h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

hi just followed the link you posted so i thought i would post here so you know i followed it and had a look at your work

very nice,

does the city have a rugby team??

I don't think so.

Certainly rugby is played at the high school level and has been for decades (I was asked to play in high school).


Oh. Look:

http://www.edmontonrugby.com/league.php?scriptName=HOME&leagueID=7580

and, this is interesting:

http://www.edmontonrugby.com/league.php?scriptName=LEAGUEINFO&leagueID=7580&leagueInfoID=6062


And, if I remember correctly, I have a very passing acquaintance with a certain mildly famous gentleman who used to play with the Strathcona Druids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorne_Cardinal

Which brings us to perhaps the greatest piece of Canadian Television in History: http://www.cornergas.com/

will look at home in the daylight

thanks

by the way i yikesed julszes link to your journal and told him to back off.

what do you mean by urban sprawl?

is it just housing estate after housing estate, all linked as far as the eye can see??

Yes, I think the term would likely be 'housing estates'.

Here the land was surveyed back a century and a half ago into what we call 'Sections', squares a mile on a side. These plots were what settlers were basically given by the Federal Government. A section is made up of what are, creatively, called 'quarter sections'. These days the quarter sections which have been farms for a century are bought by developers, stripped of topsoil, chopped up by roads and into little lots and then cookie cutter 'single family dwellings' are slapped up on them and sold for obscene prices to young couples who really should be given some financial planning training.

The result is urban sprawl. Sort of like Greater London without any rail or tube service. Hours a day in a car trying to get to and from work.

I live in Old Strathcona, the former city that is on the south side of the river. I can walk downtown or to the university, to restaurants, plays, and the forest two blocks away. Across the street are young couples who rent a place and enjoy all the same pleasures and never are stuck in traffic. I know lots of young people who walk to work each day and never have to bother with the expense of a car. But North America has pushed the 'single family dwelling' as the 'right' of every individual. Thankfully, over the last few years, there's been a push on for more rail transit and for more residential density in the centre of the city. And there's also been a fight starting to save the few bits of farmland we still have within the city limits.

we have the opposite problem here

the council have said that they will not give planning permission for anything out side the ring road, so up to about a year ago(when the recession started to bite)builders were trying to cram as many houses into all the little spaces left in the town, houses were going up all over the place yet nothing is being done about infrastructure or facilitys

As you can probably imagine, on the map we have nothing but space here. But I really think there needs to be an attitude change, and, I think it may be happening: the municipal government is trying to encourage people who live in houses to renovate to create 'basement suites' and suites above garages. We're overflowing with facilities and infrastructure in the established areas, but the insane desire of everyone to own their own monster home by the time their 25 has created these huge new areas with no transit, no schools and expensive roads while inner city schools are facing declining enrolment because the young families are all feeling that they have to move to the mega suburbs. And then they scream at the city for a school for their kids within walking distance of their front door.


It's kind of insane.

I need to go to sleep.


Oh. here's some Corner Gas on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=corner+gas&search_type=&aq=f

See if it helps make sense of Canada.

sleep well

i will link to those sites at home

at the moment i am battling jules,

he is so pig headed

you were right calling him an @rsehole

oh, and, for quote of the day:

'Your friend is just going to have to become as thick-skinned as me.'

in the context of post 96 on that thread.



I'll not provoke the boy with my presence again.

its ok i just hit a nerve i think

Actually, in hindsight, I don't think I was right.

There's a story I've told a number of times from my childhood. At one point I lived in Sudbury, Ontario, where I started school. In those days Sudbury was still a 'Northern' Ontario town, with lots of undeveloped areas in the city. I remember once being on the side of Walford Road, where my first school was (and is) located and I saw a knot of young boys, a little older than me, gathered at the edge of a vacant lot. In the scrub brush of the lot was a young man with what we now call Down's Syndrome. The group of young men were shouting at the solitary figure and lobbing rocks at him. I didn't understand, and I still don't understand how anyone could find any joy in throwing stones at people with disabilities. Now that I know about the suicide attempts, I regret my last post here. Particularly considering that it is a thread attached to the entry about Edmonton.

this is going to sound like i'm a bit of a git, but


people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones