Photos: Autumn Wrap-Up

The leaves were falling from the trees in Trinity-Bellwoods Park in Toronto, Ontario when viewed on 28-October-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's update to my photo site features a round-up of fall scenes in the Greater Toronto Area in 2010. Included are foliage scenes, the Harvest Festival in High Park, special White Coat, Black Art and Quirks and Quarks events at the CBC, evening meetings with politicians and historical societies, a trip out to Hamilton, Ontario to view the Hunter Street Station historical display, and more.

Margin Notes: Autumn, Steam, Residue, Halladay

The view outside my own bedroom windows showed nice autumn colors in Toronto, Ontario on 15-October-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - I'm always amused when the picture outside my own bedroom windows demonstrates something better than things I waked all the way across town to see. In this case, the state of autumn colors this week was best shown by the view out my window on Friday morning.

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Some of the wreaths from the Canada Day re-dedication of the Chinese Railway Workers' Memorial in Toronto, Ontario were still in place on 11-October-2010

It might be fall, but that wouldn't be obvious at the Chinese Railway Workers' Memorial in Toronto, Ontario. The memorial was the site of a Canada Day--that's 1-July--re-dedication ceremony, and wreaths from that ceremony were still sitting at the monument one week ago. Cleaning up the site is obviously a priority for Toronto workers.

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A timed exposure captured the departure of the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre's miniature train on a night test run on 11-October-2010

Speaking of railways, there are few things more thrilling than riding behind a steam locomotive after dark. The Toronto Railway Heritage Centre will be running after dark on Halloween, from about dusk to 8 pm, providing a chance to get such an experience, if on a smaller scale. For more details, watch the TRHA web site as the 31-October-2010 date approaches.

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The Toronto Railway Heritage Centre is near the Rogers Centre, where Roy Halladay used to pitch for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. When Halladay recently pitched a perfect game in the playoffs for the Philadelphia Phillies, the positive buzz around Toronto was nearly as large as if he had done it for the Blue Jays. I'd like to make the case that it is the civility of Toronto fans, but I think this would have happened even in rapacious Boston. Halladay is such a personal class act that it is easy to cheer him on, even if he's playing for another team. This blog would like to add some belated congratulations to Halladay for his accomplishment.

Margin Notes: Fall, Analogies, Radke and Moe

The first tree I found this year almost completely devoid of green color was on Dundas Street West in the Junction neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario on 22-September-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - The season has officially turned from summer to autumn, and with it came the first tree full of fall color (er, colour). While technically summer still had a few hours remaining, I was already in fall mode when I noted an almost completely-yellow tree on Dundas Street West in the Junction neighbourhood last Wednesday afternoon.

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A raccoon peered from the side of a 1942-built steam locomotive as it was switched at the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre on 26-September-2010

The start of fall means nightfall comes earlier, which helped facilitate a night photo session at the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre this evening. I'm sure spectacular night photos from the session will be appearing around the Internet from the real photographers on hand; my favorite shot from the night is featured above. We have had evidence and second-hand accounts of raccoons taking up residence in former Canadian National steam locomotive #6213, and first-hand evidence was attained the form of those eyes peering out as the locomotive was switched onto the turntable. Abatement plans are being contemplated.

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The raccoons apparently mistook a locomotive for a home, but would you mistake a telephone for a baby? It doesn't seem so crazy after watching this week's Search Engine videocast from TVO.

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The other analogy that blew me away this week came from Daniel Kehlmann and host Christopher Lydon on the Open Source podcast. They discussed the analogy of the Internet as God--it might seem blasphemous, but if one believes in a passive deity, a lot of the descriptions prove to be the same.

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Combining the last two topics of technology and babies, is anyone else as dumbfounded by the IBM ad running before CBC video programming available on line lately? It shows a baby with its abdomen clearly breathing with the voiceover: "Here is a baby... a baby generating data..." When I see a baby, I can see a lot of things, but data generation is pretty much never on the list.

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Somehow, I doubt even journalists Bill Radke and John Moe, both known for their wit, would ever see the baby that way, either. The two seem to keep following each other around in the media world. I was introduced to both of them at KUOW-Seattle when they were still hosting their own local shows there, Rewind for Radke, The Works for Moe. Radke left for Los Angeles and became host of the nationally-syndicated show Weekend America, but was eventually replaced by Moe, who had moved to the Minnesota headquarters of program producer American Public Media. Radke then signed on to host Marketplace Morning Report, and now, with the re-naming this week of Future Tense as Marketplace Tech Report, both Radke and Moe are anchoring for the same Marketplace "brand" on American Public Media. Just once, I'd like to hear these two guys co-host the same program at the same time.

