Peter posted a photo on Flickr with the title "Architecture of Arrogance". A few of us have responded to it and are having an interesting discussion on what makes a building "fit" in a city street-scape.

So far we have two entrenched camps. In the right corner we have Peter stating that the building is inconsiderate of the style and design of the area. Across the ring in the opposite corner we have myself and fellow slice Noskcirderf. We're claiming the building fits the area and that there is no careful design to the block.

Despite the particulars of the debate I think that this type of debate is healthy for all involved. The city learns what its citizens really care about, each camp gets insight into the other's point of view, and it's in an open place for all to monitor and jump in when they feel so inclined.

The city should use this type of forum for interacting with its citizens. In this particular example it would have been great for the city to post the 3D drawings of the to-be-built building. We could debate what it should look like, send feedback to the developer, and make all feel heard.

While I do feel that the building is a great fit for the block I think that there is some middle ground that could have been found with a little more design: The vertical columns could have been more prominent and decorative, giving a nod to the anchor building of the block.

I've grumbled about the Charlottetown Transit routes in the past. This morning the local CBC has an article about the confusion of the system. I decided to take a crack at simplifying it.

This proposed new schedule makes the following assumptions and decisions:

• Public transit is most readily adopted when service is predictable, reliable, and easily understood.
• Some routes will be busier than others.
• Routes should be scalable. Need more capacity? Throw another bus on the line.
• Trying to deal with cross-town needs is not worth the headache (yet). Move to a hub and spoke model. It better fits the shape of our city.
• Give it time. Don't make knee jerk reactions to routes. Leave the routes up and running regularly. Perhaps pay people to go door-to-door on a slow line and explain the schedule/system to them. At the very least do direct mailings to residents around lines.

Route 1 (Loop)
Route Map

• Leaves Confederation Centre, and heads north up North River Road via Euston.
• Takes left on Beach Grove Road.
• Takes right on Mayflower Rd.
• Crosses Trans Canada.
• Turns right at Royalty Road.
• Returns via Lower Malpeque Rd and North River Road

Route 2 - Two Buses
Route Map

• Runs north/south on University.

Route 3
Route Map

• Leaves the Confederation Centre, goes north via Euston then Longworth Ave.
• Takes a left onto Mt. Edward Road.
• Turns around at the Sherwood Road.
• Returns via route it came.

Route 4
Route Map

• Leaves the Confederation Centre, goes north via Euston then Longworth Ave.
• Takes a left onto Brackley Point Rd.
• Turns around at the Airport. *Route could shorten based on flight times/etc*
• Returns via route it came.

Route 5
Route Map

• Leaves the confederation centre, goes north via Euston then Longworth Ave
• Continues on St. Peters Road.
• Turns around at Mel's Petro Can in East Royalty.
• Returns via route it came.

Route 6 (loop)
Route Map

• Leaves downtown via Grafton.
• Turns left on Riverside.
• Turns left on Kensington Road.
• Returns downtown via Fitzroy.

It's simple, easy to understand, and scalable. I'm sure there are a thousands things that I'm missing or am ignorant about. The key is simplicity and regularity. Otherwise we're just going to drive ourselves.

I took a cheap shot at employment insurance today. To balance out the karma I figured I should be a little more positive on the subject and offer up some constructive criticism.

Employment Insurance (EI) often gets a bad rap because it's set-up to do too much. I propose we split the program into two parts: Employment Insurance and Seasonal Work Subsidy. With the two pieces torn apart we can create policies that make sense for each.

Employment Insurance - With the seasonal bits out of the program we can truly tailor its policies for what it is intended to be, employment insurance. Suddenly lose your job after 20 years? No problem, take a year or two to get back on your feet and get retrained. Heck, with all of the EI surpluses we might as well bump up the percentage of the pay you get too. Employment insurance should work as all insurance does. You pay in, then draw out when you need it. Some get more than they put in but in the end everyone is covered. Wacky idea: treat employment insurance as a collection of pseudo individual whole life policies. Never lose your job but have paid into the program your entire life? Why not get a hefty cheque at the end of it?

