Accounting for stops and detours, and the little walk I took at the lake shore, Google Maps estimates a 17.4 kilometre trip, or 3 hours and 32 minutes of walking time if I had walked continuously.

Timeline

According to the audio clips I recorded in Evernote, text messages and instant messaging chats…

• 10:00 exactly — Arrived at Finch Avenue & Yonge Street
• 10:14 — spent almost exactly 15 minutes at Staples, bought a pack of pens
• 10:37 — bought a 1.5 L bottle of water from Shoppers Drug Mart
• 10:40 — reached government office and got out at 10:45
• 10:58 — took a detour around the Yonge/401 intersection because that’s how the sidewalk works on the East side of Yonge Street
• The next half hour-ish — walked through sparsely populated area with huge houses, hills upon hills, and large open green spaces/parks
• 11:38 or so — arrived at Starbucks in an affluent uptown area and ordered a light ice green tea lemonade; by the way, the wifi signal is really weak at this place

Light ice green tea lemonade from a certain Starbucks

Amount of ice left over -- not bad!

• 11:57 — observed person walking by with a Harvard T-shirt
• 12:21 — reached Elginton Avenue & Yonge Street and at last observed lots and lots of people
• 12:27 — light drizzle; first hints of impending rain
• 12:50 — reached St. Clair Avenue & Yonge Street; things are looking okay for a short moment
• 12:55 — suddenly heavy rain begins; ran a distance holding umbrella before pausing under a bridge
• 13:00 — reached another Starbucks; ordered a sweetened iced coffee with soy milk that came in this cup:

Is that blood?

• 13:25 — okay, enough rest (although still hungry!); the rain stopped a while ago, so I returned to walking down Yonge Street
• 13:35 — reached Bloor Street & Yonge Street; this is such a vibrant part of the city
• 13:44 — reached Wellesley Street & Yonge Street
• 13:50 — passed College Park and got to the construction site at Gerrard Street & Yonge Street; the crowd is getting bigger
• 13:56 — beginning of a one-hour–long visit to the World’s Biggest Bookstore and a nifty little place called BMV Books right next to it

A not unordinary sight on a Toronto street

A whole row of APA Publication Manuals!

After I left the bookstore around 14:55, I stopped keeping track of where I was at given points in time. After eating lunch, I proceeded down Yonge Street, used my receipt from a previous Starbucks purchase to buy a light ice black tea lemonade for $2 + tax…

… and walked all the way to the lake, arriving at around 15:40.

Lake shore at Queen's Quay & Yonge Street

I walked around a little near the lakefront area before returning home. There’s a video on Google+ if you’re a friend.

Reflections

Taking this walk through Toronto allowed me to appreciate the city once more for its diversity, its liveliness and the rapidity with which things are changing. This is still a city I love and one to which I hope to return.

It was interesting to note the pockets of activity along Yonge Street: a busy block in North York from North York Centre to Sheppard; an uptown district north of Lawrence; a heavily business-oriented area around Eglinton; general shopping facilities between St. Clair & Bloor; an area of total randomness south of Bloor; huge crowds south of College; even denser population moving about the Eaton Centre; a banking/corporate region near King… Each region gradually faded into the next, with some exceptions. (It was uneventful in some of the areas—especially between the 401 and Lawrence; there aren’t a lot of buildings around in those parts.)

If you’re a Torontonian (or someone who lives North of Toronto) with a day to spare (preferably a weekday…), consider trying this walk. Make sure you bring sunglasses (I forgot them), an umbrella just in case (I had to use mine), sunscreen, water (I bought a bottle and a bunch of drinks) and probably some snacks (I brought along chips).

(By the way, this entire walk is a lot more fun when one has someone with whom to talk! So if I know you in real life, we can try doing another one of these this month!)

Toronto is a city worth exploring. This is just the beginning.

But a few minutes later, anyone looking out would see an immensely beautiful rainbow spanning the dusk sky. This is the rainbow at dusk, after the storm.

A beautiful rainbow panorama

I don’t purport to be a photography expert, but this is a beautiful rainbow. Click on the picture to see a larger file.

The thing with fonts is that they contribute greatly to the overall feel of any production, whether it’s a logo or corporate identity, a book, a newspaper/magazine, an essay, or an advertisement. Choosing the right typeface for a particular purpose is like an art, and typography itself is an art. Unfortunately, most average Joes lack awareness and skill in this area.

To test your ability, see if you recognize the fonts below; click on the image to see the answers. (Windows users should have no problem with these.)

