This week in Toronto

I thought I was smart when I left work last Wednesday, I sent an email to myself with numbers of people in Toronto. I had to do a stat dec for a case and it was going to go to Toronto anyway.....two b, one stone. The email got there ok, but the iphone only keeps a few emails. It was archived, I couldn't get to it. So being pro-active i sent an email to one of the guys. He is the one that needs the stat dec. He hasn't responded. Oh well

Money evaporated on me. I knew I shouldn't have paid gas bill while bored at the airport. Had to fish some money out of bonds, that may get here by Friday - if not. I have a few books to read. 

How was your first Pride in Toronto? Well I read and watch Justified, how was yours. At lest I'll have a pile of cash when I get back. 

The bike is fixed, less than I thought, so I added a new rear tire onto the bill (payday is next week). 

Robert and I are staying with Randy, he only goes by the name Lana. 

(Lana in the blue, Bobby (not Robert) in the green)

Lana weighs about 120 soaking wet. The pictures shows her throne, she sits there all day long and smokes and may imbibe one or two cocktails. This is well known in the community, so I am not speaking out of school. Lana graciously allowed us to stay with her for the 10 days we are here. She lives 1/2 block away from all the bars on Church St. a guy could crawl home. Last night I saw a guy doing the 'Pinball' stumble along until you bump into something. It was great....all bruised up the next day though. Not me though. 

The last drunk for me was Tuesday Night at Zippers. There was an event for a person named Steve Roseland. He died a couple of years ago and there was a benefit. I am not sure where the money was going, but it did well. 

Robert (Thelma) was there, the Empress of Toronto, Michelle and some other people. I got some video  and one singer Cherry Chesterfield. she is really good, she can sing and play sax. I spoke with her and asked her if she had any CD's, she said it was complicated. I guess it is the whole manager thing. She survives off music though. Someone said they saw her singing in a bar in Mexico. 

During the day on Tuesday we, Robert and I, installed an air conditioner at Bobby's place, set up a LAN and then went back and installed a new toilet at Lana's. The other one was too low for her and she has not muscle strength, so it was hard to get up off it. She loves this new one. 

We have some Lana Rules to follow, 1) Don't slam the door and 2) Don't let the cat out. These rules were repeated numerous times over the first two days. We recite them every time we leave the apartment. Lana just smiles, normally she is pickled by the time the routine starts. I got my own key yesterday as so she could get her beauty sleep uninterrupted. She only leaves the apartment once every couple of days. 

I woke up on Wednesday with a hangover, it was beautiful outside. i decided to go for a walk. I had to get some pieces for the LAN a switch to split the output from the cable modem to two computers. 

I thought this would be an easy piece to get. How wrong I was. In Toronto everything is wireless, or so the vendors seem to think. I had to venture past the Yonge Street stores, they get a glazed look in their eyes when you try to tell them what you want. And then they make shit up, like use the USB cable out of your cable modem and plug it into the computer, to get a network. This was said sincerely, I kid you not. 

I wound up walking a long ways, I started off from Church and headed West down Wellesley to Queen's Park.

At Queen's Park I still headed West, and wound up in the University of Toronto's campus where The Soldier's Tower is. I thought it was a church, but it's not. 

Inside the Tower is has the list of names of members of the armed forces who died in the First and Second World Wars.

I headed West from there to Spadina. I wanted to get to Kensington Market, iPhone showing the way. 

After going past the many residences of the UofT I finally got to the business portion of Spadina. 

I was looking to buy another wallet. My regular one is full of crap, I just wanted one to put my bank card in, some ID and money. You'd think that in these stores that overflowed with stuff they'd have wallets. You'd be wrong. They have TONS of iPhone covers, but no wallets. 

I didn't see any computer stores either. I headed East on Dundas headed towards Eaton's Centre. 

This is an Airmen's memorial in the median on University. 

At a grocery store I was thirsty so I went in to buy a small juice. There was only two litre sizes.  I bought some cranberry juice and a hunk of watermelon. This screwed up my plan to walk to Eaton's Centre. I now needed a place to park my ass and eat. So I headed South. 

I came up on Rob Ford's house from the back. The city hall is a good building to use the fisheye on. 

This one came out surprisingly well, usually the fisheye doesn't do well on a panorama, but it worked this time. It is more suited for the shot above. 

I took some pictures of Nathan Philips Square before I sat down to get some shade and drink some much needed liquid.

