Since the beginning of January, I have been commuting from the Village of Erin to downtown Toronto (Yonge & St. Clair). It has been an adventure to say the least.
Armed with an iPhone, I depart daily and collect foursquare check-ins, capture some images and mostly...just drive.
I swear by the mobile app Waze. Available on all smartphone platforms, commuters use it as a GPS that knows not only the traffic patterns but also what each route is doing at that given second. As people drive, it records the road speed, and the commuters also mark alerts for police, accidents, construction, etc. It takes the guess work out of route a/b/c... it knows the fastest waze. The craziest route it sent me on completed "3-sides to a box" of the entire downtown core. Because of major traffic congestion on the direct route, it sent me through what normally would be the worst route ever on any given day at any given time... and to my surprise... it was all smooth sailing.
One day, some guy took over a street car and when the Toronto Police did a PIT maneuver on it, he bailed into an underground parking garage. While parked for 20 minutes until they opened the street again I wondered how was he going to get away, like in his original plan... it was a Street Car... on a Track... that's not the best strategy.
The big snowstorm of last week... 1/4 of an inch of snow... Waze went crazy... as did I... and all the Waze drivers. It took me 2 hours 20 minutes to haul as opposed to the ideal 1 hour 5. Every street was a standstill, and there was even a Christmas Tree on the Road as reported by a Waze user.
After 3 weeks, I'm still trying to find the ideal departure time that is optimized to avoid the insanity, but I do make use of my time parked on the Allan "Expressway".
And of course, my standard rough luck follows me... tonight, my key blew up and the car wouldn't start until after I pieced together the jigsaw puzzle that was the key.
When we talk about social media, garnering followers and fans, we often forget in our quests to gain more people in our downline about why they should "follow us". In my social media consultations, I'm always suggesting engaging content, contesting and info-tainment.
As an avid-twitter endorser, I often speak about one of my favourite tweets of all time, stemming from PBR Rider Luke Snyder, which included a pic of another PBR Bull Rider Brendon Clark in the backup cam of his Ford Truck (see here)
My next favourite just was tweeted by another PBR Bull Rider, Ryan Dirteater... "@ryandirteater: This is who I'm battling tonight in Denver! @PBR @Dickies @CooperTire @ryandirteater http://t.co/4S7ab4yI"
My first comment was, "this is what twitter is about..." Engaging and entertaining. Behind the scenes. Exciting. Saddle up (or tie down...)
Early into my role as Marshall's Dad, I learned that it's not called "babysitting"....it's parenting; and as much as I look forward to teaching him what I know about what, tonight was an exciting time for the pair of us.
I got a text message, "Marshall's Dinner: Scrambled Eggs and Ketchup". Seems simple enough, except I only like and know how to cook eggs one way... sunny side up. The first time I tried to scramble eggs a few years ago I asked someone how to scramble eggs. Their answer, "you just do it like normal and chop them up". That had a disgusting result. A bunch of egg white bits and some yellow mounds.
Determined to hit a home run for my lil' slugger, I turned to YouTube on the iPhone, and to my delight, a 4 minute video by Chef Gordon Ramsay (Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares) popped up. Ironically, I loooove these two shows, but can only cook Grilled Cheese, Kraft Dinner and Eggs Sunnyside Up, plus grill almost anything on a BBQ.
Following along in real-time, I was able to create the feast in 4 minutes, and they were a marvel, allegedly!
The best part about it, though was Marshall taking the fork out of my hand and using it for the first time. I of course caught it on video...
Please wait...
