Taking a break from Toronto politics to post about recent things my kids said…

I’m taking a break from talking about Toronto politics – temporarily – so I can post about my kids.   Ahhh… Kids.  Here are some recent things they said which were worth posting (so I thought).

My 4-year-old looked up in the sky at the clouds and said; “clouds are like mountains in the sky what are (made of) like cotton”.

When describing the park that he wanted to go play in, instead of describing the park to us, he recalled the photo shoot we had there together instead when he said; “I want to go to the park where that girl took pictures of us so you will remember what we look like when we are older”.

My 6-year-old has been super-helpful recently and in doing so he wanted to tell a bedtime story to his brother and baby sister but he needed help getting going, so I helped him along by saying; “Once upon a time…” figuring he would tell them a story about a prince or a princess, or make something up, however, in typical Jewish day school training, he picked up my intro and continued with; “… Jewish people were slaves in Egypt to a bad, bad Pharoah who was very mean…”  Yup.   What every 20 month old needs to know.

Things my 20-month-old Berry are afraid of;

• Subways
• Bugs
• Bath / Shower
• Bed

All of these raise her blood pressure instantly and make her cry. 

While eating dinner at Safari on Avenue Road, 4-year-old Stewie was told by the waiter that he was a good eater and a good guest to which my son replied; One day I will own this store!”.  The waiter stopped and said, “Pardon Me???” to which Stewie replied – now slightly turning his head back so the waiter could hear him – “One day I’m going to own this store!”… Oh yes he did!

I’m not sure where they get this stuff from since we’ve never mentioned to him that we are going to buy restaurants, stores, or anything like that.

This morning Stewie and I walked to get bagels at about 6:30am, and when we came to an intersection, Stewie squeezed my hand and made me stop for an extra few seconds.  His rationale;

“Daddy, do you know why we had to wait a few extra seconds before we crossed the street here?”

Me: “No, I don’t know why… why?”

Stewie: “Because we are wearing sandals so we have to make sure no cars are coming for if they run over our toes it will hurt SO much. ”

Me: “Errr, okay.  Thanks bud!”.

And finally, my wife bought a couple stuffed giant microbes (science teachers tend to love this stuff), one was E. Coli and the other was penicillin.  Well my 6-year-old and I are allergic to penicillin so when she showed it to him he thought it was real and suddenly he started to feel sick and refused to go to his day camp today.  It wasn’t for a good 30 minutes before he fessed up that he thought it was real and that was what made him sick.  Funny that he wasn’t worried about his little sister hugging the E. Coli…

Caution: Pro-Rob Ford rant inside this blog. Do NOT read if closed minded or if you think a response of “Well, he’s fat” is acceptable.

I like to pose this question to the many brilliant people I encounter on a daily basis in person or read online and hear their response. My experience has been that irrespective of one’s lot in life, be it rich, poor or middleclass, the response I get is usually the same.

Question: On what do you want your tax dollars spent?

Granted most people I know would admit – especially if they own or rent a home in a city like Toronto – that our taxes are too high and a reduction would help make ends meet, but take a few minutes and think about it.

You are a home owner in Toronto. You are paying the highest property taxes in Canada, a smidgen under 8% (as per a 2008 study ranking Toronto’s rates as the Canada’s highest), as well as numerous other taxes and user fees. Taxes to register your car, taxes to buy a plastic bag, taxes disguised as fees to take programs, go to the hospital, and the list goes on. Simply, Toronto is one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world.

So as a homeowner with a car and kids – kids I pay double for schooling, I might add (once for the private school they attend and once again for the public school they do not attend) – and who like many work very hard to earn enough to pay my taxes and still have some left over with which to support my family, I am perplexed whenever I hear people complain about Mayor Rob Ford’s efforts to introduce some fiscal responsibility. I can’t help but wonder what these people do for a living that provides them with so much extra cash that they can afford to watch it flushed down the drain by an irresponsible municipal government, as we have seen throughout the last seven years under Mayor Miller’s regime.

Recently a story broke on Facebook of all places stemming from some fringe news publications that Rob Ford voted against HIV grants and that makes him a homophobe. After a quick Google search, I located the originating article on a gay and lesbian magazine and of course, the way it was written, it makes Mayor Ford look like he is senile. Anyone reading this article would have to wonder why the Mayor is being so cruel. If the author’s intent was to pose Ford as hating the gay and lesbian community in Toronto, then it was a huge success. If, on the other hand, the author thought she was producing a piece of credible and responsible journalism, then she failed miserably.

Since the article was clearly slanted, I sought out another source… a less biased source. Unfortunately I was unable to find one. I did find an article in the Toronto Star, but their coverage was also far from unbiased. The Star piece did give me an idea what the problem was.

