Arob Twelve's Canada Blog

Stand-Up Paddleboarding is riding the next wave of marine recreational exercise and seems to be enjoyed by just about everyone who tries it but most especially by fitness buffs that like working on their upper body and abs. Stand Up Paddleboarding is a terrific work-out for both the mind and body when its a tour of scenic areas, like the Scarborough Bluffs

SUP Yoga is simply amazing! Standing up on the reinvented surf board is a balancing act that burns calories as you move about the surface of a serene water body - its an unforgetable exercise.

Paddleboard Addict SUP Lessons Toronto

Paul Peic offers stand-up paddleboarding lessons in Toronto from his floating house in the Brimley Marina. Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP) is the fastest growing water sport in the world.

Paddleboard Addict teaches SUP to Noobs

Peic makes learning paddlebaording easy, noobs quickly learn to paddle in a very scenic and serene playground esp in the morning classes - sunrise.  He offers beginner, group and private lessons. NOTE Paddleboard Addict will travel to your home or cottage to teach you and your friends in private lessons. All equipment is provided including SUP board, paddle, life jacket and leash.

Paul Peic is a Paddleboard Addict

Paul is a serial entrepreneur with a hard body and a huge heart. He's made quite a name for himself in Canadian home renovations Tv programming and house flipping TV star for a couple of different DIY shows.  When he discovered Stand Up Paddleboarding a few years ago it was a bolt of lightning as this obsessive compulsive adreneline junkey quickly embraced the phenominon to become a supplier of all things SUP in the Toronto Market. He does lessons and rentals and media appearances and runs SUP tours of historic marine locations - you have to ask him for more details on that

During Night SUP Toronto, people paddle with lights on the bottom of their boards

Paddleboard addict is especially effective school in flat water ? the calmer the water the easier it is to learn the delicate art of paddle boarding . Other schools on Lake Ontario teach in choppy water (waves).  Toronto has some of the best beaches in the world, which is verified by the Blue Flag Program. This internationally recognized program awards blue flags to communities committed to maintaining high standards for water quality.

SUP Yoga is Body Art on Water

Want to find good Yoga for Kids

Claire Matthews runs school programs and is an expert on yoga for kids in Southern Ontario.

On a truly beautiful dog day afternoon, while walking KC the Money Dog alongside Joshua Aprowlee and his dog Randy Stars - seen in picture. Josh like myself uses a popular dog app to hook up with new dog owners in our neighbourhood and possibly meet his smart phone enabled girls, and possibly go for longer walks and get more exercise because they have human stimulation and good conversation and mutual respect and a shared sense of adventure!

After a brief warm up that includes some training exercises I won't go into right at this time, KC the money dog got her groove on and started looking around on her own, under heavy tree boughs and shrubbery where the windy days sometimes deposit paper money bills. She sniffed all manner of oddities, but came up empty.

I started discussion on Canadian Hunting dogs discussion forum about KC the money dog to get feedback from other owner aboutthe possibility of training other dogs to smell money.

Arob asked anyone on Dogster if they were using a dog app on mobile phone? to help care for their animal?

after Fuel Ghoul blogged Doggy Datez is Mashable Top Ten Dog App for Apple and Android devices and that Mashable post really started everything offf.

There are many ways to get rich on this planet, but some people have a much better chance in their everyday jobs, and not by accruing bank savings, or by making good investments, but by finding treasure either above ground or below...

Toronto Basement Waterproofing Contractor Finds Collectible Glass Bottles in Century Old Latrine Pits Beside House

Here are The top five professionals most likely to find treasure at work and number three on the list is the guy who digs around residential houses for a living. They are my pictures of a Toronto Basement Waterproofing contractor that has many wonderful antique glass bottles in his enormous collection because he has even more opportunities to dig up treasure than the everyday average man ...

Urban Excavator is Top Job
Along with the commercial diver and the home inspector - the top job is the downtown urban excavator; his job puts him in the path of buried treasure more often than you can imagine, esp when digging Toronto lakefront property , every scoop is likely toc ontain something buried in the shoreline  *** The best of the best material will be on display at Oriole Community Center Arena, 2975 Don Mills Road, Toronto (south of Finch) you can read more about Digging Bottles in the Basement and the Backyard on Wondercafe, and more about basement waterproofing digging up glass in Toronto backyards on Dumpdiggers forum.

