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You are here: Home / Archives for downtown

Woofstock

June 9, 2008 by Chris

Woofstock is North America’s Largest festival for dogs. It’s held in Toronto on June 7th – 8th in the downtown core. “The summer of canine Love” is a good way to describe it! 140,000 people can’t be wrong!

My wife, Midnight our black lab and myself just came back from this crazy event and what a blast it was! They blocked off a fairly large area of streets in Toronto and it was informative and tons of fun!

There were so many people and their dogs all over the place.

The vendors had great freebees and the products were top shelf stuff! There was even this company called Happy Tails that have a Pet Resort & Pet Camp in the very popular Muskoka area.

Our guests have the freedom to come and go as they please between open pet-sized bedrooms or cabins, fireplace lounge and one of many large dog parks segregated by size and temperament. They can run and play all day, chasing chipmunk and dragonflies, hunting frogs, swimming, and umpteen other things dogs being dogs like to do.

There is also a human equivalent called the Deerhurst Resort not too far away as well. There is no connection between the two but it’s nice to have the best of both worlds right next to each other. If we had more dollars then sense, then I think we’d be there!

The best thing I we took out of this event was the ability to bring our dog right inside a very respectable pub for a couple of Guinesses! Cheers, a little hair of the dog won’t kill ya! Hope to see you there next year, drop me a line and we’ll buy the first round, really!

Keep on Jammin’




Filed Under: Canadian, Culture, Entertainment, Health and Fitness, Home and Lifestyle, Humor, My experiences, Recreation, Video Tagged With: best of both worlds, blast, Camp, cheers, chipmunk, crazy event, deerhurst resort, downtown, dragonflies, fair, festival, fireplace lounge, freedom, frogs, fun, Guinesses, hair of the dog, Happy, happy tails, Hope, hunting, Largest, Midnight, Moskoka, muskoka area, North America, people, pet camp, pet resort, play, pub, streets in toronto, stuff, summer, swimming, Tails, temperament, tons of fun, Toronto, tree, woofstock

The PATH in Toronto

February 3, 2008 by Chris

I was downtown the other day and we ran into the hidden gem for all tourists to use in the winter time. We haven’t used this way for years and I just wanted to share it with you all.

Like most cities that have cold/snowy weather during the winter, you have to deal with the slush and snow while traversing through the core. This really can put a damper on your experience here. So in the early 1900’s our forefathers came up with this fairly new concept on building a underground city to keep you spirits warm and dry. I know that this sounds like some bad sci-fi movie idea, but it works great!

It started out around the landmark Eaton Centre then other locations started to jump on board with this fabulous idea. Then a 1988 reform in city council decided to scale back this idea. After this, developers had to give way to their tenants cries to have their locations attached to this revolutionary way of shopping. This gave way to the rise in land value of the property making the developers owners of the most valuable pieces of property in the country.

According to Guinness World Records, PATH is the largest underground shopping complex in the world with 371,600 square metres (27 km.)of retail space. The PATH also holds the bragging rights to the worlds largest side walk sale! It’s even bigger then the whole size of the West Edmonton Mall. If you’ve ever been there then you get the idea. Soon, they say, it will cover around 60 kilometers underneath the downtown area.

If you ever come to Toronto for a visit, check out the official PATH site and print out a copy, it’ll be one of the best things you did if you come here!

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Canadian, Culture, Health and Fitness, History, Home and Lifestyle, My experiences, Recreation, Shopping Tagged With: bragging rights, cold, country, damper, downtown, downtown toronto, eaton, eaton centre, forefathers, getting around toronto, getting around toronto by foot, guinness world records, hidden gem, kilometers, landmark, PATH, retail space, sale, sci fi, Shopping, shopping complex, slush, snowy weather, spirits, The Path, Toronto, Toronto s PATH, tourists, under ground shopping, underground, underground city, walk, walking, warm, west edmonton mall, winter time

Saga, 30th Anniversary Tour

October 10, 2007 by Chris

I was made aware of the Saga concert on the morning of the show.

