Tag: ottawa

Lessons Learned from Renting a Car in Corsica

October 9, 2023

Although tired from jetlag flying from Ottawa to Marseille the day before, we decided to take the early flight from Marseille to Figari airport in Corsica so that we could drive to our rental accommodation by the early afternoon.

I watched the airplane taxi to the airport from my window seat. Some people were already dragging their suitcases down from the bulkhead storage when the captain’s voice came on the loudspeaker telling the passengers to stay put until all the engines were shut down. We disembarked from the Air Corsica flight at the tail end of the small turboprop.

We hustled to the terminal walking across the tarmac – there were no mini-buses – to pick up our suitcases and rental car looking forward to the drive into the mountains where Jerome and Megan, our son-in-law and daughter planned to climb, hike, and canyon (the formal definition of canyoning is exploring a canyon via all techniques: including rappelling, sliding, hiking, etc.). They rented a huge house with space for us.

It was a short wait to pick up our suitcases and exit this small and informal terminal. The Hertz rent-a-car place was visible across the parking lot, and we walked down to their office. I entered the office with one client in front of me to be told to leave, they could have only one party in the office, the agent told me. I went outside, where another agent approached me and asked for my name. The agent searched and searched unsuccessfully until he discovered the reservation was made in Kathy’s name. So what? Well, the agent explained that she had to drive! That did not please Kathy at all! Corsica has a reputation for serpentine roads and blind curves.

The agent explained that I could add myself as a driver for 18 euros a day! That seemed outrageous, the euro has a fifty percent override on the Canadian dollar so we would be paying C27 per day for ten days, an amount equal to the total car rental cost. So, I asked, if could I cancel the original agreement and rent the car in my name. The agent said it would be excessive. So, Kathy decided to drive the serpentine roads of Corsica.

I used to plan our travel day by day in the old days and made all reservations for air, hotels, and cars. This time I decided to go on strike and have someone else do it for us based on a rough itinerary we provided. When it came to renting a car, we should have specified who would be the driver, but the travel agent never asked. For some reason, she identified Kathy as the driver. Lesson learned, always check out your final itinerary in detail.

The rental car agent handed the keys over and directed us to walk to the left in front of the office to find our car in a dirt lot. With no help where our car may be, we used the fob to see which headlights would come on to identify our car. The lights on an Alfa Romeo Tenali came on and the doors unlocked by the clicking noise I heard. An Alfa Romeo! Wow! That perked me up, I have never been in such a brand with its global reputation.

After putting our suitcases and backpacks into the car, I thought we were ready to roll but my daughter reminded me to check out the car for damages. I took numerous pictures of the bent back bumper to make sure that when we came back, they would not blame us for the damage and charge us. Then I thought why don’t we just go back to the office and ask for another car without damage? Well, back at the office the agent just said to take pictures and they would accept that as evidence. (We returned the car with no problem at all; the company had the damaged back bumper in their record).

Starting the car was another challenge; we could not find the starter button or a keyhole. A mechanic from the Hertz team came along to assist us. And never forget to ask where the filler cap opener is. We found there were two filler caps on this car: one for gas and another one for electrical charging – and we found a cable on the back seat – this was a hybrid.

The Alfa was appointed with plush seats and with the GPS speaking to us in French, Kathy enjoyed driving it, and I enjoyed watching the scenery. I am sure we could have switched the GPS to English, but we understood French and it was a good exercise listening to French driving in Corsica. It took us no time to figure out that “rond point” is a roundabout. Because of the serpentine road leading up into the mountains, the drive was slow, especially watching out for all the cyclists, motorcyclists, and car traffic.

It was unexpected that Kathy ended up driving for ten days in Corsica, but the Alfa was a bonus, it was a fun car to drive. I wanted to try it too, and as long as we did not get into an accident, I thought I would be safe, but decided not to take the chance. And a good thing, as it turned out, I carried an expired driver’s license! But that is another story.

To My Blook, Where the Writing Hobby Took Me

June 11, 2023

You may ask what is a blook? Well, the word is a combination of the words blog and book. And a blook is a book consisting of blogs. It is a new word, first coined in 2003 by Jeff Jarvis, a well-known journalist from New York. Since then, several blooks have been published and the “Blooker” prize was established in 2006, fashioned from the “Booker” prize. Julia and Julie, by Julie Powell, was awarded the first Blooker prize in 2006; it is a cookbook based on blogs preparing the recipes of Julia Childs (a film by the same name was made in 2009).