There was a jazz festival going on in the Square, see all the tents to the Right. It was in the heat of the day and kind of disjointed. It appeared every time a band would start to play there'd be sirens. Come to think of it, there are a lot more sirens in Toronto. Bobby told me that Emergency Services use Church Street as Yonge Street is usually a mess, but that is just where we are staying. I know on my mega walks I have seen lots of emergency vehicles on the way to a job. 

Walked past the Art Gallery of Ontario, it was an impressive building. The Alberta one has more style though 

I finished up my watermelon, man that was good! I headed East to Yonge Street and then North, I knew I had to be more diligent in my computer parts shopping. I went to the web, it told me about a store on Carlton. 

While walking up Yonge I saw this nice building with a really old an tired Republic of Ireland flag. I am not sure what the building is, but it looks like it is a state of decay. There were dead pigeons around the columns. A 'No Peeing' sign and it looked like no one had been in there in years. 

Maybe it is a secret society. 

I took some flower pictures, they are good subjects as they don't move. 

I got to the computer shop on Carlton and the guy was out. the store is at the back of a convenience store. The lady in the front was no help at all. The Yellow Pages review of the place was terrible, I think that it lives up to it's rating. 

Today Bobby and I headed off on a walk to go to the real computer stores on College at Spadina. They gave us incredulous looks - people still use cables to connect computers to modems? There were two stores next to each other, but had never heard of the concept. I told them I'd get the parts in Alberta and send them to Bobby. Best Buy was our last hope. They only had a really expensive one, while I was there I got the number off it and looked online. I found some refurbished ones for cheap, free shipping if you have it shipped to the store. I went with Bobby to the front to order one - $12.99. 

Well supper time, headed to Subway I think. 

The craic was good

Well this blog is going to be long. So much happened. 

Saturday: Went to o'Grady's to watch the hockey game. There were not as many people there as the last time I was there for a game. I sat at the bar and talked to the bartenders, a lesbian and a straight guy. We had a great conversation before the game, but just as it was starting a lesbian hockey team came in, so they got really busy. 

I was sitting by myself when Chicago scared and I let out a yelp and some of the girls looked at me, then one with a Black Hawks t-shirt whooped it up too. Anyway, after the first period a straight guy came in and sat at the bar. His eyes were locked on the 20 or so hockey players. He chatted a bit and then expected me to be his wing man. I could tell that these girls were not even close to being available to him. I told him, he said I was a shitty wingman. He bought two girls who were having birthdays, beers. He got himself seated at the table, but you could tell he was an outsider, he couldn't. The lesbian bartender was cracking up. When they started to pay attention to the game in the third period, he basically disappeared. 

At the start of the third, Mallory showed up. She wasn't really a fan of any team, she was just watching hockey. We chatted, and I saved her seat. She had lived in Savannah, Georgia, Los Angeles and California before moving to Canada. 

I had gone to the washroom after the game and when I came back my seat was occupied, Mallory was speaking to Jill, I think she came from the hockey table. The bartenders moved all my stuff. 

Mal asked if I'd go to the bar next door with them. I said sure. I was a better wingman for Mallory than for the straight guy. It was a great night. Mal who is new to Toronto met some people to hang out with. 

Sunday, I slept in and had a coffee when I got up. Robert wanted to go out. I thought we'd get something to eat along the way, that didn't happen. He wanted to buy a Blue Jays shirt. We were stopped in a sports store on Yonge and they mentioned a weather watch for temperature and then the game. He asked if I wanted to go. I said yes.

We got to the Skydome and then we needed to buy tickets. There were a couple of scalpers on the street and they had two sets of tickets, some 4 rows above the Blue Jays dugout and some higher up. I asked Robert if he wanted to buy some of the tickets. I heard a conversation on how much the dugout ones were, a guy was talking them down from $150 each, he said the price on ticket was $75. They agreed on $100 he bought all 4. Robert was then ready, we went to the window and got singles kind of close to each other. The seats are small and of course I was in a middle one. I had fun trying to fish camera out and change lenses. But everyone was good. I got a pile of pictures, I learned sports mode on camera - which was 10 shot bursts. 

I was staring so I went an got some food, I know, stadium prices, the chicken Shwarma's weren't to badly overpriced. But I missed third inning. 

The Blue Jays went on to win the game, then we walked back to the apartment. I needed to have a nap and the heat was pretty bad. We were lucky our seats were under a tier. 

Later we were supposed to go to a Pride party at the Garage. Robert had the time wrong, I was there and there did not appear to be anything happening but food. 

