The Toronto Years

I moved to Toronto in November of 2015. Here are my stories of living in the Big Smoke. View photos I've taken while living in Canada's largest (and therefore best) city on Flickr.

Ward 10 (Spadina-Fort York) All-Candidates' Meeting

Posted by Richard on Tuesday, 9 October 2018

Spadina-Fort York is a federal riding, a provincial riding, and a Toronto ward, and the boundaries are identical. Being from British Columbia, and having spent most of my adulthood in Vancouver (which does not have a ward system), the riding boundaries do not match at all. The recent changes to the wards in Toronto (from 44 to a proposed 47 to an eventual 25) set the wards to match the provincial (and therefore federal) ridings. So we will have a situation where Toronto has a councillor, MPP (member of provincial parliament) and MP (federal member of parliament) represent the exact same people but with different responsibilities.

I live in the Garment District of Toronto, which is a postage stamp neighbourhood comprising the area bounded by Spadina to Bathurst and Queen to King. I tell people I live at Queen and Spadina, though King and Spadina would be just as accurate. (Queen St. seems more famous than King St. to me.) I've been a member of the Garment District Neighbourhood Association as soon as I heard about it in 2016, and have gained their trust such that help run their Twitter and Instagram accounts and, to a lesser extent, their Facebook account. I have no plans on running for a board position, but I do like staying involved with them, helping make the neighbourhood as good as it can be.

Tonight, along with 7 other neighbourhood associations, the GDNA presented and all-candidates meeting featuring men and women running for council.

The MPP Chris Glover addressed the crowd (he noted he was allotted 45 seconds and stayed within that time).

The candidates, seated randomly, would answer questions in that order, always starting with a the candidate next on the list for each question (so that people only went first once at most). Each got two minutes to speak. Everybody more or less stuck to time. I took notes on my iPhone, and there was no break for me for my fingers to regain their composure. (It would later emerge that the meeting was recorded.) The themes were housing affordability, community safety, population growth in the ward/riding, waterfront protection and revitalization (the riding includes the waterfront along Queens Quay, not to mention Toronto Islands and the Billy Bishop airport), and infrastructure (especially as it relates to flood protection). I barely heard mention of the King St. transit pilot, and not a peep from it from the candidate most opposed to it. To say I'm a supporter of the King St. transit pilot would be an understatement. Three or four candidates stood out for me as potentially getting my vote: the incumbent Joe Cressy, litigation lawyer April Engelberg, former banker and current officer in Her Majesty's Royal Canadian Navy Kevin Vuong (the only candidate on my list not to use Nation Builder for his website), and businessman Rick Myers.

Due to the uncertainty around the which ward system the election would run under, and due to my not being in town on election day, I've had to rush somewhat to judgment on who I will end up voting for. Of the four above, I have little doubt they will remain involved in their communities and in politics, whether or not they call themselves a politician. Advance voting starts tomorrow, so I have about 48 hours to come down on a decision. I was heartened by what I saw at the all-candidates' meeting. Some clearly were not put on this earth to serve in public office, and some had the earnest belief that they can make a difference in their communities that I admire, so I hope that the latter will continue with that attitude afterwards and stay politically even though their candidacy for council is a long shot.

Flowers

Posted by Richard on Saturday, 6 October 2018

Whenever my mom visits, I like to have flowers in the apartment. Just my luck that the Toronto Flower Market takes place a few blocks away. Now, every time I'm able, I get a $10 vase (in a jar) of flowers to brighten up my tiny little condo.

Here were my choices, all of which looked great. I decided to go with the one I picked up first, on the strength of the first impression it made on me.

I have 6 wine glasses, but they don't all fit in my cupboard. Somewhere along the line, flowers from a previous bunch dried out, but I kept the one with the grey petals. It took up residence in one of the wine glasses on my table, and it looks like it belongs there.

Today's market was the last of the year, and they pick up again in May, I assume.

Three Years at Acquia

Posted by Richard on Friday, 5 October 2018

Today marks my third anniversary of working at Acquia. This job has been more stressful than I imagined it but also with more laughs, learning and love than I imagined. Today was a good example, where an issue affected multiple customers and I ended up being the communications lead for the problem, but through teamwork and empathy we each played our part and kept things as light as possible while we figured out what was wrong.

I’m not saying I don’t love sleep, but every day I’ve looked forward to getting to the office and on the video hangout to work with my colleagues. There has never been a day where I wanted to get the hell out of there, and compared to previous jobs in my career, I never went home so exhausted that I couldn't do anything else.

