The South Bayview Bulldog

Drake spent Valentine’s Day and the NBA scene with a woman he calls his “favourite person in the world” — a Toronto teacher who helped the rapper graduate high school. He and teacher Kim Janzen took in the East versus West matchup and other festivities. “My date for tonight’s game. Who else but my favourite high school teacher who helped me graduate,” Drake wrote on Instagram. “Happy Valentine’s. Hope everybody is getting love from somewhere,” he said. Drake graduated high school in 2012, just before his 26th birthday.

The Toronto Zoo panda cubs which were born on October 13, 2015, continue to grow. Now just over 4 months old, they have started taking solid steps and are becoming extremely mobile.

A project in Okotoks in southern Alberta captures heat from the sun in summer and uses it to heat homes during winter. It appears to follow the geothermal heating concept employed at a home at 43 Bessborough Drive in Leaside. This project was profiled in 2011 and is re-published just below. Advocates of this method, like the man interviewed in this CBC report, speak of the practical to climate change. But it is also a concept to achieve uninterrupted power supply (UPS), or at least more consistent power when a home or neighborhood goes off grid. Home storage batteries fed by solar is another.

#KobeBryant takes the mic before his final All-Star Game #NBAAllStarTO https://t.co/YDJmV9bdz9

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) February 15, 2016

Twitter furore of Nellie Furtado rendition of O Canada    NBA game final on Twitter

John Lippert

A funeral service was held January 31, 2016 for Joseph John Lippert Jr. at the  Heritage Funeral Centre on Overlea Blvd.  He died on January 28 in his 90th year. Mr. Lippert was the founder of the Lippert Music Centre at 970 Pape Avenue and was known to generations of East York children and their parents as a kind instructor of great talent. The service in his memory featured music of the harp, cello and his personal instrument the accordion. Mr. Lippert founded his music instruction business in 1957 after studying music at what was then the Ontario Teachers College on Carlaw Ave. The music centre is now run by his daughter, Charleen Beard. The well-attended service saw friends and former students present as well as local representatives MPP Peter Tabuns (Toronto-Danforth) and Councillor Mary Fragedakis (Ward 29).

One lady says it felt like waiting for "carnival ride" #UPExpress pic.twitter.com/x1qWtxBbsg

— Anna Vlachos (@AnnaVlachos) February 14, 2016

It was absolute love as more than 10,000 people crowded the UP Express Saturday for the Valentine’s free weekend service to Pearson airport.  The day’s ridership, which Metrolinx guessed was composed of 30 percent travellers and 70 percent curiosity seekers, seemed to prove that people like the idea of a train to the airport but don’t like the fare of $27.50 (one way). Spokesperson Anne Marie Atkins said the service will be launching a new program to encourage ridership soon. That sounds like a decision to reduce prices which would make sense because it represents some revenue as opposed to very little. It is said that the trains normally run at about eight per cent of capacity.

Loblaws at Maple Leaf  Gardens will be open on Family Day as will Summerhill Market at 446 Summerhill and at the satellite store at 1048 Mt. Pleasant Rd. These openings reflect a pattern of holiday food shopping options that has been set in the past year or so by these two stores. Other full-service grocery stores will be closed including Metro, Loblaws and Longo’s stores.

PRESSURE ON WHOLE FOODS TO OPEN

Whole Foods at 87 Avenue Road (in Hazelton Lanes) will also be open but it is a little further away from South Bayview. The pressure is on Whole Foods to stay open. It is experiencing a sag in business related to consumer resistance to prices, although this may be somewhat unfair. When the new Whole Foods opens this spring at 1860 Bayview it will be interesting to see if it opens on holidays, and if so, what pressure that puts on nearby competitors.

Shawn Micallef

Mt. Pleasant Village is profiled in the Toronto Star online and in Saturday’s paper (February 13, 2016). Shawn Micallef who should glory in the title Living Columnist has observations about the old street. He notes the traffic lanes and concludes there are 1.5 in each direction. This is an odd leftover from the 1948 road widening (and sidewalk narrowing) which accompanied the Mt. Pleasant extension down to Jarvis St.  Shawn Micallef goes on to discuss much other Mt. Pleasant history in his column which is worth a read. That history recalls a parallel time when the Town of Leaside was able to put up the fight of the century and save Bayview Ave and its wide sidewalks. The two lanes of traffic remain on Bayview but the angle parking is gone of course. It can still be seen just as it was then on McRae Drive at Trace Manes Park.