From the 'Flynn Files'. Meet the newest member of our pack, Flynn, the Vizsla. He's 11.5 weeks old today. More on Hungarian Pointers, here, at Animal Planet-Dogs 101. For a beautiful 'love letter' to both Vizslas and the San Francisco Bay area, try 'Vizsla Life in San Francisco'. There are many more awesome vids on You Tube.

Well, ...I wanted a water dog.

 

Wow. Here's Tilda, a happy, muddy mess in Riverdale Park West. My girl can neither ignore nor avoid (mud) puddles. Summer 2013.

Miss Teeth

The most current photo of my buddy, Tilda-who will be 6 months old tomorrow.

Tilda

The new addition to our family, Tilda, a Portuguese Water Dog, was born on January 18th and we adopted her eight weeks later. Here we are sitting outside our friends Tom and Emilio's Gelato/Ice Cream store, Sweet Creamery on Parliament St. in Cabbagetown, Toronto.

Immigration Blog Interview

I invite you to read my interview at Zhu's blog, "Correr es mi Destino." An endless amount of additional good reading is to be found there. Cheers, and Happy Valentine's Day!

Capilano Suspension Bridge, North Vancouver, BC

Here are several random shots of our trek to North Vancouver to walk the Capilano suspension bridge.

We had two wonderfully sunny days during our trip to Vancouver. The weather during our visit to North Van was a bit more typical - light rain.

What a great picture of my Eric, eh?

The very tourist-y park side of the suspension bridge has a tree top walk. If you are thinking Ewok village on the forest moon of Endor-you get the idea. As always, click on this or any other picture for a larger more detailed view.

The Capilano suspension bridge experience is a complete tourist trap. It's very expensive but rather enjoyable. Free rain ponchos provided if desired. Please return when exiting the park. Thank you.

Trees.

Coal Harbour, Vancouver, BC

Looking East-ish out over Coal Harbour from Stanley Park.

Vancouver is a highly walkable city. There is a public walk along the water around almost the entire downtown peninsula including Stanley Park.

This view is looking West toward Coal Harbour and Stanley Park from Canada Place. Canada Place was closed-blocked off from the public because of the Olympic games.

Moving west along the Burrard Inlet shore of the city toward Coal Harbour.

Eric and the Marina at Coal Harbour.

One of the many water features outside the buildings in Vancouver.

Nice place to live, eh?

Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC

More pictures of my first morning in Vancouver, BC. My coffee in-hand, I strolled up the False Creek/English Bay Beach toward Stanley Park at approximately 7:30ish A.M. There's a public walk all the way around the downtown/Stanley Park/Coal Harbour Peninsula including a couple of beaches and a public pool.

The infamous Seawall was built almost completely around the peninsula completely accessable to the public for walking, jogging, biking, blading, etc.

I had an absolutely amazing first morning. I began my walk along English Bay at, I believe, Thurlow St., and continued my journey to complete about a quarter of the Seawall along Stanley Park.

I then cut up a flight of stone steps and cut diagonally back to the Lost Lagoon along two of the paths in the urban Forest known as Stanley Park. I couldn't get a decent picture, but just about at the spot of the picture above, there were two Bald Eagles in a dead tree above me.

On the way to Lost Lagoon and then down Georgia St. back to the Fairmont to meet up with Eric-post his business meeting. We visited another part of Stanley Park together later in the week.

English Bay, Vancouver, BC

7:30 A.M., English Bay, Vancouver, BC

I exchanged perhaps thirty "Good Mornings" in absolutely no time. As a cynical New York born it became almost too much...the smile on my face, I mean. Those out and about (say it like a Canadian, you know you want to!) doing their morning exercise were exceptionally friendly. It was a great first morning in Vancouver!

Couldn't help but love the full grown tree planted atop this building. The architecture in Vancouver is extremely diverse.

Architectural, artistic and natural beauty are everywhere!

The edge of Stanley Park.

Vancouver, BC

Coal Harbour and Downtown Vancouver

Vancouver Holiday!

Eric and I are off to Vancouver for a five day, mid-January holiday! Woo Hoo!

How Could I Not Post This?

Philip, on Marriage Equality and what the U.S.A. stands for...



