I drove down to Kemptville this morning for the baptism of my friends’ baby. The weather wasn’t the greatest, with various forms of frozen precipitation in Ottawa progressing to freezing rain somewhere between Barrhaven and Manotick and then rain around Kars. But the highway was clear so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. On the way home in the afternoon, I noticed an alarming number of vehicles shedding huge slabs of ice and snow from their roofs as they drove along. The chunks flew up in the air to an impressive height before shattering on the ground.

Fortunately, as far as I know, none of them landed on the other cars, but if they had the results could have been disasterous. At highway speeds, ice and snow flying off cars and trucks case easily smash a windshield. If the driver is lucky, they won’t be injured and they’ll be able to stop safely. But if they’re not so lucky, they could be cut by broken glass, lose control, or worse.

Last January, for example, there was a driver whose car was hit by a chunk of ice that shattered their windshield. Fortunately, she got off with little more than a few shards of glass in her hands, but it could have been much worse.

So, remember to clear the snow off the roof of your car before you head out. It could save someone’s life.

I love taking pictures at night because the low light lets you take long exposures and get some rich colours and other effects that you simply can’t get during the day, so I headed out Saturday evening to see what I could find downtown.

People standing around the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill:

Cars and buses on Wellington:

We stop to remember the brave men and women who have given their lives in the service of their country so that we may have peace, security, and freedom.

Thank you.

Here we go again… rolling the clocks back an hour earlier at 02:00 Eastern Sunday morning under the pretence of saving energy. Read this to find out why it’s pointless.

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I was going to write about the horrible events that took place at the War Memorial and on Parliament Hill, but I think what I wrote on the day after is sufficient. Listening to the audio from the video clip I mentioned a year ago on the radio this morning made chills run down my spine.

Thank you, Corporal Nathan Cirillo. Thank you to the all the people who stopped to help him as he lay there.

Thank you is not enough.

I started writing this on September 26th, but I set it aside because my browser was giving me grief. Apparently, I didn’t return to it until now.

I went kayaking one nice day a couple of weeks ago at Rideau Rowing and Paddling, which is at Chapman Mills. My friend Sarah is the owner and she asked if I minded if she came along. She mentioned there was a small creek a little ways downstream that might be worth exploring. So, off we went.

Paddling a few hundred metres downstream, we found the mouth the creek hidden amongst some reeds. Making our way upstream, we found a number of sheltered docks belonging to a few houses. The water must have been quite deep because there were several motor boats tied up. Heading upstream a bit further, the creek narrowed and took us under River Road and then Leitrim Road.

Continuing upstream, we picked up a few pieces of trash, took some pictures and enjoyed the paddle.

Until the Incredible Stench.

Sarah was about 20 meters upstream of me when I caught a faint whiff of something rotting combined with methane. Judging by her reaction, it was much stronger where she was. Deciding that since the creek was getting narrower, the fact that it looked like there was a tree blocking the way at the next corner, and the Incredible Stench, we beat a hasty retreat.

In all, our excursion up the creek took about 2 hours from the time we left the dock to the time we got back to it.

Hopefully, there will be one nice day to get out for a paddle, but we’re approaching the end of the season and soon she’ll put her fleet away for the winter.

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My physiotherapist moved a while back from being within walking distance to a bit farther away that has terrible parking options, so lately, I’ve been taking the bus once or twice a week. I acquired a PRESTO card a few months ago because I rarely have bus tickets and I don’t tend to have a pocket full o’ coins most days.

I checked the PRESTO website to confirm my balance and found it’s sitting at -$2. Odd, I thought, because I have an autoload set up to load $20 whenever it drops below $5. The website even said the autoload was active:

Based on that, I concluded that everything was set up properly and that the problem of my card not auto-loading was on their end. When I called the PRESTO customer service number, the person I eventually reached told me that the autoload was expired, even though the website said it was active. Apparently, I didn’t tap my card within 30 days of setting up the autoload, even though I’m reasonably certain I did. I can’t confirm this with 100% certainty because you can only pull up transactions from the last three months and this would have been sometime in November or early-December.

So, the customer service person resent the autoload confirmation so it’ll be added to my PRESTO card the next time I tap it. But, because the card has a negative balance, it won’t automatically load money to the card until after the balance is brought above $0. And loading money onto a card can take up to 24 hours, so even though I loaded money today, it’s highly unlikely that it’ll be there when I tap my card to go to my physio appointment this afternoon. Fortunately, I think I have some bus tickets in my wallet. (Hopefully they haven’t expired, too!)

There is no obvious way I could tell from the website that the autoload had expired. PRESTO/Metrolinx needs to update their website so that it clearly indicates when an autoload contract hasn’t been completed within the time limit. Other autoloading things I use let you know right away when there’s a problem and there’s no excuse for the PRESTO card website not to do the same.