climate change activist and science communicator; event photographer; amateur mapmaker — advocate for a stable global climate, reduced nuclear weapon risks, and safe human-AI interaction
Posts about Canada’s capital city, and the experience of living there
Last winter, I made a map of the parts of Oxford in which I would be likely to find myself over the course of a week.
Here is my approximate Ottawa map:
It is basically defined by three corridors, leading from my home to work, the grocery store, and the Rideau Centre. During the summer, it would certainly have a few more tendrils. That said, it is a safe estimate that 50% of my time is spent within the tiny (unmarked) rectangles of my cubicle and bedroom.
MyBikeLane is an interesting concept in distributed social law enforcement. The idea is that people take photos of cars parked in bike lanes and then upload those to the site along with details on when and where the incident occurred. Since they can be sorted by license plate, the worst offenders can be easily identified. New York has by far the most active community, followed by Toronto.
Since I carry a digital camera at all times anyhow, I will keep my eyes peeled for possible contributions once I resume biking. For now, my small hybrid tires and the recollection of my nasty Halloween fall are keeping my bike in the basement.
I learned about the site from this interesting blog.
Through a trek to the Ottawa Mountain Equipment Co-Op and the application of three days’ pay, my respectable collection of wet weather gear has had quite a few degrees of cold capability added into it.
I got some good insulated Gore-Tex gloves (they make me feel less like a mutant than mitts do); I also got a merino wool base layer, a windproof toque to supplement the more attractive one Sarah made me, a fleece neck warmer thing that makes me look like a goon when worn with the toque, a little thermometer, and a couple of miscellaneous knick-knacks, shoe de-stinking agent, and a travel towel (for future trips to nearby cities).
Naturally, the only response to getting new gear is to go experiment with it. One’s first inclination with new gear is to discover its capacities and limits. In its way, the new stuff is like the bicycle was: an enabler of motion, and a gateway to increased capability within the city as it stands.
As much as I enjoyed Ashley’s party tonight, the walk home afterwards has left me convinced that humans should not live in this place. After about forty minutes out there, well insulated, my whole body is in pain. My breath is frozen to my face in painful sheets of ice, and I have had an agonizing cold-induced headache since getting halfway home.
I want to live somewhere saner.
This evening, I was startled to realize that I have only been inside one library since I arrived in Ottawa in July. That was during the tour of Parliament I took with Emily, and thus didn’t involve touching a single book. This is certainly a dramatic change from Oxford: where I would frequently visit two or more libraries in a single day.
Partly, I suppose this is a reflection of my present wealth of unread books. Even devoting as much time to reading as I do, there doesn’t seem to be enough time available to make a great deal of progress through the list. In addition to that, I haven’t been doing much in the way of book-based research. Hopefully, that will change as time goes by.
Walking home from work today, I was immersed in a light Canadian snowfall for the first time in years. During the trek, I decided that the combination of office clothing, Ottawa weather, and twenty minute walks to and from work is not sustainable without the gradual addition of wardrobe items.
It is not as though I don’t have the necessary gear to deal with wind and temperatures significantly below zero Celsius: I was well served by my layers of MEC outerwear through underwear when I was in Tallinn and Helsinki in December 2005. The problem is that such things do not integrate well with office clothes, making me look like a mountaineer until I transform in my cubicle into a diligent office worker.
As a true West Coaster, my experience with long woolen coats, scarves, and such is primarily the result of films and comic strips. Given my lingering uncertainty about how long I will actually spend in this place, I will continue to play the part of the temperate forest dweller assuaged and perplexed by startling variations in temperature.
I made an unusually tasty stir-fry for dinner tonight, inspired by the culinary prowess of my cousins. Contained therein, in order of addition:
The instructions are absurdly simple: add ingredients to wok in sequence. Cook at high heat until cooked. I chopped the garlic, ginger, onions, and mushrooms before starting. Three minutes of microwave pre-cooking means you won’t be waiting forever for the yams; the carrots should still be pleasantly crunchy at the end. The ingredients described above fill four medium-sized Tupperware containers and one hungry stomach.
