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Following up on yesterday's post about Telus wrapping up their DSL cabinets, here's the wrapped DSL cabinet by MEC's employee's entrance on the West side of the building on Columbia Street. Nice by itself, but it's meant to be seen with the nearby big old tree. Earliier, about a kilometre-or-so West, I found another DSL cabinet with a  sticker label on the back, warning of high voltage. There was fine print along the bottom, including ... a URL: slsol.com! Finally, I thought, a Web site for one of these DSL cabinet makers.


The URL is for the company which made the sticker. Click the images to enlarge them.

MEC's rooftop parking lot affords a great view North, over False Creek, of downtown Vancouver and the mountains beyond -- I slyly say "the" because I think they're the Rockies, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I went up there a few days ago to enjoy the view, and it was great, so naturally I took photographs -- of a street light -- who can say what goes on in my head? I did tear my attention away from the beautifully prosaic, to take one snap of the merely spectacular. Nice keepsake now that gray-skied Fall has fallen upon us. Click the images to enlarge them.

[caption id="attachment_2542" align="alignnone" width="497"] The bike racks outside MEC on West Broadway, today. Click the image to enlarge it.[/caption]

I earn money by binning. I use a bicycle, with a bike trailer, to collect beverage containers to recover the deposit -- keeping my ride is a matter of being able to support myself,  so naturally I take bike security seriously.

Some basic suggestions:

• Make your bike less attractive to steal than someone else’s.


• Choose a security routine you can follow like a second nature.


• Lock both wheels -- Use a long, 11-inch U-lock and a chain, or two short U-locks. Whatever.


• Ask at a decent bike store about locking bike skewers, which can make it that much harder for thieves to take your wheels.


• If you lock your bike up outside overnight, get six feet of transport chain and a mini U-lock, which always stays locked to the railing or pole where you lock the bike.


• Don't leave easily removable do-dads on your bike, like lights, unless you are in a gift-giving mood.

Everyone should have disk brakes, but I don't. My bike uses a rim brake system: Linear pull brakes, otherwise called V-brakes, which are easier to change than the older cantilever system, but still annoying. Switching to a cartridge brake system in December has made my V-brakes, more-or-less, hassle-free. Every bike store should sell cartridge brake shoes and pads; lots of different companies make them. I've read they are available for cantilever brakes also, though I've only seen them for V-brakes.