You see, my friends who love bashing Rob Ford for being overweight (which is discrimination, I might say) and who clearly love paying taxes, there are two sides to every story and the truth lies somewhere in between. It seems Mayor Ford was not specifically voting against providing grant money to HIV programs – six of them – as this article would have you believe, but rather he was debating the “grants programs,” which gives taxpayer money (that would be your money and mine) to a broad variety of community organizations. Yes, some of these organizations work to prevent violence while others focus on improving the lives of seniors, immigrants, the disabled and the poor, but some of these programs also provide recreation services the city doesn’t.

At issue here was that this committee had recommended that the city give 259 groups a total of $7.2 million of your tax money. Before this large sum of money was going to be shipped out to these groups, Ford wanted council to vote on it so he could be seen to be voting against them. This would show the taxpayers of Toronto that he respects the money we earn and the taxes we pay.

I’m sorry if you think it is wrong of me to not want to support these groups, or any of the 252 groups this City gives my tax dollars to. I don’t know them. It’s not personal and I surely don’t have anything against them or the people who use these programs, but as a member of working / owning Toronto, I don’t want my tax money going there when the roads are a mess, the parks falling apart and there being not enough money to get some transit in the city and set up proper bike lanes where cyclists can ride them – far away from cars. I would like to know where these dollars are going, specifically, like on a menu, or at the very least, I would like to know that City Council knows what these organizations do and be able to provide me some confidence that it’s not just money being thrown away.

Organizations that get City funding should be held to a higher standard. Audits, safeguards, the whole 9-yards. I want these organizations to know that the funding that comes from the “City” is actually your hard earned dollars and my hard earned dollars and they should not be fooling around with our cash.

To me this is a no-brainer. I know others will read this and send me comments calling me a defender of the right (thank you!) or a friend of Rob Ford, but I did vote for Ford. I voted for Rob Ford because it was getting expensive to live in Toronto with my three kids, and own a house here and drive to work because my job is outside the city and there are no reasonable transit options for me. I don’t hate downtown Toronto… I just want the residents who cry that it was the “905″ that voted in Rob Ford, that really if you take a step back, it’s the homeowners, the families, the middle and upper-middle class in Toronto who have businesses that employ you or your relatives and it’s this “class” that works hard to have disposable income so we can go out for dinner and stimulate the economy. Pretty sure I’m still onboard here from my economics classes in University… Someone has to spend money back into the economy so that money can keep the city moving, keep people employed and provide money to organizations, like these 252 who received grants. On the other hand, someone has to be watching out to make sure there is money left over at the end of the day to keep in the local economy to keep Toronto working. Ford is doing that. Miller did not.

Rob Ford as Mayor doesn’t mean the rich get a free ride. How is that possible in this city? Cyclists didn’t have to pay the $60.00 a year “fee” to register their cars that David Miller put in. How about punishing those who buy a home in Toronto by increasing property taxes every time there is a shortfall. G-d forbid we look at waste and cut back when we have this whole population who we can tax.

I find it’s the same group of people over and over again who complain about Conservatives and their policies… All conservatives do is tax the middle class and give tax breaks to the poor. Uh huh. I’ve heard that a thousand times from everywhere. Well, I’d like to know what tax breaks the rich have in Toronto, because if you mean a $50,000 property tax bill, then let them have the breaks. Oh, I know. It’s those damn corporations that the Conservatives love to support. The corporations that provide jobs for you and me and the corporations owned by shareholders – also you and me – who invest hoping to get a decent rate of return. It’s these damn corporations that socialists detest so much… Once they finish working there.

Maybe one day when the socialists rule again and taxes start popping up, Corporations pack up and move outside Toronto, then and only then will it be clearer that having someone out spending money stimulates the economy, it keeps businesses open, and people employed. People spending money keeps Toronto prosperous and keeps the money in Toronto where it can be spent again and again. It this continued attack on the “rich” whom I am assuming is people who have gone to school (University at a minimum), own a home, a car or two, have a decent job (or two) and still find time to go out for dinner, maybe send their kids to private school and who work hard to give to their families – then these people are not going to want to stay in Toronto. Then what? A welfare state. Is that better? Everyone should be equal, no matter how much someone tries to better themselves compared to someone who has decided to do nothing with their lives. There must be a reason for that person who is not working, or wants to live in the street. It’s not their fault, it’s society’s fault and we should all contribute to help them get on their feet and bring down that stupid, eager rich person or that damn corporation with all their money. How dare they amass such wealth while there are poor… And the beat goes on.

