It's like Seinfeld, but not funny

I find it sort of ironic that I've finally decided to publish a blog. After all my rants about myspace and blogging in general, My blog though will be used for the powers of awesome, usually about observations I have about random things.

Myspace is an interesting sociological experiment because in the western world of constant definitions of individuality, people find comfort in a community that has no limits on the type of person that you are, you can find people that connect with you regardless of your individuality. The hours spent, designing profiles, adding people to friends of myspace profiles, and the complexity of the entire social network is a testiment of the need of people to find other people like them. The growth of emo culture in the last few years is a great example of how people join together and subscribe to a style and perhaps way of life in a non-centralized network.

Blogging is another thing I find interesting. I’m sort of torn between the stupidity of it and the potential for blogs to change the way we look at media. On the one side blogs can be like a diary, or a conversation with no one, putting information into the void of cyber space. Although they are available for anyone to read (and people blogging should be careful about this paradox…ie angry bosses) chances are unless you’re a hot lady type ranting about yourself (http://ingypingy.blogspot.com/ for example) few people other than friends will ever read it. That is unless you’re really expressing something new, and informative (like matthew goods blog, http://www.matthewgood.org/mblog) or sending out celebrity gossip.

Blogs can be used for expression of information, personal ideas On the other hand although the masses of blogs I’ve read are useless, (much like the geocities sites of the mid ninetys) Some blogs can really change and harness the power of the web, perhaps changing the way we put look at news altogether. Group sites can be updated at the blink of an eye telling it’s members what’s happening (Southern Ontario soaring association has used this method http://sosaglidingclub.blogspot.com/) or people in conflicted areas can express what’s going on, and put their own personal spin on ideas. The “epic 2014” media museum puts all this “nu” style of news into perspective and the potential uses and downfalls of blogging. (http://mccd.udc.es/orihuela/epic/)

Much of what I’ve said may be cleche and said a million times before on someone elses blog, but that’s why it’s taken so long for me to actually establish a blog for myself, well that and I’m really really lazy. I’ve wanted to publish something on my observations of the world around me and keep a lot of my far away friends updated on what exactly I’m doing and have been putting it off for much too long. Given that, here’s my blog!

So what the hell am I doing in Brampton, the city without soul?[1]

It all started in about mid April *cue Fear and Loathing in las Vegas opening*. I just woke up in the basement apartment of a good friend of mine after a long night of conversation with friends. My boss from last year phoned me about a new contract in peel region, encompassing Brampton and Caledon Ontario Last year I worked for a company that did mosquito management in the greater Hamilton Region. I did mapping and some treatment of mosquitoes. Being half asleep and with a poor cell connection, from being in a cement basement apartment, I misunderstood, and heard Brantford and Caledonia Ontario, an area of southern Ont that I really enjoyed. So I said yes… later as I was looking up peel region on the lap top, I realized what I had gotten myself into.

Peel region is the second largest region in Canada other than Toronto. (http://www.region.peel.on.ca/). With the type of work we were doing (treating sewer catch basins on the sides of roads) I realized it would be a much more insane job than last year. So after quitting my cushy slacker job in Winnipeg, I looked started to look for a place in Brampton to live.

I thought I was going to work in Hamilton before, but now with this change there would be a spot for someone else in Hamilton, and a friend of mine just happened to want to work in the company I did last year because of the proximity to a Gliding club (www.sosa.com) and the good pay.

We set the leave date for the end of April and camped our way across the country….After Freezing to death twice (in minus 10 conditions with high winds) we made it to southern Ontario.

I lived in a trailer next to the gliding airport at sosa for 3 weeks while searching for a place that was affordable, and the people or place didn’t drive me insane. 15 hits later I finally found a place a block from the house everyone else was working out of. It’s unfortunately in one of the most boring sterile places in the most boring sterile cities in Canada. (eat your heart out Winnipeg!!)

In the time since then and now I havn’t found a person that actually likes Brampton, mapping it for work was a pain too, as well as working on it’s 70km main roads. With no decent bike trails, pubs, or really good coffee places, I’ve spent most of my off time not actually Peel region but in places beside it.

Over the next few weeks I’ll try and describe to the best of my ability what it’s like to live and work here, and with my new digital camera, perhaps make a photo essay of Brampton.

---

[1] Note, It’s actually called “the flower city”, like neepawa manitoba… another city without soul..