, every time I hear Rob Ford open that mouth of his I cringe.

Anyway I do not need to rant, this morning I got around to reading the Focus section (Editorials section) of the Saturday Globe and Mail. (Hey it takes me a week to plow through a Saturday Globe, but I do keep up on the website... or used to, ever since they redesigned everything I've been seriously contemplating cancelling my subscription, that paper really went down hill fast.)

Anyway in the Saturday Focus section of The Globe there was an article about how Mister Ford is an everyman because he is fat. I cannot show the article here because The Globe pulled it from their website on account of the fact that the Ford people were complaining it was offensive and inappropriate. (This from a guy who routinely bullies his fellow councillors during council meetings, just do a YouTube search for Rob Ford, there are tons of examples.)

But my personal favorite, Rob Ford has a single lawn sign, it's white with red and blue print, as if he were American or something! (News flash Mister Ford, Toronto is, last I checked, still in Canada.) Anyway more significantly, the sign reads something to the effect of "Rob Ford, Respect for taxpayers." Of course it might help here if I explained something, Rob Ford says he will reduce our taxes, while cutting spending (fair enough), yet have no impact to front line services (excuse me?) and reduce the municipal budget deficit at the same time (WTF??). How is this respect for rate payers? When last I checked, building roads, sewers, hiring police and firefighters cost money. Paying down the debt costs money, this money comes from taxes. How on earth is it respectful to say "I will do the impossible if I am elected." Frankly that is the Rob Ford "Respect for Taxpayers".

Certainly there is very little respect for voters intelligence, but then Toronto is a pretty tolerant city, we had the first legal gay marriage, and gay divorce in North America, city publications go out in something like 23 different languages, our gay pride parade is one of the biggest in the world. I think we'd rather have the "Kenyan, Muslin, student of Rev. Wright, palin around with terrorists" black fellow by the name of President Obama as our Prime Minister than that scary white guy from Alberta who really is an economic terrorist! (Well personally I'd rather have Prime Minister Obama on his worst day than Stephen Harper any day!) Anyway my point is, sure we're tolerant, we are so tolerant we will take a blithering idiot and make him our mayor, heck we did it once already, Mel Lastman! So I guess the real question is, would a Mayor Ford be worse or just as bad as Mayor Lastman? My money is on Ford being worse.

Anyway enough wining about a guy who cannot control his eating, or wife abusing. (Sorry but then you know, if you run for public office, probably not wise to hit your wife... and no, just because I never hit Lesley does not in any way imply I plan to run for office, rather it implies I have a very small amount of decency.)

On a totally unrelated note, on Thanksgiving Monday, October 11, I rotated Jordan's tires. I rode to work on Tuesday and Friday, I rode on Saturday, Sunday and again to work yesterday (Monday). In one week I covered over 500km, I am already past the half way point to another tire rotation. Holy smokes! No wonder my legs are sore. I love riding, too bad it was raining this morning or I'd be past 600km by the end of today. Maybe a weather induced break will be a good thing though, like I said, my legs are sore. A couple days of healing will probably do a lot of good.

On Rain

It is really difficult to think of anything to write when a guy's been away from the saddle as long as I have. (Two whole days!) Actually two days is not so bad, last week sucked, because I was primary on call looser boy, I rode once, Monday. I got caught in the rain and spent the rest of the week and into the weekend cleaning Jordan. End result, in the last fourteen days, I have been on the saddle just a few times.

So thanks to the rain I have to drive to work. Only it is worse than that, because my mother was in a car accident (she's fine, car needs some body work). Mum is now without a car so I loaned her my old Jetta on the, mistaken, belief that it was going to be a nice week and I could ride all week long. Now I have to ride Lesley's gas guzzler. (Lesley likes her truck, but last night I filled the tank, hoping I could ride today and leave Lesley with a full tank, 3/8'ths of a tank on an Audi Q5 costs as much as a full tank of diesel for the Jetta.)

You know I have to admit, I am too car dependant, I was thinking this morning, I should ride the Coppi to work in the rain (on the other hand 25km on slick roads). But then I look at my baby boomer parents and the very notion of getting around without using fossil fuels fills them with dread.

