Thursday, October 27, 2016

A place to call...


A place is just a place, until it becomes something more.

It remains only a place until you find meaning there.

Meaning is a peculiar brew of knowledge and feelings. Isn't that the same basic recipe that defines every single one of us? Without that combination of knowledge and emotion, a person is not really a person, and a place is just a speck in the universe.

The stronger the emotions and the deeper the knowledge that bind us to a place, the more meaning we attach to it.

When the tug of emotion is strong, and the place is familiar, our bonds grow, with the most important places eventually looming large, punctuating the landscape of our feelings like so many villages, towns, and cities.

Ultimately, a place becomes home.

It's a simple four-letter word. Yet it means so much.

Leaving home is one of the most important transitions we make.

Leaving our parents' home, finding a home of our own, leaving our own home behind, and eventually finding another. None of this is easy, and it takes time.

It hasn't taken that long, all things considered.

Toronto is beginning to feel like home.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Eureka!!!

Toronto is not Montreal. I suppose that's painfully obvious, and it's a really good thing that that's the way it is. If Toronto were just like Montreal, that would mean be one less place worth visiting, and how sad would that be?

Wouldn't it be great though, if a passionate ex-Montrealer could get some really good Montreal comfort food in Toronto? 

That's how I came to my quest to find Montreal smoked meat in Toronto good enough to justify going out of my way to get it. A wiser more realistic person (not to say a pessimist) probably should have said to themself "if you really want good smoked meat, GO TO MONTREAL!" But I'm not one to give up quite so easily. That's why Susan and I headed to Caplansky's Delicatessen.






Thursday, October 13, 2016

Rider profile: Steve Liard

Name: Steve Liard
Find me on Earth: 43.6532° N, 79.3832° W
Find me Online: Aside from this interview and my Toronto Moto Scooter Club profile you'll have to find me on the road
Interview Date: October 10, 2016
Interview Location: Toronto Moto Scooter Club ride to Wasaga Beach




Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Free lunch, of a sort...

That's the way Ed put it, when he sent me a link to a call for participants in a 'popular Canadian culinary competition'.

They were looking for eaters not cookers, hence the 'free lunch'. I've been training for a chance like this three times a day for more than 60 years. You can imagine how quickly I took the bait.

http://masterchefcanada.ctv.ca/

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Scribbled - Vespas hauling stuff

Let's say you ride to the hardware store because, Vespa.

Well actually because you need some stuff to remediate the drippy thing that disposes of condensate from the heat exchanger thing-a-ma-jig on the home comfort system.

And let's say that you decide you need a four or five foot long piece of PVC. You kinda know you chose the Vespa over the SUV, but you feel that you need the PVC pipe, and so, what the hell, you buy it, because, well, Vespa.

Riding home I thought, what if I decided I needed an eight or even ten foot long section of PVC? I would have gone vertical.

You can haul telephone systems too. Oh, and by some accounts, Christmas trees.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Aliens among us!


It was late on a balmy summer evening. I was fifteen years old, hanging out with my friends and neighbors' kids on the street. The day's light was fading fast. Soon it was too dark to continue playing catch.

Someone glanced at the darkened sky "Hey guys, what the heck is that?"

The copyright in all text and photographs, except as noted, belongs to David Masse.