French Television 1949

Romanian Television

Romanian Television 1956 - 1969 New Year Eve Show



Romanian Television - the 50's, 60's and 70's

Celestial Navigations

The Intersection



War Babies



The Winner



Horses 1



Horses 2

Wild nature for you...

Bike Ride

Loose Wires In Concert

Time for another concert in Waterfront Park (Frenchman's Bay). This time it was Loose Wires band in a two hours concert.




As the Years Go Passing By (by Malone & Deadric)



Mercury Blues (by Robert L. Giddins & K. C. Douglas)



Use Me (by Bill Withers)



Lucille (by Beatles)



SWEET HOME ALABAMA (Ed King / Ronnie Van Zandt / Gary Rossington) Lynyrd Skynyrd

61st India Independence Anniversary in Pickering

Organized by The Indo-Canadian Cultural Association of Durham (ICCAD) Inc. The Indian Independence event was a great opportunity to enjoy beautiful traditional Indian music and dance. Being a multicultural event (there is an important Chinese minority in India) we had the chance to see also a beautiful Chinese dance.

A Legend...
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was this lion terrorizing a Chinese village. The villagers decided to go to the wise monk living outside their village for advice. And the monk had the idea not to kill the lion, but to tam it. It was difficult, but in the end he succeeded and the lion become the friend and the protector of the village.

Cutting & Matthews Concert at Esplanade Park Gazebo

Time for another concert at The Esplanade Park Gazebo organized by Pickering Township. Meredith Cutting (voice, acoustic guitar) and Ed Matthews (voice, keyboard) played a series of beautiful songs from the 60's and 70's and more. Among this songs Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World and George Gershwin's Summertime were my favorites.

Millenium Park: Bottom Line Concert

July 23rd, 2008, Waterfront Park Concert Series: Bottom Line Band

Compact - Mi-e tare dor de tine

Compact: July 19, 2008, Toronto Centre for the Arts





Gabriel Cotabiţă - Noapte albastră

July 17th, 2008: time for a new concert, thanks to Pickering Township. This time was country: a band from Peterborough, ON, Black Fly Boogie (link1, link2). Two hours of country and rock-and-roll, songs from the 60's and 70's. Varied repertoire from Johnny Cash to Ray Charles and James Brown. Nice atmosphere: a lot of dancers, many faces we've seen at last week concert. This time there were more people and it was more difficult to find a parking spot. Many cars were parked in the wrong place but I noticed they were not ticketed :)).

Howard Ross and Full Count Blues Band

Full Count Blues Band Concert

10th of July. This event was presented by The City of Pickering in The 2008 Waterfront Concert Series. The first event took place on 3rd of July but unfortunately we missed that one (http://www.cityofpickering.com/).
Full Count Blues Band was started in 1986 by Howard Ross (http://www.emvkeys.ca/fullcount/)(http://www.torontobluessociety.com/) and is a band usually composed of 5 players but today the organ player was missing. Anyway, Howard Ross is a very good guitar player and have a nice voice too very well fitted for blues.The sax player was very good also and made a good team with Howard. We enjoyed two hours of beautiful music in excellent interpretation and a nice atmosphere.

Kleinburg

Because it was not too late after we visited Pickering Museum we decided to go to Village of Kleinburg (http://www.kleinburgvillage.com/), which is not a museum but a small town keeping old Canadian architecture tradition. Is also the place of McMichael Canadian Art Collection (http://www.mcmichael.com/), that we plan to visit in the future.
The town reminded me of Niagara on The Lake, Port Perry or Elora, to mention just a few of this traditional towns in Ontario. We ate in a french style restaurant "La Chartreuse". Food was good but I actually had the impression that the waiters were of italian origin... Maybe is just me. A lot of visitors, nice shops, butiques, galleries and some vintage cars. A good place to visit for a summer week-end...

