Bulrushes

Fart jokes

Pa rump-a-pum-pum

God bless us every one!
(Disclaimer: I didn’t take this picture. I’m also not in it.)

Elgin St.

This is next to the police station. I like the flat late-afternoon light.

Across the street Frosty had arrived.

Here’s a creepy little laneway on Elgin.

Blog changes

I’m planning to make a couple of changes to this blog over the holidays. Here they are:

1. I’m going to change the name. I picked this name for good reasons, but on second thought I don’t think it’s a good name for this blog.

For one thing there is a magazine called Ottawa Life, which I don’t have anything to do with. And I don’t think my life is very typical of life in Ottawa.

I think people who see a blog called “Ottawa life blog” naturally expect it to be about parliament, the press corp, diplomats, the senate, or at least the public service, and it isn’t about any of those things. Mostly it’s about me walking around taking pictures.

I’m not sure what the new name will be. I kind of like “Ottawatawa,” but maybe just “robink.ca.” It sort of rhymes, depending on how you say it. What do you think?

2. If I can figure it out, I’m going to make another blog for movie reviews. Then I’ll put a link to it at the top of these pages where it says Home / About.

I’ve tried to separate the movie reviews from the other posts before, but I didn’t succeed. I think it’s a good idea because they are so different, and the same people don’t necessarily like to read them both. It was Zoom! from knitnut.net who suggested making the movies a whole new blog. At the time I couldn’t see it, but now I think I might be able to make it work.

Jump to Xmas Eve 2006 Part 1 – Preston St.

I decided to take my long shadow for a walk.

What a long shadow!

Here’s my shadow studying a tree.

My shadow on the canal path.

My shadow in the bushes. It’s a bit scary when he does that. Kind of “Wicker Man.”

My shadow and a jogger and her shadow. My shadow thought the jogger’s shadow was cute but she didn’t pay any attention to him. He was showing off by having the shadow of a lamp post on his head.

My shadow checking out some graffiti.

My shadow can go places that I can’t. Here is my shadow visiting a Beavertails hut.

Here’s my shadow lounging on a bench and leaning insouciantly against a lamp post. What a hipster.

My shadow wanted to go to the Canal Ritz for some thin-crust pizza.

My shadow likes that downtown Elgin Street life.

I was just glad my shadow didn’t get hit by a car.

Next: Xmas Eve 2006 Part 4 – This and that

And here’s some mud.

Here are a couple of trees. Look at the colours.

This picture pretty much sums up the kind of day it was at Dow’s Lake. It’s got a jogger, some people getting their picture taken, and Santa having a little nip.

It was a family kind of day. These folks were taking pictures of one another. The man with two hats was pretty excited about it all.

On this near-zero Christmas Eve day there was just a thin layer of ice floating on top of the water. I liked how it looked so I took a few pictures.

Next: Xmas Eve 2006 Part 3 – Me and my shadow

Vietnam memorial

This memorial to the Vietnamese people is at Preston and Somerset.

Murals

Preston is the home of Ottawa’s Little Italy. The people there have painted murals in their Queensway underpass. Many of them demonstrate the pride this immigrant community takes in an honest day’s work.

Look at this guy struttin’ off with his lunchbox!

Lots of welding.

Some of the murals show a community celebrating its traditions.

Here’s a real person who happened to be walking through the underpass. She better be careful or she might go through that painted door and pass into a mural.

Prescott

This is the Preston hotel, forerunner to the modern-day Prescott. It looks like the kind of place where they make the gin in a bathtub. And you don’t want that guy mad at you.

These are the neon signs in the windows of the Prescott. I’ve had a meatball sandwich. They are coronary-inducing but delicious! And the famous pizza is really pretty good.

Lutheran cross

Next: Xmas Eve 2006 Part 2 – Dow’s Lake