Toronto
Maria is reporting that the TTC is on strike. Hopefully they can avoid the 3 month+ strike transit Vancouverites endured in 2001. I've never had a car while in Vancouver (since 1996), so that meant 3 months of making sure I had a ride to work. (Luckily I lived near an arterial route, at the time a route that my co-worker took to work.) While in Toronto, I took the subway and streetcars, which I thought were the neatest things, because unlike Vancouver's automated SkyTrain, they each had operators. Crossing a lane of traffic to board a streetcar, and then make sure that traffic had stopped behind the streetcar (as required by law) when alighting took some getting used to. The streetcars aren't as neat as Portland's, which stop snug up to a curb and have a newer fleet, and Toronto's transfer system—which as I understand it means you can keep riding for a reasonable amount of time as long as you're going one way taking the most direct route. In Vancouver transfers are limited by time and "zone", but not by direction or amount of trips.
Thanks to Liz, Maria and Joey for the fun Tuesday evening, when I also met Rannie, Eldon and Paul at Tequila Bookworm. The subject of conversation centered on what it was like to work for a company in the 'hookup' industry, my favourite stories involving the "betas". Because I'm not terribly interested in turning this weblog into porn-industry lingo, you'll have to contact me privately for what that means. Yesterday was one of the longer travel days I've ever had, taking a streetcar, coach bus, plane, coach bus, light rail (twice!), and bus to eventually get home 8 hours after I landed. (Work event, beercasting and concert comprised most of those 8 hours). Again, thanks to Ottawa and Toronto for their hospitality, and I look forward to visiting soon.
Maybe November?