Olympic rant..
Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:45 pm
So, 2010.. Olympics in Vancouver. Great, it's a real honor to have them Olympic games in Vancouver. Seriously it is! However... They Olympic planning team has done a piss poor job at planning, and not just that.. they have decided to take over peoples daily lives in order to make quick $$ or to give a few people their 15mins of fame. The cost of this to the lives of many of us is not at all cool.
Examples:
torch bearers. Many average people were given the chance to have the 15 mins fame, they get an outfit and a torch and get to be on TV, carrying the torch down the street. Many of them walking down the street basking in the moment. Smiling, waving.. taking their sweet time. The result of that in my area was a main street which is needed to allow travel in and out of my area ie, the only way in and out for a large number of people, was blocked for this event, from 7am to 1pm. Not fully, but it was not at all organized. My wife left 1.5 hours early to be sure to get to work. I went by foot, and even by foot it took me twice the time it usually takes. Because as a pedestrian, I wasn't even allowed to cross the street because of these torch bearers. You have this main road, normally 4 lanes(two each side) you take one of those sides and completely cut it off. However, you do not take care to split the other two into incoming and outgoing traffic. You just leave it as is.. ok.. that's really stupid.. but moving on. I watched a police officer on a motorbike go down on the wrong side of the road.. not for any real reason.. just wanted to.. and his action was to wave people out of the way. This resulted in complete confusion.. the cars then all pulled over and stopped.. confused looks on their faces unsure how long he wanted them to be there.. he didn't.. he just wanted to go around.. maybe catch up with his buddy to have a little conversation because he was bored. So no what little traffic there was.. has now come to a complete and confused stop. We have people standing on the sides of the road waving and yelling at anything that goes past them.. that MIGHT have something to do with the Olympics, and a friend told me there was another police officer threatening people on the edge of the road with his bike, swerving and reving his engine. He witnessed this happen to a mother and her child. No legitimate reason.. just wanted to.. @#$%ing jerk.
next example is our lovely University, and most other schools are closed. But why is that do you ask? Well quite simple really.. they want to sell the parking. So you, in the middle of your second term are not allowed at ALL on campus.. forced 2 week "vacation" .. now to some it's not so bad. However, the world moves on without you. This fractures your concentration as well. How hard is it to get back to full speed when you've been forced to stop? It works for studies too.. when you stop learning, reading, doing.. you need time to get back into it again. So a two week break (aka party time to some students) means an overall loss. They are trying to arrange to tack on the extra two weeks.. however, how about those people who lecture at different schools? This offset of two weeks potentially screws their entire schedule.. and it's not likely they are to be paid for the extra two weeks.. what if they other school is in another country or province? they don't have this delay. Or perhaps they got a consession to do teaching one day a week for a specific period of time but not the rest of the year. This throws all that off for the company. No one else seems to think of any of this.
We have thousands of tourists every year, however, we have never needed to close roads, schools, etc. This is simply an example of people doing whatever the hell they want, screwing with the regular person's life.
Do we need people winding down every street in BC stopping traffic to see a torch? no.. we don't. The people who came out for it.. left the second the passed them.. no joke. They ran past them and they all started to say, ok let's go, and left. It was a simple curiosity nothing more.. people could have seen ONE torch bearer run one street near the already closed Olympic area on TV and online and that would have been enough.
Do we need to provide our schools parking to tourists? hell no.. we don't do it any other time.. why the hell should we do it at the expense of our students educations? For the olympics? screw that... Some suggest it's because there is to be no parking on the side of the road, but you know what.. that's downtown only.. not out here... and if you suggest it's to help the hotels who don't have enough parking.. how the hell is that our problem.. poor hotel.. didn't think that they might need one parking space per room.. gee.. that's kinda stupid don't you think?
So again.. it's an honor.. but it's about the sports.. not the 15 mins fame, or the cash grab.. it's not about stopping peoples lives so someone can try to win a gold medal for their country.
Examples:
torch bearers. Many average people were given the chance to have the 15 mins fame, they get an outfit and a torch and get to be on TV, carrying the torch down the street. Many of them walking down the street basking in the moment. Smiling, waving.. taking their sweet time. The result of that in my area was a main street which is needed to allow travel in and out of my area ie, the only way in and out for a large number of people, was blocked for this event, from 7am to 1pm. Not fully, but it was not at all organized. My wife left 1.5 hours early to be sure to get to work. I went by foot, and even by foot it took me twice the time it usually takes. Because as a pedestrian, I wasn't even allowed to cross the street because of these torch bearers. You have this main road, normally 4 lanes(two each side) you take one of those sides and completely cut it off. However, you do not take care to split the other two into incoming and outgoing traffic. You just leave it as is.. ok.. that's really stupid.. but moving on. I watched a police officer on a motorbike go down on the wrong side of the road.. not for any real reason.. just wanted to.. and his action was to wave people out of the way. This resulted in complete confusion.. the cars then all pulled over and stopped.. confused looks on their faces unsure how long he wanted them to be there.. he didn't.. he just wanted to go around.. maybe catch up with his buddy to have a little conversation because he was bored. So no what little traffic there was.. has now come to a complete and confused stop. We have people standing on the sides of the road waving and yelling at anything that goes past them.. that MIGHT have something to do with the Olympics, and a friend told me there was another police officer threatening people on the edge of the road with his bike, swerving and reving his engine. He witnessed this happen to a mother and her child. No legitimate reason.. just wanted to.. @#$%ing jerk.
next example is our lovely University, and most other schools are closed. But why is that do you ask? Well quite simple really.. they want to sell the parking. So you, in the middle of your second term are not allowed at ALL on campus.. forced 2 week "vacation" .. now to some it's not so bad. However, the world moves on without you. This fractures your concentration as well. How hard is it to get back to full speed when you've been forced to stop? It works for studies too.. when you stop learning, reading, doing.. you need time to get back into it again. So a two week break (aka party time to some students) means an overall loss. They are trying to arrange to tack on the extra two weeks.. however, how about those people who lecture at different schools? This offset of two weeks potentially screws their entire schedule.. and it's not likely they are to be paid for the extra two weeks.. what if they other school is in another country or province? they don't have this delay. Or perhaps they got a consession to do teaching one day a week for a specific period of time but not the rest of the year. This throws all that off for the company. No one else seems to think of any of this.
We have thousands of tourists every year, however, we have never needed to close roads, schools, etc. This is simply an example of people doing whatever the hell they want, screwing with the regular person's life.
Do we need people winding down every street in BC stopping traffic to see a torch? no.. we don't. The people who came out for it.. left the second the passed them.. no joke. They ran past them and they all started to say, ok let's go, and left. It was a simple curiosity nothing more.. people could have seen ONE torch bearer run one street near the already closed Olympic area on TV and online and that would have been enough.
Do we need to provide our schools parking to tourists? hell no.. we don't do it any other time.. why the hell should we do it at the expense of our students educations? For the olympics? screw that... Some suggest it's because there is to be no parking on the side of the road, but you know what.. that's downtown only.. not out here... and if you suggest it's to help the hotels who don't have enough parking.. how the hell is that our problem.. poor hotel.. didn't think that they might need one parking space per room.. gee.. that's kinda stupid don't you think?
So again.. it's an honor.. but it's about the sports.. not the 15 mins fame, or the cash grab.. it's not about stopping peoples lives so someone can try to win a gold medal for their country.