Pickering Museum Village

5th of July. Hot summer day, nice for visiting an outdoor museum... The place is located 3 km east of Brock Rd. on Hwy. 7 (http://www.cityofpickering.com/standard/lifestyle/museum/main.html). The museum was inaugurated in 1967 but had to be moved and this new location was inaugurated in 1979. There are 16 heritage buildings; most of them can be visited inside. Friendly people dressed in nice costumes from the 19th century are ready to explain about the life in Pickering in that time. Actually the time frame goes from 1830 up to 1910: one of the buildings have electricity, others have oil lanterns and the oldest have just candles. You can see a blacksmith/woodworking shop, a log barn, a log house, several other houses, a schoolhouse, two church buildings, a hotel, a general store... There are a lot of artifacts, tools, furniture, china, items you usually find in a general store, in a house or shop.
I tried to find out about the history of Pickering Township: it was established in 1971 but was incorporated as municipality in 1811 (Wikipedia). It was interesting to find out about the munition plant in Pickering in The Second World War and the separation of Ajax in 1950.
Near the entry of the museum is the trail that takes you alongside the Duffin Creek between Hwy 7 and 5th Concession Rd. going through Greenwood Conservation Area.

Upper Canada Village


15th of July, 2007. It was a nice summer day and our objective was Upper Canada Village. It was the second attempt to visit this place: previous time we got there too late. We didn’t realize is so much to see. Usually, from Toronto there are about 4 hours of driving. Located between Hwy 2 and St. Lawrence River, East of Morrisburg, ON, the Village is the main attraction of the area, beside the memorial to The Battle of Crysler's Farm. In order to get there you’ll have to take exit 758 on Hwy 401 E. Go South on Upper Canada Rd. and fallow the signs.


The Village is open from May 17 to October 5, 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily (http://www.uppercanadavillage.com/). Because the place is closer to Montreal (only 1.5 hours of driving) we choose to sleep overnight at my brother-in-law in Laval, QC. Is good to be there before noon, otherwise you won’t have enough time to visit. There is a nice restaurant inside the Village, serving traditional food made mainly from products grown and harvest inside the village. Eating here is a good idea: you’ll get a nice meal at a reasonable price.


I found out about Canada Villages in a documentary I borrowed from the Public Library. Actually, that documentary was about a different village, probably Hazelton in BC (http://www.northbceh.com/smithers/hazelton.htm), but I’m not sure about that. I don’t know how many we have all over Canada but I know at least another two: Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto and a small one in Pickering: The Pickering Museum. We are planning to visit the last one anytime soon.

Upper Canada Village is a "Living history" place made of over 40 buildings salvaged from extinction when the new inland waterway was built. Here the time is 1860. The atmosphere is reproducing a period of a real 19th century community in every living detail, a community which has progressed over the years between 1780 and 1867. Every building is populated with people who are ready to talk to you about everything you would ask. There are mills, trades shops, farms, churches, homes, factories, a Gazette Printing Office and even a one-room schoolhouse. We enjoyed a horse-drawn wagon and boat ride. Everybody is dressed in costumes from the past and ready to tell you stories about events or people who use to live there 150 years ago. How was economy in that period of time, commerce, transportation, fashion, food or even family. By example, the new Trans Canadian railway, inaugurated in 1886, brought for the first time oranges in Ontario. You can check out prices at the store, how much they were paying for food, doctor, transportation, rent, hotel or a pair of oxen! Usually, when you visit a museum everything looks cold, dead. Here everything looks alive because is populated with real people… Very impressive!

Air Show in Oshawa

It's Saturday, June 21^st and it's kind of a cloudy day. We arrived at the airport at about 11 am. Not much was happening, the air show was supposed to start at 3 pm. Now it was just the exhibition: various air planes for sale, new and used, old planes, commercial and military. Beside this, 10 minute helicopter tours for $55/person. On the runway planes are taking off and landing continuously. Some are old planes, some are acrobatic preparing for the later show and beside this, the regular traffic.

Oshawa Airport is one of the major general aviation airports in the Greater Toronto Area. It includes two paved runways (1.2 km long) and instrument approaches. The airport is classified as an airport of entry by NAV CANADA and is staffed by the Canada Border Services Agency. CBSA officers at this airport currently can handle aircraft with no more than 50 passengers. Oshawa hosts the annual Canadian Aviation Expo, Canada's largest annual aviation event.

The exhibits are generally aircrafts with 2-4 seats but a few are bigger, up to 10 seats. One caught my attention: it was a four seater with shower cabin, toilette and kitchenette. And it's timeshared: $80.000 upfront and $200/month for maintenance and you get 73 days/year. It will be available starting next year. They now have only one prototype. For now you can have another timeshared: the DA40 Diamond aircraft without shower and kitchenette but for about $58.000 (http://www.lead-air.com/comparecosts.php).

