NOW PLAYING AT THE ROSE THEATRE IN BRAMPTON ONTARIO CANADAThe other night we had the pleasure of watching the live performance of SIX DANCE LESSONS IN SIX WEEKS.  It was really a great show, amazing actually when you consider there were only two performers.  Well two famous performers that is. Constance Towers, none other than the villainess Helena Cassadine from General Hospital fame and Jason Graae the voice of the Lucky Leprechaun for Lucky Charms among other things including a one-man show!  Yes, he definitely had the energy for that!This interesting two person play, was backed by an outstanding 14 member creative and production team, including the remarkable director Costin Manu. Costin Manu himself, has produced over 50 plays, directed nearly twice that many and has also acted in ... 01/16/2010

Currently in Peel region  the kindergarten children attend school for half a day everyday from Monday to Friday. Starting next fall, the Ministry of Education will begin phasing in full-day early learning for up to 35,000 four- and five-year old students in Ontario. The ministry has approved the following full-day early learning program sites in Peel board schools beginning Sept. 2010:   Mississauga Brampton Brandon Gate P.S. Hanover P.S. Brian W. Fleming P.S. Madoc Drive P.S. Brookmede P.S. Massey Street P.S. Cooksville Creek P.S. Queen Street P.S. Dixie P.S. Ridgeview P.S. Ellengale P.S. Sir Winston Churchill P.S. Elmcrest P.S. Springdale P.S. Floradale P.S. Thorndale P.S. Marvin Heights P.S.   Plowman's Park P.S.   Riverside P.S.   Thorn Lodge P.S.     For more information on this pr... 01/14/2010

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO DO DURING THE WINTER OF 2010? CHECK OUT THE ROSE THEATRE IN BRAMPTON ONTARIOHow about taking in a live show at Brampton, Ontario, Canada's renown and beautiful Rose Theatre? This outstanding theatre built on top of a pre-existing parking garage, opened with much anticipation in 2006, selling approximately $600,000 worth of subscription tickets in a mere eight weeks! The opening gala featured an appropriate flower clad grand piano in honour of the City of Brampton, the 'Flower City'. For the last three and half years there have been a variety of shows to meet everyone's taste and a host of famous actors and groups.The unique horseshoe shape structure has over 950 seats and has excellent uniformity sound distribution, which is critical in live theatre. Parking? No... 01/10/2010

Hello To Our Active Rain Friends, Yesterday we posted the following: We were just sitting here listening to Cousin Brucie on Sirius/XM and thought that there must be a few of you out there up for a little Name That Photo... really Who's House Is This.  No, it's on the Whitehouse.  This house is somewhere between Toronto, Ontario Canada and Marco Island Florida.  We didn't just pass by it, we searched it out.  We were hoping to stop for tea, but there was no answer.   We had some great guesses and even a couple of right answers.  Marc said he did his research and figured out it was the home of Alan Jackson but went on to say he never heard of him.  Now, Marc is either too busy selling houses or only has classical music playing on his Ipod. For, Marc and all of you who love Alan Jackson, ... 01/10/2010

Brampton and Greater Toronto Area Resale Real Estate Market Resilient in 2009 January 6, 2010 -- Greater Toronto REALTORS® reported 87,308 MLS® transactions in 2009 - a 17 per cent increase over 2008. This result included 5,541 sales in December. The 2009 result was in line with the healthy levels of sales experienced between 2004 and 2006, but lower than the record of 93,193 set in 2007. Please read the complete story and Market Watch Report on my blog at: www.AceTeamRealty.com/blog Thinking of selling your Mississauga or Brampton real estate and want to know the market value of your home, log on to www.MyGTAHomeValue.com for a FREE computerized analysis of your home value. Shopping for your dream home, log on to www.FindMyGTAHome.comfor a FREE online home-search service. Then each mor... 01/08/2010

It is said that Marco Island, Florida has some of the best sunsets.  If you were lucky to be there in early January 2010, here are a couple of sunsets you missed.There is a lot more to do on Marco Island, how about a sail in the Gulf of Mexico. The building just to the right of centre, top left corner is where we stayed at the Charter Club (great place) The neat thing about sunsets they are all similiar but all different.  You will never find two the same.Oh yea, the weather, the beaches, the people are all great also.       There is a lot more to do on Marco Island, how about a sail in the Gulf of Mexico. The building just to the right of centre, top left corner is where we stayed at the Charter Club (great place)   01/08/2010

