First 24 hours in Paris

Day 1 – For a socialist country France has some serious social problems. The first thing that strikes the visitor is the massive amount of graffiti everywhere. It lines the highways and railroad tracks. It’s on the side of houses and on the outside of trains. In fact pretty much …

The ol’ helmet debate

A co-worker shared an old copy of dandy-horse, a Toronto cycling magazine.  It was the spring 2009 issue and featured a debate between Geoff MacBride and Derek Chadbourne discussing the merits of helmets/no-helmet.  I am very much a pro-helmet advocate.  But only for me,  I couldn’t give a crap if …

Top 5 things about Japan I learned on my recent trip

Toilets – The Japanese take pooping very seriously.  How many people do you know in North America willing to spend $5,000 on a crapper? In Japan, that is quite common.  The toilets are  a bit different than the ones we have here.  For instance their flusher has two settings, “small” (小) …