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Walking Along Rideau Canal

Sun, 19 Feb 2012, 11:08 PM (-06:00)

From the bed races, we decided to walk on the canal.

Skaters zoomed by, hands clasped behind their backs. Or they came by pulling toboggans loaded with boots and backpacks and sleepy kids. A few skated by slowly and tentatively, but the learners were few and the experts were many. Walkers such as us were virtually nowhere to be seen.

There were teenagers and school kids sprinting and horsing around. There were moms with babies and dads with sons chasing them. There were one-person sleighs (yes, sleighs). There were people from the neighborhoods sitting on drifts of snow putting on their skates.

And to our relief, there were places to eat out there on the ice. Places where you could get paninis and pizza and hot chocolate and beaver tails and maple taffy on ice. There was a place where you could taste of wine. And there were fire pits where you could warm your hands, although to Canadians this just-below-freezing day must have hardly qualified as cold.

We stayed to the far right, walking along a kind of ice/snow sidewalk against the edge of the canal. The kilometer markers called out the remaining distance to the Rideau Canal Locks: 7.2, 7.0, 5.4, 2.8, …

When we got to the 0.2 marker, the crowd was thick. There were people patiently standing in a neat line waiting to turn in their rental skates. And there were people crowding the stairs that led up from the canal to Confederation Park.

In the time we had left (for the sun was now going down, and it was beginning to get cold in earnest), we walked up to the park to see the ice sculptors at work. Whereas we had seen the two-hour competition the day before, this was the long-form event. There were 10 hours remaining on the countdown clock as they chiseled and cut and polished and shined their masterpieces.

We were done with the canal for the day, but tomorrow was supposed to be sunny, so we planned to return and to rent skates ourselves.

Bed Races

Sun, 19 Feb 2012, 10:21 PM (-06:00)

When we last spoke, I was talking about a trip we took to Ottawa. It’s been a while now since we returned, but my story is only slowly coming out.

1. Getting Up Late

On the morning of the third day, my father was waiting for us when we finally rolled out of bed. The eggs were scrambled. The spices were queued up. The onions were diced. He was ready to go while we blissfully slept late. And because he didn’t know our intent that morning and probably doesn’t know our propensity for sleep, he was evidently standing at the ready in the kitchen for hours.

2. The Race

The have this tradition of bed races as part of Winterlude in Ottawa. Teams of five people enter the competition with decorated four-poster metal beds mounted on bicycle tires, and they race the beds up and down Dows Lake. Our plan on Saturday was to watch the races.

When we got there, bundled in layers unknown to the common Texan, they were lining up the beds for a parade past the grandstands. And then they raced the beds in six heats of four beds with four people pushing each bed with one lucky team member riding on top.

Four by four they raced down the frozen lake. There was a bed decorated as a fire truck. There was one as a hearse, complete with flowers. There were teams of doctors in lab coats pushing what perhaps was meant to be a hospital bed. And there were even some folks dressed up as Texas cowboys pushing a bed decorated with red, white and blue balloons.

We stood there on the ice behind the barrier along the stretch where the beds raced and watched the first round of heats until we’d seen them all dash across the red finish line painted on the ice.

3. The Surveyor

There was this tall, official looking guy wandering among the crowd at the races. He was walking up and down, holding a tall pole with a ruler on the side and some kind of mirror on top. As the fair and industrious Trudy took pictures of the beds, he walked up behind us.

I turned around and looked at him. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

So I asked about the pole and the ruler painted down the side and about the mirror on the top. And he explained that he was taking measurements of the ice. He and a colleague on the shore with a laser theodolite were recording the deflection of the ice as people showed up during the day.

“Do you prefer inches or centimeters?” he asked me.

“Either,” I lied.

He explained how the ice was floating on about three meters of water. And he said how thick it was that day. (They take core samples, and you have to watch out for the holes when you’re skating.) And he explained that if the ice deflected more than two inches, they would have to tell the crowd to spread out. And finally he explained that their measurements that day showed a deflection of 28 millimeters.

So we were safe. He smiled and turned to walk back towards the starting line.

We’ll Be Home Soon

Sun, 12 Feb 2012, 08:15 PM (-06:00)

Rideau Center is just down the street from Chateau Laurier. There, we could catch the #7 or the #12 back to the condo.

