I'm a Canadian urban explorer, based in Ontario. I love the old places, history and thoughts of how our own future might turn out. Every explorer has their own reasons for what we do.

When i lived in Toronto, I explored downtown. My favourite places were the old buildings along Yonge, Queen and Spadina streets. Any time I caught the bus somewhere in Toronto I would find a new location to come back to with my camera. I love the old buildings with old stone work and weathered wood, glass and iron.

Urban exploration is about more than old buildings or abandoned buildings. Some urban explorers prefer drains and tunnels. Some go higher, much higher and take photographs from the rooftops of tall buildings and other tall structures like bridges. Some explorers stay on ground level (like myself). There is a lot to see right in front of you.

Do You Think About a Life After People?

I like watching Life After People and Aftermath (created by History Television in Canada). I also like books about the end of the world and how people and civilization/ society rebuild or recreate themselves. I can look at artistic creations with predictions of utopias and our possible futures for ages. I love to see how things might turn out, how we (as a society) weather the storms of our own existence. I also like to see how the buildings and other man-made creations and structures erode and weather through time. These buildings, our creations, are like our presence into the future. At some point they could be all we have left to show who we are.

This is what I feel when I look at abandoned, derelict and ruined places. There's a sense of loss, mystery and a feeling of endurance and strength.

The Red Dot

Did you ever see a sign up with nothing but one large red dot? Would you know that was a "no trespassing" sign? It is.

I think you would have to be an explorer (or at least a road tripper of some kind) to know that. Most people would see that red dot and maybe wonder about it, maybe not really notice it. An urban explorer will be curious, or already know what the red dot means.

In the city there are not many signs spray painted with red dots. City sites have nice professional signs that let you know where you shouldn't be.

However, you can't explore without crossing onto private property or going through the 'staff only' areas. Explorers have always had to take a few risks, have some adventures, in order to make their discoveries.

Find Places to Explore

• Vanishing Point
• UrbEx Barrie
• Under Montreal
• Sean Galbraith Photography
• Pipe Cleaner
• Ontario Abandoned Places
• NTROPY
• ExBORation
• Angels of the Underground
• Wraiths | Urban exploration in Vancouver.
• Urban Exploration Alberta
• urbexObsession
• Atlantic Canada Urban Exploration - Facebook
• Abandoned Nova Scotia
• Halifax UrbEx
• abandonment issues
• UER.ca - Urban Exploration Resource
• Doors Open Canada | The Heritage Canada Foundation
• Open Directory -Urban Exploration: North America: Canada
• Ghost towns in Canada
• GhostTownsCanada.ca
• Flickr: Abandoned Canada
• Flickr: Canadian Rural Ruins
• Canadas Historic Places.ca

Handy Links for Canadian Travellers and Explorers

• CAA - The Canadian Automobile Association
• Canadian Geographic

The title for this article is "Choosing a Positive Attitude" because I believe it is about choosing rather than 'having' or 'keeping'. It's important to choose a good attitude and then keep it because you know and understand the importance and value of it. How can you keep a positive/ good attitude if you don't value it? The first test that comes along you will tend to fall back into your old patterns or go with whatever comes easily to you.

Even something simple like having someone ask you a question you don't want to deal with at the time. Do you snap at them? Or, do you set your mind to giving them an answer (tell them you don't want to answer) without showing them your first feeling of impatience, anger or frustration. You choose the attitude you show the world and you choose the attitude you feel strongest yourself. You can feel impatience and negative emotions but you don't have to stay there and settle into them.

If you don't choose to have a positive attitude you leave yourself open to being negative and feeling negative. We are what we feel. If you broadcast a positive feeling it comes back to you and then you feel it yourself as well. If you broadcast negative feelings they come back and you live in negativity. Which would you choose? Which would help you cope with the regular frustrations in your day? Not likely the negative attitude and feelings.

My Own Experience with Positive and Negative Attitudes - as a Department Store Cashier

As a department store cashier I experienced attitudes from many people in just one day. People tended to be busier and more easily frustrated during events like Back to School shopping sales. Over Christmas, as busy as the store would be, the customers tended to have a better attitude than I did. I was tired, feeling over burdened, and likely being asked to work a double shift after being told to start early and skip at least one of my breaks. I actually became claustrophobic in the last week of Christmas. (The cashier gets surrounded in her little booth with people leaning on it in other aisles, leaning into her to speak and be heard in the hustle and bustle. I felt trapped and would be feeling kind of desperate by the time the next cashier stepped in to take over for her shift).

