Music for Your Soul
With the days warming up, what better way to enjoy than some music? Now that the weather is warmer and our heavy jackets and boots put away, it’s time to enjoy ourselves. And what better way is there to enjoy ourselves than to swag our hips, nod our heads to some of the the upcoming concerts. Whether you’re interested in Rock, Metal, Blues, Reggae, Folk, Country, Indie or Hip-hop, you got a concert to be looking forward to. For the month of May, we got many artists in the city. If you’re interested in Rock or Gothic music we got the band We are the Fallen. The band includes former members of Evanescence as well as one of the contestants of American Idol- Carly Smithson who is the lead singer. The band will be playing Tues May 18th 2010 at El Mocambo which is located on Spadina Avenue. Love rock and metal? Well you got Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper hitting the Molson Amphitheatre on May 21 2010.
Toronto Condo Rental Market
- Image via Wikipedia
Here is some interesting updates on Rental transactions in Toronto.
According to TREB, average rent across all apartment types in the last quarter of 2009 was $1,667. There was a 1% decrease for one-bedroom apartments and a 1% increase for two bedroom apartments. The increase in home ownership has increased the available supply of condominiums from 0.4% to 0.8% between 2008-09.
Central Toronto
Central area led the condo rental market with 2,167 unit leased in last quarter of 2009. With average rent of $1,540 per month for one-bedroom and $2,174 for two bedrooms.
West Districts
This area remains second most active market with 737 units leased in the last quarter. One-bedroom rented for $1,296 per month and two bedroom unites rented for an average of $1,640 per month.
East Districts
276 units were leased in the last quarter of 2009. One-bedroom rented for $1,259 per month and two-bedrooms for $1,501 per month.
North Districts
346 were leased in the last quarter of 2009. One-bedroom rented for $1,318 per month and two-bedrooms for 1,703 per month. Rents on average dropped by 3% for one-bedroom and 2% for two-bedroom from last year.
Toronto Condominiums
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Toronto’s CO2 Emission
- Image by melancholic optimist via Flickr
Production of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide has a far reaching effect on our health and climate. These air pollutants are believed to contribute to approximately 2,000 premature deaths and more than 6,000 hospital admissions in Toronto each year, according to the Medical Officer of Health.
Canada has one of the worst records in CO2 foot print.
Carbon Dioxide Emission (kt)
Toronto’s electricity use tends to peak in the summer, with increased demand for air conditioning. Since, at present, fossil
fuel combustion is one of the primary means of producing electricity for the City, this leads to increase CO2 emission. We need to find a creative way to reduce our energy consumption.
Electric Power Consumption Per Capita
To that end, all initiatives count, for example, GTAA strives for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for any new facilities or major renovations yet the city doesn’t effectively enforce it. Take Toronto Public Library (TPL), it has consistently failed to meet LEED standard in past and present reconstruction projects like Brentwood library.
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Building A Brighter Future for Toronto
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Did you know…
A healthy diet is the most cost effective form of health care. Many worry that a public and universal health care can not be sustained with the rapidly aging. Healthy diet can help reduce Toronto Health bill by millions.
Kids also need good nourishing food. Many studies have shown child nutrition and learning are tightly linked and effects of poor nutrition can last a lifetime.
The government’s website on Food Guide is a good start but more is needed to help those who can’t afford healthy food.
Trucks that deliver food to our stores burn on average 10 times more in energy in transit than what is in the food. If we grow a small portion of this food locally we can help reduce the greenhouse gases. Plants can also improve the air quality by absorbing carbon dixiode and absorb rainwater that is wasted. Plants on building rooftops also help collect rainfall and reduce building heating and cooling.
We should also look at wastage. A typical family of four generates about a tonne of food and packaging waste a year that end up in the landfill. We should consider taxing packaging.
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Baby Boomer & Oil Impact on Toronto Real Estate
Greater Toronto
Toronto population is projected to grow to 7.45 million by 2031 and at the same time it is aging more quickly than at any time in the past. This includes the working-age population as the Baby Boom generation ages. The outer regions of the GTA will continue to experience rapid growh as young families conintue to flock to the abundant new housing opportunities. The population in York will double by 2021 and same will happen in Durham and Halton by 2031.
At the same time, the City of Toronto is also growing but the composition is quite different than in the outer regions. Toronto will continue to provide the rental housing alternatives for singles and newcomers. It is currently home to the majority of GTA seniors.
toronto projected population growth
As Baby Boomers age will they stay where they are? Will the flow of young families to the outer regions of the GTA continue or are they going to start moving into Toronto? How will oil prices impact the trend? Is there enough room in Toronto’s mature urban areas for the population increase? The government will likely increase the number of immigrants allowed into the country to fill in the gap that will be created by the retirement of Baby Boom generation.