But I guess no matter how well I can articulate my point, or how you like to look at the job Mayor Ford is doing for Toronto, all I can say is this: If he continues to look at every expenditure the city makes and continues to find fat and trim it, he is a shoo-in to get re-elected next election. I feel better knowing that the taxes the city taxes from me – which I could be spending on my family – are being spend in a fiscally responsible manner to make this city a better place for all citizens and not the same Robin Hood policies (tax the rich and give to the poor) that we had for seven years under Mayor Miller.

Let me decided where I want my taxes to go, or if you cannot, at least don’t spend more than you have and then raise my taxes to cover it.

And yes, Rob Ford is fat. So am I. What does that have to do with allocation of fiscal resources?

I’m starting to understand that when you are in a poker game and you have only one card – even if it is only a 2 of diamonds – you have to play it. Even if after all the bluffing you still lose.

Special thanks to Toronto’s own Lazy Photographer Dave for his contributions and fabulous edit job.

You can see his work by clicking on his URL through my blogroll on the right.

GCC Friendly things to do in Toronto with kids

Weekends always pose to be a dilemma for my family. We are all so busy during the week, my wife and I working, and the kids at camp during the summer, that come the weekend we’re tired and feel we all need a break. Then again… The weekend is the perfect time to do things as a family, run errands and spend quality time together.

Also in the mix is the fact that this was a sucky week for me in the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) and I pledged to make that right on the weekend.

So when my wife and I sat down Saturday morning trying to plan the day we thought about getting the family outside and adding some steps along the way.

So we ate breakfast, loaded up on water and some snacks and off we went. Here was Saturday;

Walk to the subway.

Walked to the Art Gallery of Ontario (where we got married just over 10 years ago).
Looked for the Village on the Grange (it’s not there).

Walked over to Chinatown to this crazy cool old school dim sum joint on the top floor of a strip mall.

Walked down to Queen Street.

Had free freezies courtesy Virgin Mobile.

Peeked into Much Music – they were filming something for Degrassi.

Saw the homeless guy with his homeless girlfriend / hooker and their homeless dog. He has a sign that says “Need Money for Weed” . I wanted to hand him a new sign that read, “Stay in School Kids – living examples”.

Hit up the Second Cup for a Chocolate Chiller for my wife and Strawberry Yogurt drink for my kids.

Walked back to the subway.

Headed home.

Once at home, Berry napped while my wife and I dosed and the boys watched TV, half conscious, until 4:30pm when we ran out to

get our new glasses, pick up bagels from the Montreal bagel place on Avenue Road (Chatted with Haley-O’s husband Josh-O of Cheaty Monkey fame).

Went to Toy Town.

Came home.

Picked up dinner at the amazing Indus Tavern on Eglinton (yum x 1000) then some tidying and we were both out cold by 11pm.

Net GCC result: 35,212 steps!!!

 

Sunday:

Up a little later – 7am.

Out of the house by 9am to Whittamore farm for some raspberry picking then over to pick some green pees, yellow beans, beets, green beans, sugar snap peas and new potatoes…

By 11:30am it was pretty hot and we were all pretty sapped of energy – But let me tell you how cute it is seeing the kids pick the berries. Berry, picked some great berries and put them in her basket. It wasn’t until she tried one when she realized some liked them. It was all downhill from there. The field became her buffet.

From there we went to T&T Grocery store in Markham, then over to a Tim Horton’s drive through for my first coffee in 14 days… YUM!!!

Then after some shopping / sampling we all hopped back into the car and flew over to Woodbine and the 407 for lunch at the new King’s buffet restaurant.

From there home for a nap for Berry while the boys try to kill each other.

I put everything away and at 3pm I checked in at 21,000 steps. I am totally not going to get to 30,000 steps but this has been a great weekend with the family and a great walking weekend for the GCC.

We got the kids bathed, garden and lawn watered and cleaned up quite a bit of the house.  Up and down the stairs over and over again sure helped my walking total as once Berry went to sleep, at 8:30pm, I was at 30,000 steps for the day.  More cleaning, more up and down the stairs, some laundry, and a trip to the store later and it’s midnight and I take off my pedometer and it reads this;

Final total, and a personal best, 36, 019!!!

So there were some fun things to do with kids on a hot weekend in Toronto.

Amy Winehouse, dead at 27 years old

I heard this afternoon that singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her Londan, England apartment at the very young age of 27 years old and I have to say that while I was really disappointed, I was not at all surprised.

