Twister emerges

Here's the twister emerging from the clouds. Great picture.

TAGS:tornado, clouds, Fergus

Birth of a Tornado

Earlier I posted an observation that one reason the Toronto storm went generally unreported was because of the tornado in Fergus. Fergus is smaller town, an hour or so northwest of Toronto. A friend of mine just passed along a couple of photos showing the twister in Fergus taking shape. Very impressive.

TAGS:tornado, Fergus, clouds

Toronto Old City Hall

Toronto's Old City Hall behind the fountains/skating rink at Nathan Phillips Square. Crazy, out of place tropical island in foreground. Old City Hall was built for $2.5 million back in 1899. Over the past couple of years a lot of work has being going on to clean up the outside of the building. It looks good. The front of the building which fronts onto Dundas Street is still covered in green tarps and scaffolding. Nathan Phillips Square is a public gathering place. The fountain/pool becomes a skating rink in the winter. Toronto's new city hall is just to the left of this picture.

TAGS:Toronto, Travel, Tropical Island

Toronto Storm Picture

The storm that blew through Toronto last Friday went surprisingly under-reported given its severity. Because there was an actual (actual!) tornado in a small town called Fergus, most of the attention went there (note to Canada watchers - anything that makes us remotely American is reported by the press and gobbled up by the public; it's part of our national inferiority and love/hate relationship with the US - tornados would be one of those things... as would the opening of a Pro Bass Shop). Picture above is from Donalda Golf Club just after the storm. The Club will be lucky to reopen by the end of the golf season. Given the impact on so many people in the city, it feels a little awkward only showing pictures that affect the country club crowd. Ultimately...they'll be OK! Meanwhile scores of people lost cars, basements, yards etc. What's amazing is that no one died.

TAGS: Toronto, Travel, Flood

Tropical Movie Shoot?

I can't really explain this picture. Last time I saw the moat/pool in front of Toronto City Hall people were skating on it - sometime in June. Just kidding. Now there's a tropical island with palm trees! Perhaps it's part of the movie shoot that's going on in the background?

TAGS: Toronto

JC's Bar & Grill Toronto

Not really a bar. Just a really cool site (I'm easily amused) that I came across for generating neon signs and a whole bunch of other stuff. It's called the Generator Blog. Check it out here. Also this cool site for generating code and icons for Technorati Tags - like the Blogger one below. Here. See ya!!

TAGS: technorati, Blog Tools,

Thornhill Club Storm Damage

Another shot of the damage from Friday's storm. This bridge was picked up by the water and moved over 3 feet. Crap on top of the bridge was being carried by the water flowing OVER the bridge. First hole of the Club's 'short course' is in the background. Thornhill is a Stanley Thomson designed beauty. From the Blues it plays a modest 6562 yards, par 71. However, the course is tougher than it seems with narrow, treelined fairways, great elevation changes and few flat lies. 50 years ago the Canadian open was played at Thornhill.

TAGS: golf, Toronto, storm

Sand Trap Water Hazard Thornhill CC

More aftermath from a storm that came through Friday. Taken at Thornhill Country Club two days after the storm. One of the tributaries of the Don River flows through - and in this case - over Thornhill. Something like 80% of the traps are beyond repair and will need to be replaced. Normally, these traps are full of nice, white Bermuda sand. For those not feeling sorry for the Country Club types, the storm did plenty of damage to homes in the Thornhill area, most of it from flooding. In one case, 40 cars lost in an underground garage that flooded to the roof. Fore!!

TAGS: golf, toronto, storm

Adveritising is Big at the Corner of Dundas and Yonge

It's not Times Square and it's brighter at night, but when it comes to beating the hell out of your consuming sensibilities, the corner of Dundas and Yonge is no slouch. Thank goodness true Canadian spirit remains intact - notice the can of Labatt's Blue under the LG sign. Party on dudes! This is one of the 'famous' corners in Toronto - although any intersection with Yonge Street is well known. All the streets in Toronto run either north-south or east west - which makes getting around pretty easy. Yonge Street is the most central of the north-south streets and therefore has the most stores, cars, bums, hookers, etc. The Subway runs under Yonge Street from Finch in North York (way the hell up there) to Union Station by the Lake. From there it loops back North a little further east. Shopping on Yonge Street includes anyting from the primo stores in the Eaton's Center to antique stores up near St. Clair to Canada's most shopped post yuppie, going on mid-life crisis outlet, Sporting Life.

TAGS: Travel, Toronto

Big on Tommy Hilfiger

One of a series of large scale advertisements hanging in the Eaton Center. This one for Tommy Hilfiger which would be sold in about half the shops in a mile radius of the mall.