The only ingredient I hadn’t used before was the sesame oil. It makes a big difference, both in terms of taste and smell.
PS. I was given twelve cans of chick peas as an early birthday gift. Any recipe ideas?
After an excellent weekend in Toronto visiting family and Tristan, I am back in Ottawa – reheating my apartment from its emission-reducing occupant absence chill. This is one of those calculations that is so difficult, when it comes to minimizing one’s carbon footprint: does it take less power to let your flat cool for three days and then heat it up again, or just to maintain the temperature across that span of time. I haven’t done the thermodynamic calculations, but my intuition suggests that cooling and re-heating is the better option.
Time spent enjoying the culinary skills of some of my cousins has encouraged me to buy some unfamiliar ingredients and see what havoc I can wreak before becoming competent in their use. The activity may help to offset the ever-diminishing prospects for cycling in this darkening city.
Last night, a car heading east on Rideau Street decided that it was a good idea to make a right turn at speed without signaling or checking if there were any cyclists behind them and to the right. On the positive side, I learned that the brakes on my bike are very effective. On the negative side, the forward momentum of my bike, body, and panniers was more than enough to throw me over my handlebars: feet still set in the cages on my pedals. Naturally, the car didn’t even slow down.
I actually managed to land pretty well, taking the bulk of the force with my right arm. Still, I managed to bruise my arm and ribs, as well as give my elbow joint a painful knock. My wrist and jaw are also somewhat sore, as a result of their contributions to the nullification of my forward and downward momentum. A group of drunken men dressed as Smurfs gave me a round of applause when I stood up (it was 8pm on Halloween).
I was impressed to see how durable my MEC Aegis jacket really is: despite my entire weight and that of the bike and despite scraping along for a few feet, it is not visibly worn. Irksomely, my bike no longer shifts properly into higher gear. Making it do so requires much more force than before, and sometimes requires shifting twice, waiting for the first shift to actually happen, and then preventing the second shift.
I will take it to the bike store over the weekend to see if they can return it to normal functionality. The uber-smooth gear shifting was one of my favourite aspects of the new bike.
[Update: 3 November 2007] I had my ribs checked out and the obvious was confirmed: they are not broken but may be fractured. If they still hurt in a month, the latter possibility will be confirmed. They could hurt for as long as six months.
The shifting on my bike seems to have largely been fixed simply on the basis of riding around. It isn’t perfectly smooth, but it is adequately reliable. Nonetheless, I will take the bike in for a tune-up soon.
During the next three weeks, I am doing a bit of a tour of eastern Canadian cities. From tonight until Sunday, I will be in Montreal. I will be busy with work until Friday, but should have the weekend to appreciate the city. Montreal is definitely one of the most interesting places in Canada. It always seems more culturally vibrant than Toronto or Vancouver, particularly in the summer. If anybody knows of interesting events happening in Montreal during the upcoming weekend (concerts, art shows, plays, etc), I would really appreciate knowing about it.
From the evening of November 9th until the evening of the 12th, I am going to be in Toronto. While that is mostly for purposes of visiting family, I would also be keen to meet up with friends who will be around then. Six weeks after that, I will be in Vancouver.
Getting a bit of such travel in before this whole region becomes an ice cube seems like a good idea. That said, it has apparently been an unusually warm fall (bad news for the pine trees). Right now, it is 20°C outside, and it has been uncomfortably warm to bicycle uphill in a jacket recently, even in the middle of the night. I haven’t found it problematic to be walking to and from work in a dress shirt and no jacket, except where sudden downpours or puddle-splashing trucks have left me sopping. My historical chart suggests that temperatures at this time of year should be about 9°C. The fourteen day trend suggests that they will be getting closer to that vicinity pretty soon.