Photos: Autumn in Toronto, 2009

Autumn colors were still quite prominent at Carlton Park in Toronto, Ontario on 2-November-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's update to my photo site features autumn scenes from around Toronto, Ontario. Fall colors were seen in the Don River and Humber River ravines, politicians held community meetings, Heritage Toronto held its annual awards night at the Carlu, and more.

Margin Notes: Autumn, Royalty, Salish Sea

The leaves were almost all off the trees in the Lambton Woods of Toronto, Ontario by 6-November-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Most of the leaves are off the trees here in Toronto, as the season of fall colors comes to an end. The view above was from almost exactly the same the location as last week, showing the progression toward winter scenes instead of the fall.

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Already gone from Toronto as well are Prince Charles and his wife Camila, who goes by the title Duchess of Cornwall. Their events in Toronto last week were surprisingly poorly publicized, and I managed to miss all of them. The growing consensus amongst my acquaintances is that Canada is likely to maintain Queen Elizabeth II as head of state until she dies or abdicates, but then will move to the Governor General directly being the head of state instead of being the representative of the Royal Family. Time will tell.

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The West Toronto Railpath crossed Dupont Street on a well-marked bridge days after its opening on 2-November-2009

Yet another event that I missed recently was the formal opening of the West Toronto Railpath on 31-October-2009. The path parallels the Parkdale Rail Corridor to the east from Dundas Street to Cariboo Avenue (north of Dupont but short of Rogers Road), and actually is rather useful between intermediate points even if its overall utility to the transportation system in Toronto is rather questionable.

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I also missed the announcement of the name of the first of Washington State Ferries' new fleet of 64-car auto ferries. As desired by activists, the ferry will be named the Chetzemoka, after a local native leader. A previous wood-electric ferry that had also served the Port Townsend-Keystone route more than a generation ago had also carried this name. Here's hoping for more appropriate old names for the other two vessels on order.

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Yes, I also missed until this week the fact that body of water to be plied by the Chetzemoka is likely to gain a new name. In recognition of its status as an integrated ecosystem, the inland sea waters of southern British Columbia and Washington State are to gain the name "Salish Sea." Considering the fact that nobody seems to know where the boundaries of Puget Sound, Admiralty Inlet, or even the Strait of Juan de Fuca are located, this strikes me as a very reasonable idea.

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About the only thing I didn't miss this week was the 20th anniversary of Liane Hansen hosting National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday...and frankly I didn't find it very interesting. I have no objection to ginger recipes, but why was there an irrelevant and irreverent message from the Car Talk guys? More retrospective features (Hansen has done plenty of good interviews over the years) would have been nice.

Margin Notes: Autumn, Time, Songs

The falling leaves obscured all but the most traveled trail through Lambton Woods Park along the Humber River north of the Canadian Pacific bridge on 26-October-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - One of my favorite spots in my neighbourhood in the fall is a small forested area in Lambton Woods Park. Unlike most of the Tommy Thompson Trail, it is covered by a canopy of trees year-round, and as most of those trees are deciduous, it becomes a sea of leaves this time of year. The piles of leaves were about at their peak last Monday, creating a beautiful walk. The fall colours around Toronto are fading now, but at least for a few days, they were a wonderful invitation into Lambton Woods Park.

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It's more difficult for most people to see what fall colours are remaining now that Daylight Saving Time has ended in North America, and Standard Time has returned. I'm one of those people that believes Daylight Saving Time should be made year-round and end the twice-yearly transitions. The primary argument against this idea seems to be children walking to school in the dark, and to that I say start school later--aren't studies always saying that children should sleep in later anyway?

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Changing the time on my watch at the time shift is not that difficult, but as the band on my watch recently failed, coming up with a replacement proved more difficult than I thought. I ended up cobbling together a working band using parts from two previous watches that I had retained, plus some parts from the recently worn-out band. It cannot be stated that I have not learned from my grandparents' generation that lived through the Great Depression.

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Generational differences can turn up in interesting ways, though. When a musical reference came up about "Where Is The Love?" I presumed it was to the Black-Eyed Peas, who released their single in 2003. It turned out that the reference was actually to the 1972 single by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. Both songs reached #1 in their respective eras, and I had never made any connection between them before.

