Upcoming in my blog I will have a more thorough review of my

new 40d which canon has screwed up royally again and the Frozen Rail Jam which

is this Saturday at Blue which should be super sick, and with the snowfall we

are getting Friday, everyone is pumped to get up to Collingwood and ski, see

everyone up there. Also I will be running a bunch of articles on SBC Skier’s

site, which involve interviewing all the park managers at different resorts

throughout Ontario, so check in for that.

This blog is strictly full of different rants; so don’t

expect to find any type of good grammar. No pictures this post, just words.

Strike:

 It seems as though this strike will stay strong, or at least

they’ve told us the earliest we are back in school is January, which seems

unlikely. It been one and a half months since I had any classes at York

University, and the same is with 50,000 other students waiting for the TA’s to

stop bitching about not getting paid enough. It seems everyone wants more

money, everyone need a bailout. In our ever-declining economy with job

uncertainties everyone seems to want to have their job security, and who can

blame them. Get as far way from the quick sand before it sucks you in and

brings even more debt upon you. But as a student we are put out of class, we

are certain of only one thing, the uncertainty of our schedule. We could have

our classes cancelled for the whole year, or just a couple more days. Its hard

to start a job and tell a employer that we might just work for 3 days, or 3

months but never know when the end will come to the strike. Let alone students

who need to pay for school by working in the summer. If classes start up, as

students do we get refunded, compensated for time we wasted not being able to

work, not getting educated?

 We will most likely have our reading week cancelled, and

school year lengthened so we might end late June, thus only having 2 months of

employment to earn for the next year at York. I have a place in residence that

I am paying a good bag of pennies for, yet I am at home because living on

campus holds no purpose other than the empty campus to party, but even that

gets old. The last strike at York University went on for 11 weeks, we are just

past halfway through that marker and I hope TA’s don’t see that as a goal of

theirs.

New camera gear:

 After a month of researching every different camera detail I

am now the proud owner of a 40d and canon 70-200 f2.8 that I can say is an

amazing lens, and a large step-up from the sigma 70-300 f4-5.6 APO DG that I

was using before… Although I cannot say I really own a 40d as I do not have one

in my possession. After a good look throughout Toronto for the cheapest place

to gather my bag of pennies together I decided Downtown Camera would be the

place to pay out. So 2 grand and change later I had myself a sexy beast of a

setup, seeming very superior to my 350d. So it works great the first weekend,

so I bring it to good old horseshoe the 2nd weekend and bam “error

99”. This error is very well known in the Canon world. Meaning anything from a

compact flash problem to a fried wire on a circuit board, it’s a very general

message meaning something is wrong, this being one of Canon’s major bugs in its

history. So now after an hour drive to canon HQ I have to wait and hope that it

is fixed for Christmas. It really lame because I will not have it for the FRJ

at Blue so I will have to use my 350d body, which is fine, but the 70-200 f2.8

is somewhat of overkill for it.

MSLM>Horseshoe ...

 Horseshoe on the other hand was a bit of a mess this past

weekend. We arrive shortly after 10 AM, and as we walked into the lodge, we saw

what seemed to be every Asian from Toronto and the surrounding area they’re

trying to rent gear and get lift tickets. Horseshoe being the resort they are

only had 5 people working which meant it was past 11 before we were out on the

hill. I have never even had to wait that long for a chairlift, let alone just

buying a ticket. Absolutely ridiculous, how do they expect to do this when they

are in peak season and have way more people? Anyways so I figured I would give

Horseshoe a chance, in the past I have just driven the extra 10 minutes to

MSLM, which has quality parks, and always quality service, so you knew you

would get your money’s worth. So Horseshoe was nothing spectacular, barely had

anything setup. Maybe a 5 ft jump, box that didn’t even have a proper lip, and

a corrugated water tube and another plastic tube, which took up much of the

day, just hiking. I will add that they are supposed to be getting a t-bar this

season for their pipe which is a first in Ontario, and they are expanding a few

runs to add park features, but until I see them I will still think of Horseshoe

as the same I knew it 2 or 3 years ago with 1 or 2 rails, a jump and no skiing

worth doing, when MSLM is visible from the peak.

-Pippin Lee