It’s Pride Week

Thanks to Benjamin Geiger for the image!

This is Toronto’s Pride Week (or Pride Fortnight, June 6 – 30?) Ah, it’s officially June 19 -28. The festivities will be “hotting up” as we approach the weekend blow-out, when part of Church Street is  closed to become a pedestrian mall and celebration space. There’s a Dyke Parade (Dyke Hike?) and a main parade, in which the Mayor and various Members of Parliament or Members of Provincial Parliament ride.

We’re also having a strike by city workers. The pools are closed and garbage collection is cancelled. But Pride Week is going on, aside from cancelling a flag raising — no one to operate the flagpole, I suppose. The organizers will pay up to $20,000 to have private firms collect their litter.

Events include a 5km run or walk, the Pride & Remembrance Run, which raises money for worthy, gay-friendly causes, such as the hospice Casey House. Of course, some people will be running in costume. The run is on Saturday the 27th at 10 a.m., with refreshments afterwards.

Last Saturday there was an inclusive shabbat service held by Shir Libenyu congregation. Remember when “inclusive” was LGBT? That stands for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transsexual.” Well, now it’s LBGTTIQQ for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual,Transgender,* Intersex, Queer, & Questioning.” Free childcare is available during services.

*Some people say, “Two-spirited.”

I expect that some of the many out-of-town visitors will use their trip as a chance to get legally married.

Bethesda, Maryland

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I’m in Bethesda at a conference of the Centre for Inquiry. So far I’ve met authors Barbara Forrest and Susan Jacoby. I did not bring a cat.

Clearwater sunset

I just found this image and want to park it here so I won’t lose it: sunset (or sunclipse) at Clearwater Beach, Florida, on the Gulf Coast.

Wallet? What wallet?

We got home from Chicago on Wednesday night. Thursday I didn’t go out. Friday I went to swimming and it turned out I didn’t have my wallet in my bag. I paid for parking with change and Coach Kelvin bought me breakfast while we talked about whether I should take open-water training and do some short triathlons.

I still can’t find my wallet. The last time I remember using it was in the public aquarium in Chicago. The hotel, whither we returned to pick up our bags, has a lobby darker than the pits of Hades. And I was swanning around showing LotStreetWiz the coffee-table books and glass sea-urchins.

No one has used my credit cards – yet. But I’m phoning an incredible string of Lost & Found departments. Chicago has thirty cab companies, and do you think we can remember whose cabs we took?

The Admiral’s club says to phone the airport. The airport says to contact the airline. Etc. Etc.

O give me a home where the W’s roam…

In Chicago, we stayed at the “W” hotel. That’s the stored street view from the online map of Chicago:

The ceilings and some of the fixtures indicate that’s it is a solid, older building. It tries hard to be trendy and uses lots of mirrors to obfuscate the fact that it’s quite narrow.

Here it is on a map:

And now we’re back home in Toronto.

Shedd Aquarium in Chicago

We made a flying visit to the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, and saw a little bit of it. Near the entrance to one of the displays are giant models of coral polyps.

If we had looked at their Web site in advance or their visitors’ map when we got there, we would have found the whale & dolphin pools, outside. As it was, we visited a mangrove swamp, the Great Lakes, and a coral reef.

The Web site has quick visit suggestions, such as “ten places where you can find sharks.”

The turtles were slow-moving,which makes them easier to photograph.

This one doesn’t retract its head, but instead wraps it around to the side.

This one was just lazing around the top of its tank.

In Chicago

We’ve finished our intense time management course and, after a brief Web search, settled on The Gage restaurant for dinner. We walked to it, about six blocks, and were seated immediately. The food was delicious and the service attentive. But both of us found it noisy.

Then we wandered back to the hotel for an early night’s sleep.

Something for the summer

I didn’t go to the World Science Festival. I’m not going to Stanfest in Canso.

But maybe I can get to the Hillside Festival in Guelph—that’s right down the road. The2Scoops has the scoop: Hillside Festival.

Road trip: Victoria’s Duathlon

Some people were seriously underdressed.

LotStreetWiz signed up for Victoria’s Duathlon on observed Victoria Day. The duathlon takes place at the north edge of Waterloo. It comprises a 4-km run, a 24-km bike ride, and another 4-km run over hilly ground. It’s the start of the summer racing season in Ontario.

We got on our way at 7:45. The drive was just over an hour and a half in duration, but we were still early for registration. We got a good place to park, close to the building, whence where we could see the starting line of the race. The headquarters of the race was at a church beside a small river, with a pond out front. The pond was graced with floating, artificial alligator heads. I don’t know if they were supposed to keep birds away or small children out of the pond.

The weather was harsh: I spent a fair amount of time cheering the departing runners, the fast runners coming in, the bike racers taking off. There was a strong, cold, damp wind blowing the whole time, with spatters of rain. Then I wandered off and bought a hotdog from the one hardy vendor on site. Then I cheered in the slow bikers coming in, the slow runners going out, and the slow runners coming in. Meanwhile, the racers were running and biking into the wind and at times almost being blown off the course. We spectators even saw showers of small ice pellets a couple of times. I think that a lot of slower, recreational runners decided not to start. One tall runner came determined to have fun and ran dressed in a business suit, shirt, tie, dark glasses, and fedora to liven thing up.

LotStretWiz made a valiant effort to go out hard and keep going hard. He made up 30 places over the course of the race, all of them in younger age-groups.

After the race, we didn’t wait for the prizes and draws. We got into the car, he had his pre-packed lunch and warmed up. Then what he wanted most of all was coffee, so we drove off to the nearest coffeee shop.

When we were warm, fed, and caffeinated, we drove to Hamilton and delivered a couple of small birthday presents. I tried my best to ignore the GPS navigation system, which told us to go onto Highway 401 and down Highway 6 to Burlington, then take a long, elevated bridge back to Hamilton. That would take us along two legs of a triangle, when we were ready to zoom down Highway 8, the hypoteneuse of the triangle, which took us straight to our destination.

BC highway cameras

Here’s a link to some British Columbia webcams: BC highway cams.