Lisa Stokes

Friday September 19 – Ontario University Fair Day

Today, Megan, Alun and I went to Toronto for the Ontario University Fair. Megan has decided to apply to college, but needs to have two visits to these types of events for her Specialist High Skills Major designation on her high school diploma. Alun is still a couple years away from needing to attend, but accompanied us anyway for the fun. Also, it doesn’t hurt to start thinking about tertiary education early.

We decided to go in on the GO Train since it worked well for Alun and me a few weeks ago when we went to the AGO. I was concerned about finding parking and consulted both GO and Michael, who uses the Malton station when he goes downtown. Both told me parking might be a problem at Bramalea, so we decided to try Malton. Last night Alun informed us that he had to hand something in on Friday so he couldn’t accompany us. We accommodated him by driving to his school first to drop off the paper and then onto the GO station. As we drove past Bramalea, Megan noticed there was lots of parking so we pulled in, as that is my preferred station. It’s closer to home.

I think this is the first time I have entered Union Station on a train.

Union Station is undergoing a major renovation and has been since 2011. It is expected to be completed next year.

We used the Skywalk to get to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) where the Fair was being held.

There were booths set up in the Skywalk by the colleges and Megan was able to collect a number of brochures. There was also a huge line to get through security. I had never seen a security line to get into the MTCC before.

I had a couple items to return to MEC, so I left Megan and Alun in the line and walked to MEC about ten minutes away. On my way back I dropped into Tim’s for a coffee and found that they were selling Smile Cookies, a favourite in our household. I purchased three.

This is the John Street bridge over the rail lines. It’s beautifully done up in the summer with hanging baskets and planters.

I liked the lines in this view of John Street with a new condo on the left and the CBC building on the right with the red crosses on the windows.

When I got back the security line was much smaller. While waiting I asked if this was a new policy for MTCC or just for this event. It was just for the event. They were searching for weapons. I had to put my backpack on a table for inspection while I walked through a metal detector. Once through I stood waiting for my backpack to be searched. After a moment the security guard told me to take my bag. He hadn’t touched it and it was full with my MEC purchase and my jacket on top blocking the view of everything else. I looked at him and said, “I guess I don’t fit the profile”. He just smiled and I moved on.

I met Megan and Alun who had browsed the booths and collected all the brochures they wanted. They had decided to go to the Waterloo presentation at noon and McMaster at 1pm. We decided to eat the cookies to tide us over until we finished up and could head out for lunch.

The Waterloo presentation was interesting to me as Waterloo is my alma mater. I chose Waterloo because of their co-op program. Apparently, they are still the preeminent co-op university in Canada. They told us that it will cost $18-$31K to attend for one year beginning in 2015. Wow! And I just heard a news report recently that fees are expected to rise by 13% in the next three years. As a parent of four it makes me feel ill when I think about it for too long.

They also told us that students earn $37-$77K over the course of their studies when they are in the co-op program. That amount surprised me. That would go a long way to paying for university.

When I returned home I pulled out my tax returns from 1985-1988, the years I was in the co-op program, and found that I had earned $33K. That’s almost $60K in today’s dollars which made me feel pretty comfortable about the range they were advertising. I recall that the Engineering and Computer Studies students made more that the Arts students. I was in the Faculty of Arts.

During the slideshow they showed some pictures of dorm rooms. One of the pictures was taken at St. Paul’s College where I lived for three terms. I was amused to see that the room was unchanged!

After the Waterloo presentation they decided they didn’t want to go to the McMaster one so we sat in on the OCAD University presentation instead.

Afterwards we headed to Boston Pizza for lunch. We were so hungry I forgot to take pictures of the food before we ate.

We then took a walk around the CBC building where we visited their museum. Megan was amused to see the old versions of the equipment she uses at Rogers when she volunteers. I engaged in a little nostalgia when I saw the Friendly Giant and Mr. Dressup sets.

I love the atrium at the CBC.

I also love this view of Roy Thompson Hall from the PATH system.

We headed to Union and grabbed refreshments and caught the 4:15 train.

Alun was completely worn out.

Sunday September 14 – Riding Up The Escarpment

Next Sunday I am signed up to ride the 100 kilometre route in the Tour de Mississauga. Last year I did the 60 kilometre route on my hybrid bike. This year I have a road bike, but fell off it and hurt my knee on my first ride with clipped in shoes. I bruised the bone and it still has not recovered more than a month later. Fortunately, I can still ride but I had to take several weeks off and it messed up my training schedule. Yesterday I decided to do 70 kilometres as my last long training ride. I also decided to ride up the Niagara Escarpment as there will be nothing that difficult in Mississauga.