Toronto’s Official Plan directs development in those areas that are best served by tansit so substantial opportunity exits in
these areas for those looking to purchase properties and with the oil prices rising it is a no brainer.
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Greece Collapse Impacts Toronto Housing
- Image via Wikipedia
In the past few weeks we have heard a lot of news on uncertainty on Greece’s economic future. The government owes about $400B whilst the country’s GDP is only $339B. So the public debt is 125% of the GDP.
IMF and EU Central banks are now working on a rescue plan that is a tough pill for the country. Majority of the funding for this rescue plan is coming from Germany and senior Germany policy makers want to apply harsh penalties to EU aid recipients like Greece but they really have very little choice but to rescue Greece.
Next in line of European countries in trouble are Portugal and Spain. Portugal with a GDP Of $232B and a public debt that is 75% of its GDP. Spain with a GDP of $1,051B and a public debt that is 43% of its GDP.
European Government Debt
So, what does all this have to do with Toronto housing market? Well, in a global market we are all tied at the hip. There is a good possibility the troubled economies will cause a second recession in Europe and that in-turn will impact markets in Far East and N. America.
The financial institutions in Canada have been warning us for sometime now that the current mediocre growth is largely fulled by the public spending and not by an increase in productivity. This is unusual and unsustainable. The interest rates are on the way up and there is a good possibility the housing market will cool off in the next 48 months.
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Sizzling Steak; Sparkling Wine and Shamanism
Neil Pasricha’s “The Book of Awesome” began its life offering “simple, brilliant things” online last year and has become the recent buzz-word book.
We have all experienced preciously cute and drippingly sweet e-mails. In fact, I have to plead guilty to forwarding deliciously irresistible photographs of a tangle of puppies, sleeping together in a warm dollop of loveliness (much to the disdain of my older Scottish brother, Dick)!
However, Pasricha’s book may strike a chord with even the most curmudgeonly, flinty Scott. Not that I’m saying my brother is a curmudgeon, however, I do recount an incident when, after Princess Diana had just died and I had called him, transatlantic, leaving a weeping, distraught message, he was reported to have later said to our sister, Jennifer, “I didn’t know my little sister was such a slush bucket!”
But I digress…
So, then, what is the attraction of Neil Pasricha’s book?
I think its appeal is because, instead of honey sweetness, each awesome-thing triggers an immediate recognition: a “Yes! Exactly!” moment when you suddenly realize that (if you had bothered to give it more than half a moment’s thought) without even being consciously aware of it, you already knew that the little, everyday thing in question, was, indeed, awesome.
Having taken some Shamanic courses, one of the goals is to develop one’s self-awareness so that we begin to listen to that inner voice that whispers what’s right and what’s wrong; what’s awesome and what’s not. In that way, we begin to become more attuned to our lives; to appreciate beauty and, ultimately to, more deeply value our lives.
The Shamanic way encourages adding “Find Beauty” to our ubiquitous “TO DO” lists and to then prioritize that task with the same vigour and determination that we meet deadlines for reports or pick up milk for the children’s breakfast.
When this concept was initially introduced to me, my first thought was, “those Shamans didn’t have kid’s projects to organize or a businesses to run!”, but the seeds of Shamanism quietly germinate and, I now try to make room in each day to see beauty. My kids and my business actually do mean that I don’t have a lot of time each day, but beauty and awesomeness doesn’t need time. It needs a different mindset. For me, my camera accompanies me everywhere. The afternoon sun illuminating a sprig of fresh basil atop some prosciutto and juicy olives is as awesome as it is beautiful.
So consider making a mental nod to the beauty and awesomeness of when you pour a drink and the bubbles go right to the top, but not over (Awesome Thing #833) or when you finally get to pee after holding it forever (Awesome Thing #529) or when you hear the sound a juicy steak makes as it hits a hot grill (Awesome Thing #643).
On that note, some sparkling wine and prosciutto awaits me, this beautiful Friday evening.
Louise C.B. Wall, April 30 2010
Neil Pasricha’s “The Book of Awesome” is published by AEB/Putnam, a division of Penguin Publishing.
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Eco-Friendly Taxes on Packaging
Packaging waste in our garbage
Toronto council has approved a program to permit closure of garbage chutes in the selected Toronto residential buildings starting May 1 with the goal of improving the recycling rates. The success of the program will be evaluated a year from now.
