G20 Summit to cripple downtown Toronto beginning June 7th.

The G20 Summit is coming to Toronto.

While it would be nice to see some of the world leaders, possibly listen to their discussions or even hear debates on the policies of these world leaders from these 20 countries, that won’t be possible.  It turns out that there are some people (a bunch of lunatics) who are intent on furthering their own agendas and feel that by protesting and threatening violence they can achieve their goals.  It is these threats of violence and destruction which are responsible for a security fence which will cripple the downtown Toronto core weeks prior to the event.

The fence will be built beginning June 7th and is outline in this map; http://www.g8-g20isu.ca/g20/resources/10-05-28-map.pdf  in yellow as being the security perimeter. Construction of this fence will go on 24 hours a day until it is completed.

The actual summit / meeting of world leaders, is due to take place between June 26-27 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Some things about this summit have irked me;

1. The cost of 1.1 billion dollars for security to ensure the world leaders are safe. This money would have been better spent on subways.
2. Protestors. These guys come in by the boat load aimed at causing chaos, confusion and destruction to this city. They have even set up a webpage with the location and types of protests.  It can be seen here;

http://g20.torontomobilize.org/schedule.

3. That the Federal government who are hosting this event are not holding themselves responsible for damage to buildings stemming from protests. I’m a Conservative guy, but really? I think the fact that they expect insurance will take care of it is okay, but the Feds need to ensure any business or building damaged as a result of this event is fixed at no cost to the owner.

Do we really need this in our city?!?  I believe if any group is intent on, or have even said that they will be responsible for unrest, damage to world leaders of this City, that the RCMP should round them up now and hold them until August.  Better yet, don’t let them in the country.   If the protestors organizers are influencing the masses to cause trouble, throw them in jail for disturbing the peace and charge them!   Be proactive, not reactive.

Being reactive gives publicity these organizations the publicity they want.

I’m not sure how bringing to the world’s attention Canada’s treatment of the native people back in 1867 is going to make a stitch of difference for those living in Cambodia, or anada today.

I wish for the sake of the already short summer’s in Canada and the poor businesses who may be are being forced to shut down for this event, that the protestors keep it civil and allow the RCMP and local police the opportunity to scale down… That way everyone wins.

Gary Coleman has died

According to http://www.tmz.com (although I saw it first on the Huffington Post website), Gary Coleman has died at the age of 42 after being taken off life support.

He was in a coma following a fall at his home.

http://www.tmz.com/2010/05/28/gary-coleman-dies-dead-diffrent-strokes/

Coleman, best known for being Arnold in the TV Sitcom Diff’rent Strokes used to say, “What’choo talkin’ ’bout?” to his big brother all the time. That catch phrase got to be so big that it was used at least once per show to large applause.

Gary was cast for the show because of a congenital kidney defect, more commonly known as Nephritis which stunted his growth and would never allow his body to grow more than 4’ 8”. Gary underwent kidney transplant surgery in 1974 and again in 1984, which resulted in daily dialysis for the remainder of his life.

Health issues aside, Gary made it back into the public eye due to a much publicized battle with his adopted parents and his former manager for misappropriation of his trust fund from his days on Diff’rent Strokes. He was finally awarded close to $1.3 million in February of 1993. In 1999, Coleman filed for personal bankruptcy, which he claimed was due to mismanagement of his finances. He married in 2009.

Gary Coleman dead at age 42… What’choo talkin’ ’bout, Urban Daddy?

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen things my kids have said recently which made me look at them twice, puzzled / surprised or shocked.

13. When my 5-year-old son did not want to eat his dinner and was making a scene, his 3-year-old brother turned to him and said, ”You get what you get so don’t get upset”.
12. “I always ask for macaroni and cheese and I never get to eat it!”  My 3-year-old diva blurted this out after bursting into tears upon the arrival home from school and smelling the cooking food at the door and concluding it’s not mac and cheese.  Apparently he really wanted mac and cheese…
11. “1 more sleep until we go to Starbucks Gramma.”
10.  “Hey Grumpy” (what my 3- year-old calls his grandfather)

9.  “You won’t remember anyway.”   My 5-year-old’s favourite comment to me after we punish him for something…

8. “Baby girl goes home from Christmas with our nanny because they are both not Jewish.”  My son trying to ship off our daughter over the holidays…

7.  “I love you daddy because some times you let me have treats”

6.  “Don’t tell Mummy so she won’t get mad at you.”

