Category — how to

Vanessa Knight, the Director of Events and Student Life at Kwantlen, in collaboration with Ashley Fehr (the Chair and Director of Academic Affairs at Kwantlen) recently wrote a piece regarding the availability of late night transit out of downtown Vancouver which really annoyed me.

As a recap, Ms. Knight is miffed that TransLink did not run transit later than usual on Halloween night while she and her “posse” were out “getting their drink on”. Apparently sobering up in the wee hours of a cold November morning while dressed in a slutty, cold-weather-inappropriate costume kind of sucks.

Ms. Knight also complains that TransLink is more concerned with impressing visitors for the Olympics than its own citizens (and unfortunately, that’s probably true) and that McDonald’s has more sense because they stay open late to take advantage of all the drunk people with the munchies.

I don’t disagree with the assertion that public transit should be available late at night for people too inebriated to drive – that’s one of the great things about public transit – but how late is late enough?

Vancouver, a city that tags itself as “world class” (and don’t get me started on that misnomer), has transit that stops running pretty early considering how late the night life in downtown Vancouver runs. Any city that is truly “world class” (I’m looking at you Berlin) has a 24-hour transit system in place – or at least one that runs until 2 or 3 a.m.

And let’s face it; a cab ride from downtown Vancouver to say Burnaby, Surrey or Port Coquitlam etc. can get pretty expensive – and that assumes you can find a cab driver who will take you anywhere if you’re drunk. Most cabbies, quite reasonably, don’t want drunk people in their car.

That being said, TransLink’s operating hours are not exactly a secret. TransLink didn’t just spring this on an unsuspecting public for Halloween – the hours are clearly posted on their website along with maps of every route and time tables for every single stop. Their website isn’t easy to navigate (the maps are hard to get to), but the information is there.

Perhaps the reason TransLink doesn’t run later isn’t just that they don’t care about the citizens of Vancouver, or that they are financially constrained but, perhaps they don’t wish to be perceived as supporting “getting your drink on” at clubs. I bet they also don’t want to clean up the resulting mess of a bunch of drunks with food from those captains of industry at McDonald’s off the bus seats and floors.

Another good reason for transit not to run late: TransLink performs maintenance on buses and train lines at night to ensure that everyone gets a safe ride during their hours of operation. It seems TransLink is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Terminate service at 1 a.m. – people complain. Run transit 24-hours and do the bare minimum for maintenance and repairs – people would complain.

Knowing that Ms. Knight, perhaps you should have planned your night out a little better. And that goes for the “other 200 people” you mentioned and the “hundreds of people trapped downtown” every Friday and Saturday night. You could have done any of the following before headed out dressed as a “slutty version” of anything:

• Rent a hotel room together.
• Share a cab to the closest house and crash.
• Plan your time accordingly and make sure you’re on the last bus home.

These ideas are not beyond your intelligence.

Just for the record, I find it very hard to believe that the same people get “trapped” downtown every weekend. Is their ability to remember when the buses stop running hampered by the amount of alcohol they consume? I could see that happening once or twice, but every weekend? Give me a break – if that’s really the case, then those hundreds of people are morons who drink too much.

I suppose your next argument would be cash flow – but, if you can afford to pay cover charges at clubs and pay more to get drunk at said clubs; you can afford to share the cost of a hotel room or a cab.

Your “bleary eyed $2.50” is hardly an inducement for incurring the extra expense of running transit an hour later.

I’ve seen drunken people on transit here – it’s not pretty: loud, obnoxious, reeking of booze (and, in one case, urine) and a river of vomit under the seats. I sure didn’t envy the poor driver who had to hose down and disinfect the bus that night. I wonder if he appreciated those party-goers $2.50?

Your right to pass out on the bus, be a drunken nuisance, or throw up on yourself does not trump TransLink’s policy of providing their employees with a safe and puke-free environment in which to work.

