Tornado

Hey all! It's been a while.

Just thought I'd post a quick blog about the Tornado that just whipped through my new homeland (Fergus) just recently.
It seems as though when we see images, the pictures never do the scene Justice. That fact is more than true in this case! I can only describe my drive through the tornado stricken areas as horrific and sureal. It was like driving through a war zone. Click on the links for photos and Video.

The first few seconds of the video is the site were two cars were picked up. They were sucked up, flipped over several times and then dropped in the fields. The house (about 10-15 seconds into the video) is a family from the church. Their shop which had a piano repair business running inside of it is completly gone. The two men inside, hid under a grand piano. The only thing left standing afterwards was the grand piano with two men huddled underneath. That was it. The house was picked up and set back on the foundation, only mere inches off it's foundation. The curtains in the bedroom where sucked out of the window, and where found stuck between the house and the foundation. The piano lid from that grand piano the men hid under, was found several hundred meters away in the tangled forest. Not a single sole was taken in this wicked storm. Among all the wild animals lost, their were only three cattle killed from the farm seen in the end of the film! What a miracle!

Some mechanics at work had their homes destroyed in the path. One mechanic came home and couldn't find his car. It was completely buried in trees and rubble. He dug it out, and had it cleaned up at work. To all of our amazement, the damage was very minimal considering what it had gone through. Only small dents and scratches, nothing a body shop and insurance can't take care of! Amazing!

May non of us ever have to go through such a horrid storm!

Our daily Commute!

Inspired by a recent blog by Irene, I felt compelled to share with you the joys of my history of commuting to work. I'd like to devote this blog to the fact that much of our life is spent commuting.

Over my short and enjoyable lifespan in the money making end of life, I at times like to beleive (in my usualy bold headed manner) that I have had the most vast and unique commutes to work. Let me elaborate for you.

I have had various since the age of mid teenager, including the following: Picking and selling berries, picking and sorting corn, working with plants in a nursery, a photo studio, a brickyard, several photo retail stores, a computer store, self employed (home office), freelance assisting, photo retouching, and now car sales.

So in my experiences I've had the following interesting commutes, things happening during commuting etc.
Like many of us, I've had the chance to walk across the yard to my work as starters. I've taken a tractor ride to work in the odd scenario, and I've had many rides... but one ride stands out. It was a rainy day, one of these torrential downpours unlike most rainstorms. We left the plant nursery early and got rides with one another. Unfortunately for the girl I received a ride from, her hood flew open while driving because moments earlier when rushing to stay dry and get in the car, she had popped both the hood and the trunk latch, and only succesfully closed the trunk. The hood caught the wind as she drove in the blowing rain, and the hood came up so fast, it creased the hood right down the middle, and it almost smashed into the windshield.
Working at the photo studio I ended up in a collision where someone pulled out in front of me. I than had the not so fun opportunaty of driving a heavily battered civic for a week to work before my body shop guy had a chance to look at the car.

Working at the Brickyard brouhght the BEST COMMUTE ever. Let me describe! In an effort to release myself from my partial cause of ultra high insurance rates, and to also release myself from ever rising gas prices, I looked into every option of saving a buck that I could. I ended up taking a risk, and sold my car, trading it in for an ATV. This ATV was one from a co-worker at the brickyard, an 87 Yamaha Banshee sport quad, with a rebuilt engine from 2000. And might I say, this was indeed the ULTIMATE ride to work. It only lasted a week, as the police had the easy task of following the sound of a two stroke cat howling down the side roads, ditches, fields and gravel shoulders, at 120 KM/hr at times, and with Heavily treaded rear tires to boot! It then came to my reliazation that maybe I should have bought the ATV insurance. I took the risk and got caught sooner than I had hoped, but so it was. To save insurance, I wasn't going to buy other insurance, so I took the risk. But I must say, those 5 days were the best commuting days of my life. Flying through dew drenched fields at 7:00 A.M. with the mist rising off the Grand River, merly feet away from my speeding rocket, deer scattering in the way, ducks flying through the air above the river bed, was simply the most exhilarating experience of my life.

Now that I've described the ATV commute, the rest pale in comparison. I did have many new experiences however when I moved to Toronto. I was given the opportunity once again to walk and bike to work, with the additions of rollerblading, taking the taxi (only once), streetcar, subway, and GO train!

Currently I BIKE to my CAR sales job at the dealership. But I also get to take cars home, already I've driven half a dozen different vehichles home in just my first few weeks of work. Not to mention number of cars, call me a nerd, but until my car dealership job, I had tracked the different vehichles that I have driven in the past 7 years of driving, and they were just over 50. Now that I work at a dealership, I can cheerfully say that this number has increased hugely, and might I add, the 2005 Mustang GT has been placed on the top of that list. It is my hope that this vehichle might be the one that drives me to my wedding, and is the first vehichle that my new wife and I may drive in together... but that's pathetic, it's just a car. Shucks, even today alone I drove about 30 different vehichles, no word of a lie!

So that's it... and in case you weren't either bored or worse, here's the raw breakdown. I am quite proud to say that I have had the following unique modes of transportation to work:

Foot
Bike
Car
Tractor
ATV
Streetcar
Subway
GO train
Rollerblades
Rolling-out-of-bed-into-office-chair :)

yet to come?:

airplane
helicoptor
canoe
boat
space shuttle
hovercraft.

Thanks for listening!