Tony, God bless that guy, called me on Saturday morning and asked if we were going to see them that night. I had told him that I knew nothing of the show and hung up to get some tickets on-line.

My wife was not feeling up to going to the show so I naturally decided to contact my keyboardist friend Rick to drag him along.

The tickets were $20.00 Can. the seating was in general admission. We were one the first one’s there so we decided to stand beside the stage. We waited for a long time until Tony,the old keyboardist from Pylis and his beautiful wife Laurie to meet us there.

Last time we saw Saga live was around 2 years ago at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Toronto. That night we stood on the right side of the stage were Ian Crichton the guitarist traditionally played. Tony wanted us to be on Ian’s side of the stage so I could be amazed by his wizardry. At this point I was recovering from a heart problem and I thought that it was really nice of my old buddy to be thinking in this way!

This time I thought we should be on the keyboardist Jim Gilmour’s side because of Tony’s nice gesture the last time we saw the boys in the band.

We were around 15 feet, yes 15 feet away from him and it was wonderful vantage point to see the band from. Tony couldn’t have been happier.

Here is the set that they played that night!

Trust
That’s as far as I’ll go
Wind him up
Your not alone
The one
The Perfectionist
Conversations
Scratching the surface He did this solo and it was dedicated to a married couple that he knew.
The Flyer
The Perfectionist
The Runaway
See them smile
Compromise
Careful where you step
Don’t be late

Don’t be late is my favorite Saga of all time! It really was the best song that I have ever played then and now!!!

Encore
Humble stance
On the Loose

The end of a Rocking Roll/Progressive Rock era ladies and gentlemen.

Keep on Rockin’ Saga!

Filed Under: Canadian, Concerts, General, Great Bands, Music, Musicians, Songs to play, Video Tagged With: band, best canadian keyboardist, concert, Dont be Late, downtown, guitar, guitarist, Hard Rock Cafe, keyboard, Live, Music, Musicians, play, progress, progressive, Progressive Rock, progressive rock band pylis, Pylis, pylis brantford 1980s band, rock, Saga, set list, Songs to play, The Band, the perfectionist, ticket, Tony F, Tony F keyboardist, Toronto

Well, that was fun

October 8, 2007 by Chris

My wife and I are going to a blogging convention in Las Vegas in November, but we both need passports! If we don’t get them we won’t be able to fly into the United States.

I had to get photo copies of this that and the other thing Sunday night, get our photo’s from this Greek Photo Finish shop in the heart of Greek Town (The Danforth to Locals) run by this really nice little Asian couple on Monday. Gotta love the big city or what?

I went downtown one day last week. On that day I got up at 6:45 (early for me) so I could go see my old buddy Dave the Criminal lawyer guy downtown Toronto to do his part with the Passport legalities! When that was done I was going to go home pick up the wife, go back downtown to do the Passport paperwork stuff when it dawned upon me that, “Why don’t I just do it when I was downtown doing some paperwork stuff with Dave? So I did it, thus eliminating around 2 hours of driving downtown.

While driving home I picked up some earth worms for our pet turtles. Nice! Had to go there anyway at some point in time. I was busy that day. I also ended up getting the muffler replaced, now our car doesn’t sound like some kid’s street racing machine, that just got his ride pimped right!

While I was waiting for the car to be finished I walked up to my favorite store in the world, the 12th Fret and bought some new strings for my Fender Lead II. Walking into the store I was greeted by the presence of a new White Gibson SG Double neck, now that’s a greeting! It was about $3568.00 (Can) by the way in case your wondering.

While walking back to Speedy Muffler King to pick up the improved ride, I walked into this neat sidewalk patio and had a few light refreshing liquid beverages. The finger foods were nice too, as was the conversation with the owner an older Macedonians lady.

When I finally returned home I had a well deserved rest. What a busy day that was! Cheers!