Read more about the 2013 Toronto Bottle Show and how collectors prepare for the Toronto bottle show on Dumpdiggers Blog.

On Saturday Feb 23rd,  Arob12 attended Podcamp Toronto 2013 which is a technology meets blogging conference in Toronto that always attracts a lot of cool people who are doing cool things and dont mind talking about it in front of large groups of people. Some folks get a real charge out of spilling the beans on their best ideas and I must say it even puts in a spring in my step. sometimes. all the time Yes there is no obvious benefit for me to go and speak for free sharing my precious SEO secrets .. But one thing is true - it gives me something to discuss here on my Canada blog.

Jarvis Emerald writes a Daily Gems which is a very unique perspective on life in Toronto

http://dailygems.ca/jarvis-emerald-feed/

Jarvis wears a lot of green which is a good colour on him. He has a green gem visual motif that is intriguing to me . Jarvis is pretty interesting...

I spent most of the day hanging out with David Campbell of Disco Social and Jim Pagiamtzis. I wrote about these character and Podcamp Toronto  2013 on Smojoe blog.

Star Trek Was A Cool Show

At exactly 12 noon on Saturday 23rd of February, Keith McNally and John Leschinski and three other web personalities with weird names like squidpod Joel and robot Craig arrived at Podcamp 2013 to do some actually podcasting! It was a refreshing change back to the purity of the medium, and the reason why the first original Podcamp happened.. i think.. maybe?. Thats what they said anyway.

It was also amusing to see the people who didn’t know anything about these guys get up and leave the session in the first ten minutes. Podcamp was an unconference which means the ‘law of two feet’ applies which, just as it sounds, means that if you have two feet, you can use them to escape from any session without raising any eyebrows or upsetting anyone. The one time that I witnessed what was a mass exodus was just before the Star Trek Was A Cool Show session wherein five very funny fellas discussed Star Trek with references to pornographic images and ideas - it combined remarkably well and left an enduring presence. Because it was right around that time Keith asked John is he sleeps in his Start Trek uniforms, and John replied that he doesnt wear any pajamas. Thats when anyone who wasn’t down with program headed for the door. But this gathering did produce some more enlightened conversation than that, and behold there is an audio recording here,

http://www.keithcourage.com/vinylcountdown/2013/03/star-trek-was-a-cool-show/

The five funny guys are podcasting veterans, and they know what makes an entertaining audio track

Rob Campbell details SEO content marketing tactics

At 3pm in room RSS 162 I presented Secrets of Content Marketing for SEO at Podcamp Toronto 2013 and therein shared some of my best practices. I gave a priviliedged eyes-only look at some advanced tactics and revealed a great many secrets for how I execute complicated content marketing strategies that build community, generate buzz and spawn sharing and most importantly, propel keyword rankings in search engines.

Summer Ross of Sugar Salt Social joined us later

The after-party at Lew Dawgs was full of new friends and we enjoyed lots of free food some complimentary drinks and an unquantifable amount of good times.

Dr. Archer Shares Some Potent Oral Health Tips on Rogers Daytime Television with Host Melani Case

Do you live in Ontario Canada anywhere near Toronto?  Do you remember that terrible snowstorm on Thursday Feb 7th 2013 that lasted all weekend? Well just moments before that blew into Barrie Ontario the good Dr Natalie Archer, a rather famous Toronto dentist was on TV live on Rogers Daytime, which I believe is their daily morning show, talking about oral hygiene and wearing a summer dress under a fashionable leather jacket - it was dress jacket combo appropriate only for Roger's television.

