Tag: free

Honda Indy Free Day

July 18, 2014
Rainwater

Angela, Dylan (Angela’s boyfriend) and I went down to the free day at the Honda Indy. the weather forecast was hot and sunny. Gillian was working and Claudia was at Auntie Carolyn’s. This year they had scheduled a race on Saturday and Sunday. Due to the wet weather they ended up postponing Saturday’s race until Sunday morning and then running the second race in the afternoon. Here is the winner of the second race, Mike Conway.

Mike Conway

The winner of the first race was Sebastien Bourdais.

Sebastien Bourdais

Local favourite, James Hinchcliffe.

James Hinchcliffe

He didn’t fare as well in either race.

James Hinchcliffe

One of my favourite drivers, Helio Castroneves of Brazil. He finished second in the first race and 12th in the second. He is the current points leader in the Indy standings.

Helio Castroneves

The parade of cars as they head out to the track for the first practice session.

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The number 27 car of James Hinchcliffe.

James Hinchcliffe

After the practice session we had lunch and then headed over to Turn 3 to watch some of the other series practice sessions.

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We didn’t make it down last year and one major change now is they charge $35 to access the Indy Car Paddock area, it use to be free as well. Even without access anymore, the free day is still a good chance to see the cars and drivers up close. We didn’t stick around for the second practice session for the Indy cars. We beat the rush hour and headed back to the car at Clarkson station. It is good the trains run every 30 minutes now.

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Backyard Happenings

June 7, 2014
Rainwater

Some photos from the backyard recently. Angela and Claudia were playing badminton and Chloe was watching (waiting) for the birdie. As soon as it hit the ground she would grab it and take off.

The girls are pretty good now, so the birdie doesn’t hit the ground as often.

 

Our lilac bush has finally bloomed and with it has attracted the bees and butterflies.

The bees were busy.

The Region of Peel offers free landscape consultations to residents. It is called Fushion Landscaping. During the consultation they show you ways to create a modern, environmentally-friendly space and give you a personalized garden plan and plant list. They also give you some free stuff. Since we took the play structure down we have been thinking about how to make some changes to the backyard. Stay tuned.

Rick Mercer Report

March 14, 2014
Rainwater

We headed downtown today (sans Gillian) to see the taping of the Rick Mercer Report. We went to park at the Yorkdale subway, only to find they had torn down the parkade. Here is where we use to park all the time.

These are the doors we use to always walk through to take the overhead bridge to the parking area. The TTC website says it is closed until Fall 2015. I also heard they are enlarging the mall.

As always we enjoyed Rick Mercer.

Here we are with Rick Mercer.

Rick signing his autograph on our tickets.

PA Day

September 14, 2012
Rainwater

The girls all had a PA Day on Friday, only twice this year do the high school and elementary school have it the same day. I took the day off and the four of us headed downtown in the afternoon. We were going down to see the season premiere of the Rick Mercer Report. Due to the early morning tragedy on the TTC subway line at Yorkdale, there were delays on all the subway routes. I was trying to figure out how to get downtown by avoiding the Yonge-Spadina line.

Before we left they had re-opened the subway north of Yorkdale. We drove to Kipling and parked there for $2. Our first stop was Chinatown to have dinner, we went to Xam Yu and had the BBQ pork noodles in soup and the deep fried shrimp balls. It was the same restaurant we went to with Uncle Tak back in January.

From there we walked down Spadina and along Queen and hit the Chapters at John St and Adelaide St. It is only a short walk to the CBC Broadcast Centre where the Rick Mercer Report is taped in front of a live studio audience every Friday. Our seats were third row on the floor.

This is the 10th season for his show.

The show will air on Tuesday September 18th, check it out, his flyboard segment is hilarious. “With great powers, comes great responsibility”.

This fridge may be unused for awhile. The studio portions of Hockey Night in Canada are filmed on the same floor.

We were close to the front of the line for meeting Rick Mercer. This was Gillian’s first time and Angela and Claudia’s second time.

The girls in front of Mr. Dressup’s treehouse.

Larger than life Rick Mercer.

The girls with his star in the CBC building.

This was the second last night of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), parked on Wellington was Gene Simmons tour bus. Kiss had a concert at the Molson Amphitheatre on Thursday night. Across from the bus is the Ritz-Carelton hotel and there was all kinds of activity out front and people waiting around.

