Lost in Suburbia / Riot in the Workplace

You'd think after living in a town for 20+ years, you'd pretty much know where everything is, right? Give or take a few older businesses shutting down, and new ones moving in. But yikes, things around here have been growing in leaps and bounds, and I can't keep up with it - there are new strip malls/plazas and new subdivisions going up along what used to be quiet country roads and farmers fields, and most of the stores are just carbon copies of the ones 5-10 minutes further up the road. Very ugly, in my opinion......'progress', perhaps, but it seems to me that we are progressing backwards rather than forwards in many instances.

In other news, there was a diversion at work this afternoon in the form of an OCAP protest...we could hear them approaching from behind our sealed windows on the 9th floor, and apparently they went up to the 12th floor and made themselves known there (many people on the 9th floor said they could hear them banging 3 floors above), which resulted in the staff of that unit being able to go home early (lucky!). Then when they left the building an hour or so later, they were greeted not by one or two, but by 8 policemen on horseback prepared with riot gear. I'm pretty sure that everything was peaceful and no harm was done, but it was rather impressive to see all of the police cars & horses from our vantage point. I think they got some media coverage as well, but I was tired when I got home and completely forgot to check for it on the news. Ah well.

I'm guessing tomorrow won't be as eventful. Which is perfectly fine....