On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Once again, I will not be attending Can-Con in person this year. This is due to my continuing efforts to reduce my risk of COVID-19 reinfection and the consequences of it for me and other people.

Even if Can-Con went back from "recommended" to "required" on its masking policy, OC Transpo isn't even being allowed to bother one way or the other. As the public transit system is my main way of getting around Ottawa, and Can-Con is something I want, rather than need, to attend, it's one more thing I will forego.

I'm sorry about this.

The Tyee interviews Rachel Notley.

Desire pathways in spite of sidewalks and bike paths

How the Santa Tracker got started.

Toronto, place names and democracy as discussed by Shawn Micallef.

Trying to stay responsible in my travels...

So I subscribe to this mailing list called the Weekly Typographic, organized by the League of Movable Type. This week's instalment led me to an essay on highway signage as put together in the United States (and adapted to some extent in Canada as well):

https://www.beautifulpublicdata.com/the-style-guide-for-americas-highways-mutcd/?mc_cid=6948264b0b&mc_eid=b51f2e7655

Yes, friends and acquaintances, there is a style guide for these things, and it runs currently to over 900 pages in hardcopy format.

All those road trips my parents took me on over the years of grade school and high school...they had an effect on my choice of hobbies. License plates, highway signs...this is a part of why I got involved with Spacing Media, of course, as well as developing interests in graphic design along with comic books and science fiction in TV and film. I think I've discussed this before. Many of you reading this remember that. It seems a good idea to cover that ground anew for some of the people just starting to visit regularly.

I got my dosage yesterday.

Still masking for my public travels, and wishing more of my neighbours would get back to that habit. It would make finding and holding a new job again easier for me and any prospective employer.

Some caregivers have to enter and leave #outbreak lockdown zones via #publictransit. Can't afford cars, and bikes are out of reach too.

#BringBackMasks #CovidIsNotOver #COVIDisAirborne #OCTranspo #Ottawa #publichealth

I have since learned that Home Hardware carries KN95 masks in five-packs for a little over C$6/pack. I picked up two packs for a little over C$13, so that helps for a few more weeks.

Not a great day.

Went out for a haircut because of the interview planned for Wednesday morning, but I got to the barber shop too late in the afternoon: just after 2 PM. Long story, there, and I only had my neurology to blame for that.

Ditto for losing one of the two shopping bags I took downtown with me to the barber shop. Not sure where or how I lost it, but it's gone and I'm not getting it back. Even if it made it to OC Transpo Lost and Found at Heartwood House.

I can't yet find the right kind of bandage for the bridge of my nose. I guess I need to keep fiddling with the CPAP mask. I had a comfortable fit with the old mask for the better part of a year. Now, with this one? I had it tight enough to raise a welt.

Thanks for the suggestions thus far for dealing with the problem. I keep thinking it should be a simple matter of adjusting the fastening straps...

I didn't feel like travelling outside my neighbourhood today. But I needed the walking time, so I got it.

I went to Perfect Books this morning, having pre-paid, to pick up Stumptown V.4 and ST:DSC Wonderlands. Both books were pretty much as I expected them to be, hence worth the money and time to get them.

The trip was mildly eventful because of the weather. The trip from home to downtown requires switching from bus to train at Blair Station these days, and the rain that was being given 40% odds of happening by Environment Canada fully happened during the train ride. The "wave" passed over my route when I was between Cyrville and Tremblay Stations and left me behind when I got to UOttawa Station and - at that point - off the train.

Finally got the transit pass updated for this month - thanks again for the current unemployment insurance rules, federal government, or that (and much of my current ability to keep looking for work) might not be possible! - after I got there.

Looking at the Rideau Canal as I crossed the Corkstown Footbridge connecting the University of Ottawa's Sandy Hill campus with the "Golden Triangle" section of Centretown, I saw...a lot of underwater plant life blooming. I think that's normal most years, but with canal boat traffic largely shut down because of the Pandemic (like so much else), the greenery comes right to the surface in much of the canal that I was able to see.

Perfect Books is in the midst of an upgrade of sorts. Their longtime next-door neighbour, Elgin Jewellers, has shut down in part due to Pandemic and partly because the owner was already thinking of retiring. That decision opened up an opportunity that the bookstore has taken advantage of: to double their then-current floor-space. They'd already been managing to weather the Pandemic "storm" - and the reconstruction of Elgin Street over the year prior to the Pandemic's beginnings - fairly well due to bulk-order business, a devoted long-time walk-in clientele willing to pivot with them, and other factors. So owner Jim Sherman's taking this chance. I'd really like this to work out for him and his staff.

Maybe it's because of the binge-reading of the Retail comic strip series' archives these past few days, but I'd like to see independent bookstores - and other retailers - be able to keep going, and maybe a little bit of careful growth, too.

And that leads me to my next reiteration: that we need a better "new normal" to move into from these Pandemic times. I worry that we're not going to get that better "new normal" because of far too many reasons right now.