As I was leaving the house this morning to get on my bike, I noticed a thick shimmering spider web strung between our rose bushes. As I bent down to look I came face to face with something hovering on a nearly invisible web – this enormous 2 and a half inch long Orb Weaver [...]

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Natasha and I joined some visiting friends on a haunted walk of Ottawa! I’m probably the last guy you’d want to invite on a haunted anything, but I bit my tongue and had a lot of fun. I learned a few things too – did you know that the east end of Sparks Street is [...]

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I became interested in Ottawa’s hidden lakes when I had an extra-long wait one rainy afternoon at a bus stop. The OC Transpo route map has bodies of water marked out in a weird shade of blue that makes all the little urban tributaries pop off the page. I couldn’t believe how many lakes and [...]

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We headed up the day after Canada Day to Pink Lake, to do our yearly hike around the rare blue-green “meromictic” watering hole. We picked a perfect day for it, too – blue skies and a nice cool breeze.
We saw turtles! And fish! And … leeches. UGH. You’re not allowed to swim in there for [...]

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I managed to compose a much better picture this evening thanks to having a bit more light to work with at dusk. The ISS didn’t stand out as much against the light sky, but at least now you can see that it drew a clear sharp line as it descended into my neighbour’s yard. [...]

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I wouldn’t say I was traumatized by the big Ottawa Earthquake on the 23rd – in fact I found it really rad – but ever since we had a good shake I’ve become hyper-aware of ground tremors.
You’d think stuff stays pretty stationary most of the time, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at [...]

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I was lucky to catch a (blurry) photo this evening of the ISS flying over Ottawa as it does a couple of rare orbits across the night and day line of the earth (the terminator). As it goes over us in the dark, it’s still in the light of the sun, reflecting super brightly. Here [...]

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So the original dragonboating prize-pack I had in mind didn’t materialise in the way I’d hoped, so I’ve thought of something way better:  Sponsor me for my dragon-boat race this weekend and I’ll compose an epic song about you detailing your incredible awesomeness. It will even contain an assortment of rhyming words!
Sponsor me here!
Your sponsorship [...]

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It surprises me how many people still haven’t heard of Westfest. Westboro’s clever new business development association reacted to a huge street & sewer repair debacle that nearly wiped out a number of businesses on Richmond by throwing a huge yearly street party. It’s getting pretty massive.
This year’s Saturday night headliners were Sloan, who [...]

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Be on the lookout for this little feathered hooligan, going around from neighborhood to neighborhood taking baths in people’s backyards. (In my replica roman rain chalice! The nerve!) I snapped a couple of pics of him making a mess before flying away.

This is actually how I take a bath, too. Stand up on [...]

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