I rode for 16 kilometres before stopping to stretch which is the longest I have gone on my road bike before a stretch. That put me at the bottom of what I though was a 4 kilometre long climb, but turned out to be six kilometre climb up onto the Escarpment.

I stopped to catch my breath and take a picture at the top of the first hill.

While the ride is generally up hill, for every hill I crested there was another hill to ride down again giving back some of the gain before riding up hill once more.

At the beginning of the second or third hill I accidentally shifted up when I should have shifted down and I lost my chain. With some fiddling I got it back on, but ended up with fingers covered in chain grease. I cleaned the grease off my hands as well as I could but I needed to eat before I got to soap and water.

This is looking south where I just came from. I thought, as I rode up to where this picture was taken that I would be done when I crested the hill.

Turns out I still had this hill to go.

There was a lovely row of trees bordering a farm on the Escarpment where I stopped to have a snack.

I had planned to cycle 1.5 kilometres along Highway 9 to the Tim Hortons on Airport Road, but when I got a look at Highway 9 I decided it looked too dangerous. Fortunately, I took some snacks with me in case I needed them.

I saw this pretty scene just south of Highway 9.

Coming back down the Escarpment I hit the highest speed I have ever gone on a bike – 56 KPH. I headed back south to Caledon East for lunch at Subway where I treated myself to chips and half a litre of chocolate milk in addition to a sandwich as I had burned 1100 calories at that point. Since I hadn’t had my coffee in the morning, I did a 10 kilometre roundtrip east of Caledon East then came back to Gabe’s Country Bakeshop for coffee and a cookie. The ride back home is mostly downhill and put me just over 71 kilometres for the day for my longest ride this year. It was also the second longest ride I have ever done. Back in 2008 Patti and I rode from Cataract to Elora and back over the course of a day. It was 93 kilometres on aggregate and I was never so glad to get back to the car as I was that day.

I am still not sure that I will be able to ride the 100 kilometres next week, but I am going to try my best.

School Construction, Ice Storm Comparison and Climbing

The walls are finally going up at my children’s school this week. Yesterday I counted twelve construction works on the site. There might have been twelve visible on the site all summer if all the daily sightings were added together!

Here are two pictures of the hardest hit street in my neighbourhood during the ice storm. There are almost no trees left.

Owen felt he needed a bit of extra climbing without his cousins tonight. He went up and down six times. I only did three as my knee was a bit swollen from last night’s climbing.

Here’s the view from the top of the stairs looking north.

When we go outside onto the top deck of the parking lot we can actually see the CN Tower where we will be climbing on October 18.

Wednesday September 10 – Carpool to the Climb

Tonight Trystan, Owen and I picked up my nephews, Jason and Ryan, and we had our third stair climbing training session at the hospital. Before we got out of the car I took an usie (group selfie) to submit to this month’s Let Your Green Show contest for the carpool action. Jason climbed up and down 19 times (108 steps each time), Trystan 17 times, Owen 11 times, Ryan 3 times (he slipped on the wet floor and hurt his arm which dampened his climbing enthusiasm) and I climbed 9 times.

Tuesday September 9 – Michael is off to the Old Country

Today Michael flew to the UK to visit his mom for her 80th birthday. He is flying to Birmingham, renting a car and driving to Bristol.

Friday September 5 – Ice Storm Update

Ice storm clean-up continues in Brampton. Many damaged trees have yet to be cut down, let alone having their roots removed. Who know when re-planting will begin. We were fortunate as we have no ash trees which were the most damaged trees due to being compromised by the emerald ash borer. Most of those trees would have had to have been removed over the next few years anyway. We had only relatively minor damage to our maple, oak and locust trees.

Sunday September 7 – Wicked and Some Toronto Theatre History

Alun likes musical theatre in general and Wicked in particular. He often listens to the soundtrack on his phone. When we learned that Wicked was coming to Toronto we asked him if he would like tickets for his birthday and he did. So back in May, when tickets first went on sale, he and I sat down at the computer and purchased tickets for the two of us for September 4. Wednesday evening I got out the ticket envelope and put it in my purse so I wouldn’t forget the tickets. We arranged that I would pick Alun up after school and drive straight downtown. Thursday after lunch I realized I didn’t know which theatre Wicked was playing in. So I got out the envelope, pulled out the tickets and discovered that we had purchased matinee tickets. The show started at 1:30. It was 1:40. Oh, no! I sat there stunned. I didn’t recall purchasing the matinee tickets, but the proof was in front of me and we were too late to get to the show. I texted Alun to tell him what had happened and that I would make sure he got to see the show, but that it wouldn’t be that afternoon.

