Be it a world map or a tiny local map, I've always been a map guy. I love finding places I've been before, or plotting routes to places I've always wanted to visit or places I've never even heard of. In my short trip to Algonquin last summer with friends, I remember selfishly holding on to the map for the entire three day journey. I just love maps.

And so as I've noticed the faded TTC maps in bus shelters scattered throughout my part of the city (along Roncesvalles and Dundas West), I get a wee bit sad. As much as the promises of of technological improvements like GPS-based vehicle tracking and an online route planner sound great and are much needed, I just hope they aren't at the expense of something as simple as a printed route map that remains legible.

As cold as it has been this winter, and it's been endlessly cold, the all too common double digit sub-zero temperatures in Toronto have been perfect for making natural outdoor hockey rinks. These are rinks with character. Rinks without boards, scoreboards or stands, replaced with snowbanks, boots for goal posts and open sky. Rinks where everyone becomes a kid.

Around the corner from my house, a few rinks like this exist. Since early January, the baseball park and outfield of Sorauren Park has been home to hundreds of pick up hockey games, dozens of shaky first skates, and another a great example of what a community can do with its park.

Naughty or nice, the big man comes tonight. With only one day to Christmas, it might be a little too late to get on Santa's good list, but I'm going to give it a shot and shovel a few driveways this morning - what with our third storm in less than a week!

Love it or hate it, for the past 12 days I've been searching all corners of Toronto for holiday exhibitionism, good or bad and posting a different photo essay documenting the annual make-over. A lot has changed in 12 days, hard to believe I couldn't find a real snowflake or snowman at the start of this series, and here we are with so much snow we don't know what to do with it.

Time to go do some last minute shopping and wrapping... Merry Christmas!

Turkeylicious by sniderscion

Whether you eat Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve (like my family) or Christmas Day, it's not Christmas dinner if there isn't any turkey on the table. With only two days to Christmas, houses will soon be filled with the loveliest smells! It's such a great time of year. The time when the finest china is be pulled from the shelves, the sleeve is put into the dinner table for all the extra guests, and only the most skilled get to carve the bird.

Only three days until Christmas! Economic struggles or not, gift giving season is upon us and the malls are packed.

The way I see it, there are two types of Christmas shoppers; those who think three days is plenty of time to do all their shopping, and those who are already done all their shopping. I'm always one of the former, so I know a thing or two about busy malls, last minute gifts and long cold walks carrying heavy bags across entire parking lots.

Thankfully, I've been able to avoid the malls on the weekend for the past month, but this time of year, that doesn't seem to matter. Last week, on a Monday, I was in the neighborhood of Yorkdale so decided to stop in and look around. After thirty minutes looking for a spot to park (and I was looking in the farthest places, I'm not a greedy parker) I decided it wasn't worth it. I couldn't find anything, anywhere. Plus, that was before the snow piles that fill about a third of the parking lots now that it's snowed.

Lesson learned. The rest of my shopping will be done via TTC! Plenty of time left!

After two weekend snow storms and more white stuff than the city knows what to do with, finding a place to put the snow can be a real challenge. Fortunately a group of people at Trinity-Bellwoods Park this weekend came up with an idea and covered almost three sides of a TTC shelter at Queen and Strachan with snow. It's kind of like an igloo, but I think it looks more like fort, regardless, the technique is most impressive.

It's not just a big pile of snow, but individually cut blocks stacked neatly. The builders even provided two windows so waiting riders could see the next streetcar approaching. I don't really care for the purple dye that's covering most of the structure, but there is a message painted into the snow on the one side (pictured below). I've got to say, bravo to whoever participated in this - a fun and safe way to use the snow.