Although it was late on a Friday night, the steets and sidewalks of downtown Ottawa were still busy. There was a crowd at the OC Transpo bus stop when we got there.

I don’t remember which bus we caught. We took the first one. It had been a long evening, and we had been on our feet most of the time. We didn’t particularly feel like standing outside in a Canadian winter (even though to the Canadians standing beside us the weather was undoubtedly mild).

Once on the bus, we sat down.

Trudy’s phone rang. It was Dad.

“Where are you?” he asked.

It is late on a Friday night. The kids are not home. They are taking public transportation in a strange town. They might be lost. Or they might be having trouble.

My father is an impeccable host. He thinks of his guests’ welfare with bottomless, endearing warmth. And he was worried about us. About his 52 year old son. About the fair and industrious Trudy.

“We’re on the bus,” Trudy said. “Don’t worry. We’ll be home soon.”

A Bus Across the River

Sun, 12 Feb 2012, 07:57 PM (-06:00)

The museum was free that evening. After the fireworks, we went inside to warm up, eat some of our snacks and rest our feet. There was an exhibit upstairs about the Canadian Arctic Expedition. We wandered thru and took our time.

At some point, the fair and industrious Trudy looked at me and said, “We probably should take the bus back to Ottawa now.”

There was supposed to be a Snow Bus taking people across the river for free during Winterlude, but the people at the front desk of the museum said that it had stopped running hours before.

“You can catch the 77,” they said, “Right outside. It comes in three minutes.”

We quickly pulled on our coats, mittens and backpacks and dashed out.

At the street, there was no sign of the 77. In fact, there was no sign of any OC Transpo buses, much less the 77. Just two Gatineau buses, and we didn’t know where they were going.

We turned and walked up the hill to where we saw another bus in the distance.

“Excuse me,” I said to a woman who was directing people onto what looked like a tour bus. She had a Winterlude logo on the back of her coat. “Excuse me, do you know where we can catch the 77 bus to Ottawa?”

She said, “I think you catch it down there,” she said, pointing vaguely downhill. “But I’m not sure. Where are you going?”

“Chateau Laurier.”

She stood silently for a moment and then said, “Take this bus,” pointing to the tour bus by the curb.

“Do we need tickets?”

“Just don’t ask,” she said with a smile on her face. “Get on.” And she turned around and walked away.

So we got in line behind a couple of people in black suits and black dresses with black winter coats and fancy black scarfs wrapped around their collars. They must have just come from the Taste of Winterlude wine tasting inside the museum—the gathering with candles and low lighting and a wine bar beside the immense two-story windows that looked out onto the lake. (What a view of the fireworks they must have had.)

We got on with our jeans and our down coats and our puffy mittens and our jeans and waffle-stomping boots. We followed the black-suiters toward the back of the bus. They all knew each other and were talking about business and about school years before in Toronto and about nightlife in Ottawa.

There were plenty of empty seats, so we sat down toward the back. Quietly, not asking questions.

And sure enough, the bus pulled away from the curb and drove along the river up Rue Laurier. It passed a bus stop which was lined with people. The sign said, 77. They were waiting for the bus we were supposed to take. On the other hand, the bus we did take turned onto the Pont Macdonald Cartier and drove across the Ottawa River where in a few minutes it dropped us all off at Chateau Laurier.

Fireworks Spectacle

Sun, 12 Feb 2012, 07:18 PM (-06:00)

On the evening before the Winterlude fireworks, Dad and Khadija took us to eat at Chez Fatima in Gatineau, Quebec, across the river from Ottawa. After the feast, they drove home, and we walked the few blocks to the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

There on sloping, snow-covered lawns leading to the edge of the Ottawa River, people were gathering to watch what what was supposed to be a spectacle.

There were black-hooded walkers on tall stilts draping red flowing flags over the heads of anyone passing by. And there were two fife-and-drum corps marching in the plaza. There were great spotlights shining thru the falling snow, lighting up the low clouds. And in the background across the river stood the many towers of Parliament Hill.

There were some welcoming speeches, and there was some music on a stage. Then (right on time), as the snow fell and the spotlights swept the sky, the show began.

