Thursday, 23 July 2015

Working in Montréal today --Anouncing... The Walkerator!

Good morning folks,

This morning in YYZ (Toronto's Pearson airport) while walking towards gate 37, or more specifically, walking towards the shoe shine guy near gate 35, I opted for the travelator, the moving sidewalk.

A young girl walking behind me with her mother's hand in firm grasp exclaimed, "look mommy, another walkerator!".  Folks.. I have never heard an autopedescalator called a walkerator, and yet, it seems totally natural.

I have heard them called moving sidewalks (blegh), autowalks (more blegh), moverator (that's okay), horizontal escalator (absurd since escalate means to raise rapidly), and this girl nailed it.  A quick search on the web revealed.... NO matches.  However Google did present me with 10,000 pages on the deceased actor Paul Walker, well on his way to becoming Saint Paul the Divine.

The latter is a pet peeve of mine, the beatification of dead celebrities and the associated recreational mourning of the same followed by hagiographic one hour TV specials on the life and times of dead celebrity and how their life was taken all too soon with b-roll footage of crying fans putting flowers on the gate outside some other dead celebrity's house.  Bah!

Okay, end of rant, back to the Walkerator.  Yes, I have switched it to a capitalized trade name.

It is now a mission of my life (albeit a minor one) to spread the word.  Walkerator.

I guess that's it for today.

What's that?  Sorry, my producer is yammering in my earphone about something.. we still have time, we've gone to dead air.. Quick dammit write something else!

Okay, how about this, both Princeton University and Ohio State University independently studied the question of whether or not mechanized walkways result in a time savings for the partaking traveller.

Both said no.  Walk instead.  The problem is that you have a high degree of risk that your pathway on the Walkerator will be blocked by fellow travelers whose legs have mysteriously failed to function or are the victim of a Crazy Glue prank are are then stuck and paralyzed directly in your path.

Moreover, the studies determined when your path is not blocked and you are free to walk on the Walkerator with wind blowing in your hair, you will save an average of a mere 11 seconds when traveling the length of a football field.  I should clarify, a 110 yard Canadian football field.

I will also mention that the Princeton study was purely on mathematical modeling, whereas the Ohio State study was field measurements at the Cleveland airport, and then someone yelled "road trip" so they went to the San Fransisco airport and measured there as well.

I try to minimize the risk by looking ahead on the Walkerator prior to making that committing step onto it and look for how many non-walking riders standing two abreast and in how many sets.  One or two, and you can walk up behind and with a quick "excuse me" they will shuffle and scurry out of your way like rats startled by a flicked on light, but too many and they get jammed up and you will be sunk.

Yeah, I thought that was odd imagery as well.

But we successfully used up the time, up next is the lovely Candice with the weather followed by Ted with sports.  This was another segment of Puckett's Pulp!

Have a great day, go for a walk.

And yes, I can write about just about anything.


  1. Paul Walker was the fastest best actor of our generation, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?!??

  2. We lovedPaul

  3. You're just using Paul's name to sell more of your blogs! Paul's family should sue you

  4. RIP Paul, taken too soon. Fast and furiously.

  5. Dear FanGirl97, I don't think you understand how blogs work. Did you pay to read this? Paul's family is free to try to sue me, but I don't think they can show damages. Have a great day, keep mourning! Daniel

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  7. @Daniel Puckett : Great post, I really enjoyed some laughs while reading this! I had no idea that Walkerators (came up as a spelling mistake, clicked Add to Dictionary!) actually slow you down. I guess their true efficiency is from not having to drag your luggage / cart the entire distance.

    @Paul Walker Fans: Your parochialism (comments) is funnier than the intended humor in this post (and I'm laughing at you, not with you). Paul Walker may have been a great actor, but his glorification is unreasonable. Everyone dies. Many at a young age. You act like he had the holy grail and passed away with it. I'm sure he represented some sort of inspiration for his fans to constructively innovate; but he was an actor nonetheless. Some of the world's greatest and most positively influential people pass away and yet I don't see you mourning at their loss. Instead, you gaze at your television set and cry about an act you had an emotional attachment to. But, that's all it is: an act. Open your eyes people. Care about your productivity as much as you do the actors of Hollywood.