A lingering sign of last night's snow storm

There was a lot of snow last night. Folks up and down the street were up early digging out driveways and sweeping off cars. I cleared my driveway long before the bright sun appeared to complete the job. But one car stood out in the neighbourhood. It was still bearing witness to the now long-gone winter storm. It was the lone car still snow covered with icicles hanging from the bumpers. A lucky soul, my visiting daughter, didn't have to work. She could afford to stay inside, stay warm and enjoy another cup of coffee.

A beautiful home gets its second wind

This neighbourhood was the one in which to live when I first moved to London. That was back in the mid '70s. This home was glorious at that time but its day came and went. It became dated. Stale. And then the present owner gave the place its second wind with a fantastic reno.

New windows, a great new entry with substantial columns, a new garage door and an addition that extends right over the attached garage. The homes looks great with classic appeal but with a freshness that works.

This is not the only home in the area that has an extensive upgrade. The increasing home prices in London are making improving one's home a financially attractive option. Many people are deciding to love it rather than leave it.

If snow closes schools, the strike is off as well

It's snowing in London today and it is forecast to continue through the night. If it does, the school buses may be canceled. If that happens, school may be canceled. And if that happens, then the school strike walkout, slated for tomorrow, may be canceled. Striking on a full snow day hardly inconveniences the school board but it does cost the teachers a day's salary.

Toys R Us Lives on in Canada

Stores are a big part of a successful urban landscape. I feel the small, family owned shops and businesses, like the kind I grew up with as a boy, were a big part of what made a neighbourhood, or even a city, unique. Sadly, most of those shops are gone.

Toys R Us when it folded in the States and United Kingdom was neither small nor family owned but it had been around a long time. The closing of the stores in two of its markets caused a great deal of distress to the thousands of folk who counted on the chain for their livelihood.

Many believe the Toys R Us chain should never have failed. Its hedge fund owners take a lot of the blame whether fairly or not. Before the hedge funds entered the picture, the business had low debt levels—a smart move for a most companies. But not for hedgefunds.

The Atlantic looked at this problem. Private-equity owners often operate a business for a relatively short time before moving on. Low levels of debt present a get-rich-quick opportunity. It allows the private-equity firms to put up very little of their own money in aquiring a retail chain like Toys R Us. Many accuse hedge funds of bleeding the companies they acquire. Many claim the Toys R Us chain was bled financially and left mortally wounded by its private equity owners. And often those owners are not shy about putting their hands in the till to pay themselves exorbitant dividends and large bonuses.

But the Toys R Us story took a surprising turn in Canada. A Canadian billionaire, often referred to as the Canadian Warren Buffett, saw the impending closure as a buying opportunity. He scooped up the 82 stores of the Canadian division for a mere $300 million. Fairfax Financial, led by Prem Watsa, said the purchase was for less than the value of the Toys R Us real estate holdings alone.

Prem Watsa is not known for bleeding the companies he owns. The Canadian workers are hoping their story will have a much happier ending than the one their U.S. counterparts were forced to watch unfold. Toys R Us may not be a small, neighbourhood store, but for my granddaughters it is a big part of their urban landscape.

Some urban problems and solutions are not often discussed

This past January London, Ontario, dumped more than 68 million litres of raw sewage into the Thames River. London's sewage treatment plants were overwhelmed when the runoff from heavy rain in January was too much for the system to handle.

Until I visited Europe and encountered dual-flush toilets, I never concerned my self with how much water I discharge with every flush or how the system handles the discharge. When I was a boy our toilets may have discharged as much as 30 litres of water per flush. In Europe I used toilets that didn't use two litres when discharging a deposit of only water. 

On getting home, I ordered a dual-flush toilet. I had to settle for a 3/6 litre per flush model. It replaced a toilet discharging almost 14 litres per water with every flush. My water bill showed an immediate improvement. That first dual flush model is the best performing toilet in our home.

When we redid our basement, we were unable to get the original dual-flush model. The one we did get is very poor. And it uses 3.5/6 litres and often requires more than one flush. When we redid our ensuite the plumber installed a straight 6 litre per flush unit. He told us all the dual-flush models his store carried often took two flushes when not flushing water and sometimes took even more. In actual use he assured us the model he was selling us was the best for our pocket book and the environment.