In front of about sixty thousand viewers Dr Archer detailed five very different ways to maintain good oral health.  In her opening statement on camera she states that the 'mouth is the window to the body’, and she stressed more than once how important it is to keep this intake portal clean and healthy and that also means keeping teeth free of decay.  You want to have nice smelling breath without always chewing mints? You must take care of your teeth.  Proper oral hygiene is an important ingredient in everyone’s overall health.  It was a great interview with host Melanie Case and Dr. Archer really kept it interesting and informative as she shared tip after tip in quick succession  The video below shows viewers five easy-to-perform and yet highly effective tactics for maintaining a healthy mouth, teeth and gums.

Some Smart (Life Saving?) Pointers for Prettier Smiles

1. Rinse your entire mouth with salt water as a wake-up ritual every morning to quickly neutralize the germs and microbacteria that have formed in your mouth, and multipled on your teeth while you were asleep.
2. Buy and make a habit of using the new fangled plastic floss picks handy floss picks while waiting for things or watching TV or in moments of distraction - its a healthy habit to start and keep doing...
3. Try to make brushing more fun at home with newly designed and dentist approved toothbrushes that have more ergonomic bristle patterns – they’re great for kids and people with braces.
4. Dr. Archer shares a tongue trick to relax all the joints in your mouth – press your tongue against the back of your front two teeth.
5. Snack on natural foods that increase salivary flow in the mouth.

The rain and wind from a category one hurricane named Sandy could not keep me away from The 2012 ZoomerShow down at the Direct Energy Bldg at Exhibition Place in Toronto on Saturday 27th and  Sunday 28th of the October.

It was brutal weather outside and most people were real happy to finally get parked and get away into the venue unscathed by falling signage or airborne tree limbs.

The ZoomerShow is Canada's largest consumer show and lifestyle expo for men and women 45+. There were over two hundred and fifty exhibitors on all subjects related to this age demographic including health, money, travel, lifestyle. Now I’ve been to the Direct Energy bldg many times, and we both know how they work it down there and if you dont know then i will explain that they have almost unlimited amount of space to rent but most of the time it sits empty.  Indeed they make certain percentages of the floor space available by opening up as many walls as necessary. Few shows take the whole venue – like the Home Show, and the Auto show and the Canadian Restuarant Food Show etc. In most cases the exhibition cannot fill the entire room, and the ZoomerShow was no exception.

This attraction occupied approx half of the available square footage but behold, what diversity of exhibits and innovative use they made of the hall. I’ve never seen such an array of choices...

The 2012 Zoomershow had a half dozen mini - attractions like food festivals and beer courts, round robin Pickle Ball tournaments and a huge band shell filled with two dozen tribute bands. A different band would appear on stage and sing to the audience every two hours.  We saw the spoons. Lucy was boiwled over by two young people from a Toronto school for girls who had enetered their pets in to a best in class dog show that was on site, complete with bleachers and a well appointed canine obstacle course.

Just beyond that pet circus there was an mass exercise area with huge flat screens showcasing celebrity hulahooping and already a Gangnam style dance mix workout track.

Dr Natalie Archer is a long serving seniors dentist at Runnymede hospital and she was on hand with a curious piece of visual marketing that I chronicled in some detail on this Report on 2012 Zoomershow on Digita Journal.

Zoomers are more than just Baby Boomers - the population seqment accounts for 44 percent of Canada's numbers which  control more than seventy percent of the nation's wealth. The population bubble that was the youth market thirty years ago is the market that Moses Znaimer defined as Zoomers. A CARP publication reveals how Canada's Aging Population has Fueled a Retirement Home Boom as it details the upward trend and highlights the numbers of seniors living in nursing homes has increased from 285,370 in 2001 to 393,150 in 2011.  At the same time the number of seniors living with relatives or non-relatives in a private dwelling has also increased from 285,370 to 393,150.  Basically its telling there are 33% more elderly people in the sytem.  The statistics agency also noted that women aged 65 and older were more than twice as likely to live alone than men, mainly because they have higher life expectancies and so were more likely than men to be widowed.But the Zopomershow is all about making healthy choices as you near retirement and beyond.

On Sat July 2012 the Goldmount Financial Group annual boat cruise departed the Port of Toronto on a cruise about the nearby Islands in Lake Ontario as over one hundred guests and very important people from Toronto';s financial community relaxed inside. The occupants networked in a wide cabin above while dinner was prepared and served below deck.

