Year In Perspective

Now that I'm on a 2 week holiday, it's a good time to reflect on the past year.

Firstly, it has flown bye faster than Tiger's 3 iron in his wife's hands!

It's been a year of many ups and many downs. The ups occurring each time we get to see our kids and grand daughters, the downs with so many friends suffering from illnesses and a few passing away.

All our children (including our daughters in law of course) seem to be well settled into their jobs and the future looks good for them, and this is obviously a relief in these economic times. The oldest girls, Anna & Julia, have started real school and have their whole education ahead of them....lucky for their teachers, I think! Meanwhile Claire and Monique will be learning from them and should find schooling easier, I suppose.

Kate has moved house and seems to be in a good place at the moment and travels all over Canada for her company.....

This has been a quiet year regarding vacationing, other than visiting our family in Kitchener/Waterloo and family and friends in Toronto, we have not travelled further afield.

The year did start with a bang when we celebrated New Years Eve with Sabrina and Brian at the Rex in Toronto. We all had a good time, listening and dancing to some great Reggae music.

The down side of the year saw the passing of Jackie's sister Shirley, a photography friend Fred Abela and of course our good friend Ron Marks. The latter 2 suffering and succumbing to the dreadful A.L.S. desease.

We are also watching our friend and Rabbi, Joel Wittstein struggle with his deamons and to call him a hero is probably an understatement. He and Ailene are fighting a difficult battle and he has tremendous support from his congregation. We visited him last week while he was in hospital for about 10 days and, although very week, he showed signs of the Joel we know so well.

The year is hopefully ending well with a Wienburg/Wirick Boxing Day gathering and then Margie and I are repeating our New Years Eve celebration at the Rex as we did last year.

We are also looking forward to taking all 4 grand daughters to the Wizard of Oz at the Grand Theatre on Sunday.

Early December '09

Our House on Google Map's Street View

This has been quite the interesting week.

Our bus system's strike continues making loads of cash for taxis particularly the brand new company, London Taxi.....talk about perfect timing!

Tiger continues to make headlines and time will tell whether he'll continue to dominate the golf world. The lawyers will make a killing and ironically, more people will be watching when he makes his golf appearance.

Google Map's Street View came to London with quite the reception. Many pros and cons but overall people seemed to be ok with the idea. I think it's a very positive add on and the benefits far out way the sceptisism.

Musings

It's still an exceptionally mild Fall and I'm loving it! We normally would have had at least one snow fall and temps around 0C....
Not much happening to report.
Enjoyed Colin Perkel's visit to the London Videography Club earlier this month where he talked about his experience in Afghanistan. A good turn out of members enjoyed his talk, photos & videos.
I'm looking forward to my 2 week break at the end of the year....a family 'Boxing Day' gathering at our home and joining the Bakers at the Rex in Toronto on New Years Eve.
I'm sorry the golf season is over as I was feeling quite confident towards the end. Hopefully next year I'll get closer to the 80's than the 90's.

Fall Leaves

I was quite taken with this tree yesterday and couldn't help myself taking dozens of photos:

Nuit Blanche

Catching the subway was a first for me and it wouldn't take long for Sabrina and I to arrive in the middle of the Nuit Blanche festival in Toronto.

Here at Eatons Centre, tens of thousands of people milling around and taking in the various exhibits.

These mobs were mesmerised by a woman

emerging and disappearing in this huge egg shaped thingy. Of course there were explanations to everything which I avoided as I simply wanted to walk around and be part of the event.

What can I say here? After a 90 minute wait, we entered Masse Hall and took our seats on the stage, while the exhibit took place in the seating area. 3 guys twirled lights around accompanied by music and did this for about 10 minutes.....

These were four letter words hanging out at city hall........

enough said.

.So, these are a few examples and I'll end off with a collage of all of my photos:

Wonderful weekend

Fortunately some of my blog entries will not always be rants but sometimes ordinary stuff.

We had a fabulous weekend culminating in the annual South African Protea Club braai (barbeque). At least 120 folks showed up and we chatted, some threw a rugger ball around while others cooked the boerewors and lamb chops. The food was outstanding with boeries, 'pap' followed by wonderful desserts including a number of 'melk terts'.

One of the highlights for me was playing with the 2 year old Shmukler twins, Hannah and Lillian or the 'Punkies' as they are known.

Gory Movies

Two gory movies in a row. The nausea continues.

Friday night I took in the 3D movie 'Final Destination' and hoped to see the latest in 3D technology. Oh yes I saw absolutely spectacular effects but OH MY GOD did I have to see the sickeningly gory images? I think the movie could have been successful without the graphic stuff, but I'm sure the targeted audience, the youngees enjoyed it. *---- (the star for the 3D)

Last night I saw 'District 9' and so looked forward to scenes of South Africa....and that I got. But once again the producers chose to include graphic, bloody scenes...and again I assume to attract the younger audiences. The South African accents were spot on and I found the spoofing of apartheid interesting but wondered how many non South Africans would understand the references. **--- (2 stars for the amazing special effects!)

Chief of Police, Shame on You!

I simply cannot understand how the London's Chief of Police is recommending to drivers to lie to their bosses should they arrive at work late.

Here are 3 of his quotes:

"Rather than drive aggresively to be on time and endanger other road users in the process, lie"

"Buy a realistic arm cast, keep it in the glove box, slip it out....presto, instant hospital visit."

"Sure, police don't normally lie, but if it leads to safer roads, then get making that list of excuses."

Tongue in cheek or not, a mindless suggestion from one who should be advocating honesty, integrity and being law abiding citizens

Federal Elections

Now that the opposition is considering overthrowing the current minority Conservative party through a non confidence vote, one needs to look at what this means and what can we do as citizens to correct this absurd situation.
Since we arrived in this country in '77, we have experienced 10 federal elections with another possibly in the fall. That's 3 more than if we had one every 4 years, as is typical in many countries.
This translates to close to an additional billion dollars to cover these extra elections and that's not including all the hidden costs.
I know my opinion will not be popular but I believe we should be considering a 2 party system which would guarantee a 4 year term. I know the party in power could abuse this but in order to remain in power, they will have to show responsibility and keep their campaign promises.
Food for thought!