I'm disappointed in North American toilet technology. I know dual-flush toilets can work. I have one. And I know they can disappoint. I have one of those, too. Then today I came across the following article: Why America is Losing the Toilet Race and I started dreaming again. The North American john can be better.

Somethings don't photograph well

 

This is a large illuminated piece of active art composed of dozens of individual lights arranged in rows and controlled by a computer. The large screen changes colour and intensity in waves giving it the appearance of an electronic waterfall.

If this were video you might see the rippling waves of water effect. But this is not a video and you can't see the tumbling water effect.

I've shot the entire building and the art simply burns out--overexposed. The camera cannot get a good expose of both the mostly unlit apartment building and the brightly glowing light show.

Somethings are difficult to photograph. Sorry.

The story behind the Ontario Grown sticker

A lot of Londoners look for the Ontario Grown sticker before buying hothouse tomatoes. Why? Because Leamington, the Tomato Capital of Canada is but an hour southwest of London.

But those Londoners must look carefully before putting down their money. Some Canadian greenhouse growers have expanded into Mexico, Spain and the United States. The name of a local grower with a Southwest Ontario address is no longer enough. It must say Ontario Grown.

And, if one thinks buying Canadian means putting Canadians to work, think again. Often it is migrant workers from Mexico picking the Canadian crop.

The Mexican workers are so numerous that a satellite image of the Leamington farm country shows a clearly labeled Mexican Consulate, surrounded by greenhouses, right on the edge of town.

The CBC, the government owned and operated Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, looked into the migrant worker situation in the hothouse industry. I have linked to the posted story:

Mexican workers say they are victims of abuse on Canadian farms. 

Chris Ramsaroop, organizer of Justicia for Migrant Workers, was correct when he told CBC News that Canadians are not sufficiently aware that the Ontario fruits and vegetables they eat are often harvested by workers who come from thousands of kilometres away.

And if you thought greenhouse grown means few if any pesticides are used, you're wrong again. Apparently, pesticides are applied in many greenhouses two or three times a week. Three of the migrant workers interviewed by CBC News reported they are forced to handle vegetables covered with chemicals without being given protective equipment like those workers spraying the pesticides.

Now that I've read the CBC News report, I will not be shunning Mexican grown produce in the future as I have in the past.

Only in North America do asphalt shingles rule

The first time I visited Europe I immediately noticed that roofs were covered with a variety of materials but one was clearly missing: asphalt shingles. It is claimed that 80% of all residential roofs in North America are covered with asphalt shingles. Stats Canada reports some 40 million bundles  of asphalt shingles are produced in Canada annually.

Asphalt shingles were invented by an American, Henry Reynolds of Grand Rapids, Michigan. First used in 1901, asphalt shingles were in general use in many parts of the States by 1911. Cheap to buy and easy and quick to install, asphalt shingles grew quickly in popularity. The one drawback, a relatively short life, was easily overlooked by folk needing a new roof and needing it, as they say, yesterday.

A little over a century later, another drawback is being becoming evident; asphalt shingles consume a lot of space in a city dump. A typical roof can contain from 3-4 tons of roofing material. The Bob Vila site carries an article estimating U.S. landfills receive nearly 20 billion pounds of old asphalt shingles annually. Because of this, more and more asphalt shingles are being recycled into material for making blacktop for roads.

Durable, long-lasting clay tiles, so popular in Europe, are finding it a hard sell in North America. That said, another alternative roofing material, metal, is attracting quite the following with some 750,000 U.S. homeowners choosing metal for their homes in 2015.

In London, asphalt shingles are the clear leader when it comes to a roofing material but metal shingles are quickly gaining ground and solar panels have a lot of adherents.

A bogus facade is hardly heritage

When I moved to London back in the mid '70s, the Talbot Block was a wonderfully intact row of historic buildings. It was possibly the most historically important block in the city. At one point, more than a thousand Londoners held hands to circle the block and loudly protest its proposed destruction. It was to no avail. Essentially, everything was taken down. 

Only a poor imitation of the old hotel's facade remains as the exterior wall of the north-east corner of Budweiser Gardens, a sports and entertainment centre.

The City Hotel goes back to 1865. In 1886 it was extensively remodeled and enlarged. Later the name was changed to the Talbot Inn. 

