Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/article/626607 I have received feedback from readers (which is very very rare for my condo stories) already. These four emails were posted on the Toronto Star site. Don't disagree with any of them! sl119 mf123, Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah, familyof3, Saime: You miss the point. Condo markets attract a certain kind of customer with a particular mindset. This kind of customer wants only a condo, regardless of the deals on homes with yards or other opportunities out there. These condos attract people with money (and these people are clearly, at least monetarily, not an "average family"), and they don't mind the prices. There will always be people out there who will scoop these condos up. Submitted by Sherry119 at 5:41 PM Monday, May 04 2009 | A million for a 2.5 bedroom or... how about some acreage with a big home just on the outskirts of Burlington? Even $400 000 for a 2 bedroom plus den is ridiculous. Again, in the 905 you could pick up a nice

' DIVINE DIVE PICTURES Olympus Puts The Bite on Underwater Digital Picture Taking Market For divers, swimmers and snorkellers By Stephen Weir 3 May 2009 …By Man-Eating standards, this was a very small shark. She was as big as my two fellow underwater photographers swimming hell-bent-for-rubber towards her. But, what with the cameras in their waterproof housings, aluminum scuba tanks and chewy neoprene wet suits, there was far too much bulk approaching even for a hungry 2-metre long Ginglymostoma Cirratum. After my strobe (underwater flash) fired, the grey Nurse Shark shook her large dorsal fin and leisurely swam through a cut in the living Florida Keys reef and headed into the gloom. Probably in Havana by now. With only one large fish shot to show for an hour of diving, and my air supply dwindling, I quickly scanned the lush shallow reef for something - anything – big to shoot. There! Up above, hovering around the coral-encrusted bow of a WW2 shipwreck, were a dozen 2-metre long

. TEN THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT SCUBA DIVING IF YOU INTEND ON BECOMING AN UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHER More people have taken pictures from inside the International Space Station than have dove down and taken photographs of the wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald. Lake bottoms, rivers beds and the ocean floor are truly the final frontiers. If you use scuba gear to take pictures you must be a certified diver (there many levels and types of certification). It is estimated that there are about half a million people in this country who are active scuba divers … a growing number of them own cameras. So, what does one need to know to join the growing rank of Canadians who live to spend time breathing air from an aluminum cylinder? 1. Age. Some scuba training agencies begin teaching students at the age of 10. Last year, Bert Killade, the self-styled “Last Pirate of the Caribbean”, died at the age of 94. Killade claimed to have been the oldest active sport diver. 2. Ability. You should know how to swi

' Snorkeling is a gentle sport that is safe, fun and healthy. Unlike scuba diving, one doesn’t need a course before getting wet. Snorkeling leaves no carbon footprint, doesn’t harm the underwater environment and requires little gear beyond a mask, a set of fins, and of course the snorkel. Depending on where you are, a wet suit and a weight belt (to neutralize the buoyancy of the suit) should be worn. While there are advantages to taking pictures underwater using scuba gear (you can stay up to 90 minutes underwater to get a good photograph and you can go deep to take pictures), there are many photographers and videographers who prefer snorkeling and free diving. SIDEBAR: FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SNORKELING AND PHOTOGRAPHY Interested in snorkeling? Consider the following: 1. Only David Blaine can stay underwater for more than 15-minutes (and we aren’t sure he didn’t have a secret supply of air). Some free divers can stay underwater for 10-minutes (and reach incrediable d

- Producer and Musical Director Maribeth Solomon (right) attend opening of Imax Under the Sea at the Ontario Science Centre in April. At the Opening - Story to Follow

. Toronto Dive Industry on the Ropes? First signs that the current recession is taking its toll of Toronto's scuba industry appeared early in 2009 when the classey Toronto dive shop, Waterline, quietly closed its doors. The dive store, located on Avenue Road in the heart of Lawrence Park, one of Toronto's most affluent neighbourhood, has been servicing sport divers since 1992. The shop, established by Wendy Rutherford and her late husband Craig, was a full service store. It offered equipment, repairs, classes and popular dive trips. Waterline was the first shop to use the Internet to effectively communicate with divers throughout the city. Rutherford has always believed in having a close relationship with the dive community. On her website she has long said that the goal of her store was "to provide top-quality merchandise from companies which stand behind their products and value customer satisfaction, and to provide incredible customer service by knowing our products,

. Early version of a piece written for Sunwings' inflight magazine, summer 2009 edition There is a myth about Canadians that just won’t go away. It says that we are a nation of hewers of wood and drawers of water. Truth is, most Canucks live in urban communities within 150kms of the American border, our trees are for shade and the water comes right out of the tap. A visit to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario (just north of the City of Toronto) shows, however, that the myth has done some good things for the country. The publicly owned gallery is the only major art gallery in the country that solely collects and exhibits Canadian Art, and its most prized works were created by the Group of Seven, painters who painted the myth! In 1920, seven artists – Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley, Frank Johnston, Franklin Carmichael and A.Y. Jackson – decided, for the first time, to exhibit as the Group of Seven. The Group’s first exhib