Tochi's Hut

Doris and I came down to Eaton Centre for some shopping and the Earth Day festivities. This is Eaton Centre with its lights dimmed in celebration of Earth Day. I was a bit disappointed that Toronto only saved 8% of electricity, despite all this hype?!?

A sculputre constructed from recycled plastic objects collected at Fairview, to represent water-like waves. A creation by Karharine Harvey.

Night shot of Toronto from the Docks. I'd came downtown to watch the NCAA Sweet 16 game between Cornell and University of Kentucky with my fellow alums. Cornell started really strong, jumping to an early 10-2 lead, before UK picked up and pwned us with a 22-6 run. :( Much to our chargin, stupid CBS decided to switch to the Xavier and Kansas came instead. We thought we could catch at least the end of the match, but noooo, Xavier had to hang on and force their game into 2OT. Cornell mounted a comeback, and at one point, trailed by only 6 points. But alas, the fairy tale couldn't hold, and UK took the match. It was definitely a season to savour though. I miss live college atmosphere. :(

Took this picture on my way back.

My beloved Gitzo. The only piece of gear I'd actually clean diligently when it gets dirty.

View of Yonge Street near Bloor from my side mirror.

Rainy day today... Why would someone want to ride a motorcycle... it's like seeing the F1 cars racing in the rain.

Inspired by Velius's similar shot, here is my thermostat. After taking the picture, I realized my camera's time was off by an hour. Ugh! D80 doesn't automatically recognize DST. At least this time it only took me a week or so to realize.. much better than the 5 months lag for when I had my camera incorrectly left on GMT. :|

The daughter was more than content playing on the ice than trying to learn how to skate. The dad showed patience that only a father can in trying to make his daughter the future Yu-na Kim.

Saw this guy with the cracked spider windshield in the parking lot of Loblaws. It's been sitting here all winter. lol.

Crystal clear nights in Toronto for much of this week. The moon with along with the earthshine.

One of my goals for photography is to capture a star circle. My motivation is mainly an awesome star circle shot Jeff took from Cayuga Lake. I've tried it a few times, but so far no good results.

I've always put this goal off until I go camping, thinking that I need to get away from the light pollution. However, every time I go camping, I'm too tired to set up my camera and experiment. It takes a lot of time to get such a shot. Moreover, camera batteries are very precious when you are far from an AC outlet.

So today, I've realized that to achieve this goal, I need to take action. I intend on scouting a good location this spring, so that on a good night, I'll just go out and get my shot. No more slacking.

If I ever get a puppy, I want one with floppy ears... and good tupperware detection instincts.

With the huge recalls Toyota initiated these past few months, many toyota owners have walked through this hallway to Parts and Service.

I was actually very impressed with the service of my car today. Toyota introduced a service time guarantee, provided me with materials on my previous service, and the items I'd likely have to do at my next maintenance service (along with their associated cost). A lot of little things, but the personalized treatment definitely goes a long way to improving customer satisfaction.

Got this tankless water heater installed today. Loving it so far!

Intersection of Dundas and Yonge on a rainy night.

Saw the lovely sky after doing some grocery shopping at Loblaws. I love skies, can't ever get enough.

ＦＦＸＩＩＩ - $

I replaced a bunch of receptacles around my kitchen with the Decora design. I thought it would simply be hooking up the same way as the old receptacle, but my circuit breaker kept tripping every time I re-enabled it. I noticed that a tab connected the two live terminals with black and red, which I thought was weird. I didn't realize that the tab is meant to be broken if necessary. For a few minutes, it frustrated me to no end that as a EE grad, I couldn't get a simple circuit working. :x

Swamped with work today, so had to find something to take a picture. The Bent is one of the few things I do have hanging up. The official badge of TBP, reminding us that we must always bear the load of integrity and excellence in engineering.

Finally watched Avatar today. It's been released for 3 months already, and still, the movie is sold out. >.<

Those 3D glasses gave me a headache.. I watched a good portion of the second half of the movie with the glasses off, and only put them on for the good scenes. Doris seemed to have taken the 3D glasses well though.

Swans...

Houses during sunset.

Quote of the day: "Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch." - Orson Wellers.

An absolutely beautiful day today. One of those sunny days that actually made me want to go for a nice jog.

Here we have a photo of the assortment of CRT monitors at the Hazardous and Electronic Waste Depot. I came by to drop off some old electronics equipment.

I take enough pictures and I do print a selection of them. However, I never do anything with these prints... The walls in my house are pretty bare, so I've been shopping for some good deals on large frames.

Haven't found any yet... but I'm hopeful. :)