Seasonal Work Subsidy - Let's call it what it is. This money is spent as a way to prop up industries and areas of the country that otherwise could not sustain the level of wealth they have. It's what allows PEI to have the tourism infrastructure it does. It's, as Jevon points out, another form of transfer payment.

Now, with workers only having full time work on a seasonal basis we need to ensure that they survive throughout the four seasons. If there is part-time work available in the off-seasons let's REWARD those who take the initiative to do it instead of PUNISHING them. I'm not sure how this reward would work but overall I think it's a good idea. It would overcome the simple math of making more money to not work. It would also allow people to work which in and of itself is a rewarding thing to do.

Update: After a night of sleep I awoke with a possible reward system for seasonal workers: For every week/day worked above and beyond the minimum amount of required hours increase the % of their weekly pay they would receive when not working.

I by no means have thought through every detail of how this could/would/should work. This is merely a conversation piece and hopefully a good start to a healthy debate.

As with any new idea it takes a few tweaks to get it just right. We had a lot of interest in the course and trip to Costa Rica but most people weren't able to make both work. As a result we're adapting.

We are considering simply offering the travel course (no trip) this winter. The course would cost $200.00 and would take place over 3-4 evenings or a few full days.

We will be teaching you how to:

• Save money on airfare, transportation, and accommodations
• Research and plan travel for International and North American destinations
• Travel safely and stay healthy
• Tips and tricks to make travel easier and more relaxed
• Much, much, more.

Need a specific example of what we'll teach you? Using discount hotel booking websites and a few supporting websites we were able to stay in Victoria, BC at a four star Sheraton for 38.00/night. Regular room rates were 110.00+.

Now it's up to you. If you're interested in the course please let us know (send us an email or tweet at us). Let us know what days of the week and time work best. We'll get back to you and let you know what we'll end up doing.

Thanks for putting up with us while we find out what works.

On my Visa statement this month there were two significant line items listed as: Charlottetown, Charlottetown PE. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what they were. I thought perhaps the City of Charlottetown was charging me for random water and sewer usage.

Tonight I called Visa. Without even looking into the details of the transactions the friendly visa gentlemen asked "have you purchased anything from the Future Shop lately?. That was it! I had. He went on to explain that for some reason unbeknownst to logic the Future Shop has changed all of their Visa charges nationwide to be listed as [store location], [city name], [provincial abbreviation]. Needless to say Visa is getting a lot of calls. I imagine the respective cities are also getting a lot of calls.

Future Shop, you might want to revisit your Visa charge bill listing schema.

A friendly reminder that the LearnToTravel information meeting is Wednesday (tomorrow) night at 224 Queen Street. We'll start shortly after 7pm.

What's on the agenda:

• Introducing Becky and I. A bit about us, our travels, and our respective expertise
• What will the course look like? A look at what and how we'll be teaching.
• A look at the trip. We'll go over the basics of the trip. Pictures, places, activities, etc.
• A few freebies. We'll let you know one or two of our travel tips and tricks to give you a taste of what's to come.

We've had a few people ask if they could just take the course and not go on the trip. We're considering this option. Please let us know if you are interested in doing so. Once we gage the interest we'll be able to make a decision on pricing and availability.

On May 17 2004 Becky and I stepped foot in our first country outside of Canada and the USA. It was our honeymoon and we were in Costa Rica. Our first few minutes in this strange new land didn’t go so well. The automatic doors of the Juan Santamaría International Airport slid open and we stepped into the humid heat of the tropics. The heat felt nice.

Rewind a few months. We decided to go to Costa Rica for the most mundane yet profound of reasons. We wanted to see a jungle. Becky had seen a “jungle treetop skywalk” brochure somewhere and decided that she wanted to walk in the jungle’s canopy. Wanting to be an agreeable husband I immediately started making arrangements for Costa Rica to be our honeymoon destination.

