Thoughts of Home

A friend of mine posed an interesting question in an e-mail earlier this way: what would you miss about Canada if you no longer lived here? I've thought about the question a lot over the past couple of days.

Although I know it is not a definitive list, I know some of the things I would miss:

• plastic poppies and Remembrance Day ceremonies held in freezing rain
• Seeing Bruce Cockburn in concert
• Sunny Boy and Red River cereals
• driving from Toronto to Vancouver
• seeing soldiers of highland regiments whose relatives came from Germany, Cambodia, Jamaica, and Guatemala
• small towns with BIG artifacts (like geese or nickles or Ukrainian Easter eggs)
• Georgian Bay
• swimming in the ocean at Whitecliff park
• watching people skate at Nathan Phillips Square
• the Gulf Islands
• parks and conservation areas
• the city of Toronto
• the Okanagan Valley
• watching seals swim by the spit at Piper's Lagoon in Nanaimo
• snow, snow, and more snow
• always talking about seeing the North (but never actually going there)

Today's Toronto Moment

Today was a beautiful, spring-like day and I took advantage of the nice weather to go for a walk at lunch. I work in the Eaton Centre, so I walked down Bay Street to see what was going on at Nathan Phillips Square. You see, this is the 175th anniversary of the founding of Toronto and they were kicking off the celebrations today.

It was an interesting tableau -- there was a school choir on the stage, people sitting listening, and a surprisingly large number of people skating on the artificial rink. I am sure that if I had gotten close enough to the stage I might have even seen the current mayor, David Miller, or an actor portraying the first mayor of Toronto, William Lyon Mackenzie.

The thing which stood out for me, though, was almost lost in the activity of the busy city street. As I walked up Bay Street, I heard the faint sound of someone playing Land of the Silver Birch on a glockenspiel. Somehow, it seemed totally appropriate for the moment.

111

111 is the atomic number of the element roentgenium (Rg).

A score of 111 in cricket or darts sometimes referred to as a "Nelson".

The 111th United States Congress is currently sitting in Washington, DC.

Opus 111 was Beethoven's final piano sonnet.

In The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins disappeared during his 111th birthday party.

111 episodes of Miami Vice were made.

1-1-1 is the emergency telephone number in New Zealand.

Rome was devastated by fire in 111 BC.

111 is now the number of Canadian soldiers who have died in Afghanistan.

An Escalating Crisis

I don't know what the problem is in Toronto today, but I came across no less than four escalators that were standing still. Don't they know that Thursday is my lazy day?

7 Out of 6 Readers Agree ...

... that the way journalists use statistics is an absolute travesty.

Take a news story from earlier in the week. Apparently, a Brazilian samba dancer by the name of Dani Sperle set a new record for the smallest costume at the Rio de Janeiro Carnival. Ms Sperle's costume was reported to consist of "3 centimetres of cloth", breaking last year's record of 4 cm.

I am sure you can see why I am outraged -- the news report did not mention whether the costume was 3 centimetres long or whether it consisted of 3 square centimetres of cloth. Imagine the cheek!

Oh well, as my old statistical analysis professor once said, "There's three kinds of people in this world -- those who understand statistics and those who don't".