Frankly this attitude of the car is a god to be worshiped, it's the Rob Ford view of the universe!, or at least North America. We already live in a world of peak oil, that much is obvious, consider the chart below which I pulled from here. Now one thing to note is this chart ends just as the 2008 recession really started to hit. As of October, 14 2010 (Thursday) at 09:20:28 the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (the benchmark crude that the graph below plots) is $83.45.



In other words, with the exception of the pre-recession high, back in July or August of 2008, oil has never been as expensive as it is today, and we are very nearly in a double dip recession right now!

Heck lets, consider the price of oil over the last 150, or so, years. (This graph was also pulled from here.)



So in fact the only time oil has been as expensive as it is now (now being since peak oil set in, which would be, I believe, around 2004) was when we first discovered the stuff and were trying to figure out how to pull it out of the ground.

But really, the real reason we should worry about how we get to keep driving, here is a graph from Wikipedia of non-OPEC and Russian oil. Note that we have in fact peaked.



Now some wise guy is going to comment that there is Russia and OPEC (and unconventional oil) are not included. Well consider this:

[World] reserves are confused and in fact inflated. Many of the so-called reserves are in fact resources. They're not delineated, they're not accessible, they’re not available for production.
— Sadad I. Al-Husseini, former VP of Aramco, presentation to the Oil and Money conference, October 2007.

Or I like this graph, also from Wikipedia.



It is a graph of OPEC reported reserves, the caption from Wikipedia says it all:

Graph of OPEC reported reserves showing refutable jumps in stated reserves without associated discoveries, as well as the lack of depletion despite yearly production.

In an average year oil comes out of the ground and so the lines should drop, then a discovery is made and the lines should go up a little, or an elephant field is discovered and lines rocket up. But often times in this graph we see elephant type jumps without the associated finds.

Perhaps this (from Wikipedia) explains things,

One difficulty in forecasting the date of peak oil is the opacity surrounding the oil reserves classified as 'proven'. Many worrying signs concerning the depletion of proven reserves have emerged in recent years.
...
For the most part, proven reserves are stated by the oil companies, the producer states and the consumer states. All three have reasons to overstate their proven reserves: oil companies may look to increase their potential worth; producer countries gain a stronger international stature; and governments of consumer countries may seek a means to foster sentiments of security and stability within their economies and among consumers.

Okay so oil is running out, the next logical question, will we find a replacement? Because if we don't, well thankfully there is apparently enough arable land within 100 miles of Toronto to feed the city's population. But I hope there are enough horses to pull the food into town.

On Cleaning Up After The Rain

I have spent too much time cleaning my sweet ride, well it is not too much time, it is just that I am too tired to write about, so here are the pictures instead.

On Scams

I have a Trek Equinox E7 frame I am trying to get rid of. The story of how I got it is rather long and complicated but at this point I have a frame, it is (right now) for sale and I threw a few pictures and a little description of the thing up on Craigslist.

Yesterday I had a response:

On Wed, 6 Oct 2010, Clarence Rose wrote:

** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY --- AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

--
Hello Seller,

Do you still have the item for sale? and how long have you been using it.

Rose.

I responded:

Hi Rose,

Yes the bike is for sale. I think it has about 60km of use on it, so hardly used at all.

Michael

The next question was as reasonable as it was predictable:

On Wed, 6 Oct 2010, Clarence Rose wrote:

Thanks very much for the mail,I'm interested in buying it,may i know why you wanted to sell it and what's it present condition.

So I answer to the best of my ability:

Hi,

Actually the guy who bought the bike for triathalons decided he wanted a conventional road bike and gave me the frame. I have inspected it and it clearly is hardly used. It has a small scuff from transport (to the original store where it was sold) and it has accumulated some dust but it otherwise is in perfect condition.

If you would like to see the frame, it is at Biseagal (http://www.biseagal.com/welcome.htm) at 388 Carlaw Avenue (Between Dundas and Gerrard on the West side) look for the Yellow Inde-Art Design House sign Biseagal is in the same enterance down the hall on the right hand side.

http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.666046,-79.342104&spn=0,0.001072&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=43.665961,-79.342069&panoid=jwIdvDvvzTMbDw5CvLFVCQ&cbp=12,244.88,,0,4.57

If I am not around, just ask Malcolm, the owner of Biseagal, to show you Michael's Trek frame.