At one point, one could get a good Mexican dinner there along with a cold draft. At night one could catch some of the best blues musicians on the bar circuit playing next door to the old hotel. 

The facade of the inn barely escaped demolition when the other buildings making up the Talbot Block fell.

Why did the historic streetscape disappear? Why, to make way for a new downtown mall and hotel complex which in the end failed to materialize despite the hasty demolition.

I always thought that more of the old hotel should have been saved and incorporated into the present sports complex. Possibly some rooms could have been retained for out-of-town visitors in London for a London Knights game. 

Retaining but a poor memory of the true facade, blue painted glass in the street-facing windows destroying even the slightest hint of heritage, what remains adds little to the character of downtown.

In Sweden sidewalks a gender equality issue

I have mixed feelings when it comes to sidewalks. Many of the argument in favour of sidewalks seem hard to refute. Then one encounters the huge dichotomy between the promise and the reality. This is a dichotomy that should not exist.

I've noticed that folk using wheelchairs in my suburb are as likely to be on a road as on a sidewalk. One some streets, like my court, the wheelchair user has no choice. There is no sidewalk. But on others streets, the sidewalk is impassable while the roadway is well plowed.

For this reason, I've been a promoter of the woonerf concept, at least for small courts and culs-de-sac. Today I discovered that there is another approach: the Swedish one. In Sweden they try to clear sidewalks first and they have added another argument as to why. Clearing sidewalks first is a move towards gender equality.

More women than men use sidewalks. This means the number of woment injured falling on sidewalks rendered treacherous by weather is far greater than the number of men injured. If you watch the first part of the following Swedish video, you will understand the Swedish position.

Teachers walking picket line; students hitting slopes

Ontario, the province in which London is located, is being hit by rotating teacher strikes. This coming Friday is another strike day for our granddaughters. I'm glad that two of the kids were keen to learn how to ski. Come Friday some friends are hitting the slopes for the day with their parents and Fiona and Isla have been invited to tag along.

I want to cheer. The girls will not be playing computer games. They will be out interacting with others and getting some exercise as well. Yeah!

Green Recycle Bins Make Kids Happy

Children see recycling as very important. The long line of green recycle bins in front of the school two of my granddaughters attend makes those two little girls very happy. It confirms their school cares.

I don't say anything. No sense bumming them out. But, I wonder why the school generates so much waste paper in the first place and I wonder where the scrap paper ends up. Is it really recycled?

Recycling almost everything, other than aluminum beverage cans and PET plastic often used for bottles, is a money losing proposition. Values have been dropping in recent years.

Still, the kids have the right idea. My granddaughters encourage me to use less and recycle more. Use it, then recycle it. It's time for the adults in their lives to stop just going through the motions. It's time to deliver on the promise made by that line of recycle bins.

Children are our future

My six-year-old granddaughter loves Lego and has for a couple of years. Me, I'm a new Lego believer. I grew up with Meccano: green-painted steel, brass pulleys and lots of small screws and little bolts.

So many toys are fun but at their core they are but a way to waste time. Lego is different. I watch as the little girl tackles the construction of a carnival ride. It's complex and intricate. It demands attention to detail while encouraging planning and patience and careful adherence to instruction. She works through the illustrated book slowly, insuring that the assembled piece is correct at each stage along the way. She does not want to find herself ripping apart her finished work.

A few months back, the city had a freshly laid road ripped up. Why? It was discovered that there were errors made in laying down the base layers. On the good side, the construction company accepted responsibility. The repair cost the city nothing.

But this was a mistake that my granddaughter is being trained to catch and to catch during construction and not after the final asphalt has been laid.

My wife and I had a young boy living with us for awhile. This was some years ago. He loved playing SIM City on my early Macintosh computer. He outgrew the computer game but he didn't outgrow his interest in cities. Today he cares greatly about the neighbourhood in which he lives.

Toys don't have to be time wasters.

This may be the last year for this scene.

The berm hides the gravel pit. Millions of tonnes of gravel and sand have been quarried there over the past decades.

This is coming to an end. The gravel pit is being closed. One doesn't close a big pit in a day, the steeps sides must graded, topsoil spread, grass and trees planted.

Already there are houses to be seen on the edges of the distant cliffs. By this time next year the berm and its trees may be nothing more than a memory.

How will self-driving cars handle snow?

