One of my favorite series of posts was Doorwatch ’09 – a string of posts about the broken door at downtown shopping centre Commerce Place.

Out of order for a year or better by the time I wrote about it, the posts about the Commerce Place door rank among my favorites for a few reasons: first, they gave me a means to vent my unholy fury about how much I hated the fact that no one cared enough to fix the door.

Second, I was fortunate enough to be able to find a lot of other people who had just as much of a deathwish for that door as I did. It’s a powerful thing to experience, a whole group of people saying “You are not taking crazy pills, and we feel your pain” – even if your pain is as inane as the mild inconvenience of having to walk a half-block out of your way to get to work.

When I learned that other people found Commerce Place to be just as hilariously frustrating as I did, I realized something that I hadn’t during my days working in “real news” – that stories don’t have to be big or dramatic or tragic to matter.  I think it’s easy to forget, in a world with so much tabloid journalism, celebrity culture and the pervasive attitude that “if it bleeds, it leads!” – but what you do, what you experience, and who you are matters .   Your story is important – even if isn’t dramatic, or glamourous or likely to be made into a W Network movie of the week (p.s. watch for Barbara Hershey in “SALLY’S DOOR: A WOMAN’S JOURNEY OUT OF COMMERCE PLACE” next fall).

There are no small stories. Thanks for teaching me that.

It’s obvious.

Here’s a post dedicated to two things I love to find in Edmonton; couches and shopping carts. (We’ve done couches before.)

It’s the best when you find them in really weird places.

I couldn’t read that “No furniture…” sticker WHILE carrying the couch to the bin, now could I?

THIS is what I’m talking about! It’s in the stairwell of an LRT station. That’s good times.

This one was spotted between Oliver Square and 107 Avenue, when I was out at Bohemia one night.

This one comes from our “great” Smitty’s Adventure in 2009.

I spotted this cold little fella last night on a walk through downtown. I doubt he actually came from any of the shops at Commerce Place.

I wonder if that couch is legally parked.

This picture is actually from January.

Look, we don’t want to be typecast as the blog that points out stuff that doesn’t seem to get fixed.

(Although others clearly like the idea.)

One day I will take the LRT and not see these awful yellow notices. One day.

But it’s been five months. Five. Months.

And the escalator on the east side of the University LRT Station is still broken.

It made for absolutely jam-packed crushes up the working escalator all school year. At busy points it’s still really annoying.

LRT Station, we want two escalators!

It’s Escalator Watch ’10 – and we’re already at five months…

Do you think the escalator will be fixed by the time the new LRT stations open at Southgate and Century Park. That’s a race to watch!!!

Next time…we may actually ask the ETS what’s up…but we also like just sitting on our high horses and demanding things be in working order…

I peered into the work area months ago. It's still under construction.

Alright, we, as in the edmontonian or Edmonton as a whole, didn’t do anything. But Commerce Place employees, visitors and just plain everyday Edmontonians can enjoy free and easy access from the city’s premiere street to the building.

It only took forever.

Never forget.

Door Watch will always have a special place in our hearts because it was one of our first features, and one of the first stories that seemed to connect with people who would say to us “Yeah, that door hasn’t been open in a bygone.”

We talk to a lot of old people who use terms like bygone.

Our only complaint was that the door was broken for so long that it had already become lore of unfixable items by the time we hit the scene.

Gee…I wonder if anyone else is being lax in fixing major items around this town…maybe we can get on their case next.

Sadly, when they were trapped inside the boarded up door in 2008 there were 10 of them.

We first called out Commerce Place, on their inability to fix one little door, in August.

Hey, traditional media, anytime you like one of our stories we can save you guys some time working on it if you just drop us a line. We’ll do it for standard freelance rates, nothing fancy.

Then, you know, you could work on investigative news that people (like us) with day jobs can’t do.

But it is super-flattering.

SEE jumped onto our bandwagon nearly 3 months later.