Snow bright

This stack of snow is the new dirt pile. It's not drawing much of a crowd today but that must be due to the the cold temperatures we've been having because it displays a lot of fun potential.

Right next to this pile is an outdoor rink, which gets used quite a lot, especially for hockey, whether it's cold or not. Both rink and snow stack are right behind our apartment building, which is great because it means I can roll down a hill or go skating at a moment's notice if necessary - call me NOW and I'll meet you there in two minutes. (Usually, though, I go down to the river to skate because it's so much more fun to skate in a line than in a circle.)

The thing that's not so great is the lighting. Big, tall flood lights surround the rink, some of which shine directly into our apartment, which is fine, but after about 11pm, by which point all rink users are long gone, you'd think it might be time to turn them off. Not so. For some reason, these lights have been on all day and all night for the past 5 or 6 days, and for other sporadic days and nights over the past month or two. This is a bad case of excessive energy use and light pollution. When the lights are on, it's like daytime in our apartment.

I've already called the community centre twice about this, and once they actually pulled the safety card, to which I respond (in my mind only, as of yet) first, people deal drugs out there in broad daylight so extreme lighting isn't necessarily going to change that and if it does, the problem is being displaced not solved, and second, since the purpose of flood lights is to light a rink then we should use them for that; improved neighbourhood safety is a totally different issue and has lighting all its own. I get the economics behind doing two things with one lighting system, but it isn't really working here, and besides, that's a load. They are on because no one's bothered to turn them off, otherwise why would they be on in the daytime? I'll offer my light-turning-off services myself tomorrow. I wonder if they'll trust me?