It's June 30th, the bosses have decided to be nice and are letting us out at 4pm. Yeah!!!... long weekend. I'm taking a 4 day long weekend .. so happy Canada Day and happy 4th of July to the people south of the border.

Kind of interesting weekend. My sister has adopted a new born, she is Mexican American, the mother was to young to keep her so the put her up for adoption through a lawyer. Anyway this weekend is the family christening day, we will have over 40 people at the cottage for Amelia day. Wife and I will be godparent, and I am supposed to give a speech. Working on it in my head, and will probably wing it from the heart. It will be along the line of the land being close to our heart is what makes us a family, someplace that we know we will always be able to come back to and be safe.

Anyway, have a great holiday. If you can't get away enjoy the events around you with your families and remember your not celebrating the people in power now, your celebrating the people who made your country what it is. All the rights and freedoms came from blood and toil of good people. So trash the people in power but honour your country.

Here it is 11:50 pm, wife is in bed, I have peace and quiet, I want to write somthing profound and interesting and all I can think of is Broadway Musicals and how much I like them. I admit it, I really like musicals, I love live stage, I love the old movie musicals, heck if its on I will TV I will even watch Jesus Christ Superstar!

Is this normal, is this right, should I be confining myself to dreaming about Judy Garland like some old drag queen. No! I like musicals and I like watching them, I am as much a he man as the next guy, in fact I bigger than most normal guys (I've never been under 200 lbs in my adult life, and I'm around 6'2" could you see me prancing around a stage)

Here are some musicals that I love:
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I've watched this more times than you can count with my kids.
White Christmas, a yearly tradition in this house (it's only me in front of the TV, oh so sad)
Tommy, from Pete Townshend. This lead to some really bad rock opera's, but I've watched them anyway.
Rent, they've made a movie, can't wait to see what its like.
Cats
Anything by Gilbert & Sullivan
Lion King

Since the death of Livent, all we have in TO is honest Ed Mirvish and his son. So wife and I get to see a few mucicals each year. I am realy looking forward to LOTR the Musical.

It's late and I've decided that this is a list that will grow.

Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia
Theater Scene

I've been trying to think of somthing to write about for the last few days... lots of good ideas, but no drive to do it. I thought of something last night but forgot about it and so it is gone. Any one else losing their memory, or is it just me. Well something will come soon.

In the mean time .. anyone going to Park Place to see Live 8, I am now finally offically green with envy. Neil Young has signed on to close the Barrie show, see this CBC Arts story

Sitting here in my office at work. Don't feel like doing anything. I was some what ok this morning, just a bit stuffy. Then I got here to the north end of the city and my allergies have hit. Feels like someone punched me in the face. I can barely concentrate on the computer screen, and the idea of being nice to someone on the phone is just to hard. Please oh please let the day end.

Youngest graduated from Senior Kindergarten this morning. She has been so excited all week about today, until last night. Wife got home from NY, and Youngest showed her the dress that she wanted to wear. Wife said no, youngest said she wasn't going to Grad. What a night, screaming crying yelling... She's only 5, what will it be like when she is 13. Maybe I should run away now.

Spent yesterday with Eldest at St. Mike's, It was orientation day for new students. Haven't seen him this happy in a long time. Should be good, he's going into grade 8 (doesn't know anyone)but does know 4 kids going into grade 7 and one guy going into grade 9. We then confirmed his appt for braces and headed to Chapters to buy some novels for him to read. He did give me a jolt later in the day, he wiped out on his bike and just lay there. Ran to him, he was fine, skinned elbow and some scratches was it, no blood. He has a thing about pain, even the smallest bit is to much for him. He has to learn to grin and bare it, its hard to teach him this, cause it makes me feel like a uncaring monster, but he can't go through life crying about every little cut and scrap. I was proud of him later on at Taekwondo, he hurt his foot but told me he wouldn't give up because he wasn't a quitter. First time in his life he did this, I was really proud of him.

Middle has decided that she wants to continue to learn guitar. So we bought the one we rented from Long & McQuade. I am really proud of her, in 9 weeks she has gone from not knowing how to read music to playing notes from sheet music and hearing notes in songs on the radio .. and telling me what they are. Just the other day when she was practicing she asked me if I would listen and tell her if the notes she found were a song. All of a sudden I heard her play Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven. This was her just playing around with the guitar.

I'm such a proud daddy.

More garden photos

Had to see, and then I guess I had to share. Where am I? Thanks Paul for finding this.

