pjstock's Podcast

Still looking for a stocking stuffer for the cyclist on your shopping
list?

A bike posted on eBay by La Carrera bike shop in Toronto might just be the ticket.

Though it's actually not even a complete bike - just a frame and fork.
No wheels, no seat, no handlebars, no brakes....

But a bike for sale on eBay isn't news (there are currently 7,611 bikes
listed for sale on eBay North America.)
What makes this a story is the price tag - Fifty Thousand Dollars! ($50,000).
That's about 15-20x what the best bikes in the world normally sell for.
Oh and you pay another hundred bucks for shipping.

And, the shop owner, Nadir Olivet, thinks he has a buyer at over that price.

I visited the shop last week and interviewed Olivet to find out how
such a seemingly insane price could be possible (hint: it has to do with a famous artist), and what makes this bike so special.

Following on Montreal's success BIXI is proposed to launch in Toronto in spring 2011.

BIXI is a public bike system which will allow subscribers ($95 per year, $40 per month, $5 per day) unlimited use of 1000 bikes from 80 docking stations around the downtown core. The initial 30 minutes is free.

But before the private company that will operate BIXI will go ahead, they want to see at least 1000 subscribers by the end of November 2010.
To find out more about BIXI Peter Stock met with , Daniel Egan, the man behind Toronto's cycling infrastructure. He also visited a BIXI demo and interviewed some Torontonians about whether they'll sign up.

This is the preview clip of the first 5 minutes of the full "Where in the World is Don Gamble?" documentary.

"Haven't you ever just wanted to chuck it all in, and escape a daily
routine that you felt was wearing you down? Just sell the house, the car, give up the electronic gadgetry, the monthly bills, the commute...

We all have. But few of us have the courage to just do it.

Top environmental consultant Don Gamble did find the courage to do just
that back in the early 1990s.

Feeling disillusioned with the international environmental impact
assessments he was working on, he bailed out, gave it all up,
rediscovered yoga and meditation and found... peace."

A cottage owner awakes one morning to find part of her dream property surveyed, flagged and clearcut by a uranium prospecting company.

A strictly vegetarian restaurant is required to do thousands of dollars of renovations to bring it up to new meat-handling standards.

A First Nations tribe is required to barricade their property to prevent industrial harvesting of their ancestral wild rice crops.

These battles are just a few of the startling, incomprehensible but almost completely unreported stories recounted in Thomas Pawlick's latest book “The War in the Country: How the fight to save Rural Life will shape our Future.”

Country life is not as quaint, cozy and idylic as it would first seem. It's a jungle out there. To learn more about what the heck is going on on the front lines, Take 5 contributor Peter Stock reached Thomas Pawlick at his farm in Eastern Ontario.

A cottage owner awakes one morning to find part of her dream property surveyed, flagged and clearcut by a uranium prospecting company.

A strictly vegetarian restaurant is required to do thousands of dollars of renovations to bring it up to new meat handling standards.

A first nations tribe is requred to barricade their property to prevent industrial harvesting of their ancestral wild rice crops.

These battles are just a few of the startling, incomprehensible but almost completely unreported stories recounted in Thomas Pawlick's latest book “The War in the Country: How the fight to save Rural Life will shape our Future.”

Country life is not as quaint, cozy and idylic as it would first seem. It's a jungle out there.

To learn more about what the heck is going on on the front lines, Take 5 contributor Peter Stock reached Thomas Pawlick at his farm in Eastern Ontario.

In 2007 I reported on the Tree Museum, an annual outdoor sculpture exhibit on a 200-acre wilderness space near Gravenhurst Ontario, about 2 hours north of Toronto.

On Labour Day this year, I returned with friends for the 2009 opening, to see what was new, and to speak with featured artists Dyan Marie and Ed Pien.

One Sunday afternoon in late september, I was driving along a rural road outside of Gravenhurst, north of Toronto. I turned a corner and saw two people waving cars into an improvised parking lot in a field. Alongside was a sign marked "Tree Museum". I was so intrigued that I had to stop and investigate.

This is the report.

Something strange happens every Wednesday evening down at the Dominion Pub on Queen Street East in Toronto.

Starting at about 730pm, a stream of customers -- young, old, male, female -- trickle into Toronto's second oldest pub, all clutching tiny instrument cases under their arms.

No, it's not a reenactment of the St. Valentines Day massacre. These are ukulele enthusiasts, coming together for their regular Corktown Ukulele Jam, a weekly workshop and open mic show.

I dropped in for a visit this Spring and prepared this documentary.

An insider's take on what to watch for when watching the Tour de France bike race.

Producers notes: I just had a laugh doing this piece. I'm a keen cyclist and so thought about banging out something just before the start of the 2007 Tour. For it, I interviewed Mike Barry, father of pro racer Michael, Barry and Toronto lawyer and top amateur racer Tim Buckley.

this piece was done for The Green Majority environmental show on CIUT. It combines some very practical E-lawn care tips with some quirky twists on the topic.

From January 22 through until March 8, 2009 a most unusual art "intervention" ran at Honest Eds, Toronto's historic discount retailer.

Artist Iris Haussler invited Torontoians to lend a treasured article of clothing, along with a personal story related to that item. Show visitors could then borrow the clothing -- a jacket, a sweater, a pair of shoes, a dress -- and wear it themselves for one week.

This is a documentary about the show.

What's it like to live in the same house your great-great-grandfather built? Musician and urban observer David Newland takes us for a walk through Toronto's working class Riverside neighbourhood to the very modest house that has been home for his family for five generations. Along the way he reminisces about a neighbourhood in transition.

Who'da thunk thought that an idea bred in a college dorm room would turn the music distribution world on its head. Ten years ago, that's exactly what Napster did.

And since 2006 an Amsterdam-based Internet company called Sellaband has been trying to do the same thing. By cutting out the record companies and matching unsigned musicians directly with fans willing to chip in a few bucks to finance a first album, Sellaband is democratizing Artist & Repertoire side of the music business.

The Rotman School of Management has been studying the phenomenon of community funding and recently brought Sellaband CEO Johan Vosmeijer and Canadian Sellaband recording artist Angie Arsenault to Toronto for a presentation and concert.

I attended, and then sold this report to CBC Radio National Syndication.

Roger Martin is the Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. In this podcast I interview Roger about his latest book, "The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking"

Publisher's Weekly describes the book as follows: "In this primer on the problem-solving power of "integrative thinking," Martin draws on more than 50 management success stories, including the masterminds behind The Four Seasons, Proctor & Gamble and eBay, to demonstrate how, like the opposable thumb, the "opposable mind"-Martin's term for the human brain's ability "to hold two conflicting ideas in constructive tension"-is an intellectually advantageous evolutionary leap through which decision-makers can synthesize "new and superior ideas." Using this strategy, Martin focuses on what leaders think, rather than what they do. Among anecdotes and examples steering readers to change their thinking about thinking, Martin gives readers specific strategies for understanding their own "personal knowledge system" (by parsing inherent qualities of "stance," "tools" and "experience"), as well as for taking advantage of the "richest source of new insight into a problem," the "opposing model." Each of the eight chapters is well organized, making for a clear and cumulative read. Part inspiration, part logic lesson, this title will provide fresh perspective for anyone prepared to dust off her thinking cap."

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