Investment bankers take summer boat cruises for business reasons

When you get over a hundred people together from all walks of the community hey make a strong memory and even stronger relationships than had they met over land. A business boat cruise is the type of gathering that smart and social business people can reference later in the year. The collective experience forms a memory they can each write about at beginning of emails. This occasion will form the substance of the dialogue when they meet again to work together on a big project or something incredibly profitable.. Whether bad or good, a summer boat cruise is always memorable - esp at night as the moonlight water is beautiful in all directions, and seeing the city of Toronto brightly lit up on the dark horizon is magical

Refurbished back in 2011 the Captain Mathew Flinders offers patrons 144 sq feet of luxury passage and top ranked dining experience on board which makes this passenger vessel the largest of all charter boats in Toronto. The ship is quite impressive when viewed from bow to stern.

A summer boat cruise of the Toronto Islands on a hot summer day is quite amazing - its a reason to celebrate the terrific adventure of the occassion. Glimpsing the wildlife and scenery is unforgettable and having a tour guide along to explain the geography is a good idea.

Toronto Island Boat Cruise courtesy of

Goldmount Financial Group to be remembered as a good place for getting new ideas about financing new business ventures in Ontario.

Goldmount Financial Group helps start-ups get started in Ontario. They fund business ideas and small new companies - but they really specialize in helping mid-size organizations scale up for more profits and added value.

Goldmount Financial Group as led by Alfredo has set a path to be able to help large Fortune 1000 corporations achieve more financial stability and reduce business risks.

Alfredo Malanca of Goldmount Financial Group provides access to financing and business loans, business line of credits, and equipment financing.

Goldmount can help both private and public companies raise capital to actuate new ideas. And there were a lot of new ideas in the cabin of that cruise ship that hot summer day in 2012. CEO Alfredo Malanca

Mathew White of White Capital Corp

Someone intelligent and outspoken , a real talker stands beside Mathew White of White Capital Corporation in Toronto.

Its worth noting that all three levels of business were present on the July 2012 boat cruise in the Toronto harbour aboard ship and there were no barriers to any conversation

Goldmount Financial is a performance-based results model investment consulting and company which means they take their payments in proportion to how well they serve each individual investor. So of course they work hard to secure the best financial arrangements possible and to squeeze every dollar from each financial opportunity. Top deck Toronto roof . elements weather season , the view aboard ship was windy and wet and sightseeing was restricted to cabin comforts but that made for better networking.

Alfredo Malanca steers Goldmount toward Rapid Advance

Surrounded by top staff and business leaders and other prominent members of the business investment banking community CEO Alfredo Malanca has groomed Goldmount Financial Group portfolio to include an impressive array of innovative companies that each stand alone or grouped together represent an attractive investment opportunity for speculators who seek to grow their wealth in more imaginative environments. Because Goldmount is a performance based company, these aggressive financiers can relax knowing that the firm is doing its utmost to get the most performance out of the marketplace.

Toronto Counselor Adam Vaughan, who has long been an outspoken critic of the Harper Government's involvement in 2010 G20 Toronto planning, nailed it when he was interviewed on CTV news yesterday.

I wish I could get a clean link to this news clip, but its all wrapped up in two stories and text in the CTV news player, May 17, 2012 CTV clip showing showing Adam Vaughan commenting on the G20 report and possible police arrests.

Anyway his straight talk left me hopeful there will be some 'accountability' in this matter. It's significant that Adam Vaughan is a past member of the Toronto Police Services Board and it was his downtown riding that was the site of many of the protests. The banks, furriers, gold buyers, cheque cashing stores were the first and most obvious targets of the mob. No compensation has ever been paid to these businesses that lost so much money in business and property damage. The government had months to plan for this Summit, but instead they built gazebos in Muskoka.