The roads in my subdivision are snow-covered, ice-rutted. The roads are slippery and treacherous. Many have not been salted or sanded and there is no sign a snow plow has been by. It is hard enough for a human driver to negotiate these roads, how will a self-driving car fare? I look at our winter roads and I am filled with concern. (This image is a download straight from my point-and-shoot. The scene is as black and white as pictured.)

Close is a win in more than horseshoes.

Late last night, well after midnight, my wife, unable to sleep, went to the kitchen. She looked out the large kitchen window and thought the backyard made a picture. Despite the hour the yard, with all the snow, looked quite bright. Still, she wondered, is a picture even possible. Soon I wasn't able to sleep either. My wife had me up trying to get a picture in order to get back to bed where I belonged.

The resulting image was marred with blotches of yellow and there was a lot of noise across the entire image. The noise resembled the clumped grains of silver that once marred images taken with film pushed to a too high ASA/ISO number.

I took the image into Photoshop, changed the mode from RGB to Grayscale and then blurred the noise that marred the snow. The change to Grayscale caused the yellow staining to disappear. I changed the image back to RGB and weighted the picture to cyan with a touch of blue and a hint of green. In my world, snow demands an overall cool colour.

My wife tells me that this is the way our backyard looked last night. She, of course, is wrong. Memory is generous. Photographers don't have to deliver pictures that accurately depict what folks see but simply trigger the right memories. Close is a win in more than horseshoes.

Is it packing snow?

 

 It's snowing tonight and tomorrow morning we should be deep in the fluffy white stuff. My granddaughters will be excited and the big question will echo throughout the home: Is it packing snow? Snow is good. It means snow angels, slopes transformed into sled runs and a bigger and better snow doughnut in the court.

But if it is not packing snow is means no snowman. No snow taffy. But tomorrow there is no school. The teachers are on strike. And so the grandkids will make do with whatever snow blankets the neighbourhood. They will play happily in the snow until they are good and cold. Then they will come inside and make hot chocolate decorated with marshmallows.

Racing on the Boler Bump

We could not believe the number of cars parked in the various lots surrounding the chalet at Boler Mountain this morning. The place was packed.

When we had parked and walked to the base of the main hill, there did not seem to be any crowd. And then we learned why: there was racing at Boler today. The racers came with their own cheering sections.

It was actually rather exciting to watch, especially if you had a young son or daughter out on the course.

Ralentissez pour nos enfants: slow down for our children

London is an english-speaking community in the south-western part of the province (Ontario). Yet, London has a number of french-speaking schools.

École élémentaire Marie-Curie is not a french immersion school where english speaking children are immersed in the french language. Marie-Curie is a french first-lanuage school providing instruction in french for children who come from french-speaking homes.

Why does London have school like Marie-Curie? Because Canada is a bilingual country: french and english are the languages of the land. Of course, in Quebec, french is the primary language while in most other parts of Canada english takes the primary position.

My granddaughters attend Marie-Curie. Why? Are we a french-speaking family? No, we are not but Fiona, my oldest granddaughter, went to a french-speaking daycare when she was but a toddler. Today she is bilingual. Because of her fluency, her sister, Isla, was accepted into the Marie-Curie french pre-kindergarten class. Today, Isla is fluent as well.

In a bilingual country, speaking both languages is a plus. At the very least, it makes a number of cable channels available that would otherwise be of no interest. The channels of which I am speaking are, of course, the french language ones.

I can read french and so I turn on the captions for the hearing impaired and watch the french channels. I especially enjoying getting the french slant on the news by watching TV5 out of Paris.

An artsy approach

The day before yesterday I posted a photo showing a child playing on the snow "doughnut" in the middle of the court in front of my London home. The doughnut is a real kid magnet each winter. Click on this link to learn more and to see the original picture. Link: Our doughnut is spelt oddly: woonerf.

The first picture shows enough of the snow pile to make its shape somewhat clear. The photo also places the snow pile in the road on pavement and bordered by suburban homes. It is what I would call a photo that documents.

The picture today is simpler. It is almost a silhouette of the playing child. There are very few elements and one the tree seems to be included simply for its graphic appeal. Today's photo is more artsy, more visually creative, than the first image.