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Guitars, Home and Lifestyle, My experiences, Recreation, Shopping Tagged With: 12th Fret, blog, blogging, cafe, Canadian, Canadian Passport, car, criminal lawyer, Dave, downtown, fender, fret, Home, muffler, Passport Canada, patio, sound, Toronto, United States

The Band is mostly Canadian eh?

June 11, 2007 by Chris

I’ll bet my life that most non-Canadians did not know that THE BAND was made up of mostly Canadians. They hail from the same neck of the woods that I came from. The History of “The Band’s” connection with Ontario is well documented. I am originally from Brantford and it happens to be in the middle of the area from which they all originated. Must be something in the water?

Well to tell you the truth, I didn’t realize this until a couple of years ago.

I had heard stories of one of them, Robbie Robertson being from Canada, but as far as I knew, they were the biggest and best in the world in my opinion, and I figured they must have been from some other place in Canada.

Check it out:

Robbie Robertson, is from Toronto but spent a lot of his younger years in the Six Nations reserve. I use to go there a fare amount and had friends from that area. It’s not far from Brantford.

Rick Danko lived in Simcoe. My family went to the Simcoe Winter Lights Festival regularly. They put on this great Christmas light show near the downtown part. There is great park and it has a small river running through it and the best time to go is when it is snowing heavily! You will think that you are at the North Pole, really great little town.

Richard Manuel is from Stratford. This is quite the quiet town. It’s around the Kitchener-Waterloo (which had it’s name changed from Berlin, during World War II) and is now known for the Stratford Festival. This is a Shakespearean festival that every kid from the southern Ontario area went to see many times throughout their childhood. The theater is a must to see if you enjoy great acting and visual effects.

Garth Hudson, is from London Ontario. My sister lived there for a while and I went there the odd time. Nothing really special about this place, but if I went there more often I probably would have found something.

Who says us Canucks are only good at hockey!

keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Canadian, Culture, Entertainment, Great Bands, History, Music, Musicians Tagged With: band, Brantford, Canada, Canadian, Christmas, downtown, fair, Famous Canadian bands, festival, Garth Hudson, hockey, London, Ontario, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson, Simcoe, Six Nations Reserve, Stratford, The Band, Toronto

Part one of trying to win Max Webster Tickets

May 22, 2007 by Chris

Well faithful readers, I am very desperate to get tickets for the super-Canadian Music Event of this millennium!

I decided to go down to Q-107 at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Toronto and attempt to obtain some tickets to this cherished show.

I put on my jacket, picked up my guitar and made a sign. I was determined to grovel and beg Kim Mitchel, the D.J. and Mr. Max himself, to give my wife and I tickets to the show!

I finally arrived in front of the street level Q-107 booth with guitar and sign in hand. I just set up my sign, took out my faithful Larrivee L-03 and with Kim Mitchell’s back against the booths window, knocked on the window. He turned around and at first glance he must of thought that I was one of those “more then a little misunderstood” street people.

He then glanced down at my sign and started to laugh! He then started to say, through the glass, “I have no tickets for you.” He then opened a side door and said that the office was now closed, and he said that they should have more on hand”. I then asked him if I could come down this Wednesday and play the song “On the Road” for him and hopefully get some tickets for my effort. He said sure, but said “You would/may have to play it on the air.” I said I’d do anything for tickets.

So please listen for me to be playing LIVE at Q-107 online and click on the “Listen Live” button. I will also try to tape it and put it on another post. Hopefully, if this happens it will be around 6 pm EST.

The pictures should say it all.

Just before I left!

Begging for max webster tickets 3

When I got back from the mighty “Q”

Begging for max webster tickets 2

Keep on Jammin’, cause you never know when you might win some tickets to the original MAX WEBSTER!!!

Filed Under: Canadian, Entertainment, Music, Musicians Tagged With: Canadian, downtown, guitar, Hard Rock Cafe, Kim Mitchell, Larrivee, Max Webster, Max Webster Tickets, Music, play, play guitar, Q107, radio station, rock, rock star, Toronto, win, win tickets

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