I phoned the box office and explained. They told me the policy is that if you miss the show, you are out of luck, however, they encouraged me to write to Customer Service immediately and explain what had happened. I did so. I got an automatic reply saying my note had been received and that they would respond in three business days. A couple hours later I received a note from an actual person telling me they would look into the situation. Friday afternoon I received another email saying, “Thank you for taking the time to write in, We are very sorry to hear that you missed your scheduled performance of Wicked. Please note that all sales are final and this productions is owned by the producers and not Mirvish Productions (they are merely renting our theatre) and as a result we would not control the distribution of complimentary tickets.That being said I did forward your email to the company manager who is willing to offer you a location pass that can only be picked up by you for two tickets to see the show this Sunday September 7 at 7:00pm. If you are available and would like to take us up on this offer we need to hear back from you before 4.30pm today”. Wow, impressive customer service. I had hoped for a partial credit but feared they would do nothing. We were free Sunday so I wrote back to take them up on the offer.

We headed down about 4pm and parked at the Eaton Centre. We grabbed dinner at the Urban Eatery in the basement there. Alun had his usual Subway sandwich and I had beef udon noodles. Then we headed over to the Ed Mirvish Theatre box office at 6pm as instructed.

I told the clerk there were tickets waiting for us. He looked in the will call file and found nothing. He then asked for the order number and I gave him the original tickets showing the order number. He disappeared for many minutes. I was starting to get worried. I pulled up the email to show him when he returned. However it turned out to be unnecessary as he returned with hand written tickets. I guess that is why it took so long. Turns out the seats were nine rows closer to the stage than the ones we had ordered. We originally had Row N, seats 135 and 136.

With almost an hour to curtain time we went to Tim’s for dessert which we took to Dundas Square to eat.

Once we finished we returned to the theatre to use the bathroom before they got too crowded and take our seats. The usher was a bit confused by our hand written tickets but allowed us in.

The theatre looked very familiar to me, but I couldn’t recall specifically why. When I got home I looked it up and it has been called the Pantages Theatre, the Imperial Theatre and the Canon Theatre. The Pantages Threatre opened in 1920 as a combination vaudeville and movie house. It was the largest cinema in Canada with 3373 seats and one of the most elegant. It was part of the large Pantages organization which included over 120 theatres. However, when Alexander Pantages was convited of the rape of a 17 year old chorus girl and sentenced to 50 years in prison the Pantages empire fell. The conviction was overturned on appeal but Alexander Pantages was forced to sell for pennies on the dollar most of his assets in 1930.

In 1930 the theatre was renamed the Imperial and became a cinema only. My mother remembers going to the movies there when she was young. In 1972 the Imperial was divided into six theatres and re-opened as the Imperial Six. I remember going to movies there when I was a teenager.

It was operated by Famous Players. The theatre sits on three lots running longways north-south along Yonge Street with a entrance with a grand staircase on Yonge Street and a smaller entrance on Victoria Street. Famous Players owned the Yonge Street entrance and the front half of the main theatre building, from the centre of the dome to the back wall of the stage house. The other half of the main theatre building, from the centre of the dome to the north wall of the main lobby, was leased from an elderly lady in Michigan, whose family had owned that property since before the theatre was constructed in 1920. During lease re-negotiations in the mid-80s Famous Players decided to play hard ball with the elderly lady. When the lease expired without an agreement she mused about approaching Famous Player’s rival Cineplex Odeon. Famous Players called her bluff believing Cineplex Odeon would have no use for half a theatre. However, Garth Drabinsky, CEO of Cineplex Odeon flew to Michegan and signed a lease the day he was contacted by the owner. The following day with the help of a bailiff Cineplex Odeon locked Famous Players out of the north half of the building which caused them to lose control of their flagship theatre in Toronto.

Cineplex Odeon opened an 800 seat cinema after a costly renovation, the opening of which was disrupted by a construction crew with jackhammers 5 feet behind the Pantages screen, on the other side of the drywall partition between the two companies’ halves of the property. Famous Players also called in a complaint about the fire exits; less than an hour before the scheduled gala event, a Toronto Fire Department inspection confirmed that the fire exits were still incomplete, with wet concrete, and the gala was moved to the Varsity Cinemas.

