I've been very disappointed in a lot of the videos shot by newspaper reporters and photographers. Frankly, all too often the videos posted on newspaper web sites have an amateur quality imparted by the shaky camera.
To see what a difference a tripod can make, watch this little video documenting an abandoned amusement park in Wichita, Kansas.
Note: This little clip was not shot with a true, video-purposed camera but with a Canon 7D. When I enlarge some of the newspaper videos to full screen, they begin falling apart, jaggies appear, unlike this little video which enlarges beautifully.
Addendum: At PhotoCamp I learned there's a lot of experimenting being done with Canon DSLRs being used for shooting video. For instance, a season final of House was shot using a Canon 5D Mark II. Amazing!
It may be city land but adjacent landowners maintain the wide trail.
London was a small, compact community when I first moved here almost four decades ago. London never fell for the ring-road concept and so the city grew mainly around its edges with no ring-road attracting development even farther away from the core.
I live in a London suburb: Byron. It is a classic subdivision plan with lots of crescents and courts. It takes fifteen minutes to drive approximately 10 kilometres from my driveway to the downtown core. It takes about the same amount of time to walk to the supermarket, the drugstore, the bank or a number of other businesses.
The nicest thing about walking to the store is that there are short-cuts. One doesn't have to walk along the street but can take pathways that cut between and behind area homes. These pathways link streets and courts. The walks are very pleasant in the non-winter months. As they are not maintained during the winter, they may be blocked by snow in mid-February.
I love the colours and textures encountered walking to the store.
Of course, in mid-February the pathways may be in use by others, such as kids with sleds and families with toboggans.
My point here is that London suburbs are not all dull, boring, stale places to live. They are not places to escape from as some of the writers at the local paper seem to believe.
I love my neighbourhood, my now grown children love the area and my 3-year-old granddaughter enjoys it, especially the pathways to adventure.
Once the London Life lawn would never have had even one weed, yet alone dozens.
It was once known as the best lawn in Canada. It was incredible. It was unbelievable. It was a golf green unmarred by a hole and cup. It was the London Life lawn in downtown London, Ontario.
The London Life lawn is patchy not perfect.
The insurance company's grass was a brighter green. It was finer, denser, shorter. It was so short that a special drum lawn mower — the kind usually reserved for trimming golf greens — was used to cut the grass to a height of 1/8 inch. London Life must have had a full-time greenskeeper. Amazing.
But all that came to an end a few years ago. According to The Londoner the look could only be achieved through the use of chemical pesticides. When the province banned lawn pesticides, the death knell sounded for the famous London lawn.
Greg Sandle, London’s pesticide education coordinator, told the Londoner that folks have to change their perception of what constitutes a perfect lawn.
“There will be dandelions, there will be weeds. But we want people to just relax, they’re only weeds."
If you look carefully at the London Life lawn, you can still see remnants of the former lawn, fine and dense.
The new grass is hardier. It doesn't demand all the pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer and water of the golf green variety. You might say, despite appearances to the contrary, the new lawn is actually "greener" than the old one.
Old and new: patches of the old, perfect lawn can still be seen.
Recently I watched a very enjoyable video on lawns in London. It was well written, nicely shot and well edited. Unfortunately, it missed the story.
According to this reporter/videographer team, Londoners have started letting their lawns be. Why? They have no choice, London banned pesticides for lawn care and soon after the province followed suite. Lawns in London "have become … less perfect, more wild."
There are more weeds than before.
It's true that lawns in London and throughout Ontario have suffered in recent years. With 2, 4-D banned, weeds grew quickly and soon invaded lawns right across the province. The once popular herbicide was feared by many Ontario residents despite being declared safe at the time by Health Canada. Still, the stuff had a checkered reputation and banning it wasn't unreasonable. Read the Toxipedia entry on 2, 4-D.
Personally, I wasn't sad to see 2, 4-D go. Treated lawns stunk and the odour ruined an otherwise pleasant walk.
But, the chemists fought back. They fought back against the provincial ban and against weeds. Now, there is a new chemical on the block and on London lawns and on lawns across the province: iron.
According to Nutri-Lawn, a company that boasts they provide ecology friendly lawn care:
An excessive uptake of chelated iron (FeHEDTA) is toxic to broadleaf weeds. They absorb the iron differently than turf. Turfgrass is not affected by the application of FeHEDTA but weeds die. So Killex (2, 4D) is out and Fiesta (FeHEDTA) is in.