It was probably a year or 2 ago when I did a blog post about the up and coming female role models who were getting all the press and publicity.  Lindsay Lohan - thief, druggie, alcoholic and party in a package was one OD away from death or being in jail for life.  Nicknamed “fire crotch” for being caught without her panties on one too many times, even Lohan gave Brittney Spears a run for her money.  Spears – mother of 2 young kids, also loved being caught without her panties on.  Spears was one talented singer who melted down in front of the world after shaving her head in a very public way.  Unstable?!?  You could say that.  And then there was Amy Winehouse.  Deep, beautiful voice, but with those crazy tattoos and unable to stay clean from anything.  She looked emaciated, stoned and bombed all the time until forced into rehab way too many times.  The last time we heard from her, she was booed off stage during a comeback tour when she was unable to remember her lines.  Even her band and back-up singers were trying to help her along, to no avail.

So when Winehouse walked off the stage, many people knew it was probably for the last time ever.  She was clearly unable to get over this addiction and it ended up over-taking her and costing her her life.  Ironic that her hit song was called “Rehab” and it that song she sings that she is not going to rehab, “no no no” and it was that philosophy that see’s her dead way before her time.

So can we finally move on to better role models for our young daughters please?  That Taylor Swift looks pretty wholesome… Or Selena Gomez…

Public Service Announcement:  Kiddies… It make be cool to your friends to drink and do drugs, but once you start, sometimes you can’t stop.  Just stay away!

 So who do you think is going to star in the movie based on her life, and which of the “starlets” do you think is next to fall?

Thursday Thirteen – Supernova style!

This Thursday’s list comes to us from Elliott Hurst, the CEO of Supernova, and Elliott put together for your enjoyment, the top 13 movies about music (in no particular order).  These are the best 13 movies ABOUT music (not just have good soundtracks; but making music is essential to these films).

What else would you expect from a music aficionado like Eliott?!?

 

So let’s go!

 

1. Woodstock
2. This is Spinal Tap
3. Blues Brothers
4. Almost Famous
5. Anvil! The Story of Anvil
6. High Fidelity
7. Gimme Shelter
8. Beastie Boys; Awesome I Fuckin’ Shot That!
9. Singles
10. 8 Mile
11. Walk the Line
12. The Commitments
13. Eddie and the Cruisers

 

So what makes your list?

Trying to catch up on posts via one massive brain dump

I thought about blogging more the past couple weeks but I just couldn’t. Ever since I became a contributor of Silly Little Ones, I wanted to wow them and their audience with my wit, knowledge and terrible writing style but it just wasn’t meant to be.

I think it all stated a couple of weeks ago when 4-year-old Stewie stopped sleeping through the night. He started getting up around midnight and walking into our room, and waking me and my wife out of very sound sleeps. Then the routine begins to bring him into our bed. You see, Stewie (aptly named after the baby from Family Guy because we think he always wants to kill us) still wears a pull-up at night and he soaks it! This not-so-little guy goes to sleep with a pull-up under his pajamas, and sleeping on a towel on top of his bed sheet which is over a plastic mattress protector, and by mid-night, he’s sometimes soaked through all of them. What am I saying… Most nights he wets right down to the mattress protector. We’ve tried waking him 2-3 times at night to pee, we’ve tried no pull-up, not letting him drink after 6pm, and we have spoken to him about it but none of it works, so when he appears in our room, I take him to pee, change his pull-up, and place a towel down on our bed then find somewhere else to sleep.

To put it in perspective, neither my wife, nor I have slept a full-night’s sleep in a LONG time!

Tonight, with the chance of thunderstorms, I put him on alert – not that he needed it – to come to our room as soon as he awakes… JOY!

So normally the amount of sleep I get doesn’t matter to me. Actually the more I get, the sorer I am in the morning. For my wife, once she’s up, she’s up, so when Stewie comes into our bed he starts chatting, usually about why he came to our room and once he starts there is no stopping him.

Being on this detox has fouled up that too. Both my wife and I are exhausted most of the day and we feel like giant balls of crap. It’s not that we are hungry, or that we are craving anything, but our joints are achy, our heads hurt and when we look in the fridge for something to eat, we are sadly disappointed. With that in mind, I broke my detox tonight. I had purchased a yogurt bowl for both boys at karate this morning and neither boy ate theirs, so after 8 hours of looking at it, I finally ate the strawberries out if it, then promptly finished the bowl. It was FANTASTIC! The detox is scheduled to go on until Thursday night, but I really needed something different to eat than rice cakes with almond butter and sliced banana’s on it (which is delicious by the way!).
A big part of me wants to continue the detox because I need to keep losing some weight and this appears to be the best way, especially in light of the fact that my steps are way down on the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) this past weekend.

