dewline | Entries tagged with byward market

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.

Current Mood: guilty
Current Location: Home-for-now

Went downtown for magazines and/or books - properly masked - and to reassure myself about several businesses whose well-being I've come to value over the years.

Globe Mags and Cigars, check.

Eclection Fanfreluche, check. (They sold me a salt-and-pepper shaker set I liked the looks of, and the owner is a fellow Intelligence fan.)

After I left Chapters/Indigo-Rideau, though, was when I encountered the annoying fright: an anti-masker. Black hair, Northern Euro-Canadian, age roughly 40-50...and frighteningly obnoxious about her anti-mask-ness, demanding to know why I was masked up. I managed to skirt around her, even as she kept ranting at me.

The memory-shock has stuck with me on the transit ride back out to Orléans and into the evening, though.

I could have handled everything else well enough but for that encounter, I think.

Not everyone likes seeing other people trying to watch out for one another. Clearly.

Dammit.

Spending the rest of the day continuing the housekeeping work re: the new iMac. Examples of priorities?

Architecture/3D design: Looks like SketchUp 7 still works. Once I plugged in the license data, it reactivated on the new machine just fine. I doubt I can afford to update to a version new enough to really use High Sierra any time soon, though.

Photo-Comic design: ComicLife needs updating, but that might be easier and much less financially painful than I might fear.

Astronomy: Gaia Sky still won't work. It shuts down less than a minute after I try to launch it. I really want a proper piece of modern planetarium-ware, and this one from Heidelberg University looks like it will do well enough for now. If I can get it to work. Other Mac users manage well enough, and there's apparently a fix available.

Comic-bookery: I'm still adding materials, brushes, 3D models, colour sets, etc. to Clip Studio Paint at a steady clip. If it's free and it looks like I can use it, I grab it.

More as any of us thinks of it.

*hands over the mic to the audience...*

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Home
Current Music: "Beat and the Pulse" - Austra

These two are still around. Whether they survive the pandemic of 2020...?

Current Mood: busy

I spent more than a few Fridays (when I was between jobs) and Sundays (whether I had one or not) at Patty Boland Pub in the ByWard Market. Most of those Sundays were because of meetings of ByMUG, which is still an ongoing concern for users of Apple gear across Ottawa, thankfully. Patty's in the Market is no more, sadly.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: "Broken Arrow" - ABC

Lou's Boot Corner has since been succeeded by a John Fleuvog Shoes location. Not a place I feel comfortable shopping for footwear, even when I'm financially healthier these days because "high end".

As for Globe Mags and Cigars two doors northwards, there, in the same image...that's a newsstand I want to start visiting again, because New York Times hardcopy editions. I fear for the people running the store, as much as for the store itself right now.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: The Current on CBC Radio

From the ByWard Market that morning...

Current Mood: contemplative

This opened for business this month, right across the hall from the Disney Store.

And I understand they're actively looking into alternatives to petroleum byproducts for their signature product line, so there's that to take note of in future. The article in that link is from 2018, but a year can be both a short time and a long time, depending on the context.

I expect they'll be seeing lots of business from the local fan club.

Current Mood: busy

So I'm going to this shindig put together by the Ottawa Browncoats today downtown. Not sure of my arrival time or how long I'll be staying.

More later...

Current Mood: busy

is this event:

http://www.meetup.com/ottawasfs-ca/events/178664842/

If you're in downtown Ottawa tomorrow night...?

Current Mood: hopeful

From this morning's hardcopy edition of the Ottawa Citizen, by David Reevely:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Uncertainty+over+Lansdowne+cinema+engulfs+World+Exchange/8864752/story.html

A couple of reactions...

1. As I told Reevely on Facebook, having read the article, I'm surprised that the movie-screening rooms at Place de Ville are still intact after two decades, given that so much else of the underground mall there as originally built is now given over to governmental offices and meeting spaces.

2. I see that Diane Deans has reached a similar opinion to mine re: the downtown core and the expected influx of new residents adding to the need for cinema screening rooms. Could there be an impetus sufficient to rescue World Exchange, revive Rideau Centre *and* Place de Ville, and preserve Lansdowne, Mayfair and Bytowne?

Current Mood: curious

Passing this along in case any of my friendlisters with interests in the Market want to speak up on the subject.

Originally posted by

rfmcdpei at [URBAN NOTE] "ByWard Market food stalls in danger, report finds"

Can Ottawans tell me if this CBC report about the Canadian capital's iconic ByWard Market is accurate?

A U.S. consulting firm says farmer stalls at the ByWard Market could disappear unless significant changes are made to the way they're managed.

The New York-based Project for Public Spaces said in a report presented to the city last month that the market's traditional purpose — a destination for fresh, locally-grown produce — has been lost.

Instead, bars, restaurants and other businesses put the needs of tourists ahead of the needs of residents, the report finds.

Creating a private, non-profit corporation to run the market, as Montreal and London have done, is just one of the firm's recommendations.

Other ideas include free parking for shoppers who buy a certain amount of fresh food, as well as subsidized rent for local food sellers.

In the long-term, the report suggests creating a new central plaza.

Current Mood: curious

Ogilvy's - After the Crash, a set on Flickr.

A week or so ago, a planned "slow" and partial demolition of the old Ogilvy's Department Store Building in Ottawa's ByWard Market district intended to be partially reversed to the effect of recreating a five-story building as a three-story facility went somewhat...awry. These photos depict the state of the building as of Easter Sunday 2013.

A Good Place in the Market, a photo by dwight_ew on Flickr.

One of my preferred hangouts when I'm in the ByWard Market...and perhaps strangely (or not), I've yet to consume a drop of beer or wine or anything else with alcohol in it in that venue. If I've overloaded on anything liquid in Patty's, it's probably cranberry juice!

Owing wtl a debt of thanks for introducing me to Patty's as a place to visit for a couple of hours every few weeks via forming ByMUG...

Current Mood: tired

Pipers at Freiman
Originally uploaded by dwight_ew

Live music is sometimes a "peril" of travelling downtown, and the quotes are there for a reason.

This bunch was just outside the Bay in the Byward Market yesterday, and while I can't speak competently to the dancers' abilities, I thought the pipers had a solid grasp of their particular artform.

Anyone know who they are?