Scotts Weed B Gon contains FeHEDTA.
I've noticed a number of lawns in my neighbourhood sporting signs advising folk walking by that the grass has been treated professionally. But this iron stuff is readily available at garden centres and many more lawns are being treated than posted.
Many lawns in London and other communities throughout the province are weedy now but this may be a short term thing. Fiesta, and weed killers like it, are gaining in popularity and the reviews of these chemicals are very positive at this moment. Read this release from the University of Maryland on iron-based herbicides.
What I love about lawns in my area of London is that many are not lawns at all. More and more home owners are choosing to plant trees and flowers and shrubs in place of grass. One neighbour has removed the lawn completely and replaced it with a rock garden.
A grassless "lawn" in London, Ontario.
Many others have simply reduced their use of grass. In extreme cases the grass is less lawn and more accent colour. Grass is just part of an overall look. Whatever approach has been taken, it looks great and gives my London neighbourhood the appearance of a well kept park.
Is any of this unique? I doubt it. A lot of home owners love gardening — young and old. You don't have to be a so-called baby boomer to love getting your hands dirty.
Back in the '60s a friend told me: "The only constant in life is change." This, I believe, is a quote from Greek philosopherHeraclitus of Ephesus. It's nice to seem some things last.
I think change helped hollow out our cities and ruin our downtowns. Change doomed many a grand movie house and change destroyed many an opulent downtown hotel.
Saturday I saw how change can affect a small, forgotten bit of elegance lost deep in a small town backyard: A solid concrete swimming pool built with hard work and love.
The entrance to the pool is amazingly intact.
Ernie built concrete, in-ground pools for a living. When Ernie built an in-ground for himself and his wife, he built a well crafted beauty.
Ernie died more than a decade ago and his pool was forgotten. His wife, in her eighties, didn't use the pool and living alone she was unable to maintain it or even close it down properly.
Sadly, no neighbour, no relative, no one spent much time thinking about the forgotten, concrete pool. It sat neglected.
It is mainly frogs that enjoy the pool today.
The water grew green with algae and the laughing of young nephew and nieces was replaced by the croaking of bull frogs. The concrete deck gently heaved and weeds grew between the concrete slabs.
But Ernie made a good pool. Rainwater and snowfall replenished the pool water that evaporated and the old, solid pool held; It didn't leak.
Ernie's wife died recently and the pool has been rediscovered. Despite its green-thick water, despite the frogs, despite the weeds and forlorn flower gardens, the pool was a real estate plus. The home sold quickly and the new owners, a young couple, are going to restore the old, concrete pool.
I wish them luck.
The pool has new owners and the change may bring it some permanence.
My Morgan, I've had it for almost 43 years, is the green one in the foreground.
At the British Sports Car of London sponsored show at Bellamere Winery in the northwest end of the city Saturday, Morgan was the honoured marque.
The quintessential British sports car may be a very small car producer but it is a successful one. That's more than one can say for General Motors. After more than a century, Morgan is still in business and, unlike GM, it does not have a bankruptcy skeleton in its closet.
That's right, Morgans are still being made! And some models, yes models, the Morgan Motor Company makes a line of cars, harken back to the early years of the last century.
I bought mine in Windsor, Ontario in December of 1968. It's been a fine car. My wife and I have driven it across the continent to California twice in the past six years. I've kept it for almost 43 years and if I want to keep driving a Moggie, I've got to keep my old girl on the road. Treat her with love.
You see, Morgans are still being made but they are no longer sold in Canada. It has been decades since one could buy a new Morgan in Canada. The Morgan company has been unable to meet all the demands of the Canadian government when it comes to meeting the multitude of rules regulating the importation of new cars.
It was hoped that the Morgan 3 Wheeler, brought back into production just recently, would be available Canada, entering the country under regulations governing motorcycles. Think Can-Am. They are legal and considered roadworthy. Morgan trikes, with a solid heritage going back to 1910 are not being cleared for sale.
Click on the links. Check out the Morgan line. Check out the new-old 3 Wheeler. And remember, what some claim is the greenest car in production today, the Morgan is not sold in Canada. A pity.
There is a big move to make London Ontario a more successful community, a better place to live. The folks behind the push think of themselves as forward thinking but, in a certain sense, they are talking about bringing back the past. (Not that that is always a bad thing.)
