Car Insurance 2011

The four trees along the east side of Toronto's old City Hall are full of bright pink blossoms - it's like a mini High Park in the heart of the City.

I even had a chance to take a picture of a pretty girl in front of the blooms.

Toronto has so many neighbourhoods and flavours that it is hard to believe that so much is contained within such a relatively small footprint. In the highly concentrated downtown urban core we see a few of our antique buildings standing proud beside tall, glass towers. Land is too valuable for many plants but some grass, trees and gardens do add some nice colour - like at the Toronto Dominion Tower, pictured above.

Old City Hall sits right beside the Eaton Centre and one of those glass towers. There was a lot of work going on in the front yard of the Hall over the last couple of weeks and the construction fences have just come down. I think they were putting in the power feeds to the new batman spotlight on top of the roof, ready for when the Commissioner needs to get in contact with the caped crusader. They also straightened the sign while they were at it.



There was also a few boats along Bay Street in case someone had a few thousand dollars burning a hole in their pockets. All you would have to do is point the trailer downhill and you could roll right down to Lake Ontario.



PS the fountain in Nathan Phillips Square is back in action for the season.

Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) has a few dinosaurs roaming the vast halls, eating people.

You can find plenty of dinos at the ROM: "Imagine life when dinos roamed the earth in the James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs and explore one of the world’s best dinosaur collections. Hundreds of specimens await visitors in the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, ranging from insects and fossilized plants, to Canada’s largest dinosaur on permanent display, Gordo the Barosaurus, who clocks in at an impressive 27 metres (90 feet). Visitors may also recognize the Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Deinonychus, and the popular Hadrosaur specimens, Parasaurolophus and Maiasaura. Many of the species on display are real fossil skeletons!"

Do you see that little raptor above following his mommy, the large, sharp claw ready to shred their prey? These guys aren't at all like that big, purple dinosaur named Barney. I think some of those raptors did survive, now they wear suits and work in some of our office towers.

You don't often see the TTC streetcar driver hanging out the window, chillaxin, waiting for the light to turn green, but spring makes people crazy.

I find some street posters just grab my attention. Toronto Torture Garden? I have heard of the Toronto Music Garden but I have not come across the Toronto Torture Garden yet, I don't know why not. So I decide to do some educational surfing on the internets, yeah, educational.

Turns out that it is a fetish thing. They have a whole weekend planned in May, who knew? I would go but there is no photography allowed. Remember to whip it, whip it good.

Just down the road from Toronto lies Hamilton, otherwise known as Steeltown, the Canadian Fireworks Association 2010 conference had a spectacular Friday night of Fireworks. The setting was Bayfront Park just beside Hamilton Harbour and the fireworks started at quarter to nine and went until 10:30pm. For upcoming fireworks in Hamilton check out the city's special events webpage. For Toronto fireworks see the information below.



We set up our cameras on the platform lookout and waited for the excitement to begin and we weren't disappointed. It was an East versus West battle and the night featured both consumer and professional fireworks.




In Toronto you can always catch fireworks during Victoria Day and Canada Day celebrations. On Victoria Day you can watch fireworks at Ashbridges Bay (The place to watch the fireworks, on a wide expanse of beach!
Monday, May 24, 2010 after 9:30 p.m. but come MUCH earlier!!) or Ontario Place on May 16, 2010.

On Canada Day 2010 the party will be at Mel Lastman Square and also back at Ashbridges Bay. Ontario Place will also play host to the Toronto Festival of Fire from July 1 to the 3rd.

At the end of the year you can also see fireworks at Nathans Phillips Square during the New Years Eve celebrations.

Wow, the falling bricks on Gould at Yonge Street continue to impact traffic on Yonge Street as the two northbound lanes are closed and all traffic is squeezed into the two southbound lanes. The pile of bricks remain piled on the ground, partially covered in a tarp. I think they will need a bigger trash bin.



The Ryerson University neighbourhood, which already has ongoing demolition as the old Sam the Record Man complex gets taken down, is joined by the building on the south side of Gould Street which rained bricks on Friday, April 16, 2010. This area is always full of students, residents and office workers so it is quite amazing that no one was seriously hurt in this accident.



It looks like the part of the building above the brick facade failure has been removed while the part with the failure and the fallen bricks in the street remain in place. I think the debris could have been left as part of an ongoing investigation into the incident.