I wondered around and had something to eat. Robert was going to come over after his nap. After I ate I walked down Church Street. He was already at Flash. I asked if it was worth going in (it has a cover) he said no. I went to the Black Eagle, it was dead. 

A couple of times I passed this guy in a red shirt and shorts, with a back pack. I just noticed him, he wasn't bad looking. After texting with Robert I decided not to go into Flash, I went to the bar Mal had taken me to the night before - Crews. It was packed. There was a drag show going on in there. It was kind of an American Idol version, with bitting sarcasm in the critiques as only drag queens can do. 

I had a beer, although I really didn't fee like one. Sun stroke and hangover were still issues. Red shirted guy came in, he stopped by me and told me to stop stalking him. Apparently I had missed a couple of times we had passed. He asked me to buy him a beer, so I did. 

He didn't want to stay and watch the drag show, he said lets go out back. I didn't know there was a patio. On Ontario patios you can smoke. Which is why he wanted to go there, I don't smoke. Anyway, guard up I went along, sometime you do, eh.

He was looking for a chair and they were all taken. One table with what appeared to be a family had space open for one. He happened to know them. Apparently he had met them at their hotel the day before. This guy's name was Cory and he went into this Bro, Dude kind of persona, I just wanted to get the hell away. But the family were kind of interesting. They all had Blue Jay shirts on. The son had caught a ball at the game, he was Andrew. They did a whole lot of braying, the dad was in on it too. 

Anyway, it turns out Andrew was now a Doctor, having just graduated. The father, Al, was a former member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Tammy was the father's fiancé and Nicki was Al's daughter. Andrew was bragging about it being his 100th Blue Jay game. He kept mentioning sitting in 100's over the dugout. 

The Al and Tammy live and work in Calgary. Ok this got interesting. I mentioned to Al I was at the game too, and I showed him some pics I hade taken. Al passed my iPhone to Andrew and he enlarged a picture, he said Oh My God, you got a picture of us! I was directly across the Skydome from them and they were sitting near a guy with a bright yellow shirt. 

He asked when I got there, I said during the first inning, we were having fun trying to buy tickets. It turns out we had met outside the Skydome. Even better, when Robert and I were walking back to the apartment we were behind them almost all the way. I remember Andrews shirt (for most of the way back to apartment I was on the phone with my Dad). They are staying at a hotel around the corner for us. 

Andrew and his Dad ride bikes,Andrew had ridden his Dad's out from Calgary...it took him four days. 

Al and I started to speak about Ireland and Ulster. Cory chimed in a couple of times, but it was clear he was out of his element, al actually went red. We talked about Michael Collins and we both agreed on some things. Touchy issues still but we saw it the same way. 

He moved to Canada as a cop and brought his four kids and wife with him. They originally moved to New Brunswick but managed to mover everywhere. He quit the Police Department and got himself a steady job :) - he is now in oil and gas. 

Beers were flowing, jokes were great, Tammy, who is a Newfoundlander was great. They had never been in a bar with drag queens before. Cory, remember Cory? he kept taking off and going dancing with Nicki. Nicki is the daughter, she was wearing a baseball hat (Blue Jays) most of the time, when she took it off - Holy Cow, she was beautiful. 

Tammy had assumed that Cory and I were together, I told her the whole story and then she wondered if she should be nervous about Nicki. Andrew said Nicki could take care of herself and then spoke about her wrestling him in the morning. 

There was pretty person family thing that went on. It was obvious that Andrew had something to say to his Dad, and he picked that moment to say it. No, it wasn't that. But Dad took it pretty hard. Anyway, it was special to have shared that. Eyes were not dry and Andrew buried his head under his baseball hat for awhile. 

Cory came back a couple of times and asked for a beer, I got him one more. I wasn't offering. He kept saying we'd hang out later. By then I figured he was a straight guy that used people to have a good time. Tammy wanted to go see the drag queens, but you couldn't smoke in the bar.  This whole family and Cory smoked.

They closed the patio and finally we got inside to see a drag queen perform. Tammy asked for my number and made me swear I'd go down to Calgary to visit. 

Cory did start to hang out with me when the bar closed. It appears he lived way in the West End, and had no money. Andrew gave him $4 and I gave him $3. He wanted me to lend him some cash and he'd pay me back today. 

I told him that he should have planned his way home earlier, I said he had enough to take streetcar on King or Dundas, he said he lived North. I told him I couldn't help him. He then headed to the family. they knew what I was up to. anyway it was a good night and the craic was good. Al said I used the word right and it was good. 

