Charles E. Frees-Melvin's WebHome

A real breakdown of Saint John

Today I picked up a copy of The Barron, UNB Saint John’s student produced paper. I came across the article “Travelling around Saint John: what you need to know” by staff writer Simon Jack. It does not take long for one to realize the writer did not understand the history of Saint John or the Transit system.

The first point so a can move on was the reason he did not find information on the “Night Owl” run was that it was canceled in Spring 2008.

Now to the areas of Saint John, to refer to drawing a random line to determine the limits of both Millidgeville and South End is vastly poor research. The boundary for Millidgeville dates back to the 1950′s era boundary of city limits. Basically the official boundary is if a line was drawn from Somerset Street and Sandy Point Road westward to Pokiok Point that was the city limits pre-amalgamation in Saint John.

To define the South End one has to go much further back in time, back to 1785 (the beginning.) In the Royal Charter that created Saint John defined the 4 wards of the “South Central” peninsula was split into quarters at Duke and Sydney Streets. The upper class mostly lived in the west side of the harbour, or northern two central wards. The poor (very broke poor) lived to the southern wards of Duke Street making the “South End” boundary Duke Street. Through the next 20-30 years the South-enders made money suing the rich for literally everything. Leading to the creation of New Brunswick’s first Law School, that lead to UNB’s School of Law, as there were not enough lawyers to handle the workload.

In conclusion, it also needs to be pointed out the reasoning for the layouts of the streets have much to do with them being planned before those areas were part of Saint John in many cases.

Today I checked my e-mail hand found this letter from my cable television provider Rogers Cable.

Dear Rogers Cable Customer:

{snip}

I am now writing to inform you of yet another broadcasting policy proposal that is under consideration by the CRTC

After rejecting it twice, the CRTC has reintroduced the idea of having a fee-for-carriage: a payment to Canadian over the air broadcasters that could ultimately end up costing cable and satellite TV subscribers between $5 and $10 per month! continue reading…

Me and my hat.

As you can see CEFM.ca has a fresh clean new look. It is a metaphor for things happening in my life now. I am preparing to the bitter sweet life of Academia. I am returning to UNBSJ in a little over a week only this time I have a plan. I am intending to complete my BA with an Economics Major and History minor.

I am also going to take a stab at the LSAT next month. I haven’t started studying yet for it. C’est la vie of the eternal procrastinator.

I am also happy announce that the goals I have set to lose weight are moving in the right direction. However I have not been able to get to the gym this week, my old back injury from High School just came back. However it did a big snap that really hurt Wednesday while running for the bus and is tender but it feels like it repositioned in the right way for the first time in a long time. I should be able to head back next week.

I’m considering moving my Gallery section to Gallery3 however it is not ready yet and there are no themes at the current moment that meet my PHP knowledge level to modify to the new WordPress theme that I am using now.

Dripping Water at King's Landing.

Over the weekend I rented a car and took my aunt Rena out to King’s Landing. While I was there I took this picture of the water pouring from a horse water feeder. This has got to be one of the best depth of field close-up pictures I have ever taken.

I really like King’s Landing there is gust something about history, especcial social history that just totally fascinates me.

Again on the way we stopped at the Boyce Market in Fredericton. The absolute best feature of the market is the German bakers. There is absolutely not a better makers of really good foods then the Germans.

Subway Graffiti

Getting here to Montreal, I had decided to get the bus. (Orleans Express/Acadian Lines) Thus it presents this opportunity to write this long detailed encounter as I have the remainder of the 13 hour bus trip to finish.

After arriving here in Montreal I took a nice stroll down Ste-Catherine to the train station. It was on this trip through the eerily quite streets of the jazz festival site that I ran across the first image. Although to is common to think of those in the financial services industry as “wanks” someone thought it would be a great idea to draw one on the two sided of the corner of the building.

After the fist day of sessions at word camp there was this crazy man that started yelling at me in french, I think he though I took a picture or something. The funny part that is so not like me is the fact that I started yelling back at him in English and he did not seem to understand me at all. That make id kind of funny then he ran off and I went off to catch the subway to the hotel.

The subway in Montreal seemed to be quite different than Toronto. Especially the automated stalls after paying the guy handed me a little card, and I did not get originally how the doors opened, then he started yelling the what I think are the instruction in French. After looking further at the stalls I give the yelling guy the “I have no clue what you are saying look. Then he explains the put the card in the slot in English. I then proceeded to the hotel.

On the way in one of the Subway stations there was a sign in French only that part of the platform was closed for constriction bit it was graffitied with “Montreal is supposed to be Bilingual” to which some one wrote; “We wish!”

Me at the after party. Eva Blue Photo.

I thought it was amusing. One can tell mush about a society by the appearance of the graffiti. Especially, considering the prior instance of “art.”

One great thing about my iPhone is the fact that it really saved me from the being lost. Well kind of. The Google walking and transit directions are really good for Montreal. It was still a difficult city to find things in. I missed the first subway stop without realizing, thankfully my GPS on the iPhone found me the next one just in time.

The last tale before I finish is the tale of the pigeon. After the final sessions of WordCamp we went to an outdoor patio bar that had some of the most amazing natural and architectural design of any patio bar. While standing outside talking to some some interesting people like KimValee.com this word pigeon was doing a very weird dance on the windowsill across the street and everyone mentioned the crazy pidgin was about to top itself as the guy pass is the bird flies into bar right behind them and everyone starts chasing after the bird. Classic comedy movie scene.