Crews worked around the clock to finish the fire exits and the cinema opened the next day. Following the opening, Famous Players removed the doors from every fire exit on their half to allow freezing cold winter air to fill their portion of the building. The partition wall between Cineplex Odeon and Famous Players had been constructed as a fire wall but was not insulated as an exterior wall. Eventually, after a protracted legal battle Famous Players agreed to sell their half to Cineplex Odeon with the caveat that the latter could not operate the site as a movie theatre. This led to the theatre being restored to its 1920s splendor and being opened as a 2200 seat live theatre where The Phantom of the Opera ran for ten years. Michael and I saw the Phantom there in 1995.

When Garth Drabinsky’s company Livent filed for bankruptcy in 1999 the theatre changed hands again and became The Canon Theatre due to a large donation from Canon. In 2008 the theatre was sold to Mirvish Productions and renamed the Ed Mirvish theatre in honour of the company’s founder.

Alun thoroughly enjoyed the show. The staging and costumes were quite good. I am not overly fond of the music however, I had a lovely evening out with my eldest son which is something to be treasured.

Saturday September 6 – Another Fall

Patti wasn’t available for a run this morning so I had a bit of a sleep-in and a lazy breakfast. Then Trystan, Owen and I headed out to run errands. We started by hitting the shoe store for indoor shoes for school. They have the same size feet this year. Then Staples for a few school supplies and on to Cyclepath to have the new rack they ordered for me installed. I also purchased lights as I ended up out on the road after dark last Friday when I went on the Critical Mass ride. Fortunately, I was able to ride in a group of bikes that did have lights, but it made me realize I should have my own.

I chose LED lights with Lithiom Ion rechargeable batteries. They charge by plugging them into the USB port on a computer. They have different modes and I plan to use them on a flashing mode when I rode on the rode during the day. It was very busy at Cyclepath so I left the bike while we went to the mall.

For years I have had an upstairs vacuum (for carpets) and a downstairs vacuum for (hard floors). A few months ago the downstairs vacuum died and we have been sweeping ever since. Megan and Alun takes turns sweeping, but prefer vacuuming. They have been nagging me to get a new vacuum for months. Megan even did some research and sent me links to vacuums she recommended! Last weekend the upstairs vacuum started making troublesome noises which we determined would only get worse with no possibility of repair. This morning I found one vacuum that would do both for $200 off the regular price of $500 at Sears. I called and reserved it. After a snack we headed back to Cyclepath to pick up my bike.

After a quick stop at Goodwill to drop off a couple of boxes of clothes Megan no longer wears we headed home.

In the late afternoon I headed north on my bike to get in some training for the Tour de Mississauga which is in 15 days. I signed up to ride the 100 km route, but falling and hurting my knee a few weeks ago has set me back. As I set out it had been 15 days since I had my third fall and 23 days since my first fall when I hurt my knee.

I rode away from home about seven kilometres, but it was windy and hot so I decided to turn back. Just as I slowed at the turnaround point so I could stop and do some some stretching I un-clipped my right foot, but for some reason leaned left. Bang! Down I went on the sore knee. It swelled up further, although not to the point it swelled when I originally hurt it.

Dispirited I headed home to ice my knee and feel sorry for myself.

Wednesday September 3 – School, Power Outage and Climbing

The day started with wet feet again as we walked on the grass to get around the construction at the school. Once again there were no construction workers in sight. To keep the children safe from moving construction vehicles long parallel fences were set up from the road to the back of the school where the addition is located.

It is amazing how little has been done given that the fences went up at the end of May. The principal told me today that the construction company told her progress would be slow during the World Cup as workers would just not show up or would leave early to watch the games, but once it was over they would get the work done before school started. As far as I could tell they rarely showed up all summer long.

After dropping Owen at school I jumped on my bike and rode up to Caledon East for a coffee and a round trip ride of 35 km. My knee, though still swollen, did not hurt even though this is the longest ride I have done since falling. The leaves have started to change colour.

I had coffee at Gabe’s Country Bakeshop.

I returned home so Owen could come home for the second nutrition break at 12:35. This worked better than yesterday when he came on the first break at 10:35. After lunch I headed to City Hall to watch a Committee of Council listen to delegations on a motion to kill the Metrolinx proposed LRT on Main Street in Brampton.