Over the past couple weekends, I’ve taken the boys for long walks and we’ve spent the day as a family running errands and I’ve been in the high 20,000′s for steps, even passing 30,000 steps on of those days, but this past weekend due to my horrible mood and the intense heat that is pounding Toronto (not complaining – I LOVE the heat) I’m in the low 20,000′s which is really disappointing. Since my team is battling for top spot in North America for my company and we sit near the top 15 teams in Canada for all companies, every step matters. This weekend really was disappointing and I’m going to have to make it up… At some point in time, but very soon.

So a re-cap of the past couple weeks, please, you say;

My wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary (tin) on July 1st, and just tonight I noticed that her 95-year-old grandfather gave us a card that read, “With Deepest Sympathies”. LOL.

For our anniversary I bought my wife a Slingbox and a $25 gift card for Zynga (Cityville / Farmville) and as I tweeted that night that she was REALLY excited about the gift card. Granted neither her, nor I know anything about a Slingbox. I heard an ad on the radio by Rogers Fan590 morning show host Greg Brady who described the product and it sounded great. So I bought it. It plays our HDTV on any computer… How cool is that?

My wife bought us the Mirvish package and we went to see The Railway Children which was incredibly good. The theatre was great, the characters were full of enthusiasm and easy to fall in love with, but the seats in the theatre were BRUTAL! At one point I realized my knee was in the shoulder-blade of a 75 year old woman in front of me. I’m sure she was not amused, but that should not stop you from seeing the show. If you are tall, or a little wider than the average person, as for a front row seat or a seat in the last row in the aisle (last row is still amazing seating!).

Oh, and as a result of some last minute negotiating, my wife and I went to see U2 at the Rogers Centre.  It was incredible.  I have always been a casual admirer of their music, essentially starting after their Joshua Tree album, my wife (who arranged for the tickets) is a fan of the older stuff, and I can appreciate the older stuff, but likes some of the newer stuff they did for soundtracks, like “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” and “Elevation”. If was a little surprised when we got to the Rogers Centre that 5/6′s of the people in attendance were there for the early music and whenver they played one of those songs, the place went nuts for it.  After what was an incredible show, I am now a huge fan.

Prior to the show we had dinner at a restaurant called Fresh, on Spadina mainly because of our detox, and the food was really yummy there.

The week prior we had some incredible Indian food at Indus Tavern on Eglinton Avenue.  So so good. Highly recommended!

So that is pretty much the catch up required to bring me current.

The only other thing that happened since I started this draft on the weekend was that my kids and I went to a park on Sunday in the middle of that incredible heat wave we’re having here in Toronto and after 20 minutes of running around and almost melting we all decided to clean up this park from the garbage and tons of weeds that had grown over time. It looked to us that this part was no longer being used because some of the spikey weeds were dangerous for little children and if the weeds were gone, kids would be allowed to come play. I’m proud of my kids for wanting to help out and for 30 minutes in the sweltering heat we did this.

One word you would never associate with this urban daddy… Detox!

For those of you who know me, or have read this blog more than once in the past 7, almost 8 years now, you would know that the word “detox” is nor a word in my vocabulary.

Me? Detox? Really… Only if it involves eating more meat and eating less bread would I even contemplate such an event.

But my, how the times have changed, and so has my body.

I recently turned 40 years old and as a result of the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) I have been walking my ass(ets) off for the past 2 months and while I have totally lost inches around my waist, I have actually gained weight!

Really.

So I jumped at the opportunity to join my wife and a few of her friends and take part in an 11 day detox, which began on Monday.

Truth be told, I was actually looking forward to it. I’ve gotten to hate the full feeling that I seem to walk around with all the time now. I feel bloated and as a stress eater I eat when I get stressed and then getting bigger makes me stressed. A very unfair cycle.

On the health side, and I need new dress pants and I want a nice new suit but I swore I was not going to get one at this size. I want to be a size that I am going to stay at for a long time (hopefully) before I throw down my cash for something beautiful and stylish.

So let me put me into context why I really want to do this detox now, and why I need it to be successful for me for a few minutes for those of you who have not met me.

When I was 13 years old, I weighed 248 pounds and wore a size 52 tall jacket. I was not super-fat, but just really big all the way around. I was the kid that would go to the Canadian National Exhibition or to Canada’s Wonderland and have the guy guess my weight and he would usually be off by 30 pounds. I hide my fat well. I’m “big boned”.

When I graduated high school I took that summer to trim down before University began and managed to drop 50 pounds. My mother thought I was sick I was “too skinny”. I bottomed out at 190 pounds for a couple of years while playing a lot of ball hockey and working a lot.

