This post is to inform you of some problems I have with your current transit system. I recently moved to the Spruce Cliff area and before that for the last 2 1/2 years I have been riding the C-Train every weekday morning to the downtown core. The C-Trains are fantastic. They are mostly on time, albeit crowded most of the time. Which is fine as during rush hour I can just wait another 5-10 minutes and another one comes.

The bus system on the other hand - not so great.

In Spruce Cliff I catch the #17 bus into downtown. In the mornings, your website indicates the bus should arrive at 7:20 which in most days falls fairly close to that time. Going home is another story.

If its warm out, I take the #101 or the #104 home and get off at Bow Trail and Spruce Dr. These buses are fantastic as during rush hour, as they come every 10 minutes. However, during these last few weeks its been rather cold out so I have been taking the #17 home to get dropped off closer to my residence. The website indicates the #17 should arrive at 5 pm at the stop I’m waiting at. This is rarely the case. The other day it drove down 6th Ave, just as I was walking out of my building. Long story short I missed the bus, and then proceeded to sit there waiting another 50 minutes for the next bus to arrive.

Then the other day when the windchill was near -50°C the driver missed a turn, stopped the bus, and yelled back if anybody needed to get off on the 3 missed stops. I would hate to be the person waiting for the #17 in -50° weather for at least an hour on the stops she missed!

Secondly, driving the bus shouldn’t be like driving a race car. There are people inside. Stop hitting 50% of the curbs on right turns!

Thanks for your troubles.

Fix your stupid system.

-Matt

p.s. your website sucks at finding routes, stops, next times

I didn’t realize how big Lotusphere actually is. The few conferences I’ve been to seems ridiculously small compared to this extravangza. I don’t know a number for sure, but I swear there’s 10,000 people here. Try to picture feeding 10,000 people in 2 hours twice a day. But they get it done with tremendous speed and you’re out in no time. Amazing to say the least.

Being a Lotus Notes guy who spends his day in it, I’m pretty excited on what’s coming. I actually can’t wait to try out the new add ons in 8.0.1.

Note to self though…start to learn java again!

Things have been moving pretty quickly here. Getting settled in to the new digs but there’s still a bit to do. I have some visitors coming in mid February so I have to get it all finished by then!

So for the first time ever, I’ll be heading down to Lotusphere in Disney World in Florida. IBM puts it on every year, but this will be the first time anybody from MNP has gone. Big thanks goes out to IBM Canada for the free pass! I’m really stoked this year about it too, as we are looking towards using more Lotus products in the future and this will get the ball rolling. Lotus has been moving towards “webifying” many of their products, making it easier to collaborate between users. This is especially significant for MNP as we have such a wide spread firm across Canada.

So I’m off away from the snow and the cold to hopefully warm and sunny Florida! My computer is broken at home currently, however I’m borrowing Jana’s camera. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some more photo’s soon. And get some photo’s of the new place up as well.

Stay tuned!

Hello Everybody!

2008 is here and I’ll try to get more posts about my life on here more often.

Stay Tuned!

-Matty

Wow! It’s been a while.

Took a little vacation at the start of July back to Manitoba for a few weeks. This time though, I took the long haul of a drive instead of flying like I normally do. Nothing but clear sky’s going there. Coming back we hit a few rain patches, just enough to wash off the bugs from the windshield.

The picture above is from our annual MNP Stampede party (dubbed MNPede) which was a blast once again. This year being held at the outdoor patio of Ranchman’s. The beautiful day helped the beverages go down even faster. There’s more pictures of the MNPede in the gallery (thanks Scott for the pictures).

It’s been 30° for the last few days with no real end in sight here. These are the times which you wish you had an air conditioner like most people have in Manitoba..but noooo, not here.

-Matty