It was raining when I got up on Thursday morning and it kept on raining as I did my yoga, practised songs and got ready for work. My boots still weren’t quite dry from riding to work and back in the rain the night before.
I started practicing guitar a few minutes earlier than usual and managed to get through most of my current set before I had to get ready to leave.
Riding to work along Dundas, just after Ossington I went through a big puddle and by feet were wet afterwards.
At around Bathurst I stopped at a light and rolled my wheels over one of the many little piles of leaves that had been collected and pushed to the curb. I thought to myself that there could be glass inside of those piles and then I moved on. Just before Spadina my tire went flat just after I’d passed a woman that further back had passed me (because her bike was faster), that I’d passed again and that had passed me again. I had to walk the rest of the way to OCAD, but it’s a good thing I’d been racing because I still made it to work more than fifteen minutes early.
I worked for Bob Berger. He’s always interested in what I’m studying at university and, as he often does, he told his class about it. I guess his reason is to let them know that education should not just happen at the early part of one’s life.
I always get a long break when I’m working for Bob, because they tend to take about 45 minutes to look at homework, which in this case consisted of self-portraits. Again, there were very few guys in this class.
He told his class that there is a river running underneath the Village by the Grange. Something about a very large cement block that is buried down there maybe to prevent the river from rising or to prevent something. When I looked this up, I think he must be talking about Taddle Creek, which was also known as the little Don River. It turns out that the Philosopher’s Walk at U of T follows what used to be its ravine.
After work, I walked my bike down to Queen and stopped at the Bank of Nova Scotia to make change for the streetcar. A few out of service busses went by and then one going to Shaw. Just behind that bus was the streetcar. There is still construction on Queen, so the streetcar is still deviating down Spadina, along King and back up Shaw, which explains the shuttle bus to Shaw.
When I got home, I just went to my place long enough to drop off my jacket and my backpack and then I took my vehicle to Bike Pirates.
I didn’t need much help to change a front tube. I found there was a piece of glass that had punctured my tire, but when I tried to pull it out with the pliers, I just kept crushing the tip of the shard. Dennis told me to poke it out with a puncher. Then he told me to just put some duct tape over the hole on the inside of the tire. Another volunteer suggested that it might be better to just change the tire, but when I showed him the hole; he said it would be okay to tape it.
Once the tire was back on, it was a little uneven on the rim, once I’d pumped it up, so Dennis deflated it and lined it up.
I don’t think it took me much more than half an hour to get the work done. The tube cost six dollars, so I gave them ten.
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