There were greens and blues. There were whites and reds and oranges. There were great explosions that echoed off the shore and lit up the sky. There were fountains spouting upward and glowing tracers drifting downward all the way to the river’s ice. There were purple spikes launched from the bridge and twisting rocket contrails. There were spinning curlicues and jets of fire that flew out over the river.

There were columns of sparkling white light that exploded into mayhem.

And there was something that I’ve never imagined possible—a waterfall of white fire running off the edge of the bridge all the way across the frozen river from Ontario to Quebec.

After a while the crowd fell silent. The show just kept going. The fireworks just kept coming. Rockets kept exploding. Flares kept flying. It was indeed a spectacle, just as they had promised.

The Two-Hour Ice Sculpture Competition

Sun, 12 Feb 2012, 05:21 PM (-06:00)

The contestants in Ottawa’s Winterlude two-hour ice sculpture competition were arrayed around what in warmer times must be a bubbling-spraying fountain. There was ice on the sidewalks, snow on the lawn and white flakes falling from the sky.

View of the fountain

When we arrived, the artists the carving had begun. Hints of shape were beginning to emerge.

There were hand saws and chisels. There were Dremel tools with typical attachments and long, dangerous-looking attachments which you’d undoubtedly want to keep away from your kids. There were electric irons heating up rectangular plates of aluminum. And of course, there were chain saws.

The artists and their tools were kicking up clouds of powdery ice. It covered their snow pants. It covered their coats. It covered their hats. It caked to their eyebrows and mustaches.

Although each of them was working on his own, evidently the rules allowed some help from time to time. When they needed to mount portions of their work to the large ice pedestals, they would call to the judges who would come and help. Sometimes this involved pushing a hot aluminum plate against some part of the sculpture to make it smooth and flat. Sometimes this involved lifting a piece into the air. Sometimes this involved squirting water or pushing slushy snow at the artist’s direction into some crucial attachment point. When ice met ice, the surfaces would freeze, the wet interfaces instantly flashing to cloudy white as the ice bond hardened

The artists could also call for the blowtorch when they were almost finished.

“Stand back!” the judges would shout fired it up.

It blew an orange flame that they briefly passed over the surface of the sculptures. Smokey white melted into a translucent shine. Water dripped from edges and tips. Sharp corners softened. Clear, living shapes jumped from the chalky prototypes of just a few moments before.

The clock ticked down.

Some of the artists were calling for the torch. Others were frantically trying to finish.

The guy with the wide-winged goose never got beyond the general form of his bird. The guy with the butterfly had spent most of his time on the body and never got to the wings. The guy with the kneeling Inuit-pixie wasn’t able to get its wings to attach. And one of the guys who was sculpting an owl had a disaster, his owl falling to the ground and shattering into pieces at the very end.

Mind you these were amazing sculptures, all of them. But of course the most amazing ones where those that got finished.

There was a snow goose flying against a rising sun. There was a wolf howling at a crescent moon. There was a many-tentacled octopus twisting into the air.

And there were two snowy owls with outstretched wings, one flying over the other, fastened only at a single balancing point.

Time ran out. The judges called on the contestants to stop. The artists brushed the remaining ice dust from their creations, wiped the sweat from their faces, stepped back to look at their work, and turned to pack their tools.

Banks

Sun, 12 Feb 2012, 09:53 AM (-06:00)

Ever notice this?

I only say this as full disclosure. You see, I am not unbiased. With that said, here are some tools I’m using to understand the foreclosure fraud settlement deal…

1. The administration’s MO

In keeping with my disclaimer above, here’s Scarecrow at Firedog lake articulating a cynical view on how the administration approaches these things, an approach that seems to lean always to the financial industry while couching things in misleading hopey/changey spin.

2. Yves Smith

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has long been one of the few voices pointing out the rampant fraud in the banking system and the back room accommodations that qualify as economic problem solving these days.

Here she is enumerating 12 specific reasons to doubt the legitimacy of the foreclosure deal.

3. Matt Taibbi

Then there’s Matt Taibbi, the unabashed caller-out of BS. His book, Griftopia, is a concrete introduction to just how complete the refashioning of the western political system has been. He doesn’t pull punches.

Here he is at Rolling Stone explaining why he is no longer optimistic about the deal and how he sees it mainly as a superficial, face-saving agreement that demonstrates the extent to which the financial industry has completely outgunned the American law enforcement system.

