By the River – Page 19 – Thoughts from Toronto's Don River to Seoul's Han River

2018-03-142024-08-01

Things I’ve only seen on Toronto subways

Feet on seat. Something to eat. Conversate loudly. Not being discrete.

Welcome to the Toronto Transit Commission subway. I have “only” ridden subways in a handful of cities. But of those, Toronto remains unique based on the above actions observed.

In addition to Toronto, I have ridden subways in Seoul, Incheon, Gwangju, Busan, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, and Nagoya.

Out of all those cities, only in Toronto have I seen riders place their feet on the seats, eat food, or talk loudly with their companions or on their cellular telephones.

To my understanding, eating on the subways is prohibited in South Korea and Japan. But how about the rude habit of placing your feet on the seat? Then again, the seats in South Korea and Japan are laid out like metro systems in most countries… Along the sides of the car. There are no forward-facing seats like in Toronto. Loud talking… Now that’s a different story. I simply cannot understand why people are so loud in Toronto.

South Korean and Japanese subway systems have full cellular service throughout. Toronto has very limited service. Yet people in those countries are quiet while in Toronto, people scream into their phones while riding through the few open-air spots where service is available.

In the Greater Toronto Area, we have a regional commuter rail service called GO Transit, short for Government of Ontario Transit. As these are surface rail, cellular service is available throughout.

Rides on GO Transit tend to be quiet except for those who insist on screaming into their cellular phones.

I cannot end this rant without mentioning what inspired me to write this post today. Eating food. Yes. People eat on the subway.

They don’t just eat light snacks, but some actually eat whole meals. Regardless of how busy the subway is, you can find someone sitting down eating an entire KFC combo.

People carry coffee on the train. What if the train makes a sudden stop? That coffee could fly out of their hands and spill onto other riders, possibly burning them.

I think we need a culture change with regards to riding the subway in Toronto.

2018-03-122023-05-21

UFO

I just finished work, sat down at the bar, and looked at the headlines. Department of Defence was trending. Curious, I decided to find out why they would be trending news. I checked a few websites and to my surprise…

A UFO sighting was declassified and being reported throughout mainstream media. I read a story and watched a video of the encounter.

I am more surprised at my reaction, or shall I say my lack of reaction. I just did not feel any sense of fear nor worry. I have always believed that we are not the only living beings in the universe.

I started thinking about the possibility of aliens coming to Earth and taking over. I still felt no fear. Part of me thinks that if something like that were to occur, it would be well-deserved for all the human race has done to this planet and one another.

Now it is time for me to enjoy my first beer of the evening.

2017-09-032023-05-21

Fitness Tracker Addiction?

This tale begins with a device which is not actually a fitness tracker. In 2016, I purchased a Moto 360 smartwatch made by Motorola. The device runs Android Wear. It was my first foray into the Android Wear smartwatch ecosystem.

I soon discovered that I could sync the watch with the MyFitnessPal calorie tracking application to track my steps.

I learned that the more active I became, the more I could enjoy things that I like and lose weight. My weight-loss accelerated and I became quite active. Every once in awhile I had to disconnect the watch from the app and reconnect because a glitch in the software would cause it to stop syncing.

I grew tired of constantly resetting the app and relinking the watch. I decided to invest in an actual fitness tracker.

June of that year, I purchased a Garmin Vivosmart HR. This device did not have Android Wear, but was fully waterproof up to 50 metres. It was truly designed for exercise and synced reliably with Myfitnesspal. The Garmin Connect web portal and application provides a wealth of fitness data. As a self-professed data junky, and analyst by profession, I instantly fell in love with reviewing data from my physical exploits.

By the end of August, I received another fitness tracker from Samsung. The Samsung Gear Fit2 was a bonus gift for pre-ordering the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. This device is simply gorgeous with a full-colour SAMOLED screen.

The Samsung device also includes a built-in GPS. I was able to sync my tracked workouts between Samsung Health, Endomondo, and MapMyRun. Endomondo and MapMyRun are owned by Under Armour, who also owns MyFitnessPal.

I had a good time comparing results between. t Garmin Vivosmart HR and Samsung Gear Fit2. Unfortunately the Garmin lacks a GPS. I could not find a way to have the Garmin tap into either the phone or Gear Fit2 GPS.

July 2017, I decided to buy another tracker. The Samsung was splash-proof, but not water-polo. I also did not like the fact that we do not have complete control over our data on Samsung Health. There is no website and no method for exporting the data. The only option is the export each individual exercise as a GPX file one-by-one. The heart, diet, activity, and other data is not exportable.

I was looking to buy a Garmin with GPS. I saw the Vivoactive online but figured it was too pricey for an older device. I saw the Vivoactive HR which was even better, but also too pricey considering I already owned two trackers.

One day while browsing the web, I spotted an ad from Best Buy touting the Garmin Vivoactive HR for only $199! I jumped at the opportunity and ordered it right away.

Since receiving my new fitness tracker, I have increased the frequency and intensity of my exercise routine. I find that I am addicted to achieving goals and breaking personal records.

In all, fitness trackers are a great way to motivate people towards living a much healthier life.