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Well I told you I would add more Garden photos.

I have to explain myself .. This is what I do every night when I get home from work. I hit the garden, weed, clean and maintain the Garden. I skip dinner to do this, then off to tae kwon do with Eldest. (well at least 3 nights a week, the other nights are other duties).

This is my life. Well I guess I'm exaggerating here, what I really try to do is get the 3 kids outside. Get them moving and away from the boob tube otherwise that is all they would do, lie in front of the TV. Eldest usually has to be dragged outside, away from the xobx, but I have to admit Master really works his ass off so I guess he can rest a bit. Middle and youngest seem to want to help me the most and I like the time we get to spend together. We usually end up getting their bikes out and riding around the neighborhood

Enough explaining .. Here are some of the photos of the "Garden" so far.

This is a perennial pot, for the most part the flowers will come back each year as long as you store it away for the winter. The Monkey Flowers came back but I had to add the Daisy, Helen Flower, Blanket Flower and Tickseed had to be replanted


This is a close up shot of my Portulaca, it's an annual that I plant each year.


These are the first of my Daylilies, much more to come.


This is my Flowering Maple(Abutilon). I got it last year and it bloomed all summer, got it thru the winter (even though it lost most of its leaves), but when I put it out this spring it lost all of its leaves and seems to have died back. I hit the Toronto Botanical Gardens and the gardening forum and got some help. I cut it back and happy to say that in the last two weeks I got the leaf buds. Very happy indeed.


Does anyone know the name of these plants? I had them at our old house and my father in law had them here, but they had never done very well. So this spring I replanted them to a sunny spot and this is what I got. I just don't know what they are called.

Well Live 8 will be taking place in Barrie at the old Molson Park. Not poor old TO. As Barrie is one of the towns I've called home, lived there from '73 to '85 (some of the worst years of my life, why would anyone want to be a teenager again), good for it. But if your driving north for a long weekend, better head through Barrie on the Friday, cause it will be a parking lot on the 400 from Toronto to Barrie.

Here are some of the bands that are supposed to play in Barrie.
Bryan Adams, Celine Dion (by satellite), African Guitar Summit, Barenaked Ladies, Blue Rodeo, Bruce Cockburn, Bryan Adams, The Bachman Cummings Band, Deep Purple, DobaCaracol featuring Kna'an, Gordon Lightfoot, Great Big Sea, Jann Arden, Les Trois Accords, Motley Crue, Our Lady Peace, Sam Roberts, Simple Plan, Tegan & Sara, The Tragically Hip, Tom Cochrane, Hosts: Dan Aykroyd, Tom Green

This clematis is a tough old dog, he was trying to grow in the backyard of our old house when we move in in '87. I moved him here with us in '01, this is the first time he has bloomed since the move.

This sweet lady I have been nursing for two years. This is the first time she has bloomed.



I've got two more clematis growing, one from seed (we will see how it does), the other was put in the ground at the same time as the lady above but no blooms yet.

More plants to come. Lilies should start blooming soon.

I don't want to say whether or not this article is the best for the person affected, but I can understand the feelings of the husband. But would you want to go through this?

Update 11:27 pm
Talked to wife about this article tonight. She would expect me to do this for her, as the childs life would be so important to her and I guess me to because this is somthing that she would want.

If you don't want to read the article, John Torres says somthing pretty profound
"His mother, Karen — “she's way, way Catholic” — has told him “when the innocent suffer, great good is let loose in the world, and souls who wouldn't otherwise have gotten in reach heaven.” That's great, Torres says, but these days, his faith requires something more tangible. “I'm like, ‘OK, but can I get a list of those souls, in writing?' ”

All honour and Love to Susan Torres and her husband, Jason Torres.

Live 8 concert in Toronto? ... BBC says so.

Status Quo is supposedly trying to get on the London Live 8 Stage, while Roxy Music will play Berlin.

Other bands joining are Green Day, Tracy Chapman, Brian Wilson, Chris de Burgh and Welsh opera star Katherine Jenkins at the concert at the Brandenburg Gate.
Update 1:42 pm
The Toronto Star has confirmed a Toronto Concert for Live 8

Michael Cohl, who did SARS-stock in 2003, is behind it. It looks like Billy Talent, Jann Arden and Our Lady Peace will be possible performers and hey since Cohl is involded .. The Rolling Stones?.

Ok, this is not a political blog, I'm not left wing or right wing, I'm not a berry eating environmentalist, I'm not a gun toting mountain man, and I defiantly am not anti American .. But I am concerned about the world that we are leaving our children.

