paulbillowes.com

Look for more blogposts here on my move from Toronto to Cambridge Bay.

I’m in the process of setting up a photo gallery. Still very rudimentary, but I will be adding more.
Paul Billowes’ Gallery

Some positive updates:

Canada Post: I left keys at my mother’s house so she mailed them to me, guaranteed delivery by 5:00 pm. They arrived at 11:00 am that morning. Good stuff!

Fossil (Eatons Centre, Toronto): I went to a big name retailer to get the battery in my Fossil watch replaced. They told me my watch was dead and that it needed repair. Nearby was a Fossil store. I went there and asked them to fix it. They did. The watch was fine, and because of the story I told them they replaced the battery for free. I offered to pay, but the man there wouldn’ accept it.

Best movers in town: I really recommend this guy for moving in Toronto. He didn’t let us down, and made a difficult day less difficult. Thanks, Steve!

On September 3, my father had a letter published in the Ottawa Citizen about the proliferation of too many environmentally destructive, useless and time wasting STOP signs in the suburbs of Ottawa. Kanata to be exact. I agree with his letter, and will outline a few of his points here.

• By forcing cars to stop, carbon emissions are raised. Simple physics - an accelerating car uses far more fuel than a car moving at a constant speed. Stop signs are pro-pollution and pro-greenhouse gas.
• Nobody comes to a complete stop because they know the law is pointless. This results in a general disrespect for the law because these signs show how arbitrary and silly lawmakers can be. STOP signs are pro-crime.
• We have ignored lessons learned in Europe and elsewhere about the importance of smoothly flowing traffic. Others have learned how to ease congestion, Ottawa insists on making it worse.
• As usual, the local Government in Ottawa chooses to to follow destructive, dangerous and failed policies rather than lead.

I believe this is true. A common theme of my opinions is how much I dislike Government imposed and coercive safety policies. STOP signs definitely fall into this category, and those who demand more and more of them, and tougher police enforcement to ensure all cars come to a complete stop, are misguided in thinking it makes the streets safer. And kidding themselves if they think they care about the environment.

Tags: Safety and Security

Please visit the family site at billowes.com. It is still a work in progress, but more will be coming.

May I just say that i liked the hamburgers I cooked tonight.

In response to a minivan mowing over 5 cyclists on March Road, Kanata, a road I have cycled myself and decided to stay off of because of extremely reckless driving, the authorities have decided to take charge. That is, attack the victims.

This would be funny except that it is dangerous and, as is usually the case, Ottawa could learn from other jurisdictions to fix the problem but decides it knows better. See “Cyclists in Idaho have been legally permitted to treat stop signs as yield signs since 1982.”….”Idaho’s bicycle accidents decreased some 14 per cent in the year after the stop-sign law was enacted.” And remember, this is the Toronto Star, a newspaper that advocates all safety equipment become mandatory whether proven or not.

Luckily, The Ottawa government and the government in my home town, Toronto, have decided that Canadian are too stupid to follow such rules so we cannot have them. If you drive, walk or cycle, roads can be made much, much safer , but as a Canadian, your life is run by safety “experts” so you cannot benefit. The cry of the expert is, “well that may work in Holland, but it would never work in Canada”.

Government has three priorities when it comes to safety. (1) give the appearance of being safety conscience while doing nothing. (2) making lots of money from highly coercive fines from laws that endanger people. (3) watch people die and react to it by… Repeat.

To all those in Ottawa who got a ticket, please fight it. You can argue that cycling laws are dangerous to your health and can kill you. A principle of any law is that those who follow the law are not compelled to die from it, and it is a worthy argument. If following the law increases your chance of dying, which can be proven, the judge may decide that you are right and the law needs to be thrown out. We will all benefit.

A nice article by Suzie Snipe about why innocent people plead guilty.

I wrote this 2 months ago on Facebook before leaving Ottawa for Toronto, and got some positive comments. So I thought I would reproduce it here. For everyone’s information, I’m very happy with the move.

“Tonight is my last night living in Westboro - tomorrow I’m in Kanata, and the day after, Toronto, to begin a new and fantastic life with Tamara.

But leaving has made me think. I grew up in old Kanata (Beaverbrook) which was just a village when we moved in and I was just a baby. And I find that still to this day there are so many ghosts there. I don’t mean in the spiritual sense, but there is hardly a public place in that whole neighbourhood where I don’t have a memory of some kind. Most good, some bad, but it doesn’t matter because it is all a part of my life.

As I was out doing some last minute errands today on my last day, I realised that I have the same relationship with Westboro, the Ottawa neighbourhood I have lived in for many years. I could actually see, clearly in my minds eye, things, people and events that have happened to me over the years. Same thing - lots good, some bad, but it doesn’t matter. It led to to where I am today, or more importantly to where I am going.

I will miss Westboro, and the people I met here over the years.

Sorry if I seem sentimental. That, perhaps more than anything indicates it is time to move on. I’m really looking forward to living on the Danforth with Tamara and her family. It’s time to start making fresh ghosts.

Now, back to packing.

I would like to wish everyone a very good 2009.