Glenn Kubish

Dear Land Rover, My name is Glenn. I'm the bicycle commuter you passed this morning on 102 Ave. I am writing you this short letter to remind you that you were supposed to turn right on 105 St. And then you were supposed to turn right on 104 St. And then on 103 St. And then I lost sight of you. You were trucking it pretty good. Take a look: You were supposed to make those rights because, at that time of the morning, the lane you were in, the curb lane, dictates that you not go straight through. Straight through at that time of the morning is reserved for buses, taxis, and, yes, bicycles. Times of the sign There are signs posted to this effect. They are easy to read and interpret. All you really need to know is the time of day. You have a clock on your dashboard to help you with this. If the time of day is, like it was when you zoomed passed me, around 7:30 am, then it's not legal to do what you did. And did. And then did again. These are the signs you ignored. (...

It's 1975. The Edmonton Eskimos have just scored a touchdown. The CHQT fire truck is about to start a victory lap around the Clarke Stadium infield, its riders skilled in dodging with some élan the rain of hot dog foil balls to be aimed towards them by jubilant fans.  Jogging onto the field is #26, Dave Cutler, the toe-tied place-kicker on his way to convert the touchdown. For Cutler, this is automatic. For those in the Knothole Gang, the fenced-off bleacher zoo in the endzone into which the football will be drilled, the real battle is about to touch off. Knothole Gang Patch The Knothole Gang was sponsored by Woodward's, the grocery-department store that, like CHQT, Clarke Stadium, the young Dave Cutler, and 1974 themselves, are no longer around. But then it is very much alive. Like anarchy is alive. And at that moment, with the convert about to happen, there is no collection of kids more alive in the whole north end, or the world, same thing. In your imagi...

#coffeeoutside attracts a crowd The view from the ground of a #coffeeoutside meeting in Edmonton is pretty cool.  I also imagine the view from above.  I see bicycle commuters pointing in from all directions of the city toward Faraone Park, or Government House Park, or to the gazebo at McIntyre Park in Old Strathcona, moving along the spokes of road and path toward the hub of our Friday morning community meeting.  We are a loose affiliation of people who love bicycles and coffee and the outside and what Edmonton is becoming as it becomes a little more tolerant of those who go no car or low car. It's a good scene As many Fridays as we can get a quorum (on some days that has been a gathering of one), we start in a park outside over coffee. Some bring coffee in thermoses. Others take some morning warmth from the communal thermos. Others fire up miniature stoves and brew on the spot. We're on the verge of one of us roasting fair trade beans right there. W...

I have again begun to appreciate the complexity that it is to eat a cupcake. It started, innocently enough, with a question. "How," asked Brian, a friend at work, " do you eat a cupcake?" (I am wary of these "questions" at work from "friends" ever since being stung by this one: "Glenn, as an outsider, what is your opinion of the human race?!" Yikes. :) The very fact of the cupcake question suggested that the three obvious answers -- remove crown from stem and eat them individually; tip cupcake sideways and have at 'er; and, dive into icing head on-- were not the right answers, so, it was learn-to-do-by-doing time. The crumbless floor was Brian's: Step 1: Detach crown from stem Step 2: Invert crown and reassemble by gently squishing upside-down crown and stem into shape of sandwich Step 3: Eat, enjoy Step 4: Tell someone else Cookie sandwich discovery moment! Once the laughter lessened, a rich lesson was lef...