The hours of 2009 are ticking away.  What else can happen before we usher in 2010? There is going to be a full moon on New Year's Eve.  Here is what it looks like tonight.       This full moon is not just any old full moon, this full moon is a Blue Moon.  What is a blue moon, is it really blue? If you were to check "Wikipedia" it would tell you this: "A blue moon is a full moon that is not timed to the regular monthly pattern. Most years have twelve full moons which occur approximately monthly, but in addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains an excess of roughly eleven days compared to the lunar year. The extra days accumulate, so that every two or three years (on average about every 2.7154 years[1]), there is an extra full moon. The extra moon is ca... 12/30/2009

Do you see a lot of open house signs in Brampton? The weekend open house is a time-honored tradition in real estate sales, but has it outlived its effectiveness? Quite possibly, according to a new survey conducted by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. The survey results hint at the notion that public open houses may be more beneficial for the agents themselves than for the home sellers. Almost all the agents who responded to the survey (97 percent) had held public open houses, but only 41 percent believe those events help sell the home that’s being showcased. Thirty-two percent believe public open houses attract many potential buyers for other Brampton properties, but nearly three-fourths also believe those buyers are more likely to buy a home other than the one being held ... 12/21/2009

Harmonized Sales Tax Would Hurt Home Buyers TREB President™s Column as it appears in the Toronto Sun™s Resale Homes and Condos section Realtors have been calling for governments at all levels to take action on the economy, and, next week, the provincial government will have an opportunity to do its part when it reveals the details of its annual budget. Ironically, given some of the talk coming from Queen Park lately, what the Province doesnt do may be even more important than what it does. In recent months, Premier McGuinty has been publicly talking about the possibility of combining the five percent federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) with the eight per cent Provincial Sales Tax (PST), to create a single Harmonized Sales Tax (HST). On the surface, this may seem rather benign, but the ... 12/21/2009

Growing debt threatens economic stability: BOC With household debt-to-income ratios in Canada at historical highs, the Bank of Canada is warning both borrowers and financial institutions to practice caution, particularly when it comes to mortgage lending. "Financial institutions need to carefully consider the aggregate risk to their entire portfolio of household exposures when evaluating even an insured mortgage, since a household defaulting on an insured mortgage would likely be unable to meet its other debt obligations," the central bank's financial system review said. On the borrower side, the bank stressed the need for households to "assess their ability to service these debt obligations over their entire maturity, taking into account likely changes in both income and interest rates... 12/16/2009

  The Official Neck Exercise... Another Exercise That Will Make You Feel Good!!!   Did you try it, how did it feel?  Keep it handy, you may want to do this little exercise several times a day.  It only take a few seconds, but if you read it a couple of times it may take a little longer but ohhhhhhh it feels so good. Guess the next step is to work on those abs... back to midnight TV, they always have the answers. 12/15/2009

Is the Asian Carp coming to a lake near you?   In the 1970's the Asian Carp was introduced into the US by fish farmers from Arkansas to help with the spread of algae.  Was enough research done, maybe not.  The Asian Carp can eat up to 50% of their body weight daily in plankton, this could starve out smaller and less aggressive fish. Some 20 years later the silver and bighead Asian Carp escaped from the fish farms during the flooding of the Mississippi River.  The carp have been travelling north towards the Great Lakes through the Chicago canal.  In the early 2000's the fishing authorities were installing electric barriers that they hoped would cause the fish to change their course and spare the Great Lakes.  Recent DNA testing is concluding that some carp have made it by the electric ba... 12/14/2009

LED vs. INCANDESCENT LIGHTING... What Kind of Lights Are You Using? A local energy company has lite up a park with Christmas lights to show how the new LED lights look.  They have come a long way in the last year or so.  When they were first introduced they were not very bright.  Have a look below, they look pretty good now and save a lot of energy at the same time.  So now you don't have to be afraid of a huge electric bill... so hop in the car and go and get your lights today and show them off, right here on Active Rain next Speechless Sunday. Check the difference in the cost to run the lights on the sign.  A true savings in energy and they look just as good or even better than the old incandescent lights. Here is another sample of the LED lights by one of our neighbours. Merry Christ... 12/13/2009