There was a guy in a black leather jacket and long hair and he had some items that were autographed, so I thought maybe Gene Simmons was in the middle of the crowd out front. It turned out that it was VIP’s for the movie English Vinglish. The movie is an Indian drama directed by Gauri Shinde.

People milling about the front of the hotel, including us for awhile, trying to figure out who we were waiting to see.

The VIP’s got in their fancy Audi cars and drove across the street and then up a makeshift driveway on the Metro Hall square to more waiting fans and photographers.

We still weren’t sure who we were seeing, but interesting to be part of the crowd none the less.

It turned out the big star was Sridevi, a Bollywood actress. This was her first film in 14 years, she had come out of retirement.

Everything was TIFF, even the Toronto Star newspaper box. More importantly I noticed all kinds of Orville Redenbacher popcorn bags in the garbage can, I said to the girls we missed the free samples. But once we made our way to King Street, there was a couple of people handing out small bags of the Sweet & Salty popcorn. So good, Angela and I went back for seconds.

The movie was being shown at Roy Thompson Hall, there is a display of Audi cars in front of the venue. Eventually we made our way to the subway and headed home. It was a fun day with the girls.

Guitar World Fundraiser

August 26, 2012
Rainwater

On Sunday, Guitar World had their 10th Annual Rock n Roll Party in their parking lot. Guitar World is where the girls take their guitar and piano lessons. This is the first time we have been able to go. Here is the owner, Jim Toris who put it together. A great guy who always takes the time to say hi and make you feel welcome.

It was an all day affair going from 11-6. Students could sign up to play and the headliner was Phil X. He flew in from Los Angeles to play a show in Kitchener and a parking lot in Mississauga.

Phil X is a studio session guitarist who plays for recording artists like Avril Lavigne, Chris Daughtry, Kelly Clarkson and Alice Cooper to name a few.

He was playing with one member of The Drills and a guest drummer.

Phil X is Canadian and replaced Rik Emmett in the band Triumph on their album “Edge of Excess” and played with the band in 1992-93. He also played with Frozen Ghost and Aldo Nova and last year he substituted for Bon Jovi’s lead guitarist Richie Sambora on their last 13 tour dates.

Here he is playing riffs on his iPhone.

Bass guitarist Daniel Sprees.

The money raised from donations was for the Credit Valley Hospital foundation. Claudia and I really enjoyed the show, hopefully next year we can take in more of the other students.

MEC and Christie Pits

July 22, 2012
Rainwater

Today we headed down to Mountain Equipment Co-op. Here are Angela and Claudia on King Street. Gillian stayed home to study for her physics test tomorrow.

The MEC store on King Street.

The corner of King and Blue Jays Way.

From MEC we headed up to Christie Pits to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs Inter-County Baseball League game. They were playing the Burlington Twins. They almost picked off this guy at second.

Here he is shaking the dirt out of his uniform.

It was a good game, but it was a hot day. This was the second last home game of the season.

The centre fielder, Raul Borjas.

Here is one of the Maple Leafs getting caught in a rundown.

This bird landed a few feet away from me. Shortly after a foul ball came my way.

When we left at the bottom of the 7th inning, the Maple Leafs were up 3-1. The final score was 5-4 Toronto.

A final shot from left field, the guys on the field are the bullpen. It turns out the GM of the Burlington Twins is an old high school gym teacher, Doug Kelcher. The Twins use to be the Mississauga Twins, they played in Meadowvale for a couple of seasons before moving to Burlington.

The girls in their TML baseball hats, the hats were free with the purchase of a raffle ticket. For $2 we each got a New Era baseball hat, not a bad deal.

Around the Toronto Honda Indy

July 6, 2012
Rainwater

Angela, Claudia and I headed down to Exhibition Place today to take in the free Honda Indy Day. Gillian was unable to come with us this year since she is taking summer school. She is fast tracking her grade 12 physics, so she can take french as well next year. Here are the girls next to a set of tires.

Due to the heat we went down earlier, so we walked around the Indy Car Paddock. Each team has trailers like these, and if you wait long enough, a driver might come out and sign autographs.

Part of the car from E.J. Visio’s car.

The Paddock area gas station.