The week leading up today has led to reflection around what it means to do essentially the same thing at the same spot in the organization chart for 3 years, and the challenges associated with working in a different city than my colleagues. A situation with the product developed by the team in Toronto led to a senior engineer realizing the value of having me in the same room, though, and while it took 2 days to pound on what was ailing the system, I was happy about the response to me as a customer support representative, that is, someone with a technical ability and confidence with technology with an understanding of the processes. The only regret of those past two days is I didn't get to show how the Support organization works as a team, but I am happy to have been able to showcase the access level and responsibility we're trusted with, and our orientation and reputation towards being as helpful as possible.

This week's work anniversary has also rejuvenated thoughts around levelling up. Chelsey Troy’s Levelling Up series tackles the subject of programming. In reading it, I was inspired to think more broadly about levelling up as a person. Getting in the swing of cooking for myself, joining an executive, seriously investing in hobbies, involving myself with the neighbourhood association, all those are all things I started after moving to Toronto. I think of taking care of my physical health, taking all opportunities to socialize (even if they have tended to be mostly over video, and taking advantage of the general situation of living in Canada's biggest and therefore best city, but I also think of what skills are going to be of most use in my 40s and what I don't have to do anymore.

Another Year as Director at Large for the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto

Posted by Richard on Wednesday, 3 October 2018

At an event last year put on by the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto, the president approached me to ask if I’d join the board of directors. It didn't take long for me to decide, though I did take a few days to mull it over. I had attended all the events (the travel show, where a traveler to Iceland presents about their trip; Thorablott, the yearly "winter" feast; and the Christmas brunch and farm visit where Santa made an appearance and told us about the Yule Lads), and I had taken the Icelandic lessons that the club offers.

In the first year as a director at large, I have been responsible mainly for my perspective and have volunteered to help out in material ways more so than I would if I weren't. I also maintain the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto Twitter account and do some of the communication through their Facebook page and try to keep the events page up to date. At today's annual general meeting, I have happily agreed to serve another year on the board, and hope to ameliorate the technology we use for internal communications (especially during board meetings). I have been the sole maintainer of the Instagram account, something I hope to broaden in the next year. I have some other ideas about where my responsibilities might broaden as well, and I'm excited about what might be possible in the coming months.

A colleague of mine at my day job is on the board of her local rowing club, and she and I were talking about a mutual colleague who had wondered if he should put his board membership on his resume. The answer from both of us was an emphatic yes. (I wish I had said he should target his experience towards whatever job he might want, but the situation didn't call for nuance.) Being a board member of a small club, with decisions that need making and events that need planning and communication that has to happen, has been a small thrill, and has made me feel part of something more so than just a regular membership would have. If you can stand a little conflict (present in all human relations) and like the idea of really being part of something, I would definitely recommend finding a role on a decision-making body. My role on the ICCT board has been something I've definitely been proud of the last year or so.

FaceTime

Posted by Richard on Tuesday, 2 October 2018

I just concluded a FaceTime chat with Roland, and it was good to talk to him again. He and I would have weekly lunches or coffee, often impromptu (very much counter to my “plan everything” orientation), and always worthwhile. Since moving to Toronto, it hasn’t exactly been hard keeping up with my Vancouver friends, but it hasn’t exactly been easy, either.

I work for the Boston-based Acquia, and almost all of my colleagues work out of that office. I spend about half of my day in Google Hangouts, and, much to my surprise, I don't hate it. It nice to "overhear" what they're working on, to have some watercooler talk, and to work on things live from time to time. In my previous job that customer meetings would be the only time I'd interact live with my co-workers while working remotely. That company did a good job of communicating with me, so I wonder how things are different now that the bandwidth to do video calls is better.

One set of friends and I have a bi-weekly calendar entry to get on video chat and talk about whatever. That helps reduce the social isolation I've felt in, yes, a city of 2.8 million people. (Joining the board of a volunteer organization has helped tremendously with that, too.) It was a magical coincidence that these friends of mine got along so well on our first day of university and that we've continued to keep in touch. The friend who organizes it insists on the video being turned on, and I'm grateful that he reminds me that a lot of the communication we have comes through seeing how each other is feeling. It has not escaped my attention that people are more and more chatting via video while walking on the street. With faster mobile Internet and ever-better handheld devices, I see this becoming more of a thing.

The 3-hour difference means I stay up late on whatever weeknight it's scheduled for. They have kids and I don't, so this was an accommodation to their schedule that I'm happy with.