In the months leading up to the wedding, and of course the honeymoon, we did what most people do who are going on their first international trip: We went to the first few results on Google for “Costa Rica” and then succeeded in over preparing ourselves by looking at the travel sections of stores and magazines. We bought money belts, we got needles, we bought guidebooks, we planned who would pick us up and when. We then sat back and thought that due to our shrewd planning all would be perfect in Costa Rica. We had visions of the doors of the airport sliding open and us being ushered into a beautiful relaxed tropical world. Our hotel’s shuttle would be parked outside on a lush grassy knoll, it would be the only vehicle there. There would be birds singing and maybe some sort of tropical fruit smells wafting by.

As the airport doors closed behind us and our eyes adjusted to the outside light we were greeted by hundreds of taxi drivers behind a crowd control barrier. They were all yelling at us in broken English that they were our drive. Oh my. We immediately became 100% overwhelmed. The sliding doors were one way only. We were stuck. We couldn’t crawl back into the North America we knew. We cautiously approached the yelling drivers. We told one of the drivers closest to us that “we have a transfer arranged with our hotel”. He immediately said, along with a dozen other drivers around him, that he was the transfer that our hotel had arranged.

We didn’t know what to do. It was obvious that no one was telling us the truth. We couldn’t believe that people would be so desperate for our business. Was this all a scam? We took to canvassing the crowd looking for our arranged drive. Eventually a man in the middle of the crowd asked us in broken English what our names were. We told him. He then wrote the names on a piece of paper and showed them to us. He claimed he was our driver. All he did was correctly spell our names. Shockingly this was somehow good enough for us. We agreed to go with him. He walked away from the crowd and we sheepishly followed him.

Our driver walked into a parking garage. It seemed to be dimly lit. He led us to a mini-van like vehicle and motioned for us to get it. He spoke very little, if any, English. We spoke no Spanish – not even “yes” or “no”. Becky and I climbed into the middle seat and exchanged looks of terror. Were we with the right person? What if this was a trap?! He got in, smiled at us, and shifted into gear. There was no going back.

We pulled out of the garage and onto a highway. We thought we saw the city of San Jose opening up before us (it turned out to be behind us a fair ways). We nervously watched out the window as this new strange world passed us by. We clenched each others’ legs as we took hairpin turns with oncoming traffic in our lane. We swore we were going to die in this van on these crazy roads.

Eventually the heavily populated area was behind us and we were traveling on increasingly smaller roads leading into the country. We were supposed to be headed for a very popular spa and resort in the Arenal area of the country. We had no idea if we were headed in the right direction or not.

After an hour or so the driver looked at us in his rear-view mirror and said something that was obviously a question. Unfortunately the nature of the question was lost on us. We just shook our heads. He slowed the van down and pointed at a hut on the side of the road that had some plastic lawn chairs by it. He repeated his question. We assumed he was asking us if we wanted to stop. We said NO as clearly as we could. He smiled indicating that he understood and then proceeded to pull the van beside the hut and park. He hopped out and opened our door. We cautiously stepped out.

We had no idea where we were. Was this his friend’s house? Was this where they would leave us when they stole our money and luggage? We stood beside the van looking like two scared lost children. The driver calmly walked over to a lady by a table with a few things on it and said something that made her laugh. She then got him a coffee from another table behind her and he stood there drinking it and joking with her. We gradually began to understand that this was a roadside store. We saw a small ice cream freezer by the table and selected something from it. The lady, who was very friendly, said something incomprehensible to us and held out her hand. Having no idea what the currency exchange was we handed over a fistful of American dollars. She took them, put them in her small change tray and handed back to us an assortment of colorful bills and coins. We smiled and said thank you. We had no idea if we were just ripped off or not.