Then came marriage and kids and school, and away went my hair and my waist. Granted, I’m wearing the same sized pants now at 40 that I did at 19, but I measure my weight now by the amount of muffin top I see, or how much I need to inhale before I can do up my pants.

So I have high expectations from this detox. I’m hoping that in giving up coffee, sugar, dairy products, wheat, soy (among other smaller items) that my diet will change ever so slightly that I will not be hungry and can shed some unnecessary pounds.

So here are the kinds of meals I have been eating this week;
First thing in the morning a tall glass of water with half a lemon and if I had cayenne pepper left, some of that.
Breakfast: Organic Oatmeal with ground flax and berries with a pinch of cinnamon, or some organic cacao powder.
Mid morning snack: Brown gluten-free rice cakes with a little bit of almond butter on it for protein – and some sliced banana to make it incredibly yummy.
Lunch: Rice or quinoa with this amazing black bean dish that my wife made, or a power salad – chalked full of sliced almonds, baked yams, oven-roasted beets, tons of veggies and a homemade dressing, or some red bean daal that she made too.

Afternoon snack: A piece of fruit
Dinner: Chicken on spinach with sweet potato fries and veggies.

So in with this detox comes the 6-8 glasses of water a day which I drink anyways and no coffee but I can drink green tea.  It’s clearly a “detox your body (liver) by not eating crap” and not a “detox by taking laxatives and clearing your system of crap” and for that I really appreciate it.

My thoughts about this detox after 5 days can best be described by taking the week and breaking it in half. The first half of the week I felt like crap. I was exhausted all the time and has NO energy during the day. I suspected it might be from me not having my one cup of coffee each day, so I spiked my green tea with ginseng root and got a little boost but not what I needed.

To be frank, I felt like I had been running on stimulants (coffee, sugar, chocolate, etc.) and have been using that for the past 6 1/2 years to get through the day. It has been that bad.

Then the rest of the week is a completely different story. On Thursday, for example, not only was I not exhausted, but I had so much energy that after I got home I went for a run to further pad my walking stats for the GCC.  I covered just under 5km in about 40 minutes which was okay for the frequency of time I have gone out running this year. 

On Friday I also had a ton of energy, without green tea this time but come evening time, I become exhausted again.  I think that’s just me without sugar.  40 years old, 3 kids 6 and under, up at 6am every day… Ahhh, being a Dad.  A detoxed dad.

Wish me luck.

 

Now it’s your turn to tell me… What food / foods could you under no circumstances do without for 11 days?  I’ve found nothing that I have absolutely had to have… yet, although some foods appeal more to me for convenience sake.

Spill the beans.

Thursday Thirteen – Ontario Election Edition

Hey, an Ontario election is coming and while the media is predicting a Conservative majority (YAY) and have to come clean that I actually like Dalton McGuinty. He looks and talks like a leader. His policies… Not so great, however. He came in as Premier in a Liberal landslide in a province that only sees (saw) Liberal red and loved the fact that he ran the Daily Bread Food Bank or something like that. At the time I’m sure I made some sort of comment about electing a leader who spends their career taking from the rich and giving to the less fortunate. That got us Mayor David Miller and tons of taxes and it got us 7 years of scandal / high taxes and disrespect for the money you and I give in taxes to the province.
So this week’s Thursday Thirteen are the 13 things that will cause the defeat of the Ontario Liberal Party and get Dalton on the road to an awesome pension…

1. The HST – I was at the Canadian Tax Federation annual meeting and the lunch time speaker was Finance Minister Dwight Duncan and he explained to the group of us that even in a recession bringing in the HST Was necessary to keep Ontario competitive. I didn’t understand his motive then and I still don’t understand it now. Minister Duncan also said something to the effect of “no other party has the guts” to merge the GST and PST but he did. Errr, okay. Thanks Mr. Duncan. The HST added additional taxes to such items as Cigarettes, fast food and which was good, but there were way too many bad, such as home heating costs, gas, electricity, new homes (over $400,000 – after June 30, 2010 which was why we closed June 29th, 2010 on our new house), airfare, TTC / Go Transit / Via services, real estate agent commissions.

2. The Delisting of OHIP Covered Necessary Health Services – When McGuinty’s Liberals promised not to decrease any health services covered by OHIP, and not to raise taxes, some people bought in to it and others, like myself, raised their eyebrows in skepticism, McGuinty did not disappoint and did both by implementing the Ontario Health Premium (recall that “fee” we have to pay each year to the doctor) and the delisting coverage of Optometry, Chiropractic and Physiotherapy Services for Ontarians.

3. The Ontario Health Premium – Mentioned above, this “fee” turned out to be the highest tax increase in Ontario’s history, and it was implemented not too long after McGuinty’s Liberals took power in 2003.  I even remember him signing a contract with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation – because I was working at the CRA at the time - to not increase taxes).