Margin Notes: Autumn, Start Menu, Dr. Abdullah

Fall colors surrounded the Humber Marshes in Toronto, Ontario on the morning of 25-October-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - The fall colors are now near their peak in Toronto, Ontario as seen above--unfortunately, the weather hadn't been conducive to viewing them until the skies cleared just today. If the forecast is to be believed, all the leaves might be gone before another sunny day appears here, so most people may be reduced to looking at pictures of colors from other regions on their computers.

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Some computer users are delighted that the Windows 7 operating system was released on Thursday. Leave it to the CBC's Jian Ghomeshi to point out in his "Q" monologue that the "Start Menu" has been eliminated. Ghomeshi mentioned that Microsoft had paid big money (about $10 million) to use the Rolling Stones single "Start Me Up" to promote the Start Menu. What he didn't mention--but was pointed out back in 1995 by technology talk show host Leo Laporte--is that the choice of music was especially appropriate because of the lyric "You make a grown man cry" which Windows 95 certainly did to many grown men.

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Also notable on the radio in the past week is that National Public Radio in the United States has started doing some of its hourly newscasts from NPR West in Culver City, California. Since the launch of the network, its hourly newscasts had originated in Washington, DC. In addition to the top-of-the-hour afternoon newscasts last week, the bottom of the hour newscasts from Anne Taylor during All Things Considered were also "from NPR West."

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NPR is one of several news organizations that suddenly seemed to start calling the second place finisher in the recent controversial elections in Afghanistan "Dr. Abdullah Abdullah." Previously, many of them had simply called him "Abdullah Abdullah." Is the fact that incumbent Hamid Karzai is now tainted by the rigging of the election suddenly now making it "necessary" for the media to paint Adbullah as more credible, instead of as a borderline extremist as he was originally portrayed? Personally, I had never understood why more attention had not been paid to Abdullah, the former foreign minister, in either a positive or negative light since it became clear from polling that he was the likely second-place candidate.

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I increasingly consume media whether from NPR or elsewhere through podcasts. Long-time readers of this blog may recall my lament that I could never catch up on podcasts from about a year ago. Well, for the first time I can remember since October 2007, I had a completely empty podcast directory in iTunes yesterday. It will be interesting to see how long that lasts.

Margin Notes: Moose, Dogs, and Leaves

A Ronald McDonald moose was found outside the McDonald's Canadian headquarters near the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto, Ontario on 15-October-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - In 2000, Toronto launched a "Moose in the City" project (its web site still exists) that placed 326 moose decorated by artists throughout the city. Surprisingly few of them still exist nine years later, but I stumbled onto one outside the McDonald's Canadian headquarters building this week. Personally I found it a bit disturbing to find Ronald McDonald with four legs.

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A resident was noted to have placed a water dish for the canines in the neighbourhood near Jane and Annette in Toronto, Ontario on 6-October-2009

It turns out that St. Paul, Minnesota does not have a monopoly on providing its four-legged friends with water. Earlier this month, a water dish for dogs appeared in my own neighbourhood on Annette Street. So far, I have yet to see it patronized by any local canines.

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Perhaps it's getting too cold for dogs as it did freeze in the past week, but one thing I have not understood is that as soon as the temperature dropped to 10 C, a significant number of women started appearing in downtown Toronto with winter boots and sunglasses on. There was no snow on the ground or in the forecast, there were clouds in the sky blocking the sun, and frankly it wasn't even cold enough yet for me to wear a winter jacket. I don't understand the fashion statement. This morning, though, I wouldn't have questioned the look at all--the sun was out and shining brightly, but it was close to freezing. I guess they were just weeks early.

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Canadian Pacific "Expressway" train #122 to Montreal crossed the Humber River in Toronto, Ontario on 18-October-2009

The autumn colors are not early in Toronto. While the leaves are starting to turn, the scene along the Humber River has yet to reach peak color, as demonstrated by the shot above of a Canadian Pacific trailer train crossing the river earlier today.

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The Canadian Pacific has announced its Holiday Train schedule for 2009. Tuesday, December 1st looks like the big day in Toronto, as both the US and Canadian trains pass through town.

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Another railroad seems to be doing a good job of reaching me in advertising. BNSF (which doesn't stand for Burlington Northern Santa Fe anymore) is now an underwriter of the PBS NewsHour. They were already on my good side for their reasonableness in allowing steam operations and other special events, but they moved up another notch by supporting about the only decent television news program in the United States.