MLG is now the Peter Gilgan Athletic Centre

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It’s the end of an era as Maple Leaf Gardens assumes a new name as the Peter Gilgan Athletic Centre at the Gardens. Mr. Gilgan made a gift of $15-million to finish the new Ryerson University facility. He is the founder and CEO of Mattamy Homes. Tomorrow (Wednesday) a new Loblaws is scheduled to open on the ground level of the newly renovated three storey centre.

Mayor’s press aide joins Sun and Newstalk 1010

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Mayor Rob Ford’s press secretary, Adrienne Batra, has resigned to become the Toronto Sun’s comment editor and a municipal affairs correspondent with Newstalk1010. A dogmatic fiscal conservative, Batra is the former provincial director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in Manitoba. Batra came to work for Ford during his 2010 mayoral campaign and has helped him navigate through a handful of damaging missteps by playing up his regular-guy-makes-mistakes persona. At city hall, Batra is known as one of the few people who the mayor absolutely trusts and will listen to. For the last year, she has kept the gaffe-prone Ford on a tight leash.

Lufthansa jet hit by gust on landing at Calgary

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Very well watched video from Sunday showing a Lufthansa Airbus A340-300 crabbing (landing sideways) while landing in Calgary (YYC) with strong winds November 27, 2011. According to today’s YouTube counter the video has been spun out more than 138,000 times

School kilts: Confessions of an “old girl”

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The recent concern about school kilts has prompted a St Clement’s (private) School old girl to observe that the nerve-wracking business of just where the girls should have their hemline has been around since the time of that great Ontario educator Egerton Ryerson. She confesses without embarrassment that she and her friends all hiked up the hems purely to tantalize the boys. It was not the kilt, but the one-piece tunic, that seemed to inspire the most hussy-like behavior she reports. “You would fluff up the top of the tunic above the belt and as you did, the skirt got shorter and shorter.” And she suspects that those present-day kilt wearing undergrads who say innocently “But, I like the kilt” have something similar in mind. What can you do? We suppose asking the boys to wear kilts, while not unmanly, is definitely out of the question. It seems for sure that the girls don’t want to wear the trousers, except figuratively, of course.

TImeWarp at Northern Secondary School

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Students of Northern Secondary School will hold a “dancing fashion show” in aid of the United Way tomorrow (November 30, 2011) at the school, 851 Mt. Pleasant Rd. . It begins at 7 p.m. As those who remember the Rocky Horror Picture Show will know, TimeWarp is one of the crowd pleasing interludes of the cult movie. There will be a silent auction in which parents bid on goods and services donated by local merchants.

TruValu hardware downsizes to single store

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TruValu Hardware at 1613 South Bayview will downsize to one store from the current double store. The north premises, 1617, will be leased in due course.

Moore Ave Loblaws cancels 24/7 hours

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Loblaws on Moore Ave has dropped its 24/7 business scheme. The decision was taken just after Thanksgiving after only four months as a concequence of the poor response from overnight shoppers. Essentially there are very few such people. Now Loblaws is observing more traditional hours (7 am to midnight) although the closing time of midnight appears to be two or three hours later than before the 24/7 experiment. Previous story

Dampness deja vu on Brendan Road

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In February (left) a broken water main turned Brendan Road in Bennington Heights into a skating rink. This morning, that main was acting up again (right) as water began to pool on Brendan at the same location. Oh well.

Slamming the door on out-of-control spending

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Mayor Ford’s 2012 budget address Monday morning contained a 2.5 per cent property tax hike in the new year, assuming the proposed operating budget passes through city council in January. But the mayor also outlined many other areas where costs have been cut and he promised no increase in the cost of collecting garbage. “It’s a budget that slams the door on out of control spending, that’s what the taxpayers want,” Ford said. John Stall of 680 News.

Heavy rain in Monday’s forecast

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Check the Weather Channel link above for their best estimates of the rainy weather we’re expecting, especially Monday. Right now, it’s forecast we’ll get 1-3 mm of rain during the evening Monday and another 5-10 mm overnight.

Lululemon’s Christine Day is honoured

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Christine Day, a dynmaic mother of three, has been named Chief Executive of the Year by The Globe and Mail’s Report of Business Magazine. Many will know Christine well as the top boss of Lululemon Athletica Inc, the wildly popular line of casual wear which can bee seen on South Bayview daily, frequently, many times a day. Christine was chosen for “her ability to create a remarkable bond between the brand and its ultra-loyal fans,” Report on Business says

LRT a creature of politics and engineering

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The Eglinton Crosstown LRT is a creature of both politics and engineering. As mayor, Rob Ford has been able to direct that the LRT should be buried all the way from its eastern terminus to the western end. Transit cognoscenti will know that this eliminated an open area section from the terminus to a tunnel entrance near Brentcliffe Rd. That made political sense (i.e. a potential convenience for many people, mostly drivers). The South Bayview Bulldog, for one, really liked the idea. The engineers have now been heard from. Their best efforts to conceive an executable plan to burrow under the Don River have come up short. Very difficult to do. In the end it seems to come down to money, as it usually does. The engineering feat itself cannot be impossible. The issue for Ford and others who might like to see the LRT buried may be in making sure that politics stays out of the engineering. Just saying.