Metrolinx has proposed running Light Rail Transit from Port Credit GO Station at the south end of Mississauga to the Brampton GO Station. The plan is to run it straight up Hurontario / Main Street. The Brampton Historical Society, among others, do not think the proposed route makes sense for Brampton. Council asked staff late last year to prepare a report detailing alternatives. Staff hired consultants. The report has yet to be shared with Council. Yet for some reason, Council saw fit to hold a meeting to kill the LRT without having information about alternatives. I have so many questions. Why do we pay taxes for a planning department which appears to be unable to do basic planning work? Why would our politicians not hold staff to account? It has been almost a year since the information was requested. And why would they make a decision in the absence of that information? In the end they voted unanimously to kill the project as currently planned. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be short-sighted, but I fear that it will be.

Just after 5pm our power went off for no apparent reason. The sky was clear and sunny. I called Brampton Hydro, but the line was busy. We had a power outage under similar circumstances back in June and it took hours to get the power back. At that time I started following Brampton Hydro on Twitter as they sent out tweets as information became available. This time I tweeted to them right away and they responded within minutes to say they were investigating.

Since they didn’t know the cause we figured it would be a while before we had power again so we headed out to Casey’s for dinner. We ordered a bunch of appetizers – onion rings, deep fried shrimp, garlic bread, fries, sweet potato fries and artichoke dip – and shared. It’s been a long time since I have had that much greasy food. I realized that I don’t really miss it. By the time we finished the power was back on and we headed home.

Every year since 2007, I and at least one of my children, have climbed the CN Tower to raise money for the Toronto United Way in October. We train in the parking garage at the local hospital where there are 108 steps. We begin after Labour Day and work up to climbing up and down 17 times, which approximates the effort involved in climbing the tower. This year Trystan and Owen are climbing along with my nephews Jason and Ryan. Alun holds our family best time record and we are trying to encourage him to come out this year to defend it against Jason, but we haven’t convinced him yet.

This evening Alun, Trystan, Owen and I picked up Jason and Ryan and headed to the hospital. Just as we we entering the staircase a security guard approached us to ask what we were doing. I told him and he told me he didn’t think that was allowed. I expressed surprise and told him that this was the eighth year I had trained at the hospital. He left to check with his supervisor. I told the kids to start climbing. To be honest I had long expected to be told not to climb there, but it had never happened before. To my surprise he returned about ten minutes later to tell us we could continue. How reasonable.

It was hot and humid in the stairwell, however that didn’t stop Jason from climbing up and down 17 times. Congratulations Jason, you are ready to go. If Alun doesn’t come I think you will beat his best time of 16:42. Ryan and Alun each climbed 11 times. Trystan climbed ten, I climbed six, stopping when my knee started hurting, and Owen climbed three. We are going to try to go back every Monday and Wednesday evening.

Friday August 29 – Final Day of Golf Camp

Parents were invited to come an hour early for pickup today so they could see their children putt and chip and to have a buffet lunch. Owen enjoyed his week at golf camp. He was especially excited that lunches were included. It was a beautiful day to be out on the course. Blue skies with pretty clouds and a comfortable temperature and humidity.

Here Owen shows me his swing.

I thought it was clever the way the golf bag had backpack straps to make it easier for the children to carry them.

Owen enjoying his last lunch at camp.

I ordered a seat post rack for my road bike so I could carry a small bag with me on the bike instead of on my back. When I tried to ride with it though, I found that the fitting on the seat post hit my legs as I pedaled. I went to Cyclepath this evening to exchange the rack and bag for a handlebar bag. Nick at Cyclepath recommended against using a handlebar bag because of the way my cables are situated and because it makes handling harder. He found an alternative rack and has ordered that for me. I hope it will work. It means I have to ride with a backpack for a few more days, but it is cheaper than the one I just returned.

I had packed a salad for dinner since I was going to the Brampton Critical Mass ride after Cyclepath. When I grabbed it from the car I couldn’t find my fork. Since it wasn’t finger food I headed over to Subway where I bought a chocolate milk and asked for a fork. They gave me an odd look, but provided me with one anyway. I ate my dinner in the alley between Cyclepath and Beaux Arts Brampton which has been fixed up nicely with tables for playing checkers or chess and paintings on the buildings.

Critical Mass rides are cycling events generally held on the last Friday of every month. Cyclists meet and travel as a group through the city on bikes. It orginated in San Francisco in 1992 and is held in hundreds of cities around the world. Critical Mass has been described as a “monthly protest by cyclists reclaiming the streets”. Brampton’s began in January of this year. I have been out to two rides. Each had only eight riders including me which unfortunately isn’t enough to bring attention to the needs of cyclists in Brampton. However, I have made some new friends and hopefully the movement will grow over time and result in the City improving cycling facilities.

Tonight we met at Gage Park and rode our bikes to Chinguacousy Park and back.