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… of an eagle in my balcony. Seriously, just 10 minutes ago, I was staring blankly at my bills when I heard noises from my balcony, like something’s hitting the glass windows *bam bam*, and again *bam bam*. I turned around expecting to see some pigeons (that pooped on my balcony yesterday .. heh!) trying to get in. Instead, I saw an eagle trying to get out of my balcony. It was a medium sized eagle .. one that I usually see roaming around in the area (yes, I’ve seen him before .. and no, I’ve never been able to take his picture even when he was flying ). He was having some issues to get over the railings .. making that *bam bam* noise that I heard.

Then a couple more *bam bam*, and he managed to get out … flying freely over the trees, picking on a couple of black birds (not sure what they were). And then he was gone.

I hope he comes back to visit my balcony again one day … minus the *bam bam*.

The ACC was V-E-R-Y–L-O-U-D yesterday during Playoff Game 3 of the Toronto Raptors vs. Orlando Magic. The guys behind us didn’t even stop yelling during the game, not even for one second. Well, they sat down and took a break during half time (they needed to get more beer) .. but otherwise, they were on their feet, yelling, screaming, calling names, singing, and spilling beer on my seat.

The Raptors were awesome! They played a great game .. and were leading by a lot at half time:

And .. they won the game!!!

Now .. they just need 3 more wins (over Superman and the gang) to go to the next round …

LET’S GO RAPTORS!

EDIT: The Raptors lost the series to the Magic in 5 games .. oh well, hopefully next year.

What did you do to help our planet? Me .. I worked in the dark (they turn most of the lights off in the office building) … it was actually kind of neat.

Do you know that some frogs smell of onion and the firebellied-toad smells of garlic? Interesting .. I didn’t know. Hehe. Some fun facts about frogs on Toronto Zoo website.

Hmmm .. this year is not only the Year of the Rat but also the Year of the Frog. It started last February 29th (Leap Day! ) and I think it goes until the end of the year. One event that the zoo had last month was Frogzibitz, and they had a HUGE frog sitting in front of the education centre:

LOL.

The other frogs we saw weren’t that big. Some very small. Some were very good in hiding. And some could change skin colour! But they were all cute.

If we feel like learning more about frogs, this Frog Watch page is probably a good start. One day maybe I’ll go somewhere to listen to frog calls. You know, since I’ll be sharing this (my) year with the frogs, I might as well get to know them ….

Hmmmm .. some frogs can be eaten too .. not sure which ones, so it’s probably best to get them from the local market.

More pics in my Toronto Zoo flickr set.

Last Saturday we went to Ajax for their Earth Hour Lights Out Party. I thought it would be nice to drive out of the city a bit and check out their Astronomy Club.

The guys from the astronomy club set up a few telescopes in front of the City Hall there, they had a couple of HUGE ones!! We’ve never seen anything through those telescopes, so we took a peek through one of them, and we saw .. Saturn! Complete with its ring! It was AWESOME! (Woooo, I felt like a kid again ).

(No, I don’t know who that guy was .. LOL!)

One of the guys connected his telescope to a monitor, and here’s Saturn:

Isn’t it neat?

There were lots of stars in the sky .. it was a clear evening. I saw the Big Dipper, but I wanted to take pics of the Orion constellation. Yeah, there was still a little bit of “light pollution” there eventhough they turned off the lights in the city hall. :/

If you follow the Orion Belt (the three stars in the centre there) to the left, the bright star in the lower left is Sirius, I believe. Sirius is part of Canis Major — one of Orion’s dogs (he was a hunter, so they say).

I love the stars … and I’m still very happy to see Saturn .. LOL.

It’s 7 more days until March 29th, 2008. At 8pm, some of us will be participating in Earth Hour — when for only 60 minutes we use less energy. It was Australia (Sydney) who started it last year, and this year it’s going global. Toronto is one of the cities that will participate. My apartment building will participate too. And so will I.

Just like most people in Canada, I hope I can see more stars in the sky from the city. The last time I could see a lot of stars from Toronto was when we had the blackout in August 2003. It was awesome! The stars, not the blackout.

Here are some sites that you can check out about the Earth Hour: EarthHour.org, @ WWF, and @ The Toronto Star.

Will you be participating? We should let the world know that Toronto can use a lot less energy without having a blackout for a couple of days. Hehe.

Hmmm .. it would be cool to see a satelite images of cities around the world turning off their lights for an hour one after another. I should google it …. or maybe I’ll just ask the folks @ earthhour.org.