Commuting by numbers: New Brunswick edition

In exchange for my immortal soul, a family pack of Smarties and copious, extraneous links to his blog, Sinister Dan of The Reasonable Ego (enough?) has tepped up to the plate in my Commuting by Numbers challenge.

SinisTer Dan (who I shall henceforth call STD) travels by car for 45 km, on rural highways from St. Margaret’s, N.B. to Rexton, N.B. – which no doubt takes less time than my 5 km trip down Queen St. in Toronto.

Here’s his list – like mine, but much more amusing. Enjoy!

Commuter: Sinister Dan
Location: Rural New Brunswick
Commuting time: not specified
Route: Highways 11/134

Trees: approximately 195,000 (according to The UNB school of Forestry)
Houses: 29
Abandoned houses: 6
Houses that look like they ought to be abandoned but aren’t: 3
Road signs warning about random moose attacks: 8
Buildings owned by the provincial government with no obvious purpose: 2
Billboards: 1
Gas stations: 1
Churches: 2
Roadkill: 4 (today)
Signs with illegible aboriginal place names: 5
Bridges: 5
Streams and rivers: 7
Marshes: 1
People in other means of transport: 1 (he’s the crazy hitch-hiker who never gets picked and yells at you car as you pass him)
Building taller than 2 stories: 0
Kilometers of 4 lane highway: 0
Universities, bookstores, strip clubs, decent restaurants and good coffee shops: 0
People selling fish out of their trucks at 6:45 a.m.: 2
My degree of woe (1-10): 9

STD also sends his regrets for not providing pictures, but offers this description of the one billboard on his journey:

…it’s for a place that makes soap “the old fashioned way” (although not so old fashioned as to render hog fat for the purpose) and they offer tours. The Billboard has one of the owners (who I know through local business conferences and such). Supposedly he’s supposed to be the ringmaster of a circus looking excited or something and it is without a doubt the silliest thing I’ve ever seen — it looks like the cover shot from Platoon from a higher angle and gaudy clothes…

I will do everything in my power to extort a photograph asap.

There may be more Commuting by Numbers contributions coming soon – and I’d really appreciate yours! Who knows, maybe this will become a meme of sorts.

One that won’t be coming is from Tod from Vancouver, who offers this excuse:

Heheheh… I’m afraid the only time I commute it’s pitch black (5:45 am)!

Fair enough. No sense counting street lamps over and over. Although Tod also works from home a fair bit -I’d be most amused to hear someone’s numbers commuting from the bedroom to the home office (floor tiles, cats, dirty socks….)

Anyone?

Posted by: Paul Gorbould | 02-19-2007 | 12:02 AM
Posted in: Commuting