On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Wildlife I Have Seen This Labour Day Weekend

Sun, 05 Sep 2021 00:55:26 GMT

I got out of the house for a while today. Took the bus to Beechwood Cemetery to inspect the family plot, and it turned into a walking tour of the cemetery as a whole. From Poets' Hill to St. Laurent Boulevard took me roughly an hour.

The weird highlight was seeing two wild turkeys wandering quietly through the RCMP section. I did take pictures, and I hope to upload the imagery to Flickr at some point.

comments

Walking Tours

Wed, 11 Aug 2021 17:52:29 GMT

I have really got to do a walking tour of the city. Or pull together enough of my Flickr collection to turn into a story for here.

comments

Wandering - Late February 2021

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 01:05:08 GMT

I did a potentially foolish thing this afternoon.

I went to Perfect Books to pick up my copy of Rob Sawyer's Oppenheimer Alternative. Rob had a lot of fun and some eye-opening research moments in putting that book together, and I know he was looking forward to the promotional trail to support it once it hit the bookstores. Alas, Pandemic didn't and still doesn't give a damn about any of our plans. Including Rob's.

So, it's been months since the release, and I finally found financial room for this book a couple of weeks ago. But I put off picking it up until today. The delay was due mainly to the lockdowns' influence. Perfect Books is in the middle of Centretown, and I live out in Orléans. Which meant an Expedition. Bus and O-Train ride, both ways. In "normal" times, I wouldn't give this a second thought.

Anyway, I took that risk today. Perfect Books, then checking in on Randy Pippus and his games shop, Fandom II on Laurier West near the OPL Main Branch. Stop at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to unburden my sense of guilt, as I sometimes do during the winter months when there's no honor guard on duty to overhear me. Then walking up to Chapters Rideau to window-shop, and over to Globe Mags and Cigars for today's newspapers, and dropping in on some friends running another shop in the Market before catching the O-Train and bus back home.

I got some decent walking exercise today. I probably risked more than ten lives of people whose names are definitely known to me in the process. A lot more whose names I don't know, surely.

These trips haven't backfired yet that I know of...and I'm paranoically certain that one of them will.

comments

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 14:39:20 GMT

The bird-feeder hanging in the back yard is getting business. Squirrels are running this way and that, up and down tree branches and across the yards, front and back. At least one cat per month on average is getting the attention that requires "Missing" posters being taped onto community mailboxes. I've got a follow-up dental appointment tomorrow, and probably one more day of data entry work to finish after that's done. Also, I need to talk with my CPAP machine supplier about paperwork I believe I should have signed by now. The job search continues. This afternoon, ByMUG has a Zoom meeting for me to be part of.

Meantime, I have compression socks to take out of the wash to air-dry.

comments

FLICKR: Christmas Eve's Morning on William Street

Sun, 29 Dec 2019 19:00:09 GMT

From the ByWard Market that morning...

comments

Labour Day 2019

Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:22:12 GMT

It was a good walk keeping up with the parade. It felt at times, though, as if I was getting too far ahead of the column, even with the change of route. Hoping to upload images to my Flickr account later tonight after supper. There were a lot of images, as per usual.

comments

A Shortcut Restored For Now

Mon, 22 Jul 2019 20:41:18 GMT

I've used this pathway on occasion over the decades since moving to Ottawa. It's good to have it back in service again for any and all citizens.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/parliament-hill-path-reopens-floods-ottawa-1.5220543

comments

A Belated Thought of Remembrance

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 14:43:45 GMT

Originally written for the Pen and Paper Workshop...

Cold Air, Firmly in Place – Dwight Williams - 14 November 2017

The cold air stays in place now. November is half done, and the cold air preceding the stronger snowfalls to come is firmly in place. There’s no evading it any longer.

The snowfall mentioned a moment ago is still maybe a few weeks away from properly installing itself across the streets and fields. That can’t be helped. Even allowing for climate derangement and the delays and tempering that it now brings to the equation, that snow will come.

Those of us who travel in this newly returned chill must make their preparations accordingly. There is no way around that need.

When I went downtown to observe the Remembrance Day ceremonies this past weekend, I bundled up. Three above-the-waist layers under the jacket. Gloves. Two under-the-pants layers. Yes, there were also over-socks on top of the compression socks I wear for circulation reasons.

You can argue that I was foolish in taking off the gloves to work cell-phone or camera as I believed the moment required. I usually take pictures of the ceremonies when I attend in person. Sometimes, I’ve posted copies of the images to my Flickr account for the public to look at if it suits them. It usually costs my hands a bit of comfort to do that.

As I write this, I’ve yet to upload those images. I chalk that up to concerns over hard drive space on my computer. You can expect that I’ll figure out a solution in due time. Dumping a few duplicate files here and there isn’t an impossibility.

This year, I took a different vantage. Most years, my chosen spot is along Elgin Street, usually either south or west of the War Memorial. Not this time. The northeastern corner of the square, along Rideau Street. In front of the Chateau Laurier, looking southward. That meant coping with the glare of the sun to some extent.

This isn’t impossible at this time of year for either me or the camera. But it is problematic. You’re warned often enough, by professional and amateur photographers alike, not to aim right at the sun when you shoot outdoors. The sensor can be damaged, burned out. A good thing, then, that I didn’t make that mistake.

Anyway, back to the hands. It did cost me some comfort to get those images. I waited, foolishly, until I’d moved on from the ceremony itself to the Peacekeepers’ Monument to put the gloves back on. There was a bit more wandering after that: from Reconciliation Square – a personal name for the Monument site – to Patty Boland Pub to the ByWard Market Building to Globe Mags and Cigars to lunch in the Rideau Centre. At which point, I decided I was aching too much to not go straight home.

I didn’t get images of the collected wreaths at the Tomb. Sorry.

comments