4. eHealth - This program never got off the ground and cost Ontario taxpayers billions of dollars and opened our eyes to the notion of sole-sourcing and untendered contracts and how to get the best price sometimes you have to get quotes for other service providers than to Liberal friends.  Consultants were hired and even they spent money like there was no tomorrow, billing Ontarians hundreds of thousands of dollars per year while having the balls to expense a chocolate bar or a Tim Horton’s coffee.  Shame.

5. The Tire “fee” – Just another “tax” that the Liberals brought in while in power.

6. I don’t blame just the Ontario Liberals for this one, I also blame the Federal Liberal party (or what’s left of it) but when the provincial HST merged with the federal GST, instead of firing all the provincial collectors, the Liberals thought it would be a good idea to given each collector a “severance package” of $45,000 each, then given them a job with the HST department. 

7. Caledonia – Still a hotbed of criminal activity where Natives and citizens are battling for space and peace and quiet.  Last time I heard from Caledonia, militant natives had blockaded the street and neither Police or RCMP were allowed to go in and break it up.  Dalton… Everyone has right here and the people of Caledonia deserve to live in peace and quiet.  Instead you turned your back on them instead of making tough decisions.

8. Under the Liberal party, University fees in Ontario have skyrocketed to the highest in Canada.

9. Don’t even talk about auto insurance in Ontario under the Liberals.  I remember the Liberals promising to reduce auto insurance rates by 10% to be fair to families, but you know what happened here… Insurance rates in Ontario have skyrocketed.

10. The Eco-Fee - You may not have heard much about this “fee / tax” because the Liberals snuck it in with the HST but this fee was supposed to cover the cost of disposing of items that needed to be recycled but instead it never got off the ground and has cost tax payers a ton of money.

11. Let’s look at the next few items as groups relating to green initiatives; Smart meters – time of use rates, Wind turbines, hydro rates. All colossal failures. Smart meters work for my family because we do our laundry, use the dishwasher, etc. after 7pm to get the lowest rate and we have seen the benefit but from what I understand there are some people, like seniors who cannot wait for the reduced rates and them – on fixed incomes – have their energy rates go up (and HST on it too). Wind turbines, on the other hand, were an epic failure. There were grants given out for them that were much higher than the expected rate of return, they are unsafe and noisy.

12. The Federal Liberal Party was decimated. Ontario is next. The Conservatives care about your money and the NDP are just plain entertaining. That leaves no room for the Libs… Well, that and former Ontario Premier Bob Rae is their interim leader for the next 2 years. I shudder when I think about how bad the province was after Bob was forced out.

13. Sheer arrogance. I’ve heard the moniker “Teflon Dalton” go by and I think he actually believes he is unbeatable… I think the Federal Liberals felt that way too as did the Liberal who ran for mayor, George Smitherman.  Their time is up.  Time for a change.

Urban daddy housekeeping: Global Corporate Challenge and new blogs for you to follow

I am always looking for new blogs to read and today’s post is about some that have come to my attention that I would like to mention.

The first one is Silly Little Ones – http://www.atomicreach.com/microsite/sillylittleones  A new online parenting community which gathers photos, videos and blogs on children and their stories.  Those of us who contribute content to this site benefit by increased traffic to our sites while giving readers some new posts to read and comment on from fellow mommies and daddies.

The next one is Damn Yank; http://damnyank.wordpress.com/

The third one is the Lazy Photographer http://www.lazyphotographer.ca/.  If you check out David’s page you will see he is Toronto based and you should recognize a lot of the surroundings and see through the eyes of this photographer.   David also takes family portraits at a reasonable cost – we’re scheduled for later this summer – and he specializes in one-on-one (or group) street walking sessions where he will teach you how to get the most of your camera.  If I had any time at all, I would totally join David on a tour of the streets with my camera.

Welcome to all of you!  I hope the Urban Daddy community treats you well and comes to visit every now and then.

 

Changing things up a little… did you all hear about the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest (free publicity @nathans… Please send dogs! Nitrate free and kosher please)  The winner ate a disgusting 62 dogs (and buns) in 10 minutes.

62! How gross. I mean who would go watch these?   I think only people who want to watch others throw up, or watch people die, or watch schoolyard fights on the internet.  

I think the most I ever ate at one sitting was 6 and I was probably 17 at the time and still… growing.

 

Switching gears here to the Global Corporate Challenge: www.gettheworldmoving.com

Check it out!

So I’m at day 50 of the Global Corporate Challenge.  I joined it under the impression that I would be given a pedometer, form a team with 6 other colleagues, then walk for a given period of time and keep track of the steps.  Simple, right?