Ms. Knight, as the Events and Student Life Director for the Kwantlen Student Association, couldn’t you find something more important and pressing to write about? This article – written in association with your position at Kwantlen, gives the impression that being inebriated and unable to get home is part of the routine for Kwantlen students. Also, as someone who is in charge of events and student life, you do a poor job of planning your own events and life if you can’t manage to catch a bus out of downtown by 1 a.m.

I’m even more surprised that the Chair and Director of Academic Affairs thinks this is an appropriate story to have associated with Kwantlen.

How would you feel about a $2.50 donation towards finding something resembling journalism at Kwantlen?

I recently stripped and replaced the caulking around the bathtub in our bathroom. Our landlord offered to do it, but after I realized that new caulking had been laid over old caulking the last time he “fixed” it, I decided to do it myself. I like things to be done right the first time.

So I stripped the old stuff off, cleaned up the mildew and soap scum and let it dry. Once that was done, I filled the bathtub with as much water as it would hold (this apparently helps mimic the gravity of bodies and water in the tub when it’s in use which allows the caulking to contract and expand properly) and then recaulked everything. It looks awesome now.

Unfortunately, I also had to remove a plastic shower guard to properly redo things. The old shower guard had at least three layers of caulking  – are people not aware you can’t recaulk in the same manner that you would give a wall a new coat of paint? – and some sticky stuff holding the guard to the tub ledge and wall.

A little Goo Gone, some elbow grease and a few swear words and it was done. Nice clean tub for a fresh start.

So, this morning I went out and bought a plastic shower guard. I tore open the package, removed the backing from the sticky part and laid it lightly on the tub’s ledge and congratulated myself on being such a fantastic DIY-er.

Just as I got ready to press the guard firmly into place, I realized the wall had an inch of tile going up the wall. The guard would have to be hacked up to accomodate the tile. Dammit.

I do not have a fine tooth saw capable of such a job and I had no intention of going back out to buy one, but I didn’t let lack of tools stop me! I improvised!

The tools of destruction

As you can see a marker, paring knife, scraper and file are all you need to horribly mangle repurpose a shower guard to fit your tub!

I call my approach “resourceful and innovative” – Joe, had he been here, probably would have called it a potential trip to the emergency room. I won this one: I only needed a small bandaid on the pinky finger of my right hand where I nicked myself with the scraper.

Now I just have to wait for the tub ledge and wall to be completely dry before I stick the guard on and caulk around it.

I’m sure I’m not the only person using whatever happens to be lying around the house for DIY projects – what resourceful and innovative measures have you taken to beautify your home?

Internet Explorer 7 – why do we use it?

There are other ways to look at all the Internet has to offer: (Firefox, Opera etc.) without having to swear at IE7. However, IE is the browser that most people are used to, so despite the frustration of not being able to find anything and the fact that IE7 seems to assume all its users are morons, we keep using it.

Well, if you’re going to use it anyway, you may as well learn to control it. Part of having control is being able to delete your internet history; the cookies, the browser history – the stuff you don’t want your significant other, your mom or the geeks at Best Buy to find on your computer.

There are two ways to delete cookies (or your browser history):

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools > Delete Browsing History…
3. Choose one of the options and click the corresponding delete button.

This will delete ALL of whatever option you pick. You will not have the option to pick and choose. So, if you chose to delete cookies, all cookies would be deleted. Even the ones you wanted to keep.

Or, you can delete cookies this way:

1. Click Tools > Internet Options
2. On the General tab, under Browsing history, click Settings.
3. In the Temporary Internet Files and History Settings, click View Files.

You can now choose the specific files, images and cookies you wish to delete.

If you want to delete things from your browser history, you can choose to delete everything through the Delete Browsing History… option (see the first set of instructions), or you can pick and choose:

1. Open Internet Explorer 7.
2. Click the inverted triangle  to the left of the address bar.
3. Click History.

You can now pick specific folders or pages to delete without being forced to delete everything.

Happy deleting!