Some of the crew working on  Takuma Sato’s car. He drives for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

William Ashley China custom-designed the Honda Indy Toronto commemorative trophies. The official Honda Indy show car was on display with each tire supported by one bone china teacup, demonstrating the strength of bone china.

A full dinner table with all the place settings.

As always the Free Friday lets you sit anywhere. We like the grandstand behind pit lane.

Looking over towards the air-conditioned Direct Energy Centre. With the temperature reaching 35 degrees C it was a busy place.

James Hinchcliffe out for his practice run.

After the practice round we headed over to where the cars and drivers go by to get back to the paddock.

Claudia.

Angela.

The paddock area was busy after the first practice session,

One of the Firestone tires from the practice session.

Angela and Claudia posing in the winners area.

Honda is the major sponsor and they sponsored the free friday.

Toronto Honda Indy Drivers

July 6, 2012
Rainwater

One of the best parts of the Honda Indy is getting to see the drivers up close. They either have to walk or scooter through the crowds to get to and from the track. Here is Helio Castroneves of Brazil. He had his highest finish in Toronto, finishing 6th, he was pretty excited during the post race interview, as his previous best was 10th.

Ryan Briscoe of Australia.

Takuma Sato from Japan.

Chip Ganassi, the owner of Target Chip Ganassi Racing.

Just after the practice session started, there was a loud thud, it turned out Justin Wilson couldn’t stop his car when he was coming into the pit and rolled into the back of Sebastien Bourdais car in front of him. In the process four crewmen were injured.

Sebastien Bourdais was a little steamed at Justin Wilson and some photographer who was trying to photo the injured crew men.

Josef Newgarden of the USA, one of the rookies this year.

Marco Andretti of the USA. He is the son of Michael and grandson of Mario.

Sebastien Bourdais of France getting a ride on his car.

The only female this year at the Toronto Indy, Simona de Silvestro of Switzerland.

Michael Andretti, 7 time winner of the Toronto Molson Indy and owner of Andretti Autosport.

Alex Tagliani of Canada.

Dario Franchitti of Scotland. He was the pole sitter for the race.

A crowd favourite, local boy James Hincliffe of Oakville. He is driving the Andretti Autosport Go Daddy car that Danica Patrick drove previously.

Graham Rahal of the USA and his girlfriend Laken Kurtz.

Justin Wilson of England.

E.J. Visio of Venezuela.

Charlie Kimball of the USA. He finished in 2nd place.

JR Hildebrand of the USA.

The winner of the 2012 Toronto Honda Indy and his third victory in a row, Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Toronto Honda Indy Cars

July 6, 2012
Rainwater

There were 25 cars in field for this years race. There are three engines powering the IZOD Indycars, Honda, Chevrolet and Lotus. All of the teams except one are running either Honda or Chevrolet. They all use Firestone tires. This is Simon Pagenaud of  Schmidt Hamilton HP Motorsports.

James Hinchcliffe of Team GoDaddy.com owned by Andretti Autosport.

Graham Rahal of  Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing.

Helio Castroneves of Team Penske.

E.J. Visio of KV Racing Technology.

Ryan Briscoe of Team Penske.

Ryan Hunter-Reay of Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda owned by Andretti Autosport.

Simona de Silvestro of Nuclear Clean Air Energy Lotus HVM Racing.

Alex Tagliani of Team Barracuda-BHA owned by Bryan Herta Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian.

JR Hildebrand driving the  National Guard Panther Racing car.

Dario Franchitti in the Target Chip Ganassi Racing car.

Tony Kanaan of  GEICO/Mouser Electronics KV Racing T echnology w/SH.

Sebastien Bourdais of True Car Dragon Racing.

Marco Andretti of Team Dr Pepper owned by Andretti Autosport.

Ed Carpenter driving the Fuzzy’s Vodka / Ed Carpenter Racing car.

Will Power in the Verizon Team Penske car.

The final standings of the race.

Culture Days

July 1, 2012
Rainwater

On September 28-29, there will be a guided tour of the McMaster Museum of Arts Takao Tanabe exhibition of landscape drawings and paintings, it will be followed by an outdoor landscape drawing activity. Culture Days is a collaborative coast-to-coast-to-coast volunteer movement to raise the awareness, accessibility,  participation, and engagement of Canadians in the arts and cultural life of their communities. This is the third annual event.