Today, well there is another game tonight, kind of want to go to Wheatsheaf, but it maybe crowded. May go back to O'Grady's but would prefer to go to a place with hockey fans. 

Today I went to Real Sports to buy a You Can Play t-shirt. The store is located by the Skydome, apparently I had walked passed it two times. I asked Robert if he wanted to come, he said No, it's too far. I asked if he wanted me to get him one. 

You Can Play is run by Patrick Burke, his brother Brendan was a gay hockey player. He died a couple of years ago. His father and brother have been advocating for gay sports players. 50% of the money from tshirts for to the organization. 

Never will I ever ask a gay man if they want me to pick up clothing for them. After finding the store, it was pouring and none of the buildings, restaurants or stores North of Front Street on York St have numbers. The map for the store shows it as being at York & Wellington. It isn't - it is two blocks South of Front, 4 South of Wellington. 

I take pics of the shirts, send them to Robert by email as his phone cannot accept SMS pics from an iPhone. WTF Samsung sux. So I text him and tell him the sizes in the colours. He asks me to send a pic, I said i sent them. then he asks for the sizes in each colour, this went on three times. The staff in the store thought I was nuts. Finally I said the store is at 15 York Street. 

I need to get going to get to a place to watch the game.  

Toronto Day 1

Well we made it on the flight, we had standby tickets and we didn't know till about 10 minutes before boarding that we were on 01:00 am flight, we were originally supposed to be on 10:00 am flight but it filled up. 

Tried to sleep on the plane, couldn't so wound up watching two episodes of Justified. The flight was a bit bumpy, all the rain causing turbulence. The poor people in Southern Alberta getting flooded out. I have friends in most of the affected areas. I have camped in Turner Valley and Longview. 

Took the bus from Pearson to Kipling station and then the Subway. We are staying just off Church Street, which is a great location. 

I tried to sleep at the place we are staying, but Robert and the host are long lost room mates and had some catching up to do. I guess I am still hyper from travelling. I got up and had to meet some of their friends before I took off. 

Every time I come to Toronto since I was old enough to go downtown by myself I have walked down Yonge Street from Bloor to the lake and then back up the other side. My Aunt lives on Wilson Avenue, which is on the Yonge Subway line, so it has not been hard to get to. 

Today I headed out and walked all the way down, I miss the Sam The Record Man store. They could have left the building and incorporated it into the new building. But they didn't. Queen to King Streets are sill kind of iffy, it is like Yonge Street dies after The Bay at Queen Street, and then starts up again at The Hockey Hall of Fame. 

I got some cool pictures with the iPhone and the Nikon. Today I guess I will still recover from lack of sleep. The Sun is out and I think I got some colour. 

Here are some pictures. The fisheye is handy at CN Tower. 

Midway through June

Well Summer is almost here, we are stuck in the monsoon season here in Edmonton. I went to Calgary at the start of the month and get soaked there and on the way back, I took bike. It has been raining on and off for two weeks. 

Today I came to the city in the car. Both of y motorized vehicles are having issues. Thursday I went to start the car at lunch time and click, nothing. The instrument panel was blank. Finally after work it started, it appears the remote car starter, which hasn't worked in 5 years is screwing up. A safety bolt under hood is malfunctioning, and acting like a Kill Switch. I am going to put some teflon oil on it, to make sure it stays down, when the hood is down. 

The rain looked like it eased up on Friday, so I rode the bike to work. Went out at lunch time to start it and clunk. Screwed around with it for awhile. it didn't start. After work tried to bump start it, start running with the bike and let clutch go. Nothing. 

I pushed the bike out to the street, I was going to have it towed home so I could plug in the charger. The tow truck didn't come. I had to go back later and push the bike back into the work parking lot. It still wouldn't start. I didn't want to leave it on the street as the street would have no vehicles parked on it, and the bike would be kind of a shock to a person texting and driving. I was also nervous about someone coming along and taking it....as a 'found' bike. 

This morning I called the auto service again, this time they had a truck. I decided to have it towed to the repair shop. The guy at the shop thought it could be started from a boost, we tried, nothing. They are going to check the starter. I priced out one before I left, $541 + labour. Oh joy. 

I am headed to Toronto next Friday for 10 days. Robert (Thelma) used to work for Air Canada, so I got cheap tickets. Toronto Pride occurs while we are there. We are staying for the parade on the 30th. Normally I am not a fan of parades, but this one is huge. 