Don't you just want to jump through the screen, shake his hand and thank him?

Click HERE for an Monsters and Critics article on Philip.

Holiday Cheer!

Something amusing I found on the Wiki regarding Santa Claus and the mail he receives via the Canadian Postal Service. Anyone else think it's awesome?

Santa Claus

In 1974, staff at Canada Post's Montreal office were noticing a considerable amount of letters addressed to Santa Claus coming into the postal system, and those letters were being treated as undeliverable. Since those employees did not want the writers, mostly young children, to be disappointed at the lack of response, they started answering the letters themselves. The amount of mail sent to Santa Claus increased every Christmas, up to the point that Canada Post decided to start an official Santa Claus letter-response program in 1983. Approximately one million letters come in to Santa Claus each Christmas, including from outside of Canada, and all of them are answered, in the same languages in which they are written. Canada Post introduced a special address for mail to Santa Claus, complete with its own postal code:

SANTA CLAUS

NORTH POLE H0H 0H0

CANADA

In French, Santa's name translates as "Father Christmas", addressed as:

PÈRE NOËL

PÔLE NORD H0H 0H0

CANADA

H0H 0H0 was chosen for this special seasonal use as it reads as "Ho ho ho".

As the H0- prefix would normally signify a rural area in Montreal, this portion of the postal code allocation is otherwise relatively empty. H0M, assigned to the Akwesane
Indian reserve, is the only other H0- postal code in active use.

DADT

Posting YouTube videos isn't normally my thing. The piece below was particularly entertaining and thought provoking.

Labour Day in Muskoka

Howdy all, it's been a while. Perhaps I've had nothing to say. Perhaps I've been distracted. Labour day came and went. Eric and I spent the long weekend in the Muskoka region of Ontario. Our friend Jeff hosted us and several others at his family's home on the Muskoka River near Bracebridge. 'Twas very relaxing-much like Redwood country north of San Francisco or the Sierras near Tahoe.

If the river looks crisp and refreshing to swim in-it was. Most of our time was spent on the dock and in the river...or sitting around the fire pit enjoying good conversation and the heat and light from the blaze.

Muskoka River, Bracebridge

Toronto Islands-Post City Worker Strike

Gratuitous Ferry-Leaving-Dock Shot
Now that the strike is over we can again hop onto the Island ferries and visit what one could describe as Toronto's Golden Gate or Central Park...the Toronto Islands. They are beautiful and, seemingly, no matter how large the hoards of people get that visit them, the islands are serene and relaxing. And we haven't been able to visit them for, I believe about forty days, because of the city worker union strike. Summer isn't all that long here in Ontario and I am certain many of us are glad to again have the ability to enjoy one of the city's most wonderful places while the warm seasonal temperatures remain. I know I am. Our plan, like many of the other folk-an afternoon picnic and pleasant several kilometer walk with friends. We all look a bit surly in the photos. Not quite sure how I managed to digitally capture such consistently negative facial expressions, but I was assured by one of the gang-the lad directly below-that we all did, indeed, have a good time.

One might imagine that I suggested to all they look as unhappy as possible for the photos. Not the case...

...we're about to eat. We should be smiling, right?

I've been told it's all about the bird. It's there-click on the pic.

Ah, the many ubiquitous angles from which one can photograph the city of Toronto.

My promise to myself; take no pictures of Toronto next time. Here I was standing on the shore near the ferry dock on Ward's Island. I turned around and, in contrast to the city, there lie one of the very cozy, very "New England-esque," "Cottage Communities" of the T.O. islands.

I had never been...so a couple of us took a stroll.

Some "cottages" were shacks while others were grand homes. A bit too nestled together for my taste considering the hundreds of tourists walking amongst them on the concrete paths used for streets. Except for public services, no cars allowed on the islands. In my opinion, the least tranquil place on the islands.

A bike-wheelchair kind-of-thing.

A view from one of the cottages. And, below, a different kind of view of two of my buddies. They had a good time and are smiling-I assure you.

One last note. I know that Blogger is "free," but photo uploading is the worst. Considering they use Picassa Web Albums or whateveritiscalled, shouldn't it be a bit more user friendly? I'm just sayin'.