I was intrigued by the concept of a blook and was inspired to compile my own do one since I have been blogging for a few years. The pandemic was the trigger for the start of my blogging. When avoiding people, and staying home had become not only desirable but periodically mandatory, when my gym and community center where I played bridge closed, what was I to do at home? I was retired with plenty of time on my hands. Expressing personal opinions and describing my activities in writing seemed like a good idea to keep me busy.

But my blogging begs another question: “What experience did I have in writing”? This is a relevant question since I had never worked as a professional writer; my writing was limited to technical and policy papers. After I retired, I did publish two books, a memoir, and a travel book.

I can anticipate your next question: “What made me write these books”? And the trigger to start writing my memoir was a friend who challenged me to write it because she said that my children do not know who I am. And she was right: I was a Hungarian refugee/immigrant to Canada in 1956, married a Welsh girl, spoke English at home, and never discussed much of my history with the family.

All of our children attended university, married, and settled in the US, limiting opportunities to discuss my early background. When my friend challenged me to write my memoir, I had to agree that she was right, and I got motivated and even excited, to write my memoir, primarily for my children and grandchildren.

To prepare myself for writing my first book, the memoir, I enrolled in the online university Coursera. I took several of their writing courses. The Coursera Zoom classes include lectures led by Wesleyan University professors and writing assignments reviewed by fellow students. I found it interesting reviewing others’ work, some people I found to be excellent writers, while others were novices. I thought I was somewhere between the two camps.

And I enjoyed receiving comments on my work, I learned much from these comments: one reviewer rebuked me for sloppy writing when I said I was at Kennedy Airport in New York City in 1957. The reviewer criticized me for my poor memory or for not having done the research. The correct name at that time was “Idlewild” airport. It is important to check your facts, especially when you write about events sixty years ago. Overall, I found the courses very helpful in practicing my writing skills.

To further my writing knowledge, I also signed up for writing blogs such as The Write Practice and took free Zoom lectures on how to do a memoir by Marion Roach Smith. In addition to reading “How to do memoir” books, I also read many memoirs. My favorite was “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah, written with humor, and sensitivity about growing up in South Africa having a white father and a black mother. 

After a year’s work, I published my memoirs on Kindle Publishing and sent copies to all family members, awaiting their response. Some thought it was interesting and commented, “I never knew this” while one granddaughter found parts of it boring. At any rate, the family got to know me a little bit better.

Buoyed by having a book published, I was motivated to embark on another one, this time on our travels in Southeast Asia. As before, I read travel books such as the annual Best American Travel Writing series and took some Zoom courses as well on how to write about travel. My favorite travel authors were Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson.

I learned a few key lessons from the courses I have taken and the experience I have accumulated writing my two books: write about subjects that you know, express your personal opinions and feelings, and “show and not tell”.

The first one seems obvious, but it is interesting how easily one can get involved in matters unfamiliar to you, only to start looking up the internet for information. Although that avenue is useful and available to everyone, it is mostly informational. I found people are much more interested in your personal experiences and opinions. For example, a hotel in Barbados might tout its beauty on the oceanfront while someone who has been there may point out that the furniture is old and decrepit.

Before I started studying the fine art of writing my writing had reflected my positive, non-critical attitude.  But I soon realized that, in the writing of others, my interest was drawn more to their personal reflections and observations rather than my descriptive, non-critical approach.

And “show and not tell’ advises you not to use general statements like “it was a beautiful sky’ which is a “tell”, but rather “show” it in terms of its color, shading, cloud formation, and your reaction to it and let the reader interpret your description.

Having improved my writing skills and enjoying writing, I wondered, “What is next?” Another book was not of interest to me, and the pandemic had shut us down from travel and socializing. But I was still interested in writing, and I had the time to carry on with writing short pieces on select subjects where I express my thoughts and opinions.  

And so, I started writing; I wrote blogs about the pandemic, about the Ukrainian war, and about Canadian and Ottawa issues and controversies. The number of blogs I have written has grown and I thought that I should try to weave them together into a book format, the idea behind a blook. Look for my Kindle blook by the end of the year!

My Takeaways from a Graduation at Georgia Tech. in Atlanta

May 26,2023

We drove from Ottawa to Atlanta, a distance of close to 2000 kilometers, to see our granddaughter, Susanna, graduate in architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology.

How could we miss our granddaughter’s graduation? We did not but made me think we have a grandson graduating next year in Oregon; a granddaughter graduating, I think, in Colorado in two years, and another grandson graduating in Virginia the year after. Should we follow this precedent, that would be quite a travel plan for the next few years! Unfortunately, we missed the graduation of our eldest granddaughter who graduated from the University of North Carolina during the Covid shutdown.

