To Canada and beyond

W e got our selves a car... finally. It came to the dealer last week and we could have picked it up anytime between now and May 20th. Believe it or not it literally mean we had to pick it up NOW. We've got so many things happening the next two weeks that we could have only squeezed it in otherwise. Anyway, last week we busied ourselves by getting an insurance and parking. Finding a spot to park our car was fairly easy. However, getting insurance was a bit of a pain. I'm not going into details here, but it comes down to dealing with call centers and being transferred from one phone to another phone a lot. I think pretty much everyone has been there. So getting back to the new car. We went all the way to Oakville to pick it up. On the train there it took us about 40min to get there; just to get an idea of the distance. There is a Volvo location closer by, but we found the staff in Oakville the most competent. So we got there a little early and after the initial meet and gre...

I have not been very consistent adding posts to the blog. Maybe I can change that now that I finally got around to get a new phone with a better camera; but then again... No promises. As an easy enough start I'm sharing some photos I took in High Park today. The cherry trees are in bloom and both smell and sight are an experience not to be missed. Only drawback are the herds of photo hungry weekend visitors that swarm these few trees like locusts. Nevertheless, I managed to steal a few moments to get my own photo shoot done. I reckon that the quality of the pictures is good enough to share them on the blog. So my thinking is that I can write entries and attach photos on the go. Then, when I get home I'll just do the touch up. That should make it way more convenient for me to add posts. Maybe that's all it takes for me to keep this blog going... I guess we'll find out when I actually get around to make my next entry ;)

On a personal note, I'm participating in Movember this year. Men grow out their moustaches to raise awareness for prostate cancer and funds for cancer research. My 'stache is fair so I decided to grow out my beard and shave everything but the moustache before the end of November. Have a look at my Movember page and if you feel so inclined donate a little; it's for a good cause after all. Winter is coming :) and so the current weather doesn't make for good pictures; or at least not with my camera and no polarizing filter. So I'll use the pictures I took before I first started this MDC (my daily commute) series. At this point I had walked around the AirCanada Centre (see last post) and captured the back side of Union Station ( click here for the wiki link ). As you can see this is currently under construction and as this station is the main station of Toronto the daily commute for the approximately 200,000 riders is not exactly a highlight of the day. On the ot...

So a little later, but as promised here is the view of the underpass. This is westbound Lakeshore Boulevard underneath the Gardiner Expressway . As I mentioned it's neither impressive nor pretty. Fortunately, this is only a short part of my commute. I didn't notice it at the time, but I caught one of those big SUV that are so popular in North America on this shot as well. They are actually fun to drive; not for racing obviously, but similar to driving a truck. However, if you get stuck behind them on the road you can see pretty much nothing of what's lies in front of it. Again just like a truck ;) Anyway, once this traffic light lies behind me I have the view of my second picture.  On the let you can see the Air Canada Center or ACC that hosts ice hockey, basketball and other events. There is actually a fun little video on YouTube about the conversion between an ice hockey and a basketball field ( click here to check it out ).  This building actually used to be...

I think this is my first entry this year, so I'm officially not doing so well with the updates. I did some soul-searching and decided to write a series of articles for topics. It's pretty tough to always come up with the next new thing when you're settled into a place. So I'll be writing about my commute for a bit. And we'll see where this takes the blog. I've decided to abbreviate "My Daily Commute" to MDC in the title, which will leave a bit more space for the subtitle. Anyway, so this morning I went off to my 15 to 20 minute walk to work armed with a camera. Weather as you can see was quite kind, which caused some of the shots to be overexposed. I'm still taking these with my digital compact. So now I'm wondering if it's finally time to get a DSLR . But with a Las Vegas bachelor party (a good friend is getting married soon) coming up this weekend and the Christmas travel being expensive, I think I might hold off for yet another bit.....

I've tried so far to keep tech out of my blog. Despite all of my previous effort, I decided to break with tradition for this entry. Recently, I bought a MacBook Air which is slick, stylish, lightweight, surprisingly fast and definitely on the pricey side. Actually since it matters for this entry, I have to be a little more precise. I bought the laptop mid November. My old one is almost utterly useless since it gets hot as hell when you 'sleep' deprive it for more than 10 min. As I tend to do, I payed up at once and forgot about the expense almost just as quick. Now, for the next part I have to explain something that not everyone may be aware of. Thanksgiving is a much bigger holiday here in North America than it was in Europe. There is turkey dinner and pumpkin carving and costumes and other traditions that Europeans just don't do, even though at least Germany has the holiday ("Erntedankfest") as well. The date when this happens is a different one for the...

South view from my balcony Since I moved a couple of months back, I have increasingly enjoyed the new location. The move brought me into the center of the harbor front downtown. Now every weekend either hockey or baseball games or artists (such as Foo Fighters and Kings of Leon) bring masses of fans and other spectators to the neighborhood. So there is always something happening. This can be annoying at times but it also bring great access to public transport and the PATH. The PATH is a system of underground connections between shops and food courts. Since the shops are overpriced and many of the halls are pretty overfilled with people in the winter I prefer to walk on the pedestrian walkways along the streets. However, if the weather is bad (if it rains it pours) it's a great way to stay dry.