If you watch the clip above, you'll see Adam Vaughan says all of the same things that I have been saying for years. He's been saying them for a years too. Beyond the standard rhetoric of, 'those who erred need to be held accountable' which is a polite way of saying that Chief Bill Blair should resign, he says that a full public inquiry into the ordeal will reveal a lot more about the gazebos in Tony Clement's Muskoka Lakes political riding than Stephen Harper's Conservatives would be comfortable with... Its a fact, the costs of the 2010 Toronto G20 Summit exceeded one billion dollars. It was a widespread violation of civil rights as people were stopped and searched on VIA Rail trains at Union Station and crossing the border in Niagara Falls and in Ottawa / Hull. Sleeping university students were arrested at gunpoint and peaceful protesters at Queens Parks were trampled and beaten. It was the largest mass arrest in the history of Canada, and there will never be a full public inquiry into the ordeal.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100526/summit-costs-100526/

"I think the police chief, the police service board, myself included, all played a roll in this," Vaughan said. "I think we need to have public accounting and, where necessary, be brought before courts of justice, or disciplinary action, where we failed to protect the public and the city." Adam Vaughan also said there will be more reports to come on the file as the Toronto Police Services Board works on its own report on actions at the G20.

The Police Car was Abandon, Like Others Before it, in Hopes it would Be Vandalized on Camera

Senior administrators in the Toronto Police Services ordered that at least three different squad cars be left abandon in crowded situations. They wanted them to get damaged; they had to justify a billion dollar budget and earlier acts of brutality. Sacrificing one squad car to local idiots was an absolutely brilliant way to collect PR footage of 'radical elements rioting in Toronto' and a police cars is such an obvious symbol of authority and burns nicely when it finally gets going.

The burning cop car was a PR stunt from beginning to end. It was planned and executed at least three times earlier on three other streets that day, but didn't find the hooligans and the news cameras together like the dramatic picture, right Toronto Police Services Lawyer references the burning cop cars and says the actions of the police must be taken in context. But without a full public inquiry into the actions around the Toronto Police Services it will be impossible to determine if when and why the cars were empty - why were they left unattended? Someday a future technology might reconstruct the entire march from everyone's footage, and include the radio calls from the cops, and then perhaps we'll see and know what happened that fateful afternoon The first eight police officers to be charged will likely be the worst and hardest punished - this list was posted at Toronto Police Headquarters on Tuesday, June 19 at 9 a.m.:

• Const. Micahle Kirpoff, Unnecessary force on prisoner "J.M." (June 27, Queen Street West and Spadina Avenue)
• Const. Ryan Simpson, Unlawful arrest of cyclist "N.W." (June 27, Bloor Street and Spadina Avenue)
• Const. Jason Crawford, Unlawful arrest of "N.W." (June 27)
• Const. Michael Martinez ,Unnecessary force on prisoner "J.R." (Saturday, June 26, Novotel Hotel)
• Const. Vincent Wong, Unlawful arrest of "J.W." (Sunday, June 27, 10 a.m. at Yonge Street and Gerrard Avenue)
• Const. Blair Begbie, Unlawful arrest of "J.W." (June 27, 10 a.m. at Yonge Street and Gerrard Avenue)
• Const. Alan Li, Unlawful arrest of "A.S." (June 27, 4 p.m., Bloor Street West and Huron Street)
• Const. Donald Stratton, Unlawful arrest of "A.S." (June 27, Bloor Street West and Huron Street)

Are these tough cops also victims of the Tory Government? If the officers in question are found guilty, discipline could range from docked hours to dismissal. But nobody is going to lose their jobs over this. Chief Bill Blair will not resign.

As a Citizen of Toronto, with my eyes wide open,  I carry a camera in my pocket when I bicycle around town on sunny days.  At approximately noon on Sunday March 18th 2012 out front of 51 Division Toronto Police station I happened upon a curious sight.

Toronto Police officers were reading and reacting to signs that had been left out front of their location - the large billboards, printed sheets that had been left on poles on the sidewalk facing the station. I imagine it would take a professional printer to make such large sheets and so I wonder if these boards were left infront of all stations? I do not know

There was no protest, as you can see, in this wide shot - click to expand- the streets were empty of any people except a handful of bike cops and few patrolmen just making sure the coast is clear and in my opinion they were not engaging the public but rather intimidating anyone who chose to stop and read the signs, which again was very few people as that part of Parliament St has very little pedestrian traffic. It's actually the perfect place for a police station in a city like Toronto as it sits in the insection of several major streets and two highway arteries, but consequently its a terrible place for a silent protest.