Well did you know that the average white collar worker walks an average of 3,000 steps a day. The #GCC encourages 10,000 steps a day.  Last year the person at my office that walked a lot averaged 13,000 steps per day. 

Going in I had very few expectations.  Well, with kids, my first day was 13,ooo steps and nowadays, by 10am after getting my kids ready and myself ready in the morning, plus a walk I’m at that goal.   Add on 4000-5000 more steps getting them to bed and with some daily exercise, or walking I have been doing quite well… Okay, very well. Here are my totals and my teams totals to date:

Personally, I have walked 3,722kms, or just over 1,000,000 steps. That puts my team at Level 75.

As a team, we have walked 5,000,000 steps for an average of 17,734 steps per team member. My step average is 21,596

So what does all this mean for my team?!? Well, we’re 1st in my company for all the North American teams of which there are many. We are 15th out of all the registered teams in Canada (there are 618 registered Canadian teams. We currently sit at 455th in the world out of 18166 teams registered globally.

Pretty cool, eh?

And it is very inspiring to see where we rank, how close were are to moving up or down and that there is another Canadian team right behind us who have been just ahead of us for most of the past month. Competition is good. It means no nights off for my 4-1,000,000 step club walkers.

All in all I have lost some inches but not weight I have actually gained some weight, but I have a ton of energy.

So what new blogs have you come across that deserve to be recognized (and don’t be shy… mention your own too if you’re not already on my blogroll).

I am going to walk!

Parenting 101: The Tooth Fairy and the Postal Strike

Recently, we went to friends of ours for dinner.  We took-out sushi from a great place on Eglinton Avenue called Tokyo Sushi, and the 9 of us had so much food it was unbelievable, but we were also 45 minutes after the kids regular dinner time so they were super-hungry.  So hungry that right in the middle of the meal, my 6-year-old son Linus decided it would be a great idea to pull out his loose tooth. 

Oh yes.  Right in front of everyone.

And of course, there was a LOT of blood. 

So we sent him to their bathroom and while we all ate, he spent about 10 minutes trying to get it fromt bleeding.

Once we got home, as is customary in the urban daddy household, Linus had to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy, explaining that he lost the tooth and asking for her to come get it.  The “tooth fairy” then writes back a letter encouraging him to continue to eat healthy, brush and floss his teeth, clean up his room and be good to his brother, sister and nanny. 

Getting him to write them the first couple times was like – pardon the pun – pulling teeth, but lately it’s been a breeze.  He grabs paper and sits down to pen his story to the tooth fairy and in return gets a letter and $2.00.

Still recovering from being sick the entire family we to bed that night at 9:30pm.  At 5am, I woke up and realized that we forgot to grab his tooth out from under his pillow, along with the letter he wrote and even worse, we forgot to prepare a letter to him from the tooth fairy.

I quickly got up, shook the cobwebs out of my head, and walked quietly into his room. Through the pitch black of the night I could see he was looking at me. I thought he might be sleeping, so I slid my hand under his pillow and carefully took out the note and tooth while pretending to be fluffing his pillow. He did not move, so I left and went back to bed.

At 6am, Stewie woke up and came into our room so in order to make sure he went back to sleep, I crept into bed with Linus to catch some more sleep myself.

Then, at 6:30am Linus woke up and boy was he pissed… The tooth and note were missing from under his pillow and there was a $2.00 coin there, but no note from the tooth fairy. He looked at me and said; “Why didn’t you leave me a note, Daddy? You came at 5 in the morning and took the tooth and the note but you didn’t leave me a note. All you left me was $2.00.”

I was shocked, so I did what every guy would do in this situation and I denied it.

Linus, however, would have none of it. He replied with; “Don’t lie to me! I saw you! You took the tooth and the note and put them in your pocket and you didn’t leave me a note, just $2.00″.

So I denied it further, but inspector Linus wouldn’t give in, so he got up and stormed out of the room muttering that he was “going to tell mummy”.

So from his bed, at 6:30am I could hear him and her talking, him being very upset and her not knowing what Linus saw. Then 2 minutes later Linus returned to his room with a massive smile on his face.

I didn’t say anything…

He said to me; “I know why the tooth fairy did not leave a letter. There is a postal strike… The post office must mail the letter to the tooth fairy for her to put under my pillow. Once the strike is over, mummy said I will be getting my note”.

WHEW, I thought. Again, my wife saved my ass.

I got up and went to see her. She was as surprised as I was that he bought the story, hook, line and sinker.

Then again… We are allowing him to believe in the tooth fairy…