Michael

Now the alarm bells started ringing:

I so much appreciate your response to my earlier mail. I wish to let you know that I'm satisfied with the condition. Like I said there's no doubt I'm gonna purchase it. Therefore I want you to consider it sold by withdrawing the advert from craigslist. Note that you will not be responsible for shipping and handling. My shipping company will come to your location for pick up. Kindly provide me your name and full address, so i can forward it to the shipping company to calculate the cost of pick up for me. Please get back to me as soon as possible.

May your troubles be less, your blessings more.
and nothing but happiness comes through your door.

I do not need to be scammed thank you, lets get some standard anti-fraud measures going:

Like I said, the frame is in the shop, see the email below for details. If a shipping company is going to retrieve the frame, how are you going to pay me? I only accept cash.

Well Rose might be in the scamming business but they are not in the very much going on between the ears business:

I'm not in town presently that is why i want to hand over this transaction to PayPal and my agent so as soon as the payment has been made then my agent can come for the necessary information.. Just get back to me with your full home address and your PayPal email address for the instant payment.

I don't have a copy of my response to this note, but it went to the effect of, "The bike is in the shop, you can see it there, you can pay me cash only I don't use paypal. Sorry."

Why do people try to scam? Who gets fooled? Such a shame, the whole damn thing.

Oh incidently, Rose's email might show up as: Clarence Rose [300000kms@gmail.com]. If you ever plan to sell anything on Craigslist, make sure to avoid this guy.

On Religion (again)

A forewarning, this post can be really offensive, particularly to anyone of deep religious belief. I am becoming quite an atheist and this sort of expands on my notions. (Frankly I wish I had a private diary as well as a public blog.) I would ask any religious person not to read this, or read it and remember it’s just my ideas on religion and is not meant as a criticism of the next person’s belief structures. Actually if anything this is a critique of my own beliefs.

I was driving to work today when I had a bit of an epiphany, religion, as most humans (okay, more likely just me) view it, is incredibly arrogant.

An example of my slightly wacked beliefs is in order here. Some time ago I participated in the Montreal 24 hour inline relay race on the F-1 track in Montreal. Over the course of the evening Jacky Schu had the baton and would have to pass it off to me (I in turn passed it off to Daniel Dumbrill who passed it back to Jacky, one hand off per lap, each lap was just under 5km.)

Into the evening the rain started, at first it just made things unpleasant and somewhat dangerous. Around two in the morning I was to do a lap, I went out from the paddock and waited on a bleacher for Jacky, about a minute before Jacky arrived the rain started coming down in biblical proportions. (I.e. Genesis 6, This is the line of Noah, Noah was a righteous man, he was blameless in his age… – Sadly I did not need to consult The Plaut Commentary to write that quote, I’ve got it stuck, hard wired into my brain.)

Anyway I did my lap in the rain and just about a minute before completing my lap, the rain let up, a lot. Thus I developed two theories, God hates me, and God’s sense of timing needs work.

See the arrogance? Why on earth would a supreme deity give a damn about my rollerblading adventures? It is just like when I yell at the sky in the rain on Monday, imploring any almighty to keep the rain back until I get home. (If you want to find out the outcome of that particular prayer, see yesterday’s blog post.)

Or the epiphany? I got a bunch of green lights on the drive to work. Really I should be thanking the city traffic planners, there is no supreme deity involved.

Of course this brings me to the logical question, when is the almighty at work? When Osama Bin Laden’s minions smash airplanes into buildings and kill three thousand innocent people? When the Christian Crazies in Florida threaten to burn hundreds of Qurans? How about when other Christian Crazies protest a soldier’s funeral - he was gay. (Shortest definition of tasteless, crass and inhumane I have ever seen.) How about when the Jewish Crazies build homes in The West Bank?

I wonder, would say a cow view a human as the physical embodiment of the divine? (After all, look at the power a rancher has over the cow.) If so what is a cow thinking as it gets marched to the slaughter? Would the cow think, I have upset my master for my deviant beliefs or would it think I am going to a better place now? Either way, makes me wonder about God’s motivation, makes me also wonder if there is one.

On Rain

I hate the rain. I mean sure plants need it to grow, but if I could control such things, nothing would fall from the sky when the temperature is below about 5 degrees above freezing (so no ice or snow on the roads) and it would never rain during the day - more riding time!

