Snow, ice, roads, sidewalks, salt, shovels, sand. Probably not your favourite words. This happens every year. People complaining about snow, more specifically about snow on sidewalks. It’s the same old story. Worse than snow even, is ice! The deadliest of them all. The stuff that makes people fall, get hurt, break bones. It’s pretty deadly stuff, and it’s harder to get rid of, sometimes nearly impossible if you are looking at not damaging your pavement/cement.

In Medicine Hat, there is a bylaw in place to keep people shoveling the snow, or salting/breaking away the ice from sidewalks adjacent to their property. I was wondering about exactly what the bylaw says, and found it in on the Medicine Hat Police Service website. Supposedly, people have 24 hours to remove any snow/ice/dirt from their sidewalks. This is kind of weird considering it seems like an obscure measurable. If somebody complained to the bylaw officers, by the time they got there, it might have already been cleaned. What if somebody slips and falls but it was at the 22nd hour after it snowed, guess it wouldn’t count if they went and cleaned it up on the 23rd hour? Seems like there is some intrinsic flaws with this plan.

In reference to what I said earlier, about the salt damaging your cement/pavement – it’s true. De-icing salt will damage (sometimes permanently) your cement, not to mention the environment as well as your grass. What about using a ice chisel or metal shovel to remove ice – same issue really; you are going to be damaging the cement. There’s really no way around it, you have to do it. The damage doesn’t change the bylaw – which by the way can get you fined from $100, to $10,000 (most people don’t realize this). *EDIT* Dusty has just brought to my attention that damaging the sidewalks is also against a bylaw to damage streets or “contiguous” areas, meaning sidewalks (anything touching the street). Full quote from bylaw: “No one shall deface, damage, or write upon any structure which is on or contiguous to a street.” So because de-icers and ice chippers damage the sidewalk, is it still okay? This also brings up a funny point about children’s sidewalk chalk… which according to this point, it’s against a bylaw.

Wait a second… What about alleyway sidewalks, sidewalks/gaps in between properties, street crossings, sidewalks adjacent to city parks? These places are always normally always icey. I know this because I walk my dog over some every day (there’s a lot of this in new developing areas where some lots are not built/empty) – sometimes slipping or falling. Most of these are owned by the city? Would the city be safe from their own bylaw? The bylaw states:

The owner or occupant of any premises adjoining a sidewalk shall clear away any snow, ice, dirt or other obstruction from a sidewalk within twenty-four hours after the time such snow, ice, dirt or other obstruction was deposited or formed on the sidewalk.

Semantically, premises are considered any type of “land AND/OR building” and the “owner” means the city. So does that mean I can call up the city and have them removed within 24 hours? What if it isn’t removed within 24 hours, do they fine themselves? How does this work?

Blaming and complaining about individuals is fine and everything, so long as you are not lazy yourself and phone it in. But what about these other “ownerless” areas of ice… which in my opinion far out-weighs (at least in my area) the few lazy people that don’t shovel.
Bylaw No. 1556 PDF

The now annual Risk Tournament has come to and end late Sunday night. This year there was a lot more people, a lot more coffee, food, prizes and give-a-ways. There was even McNuggets! How can you go wrong with that? It was like my birthday: board games, coffee, and nuggets! The cash prize was a lower this year; however, an Onyx edition Risk board game was given away to the winner – the final winner’s round was also played on it. Personally, I think the cash prize should be lowered even further if this year’s success was any indication. More money to the charities! Which is kind of the point of the event, well that, and extreme fun! All of the sponsors brought something to the table (literally), coffee prizes, give-a-ways, the room’s rent, etc. It was really great.

Sean, Dusty, and I were at separate tables for the first round. We all won at our respective tables which was kind of cool and unexpected to be honest. Which means all three of us went on to play the final winning round (with 2 other players from different tables). I doubt other people found it as amusing (perhaps it was perceived as a bias or a three-way-alliance opportunity); however, as I stated to Sean, I wouldn’t be teaming up with him or Dusty. I really was playing to win!