We sat in the plastic lawn chairs and whispered to each other about the strangeness of this new land. We marvelled at the new currency that we now held in our hands. It was so different. The ice cream was a brand we had never heard of before. The van was a model we had never seen. The vegetation was more lush than we’d ever imagined. We were awestruck by the differentness of it all. The driver finished his coffee and made a motion that we assumed was our queue to get back in the van.

After another hour or so on the road we pulled into our resort. Yes! It was correct one. The driver never asked to be paid so we assumed he was the correct one. As we got our bags from the driver and walked through the entrance’s automatic sliding doors a cool wave from the air conditioned lobby came over us. We re-entered the North America we knew. The staff spoke fluent English. The literature and signage was in English. The hotel resort could have been in Costa Rica or in Florida. We were shown our beautiful room and we crashed on the bed talking a million miles a minute about this different place that we were so lucky to see.

When we returned home our friends and family asked to see our pictures, hear our stories, and generally live vicariously through us. They said things like “that is the trip of a lifetime”, “You won’t be able to have that kind of experience again”. We decided then and there that our lifetime would be a series of trips. We decided to make travel a very high priority in our life.

Since that first trip in May of 2004 we’ve spent many more days, months upon months, in other countries. That simple desire to see a jungle turned into an insatiable desire to see, but more importantly, to be in the world. This desire has taken us to 15 different nations, four continents, too many cities to remember, and through many stressful travel situations. We have bathed elephants in Thailand and shared long drives with rural doctors to remote towns in Venezuela. We have had tremendous highs while traveling and equally terrifying lows. It has brought a sense of adventure and of “living” to our life.

Over these past five years of travel we have learned a lot about the practice of travelling. We have come a long way from those two wide-eyed and terrified tourists who stepped into Costa Rica in 2004. We have learned simple tips and tricks to save money. We have learned how to deal with stressful situations. We have learned how to efficiently plan, prepare for, and book a trip. More importantly than what we have learned to do is what we have learned not to do.

The travel industry is like most other industries. It’s extremely confusing, full of schemes and scammers, and is hell-bent on getting your money. In many ways the travel industry is much like the wedding industry. You are first sold a dream. This is sold through movies, magazines, tv-shows, and many other mass-media tools. Once you buy the dream (it’s free) they have you. They will then proceed on selling you all of the things that you perceive you will need to make your wedding perfect. The horse and carriage, the stringed quartet, the dress that costs a small fortune, the cakes, the photos, the whole Cinderella package. But at the end of the day when you tumble into the bed in your honeymoon suite at the best hotel in the city you are just as married as the couple who had a humble ceremony at the courthouse and then had a BBQ at their family cottage.

If you treat travel like most treat a wedding then yes, you will have a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Why? Because you won’t be able to afford to go on another trip. If you buy into the industry hook-line-and-sinker you will be sunk. You will spend far too much money and receive far too little value. Thankfully there are other options and there are travel equivalents to having a simple ceremony at the courthouse.

As we’ve gained more and more travel experience (and there are many who have much more than we do), we’ve been approached by more and more people to help them plan their trips. We’ve sat in wide eyed wonder as very intelligent friends and family type in “cheap flights” into Google expecting to find the best deals. The simple skills we have built up in planning our trips has become something that is in demand. People want to travel but they don’t know how and they are often too scared to take that first big step into the unknown.

So Becky and I have started a new venture. We’ve decided to throw our hats into the travel industry ring. We have started LearnToTravel. What is LearnToTravel? It’s a reaction to what is currently offered in the travel industry. We are going to come alongside those who want to see new countries and have new experiences but don’t want to do so from a fortress of a resort or the safety of a tour bus. We are going to help others overcome the fear of travel and do our best to show them the amazing rewards it can offer. Most importantly we are going to do our best to help people become independent travellers. Travellers who don’t need a tour company, a travel agent, or a pre-packaged trip. We are going to try and teach how to not need the travel industry.

