Glenn Kubish

Here, once a week about this time, and because the week's ending is also a kind of beginning, I try to notice what I noticed from my little life that made me happy or grateful and, from the noticing, make the Three Things podcast . 1. Minding the gap 📡 👼 For the most part, I’m good with working remotely. It’s curious, though, how we use the two words “connected” and “remote” to describe distance communication in the pandemic. “Connected” and “remote,” are more opposites than alikes. Connected means “with” and remote means “apart,” kinda, right?  That pair of states of being does capture nicely a piece of the human condition. We are at the same time apart and with. I am indicted every time Auntie Shelagh says something like, okay, did you hear anything that I just said? which is not frequent but frequent enough. The truth about us is probably that we connect because we are remote. We are forced to communicate not just to get our ideas across but because, not being angels, we can...

This morning's bike ride downtown was nothing extraordinary. But there were some things worth noticing. The big tree on 101 Ave was all in at the photosynthesis roulette table. On green. At the shared use path trailhead, I felt like a spoke in a fancy dance. My friend Brian suggested Strauss. I said hello to a pedestrian heading south. I said hello to a magpie heading north. I correctly predicted that the white Uber would right hook across my path. I heard 10,000 Maniacs. I waved to Karly, who I count among my bicycling friends. I said hello to Jason as we arrived at Edmonton Tower. My morning had unfolded nicely. The day took unique turns. I guided Milan to City Centre Mall. He had a stroke three years ago. He was off to buy razors. I took a photograph from 1978 back to the exact place I took it on a Kodak Instant Camera as a 14-year-old kid. I loved that camera. I told the story to Eric and Brad fr...

"I could use a little more green," John said as we pedalled across the 142 St bridge over the MacKinnon Ravine yesterday afternoon. The comment was different parts description and defiance. Mostly description: it's still pretty brown and leafless out there. The trees and lawns haven't yet gone all in in the spring photosynthesis sweepstakes. Some defiance: The weather forecast was for snow by morning. The trees and the meteorologists got it white. The brown ground and bare trees have a set of fresh linens today. The reactions are varied. Some people deliver the neutral facts and emojis. Others share the surprise that change brings: Some bemoan and go all first-person singular about it. Others detect a mythology in which Edmontonians are eternally punished for their puny, chorophyll longings . Some offer a tentative, questioning resistance to the negativity. And others are Eric. Eric is out there. Eric is out there on his bik...

I was a bit late for the 8:15 am team meeting this morning. I blame the sun. I was quite on time as I pedalled across the 142 St bridge over the MacKinnon Ravine Bridge, the bars of which, as you can see, were painted with faint brushstrokes of delicate pink. Off and above to the right, the sun appeared through the spruce trees like a teenager sneaking home dazed in the morning, trying a little too hard to not attract attention. But there it was. The sun. 93 million miles never felt so close. I kept my eyes on it as I rode toward the end of bridge, and then looked ahead again as I got ready to turn right onto Ravine Drive. Then I felt the brakes bite. I stopped, got off my bike and walked back 20 paces along the bridge. This was the river of traffic my bike saw while I headed back against the flow: This is what I saw: I stood there amazed. Back on my bike, I spun onto Ravine Drive and was greeted by the sun between two spruce trees where last week there was ...

This afternoon there is again a Yield To Bicycles sign standing in its rightful place on the Oliverbahn, the stretch of mostly protected bicycle lane that runs along 102 Ave in Edmonton's Oliver neighbourhood. The sign is now dog-eared, as if to mark a page that contains a lesson worth re-reading and thinking about. The sign is again doing what it was designed for, which is to remind motorists not to turn left into the path of bicycle riders like me. This is all very remarkable.  It is remarkable that Edmonton has a mostly protected bicycle path in the neighbourhood. Last year, there was no bike lane here. Riding east on 102 Ave toward downtown was a take-your-chances proposition for bike commuters who became skilled at threading the needle between parked cars on the curb and moving cars in the lane. It’s something, too, that the asphalt is clear in winter. This is because the City sends out pickups with calcium chloride sprayers onto the bike lanes before the morning commut...

I recorded on Strava my bicycle ride to the post office at Shopper's Drug Mart this afternoon, and sent a quiet thank you out to Lana Stewart for the prescription.  This is Lana in de pecha (kucha) mode earlier this year in Montréal:  She was making a point that has stuck. Here goes: riding a bicycle to work is a lot of work. For the newcomer, there's a lot of obstacles. Safety in traffic, changes of clothes, storage, sweating, matted hair, risk of bike theft, mild ridicule, change of weather, and so on. Why the fascination with getting people interested in riding a bicycle to go from zero to workplace? Why not instead encourage people to make the simple rides, the neighbourhood trips to the grocery store, the bakery, the liquor store, or the post office? Better to build local and solid by encouraging wanna-be-again bicycle riders to make trips to the locations that, if they're fortunate, sit within one or two kilometres from home.  Bing's. Bikes...

I saw some things on the streets today. I heard some things, too. That's Olga signalling a left turn above.  In her impromptu bike network master class, I learned about big green bike boxes and how to safely get across lanes of traffic on the 100 Ave portion of the downtown grid. What I heard: there is a safe place in the city's allocation of space for bicycle commuters. I saw this dude's shoulder bag and heard him say he thought the new bike lane on 100 Ave was pretty good. I saw no helmet on this bicycle rider. I saw her smile and heard her say hello as we passed. "Whoa!" this pedestrian said as he walked on green and watched the car driver turn across his path. A few blocks later, approaching the traffic signal on the Glenora multi-use path, I saw the green traffic light turn yellow and the yellow turn red, and, as I hummed some old April Wine as I always do when red and yellow seasons change in gear, oh yeah, I  heard the rev of a ca...

Mars hung over the Crestwood shopping centre tonight. The pic doesn't capture the red tinge. To the naked eye, the red was there.  And the app confirmed it.                                      And then I started to see red everywhere: the stop sign,                                                             The little red battery light,                                                                    The stop light,                                   ...