I started off with a strong Australia presence (which won me the first game); however, I made a couple errors and let Sean get too big. At one point, I definitely had a chance of winning and still had a chance if Sean didn’t grab three capitals. Sean won by successfully hiding his capital. So well in fact, in the last turn of the game, Dusty had went through 8 territories owned by Sean not to find it and in fact, stopping 1 country short of getting it. Dusty had ran out of men by the time she was on the borders of the elusive Great Britain. In this version of the map, Great Britain was also not connected to the rest of lower Europe, making Dusty have to run through the rest of the territories before curving towards Great Britain. My turn had already past and I wasn’t aggressive enough; I assumed Dusty would find his original capital as the other two he acquired were too heavily fortified now. Safe to say, I am quite bitter at him.

Overall, I can’t wait for next year.

Tonight is the last chance to vote. Voooooooote! Are you voting yet?

Medicine Hat Municipal Election 2010

It seems everywhere I go people do not know how to use crosswalk buttons. They stand there, mash the buttons half a dozen or more times, then walk to the entrance of the crosswalk. If the lights do not change right away, they walk back and mash the button some more, hoping it will speed the lights up. Well that is not how crosswalk lights work!

The only thing done by pushing the crosswalk button is that it activates the crosswalk lights to come on when the lights rotate next and maybe extends the duration for which to cross by a few seconds. It does not speed up the light rotation at all. A good example on how to see that this is not the way crosswalk lights work is to either live in the College’s Old Residence and be a student going to/from school, or simply just to wait at any set of lights where there are pedestrians and watch them mash the buttons.

If you are a student, you could attempt to cross the street at 11pm, push the crosswalk button, and still stand there for quite a while until the lights rotate. In this case, it is usually just easier to hop across the street if there is no traffic. I am not suggesting you should jaywalk, but just saying it is easier a lot of the time (especially at 3am in -40 walking back to Old Res from the College.)

When someone from Medicine Hat thinks about recreational things to do in town, it is not out of the ordinary to think of the South Saskatchewan River and all it has to offer. But how much fun is too fun? Enter the Peeper’s Delight and Indecent Exposure.

On the night of Thursday, August 19th, I was doing some running to prepare for the Bustin’ Loose 10km Race. I ran from the northern edge of downtown, along River Road, past the YMCA, and was returning when I noticed something odd: A man standing and looking at the river.

While I have seen this before, the odd thing was that he appeared to be on his tip toes on the edge of the sidewalk. He was not walking, and as I drew closer, his button-up shirt appeared to be unbuttoned. I could not see what he was looking at, so I continued to jog by. As I did, he must have realized he was idling, so he shuffled along the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Curious, I looked back and saw he had stopped again and was still peering over the edge. Then I saw why: Two people in the river, shoulder deep, embracing, and who knows what else? Though, he might know what else…

I have been to pretty much every grocery store in town and they all have their ups and their downs, but Safeway seems to be the slowest in terms of “get in and get out.” The marketing strategy that Safeway seems to convey is to have a clean store with good service. They absolutely have the clean store down and their shelves and bins are always stocked, but their service is very mediocre.

I like going to Safeway because I find their fruit and vegetables to usually be clean, nicely stocked and devoid of bruises, and the Safeway club card seems to minimize an enormous bill. The associates who work in the deli and pharmacy always seem very attentive and quick in servicing customers, but then you get to the nightmare of checking out.

In my experience, checking out at Safeway is a slow grueling task that makes shopping there not worth it at all. Unless you go shopping way later in the evening, the lines, whether express or not, always seem to take at least 15-20 minutes, then another 5-8 minutes to check out your groceries. There never seems to be enough cashiers on hand. For instance, the last time I was at Safeway, there were 20 people waiting in line for 4 tills, 2 of which were express lanes. It took me about 15 minutes to stand in line, wait, and check out my 5 items.