Random Run: David Balfour Park to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery

Posted by Richard on Thursday, 7 December 2017

I had wanted to resume my habit of strolling around Toronto on a Sunday morning. Then I recalled that I hadn't gone for a run in a few days, and decided to go for a jog instead. After two years of living here, this city is still new to me, so I took the opportunity to pick a random point and make a randomly generated route that I could run. Vancouver-based app RunGo would provide the turn-by-turn direction this time, as the app I previously relied on seems to be defunct.

This run would take me from Davisville Station, south on Yonge, and then east on St. Clair, where I would veer into David Balfour Park. (I would later learn, through the Yelp review, that the park is popular for cruising.) A rivine bisects the park, so the hills are long and sometimes muddy, and going up the stairs made it impractical to cross railroad tracks. (I had to go under it, not over it in this case.) That took me to Mt. Pleasant Rd., which is not pleasant at all. The entrance to the park is car-friendly, not person-friendly, so I had to dash across an uncontrolled intersection with no crosswalk. I failed to heed my own instructions, that is, to take a look at the route in Google Street View before setting out. The rest of the run, which I mostly walked, took me through TK and over the railway I couldn't cross earlier, using the Summerhill railway Footbridge. I saw a half dozen giant inflatable Santas, and at the end, I walked through the humongous Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. I reflected on how both Vancouver and Toronto have cemeteries in a place called Mt. Pleasant, and both are named Mt. Pleasant Cemetary, and both have wide streets running through them.

The “run” took me an hour and a half, though it was still a great way to see a strange city. You can see the route I created (imported to RunGo) vs. the actual route I took. I played the usual place-based games (Foursquare's Swarm, Fog of World, and even fired up Ingress to see what I should be looking at). Strava crashed a number of times, though I used the GPX from RunGo to upload my activity. It was smart to bring my battery pack, as the number of location apps running in the background took my level down to 16 percent.

Cycling Again

Posted by Richard on Monday, 26 June 2017

I'm commuting between work by bike again. I signed up in 2016 as a member of the Toronto Bike Share, and renewed again this month. Their call centre operation is weird, with a call center that presents options for English and Spanish. This being the country where English and French are the official languages, I have an idea of what that means. I haven't had a problem with their support when needed, at least.

A full Toronto Bike Share dock near The Esplanade.

Why not buy a bike? So far the thought of maintenance and locking it and worrying about it getting stolen have me using bike share.

I'm using the Transit app to see if bikes are available at docks, and Biko to get rewards. So far I have enough points for a beer tasting. Toronto Bike Share has mechanical docks around the city, meaning that's where you get them and leave them. So far it has been convenient. I'm looking forward to Dropbike, which more closely models Portland's GPS-based system of locking bikes. In Portland you can lock a bike at a dock or, for a small extra fee, any public bike rack. Toronto's system will have special bike racks, discoverable through their app, where one leaves the bikes. So far Dropbike is limited to University of Toronto's (huge) campus, so I don't have a membership yet.

Dropbike.

I use Strava to track my rides that last more than a couple of minutes, and Moves quietly logs trips as well. I've only used it to commute and not for a personal trip like a picnic.

Picnic

Posted by Richard on Thursday, 22 June 2017

The Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto held their annual picnic last weekend, and before that, it occurred to me that I don't have the necessary equipment for having a picnic. That meant buying a blanket for sitting on and a picnic basket for taking along food and various whatnots. I shopped on Amazon.ca and found these beauties:

I went to the park next to my apartment on the Summer Solstice to try them out. I even brought my sharp water serving bottle and a tube of Pringles. I made a list of the things I forgot so that, during a real picnic, I'd be totally prepared.

This was my view as I lay down on the blanket:

Looking up at a tree.

On the way back I realized that the blanket folded up and fit under the handles of the basket. Bonus!

My arm, carrying a picnic basket and blanket.

The blanket folds up neatly (the tag has instructions in case I forget) and compactly. There are some limitations. The basket is too big to fit in the panniers of Toronto Bike Share bikes. The blanket is not machine washable.

I plan on picnicking every night in the summer and fall that I have leftovers from cooking to eat.

I Missed Tom Hawthorne’s Book Launch

Posted by Richard on Thursday, 25 May 2017

Book launches are loud parties where I don’t know anybody. Except the author, through their work and their social media. So I still like attending them, if only to get a signed copy of their book, and maybe say a word or to to someone who will probably forget it later.

Tom Hawthorne, author of The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country, rolled through Toronto last night, and I didn’t find out about it until afterwards. That happens fairly often since I moved to Toronto. On the bright side, I attend way more events than when I lived in Vancouver.