Arriving in Atlanta during rush hour, exciting enough, was made even more challenging when we missed our destination, despite using Google Maps on my cell phone. The Google Map showing arrival in seconds just before my wrong turn, suddenly turned into seventeen minutes and a fifteen-mile drive. My four-letter word vocabulary quickly expanded, but it did not help. We had to get back on the interstate and circle back.

In the meantime, my son, Tony, was messaging us inquiring about our whereabouts. By the time we arrived back to where we should have turned left, Tony was standing on the street corner waving to us to be sure to make the left turn to arrive at our hotel, the Midtown Garden Hilton. 

The hotel was within walking distance of the Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, where the 2023 commencement exercises took place, and we walked to the stadium early in the morning.

The closer we got to the stadium, the more people joined us, forming a veritable migration by the time we stopped at the entrance to the stadium where a metal detector gate let people through, one by one. The only items allowed to be taken in were cameras, cell phones, and wallets, and I noticed that some people sported a new and useful product to enter metal detector gates: a plastic see-through purse carried by women.

The wall-to-wall crowd at the entrance gate exuded enthusiasm, I heard people talking proudly about their offspring getting a university degree from one of the elite institutions in the United States. Many of them were formally dressed while others donned jeans. We wore casual, informal clothing matching the early summer weather.

Once inside, we saw the graduating class sitting in rows of chairs in the middle of the stadium floor, facing the end of the football field, where a covered podium was constructed, above which a huge TV screen showed the action on stage. By the time we walked around the stands to the front, close to the podium, the stadium was a third full of its 55,000 capacity. The buzz in the air was loud and palpable, and we had to shout to communicate.

All the best seats were taken, especially those with a backrest. So, we rushed forward, up a few levels, and then down, trying to find seats from where we could take the best pictures of the President shaking hands with the graduates one by one, congratulating them on their achievement. We even found private boxes which had a good view of the ongoing events, but these rooms were glassed in, and we could not hear clearly what went on downstairs. After investigating the layout of the stadium and searching for good seats, we took seats close to the front of the football field.

Although it was not pronounced, I detected a slight accent listening to university president, Angel Cabrera’s introductory speech. He hails from Spain and received his Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in 1995, a nice elevation from student to president in twenty-four years. The Glee Club sang the national anthem following Dr. Cabrera’s speech.

Harrison Butker, the commencement speaker, surprised or perhaps shocked the audience with his recommendation on what the graduating students should do with their lives: he said they should get married and have a family. Now Harrison is not only an NFL hero, a football player with the Kansas City Chiefs, who wears two Super Bowl Rings, but also a Georgia Tech graduate who played football for the university. But his advice on how to conduct your future life created a stir in the audience; my other two granddaughters, college-age, immediately reacted with: “Who is he to tell me to get married? And you do not have to be married to have a family!”

Harrison’s argument centered on what he called the loneliness experienced by today’s youth, despite the connectedness people think they have through social media. He said you will not be happy with whatever you accomplish unless you share it with someone. To him, the sharing was with his wife and family that motivated him today and made him happy.

I thought Harrison was entertaining when he talked about teamwork and perseverance but disappointed when he brought religion into the commencement address, by recommending marriage. But his comments were no surprise, Harrison is a devout catholic and belongs to a conservative group that promotes the practice of an older version of Catholicism, including the belief that sermons should be in Latin.

Dr. Cabrera thanked Harrison for his speech and wondered aloud, with understated humor, how many marriage proposals would take place today.

The graduates were called onto the stage, to shake hands with the president, and proceed to pose before the “Rambling Wreck”, for an official photo. (The Rambling Wreck is a fully renovated Model T Ford, the school’s mascot that is driven around the stadium before each football game.)

The activity on the stage was projected onto the large screen above it for us to see each graduate walk by with their name on the screen.

I was dumbfounded in the beginning, seeing all the Asian and South Asian names following one after the other; of the first fifty graduates called to the podium, I counted twenty-nine Asian names. What is the ethnic composition of the student body here, I asked myself. According to recent statistics, twenty percent of the students are Asian or South Asian. Then I realized that the first to be called were the computer science graduates.

Much as I tried to get ready to take pictures of Susanna when she came by the Rambling Wreck, I had both my camera and cell phone ready, I missed the perfect shot. The pictures I took are out of focus. No matter. We joined up with her after the ceremonies at the architecture building, and took some pictures of her in her gown, along with family.