So, in my own attitude, I had to choose to keep broadcasting positive feelings. I won't pretend I didn't crash and burn a few times. However, overall I did keep things on the good side. I dealt with people well, I gave smiles, eye contact, and conversation. I also kept my line moving, but when something slowed it down I had patience and... I had patience with people who complained about the slowdowns. Still the busy times were a drain. I would escape out to my car to be out of the building and feel I was able to be truly alone for whatever break time I had.

The interesting thing about being a cashier and seeing so many attitudes from other people was learning about myself and seeing how I approached and dealt with so many different people. One thing that surprised me was that I actually did not mind the angry people as much as I did those who would not look up at me, acknowledging me in some way. Being ignored grated on me far more than anger, ranting and bullying did. Yet, I knew the people who kept their head down were likely not thinking about how I felt. They were feeling their own inner battle with a negative attitude in themselves. Likely they felt inferior or upset in some way. I know this because I have been in that position myself. I am a shy person and I tend to feel negative about myself.

I have made myself choose a positive attitude many times. I know it isn't easy. I know you have to battle yourself at times. I don't always succeed and when I fail I try to let myself be human.

When I was a cashier I would take on the challenge of changing other people's attitudes. Not making it a big deal but more like something that gave me some power when inside I didn't feel I had much power at all. I became good at taking a customer who was grumpy or impatient and changing their attitude. When they left the store they left feeling lighter, with a smile. This was broadcasting a positive attitude. When you give someone a positive attitude they tend to like it, this makes them feel better, you become approachable in that case and they become even more open to your positive attitude. You can see how it works. A smile really can make a difference. It's not just a gimmick.

Focus on the Good

Focus on what is good.

That sounds so simple, but it's not.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth". You may have heard that old saying, do you know what it means? It's about being given a free horse and then choosing to check the horse's teeth. If you check the horse's teeth you are looking to set a value on the gift, likely you will find something to pick on, something that isn't as great as it could be. Instead, accept the gift. Don't look for negativity and then overlook the positive of being given a gift.

In your life how many times have you chosen a negative attitude when you could have focused on the positive? Focus on what you do have versus what could be better, what isn't going well, etc.

Stuck in a traffic jam, kids fighting in the back seat, ice cream melting in the trunk of the car... but you're in a car, you've got the kids (who will go back to being little darlings when they get home), and you've got ice cream to look forward to.

Feeling ill at work, still another four hours to the end of your shift, you're being asked to work the weekend... but you've finished half your work day, extra hours will give you more money, and you'll be feeling better once you get some lunch and sit down awhile.

You've been looking forward to breakfast out at your favourite diner but they're closed early for the day... but you're out and now you can try a new place for breakfast and see who you meet along the way.

In each case you could choose to focus on what's going wrong. Or you can change it around and see what's going right. Usually the negative things are just in the moment, temporary. Meanwhile the positive things are long term, dependable and often taken for granted or overlooked completely.

A positive attitude requires focus, to find it, and change to bring it about and keep it. However, it won't work at all if you don't make the choice to have a positive attitude in the first place.

Typewriter art could be read as making art using a typewriter (and it's parts), or making art by typing with a typewriter. In this case, it's about making art by typing on a typewriter.

I don't know who the first typewriter artist was, or when they started. But, from what I have read, typewriters were invented in the 1860′s. I could see someone getting the idea pretty early on. Maybe they smudged a line of text and noticed how well it spread, like making a picture.

Typewriter art is like ASCII art (art created with the standard keyboard characters, usually digital/ computer based). Both typewriter and ASCII art use the keyboard characters which are visible on the keyboard layout. If you use the extra characters available it stops being ASCII art and becomes ANSI art. Both typewriter and ASCII art make pictures out of keyboard text but, they are created differently and give different results.

The big difference between typewriter art and ASCII art is not so much the typewriter itself, it's the fact that ASCII art doesn't smudge, there is no ink involved. (Unless someone prints the ASCII art, but that would be after it was created fully). Typewriter art uses all the elements of the typewriter. Artists working with a specific form of creating art will always learn the idiosyncrasies of their chosen element, typewriters (with their ink and typing ribbons) included. Not all typewriter art uses the technique of smudging the ink, that's just feature.

I'm an ASCII artist, which is how I became interested in typewriter art, but I have not tried typewriter art myself. At least not deliberately. I am old enough to have used an old, manual typewriter. There was some art form going on there, even before the creation of Liquid Paper.