Devil's Lake North Dakota, as I understand it began to grow and has been taking over farm and recreational land in the area. The State Senator Kent Conrad helped push through policy to have Devils Lake drain into the Sheyenne River which then drains into the Red River which of course drains into Lake Winnipeg, Canada.

Read the following story from today's Toronto Star, or River Watch article from the Winnipeg Free Press this gave a Canadian biased view of the situation.
So I wanted to do some research for information myself. Here are some letters (1, 2)from the Canadian embassy in Washington to Senator Conrad. Here is Senator Conrad’s response by asking the US Ambassador to Canada to support the issue. A letter to President Bush on the issue, published in the Grand Forks Herald.
Here are some links to US publications on the subject. MSNBC, The Free Republic, The Hill News, and the Bismarck Tribune.

This link covers the minutes of a meeting by the Garrison Diversion Overview Committee. This is a group set up by the North Dakota State Gov't to manage the North Dakota watershed. (By the way you can search articles at ND Leg.

Dust my Broom has been following the issue and commenting on it. Dakota Pundit replied. There is always two sides to a issue. Look at the Canadain and Quebec gov'ts moving people out of the way of the James Bay Hydro Project. No country is without fault.

What all these links come down to is that Condoleezza Rice will make a decision whether to stop the Devils Lake diversion or not, but North Dakota does not have to wait for her decision. They can go ahead and open the flood gates when ever they are ready. This just doesn't seem right to me. One state affecting the futures of not just itself, but other states, provinces and countries, how can so few people have so much power.

My opinion, stop, reinvestigate, look for other options. But is it just to late? and as dust my broom said .. why did they wait so long. From the ND notes, it looks like they have been planning for this for over 15 years. Why so long?

Not sure how many care about this, but I just found out that Scott Young passed away.

If you grew up in Canada and had any interest in news or sports you knew who Scott Young was. In fact I remember my parents telling me that Neil Young was his son.

Was I ever sick yesterday.

My wifes Aunt and Uncle are visiting from Naples, Italy. To make a long story short, we found out the Uncle loves antiques, so wife decided why don't we take a drive to St. Jacobs on one of the hottest days of the year so far. I was fine driving there, bit hot walking around but I was OK .. really enjoyed looking at the antiques in the St. Jacobs Antique Market. We even hit a yard sale, aunt picked up what I thought was junk but she was happy. Wife then decided we should take them to the Elora Gorge. A nice ride in a air conditioned van. We got to Elora, very pretty town by the way, went to the Mermaid Antiques, saw the Elora Mill Inn and some swans swimming up river from it. Got directions to the Gorge, from the very nice front desk lady at the Inn. Uncle got a lot of videos of Mennonites, not sure he was supposed to but he did anyway. We then drove to the conservation area, parked, had a really nice walk through the spruce & cedar forest along the rim of the gorge.

How all this made me sick, I think I got heat stroke. I had to get wife to drive home from Milton, I fell asleep with the kids in the back seat (I haven't done that since I was a kid). We got home and I slept, I went to work yesterday and felt horrible all day, I got home from taking middle to guitar lessons last night and slept till this morning. I just felt drained.

I was reading CFNY's Ongoing History of New Music, The Secret History Of Recorded Music this morning and it made me want to do a search on "One Hit Wonders".
Here is a sample of some of the things I found.
Google search in Canada, Normal Google search, and Google Image Search. Not enough hours in the day to look at all this, specially when your supposed to be working.

Being interesting is today's lead ... My god to be interesting. How in the hell can a cubby hole plant maniac, father of 3 be interesting. I've been stumped on this for the last 4 days.
Am I interesting, do I have things to say that other people might find interesting. I like to think so, but if you check out my site stats people breeze through pretty quick. But does it matter, am I doing this for the world, undying fame that I always wanted. Do I want to be like Jake Bronstein, the internet has taken his blog and run with it. He is young inventive and not worried about who he is, or how people see him. Its a fun to read him every time he posts, because your looking to see what he can get away with next, who he will lead down the garden path. Thats not me though, I am a 42 year old loser. I have fights with my wife about money, I have arguements with my kids about what they are doing, I do a job because I need to do a job. I enjoy gardening, musicals, movies, books and music. I'm boring and I revel in it.
My life is wrapped around taking my kids somewhere, going to work, trying to get my to tired wife to make love to me, and just gettin by with each day. Welcome to the life of a 42 year old loser.