Author Archives: El Jefe

All That Glitters Is Not Gold…

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Despite whatever successes you think that the New JeffLand Empire may be enjoying… I dare say that it could be false. While the King (me) has been trying to bring this great nation out of destitution and desperation, there are forces at work that would be satisfied with dissolution of the nation to the greater nation of Canada.

Not that there is anything wrong with Canada. It’s a great… nay, an amazing nation! That being said, every man deserves to be king of his own great kingdom. They say that a man’s home is his castle and I believe this to be true.

But what happens when the castle begins to crumble around him? What happens when there is no upkeep while the King toils in international affairs and makes economic strides in the name of the nation? The King becomes angry and dissatisfied, that’s what. Not only does this King not have a refuge from the world but he grows angry with the people around him. He wants to abdicate the throne and move away.

Remember The Rathole?

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I’ve had this draft hanging out on my dashboard since July and I figure it’s time to finish it off…

July was a wet month with some torrential downpours. Because of it, I posted to Twitter:

https://twitter.com/#!/jeeprock/status/94508774924103680

I realized that I was dating myself because some people (younger folks) on the Twitter had no idea what The Rathole was!! I had to admit that I was shocked at this because The Rathole was a complete traffic abomination by the end of it’s life and was completely hated by most Edmontonians.

Edmonton’s hated Rathole

At the time of its construction in 1927, The Rathole was lauded from an engineering perspective and was a source of controversy right from the start. The contract for the construction was awarded to a contractor who hadn’t turned in the lowest bid and would ultimately result in legal proceedings.

The Rathole would live for 73 years chock full of traffic jams, semi-trucks driving tall loads into it’s concrete face and flooding with approximately 27,000 cars driving through it, per day, near it’s demise.

In 2000, it was finally demolished and replaced with a fabulous six lane free-flow roadway that would eliminate the traffic horrors in the area. However, for as much of a nightmare The Rathole was, it’s hard to imagine that there would be people who wouldn’t be aware of it’s legacy!

Anyway, for those who are interested… there are a few articles I’ve linked below. I’m also trying out some QR codes so get yourself a QR code reader and get scanning!

Standard General – The Rathole Project

 

 

 

The Edmonton Public Library – A City Called Home

 

 

 

 

 

The Edmonton Public Library – Rathole Infofile

Kijiji Can Suck My Ass

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It’s a little like the Radiohead song, ‘Just’.

You do it to yourself, you do… and that’s what really hurts…

In a flurry of civic pride after it was announced that the Edmonton Eskimos would be going head to head against their arch-rivals, the godless Calgary Stampeders, I hit Ticketmaster and secured four seats to this Western Semi-Final match-up. The way I figured this would go would be that the Duke of Ginger and I would occupy two seats and the father-in-law and uncle-in-law could join us and occupy the other two.

Enter: Wrinkle #1

The father-in-law goes back to work and is working that weekend. And the uncle-in-law wasn’t too keen on sitting through a frosty November football game to begin with.

What I was trying to accomplish was to give a little back to some folks who have been pretty good to me but this is a little lesson to think a little before I act.

Enter: Wrinkle #2

The Duke of Ginger and I have season seats and, with season seats, you already pay for a pair of playoff tickets when you fork out your money in the off-season. But how the hell was I supposed to know that? This is only my second year as a season ticket holder and the Eskimos haven’t hosted a playoff game since 2004 anyway! Who’da thunk it?!

So now, I have six tickets and only two butts to actually fill them. Since the tickets I bought from Ticketmaster cost me $198, I would like to try to at least recoup some of my money.

I made a couple of feeble attempts to sell them on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter; hoping that maybe there would be an excited fan who would snap them up right away.

So far, I’ve yet to get even a nibble. (To use a fishing metaphor.)

Now, I’m resorting to Kijiji; daring to brave the world of Kijiji Low-Ballers. The process itself is pretty simple for setting up an ad. However, I got some weird message saying that I’ve activated too many ads today and prevented me from actually posting my ad for these tickets!

How could I have posted too many ads when this is the first time I’ve ever used this fucking site?!?

This is about where I would go thermonuclear… if I weren’t at work right now. With two bills hanging in the balance, I’m really praying for a miracle at this point. And I only get more desperate from here on out.