Do You Have "Intermittent Explosive Disorder"?  16 Million Americans Do... Road Rage, have you ever been a part of it.  Patients and tempers are at their peak during the busy shopping season and things won't get any better in the days ahead. Take a couple of minutes and watch this short video, it is sure to help you through the peak "Road Rage" that is sure to be out there until the new year has struck. How To Prevent Road Rage on Howcast  12/13/2009

It may seem that a realtor's access to the Multiple Listing Service is the most significant reason for working with a real estate professional. While realtors can use the MLS to match your housing preferences with available properties and help you establish realistic expectations if you're selling, it is just one of several tools they use to offer you professional advice  I can also, for example, access the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation's database to provide you with valuable insight into current taxes on individual properties, ownership histories and lot size specifics. Using Teranet's GeoWarehouse, I can retrieve even more information that is useful in the decision-making process like streetscape imagery, mapped neighbourhood sales, and average local incomes. As well, if y... 12/11/2009

Wordless Wednesday And Yes We Were When We Looked Outside Today!!! Good Morning Active Rainers and a good snow morning for you in the north.We guess old man Winter woke up early, doesn't he know that winter doesn't start for a couple of weeks.Look what we woke up to see today.  Might as well get something good out of this.  The pictures below were taken on a point and shoot Panasonic DMC-TZ3, one through the glass at the front of the house and one out the back door.  We never touched them up, what you see is what the camera saw.However, the pictures on top were taken in the "normal" picture setting and the pictures on the bottom were taken on the "snow"setting.  Do you see the difference.  Don't look at my topsy turvy, didn't get it taken down yet.Most point and shoot cameras have diffe... 12/09/2009

WAR - What Does It Solve? Last night we watched the movie "Pearl Harbor" starring a host of actors including Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale and Cuba Gooding Jr.  Most of us will never know how real the movie protrayed this awful event that took place at Pearl Harbor 68 years plus a day ago.  Leaving over 2,400 dead and hundreds and hundreds wounded. What is war all about... POWER, MONEY and RELIGION.  Wouldn't it be nice if for just once there was no fighting going on anywhere on the planet.  We all treated each other according to the "Golden Rule", helped each other and shared with each other. If we took all the money being spent on war and directed it to the problems of the world, there is nothing that can not be solved. Yet, POWER, MONEY and RELIGION rule.  The leaders o... 12/07/2009

Greater Toronto Area Real Estate Home Sales Remain Strong in November December 3, 2009-- Greater Toronto REALTORS® reported 7,446 sales in November - slightly more than double the November 2008 result when GTA home sales had dipped markedly due to the economic downturn. Year-to-date sales were up 14 per cent compared to the first 11 months of 2008."This year in the GTA home sales will be in line with the healthy levels experienced between 2004 and 2006," said Toronto Real Estate Board President Tom Lebour. "Increased resale home transactions in the Toronto area and country-wide played a key role in pushing the Canadian economy out of recession in the third quarter."Read the Complete Storey and Market Watch Report on my blogsite at http://www.aceteamrealty.com/Blog Manoj Kumar Arora, Bro... 12/04/2009

Do You Say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?   Christians around the world have been celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ for over 2000 years now.  The day set for celebrating is December 25th.  Usually starting around the first of December people would say their goodbyes with a Merry Christmas. In recent years someone thought it unfair for other religions to say Merry Christmas and thought that everyone should be included and that Happy Holidays would be more appropriate.  Personally we still believe that Merry Christmas is a reminder of Christ's birth and it should stay like that. All other religions have their special days of celebration and have not to our knowledge included the Christians in their celebrations. We have no bones to pick with any other religions.  Be part of our ce... 12/02/2009

THE CURE FOR THE AFTERMATH OF THANKSGIVING DINNER? Tummy full, bloated or expanded?  Feeling sluggish, lethargic and ready for a nap? Try this for a little fun and energizing.Get yourself the Wii-Fit and for a distraction Celine Dion's "A New Day" live from Las Vegas DVD.  Yes, they will work together.  Now while we find the little Mii's on the Wii-fit very cute and easy to follow, after a tummy stretching meal like the one you may have just indulged in the past few days, we have to pull out the big gun exercise.  The 2400 step routine.  To watch the little Mii's step for that long is, well, somewhat of a stretch (no pun intended).         The simple solution?  Plop in an entertaining musical DVD to keep yourself amused as you step. We enjoyed Celine's both for the music and the enterta... 11/28/2009