4. From a banker’s point of view

And lest you think that all I read is lefty blogs, consider this from American Banker in which they suggest that the complete absence of any public details is evidence that far from being a credible effort at law enforcement, the foreclosure deal amounts to putting the “press release cart in front of the settlement horse”.

Coffee Time

Sat, 11 Feb 2012, 08:58 PM (-06:00)

When you cross the border, you go from the Land of Starbucks to the Land of Tim Horton’s.

This isn’t a terribly original thought, nor is it entirely accurate, still there’s something here.

There’s something reassuring about a Tim Horton’s coffee shop, some kind of gemütlichkeit that you just don’t find in a Starbucks. Although arguments can be made that the coffee is indistinguishable, the essence of the two coffee shops is undeniably different.

Whereas Starbucks tend to be spacious and neat, when you’re in a Tim Horton’s, you feel like you’re in, well, a coffee shop. And whereas Starbucks feels modern and hip, Tim Horton’s feels like a place where real people go. And whereas (forgive me) Starbucks hipsters seem turned in on themselves, the people at Time Horton’s hold the door open for you.

Now without doubt this is making much of nothing. This might all be hooey, but I’m just sayin’ what I’m sayin’.

So I was not at all disappointed when the fair and industrious Trudy asked Khadija if she knew of a Tim Horton’s downtown. And I was not at all disappointed when Khadija directed Dad to a Tim Horton’s one block away from Confederation Park. And Trudy and I were quite content sitting in warmth in the corner of that place sipping our creamy coffees and gazing out the plate glass window as Ottawans started their winter Friday morning.

It was a perfect way to start the day, and I am certain it wouldn’t have felt quite the same if we had been sitting under the green mermaid.

Morning Luxuries

Sat, 11 Feb 2012, 04:44 PM (-06:00)

We shift now to our recent trip to Ottawa, a trip from which we recently returned. What follow are several stories of that vacation…

I suppose we should have been disappointed that we slept in. The two-hour Winterlude One-Block Challenge had started at 8:00am, and we would arrive an hour later. But no, we were not disappointed. What luscious luxury it was to sleep long.

After a breakfast of fried eggs and toast, Dad and Khadija drove us from their condo to downtown Ottawa. Our original plan was to take the bus, but what a lazy luxury it was to be chauffeured.

And it was yet another luxury when they drove right past Confederation Park (our nominal destination) and dropped us off instead at a Tim Horton’s.

We hopped out of the car, adjusted our hats and mittens and sinched up our backpacks, as they pulled away from the curb and merged back into the morning traffic.

And we stepped into the coffee shop to have two large cups with cream.

Great Horned Owls

Sat, 11 Feb 2012, 01:56 PM (-06:00)

When we got out of the car, Trudy want into the house, and I went around the side to drop some bottles into the recycling bin.

There was a hooting somewhere in the back. I mean a real hoo-hoo-hoo hooting. The kind of clichéd owl sound you might hear on a cartoon. I stood silently, listening in the dark.

“Hoo hoo.”

It was coming from one of the trees in our backyard.

Just then, the fair and industrious Trudy came rushing around the corner of the house.

“Come into the back,” she said, “there are owls!”

We walked thru the house and out the back patio door. She was holding a flashlight.

“There’s one in the pine tree and another one up there,” she said, pointing the flashlight at a telephone pole behind the back fence.

“Hoo hoo hoo!” from the top of the telephone pole.

“Hoo hoo,” came a reply from somewhere in the limbs of the Pecan tree next door.

I took the flashlight and shined it at the top of the telephone pole. There in the beam was the largest owl we have ever seen. No Eastern Screech Owl, this. It had a body at least two feet high and was perching on the top of the pole with eyes that blazed yellow in the light of the flashlight. And it hard “horns” on the top of its head.

This was a Great Horned Owl, and it was looking down at us.

No, that’s not right. When we got home, all the dogs in the neighborhood were making a racket, and Izzy and Guinness were in the backyard barking along. No, the owl wasn’t looking at the two of us at all. It was watching The Little One.

“Trudy,” I whispered. “Pick up Izzy.”

And we went back inside and shut the doggy door.