5. After spending over a month saying “DA DA. DA DA. DA DA DA DA DA to my 5 month old, so looked at me on Mother’s Day – without her mother around and said, “MA MA… MA MA MA MA MA”

4. In response to the question, “Why did you hit your brother?”, I got back, “Because he was going to hit me first”.

3. 5-year-old Stewie wakes up from bed and comes downstairs around 11:30pm a couple weeks ago and tells me that he could not sleep because he forgot to tell / show me something. This was what he said to me; “Daddy, do you like Mondrian? I’d like my room painted in the Mondrian style… boxes painted black, red and yellow.

2. “Hi Muffin!!!” This is what my kids were yelling at anyone and everyone who were watching them at the Centre Island amusement park on the long weekend.  They yelled at staff, spectators and complete strangers.

1.  After forcing our nanny to move his smoothie into 3 different glasses my wife stepped in and demanded our three-year-old stop playing games and just drink his smoothie at which point he spun to her and yelled, NO!  I make the rules!!!”.

Oh boy…

What have your kids said that left you in the same state?

Happy 6-month birthday

I want to wish my daughter a happy 6-month birthday.

Now please start sleeping through the night… You’re killing your mummy and daddy…

What a Long Weekend…

I forgot to post this article, so I am posting it today (I scheduled it for 2011 by accident). It originally was meant to be posted May 26, 2010.

This post is a recap of a fun-filled long weekend in Toronto.

I’m kind of glad it’s over, but really unhappy that it had to come to an end already. If you are a parent, you know exactly what I mean when I say that. We were having a lot of fun as a family, but when it’s go, go, go after a long week at work, you sometimes need to go back to work to relax after a hectic weekend.

Unlike most (long) weekends where we “play it by ear” (read: stay at home and clean, my awesome wife actually made plans with our friends and their kids, so as a result, we spent the three days running around the city, seeing Toronto and hanging out as a family.

It all began Friday right after work, with a Tot Shabbat at my son’s school.  It was pretty last minute, so we did not go for the dinner, but we did go for the children’s event afterwards, which was bongo drumming. After the kids drummed until they could drum no longer, everyone picked themselves up and went over to the services.

After a fun song filled service we left the chapel and went to the next room so the kids could run around and have a cookie and cup of apple juice.  There was more coffee for the parents there… Thank goodness.

On Saturday we got up nice and early (6am for my kids) and made our way to mid-town TO to go to the museum with friends of our and their two children.  We saw dinosaurs, the bat cave, monkey bones (Stewie REALLY wanted to see them… Don’t ask) and a bunch of other cool things.

We managed to stay there into early afternoon after which we packed up our belongings (read: kids) and headed over to the new outdoor shopping mall at Don Mills and Lawrence, to pick up some clothes for my poor wife who only seems to buy clothes in bunches every four years.  I stayed in the car while all three kids slept so she could shop in peace and quiet.

When she returned and the kids awoke, we turned our attention to food and drove over to the grocery store, went shopping and then took all the healthy food home for dinner, then a bath and bed.

Whew.

Sunday morning saw another early start, this time we went East for a trip to the Metro Toronto Zoo. It’s a great place to get some fresh air, plus we have a membership there, so the price is right.

At the zoo we walked a LOT, saw some great aminals – like monkeys (this is what Stewie wanted to see yesterday but upon hearing we were going to the museum thought monkey bones would be more reasonable because everyting at the museum was dead, right?!?).

After a picnic lunch we walked some more then headed home for a few hours rest, before meeting my mother and sister for dinner at the “round” restaurant, aka the Mandarin.

Holiday Monday saw another early morning and this time a trip downtown to the Toronto Islands where we met up with some great friends of ours and their three kiddos.  Once on Centre Island, we trekked over to Centreville, where the four walking kids got go on a ton of rides, eat a picnic lunch, toss around a football, eat ice cream and get good and tired for the end of the day.  The non-walkers giggled and slept in strollers and carriers.

The only unfortunate part of Monday was that the baby got too much sun and threw up her avocado all over herself.  She did not sleep well Monday night!

So Tuesday morning the kids got up a little later than normal, between 6:30-7am and both my wife and I were exhausted all day, but boy did we have fun on the weekend.

Hope you did too.

Plane crashes into Markham Building

This afternoon while I was holding court in an all-day meeting at the office, one of my staff members noticed some smoke across the highway over at Buttonville Airport, north-east of Toronto.  

He told me that it looked like a plane crash. 

Turns out he was right. 