Keira Rathbone: Modern Typewriter Artist

• Keira Rathbone -- Typewriter Artist
• Tales of a Typewriter Artist
• Twitter: KRTypewriterArt
• People Have Always Been Modern: Typewriter Art
• Etsy Shop: KeiraRathboneArt

A Few Typewriter Artists from the Past

• Typewriter Artist Paul Smith
• Riddell, Alan (editor): Typewriter Art (Old Book)
• Typewriter Art | All About Lettering
• The Virtual Typewriter Museum: Typewriter Art
• A History of Typewriter Art | Readymade

One downside of creating ASCII art is the lack of colour. We type it into plain text and plain text comes out black on white. It’s pretty plain that way.

For most ASCII art that is fine. It keeps it simple. The focus is the art, the way it was created, rather than making it prettied up just for the sake of being prettier.

However, you can easily bring colour to ASCII art.

You will need:

• your ASCII art picture (of course)
• an HTML editor (or text editor with font and colour features)
• a screen capture software
• an HTML colour guide (not essential)

First, open the HTML editor. (I actually use Composer with Sea Monkey). Cut and paste your ASCII art into it. Make sure it shows right, change the font as necessary. You can even try a few fonts and see which gives you the look you prefer. My favourite is still FixedSys but Consolas comes in a close second.

Next, highlight your ASCII art and use the HTML editor to colour the text. This is just what you would do if you were changing the colour of a text sentence, quote or paragraph in a written post. Any HTML or text editor that lets you change the font and colour of your text will work. If not, try another one, there are lots of good, free HTML and text editors.

When your ASCII art is highlighted bring up your screen capture. (I use KSnapshot). Before you capture the image check the position of your cursor. Make sure it’s not in the picture, literally. (I still do this once in a while and have to take a second screen capture to fix it). When you’re ready, take the screen capture of the ASCII art and turn it into an image file. If you have a choice, the .png file tends to give best results.

That’s it! Of course this makes the image all one colour. If you want to make the image a light colour, change to a dark background colour. You can spend time and effort on doing more. I don’t usually. I like to keep it simple and not spend more time colouring the ASCII art than I did in creating it.

An emoticon is a terrible thing to waste.

Emoticons (aka smileys) are fun, easy and add a lightness to any email or forum posts. When you want to add emotion, feelings or mood to your typed words you can just slip in an emoticon. :) They’re so simple to make, to remember and no-fuss.

Of course, some times we use a few too many. Sometimes we forget we aren’t typing a personal email and send an emoticon to the wrong person. Sometimes we send emoticons to people who just don’t like cute little text smileys. Then, there are the times we look back at the email we just sent and notice how many of those smileys are in there.

Too much of a good thing is still too much of a good thing. If you find yourself overindulging in emoticons – start cutting back.

Are you an Emoticon Use Abuser?

Not sure how many emoticons are too many? Ask the people you send your email to. Ask the people who read your posts on forums. (If you use an emoticon with every sentence you type – that’s really too much).

You find you also type a lot of other Internet shorthand, like LOL and ROFL.

Consider why you use so many smileys. Do you really need to explain or emphasize everything you write? Chances are the smileys have become a habit and you’ve forgotten how much simpler and uncluttered your text could be without them.

How to Control your Emoticon/ Smiley Addiction

Stop using smileys in emails or forums where you don’t know everyone well. Friends are more likely to enjoy the more personal styled communication.

Skip the smiley and actually write about your feelings and thoughts. Don’t leave people guessing or making assumptions. You may even find yourself connecting much better with people once you stop relying on smiley faces to tell them how you feel.

Instead of finding new and creative smileys to use, stick with just a few and use them sparingly. Standard emoticons like :) :D and :P should be plenty. Plus, these are standard enough for the average person to know rather than needing a special education on emoticons.

Replace the emoticons with something else. Go back to punctuation like exclamations points, question marks and dashes. But, don’t over use these either. One per sentence is enough.

Avoid emoticons and smileys when you have to write (or reply to) an email with any kind of bad news or a review of a person, product or service. You need to be professional at times like this and emoticons will not give that professional, competent impression of you.

One way to really stop yourself from over using emoticons is to remove them as a type of Internet shorthand. When you type a smiley follow it with a description in brackets. For instance :) (smile face). This will slow you down and help you see just how often you really are using emoticons.

• Five Reasons You Need to Break Your Emoticon Addiction
• Confessions of an Emoticon Addict
• Emoticonics Anonymous: A Five-and-a-Quarter Step Program