In the midst of all the brouhaha recently surrounding public transit fare-skippers, I witnessed what I would consider an anomaly on my daily ride on the 99 B-Line yesterday. It was a rare moment of humanity shared between two complete strangers. A twenty-something year old girl walked onto the bus through the front door and didn't have bus fare. With minimal argument from the driver followed by minimal subsequent embarrassment for the girl, the driver illegally permitted her past the "fare paid zone". Two things crossed my mind at this point: 1) if she didn't have bus fare, why the hell didn't she just hop on through the back doors like the rest of us freeloaders? and 2) isn't it refreshing when someone declines the opportunity to flex a sad example of authoritative muscle? (Read: I appreciated that the bus driver wasn't a huge douche about it and just let her get on the bus). I mean, really, it's a free ride on the 99 B-line, heading east, at 7:15 am. It's not like a free ride on the Mousetrap at the PNE or anything (assuming a free ride on the Mousetrap is considered a good thing).

My overdeveloped sense of injustice has caused me to write mostly about things that I find irritating, simply appalling and just plain wrong. I do not hate everything, and I swear. To prove my allegiance to Vancouver and all things positive and inspiring, I will tell you about a project that is so positive and inspiring that it's positively inspiring.

What started off as a simple thought to drive across the country has quickly become so much more for Vancouver resident Richard Loat.

"I wanted the trip to be more than just a drive from coast-to-coast," said Loat, a third-year communications student at Simon Fraser University (SFU). "I wanted to find a way to tie in my passion for hockey with a way to help the community."

And he's done just that.

This morning, one of my oldest university friends left us all for far-off, exotic lands (Latin America, Vermont). As he crushed us in an excessively bony embrace (our group of friends hadn't lovingly dubbed him "Skeletor" for nothing), it got me to thinking again about Vancouver's post-graduate brain drain.

The 2009 B.C. Provincial Elections are being held at a time of global economic turmoil, which has left neither our country, nor our province unscathed. It's really no surprise then that recent polls have shown that the economy is the top issue of concern in this round of elections, with crime taking second place over health care. However, when I spoke to both the West End NDP and Green party candidates, decisive issues regarding housing, homelessness and infrastructure seemed to be the central issues surrounding their campaigns.

Last week I had a chance to sit down with Drina Read, the West End Green Party MLA candidate, who ran in the by-election last year and is running again to represent her party's principals, which she believes, "unites us."

At times, the political battlefield of our provincial politics can be a hard one to navigate. It's often difficult to get a sense of what a candidate's actual platform is or what sort of causes and what kind of politics they stand for. It requires a lot of reading, research or active face-to-face meetings to really determine whether or not a candidate is worth your vote.

I, myself, feel daunted by the task of becoming as fully informed a citizen as I should be and I won't deny that my own knowledge of municipal and provincial politics is dismal, to say the least. But, in an attempt to be a responsible and engaged citizen, I decided, after having encountered he and his volunteers on my block at least a few times a week, and after having seen his viral campaign video, to go and talk to my local West End NDP candidate, Spencer Herbert, about why I should vote for him.