Let it snow
Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
No place to go indeed. The storm has been raging since morning; -28°C with the windchill; burr! It looks to be slowing down a little bit now, so who knows, maybe by this afternoon I can leave the apartment. I have my supplies of hot chocolate and milk in case the weather continues though…
The wonderful city of Ottawa, besides being inundated with snow, is also going through a transit strike. This is perhaps the second week of it? I almost forgot what busses look like… Thankfully, living downtown allows certain advantages and the core of Ottawa is not that big. While I was proctoring, I had the opportunity to use the shuttles provided by the Carleton University Students Association, and the buses that run between Carleton and the University of Ottawa. On my second to last day of work I missed the 11:30 bus from Gladstone and Bank by about 5 minutes, and said, what the hell, let me just hoof it and see where that gets me. Especially since I was not at all sure if there was a 12:00 bus. I got on campus at 12:20, at the same time the 12:00 bus (whose existence I had doubted) arrived.
In all it took 1 hour and 15 minutes to walk from home to school. This is interesting, because with the bus, I leave home an hour before I need to be there. So… if I leave 15 minutes before that I could actually walk the whole way? That’s crazy.
The OC Transpo strike shows no sign of stopping though, although the waring sides FINALLY talked to each other yesterday. Thanks for working so hard to resolve the issue guys. Here is this nice quote from the Ottawa Citizen about a commuter rally that almost happened:
Meanwhile, only three people turned out for a commuter rally Saturday at city hall to protest the strike failed to materialize. The rally organizer, Emrys Graefe, could not be reached for comment, but then he didn’t show up either.
Maybe Mr. Graefe got stuck somewhere in the bad weather. See how bad people in Ottawa need transit.