Modern, contemporary but conservative

This infill development is quite small. It is one long row of condos with a paved acccess at the front and that's it. Beyond the pavement is the next property. When it comes to increasing density, this development delivers.

Visually I find this development both contemporary and conservative. There are not too many different, competing-for-attention exterior materials. It is just brick, wood and painted metal garage doors. All trim, and it is limited, is metal and painted to match the garage doors. The exterior lighting is simple and the small balustrades circling the small balconies are supported by thick, break-reistant glass panels.

These units look as if they would be very efficient to heat in winter, cool in summer and general maintenance should not be too much. Someone did their homework before these were built.

Our doughnut is spelt oddly: woonerf

When the snowplows clear the court in front of my home, they leave a round mass of snow. The kids call it the doughnut. Children stateside would call it a donut. Me? I call it a woonerf: a living street.

I believe woonerf are a Dutch creation by Niek De Boer. Woonerfs, or living streets, are streets designed to force drivers to slow down as they share the road space with cyclists, pedestrians and children. Woonerfs are generally residential in character with the first one built in the City of Delft in the '60s.

I never cease to be amazed at how our court accommodates playing children, strolling neighbours walking their dogs and joggers. We see a few cyclists but they are on the court to enjoy the lookout and not to take advantage of the street itself.

At some point in the future the City of London will probably destroy our woonerf. A sidewalk will be built and the expectations of drivers to see folk on the road will diminish. The car speed on the street and the court will possibly increase.

Pedestrians will keep to the sidewalk, kids will go to to the nearby park to play ball and kids sliding down the snowy doughnut will, uh, will continue. Somethings I'm sure never change.

Boler Mountain/Byron Bump both spell challenge

 

As I have said in the past, the Byron neighbourhood ski hill is amazingly small. That said, it is also simply amazing. It has been a fairly warm winter with snowfalls few and far between. Still, neither warm weather during the day during the week or even rain has closed the hill for more than a day or two.

I understand that on nights when the humidity is low and the temperature below zero, the Boler Mountain ski hill can go through 30-million gallons of water to make snow. And it shows.

Yesterday was February 2nd or Groundhog Day and the voting is split on whether winter is going to end soon or hang in there. The fortune-telling groundhogs have delivered opposing views.

For the sake of my granddaughters, I'm hoping the Wiarton, Ontario, groundhog is right and winter is not going anywhere for some weeks. Skiing into early March is a safe bet according to Wiarton Willie.

The strength of neighbourhood malls

I bought my Silhouette frames back in 2006 at Cummins Optical in what was then a booming, oh-so-successful neighbourhood mall which drew customers from across London. My oldest granddaughter broke an arm in 2012, I took the broken frames to Cummins and they ordered a replacement. It cost more than a hundred dollars.

Saturday it was my six-year-old granddaughter who broke my Silhouette frames and again it was an arm that bent and broke. I returned to the mall, now a smaller building, one wing has been demolished, and many of the remaining stores are now empty. I was delighted to see that Cummins Optical was still in business.

And this is where the strength of the small, independently-owned business shines. The optician, Matthew Clarke, checked his parts supply—I'm a little unclear as to why he has these assorted spare parts—and he found an arm. It was the right colour, the right size, the right shape and, for me a retiree, it was the right price. Clarke saved me a lot of money and he fixed my frames in minutes.

I doubt that many chain outlets could offer such fine service. There are advantages to both the customer and to the frame manufacturers to dealing with small stores like Cummins. I never would have bought the Silhouette frames in the first place if it had not been for the perceptive salesperson at the small store. They understood my needs—a working photographer I appreciated the lightness and the solid attachment—she also warned me that the frames were fragile. The store staff has always treated me honestly and left me feeling they know their business and care about their customers.

I understand the owner of Cummins is now in his seventies. I fear the day is coming when Westmount Mall will have another empty store front: Cummins Optical.

Successful infill but . . .

London city planners would like to see the city density increase in the future. Most Londoners are in agreement with this goal. To this end a lot of small, undeveloped spaces are becoming infill. This home is but one of a very small but compact infill development.

I like what was done here very much. All the homes share the same contemporary look right down to the predominant white and black motif. But the designs are not cookie cutter. Some of the homes in this development manage to be quite unique despite sharing so much with the neighbouring homes.

Come spring, I'd love return to this development and document it with care and depth.