Ben McNally Books is a nice bookstore, with a generous area for seating when authors visit for presentations.

Since I buy Kindle editions of books now, I would have bought both the Kindle edition and a physical copy of his book, signed without having it addressed to me, and thought of a friend to give it to as a gift. I also print out the cover, tape it to my Kindle, and get the author to sign that, then tape it to the back of my Kindle when I’m reading it. It’s a thing I do.

(Did I ever tell you the story of how I met my favourite author Zadie Smith and got her to sign my copy of The Autograph Man and I was the only one who brought that book of hers to sign?)

Gravenhurst, Ontario

Posted by Richard on Sunday, 4 September 2016

In university, I studied a mix of Canadian foreign policy and Chinese politics. A few years had passed and the interest waned. During the 2015 Canadian federal election, as a way to keep engaged, I read all of the books written by the leaders of the major political parties. Stephen Harper had not written one, not about himself, at least, so I relied on Stephen Harper by John Ibbitson, and that book mentioned Engaging China: Myth, Aspiration, and Strategy in Canadian Policy from Trudeau to Harper by Paul Evans. I read both books, and in the latter, Evans noted the Canadian government's reliance on citing Canadian Communist Party Member and hero of the Chinese Communist Revolution Norman Bethune. Almost as an aside, Evans mentioned that there was a museum and historical house dedicated to Bethune in Gravenhurst, Ontario. “Hey,” I thought, “wasn’t I moving to Toronto? Maybe I should look that up when I’m there and take a trip out there one day.” I had found the time to make a plan for the trip, consulting bus schedules, opening hours of the museum, but had yet to pick a day to go.

Every year, my brother, father and nephew and I make a trip to America to watch the Blue Jays play on the road somewhere. Usually we had gone to Seattle, except this year, since I had to move away from Vancouver, this year we chose Oakland, California. Before that, a trip to Europe, a move to a new city, starting a new job with two weeks of onboarding in Boston and a final trip back to Vancouver before starting a new life in Toronto, combined with apartment hunting and an impending breakup with my longtime girlfriend, a minor detail slipped my mind: my passport expired in May. I found this out at the airport, so I had to cancel my trip to the Golden State. What better time to go to Muskoka country?!

I set out on the Ontario Northland coach from Toronto, a 3-hour journey, with a single stop through Barrie on th poole express route. I arrived at noon at the “train station,” now serving as a coffee shop and rail museum. I ate a ham & cheese sandwich outside next to the railcar, hoping a train would pass by. A train would not pass by.

Gravenhurst

Ontario Northland Bus in Gravenhurst, Ontario

Having a ham & Swiss cheese sandwich, with a view of the train tracks.

While visiting the museum was my singular purpose for the trip, I had hoped to run into something pleasant and usual, something only a small town could offer. I had lots of time before the museum closed, so I walked down what I believed was the main drag, of course named Bethune Drive, and came across a bear unveiling. A bear unveiling? A group home long had a wooden bear statue in front of their building. Because it was built into the ground, roots had gotten their way in, and the statue eventually split and fell over. The community raised money for a new statue, and as luck would have it, Friday afternoon at 1 PM, they would unveil the newly carved statue. I had gotten there at 12:40, so I killed 20 minutes by walking to Gravenhurst’s gate. Returning just in time for the actual unveiling, I overheard the carver being interviewed for the Muskioka regional newspaper, and posed with my arm around the statue.

Bear unveiling

Bear unveiled

I made my way to the museum and was impressed with its size. Inside were tributes to Bethune, in both English and Chinese.

Norman Bethune Museum

Norman Bethune

Norman Bethune Instructs Chinese Medic

The reason for my day trip to Gravenhurst.

While in the memorial house, the tour guide told me that while the items in the house may not have belonged to the Bethunes, they were of the time he was born. The tour guide and I bonded over being white men who knew a little bit of Chinese and who had visited China. I made my way up to the second floor, where I got to see a 10-minute video on Bethune and his trunk from the Spanish Civil War.

After the museum, I walked to Muskoka Lake. If I had known earlier that there were lake cruises on Lake Muskoka, I would have aimed for that. Maybe for the next trip! I then walked across town to Gull Lake, where I sat and admired the Cinema Under the Stars stage.

Cinema Under The Stars

There weren’t a lot of people in town, and the evening bus came after 6 PM, and there wasn't much to do to kill time besides play Ingress around the station. Still, I congratulated myself for a day trip well done. I can say I’ve been to the Muskoka region, and that everything more or less went according to plan.

Pages