You know these fonts

Chances are, you are able to name them; if you can’t do that, the fonts above should still look familiar. After all, they are default fonts for a lot of things on Windows: pre-2007 Office applications used Arial and Times New Roman, Courier New was the default monospace font (primarily for coders), and Verdana was, or is, common on the Web. (I personally have issues with all of these fonts.)

If you know and use a few of the newer defaults fonts, you might recognize these; they are new since Office 2007 or Vista:

Stylish Office '07 fonts

I’ll admit that I like these a lot more than the old generation, but they’re still not professional typefaces for professional documents like books and magazines.

Now we get to some more professional typefaces. See if you know these; they are some of the more recognizable ones.

Recognizable pro fonts

Now we’re talking. These are hugely popular professional typefaces, the first popular in corporate identity and logos (and at Apple), the second used by Apple in products like Front Row, and the third a commercial and artistic success from Switzerland, 1957.

But here an average user might stumble. When we get to more obscure yet professional typefaces, we encounter fonts that the average user might only have seen in a book, or in a magazine. These aren’t necessarily fonts that the average person uses on a daily basis, or for that matter, the average user probably doesn’t use them at all.

More obscure pro fonts

You might pause to ask me, why would any sane person produce essays and letters and memos in these fonts? Aside from a consideration that I might be a bit too obsessive when it comes to fonts, I do believe that choosing the right font contributes to a desired appearance. For example, the second font of the Caslon family is used extensively in book publishing, and is highly readable; great works of literature look great in that font. The third font, Univers, is used on some Apple keyboards, and the individual letters contribute to the stylistic appearance of those keys. And I have seen at least two magazines use the first font in their publications for things like headings.

I’m sorry, but a memo using Calibri or Times New Roman give the appearance of a person who is untrained with their productivity software. Similarly, I would immediately despise reading any book or magazine set in Times New Roman — it isn’t as visually pleasing as some of my favourite fonts (below).

Now that you know you should choose professional fonts for professional documents, or playful fonts for humorous things, here are my favourite fonts.

My favourite fonts

Have any comments? Please share your thoughts. Or, go view a humorous video about the personality of fonts.

“S*** Bernd, I’ve had enough. I’m fed up with this bloody life. It’s always the same thing – everyone laughs at me, no-one recognises my potential.

“I mean this seriously, Bernd – I’ve got a weapon here and tomorrow morning I’m going to go to my old school and give them hell. Maybe I’ll escape and you will hear from me tomorrow morning.

“Keep your ear to the ground. Take note of the name: Winnenden. Don’t say anything to the police.”

Source: Telegraph

We have to take people seriously.

I’m certain that every one of us is capable of evil actions. What holds us back from committing evil? An inert sense of morality or justice? Religion?

"God, where were you?" Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images

“God, where were you?” the above sign asks.

Students mourn; Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images

What ordinary human can tolerate this kind of violence?

A rose is placed; Photo by Getty Images

Some have criticized ineffective gun restriction laws, while others have argued that restricting legal gun ownership is pointless as most crimes are committed with illegally owned guns. But guess what? The shooter had access to weapons in his home that were legally owned and killed over a dozen people.

Police roam around the school; Photo by Miguel Villagran/Getty Images

In the end, what do weapons do? What sort of violence do they propagate?

Bullet holes; Photo by Miguel Villagran/Getty Images

This is the sort of thing we cannot tolerate as a society.

Flags at half mast; Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images

What will we do about violence in the civilized world?

Further photographs may be found at the BBC.

More after the jump.

The one fortunate thing is that NetWare Administrator (the program itself) isn’t that insecure. Non-administrators can’t modify certain details, like password policies. Nor can someone modify another person’s password. However, the main screen (user information) isn’t protected in the same way, and the system essentially serves as a list of the 1750+ students’ first and last names, in addition to the teachers and staff.

I hope this is corrected soon.

I got an autograph, and here is a scaled-down scan of the card. You can click on it to go to Flickr, where you can find a variety of sizes.

Richmond Hill High School

This was a photo that I took of Richmond Hill High School on March 15, 2008. It was originally meant for my international exchange application, but when I realized how nice it was after getting it (and 94 other photos) developed at Costco, I decided to share it.

The same photo has also been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, with the filename “Richmond Hill High School.jpg”. I’ve also edited the Wikipedia page for the school to add this picture.

You are free to re-use this image however you wish, compliant with the licensing terms I’ve outlined on the page at Wikimedia Commons: if you live anywhere outside of Canada, you are subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are a Canadian resident, you may choose between the terms of that license and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License.

You can find more pictures that I’ve uploaded to Flickr by going to my profile.