I went about snapping pictures of the scene and listening to the officers' banter, which was loud enough for me to hear by their own choice; I'm sure they were aware of me.  When one officer looked my way he caught sight of the lens and his specially trained ears heard the shutter snap and he realized I'd captured the daylight reflecting off his body and he reacted, rather agressively, asking if I had just taken his picture. I replied that yes I had, as it was part of the scene, and so he asked me if I would delete the picture. I complied. I guess thats the fine line you walk as a citizen journalist - I doubt Globe&Mail news reporters or TV cameramen are ever asked to delete shots of cops, but all the same I wasnt looking for trouble, and I'm still not. I'm just trying to digest the scene for that small interaction was a microcosm for all the malaise in our metro force. These guys make no attempt to engage me or the public in general with any civility and you know maybe they shouldnt have to ... they are just patrolmen and no doubt just as frustrated as we are about their lack of love and public support. I agree with whomever wrote the signs, business management consultanting mentors are needed at the top. Ever since the g20...  Thats what did it for me. I saw it with my own eyes and the results have tarnished my opinion of Canadian democracy. Its broken.

Click the pictures, they expand!
This is a reaction by some people in this city who feel there is no accountability in the Toronto Police Services and desperately want to do something about it - but feel powerless. These protesters have resorted to 18th century methods to get the word out.

I'm blogging this only because I feel their angst and understand their predicament. We have a Toronto Police Chief with a very bad reputation who appears to deliberately thwart all investigations into any Police wrongdoing, and there is NOTHING anyone can do about it.   I personally am still quite upset that there was no public inquiry into the horrors of the Police Brutality during the Toronto G20 despite the fact that everyone (except politicians) wanted it, and that fact alone is very unsettling. It erodes my faith in the sytem. People have a right to protest, and be kept safe while protesting. but that seems lost on Chief Bill Blair and that's why he should be removed from high office.

I blogged about this curious incident because its a rare glimpse of the seething resentment that lies behind the illusion of democracy and justice in Toronto Canada.

Urban Warrior, Toronto run - its every man for himself in this city. 

Polarizing Sunlight photo contest is perfect for winter and is, in all honesty, one of the most difficult photography assignments ever loaded onto the boards, simply because special equipment is required - a polarizing filter.

Polarization filters help photographers shooting outdoors - these filters are set up so that they only allow light coming straight on into the camera lens, and so it reduces glares and the sheen on reflective surfaces, like a lake or swimming pool. By attaching it to the camera's lens, the filter is able to minimize the sun's glare at the time the photo is taken. This contest is looking for submissions that demonstrate the use of a photographer's tool other than Photoshop. It's not that there's anything wrong with Photoshop, but it's always a great idea to really understand how your tools work. It makes you a better photographer, and it's harder to take a great picture. The prize for this contest is solar powered backpack. The contest is sponsored by Solarline solar panels. Good luck! Winner announced March 1, 2012.

Good Dental Habits are important all year round, but they are especially sacred this winter, on Lenzr.

The Good Dental Habits photo contest collects a repository of images that show, not tell, the secrets to keeping bright white smiles looking fresh and healthy for a lifetime.

There are several ways to take good care of your teeth, and plenty that don't involve a toothbrush or floss. Some visual ideas might include choosing the proper food and avoiding sugar beverages - or my favourite example is the athlete wearing a bright coloured soft plastic mouth guard to sports practice. I suppose the idea to to visualize your own oral care - try to capture it on camera for your chance to win.

The prize is an Apple iPad 2, courtesy of Toronto dentist Dr. Natalie Archer, a family dental practice in downtown Toronto that's committed to proactive and protective dental care. This contest has been extended until March 1, 2012, when the winner of the iPad will be announced. Good luck!