I have written about some of the large and small companies that flourished in London in the past and which have either been bought and closed or bought and folded into a larger company. Over the years many businesses and many jobs have left the city, many have left Canada. (For more info, see: The Forest City: A rich past of fading memories)
One of the companies I mentioned was McClary appliances. Born in London around the 1850s, it grew into a major Canadian supplier of home appliances. Today it has departed the town of its birth. Its memory has faded. Its London plant has been demolished.
Last night I was in an appliance store and checked where the appliances, Inglis and Amanda, were made. It was a short but interesting read. Inglis is a bit like McClary.
According to Wikipedia, the Inglis name originated with John Inglis of Dundas, Ontario. The machine shop he opened with Thomas Mair in Guelph, Ontario, in 1859 grew into the company that made the engines for the Canada Steamship Lines. By the mid 1960s, Inglis was the leading producer of Canadian-built laundry machines. Inglis, like McClary, was a long running Canadian success story.
Today the Inglis name is still on the marquee but the show is over, closed by the Whirlpool Corporation of Benton Harbour, Michigan. The large Inglis complex in Toronto has been demolished and the land is being redeveloped as housing and commercial space. The appliances I examined may have carried the Inglis and Amana names but both brands are controlled by Whirlpool and made in Mexico, Shunde PRC or assembled in the United States. There's no mention of Canada.
If alarm bells are not ringing in your head, let me clue you in and then please watch the following video. Benton Harbour, the Michigan town Whirlpool Corporation calls home, the town mentioned on the manufacturer i.d. plates on the appliances I examined, is a town famous for being an ongoing economic disaster. Benton Harbour suffered an urban collapse possibly worse than that suffered by Detroit. Years ago The London Free Press sent a reporter and a photographer to Benton Harbour to document the town's economic collapse and to determine if London could learn from the small Michigan town's experience.
If you have the time, please watch the following video.
In London, the conversation has turned to making London a creative city. What is being ignored is that London was once, and not that long ago, a creative city.
McClary, Labatt, Blackburn, Carling, Jarmain . . . all are part of a long list of creative, successful Londoners. These creative types brought wealth not only to themselves but to their city.
The McCormick cookie and candy plant sits closed, empty.
There are a couple of names that are not on the list despite being two very creative guys who have made a big impact on London. These men are Marc Leder and Rodger Krouse, the founders of Sun Capital Partners, a private equity firm that has bought and closed three London plants in just four years. Following from The London Free Press and The Tribune:
In 2007, Sun Capital Partners closed McCormicks the cookie and candy factory on Dundas St. E. in London, cutting 275 jobs, denying workers severance, vacation pay and pensions.
McCormicks workers fight two years in court to win vacation pay and have to pay their legal bills from the winnings.
One 48-year employee now earns a pension of $300 a month.
In 2008, Sun Capital Partners closed closed H.J. Jones in London while denying severance. Employees had to fight to get a deal paying them half of what they were owed.
In 2008, Sun Capital Partners was involved in the closing of the CanGro Foods in St. Davids, an Ontario canning plant and the last remaining fruit canning plant in all of North America east of the Rockies. The plant had been in operation for more than 100 years.
In 2008, Sun Capital Partners was involved in the closing of the CanGro Foods canning plant in Exeter, Ontario. The closing of the two canning opertions resulted in the loss of 268 hourly and 27 salaried positions as well as all seasonal positions.
In 2011, Sun Capital Partners closed closed Specialized Packaging Group in London. Talks are to begin on determining severance packages.
Attracting the attention of these two creative fellows may not have benefited London or London workers but somewhere there must be a creative city, a dominant spike of prosperity, benefiting from Sun Capital Partners. Who knows, maybe it's Boca Raton, Florida.
Sun Capital Partners founder Marc Leder's 15,000 sq. ft. home in Boca Raton, Florida.
When Lisa Leder filed for divorce she claimed her husband, Marc, was worth more than $400 million. He denied the figure, offering his wife a settlement of more than $100 million.
The couple agreed they enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle with a 15,000-square-foot home near Boca Raton, a vacation retreat in Stowe, Vt. and six vehicles including an Aston Martin DB9 convertible, a Bentley Continental convertible, a Cadillac Escalade and a Lexus LS. They traveled by private jet.
Well, Lisa enjoyed it. Marc worked. In court papers she claimed she had been essentially a single parent as her husband devoted long hours to his business.