Yesterday morning both the Weather Network and Environment Canada's weather models predicted no rain for the whole week. How much things change. About an hour before it was time for me to saddle up and mount a beautiful (clean) black Specialized Roubaix I looked out the window and saw some ominous grey clouds to the south. Now here's a silly question, why bother checking the weather? I mean, if its going to rain, too bad, it's not like I have a spare car I can drive home. Anyway I checked two different Doppler radars hoping that maybe one was stale data. No such luck, a cloud about 100km long and perhaps ten wide running from the south shore of Lake Ontario up north of Oshawa was working it's way north west from New York towards Toronto.

So much about that weather is just wrong. Usually the wind blows from the north west, so that cloud should have been moving away not closer. Anyway I started for home and probably made it 20km before the rain really started hammering me hard. (Of course I go south east so I was basically moving right towards the storm.) At first it was just irritating, it's cold and my face is getting wet, then almost suddenly the ground went from moist to soaking wet. Soon water had penetrated my shoe covers, then shoes and socks so my feet were cold. Water was soaking down my jacket leg warmers so instead of providing warmth my clothing was actually making an unpleasant situation dreadful.

I stripped off my clothing by the washing machine in the basement, when I took off one of my shoes and put my foot (still wearing a sock) on the floor I left a big wet foot print. Taking those wet socks off was a very nice experience. Later that evening I took some images of my ride, Jordan, she is in very bad need of a very serious cleaning.

Yesterday I decided that since I will be stuck at home, (I'm on call), the whole weekend I might as well clean my ride. Well suddenly I have no choice. So here is my revised plan.

1. Over the course of the week I want to clean the brake hoops (the part of the wheel rims where the brakes make contact) and the tyres. (Make sure there is no glass or metal embedded in the tyres.)


2. Also during the week clean the chain, first use a chain cleaning kit and a simple degreaser, then go nuts, take the chain off and put it in a bottle and use a naphtha based solvent.


3. Leave the chain to dry (allow the solvent to completely evaporate) over the course of the week.


4. On Saturday take Jordan apart completely and clean all parts. I even take the chain rings off the cranks and clean the chain ring bolts. (I will keep the bars, headset, brakes, deraileurs and levers together, as it is a lot of effort to retune the cabling - I'll replace the cables at the end of season anyway.)


5. On Sunday, or if I am making good progress on Saturday I will put Jordan back together. With, hopefully some images of a stunning black and red bicycle that makes grown men (at least one grown man) drool.

Apparently for mountain bikers, mud is a badge of honour. Mud, if you ask me, is ugly. Mud ought to be the symbol of a construction sight, or maybe the trenches of World War I, not a badge of honour.


How on earth am I going to clean all this damn mud?


I need a power washer, I guess.


Sigh.


I love this down tube, when it is clean there is something really pretty in a big fat down tube. Right now, not so much.


Arrrrgh!

On Repairs and Ultra Rides

The Furnace Creek 508 was this past weekend. For a couple years now I've had a bit of a dream to do that ride, admitedly it is considerably harder, both in terms of hill climbing and distance than anything I have ever done (Toronto ON to Rochester NY in a day) but it still sounds like one awsome ride, if for no other reason than for 508 miles I would not have to worry about riding in the rain.

One thing I find very annoying is, for the life of me, I cannot find a final 2010 results page. I am curious to find out who won. Peter Oyler went, I understand he came in fourth or fifth, but I am curious about a few others, some of the guys who compete in the 508 are surely worthy of admiration. For example, one guy, Michael Emde, has competed in the Furnace Creek several times, he came 3'rd in 2005, 2'nd in 2009, and 1'st in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Imagine riding 508 miles in the desert and being the fastest guy to do it... three times! In a row! That has gotta count for something.

Anyway I am on call for the week to come, I am going to try to ride, in considerably colder weather than The Death Valley, to work each day. But this weekend I will have to stay close to the computer, so I guess I will be cleaning up Jordan. But a good cleaning will be a good thing, a clean bike is a healthy bike!

Actually a good overhaul is in order, Jordan ought to be past the 1000km mark since the last tyre change. So I will probably try to do the following:

Friday night:
* Clean chain and leave out to dry.
* Take off cassette and soak in solvent

Saturday:
* Take off all parts and clean

Sunday:
* Reassemble
* Tidy basement