Another interesting airplane was a combination airplane-glider (motorglider). This one had a folding propeller. So you can take off using the engine and after this go on glider mode shutting down the engine and folding the propeller. On cruise, fuel consumption was only 4.5 gallons/hour which is nice. Basically the length of the flight was limited only by your bladder! Of course, if you're in a hurry or in bad weather you'll have to use the engine. The maximum altitude was 30.000 feet (in glider mode) but the pilot owning this plane wanted to go for a record of 45.000 feet next year.

I had no idea that you can buy a kit Aircraft! Well, yes! For a minimum amount of money you can start buying parts. You don't have to buy everything at once. It seems that it will take you at least 500 hours of your time. And at the end, to have everything you need, including navigation, it will cost you around $50.000. But, for this amount of money you'll have your own self-made airplane. A two seater with an engine about 100-125 HP. There are basically two choices: STOL CH 701 Sport Utility Kit Aircraft with very short take-off and landing performance and Zenith Zodiac XL 601 with speed up to 220 km/h (see http://www.can-zacaviation.com/).

A well represented company was Cirrus (http://www.cirrusdesign.com/) with 4 seaters starting from $215.000 up to $446.600 depending on the performance of the airplane. Interesting is also the The-Jet prototype (V1). Piper was also there (http://www.piper.com/) with 4 seaters and a 6 seater starting from $757.000 (Piper Malibu Matrix).

The French company Air Creation (http://aircreation.ca/; http://www.aerotrekking.com/handcrafted2.asp) was represented with Tanarg products: 2 seaters delta flexwing machines, probably the cheapest way to fly! Off course you're going to fly only in good weather... It's a flying motorcycle: a tricycle.

The Air Show started at 3 pm and we saw all the products exposed flying and with all the specifications explained during the flight. The most interesting part of the show was the acrobatic flight. Patty Wagstaff , three times US National Aerobatic Champion, was the star of the show (http://www.pattywagstaff.com/). Part of the show was also the evolution of a Spitfire Mark IX and a Hurricane Mk IV.

April 11, 2008, the day of my last trip with a big truck: because of a herniated disk I had to quit. All I have left is memories after more than 4 years in trucking and half million km... I've been pretty much everywhere in USA and Canada, I drove through mountains and prairies, deserts, forests, cities and wilderness, sunny days and winter storms... I'll try to write about this experience in time, the things I've seen and lived. How I got lost a few times, stuck under an unexpected low bridge, dead end, narrow yard residential area or once, on railway tracks! Less of this in the last three years because I had GPS and MS Streets and Trips (helped o lot). I carried in my truck everything: dry or refrigerated food, auto parts, flowers or even agricultural fertilizer I found out at the border is radioactive! Luckily it was not over the legal limit. When I got to the delivery place I ask the people working there if they know about the radioactivity thing: they had no idea! They were not wearing any protective equipment and they were working 10 hours a day in that atmosphere loaded with radioactive dust... This was at the beginning of my trucking career somewhere in Pennsylvania, I don't remember where. Never been there again... I remember being in places with nice and interesting people or nasty receivers or shippers. Some of the worst places I've been: Toys'r'us, the record for waiting time - 34 hours or Loblaws Mississauga over 24 hours.

I've been driving single or team. For me it was best to drive single. I couldn't sleep while somebody else was driving. That's why I felt asleep while driving team two times. But it seems I'm a very lucky person: I had no accident! After this happened for the second time I quit driving team. The last three years I drove single. Problem was: you don't get long trips if you're single. So in the last 3 years I've been only twice in Vancouver or California. And to be honest: this were the trips I liked most. I guess now I'm an expert in East Coast and Mid-West! For a period of time I did New York City and for another period New York state, New Hampshire and Vermont. Nice if it's not winter... Hills in Pennsylvania are not so easy in winter especially Binghamton area.

In some of my trips I took a camera with me, so if you check my pictures links, you could see some of the places I've been. Unfortunately, many pictures I had were lost when my hard drive broke down before I had the chance to save them. For others I need more time to upload on the web. We'll see...