If I can help it, I will probably not go back to Safeway unless it is either very early in the morning or later in the evening to help minimize the amount of people in the checkout lanes.

Face it, we all hate waiting at the lights on Dunmore Road to cross the TransCanada, waiting to turn left onto 15th Street SW by the Husky, and to a lesser extent, turning left onto 7th Street SW by the Callaghan Inn.

I have seen many accidents at the Dunmore Road / TransCanada intersection and a few along the TransCanada through town. So why not just turn all these intersections into overpasses? It might cost a lot of money, but I would not rather see the aggravation of fellow drivers while they are waiting followed by them getting slammed by an 18 wheeler. Even one would probably relieve a lot of traffic congestion. Although that might increase the congestion at other intersections.

Unless we are willing to rename Medicine Hat from “The Gas City” to “The Vehicle-Emissions City” and let motorists idle for 5-15 minutes, especially driving to Walmart on a Saturday or Sunday, I think it is time a solution was created for these intersections.

We all have stories about pulling up to a 4-way stop and watching someone else come up to the same intersection who just slows down and goes without stopping. How many people actually know how to use a 4-way stop? Or for that matter, understand the concept of right-of-way?

For starters, right-of-way is indicative of who has the right to use a conflicting part of a road and who has to wait until the other does so. Generally the person who is at the intersection first has the right-of-way. If 2 vehicles arrive at an intersection that is controlled by a 4-way stop at the same time, you allow the person on your right to go. This is a concept which is usually taught in Drivers Education. Sometimes it seems to me that people believe they get higher priority on the road based on a number of factors, such as the size of their vehicle, their age, and so on.

For those who are unaware, when the power is out or streetlights are all flashing red, the intersection automatically turns into a 4-way stop. It also helps to think ahead and be in the lane that makes the most sense for the direction you want to go in and to eliminate any confusion for other motorists. For example, if you are coming up to an intersection and the lights are out, there are 3 lanes, the left of which turns left, the middle goes straight and the right goes straight and turns right, and you want to be going straight, you should be in the middle lane. If you are in the right lane and go straight, you may be confusing someone else in the intersection and that could leave you having a bad day.

During My96FM’s live show yesterday at the Medicine Hat Stampede kick-off pancake breakfast, Ed Stelmach sauntered over to have a chat with Kim Johnston and Grant Buchanan – and by sauntered, I meant basically interrupted them mid-sentence. Kim Johnston posted this on his Twitter: “So… I’m doing my radio show, and who taps me on the shoulder? Just the premier of Alberta. Really?!? True.” then, “@MedHatMedia Yeah @premierstelmach literally walked in w. his entourage, pulled up a mic and started shooting the s**t with us. Kinda cool.”

Listen the full interview here:

As my wife can attest, I am not one to get sentimental. Every house we have moved from, I shed not a tear. Each vehicle sold, I am more than happy to get rid of. Even tossing out that box of “art” from my kindergarten year(s), I did without a second thought.

But I am having a difficult time with the fact I will never have the enjoyment of sliding down the pigtail one more time.  Flying over the “Drop of Doom” as your stomach hit your throat.  Or floating down the lazy river on a tube with the sun beating on my back and my toes dragging in the water. Without a care in the world.

I remember going as a kid. Labour day weekend, the weekend when the slides would open every year. I would have a black X on my calendar marking the date.

We would arrive around 9:30am, slides open at 10. The lineup was all the way down those wooden stairs. After what seemed like forever, we entered the hallway were the cashier asked us for our right hand as she put an stamp on it. Not just any stamp, but a “magic” invisible stamp that could only been seen under a special light.

Then there was the floating tap, I must have stared at that thing forever the first time I seen it just trying to figure out how it works.

Was the mini-golf not one of the best courses you have ever putted? Seriously, any other course I go to now pales in comparison. The crickety windmill, the granary, the water running along side each hole… its still unmatched after all these years. THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »