MichaelMcKinlay.com

Last week my net buddy for life Nick Ramsay did a post about what his area looked like 20 years ago. Well I’m gonna do something along those lines with this post.

20 years ago I lived in a neighborhood called Rundle in Calgary. The picture below is the house I lived in for the first 10 years of my life! My Aunt still lives in this area and when I go to her house for some “free dinner” I always pass by my old house.

Surprisingly, it looks nearly the same as it did 20 years ago. The yard hasn’t really been kept up but you can’t really tell in this picture since the snow covers it. I’d love to go inside the place just to see if it brings back any childhood memories but the people living there probably wouldn’t like that a whole lot.

Directly across the street from my house is my old elementary school. Again it looks pretty much exactly the same as it did 20 years ago. 10 or so years ago I actually went back inside to see what it looked like and I remember being surprised because the name of every room in the building was listed in like 10 different languages. Rundle has a lot of immigrants these days and so I guess that’s why they changed their signage. The times, they are a changin’!

When I was a kid I used to ride my bike all the time. I rode it to school, I rode it to work, I rode it for fun. However in recent years I stopped riding it. When I started buying transit passes it just seemed easier to take buses and trains since my workplace at the time was far from where making it too far to ride it there. Besides, transit passes entitle you to unlimited use and can be used as a tax credit in Canada. Chi-ching!

Recently, I decided to start riding my bike to work again as I wanted to get some more exercise and take advantage of all of the great bike paths here in Calgary. The only problem is that while Calgary isn’t a huge city in terms of population(about 1,000,000) it’s huge in geographical size. Apparently we occupy a space larger than that of New York City.

One great thing that Calgary Transit is doing is installing bike racks on their buses. It’s always been easy to take your bike on train, but with the bike racks on buses it’s easy to take the bus now! Well not every bus has them but many do!

Here’s some photos illustrating how they work:

The whole process of unloading the bike took about 10 seconds, not much longer than your typical bus stop. It used to be that accessing some parts of the city were pretty much impossible since it would take all day to ride there. Now with a little help from the bus, no where is out of reach! Hopefully they will install racks on every bus!

I try to stay away from energy drinks as I can’t imagine them to be very good for your system, but then sometimes you just need an extra boost. There are quite a few energy drinks on the market and while they don’t taste as good as Coke or Pepsi, they are not too bad either.

I bought some Beaver Buzz once for a hiking trip. I mean with a name like that, how could you possibly go wrong? Beaver Buzz claimed to be healthy as the can stated that it had gin-seng and a bunch of other natural supplements.

Anyway I took it on a 60 km hike that I did in a period of about 48 hours in the Canadian Rockies and I can tell you, that stuff works! There were a couple of times on the hike where my friends and I had hiked about 20 km and then hit a huge headwall. Thankfully, I had my Beaver Buzz with me and a short time later I was singing Britney Spears while running up the mountain! I probably annoyed my fellow hikers and the wildlife too but hey, if you want to make an omelet you gotta break some eggs!

Recently, I’ve noticed that there are more and more imported used cars from Japan on Canadian roads. How do I know that these cars are used vehicles from Japan? Well the steering wheel being on the opposite side of the car is a good clue. Another clue is that many used imports from Japan will still have their ’shaken’ stickers on them. These stickers are always located right on the windshield just below the rear view mirror. Unfortunately the car featured above had it’s sticker removed.

The down-low on ‘Shaken’

‘Shaken’ is the Japanese word for vehicle inspection test. Most new vehicles are required to have an inspection after 3 years and then another one every two years. Inspections aren’t cheap either, typically costing around US$ 1000, plus whatever ‘repairs’ are necessary. The purpose of ’shaken’ is not to make sure that vehicles are safe, but to protect the Japanese auto industry and encourage Japanese consumers to purchase new vehicles. The bad part of this policy is that Japanese consumers take a big hit when they try to resell their vehicles, however this also makes it cheaper to import and sell these vehicles abroad.

Another reason for importing used Japanese cars is that there are certain models that are only sold in Japan. An example of this is the Nissan Skyline. The Skyline is a sports car and probably the most famous car that Nissan makes, at least within Japan. However many car fanboys know about the Skyline and are desperate to have one. Importing a used one from Japan is the only way to get one. I suppose you could import a new one, but that would cost a fortune!

The main used Japanese imports that I see are sports cars such as the Nissan Skyline or Toyota Soarer. That’s probably due to the fact that the people who buy them here see them as a status symbol. They also dig the fact that they are left hand drive vehicles making them more unique and likely to turn heads. Let’s face it, when you buy a sports car you probably like to have some attention and driving one of these vehicles around will certainly get you that. Having said that I’ve also seen a few Mitsubishi Delica’s. Delica’s are large passenger vans and I believe they all have diesel engines. I’m not too sure why they are popular but I have a feeling that they are really cheap.

Anyway I don’t think I’d ever buy one of these vehicles. It would be a hassle to feel like you are always driving on the wrong side of the road. Plus what if you need replacement parts? I’m pretty sure it’s gonna take longer to find them and be more expensive. Of course I don’t even have a car so I’m not even sure why I’m even writing this post…

About a month ago I went to Canada Olympic Park(C.O.P.) here in Calgary to do some snowboarding. Canada Olympic Park is where the Bobsled, Luge, and Ski-Jumping competitions were held during the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Here’s a picture of one of the Ski-Jumping Platforms:

Canada Olympic Park is a great ski hill for the following reasons:

1. Safe Place to Learn - It’s not too big and there aren’t many trees or other hazards to crash in to.

2. Awesome Location - The Park is located right in the city of Calgary! It takes a good hour and a half to get to the Rockies but if you are in the city, you probably won’t have to drive much longer than 15 minutes to get to C.O.P.

3. Guaranteed Weather - Well kind of… In Calgary weather can change in an instant but for the most part already being in the city should be a good indicator what it’s like at the hill. C.O.P. also makes their own snow and the hill faces north, helping to prevent the snow from from melting on warm days. Take a look at the picture below and you’ll see there is plenty of snow on the hill and virtually none in the rest of the city.

4. Excellent Terrain Park - The picture below says it all and the lift is right beside the park.