The Green Monster

Big storm in Toronto yesterday. All of the summer's rain came down in about 4 minutes. As a result lots of flooding, traffic mess, airport delays, etc. We got off light. Just the pool overflowed. Sort of not good for the neighbours down-yard of us but with all the water around they wouldn't have known it was us!

Toronto's Eaton Center??

When the Eaton Center was built, Eaton's was the flagship store and the T. Eaton Company was one of the original partners in the builder's consortium. The center was synonymous with the store. Not now. Eaton's went out of business in the late 90's. Now the flagship store is probably H&M - but given they've got all the signage, let's call it Sears. The Toronto Sears Center?

The King of Retail

An almost empty Eaton Center, 10:30 am Friday. By noon this place is busy - by 3:00pm it's jammed. Tourist destination. Good shopping but nothing unique. Get all the same stores in most Canadian malls. Just big. Great people watching. Follow the skywalk at this end of the Eaton Center over to the Bay store - probably the best department store in Canada. 7 or 8 floors. Merchandise you can't get anywhere else and great prices, especially on weekends. Best of all if you don't like it, you can take it back.

The Birds of Retail

Canada Geese hanging from the ceiling of the Toronto Eaton Center. It's scary to think how many times this picture has been taken. I had to wait my turn to take this picture and according to the Eaton Center web site, the Eaton Center is Toronto's (and therfore probably Canada's?)#1 tourist attraction. These geese are the symbol of the Eaton Center and even make it into the logo (top).Given that the Eaton Center opened in 1997, Canada Geese were probably still kind of a cool bird. Not so much now - although some people apparently care. Their population seems to have exploded and geese can be seen occupying any green area, particularly near water. Ask any golfer. Strangest place I ever saw Canada Geese was a small (very) patch of grass at the entrance to London's Heathrow Airport. It's not clear whether they flew themselves or took Air Canada.

TAGS: Birds, Travel, Toronto

Toronto is a Clean City

For as long as I can remember, Toronto has had a reputation for being a clean city. Almost always, that's a comparison to American cities of similar size. Overall, I guess that's probably true. It's actually what struck me about this photograph which is taken just below the CN Tower - probably one of the busiest tourist areas in the city. Of course it's early - but there were still perhaps 20 buses on the scene. Not all areas are like this though. And from my perspective, there's no question the Toronto the clean has been in decline for years. Garbage is actually a huge issue for Toronto as their isn't enough local capacity for the tons of crap the city produces every day. So, much to the dismay of environmentalists and residents of Michigan, the city sends something like 125 truckloads of garbage across the border to the US every day. What is it they say...one man's garbage is another man's gold?! Here's the City of Toronto's 'Facts About Trash'.

TAGS: Toronto, Toronto Skyline

Picture - Toronto Tourist Boats

Toronto's lakefront is teaming with boats for touring around Toronto Harbour. These are two of the more interesting ones - Oriole and Showboat. Foreground is Northern Spirit, a 'classic' harbour party boat. All three are owned by Mariposa Cruise Lines. Toronto has a pretty decent harbour for touring around. Across the harbour and facing the city is Toronto Island. From there, great views of CN Tower, Rogers Center, Toronto skyline. Most of the tour boats in the harbour have shallow enough draughts to cruise the inland waterways in and about Toronto Island. I once tried to buy a boat like these. This was a few years ago when there wasn't as much competition as there is now. The financials for the tourist/event boat business at that time were remarkable. All booze based. Very low costs and very large mark-ups. No need to work winters! Could spend those down south - maybe even doing the same business. Here's the Google link for Toronto Harbour Cruises.

TAGS: Toronto, Boats

Steamwhistle Brewery Toronto

Kind of funky home of Steamwhistle Brewery near Toronto's Rogers Center. This shot taken looking south towards condos on Lake Ontario. Steamwhistle is a micro brewery making a pretty good Pilsner. See the rating here at RateBeer.com. The building used to be a locomotive repair shop for Canadian Pacific Railways. It was built a few years ago in 1929. Location is interesting. Basically right down by the Rogers Center, just up from the Gardiner Expressway. Lousy grass cutting job out front!

Picture - Roy Thompson Hall

Different architecture around Roy Thompson Hall. Hall is a performing arts center at King and Simcoe streets. Known for pretty good accoustics. Cost $52 million. It opened in 1982. Web site here.

Canadian Culture

Canadian culture - hockey, Tim Horton's, Inukshuks (sp?). A whole inukshuk mob scene here on the waterfront. A group of them just threw a cylist into the lake.

Picture - Humber Bay Bridge

Cool pedestrian bridge on Toronto's western waterfront. Supposedly, this is a picture of the same bridge!