A plane crashed onto the roof of a local business killing 2 people.  See CBC story below.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/05/25/markham-plane-crash.html?ref=rss

Earlier in the day, as one of the planes that take off from Buttonville buzzed our building and the meeting room, I commented to our visitors that the normal flight path of these planes is through the empty lot beside our building, away from the building.  I ensured our guests that these planes do not crash…

Famous last words!

Update: This past Sunday another plane – this one heading north, crashed into an empty field killing the pilot.

Cause for concern now???

How does he know?!?

Actual conversation with my 5-year-old last night as he was drying off after a bath.

Him, “Daddy, Is Justin Beaver dead?

Me, “Huh?”

Him, “Daddy is Justin Beaver dead?”

Me, “I think is Beiber… How do you know about him?

Him, “I just do. Is he dead?”

Me, “No he’s not dead. He’s like 12 yeas old.”

Him, “Can Justin Beaver drive?”

Me, “No he cannot drive… He’s like 12-years-old”

Him, “Can he walk?”

Me, “Yes, he does walk.”

Him, “Ok Daddy”

Where does he learn this stuff? How would he even know who or what Justin Bieber was…

Kids these days…

Thursday Thirteen

This week’s Thursday Thirteen covers 13 things that puzzle me…

13. Near death brain issues aside, when did Poison lead singer Bret Michaels go from hair band singer to “reality show star”.

What’s up with that?!?

12. You Tube gets 2 billion hits a day. Yes, that’s billion with a “b”.
I can’t think of anything I would want to (or need) to watch right now that would require me to run to You Tube… Then again, maybe I’m just showing my age…

11. Ronnie James Dio has died of stomach cancer, or maybe not, or yes he did… Damn internet. Best known for… Well what was he known for. I’m going to have to google him. Hold on…

…

…

…

Ronald James Padavona was born in Portsmouth, N.H., and grew up in Cortland, N.Y. He took his stage name in tribute to the gangster Johnny Dio, and he began his career in rockabilly bands in the late 1950s. By the early 1970s his group Elf became a regular opening act for the British band Deep Purple, and Mr. Dio gained his first wide exposure when Ritchie Blackmore, Deep Purple’s guitarist, recruited him in 1975 to sing for his new band, Rainbow.

When Ozzy Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath in 1979, Mr. Dio replaced him, staying until 1982. By then he had his own group, Dio. Its first album, “Holy Diver,” was released in 1983, and its cover art was typical of the band’s style, with a cartoonish painting of a red-eyed demon whipping a drowning priest with a chain. In various lineup configurations, Dio released material into the mid-2000s.

Mr. Dio briefly rejoined Black Sabbath in the early 1990s, singing on its 1992 album “Dehumanizer,” and in 2006 he began playing again with members of that band, naming the group Heaven and Hell after the title of the first Black Sabbath album on which he had appeared. Heaven and Hell toured widely and released one album, “The Devil You Know,” in 2009.

here you go.

Who knew…

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/arts/music/17dio.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Well, the New York Times, of course…

10. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/17/health/main6491388.shtml

This article states that eating burgers and fries may worsen asthma… And I say, No shit! It also makes you fat and fucks with your cholesterol and blood pressure with make it harder for you to function as a human being which may… get this… cause asthma to worsen. See, I’m a scientist…

9. Article posted on reuters.com states that ADHD in kids is as a result of pesticides.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64G41R20100517

So how does that explain my generation?!? But read the article. You’ll see that these pesticides were originally created to be used in chemical warfare… Nice!

8. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/810236–toronto-woman-sues-rogers-after-her-affair-is-exposed

Under the department of stupidity, a Toronto woman in her 30′s is suing Roger’s after they included her cell phone bill into the billings for her family. The problem for her occurred when her husband found that she had a cell phone plan under her maiden name and she was making hour-long calls to her lover, a father of 3 kids. The husband walked out on her and their 2 kids, and the ex-lover allegedly managed to get her password from Rogers too and used it to taunt the husband and harass her.

So what does this tell us kiddies?!? Don’t be stupid!!!

7. John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston have been busy, eh? Turns out the couple are expecting a baby in about 6 months. Travolta, 57 and Preston 47 are old. Hope the pregnancy is an easy one for this celeb super-couple.

6. The “other” Elvis… The sucky one, Elvis Costello pulled out of a concert scheduled in Israel because he felt that going there may result in him making a political statement. Actually, I think him not going is making a political statement. And quite seriously, “Elvis”, if you think by not going the conflict is going to be resolved you really do believe that Elvis moniker.