To celebrate her life milestone, the family went for dinner at NoMas! Cantina. The Cantina served Mexican fare in a space furnished with artifacts from Mexican artists, all of which are available for purchase. A unique place. I thought it was funky with umbrellas hanging from the ceiling, and masks and artifacts decorating the walls. Consistent with the Mexican theme, we started with a margarita, served in a two-foot-tall glass bottle, bulging at the bottom. It was sufficient for eight people.

The dinner punctuated a successful four years of study. So what is next Susanna? I asked. Following a stint with a large architectural firm in Atlanta this summer, she said she will attend Clemson University in South Carolina to study for a master’s degree in architecture. 

My Thoughts on the PSAC Strike

April 21, 2023

Driving by the Post Office I observed hundreds of civil servants clutching coffee mugs and walking back and forth for their four-hour strike duty a day for which they get $75 from the union. It was cold and they were bundled up.

About 150,000 civil servants, a third of all federal employees, are on strike, and the already long waiting times for passports will get longer.

I remembered the time working for the federal government when I went to work at five in the morning to avoid crossing picket lines and avoid potentially rough altercations with striking union members.

As always, the major item of contention is salaries. The two sides are not far apart and although the union’s demand is not way out of line, in my opinion, the sudden frugality of the government surprised me. In the past few years, this government has spent money like it was coming out of a firehose.

In all union negotiations,  the discussion focuses on how salaries should track or not, inflation, and cost-of-living increases. The examples brought forward by both sides include public and private unions. The trouble I have with these discussions is the lack of debate on job security and the benefits packages that the various organizations provide. I worked in both public and private organizations and there are no questions in my mind that job security is pretty well 100 percent in the public sector (anecdotal evidence shows it can take up to two years to fire someone in the government for incompetence) while much, much less in private groups.

When I worked in the federal public service, my job security was never in question with an attractive benefits plan, including a pension. In the private sector, I lost my job when an international company bought the company. And the contribution to my pension by the private company was much less than what the federal government provided. On the positive side, though, the shares in the private company were offered as bonuses at year-end, which could fluctuate in price reflecting the fortunes of the company, a significant risk factor.

So my question is: should federal employees be compensated less than private company employees performing comparable duties because of the benefits of a secure job with full benefits?

My friend who ran an architectural office downtown told me years ago that he always had an awfully tough time hiring a secretary, at what he thought was a competitive salary, because the federal government paid so much more for similarly employed people.

And my other question is: should federal employees who choose the work-at-home model be compensated less than those who go to work every day because of the financial and other benefits of working at home?

Consider the savings on transportation; whether one uses public transit or a private car, the savings are substantial in dollar terms as well as in time. Commuting times range up to a couple of hours a day depending on where one lives. And gas for the car, parking (civil servants have to pay for parking), and depreciation of the car add up to a tidy sum. Neither is the cost of public transit a bargain.

And many people buy coffee and lunch at work. When I worked for the federal government, I tried to get some fresh air and went for a short walk during my lunch hour. I often ended up in a bookstore buying a book which I would not have done while working at home.

I also have to mention that the informality of working at home saves money on clothing, which, although casual these days in the office, still require decent clothing.

But beyond the financial and time savings working at home are the incredible benefits provided by the flexibility of being at home. Think of a young family where the work-at-home spouse can take the children to the school bus stop and pick them up upon return. Or, doing away with a nanny, should both parents work? Or, going on a two-hour bike ride at lunchtime. Unless the employee has to be on the phone during working hours, the work can be done at any time during the day or at night.

The work-at-home model has tremendous benefits but also costs; depending on the personality of the employee, some may miss the camaraderie with fellow workers, and miss learning what is going on in the office. Others are quite happy to work alone. And, of course, there has to be space for an office in the home, which may not be available for all.

The adoption of the work-at-model is a major negotiating item although I have not seen a study on what percentage of federal civil servants would like to do it. But if it is a bargaining chip, I think that those who work at home should get less remuneration compared to those doing the same job at the office. The financial savings have a dollar value and the flexibility of working at home is also a benefit that should be costed out.

My considered view is that the job security and benefits package enjoyed by federal civil servants, combined with the option of working at home, should be fully costed when compared to other union agreements and the inflation rate.

