Author: Bill

Today’s walk took me past 123 Woodfield Avenue, just south of Dundas East. A peek inside revealed lots of kiddie books and one old hardcover full of Hercule Poirot mysteries. I was tempted, but I left it…. perhaps for you?
More about Little Free Libraries. And other mentions in this blog.

Father Guido Sarducci, of course, of the Saturday Night Live show when I used to watch it.

Best boots I’ve ever owned. I can’t believe I bought them back in 2005, but Danica has the receipt, so its 8 years for these guys.
They’d never be on their way to the basement, to await resoling at Nick’s if I hadn’t found a new pair today. Ten percent off. Blunnies NEVER go on sale! Too good to pass up and resoling would have left me bootless for a couple of weeks.
I’ll park my old boots for now and get them resoled in the Spring. That will cost more than half what a new pair cost, but the tops are still in great shape and they are soooo comfortable.
Time to start breaking in my new pair. They are already waterproof-waxed and ready to hit the salty slush.

They’ve only gotten worse with the advent of terrorist hysteria, to the point where I just prefer to avoid them.
Seth Godin has created a nice little list of what needs to be fixed. He’s talking about the U.S. experience, but the same observations apply to our sad situation.

Adventurer and entrepreneur Peter Sever has carved out an interesting life for himself and continues to surprise.
The other day, he received a complimentary hardcover copy of the latest edition of the trawler yacht
“bible” shown here (with a small graphic addition of my own).
You see, after Peter sold me my first Mac (he founded, then sold Toronto’s famous Mac Store), he took his capital and went into the yacht-building business. Typically, he did it in no small way. Peter’s yachts were for the super-rich, uniquely designed according to his own standards of excellence and built to take the roughest seas.
He was a thorn in the side of competitors, pontificating on engineering/safety matters from his position as an “outsider, non-engineer” (his words). Established builders didn’t like it, but Peter was right. The “bible” now says so, quoting Peter repeatedly.

From the site of our favourite local theatre group:

The Toronto Irish Players were honoured and thrilled to hear the news that we are the recipients of the Irish Person of the Year for 2013.

I’m adding the TIP site to my list of “Links I like”. Don’t know what took me so long.

Creative types at ad agencies have forever groaned at wooly-minded requests from clients trying to express what they want. Here’s a site showing that the hilarious tradition lives on.
I picked the one above because it reminded me of a painfully long briefing from a client who rejected layout after layout, explaining each time that he wanted it to be a little more this or a little more that. Finally, in exasperated frustration, he pulled a Disney creation out of his briefcase and showed it to us. At last, we saw exactly what he had been trying to describe.

My friend Brian made this beautiful tribute to his mother, who died last Sunday at the age of 94. It is very nicely done, in my opinion, and I was especially moved by the way he wrote so simply about all the relationships that made her who she was. It’s really a poem, isn’t it?

Catherine Gertrude Hickey
daughter
sister
wife
mother
friend
advocate
confidant
provider
protector
teacher

Top artwork from the TTC newsletter. Bottom photo: One I took a while ago.
Aside from the amazing see-thru streetcar (actually 30 metres long when visible) can you find the street improvements that brought out the exclamation mark in the headline?
No, the sidewalks are already there. The tracks are new, but that’s to be expected if a new streetcar route is to be added. My best guess is that glass transit shelter, although it seems to be on the wrong side of the street if it’s for streetcar riders. Worth an exclamation mark?
Above is the shelter the glass one will replace. It has an opaque roof, offering shade in summer heat. The new ones have glass roofs.
The only other thing I can see that’s new is a black fence along the edge of the supermarket parking lot. Can that be the cause of the excitement?

Of course the castle is Casa Loma and we are looking north from Macpherson Avenue. I took the picture the other day, when visiting the Toronto Archives nearby. Those a newish townhouses in the foreground, designed to look a bit oldish.