Admit it dude. You backed out because no body cares about your music. I sure as hell can’t name one song of yours and going forward – the only reason I even know you exist is because you are married to Canadian singer Diana Krall.  There is only one Elvis and it ain’t you. Can you believe this guy has released over 40 albums…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10125493.stm

5.  Facebook is being banned in Pakistan indefinitely as a result of a “draw Mohammed day”.

I get the point behind this event, because devout Muslims can’t keep killing people who depict Mohammed in a drawing but having this event goes in the face of being culturally sensitive. We know it’s an issue as a people but I don’t think doing this is very nice.

4. http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-features/49790-i-fairy-marries-japanese-couple

The headline says it all. In Japan, an “I Fairy” robot married a couple the other day…

Yeah… The end of the world just got closer…

3. I guess my wife was right all along…

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/your-business/start/mark-evans/multitasking-actually-makes-us-less-efficient/article1574042/?cmpid=rss1&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheGlobeAndMail-Business+%28The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Business+News%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Multi-tasking makes you less efficient. Oops…

2.  Saw 30 seconds of that show “Super Nanny” tonight and in it a mother punishes her son by squirting liquid soap into his mouth.  The boy calmly takes it…  Can you say parents out of control?  Granted I did not catch the entire episode, but the boy looked like this was a regular occurence.  Disgusting!

1.  Grey’s Anatomy… So violent… So shocking…  I’m speachless.

Random Musings

My 5-year-old lost his first tooth Thursday. So that night the tooth fairy paid him a visit. By midnight he was awake and checking under his pillow for the chocolate money he was expecting. Half asleep he missed the fact that his tooth was gone and an envelope with a toonie in it was there in it’s place.

He was not happy.

He wanted the tooth and chocolate money like his classmate… Oh well. He’ll have to write that into the letter he left under his pillow with the tooth for #2, which will be falling out any second…

And fall out it did… Kind of. His other bottom front tooth was really loose all day Sunday and he was afraid to eat, so I convinced him to let me look at in the bathroom.

I grabbed a kleenex, convinced him to let me look at it, at which point I wiped his lip a few times so as to not scare him, then slipped the kleenex over the tooth and plucked it out of his mouth.

So now missing his 2 bottom teeth, he wrote a note to the tooth fairy again tonight asking for chocolate money and that is what he got under his pillow.

I can’t wait until he wakes up.

This thought just popped into my head:
Please, for the love of G-d, do not wear a grey suit and brown shoes!!!

About the weekend:
Trying to plan weekends while our house is for sale is not fun. We are tired after a long week, but if we stay at home it has to remain and us ready to leave on a moments notice for a showing. Not easy with 3 kids when it’s yucky outside…

Speaking of moving… We have a ton of veggies that the boys and I planted from seed which are getting big and almost ready to plant but we have no house to plant it in. We’re not in the new one until the end of June which will be too late and we’re not going to (hopefully) be in this one all summer. Sigh. Compounding this problem is the fact that the bean stalks are already producing beans… They need to be moved!

My 3-year-old brought home a “pet” from school. A worm. It came in a little plastic container with a tiny hole in the top and an instruction sheet. This “pet” was sitting on the kitchen counter.
This morning I pushed wormy back from the edge of the counter and as I stepped back I felt something hard and a little squishy under my heel…
Yup.
Wormy.
He had escaped and was hard as a rock.
With 2 boys staring at it in horror I scooped up little crispers and put him back in the container with some water.
My wife thinks today is the day he gets “released” into the garden… I tend to agree.

Why can’t I find any Blue Jays games on the TV, or highlights on the news? After beating up the division leading Texas Rangers you would think Toronto’s only current team that doesn’t suck (except the Toronto Rock), that they would be all over the news… Very frustrating.

This weekend we had an impromptu garage sale, piggybacking off our neighbours who plastered signs everyone and went wild. In our case we got rid of a ton of crap and took in some $$$ in exchange… Nice!

Why does every episode of Hell’s Kitchen seem to have the same 2 teams on it.  Was there only one season?  If not, this was a really crappy idea…

I need your help!

You can help me… I know you can.  Please.

I need help finding Marion Flora.

I’m sure there is more than one, but I MUST find the one who sent me an email this afternoon which unfortunately wound up in my spam folder.

It’s too bad I missed it…

The content of the email read something like this;

“Make your penis longer than the Great Wall of China”.

I’m thinking of contacting the competition committee at Industry Canada because I don’t believe she has made a claim that is 100% probable.

Me thinks she might be “stretching” the truth a little…

Then again… For those of you who really think I’m a big prick… It might actually fit.