What Drives Me Nuts…

April 5, 2023

A hoax perpetrated by the media but originated by City Hall Councilors in Ottawa drives me nuts. It is that Ottawa is a city for cycling; for commuting to work on bikes. This idea is insane considering the climate in Ottawa. Half of the year one cannot comfortably and safely commute to work on a bike: it is too cold for cycling, down to minus 20 centigrade, and with the snow and ice on the roadbed, it is extremely hazardous.

This is the end of March, and we still have plenty of snow piled up on two sides of our local streets, making it nearly impossible to cycle on the snow-narrowed roadway. Plus, the car traffic makes it dangerous, especially when you hit a patch of ice cycling on the road.

But it is not only during the winter months that bicycling is treacherous, during the shoulder seasons, the weather is cold, and you need gloves and layers of clothing to keep your core warm. Some people wear a mask. I have done it and I did not find it pleasant to ride during the early spring and late fall.

OK. Let’s talk about the summer months; you would think that it is a pleasure to cycle between May and September. And it can be. If you take a ride along the parkways or the Rideau Canal, when these roads are reserved for cyclists on the weekends, then it is a pleasure to ride in peace without cars.

But consider going to work on a bike during the hot summer months that I had done. In my case, I worked up a sweat and had to shower and change upon arrival at work. So, I needed a change of clothing that I could take with me or store at a locker when available, and I needed a place to change. Some of the larger employers provide change rooms. Smaller employers do not have the space for such facilities, making it very difficult to commute to work and feel and look decent during work.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that office workers are more likely to cycle to work than others.

But think about it: you need much more time to commute by bike instead of driving your car to work because of the additional time you need for showering and changing, as well as the slower speed of a bicycle compared to a car. If you have a family with children and are needed at home after work, time is precious, and the obvious commute is by car to get home early and help with family activities.

Our city is trying to make Ottawa a cycling city. The city planners push the idea and in fact, one mayoral candidate at the last election ran on a platform to make the city a haven for cyclists by spending millions of dollars building bicycle paths. She lost, but the official plan recently approved for Ottawa heavily emphasizes cycling to get around in the city.

They brought up Amsterdam as a model for cycling; it is a city with a moderate year-round climate. As well, it occupies a much smaller area, with a denser population than Ottawa, making cycling distances small. In Ottawa, the inner suburbs range up to ten kilometers, while the suburbs are ten to twenty kilometers from downtown.  

I searched for some metrics on cycling in Ottawa and found that perhaps two percent of the people commute to work by bike, while over seventy percent use their cars and seventeen percent use public transit. The rest walk to work or work at home. These numbers do not provide a ringing endorsement for cycling.

The adult population cycles for exercise and recreation, mostly. I have not seen many people shopping on a bike. We have students cycling to schools and then, of course, the hardcore, who cycle to work. If the purpose of the city planners is to wean away people from using their gas-powered cars to save the environment, then I would suggest that the priority should be on increasing public transit use.

And the city attempts to do that by reducing the requirement to provide car parking in multifamily residential buildings while increasing the requirement for bicycle parking. This is a no-cost solution for the city, but it does nothing for making public transit more attractive to the public.

Public transit would become more attractive to the public through reduced fees, more routes, and more frequent bus service. And that is not happening, so people will keep on using their cars that will adorn our local streets, lacking garage space in residential buildings.

As an example of what is happening, the city approved recently a sixteen-unit, four-storey apartment complex on a single-family residential corner lot, with no parking. The footprint for the building occupies the entire lot. The justification for the approval was that the building is on a “planned” major transportation route with good public transit. But there is no timeline for making this road a major transportation route, and there is no budget as yet for its construction. Would it not have been more responsible to delay the approval until after the “major transportation” route is completed?

Another factor bearing on cycling is the recently increased popularity of working from home, which reduces the need to commute to work. The pandemic encouraged this trend and, now up to twenty percent of the working population enjoys working at home in Ottawa.

This work-at-home trend reduced the demand for public transit; the volume of the local public transit system is still only at seventy percent of pre-pandemic levels. Accompanying this trend is a growing budgetary deficit for the system that the upper levels of government have not helped financially. Is there a message there? We keep talking about the value of public transit but provide no funding to improve it!

And home workers like larger homes with an office, which are more available in the less dense outer suburbs. And with larger distances to get around to schools, and shops, cycling becomes less attractive.

I think the city’s promotion of cycling is a hoax but presented as virtuous behavior by twinning it with saving the environment.

Being bombarded with messages that cycling is key for the future of the city of Ottawa is an outright hoax that just drives me nuts. It makes no sense to me; it is a surreal wish. Does it make sense to you?