Edmonton Pride was kind of quiet for me, I asked some people what was up and no one was doing anything. There was a road hockey tournament in Vegreville, so I volunteered at it. A relatively quiet weekend. This one too, I watch some movies at home last night. The ride to the city plans were kind of nixed. 

Oh, I forgot, did the ride for Dad last weekend. It is a charity bike ride for cancer, prostate cancer to be specific. There were over 1000 bikes registered, I think there were about 500 bandits. We completely took over small towns we stopped in, Andrew and Mundare. At Mundare I met the ex-mayor, he was talking up the town. I belong to a bike group that does tours and they were heading to Andrew in August. He said to call them. I don't think our 20 bikes will do much for the economy. But I guess it is better than no bikes. 

The people I was riding with knew the Mayor of Mundare, he actively asked for the route to go through his town next year. The town's main street was lined with bikes on both sides, for the whole length of the town. Free food at Stawnichy's helped. This is the town with the phallic looking sausage in it. 

After the ride I sped back to Vegreville, from Edmonton, to attend a social event for the ball hockey tournament. 

My opinion on Snowden kind of echoes John Cusak's. Snowden is the guy that revealed a whole pile of NSA secrets, even though he worked for a company with Booz in the title. This is one of those security companies that got big after the US involvement in Iraq. I guess they walked into the Cheney Money Tunnel and got a pile of startup cash. 

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3441237?utm_hp_ref=tw

Some people think Snowden is a traitor. I guess you could look at it that way if he didn't break a law (The Partriot Act- PA) which violated the 4th Amendment, the right to go about your business without government spying on you. But no one has taken the PA to the Supremies yet to get a decision on it, so with out that decision, the PA is the Law of the land and therefore Snowden is a traitor. He is a smarter 'traitor' than Bradley Manning though, he got out of town after leaking all the data. Bradley went to Guantanamo, where Snowden probably would have gone. 

I wondered why he piked Hong Kong to come out in, a smarter move would have been Ecuador or Iceland. It's not like he didn't have the cash. And he wasn't on any no-fly list or he wouldn't have made it to Hong Kong. Now he is kind of stuck there, well I guess he could go to mainland China. 

He has gone underground after leaving the hotel he stayed at. 

The bigger issue is what he revealed. Secret Courts, secret charges, investigating anyone, US or not. The PA is meant to be to track aliens. Jon Stewart sarcastically reported that 51% of the people whose data was mined were alien's - thats a 49% error rate; meaning that 49% of the mined data belonged to US citizens or Green Card holders. I think even weathermen have a better error rate. 

So we are smugly sitting here in Canada thinking it can't happen here. Well it can and probably is. I remember George Carlin talking about wire tapping in the 70's. He knew he was being monitored so he'd answer the phone with "Fuck Hoover." 

I watched a show on Canadian comedian David Steinberg, he was active in the 60's, hung out with the Smothers Brothers and some other people. It appears he was a real rebel. In fact Jon Stewart can thank David Steinberg for breaking the way for his type of humour. We probably don't hear much about him as governments know the best way to bury something is not talk about it. He wasn't silenced though 'Curb Your Enthusiasm was one of his latest projects. 

TV really sucks at this time of year (as does this app - it doesn't paginate, so I am typing blind). I had to add Bravo to get one show. I am waiting for the CRTC's menu system to kick in, the one where you can pay for the channels you want, not all the other ones. 

I watched Angels of Sex, a Spanish movie with subtitles. Spanish people talk a lot faster than French people, the words just fly by on the screen. The spanish name of the movie is El Sexto de Los Angeles.  This was a great movie, it managed to cover a pile of social issues effectively. First off, the youth in Spain have a very high unemployment rate, something like 50%. So they showed them squatting in houses where the owners had gone away - to where ever - for long periods of time. 

Bruno and Rai are the two main male characters, Bruno has a girlfriend he lives with (in her parents house) named Carla. Her parents do not like him. Something happens to him and he meets Rai who winds up looking after him on a night when Carla's parents are in town. Rai is a pretty good looking guy, and it is obvious that he is interested in Bruno. There I set it up, watch it. It was damned good. 

We are losing our Director at work, she is headed someplace away. That's ok with me, she and I have not seen eye to eye. I think the new guy will be better, I have met him before. 

Well, I'm off, maybe try to write some fiction. Or maybe I will head to the Mall. My son works at Target in it, but not today. Target just opened up in Canada.