We got home about an hour ago. Lots of cat hair (et cetera) to clean up, but it’s kind of good to be home anyway. Even if there are no mountains here.
Or oceanfront promenades.
Or alpine lakes.
Or clean air.
…
Dammit.
[tags]toronto[/tags]
Category: Toronto
I can has watterfrunt plz? Kthxbai.
After a big breakfast downstairs at the hotel, Nellie and I went down to the marinaside and rented some bikes from Reckless. For $30 we got two bikes for 2 hours (though we only stayed out for about 75 minutes) and cruised around the waterfront. We went all the way down past English Bay (where I stayed during my first visit to the city) to the entrance of Stanley Park, all the way back around False Creek past BC Place and GM Place and Science World, then back to Yaletown to drop off the bikes.
There were tons of cyclists, roller bladers, walkers, strollers…everyone was out. It doesn’t hurt that it’s another beautiful day. David Miller should force every Toronto city councilor to come do this.
Just about to jump in the shower and head off to the pub to watch the Euro Cup final.
[tags]vancouver, yaletown, reckless bike stores, toronto waterfront, david miller[/tags]
"What seems normal now will have become unthinkable."
Christopher Hume has an excellent column in today’s Toronto Star. Ostensibly about the fate of the Gardiner Expressway, which runs scar-like across the city’s waterfront, it’s really about politics and “civic cowardice,” as Hume calls it.
Last week, the board of Waterfront Toronto voted to launch an environmental assessment to study dismantling the east end of the Gardiner. Mayor David Miller, a board member, declared that this was the first proposal he’d seen that was doable. He was talking about the politics of demolition, not the reality.
It seems that Miller, not known for vision or boldness, won’t be the mayor who leads Toronto into the 21st century. With leaders such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, he will be remembered as one who tried to prolong a period of history fast winding down. It will turn out to have been a blip, a mere two generations whose lives were based on utterly implausible assumptions about endless cheap energy and land.
It really is sad, what’s become of David Miller. There was such optimism when he took the mayor’s office, and it’s been slowly beaten down by the bureaucracy of city hall, despite the hopes that he might climb out of the quagmire.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.” -George Bernard Shaw
Time for David Miller to get unreasonable.
[tags]toronto, gardiner expressway, christopher hume, david miller, george bernard shaw[/tags]
Do you WANT me to move to Montreal? Because I will.
Reading the phrase “Rob Ford’s mayoral candidacy” just caused me to do that weird thing you see in movies, where someone starts out laughing and ends up crying, all in one breath. You know? You know that thing? ‘Cause I just did that.
The [road tolls] issue undoubtedly gives a big boost to Ford’s mayoral prospects, as it rolls his two pet peeves into a single, politically explosive package: taxes and the persecution of drivers. The unthinkable campaign—Rob Ford for Mayor!—has taken a giant leap toward reality.
From Toronto Life’s City State blog
[tags]rob ford, toronto, toronto life, city state, philip preville[/tags]
In which my vocabulary returns to the 80s. Rad.
Awesome: Stephen Colbert’s plundering of the Hockey Night In Canada theme song.
Awesome: Bigger sidewalks on Bloor. (Less awesome: lack of bike lanes)
Awesome: watching Portugal play football. Since I cheer for no particular team I just like watching skill, so the game today was like watching a group of painters at work.
Awesome: the weather. Perfect. An ideal June day.
Awesome: being 95% done.
[tags]stephen colbert, bloor street, portugal, euro 2008, toronto weather[/tags]
A double rainbow at sunset
Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Unfortunately I only had time to grab the little point-and-shoot, which didn’t handle the lighting well. By the time Nellie got to her SLR the rainbows were pretty much gone.
[tags]toronto, rainbow, sunset[/tags]
I realized two minutes later that it was "balcon"
The warm (and by warm I mean screaming hot) weather has made for a very fun 18 hours. After leaving work yesterday I arrived home to a barbeque in progress with Nellie and CBGB. We made veggie burgers and drank (among others) Bavarian Weissbier and took solace in the cool breeze on our balcony. Sometimes that breeze was almost too much; at one point it blew some Tostitos out of the bowl and sent them skittering across the balcony. After our guests left we cleaned up (barely) and watched Battlestar Galactica. Getting! So! Good!
Nellie had to get up early for a hair appointment, so I used the morning to clean up (read: recycle the beer bottles), catch up on my news addiction, run some errands, buy more of that weissbier and take some pictures of all the puppies down the street at Woofstock.
Playing with dogs is good for the soul, even if my cats did look at me askance when I got home. Now I’ve finished off the list of little things that I need to get done before settling in for a long afternoon of MBA and Euro. Life could certainly be worse.
[tags]weihenstephaner hefeweissbier, battlestar galactica, woofstock, euro 2008[/tags]
Hey cool, they're doin' it ag…oh, no, wait, that's kosher
I looked out my window this morning and noticed two things about the Gardiner Expressway: 1) there were no cars on it; 2) there were bicycles on it.
My first thought, following Friday’s guerrilla action was, “Another protest? Already?” But then I noticed the number of bikes and lack of police (and honking motorists) and figured it must be on the level. In fact, it is the annual Ride for Heart.
There’s something refreshing and absurd about seeing all those bikes meander down that paved monstrosity. It should be like this every Sunday.
[tags]gardiner expressway, ride for heart[/tags]
Crit!
Last night the Toronto Criterium was held near our place. I had no idea it was planned until my friend Duarte told me on Wednesday. I didn’t even know what a criterium was. It sounds like the name of a Tool album.
Scheduling didn’t allow for much viewing time — I worked later than I’d planned, we had to get some dinner and then Nellie went to see Sex And The City with her friend Cyndy — but we did catch the first few laps of the pro/elite race. I thought it was cool how they just shut down a couple of city blocks like that on a Friday night and held a race. Granted, the people trying to get to the shops (and their homes!) on Front Street didn’t seem too pleased, but for the most part everyone seemed to enjoy it.
I threw a few more pictures up in a Flickr set if you want to see them. We didn’t have Nellie’s SLR with us, just my little point-and-shoot, so I apologize for the dodgy quality. Those riders were less blurry in real life, honest.
Anyway…I still think criterium sounds like a part of the human brain that sits between the hippocampus and the cerebellum.
[tags]toronto criterium, sex and the city movie[/tags]
Moonlight on Lake Ontario
[tags]moonlight, lake ontario, toronto[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 