Some parents may have also hear about eco-school program by Toronto District School Board where schools sign up to be litter-less and students are encourage to bring in lunch that produces no waste.
The program is designed to make environmental awareness and action an integral part of school life.
Preparing students to become responsible citizens and help them lean to balance the independent needs of a healthy environment, a healthy economy and a healthy society.
Currently Canada is the second-highest per capita producer of municipal solid waste in the world so anything we can do to lower our garbage footprint is a fantastic thing but are we not tackling dealing with products that are over-packaged.
Toys these days are so well packaged most of us have to wage a war to get the toy out. Vegetables and meat have more packaging than ever before. I don’t understand why cucumbers need to be wrapped in a plastic! Why does tooth paste need a box?
Does it make sense to heavily tax products that are over-packaged ? Wouldn’t we get quicker results by tackling the source of the problem? Hopefully the by-product would be greener solutions and technologies.
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Would You Like Me to Spit in Your Coffee, Sir?
Horrible coffee, horrifying coffee sleeve. Look deep into her eyes...
In Maya Gallus’s 2007 critically reviewed “Girl Inside”, she doesn’t shy away from grittier issues – who knew that the Adam’s apple could be surgically shaved down? – in her account of Madison’s emotional journey, dealing with her transsexuality and her passage of changing her physical body to reflect her innate sense of being a woman.
So, we can expect “DISH”, Gallus’s latest documentary feature film, to open up, with scalpel-like precision, the behind-the-scenes world of “Women, Waitressing and the Art of Service” in the female dominated service industry. From sleazier truck stops to the silver-service of haute cuisine to Japanese restaurants where the waitresses will act as your surrogate mother, cajoling grown up boys to “eat more”, you’ll never look at your waitress in the same way again!
In Canada, eating out has become part of the fabric of our everyday life. From our “double double” at Tim’s to kick-start the morning; to a quick bite at the McDonald’s drive through; from cheap ‘n’ cheerful Chinese buffets with plastic table cloths to the starched linens and crystal glass wear of elite restaurants. However, the common denominator, is that we are on the receiving end of being served.
Ask any of your friends what they consider makes a good waitress and what makes a lousy one and you can sit back and listen to anecdotes from all walks of culinary life. Acts of kindness, like the Muslim owner of a Toronto coffee shop franchise who makes sure he keeps an illicit stock of turkey bacon to use in breakfast sandwiches for his Islamic and Jewish customers, to stories recounted with righteousness and indignation: the audacity of the server to arbitrarily substitute other Timbits, when the requested sour cream glazed Timbits had run out!
Of course, none of us like to think of the horrors that could be deliberately perpetrated upon our food in the privacy of the back kitchen if we dare to offend the staff. Twenty-five years ago (before he was a respected healthcare professional, with two Master’s degrees, who lectures at an internationally renowned teaching facility, I might add!) a friend of mine was working at an upscale hairdressers, sweeping hair and bringing clients cups of tea. He described the contempt with which one of the customers treated him and, after the third time she returned a cup of tea because it was not quite to her liking, Simon (not his real name) returned it to her with more than just the two spoonfuls of sugar she requested. He recounted the incident with the calm satisfaction of the vindicated. He explained, in an almost Julia Childs-like instructional manner, “stirring it well makes the spit bubbles disappear”.
So, if reading this has made you take a second look at your double-double, take a moment and let us know your waitress story. Good, bad or stomach churning!
Cheers!
Louise C.B. Wall
“DISH” has its world premiere at Toronto’s annual Hot Docs Film Festival, April 30, 2010 at The Bloor, 506 Bloor St. W., 9:15pm.
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Toronto City Capital Plan for IT
City of Toronto Recommended 10 YR Capital Budget for Information Technology
City of Toronto 10 YR IT Capital Plan
According to the plan, “The 2010 Recommended Capital Budget is funded from debt in the amount of $13.698 million…”
81% of the budget or $38M will go towards replacement of equipment and majority of this equipment likely has a life-span of 3 years, this usually coincides with the warranty period.
Only 19% of the available budget is going towards service improvement. The plan outlines an increase in operating cost with the need to hire additional staff but there is no mention of cost savings or efficiencies.
The above graph indicates the Capital plan is not normalized and heavily front-loaded. There is no way we will only need 1% of the current budget in 2019. This practice of borrowing from future years has to change otherwise we will be seeing shortfall in IT and other areas. IT will definitely have a major shortfall in 2015. Perhaps we should apply for a new credit card ?
- Image via Wikipedia
