Category — rants

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 learned this past weekend that I am not the least bit graceful. Like, at all.

Spastic Things I Did This Weekend:

1. Burned my finger on the side of the slow cooker.

The Universe was warning me, but I very foolishly ignored it – a few hours later, I did the following:

2. Spilled the contents of a fresh and full glass of iced tea directly into the vent of my new PC.

This is what happens when you play World of Warcraft on your weeks old PC and get too excited. I gestured wildly at another player, who cannot see or hear the real me, because he had the effrontery to ride his gargantuan dinosaur into Undercity and cut off my view such that I fell off a staircase. This gesture connected solidly with a full glass of iced tea and sent it pouring directly into the air vent of my new PC.

I pushed my chair back, swore impressively, and threw myself at the PC (smartly tipping it to the side to avoid more iced tea getting in) while madly unplugging it.

Joe and I blotted the video card dry, dried the inside of the casing and the fans and decided to let it take some air for awhile.

3. Covered my feet in shattered glass.

After we’d mopped up most of the iced tea we remembered that the table I use as a desk has a leaf that would extend directly over the PC; thus protecting it from future acts of stupidity. In order to extend the leaf we needed an inch more of space to move it forward and then up and back into place.

The bookcase next to the table was blocking us a bit, so I decided to wiggle it forward by degrees. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to check for objects that might fall on my head.

A small glass candle holder that we kept our Bic lighters in (the cool ones with long stem thingies so you don’t set your hands on fire lighting tea lights) fell from the shelf mid-wiggle, bounced off my shoulder, and smashed rather spectacularly all over the tile floor.

At this point, I am standing directly in a puddle of shattered glass and iced tea that we missed in the initial cleanup; plus completely soaked pants, shirt and sweater (from the iced tea mishap).

I decided pretty quickly that whole situation was actually pretty funny and laughed my fool head off while Joe rolled his eyes and got the broom.

I have never, ever, spilled anything on any computer ever. What better way to remedy that than to spill an entire glass of iced tea into my first ever new PC.

Lucky for me, the PC dried OK and everything still works fine.

I found the last of the glass slivers this evening several feet away from the crash site and got to it before I stepped on it. I also had a very good day at work.

I might be the Universe’s bitch, but sometimes, she throws some good luck my way.

My Grandad passed away on May 4th.

I still have no idea what to write.

What stories can I tell about George Clements that will convey a clear and accurate picture of him?

There are the obvious things: he was an incredibly talented stone mason, he had a wonderfully dry sense of humour, he could be quite a stubborn smarty pants, he was generous, kind, handsome, a great whistler and stone skipper, built the best fires ever and grilled a mean hamburger.

He also taught me that no one is going to just let me win, I’d have to earn it (playing Battleship with Grandad was a sure-fire way to prove that however clever you thought you were – he’s far more clever). I learned that listening is a lot more useful than talking, paying good money for good things is smarter than paying a little money for cheap garbage and that honour and manners still matter.

But none of these things really convey the whole picture either.

Maybe it’s enough that I have the good fortune to be his granddaughter. You don’t get to choose your family, but I would have chosen him had I not been born to the right family.

I’m looking at a great picture of Grandad on the beach: he is looking up, eyes narrowed a little against the sun, just beginning to smile up at my aunt (and what you can’t see is the rusty little dinky car he’d found and offered her) with the waves just coming in on the shoreline.

That picture is my Grandad – it’s the perfect picture – relaxed, happy and just wandering along the shore of the beach looking for interesting things.

If there is a heaven, I hope that’s what he’s doing now.

For me at least, there is no goodbye, because I’ll always remember and I like to think I’ve learned enough from him to carry it with me into the world.

Are all of these words inadequate? You bet they are – but I’m not sure what else to say.