Two Years in the Making

Usually when a person hears the line "Two years in the making" it's usually associated with great things like "This movie was two years in the making" or "This amusement park ride was two years in the making" or "This bottle of cheap wine was two years in the making". Granted the later is a poor example but usually something that's been labelled with "years in the making" usually has a positive connotation to it. We worked hard on this thing and here are our incredible results.

Not so with this blog entry. I'm referring to my sloth like tendencies, specifically my ability to ride my bike, and my body becoming more weak by the day. It all seems to have happened gradually but if I really put thought into it I can pinpoint the downward spiral of my cycling neglect. It also helps that I've taken pictures everyday for the last five years or so. I know pretty much exactly the last time I rode the thing.

It all began around the time of the purchase of my Nikon D70. It was at that point that I picked up a new camera bag. Prior to the D70 I owned a streamlined Tilley's bag meant for a laptop and in it housed my Nikon 990 swivel camera. The bag was easy to cycle with and because the camera was so small (in relative terms) if I wiped out chances are the camera would survive. Not so with the D70, a camera made of plastic.

In order to preserve my camera and lug the copious amount of camera accessories I started walking to places and taking public transit. My biking days were numbered until eventually my bike became neglected. It was locked to the back yard fence for the longest time. Eventually I noticed it rusting. I moved it inside where it accumulated spider webs next to the furnace for the next two years.

This brings us pretty much up to date with the bike and where it is now. Talking to Hilary today she had a great idea of biking over to the islands. It was part of our grand plan to spend more time with each other than with Kyoko (There's an inside joke here some where). The idea sounded a bit sketchy at first. What was the condition of my bike? I told Hilary I'd call her back after checking out my bike's status.

The good news was that it was still where I had left it. The landlord may have moved it to get to the furnace but upon preliminary inspection it looked okay. I brought it outside into the backyard to get a better idea of what I was dealing with. Rust and dust. The bike horn was busted, the speedometer was missing (probably in one of my tool boxes), the tires were in need of air and the the chain looked a bit suspect with all the rust. Otherwise the bike seemed in good shape.

I called Hilary and told her her bike to the island idea was a GO. Then getting on the bike carefully, like the bike would fall apart from under me, I was off. It took me a while to remember how to switch gears. Had it been that long? I wondered if the chain would snap due to corrosion. This had happened to me years before while I was racing a streetcar. I hit the pavement like a sack of wet cement. People craned their heads out of the streetcar windows to see the accident. The cars behind me skidded to a halt. I remember seeing the thin two meter trail of blood on the ground and the rather large gash in my side thinking "where can I get a band aid?" and "Crap, my wind breaker has another hole in it".

It was this horrific image that filled my head as I tested the bike's mettle cycling toward the ferry docks. I didn't push the bike much. Not because I was scared it would fall apart and I'd incur more injuries, I just didn't have the energy to do so. Geez.


"What are you doing?"

I made it to the ferry docks in under 60 minutes, a trip two years ago would have taken me 20 minutes. Hilary was standing under a tree. While she stood in line I went to get us food. It was perfect timing. I got the hot dogs and arrived in the ferry line just in time to pay the fare. Once through the gates we got on the Hanlan's ferry that was loading. Once on board the gates closed and off we went.


Visitors from Timmins

The first stop was the haunted lighthouse on Hanlan's point. We met some visitors from Timmins, a place located near my mom's home town. They asked me if I could take their picture with a disposable camera. After agreeing to take a photo I backed up and eventually found myself lying in the muddy grass to get what I thought was a good angle. After taking the picture I asked them if it was okay if I took a digital photo of them with my Nikon. This was just in case their disposable camera took a lousy photo. I was shooting slightly into the sun to get the light house in. That's always a tricky thing with cameras that don't have any settings.


The handle on the door to the haunted lighthouse.


Hilary does her wall analysis.

The second stop, not including the stop for more water, was to stop off at the church across from centreville. Hilary wanted to ease drop on the people going by on the umbrella ride and see the if the priest was in to volunteer to do garden work. The church was locked up but we walked around it anyway to check out the sorry looking plants.


Centre Island


Geese!


Shooting with the proper EV settings.

The third stop was to check out the city sky line somewhere between Centre and Wards Island. We eventually made it to the snack bar just as it was closing and then the Ward's Island Ferry just as it came into dock. Pretty good timing all round.


Hilary checks out the Toronto skyline


"Hey, I know that sax player! It's Fred!"


Lane, The neighbour's dog

On my arrival back to the house I noticed my upstairs neighbour outside with her new puppy, Lane. I took a few pictures then exhausted went straight to bed for a nap.


The puppy in Lisa's arms