What we’re offering:
We have developed a series of eight 3 hour courses to teach you how to plan, prepare, and book an international trip. We’ll show you everything we know about finding deals, dealing with airlines (and their stubborn points programs), staying in four star hotels for the price of a hostel, and doing just-enough research but not too much on the destination of your choice.

We don’t stop there. We are actually going to go on a trip with you. Booking, planning, and research are one thing but that first time in a new place can enhance or completely kill a person’s desire to travel. We want to come alongside you and do our best to help you overcome your fears of the unknown. As you get comfortable with your new-found freedom we’ll start stepping back. At the end of our journey together you’ll be completely in charge and on your own. Don’t worry we’ll be nearby in case you get into difficulty.

Our first course and trip combo is open for enrolment. We are starting courses in January and will travel to Costa Rica for 14 days as a small group (no less than 7 no more than 12) in late March and early April. We’ve been back to Costa Rica since our honeymoon and have spent over a month there exploring all that it has to offer.

The course fee is $2,995. This includes all accommodation, food, transport, and activities in Costa Rica. What it doesn’t include is your flight to Costa Rica. Not to worry, we’ll help you find the best possible deal. We expect to be able to get you a flight there and back for $800-$1,200.

While the course may seem pricey we’re confident in its value. The tips and tricks we’ll show you should save you back the course fee in a trip or two. In fact even if you never travel internationally again we’ll still be able to show you how to save tremendous amounts of money travelling inside Canada and the US.

If you have questions or would just like to meet us we are having an open house/information meeting on November 11 at the Queen Street Commons (224 Queen Street). There are many more details about our course and the trip at our website.

SPAM, the unwanted communication you get in your email and on your website, is not solely a technological problem. Yes, we need tools that better prevent it and block it, but at the core we need to understand why it's being sent in the first place.

Believe it or not SPAM works. Think about it. There has to be an economical reason for it to succeed. People are making money off of it so they continue to do it.

So how does it make money? Well first it makes money because most of the infrastructure costs are externalized. Spammers use other people's servers to do their nasty work. Just last week we had a form exploited on a website we built. We let down our guard for a single page on the Internet and within 12 hours 10,000 emails had been sent through our mail server. Now we're left to clean up the mess of being blacklisted by certain hosts, etc.

It doesn't cost much/anything to send emails. Unlike paper spam (flyers) emails are free produce and distribute. You don't need to make much of a return to justify hitting the send button.

People click the links and buy the products. It's true. We've seen enough 60 Minutes Episodes of people loosing their fortunes to Nigerian scams to know that people are falling hook, line, and sinker for SPAM.

The solution - Sadly there is none. I used to think that a financial exchange would work. The premise being that most people send as many emails as they receive. Financially that would even out for most people and essentially be free. That model sounds great but it breaks down on Internet content and other forms of online communication. The Internet is free and will continue to be.

It's like the War on Drugs except no one really wants SPAM. You still have your dealers, you still have rogue countries housing and producing the supply, you still massive amounts of money moving around. What you don't have is junkies and crack addicts.

Fight the war. Like the war on drugs, which probably is a failure, it needs to be fought at multiple levels.

• Political pressure needs to be placed on known countries that are allowing this industry within their borders.
• It needs to be made illegal. If you setup a system to call every phone at every business every day multiple times over you know you would be arrested for something.
• Doors need to be kicked in, SWAT teams need to be deployed, and the shit needs to be scared out of the spammers.
• You need to stop being a spammer. It's mostly known as Search Engine Optimization and other voodoo marketing stuff. Stop it. It's not working for you and it's killing your business. Derek Powazek has a great post on this.
• Most importantly we need to educate the masses about SPAM. Public service announcements showing what spam is and the horrors it brings to the world. If we can make Sally Arkansas understand what these emails are then her and her brother Manitoba Bob will be less likely to click on them and order a fake Rolex.

I had a very good friend bring a box of fine beers all the way across the country for me. Wow. Amazing beer and even more amazing friend. Tonight we had the Trappistes Rochefort #8. Delicious.