The opening piece was Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis. It was absolutely enchanting. Very peaceful and yet memorable. I liked it so much that when I got home, I bought it on the iTunes Store. (It is also available to play from the event page http://www2.nac-cna.ca/en/orchestra/event/63 just below the photo of conductor Hannu Lintu).

The second piece was the violin concerto, “Concentric Paths” by Thomas Adés, with soloist Leila Josefowicz. I did not enjoy this modernist work. I found it was too chaotic for my tastes with nothing specific to focus on while listening. The soloist spent 5 minutes before beginning the piece by explaining all the parts to the audience, but that mostly made people impatient.

Hannu Lintu - Photo credit Jonas Lundqvist

After intermission, NACO performed Beethoven’s Fifth Sympony (Symphony No. 5 in C minor). It’s a fantastic work. I still prefer the Ninth, but the Fifth is still a magnificent work.

The NACO was conducted by a guest Finnish conductor, Hannu Lintu. I am interested to see the different styles of the conductors we have seen over the past 6 years that Rosa and I have attended concerts together.

Hannu Lintu has an eccentric and energetic style. His motions and gestures were dramatic. He was just so fascinating to watch.

Rosa is very proactive though, and she bought tickets a few weeks ago – they were around $200 per person. Today was the final day of the festival. The weather did not look promising. Clouds, rain, and wind.

We left for Gatineau early, as we expected another traffic jam like for the fireworks show. When we arrived, we had a very difficult time finding the parking lot entrance. The signs were confusing and many of the streets in the area were one-way. Eventually, we found the lot and parked. We went to the entrance to ask about the rides. I tried to ask ‘en français’, but I could not understand the reply, so we had to find someone who could help in English. The ticket attendant called the organizer, but the go/no-go had not been finalized. After further discussions, we found we would have to buy tickets for the festival ($18 each) and go to the balloon launch point in order to get our refund, should the rides be cancelled.

We went in and went to the balloon ride starting field. There we were told we would have to sit and wait until the decision was made. They were nice and came out to keep us informed of the progress of the discussions.

After over an hour, it was announced that the rides would be cancelled. The winds were too high. They took down our name to indicate that we had been on-site, and then we could leave. We wandered around some craft tents before we got bored and left for home after sunset.

This will be one of the final races of the 2011 season – its getting dark earlier. The temperature was very nice this evening.

Harness Racing

The track is 5/8ths of a mile. when we got there and started watching the warmups we found that this track has only standardbred harness racing. We were hoping to see something closer to a thoroughbred race (flat race) or a steeplechase with a jockey on the horse. In harness racing the driver sits in a sulky, which is a very lightweight two-wheeled cart that is pulled behind the horse.

I wanted to come to take photos as practice. I walked around trying to use the setting sun to warm up the photos. It was an excellent opportunity to practice panning. I also wanted to get a photo of all four hooves off the ground like the famous Muybridge series.

We watched about four races before Rosa was too bored to stay. On our way out, we looked in on the buffet. It looked so good – we will have to come back again.

Jammer 'D.D.T.' of Slaughter Daughters

Continuing with my plan to keep doing new things and seeing new things, I wanted to go see a Roller Derby. I saw an ad for the Rideau Valley Roller Girls last year and did not make enough time to go. This year I made sure that I set aside an evening.

I was interested because I knew nothing about roller derbys and because it might be interesting for a photo shoot. I thought it would be fun.

The season finale (the “August Assault”) was this evening so Rosa and I went. It was a double header: Slaughter Daughters vs Pioneer Valley and Riot Squad vs Derby Debutantes. It was held in Jack Charron Arena in Kanata. It is normally a skating rink but for this event the track was laid out with duct tape on the concrete floor.

We watched for ten or fifteen minutes to understand the rules. There are two 30-minute periods per match, consisting of any number of jams. The goal is for one of the girls on each team, the jammer, to start from the back, make their way through the pack (including opposing blockers) and then start lapping the pack as many times as possible. They get one point for each time they complete a pass of all of the opposing teams’ blockers.

I got up to walked around with my camera. I tried to capture the action during the ‘jam’, particularly the intensity on the face of the jammer and blockers. It was a lot of fun actually. I am happy with the results but need more practice. But I love the shot above!

For the first match, the Slaughter Daughters obliterated the WMD from Pioneer Valley 218 to 46! However Rosa was bored watching from the stands so we left at intermission.

The collection of the Museum of Nature first started as the collection of the Geological Survey of Canada in 1856 when Canada was being explored scientifically. The current building, known as the Victoria Memorial Museum Building, was completed in 1912. At one point Parliament was using some of the rooms after the Centre Block burnt down in 1916.

The building recently completed an extensive renovation. I wanted to visit after the re-opening, but I read that they would have a temporary photography exhibit opening this month, so I waited until today.

Chasmosaurus Irvinensis

Before entering the museum, I took some pictures of the life-sized Chasmosaurus Irvinensis on the lawn outside. This dinosaur is very interesting for having over 20 horns – one on the nose, two on the sides of the head and the rest around the top of the frill. I thought originally that the horns on the periphery of the frill were flaps of skin not bones until I read more. Imagine how hard it would be to find a hat that fits!

When I entered the museum, the first place I went was the art gallery. The current photography exhibit is about Northern Canada. There were beautiful landscapes, some nature photos and many photos of the people who live in our far north. I was very glad I waited before visiting the museum – the photos were amazing.

After the gallery, I thought I would start at the top of the building and work my way downward. The fourth floor contains the Bird Gallery. Not much to see there. I mean, lots of birds of course, but I am mostly interested in birds of prey, and there were not many on display. There was not even a bald eagle. When I lived in Port Williams, we had Bald Eagles roost in the pines trees behind our house. I always loved to hear their calls and watched in awe as they leapt into the air.

The third floor had the Vale Earth Gallery. The collection is surprisingly large and varied. I was very interested in the examples of very ancient stones, some of which date back billions of years to when the earth was first cooling. There was also a small collection of meteors. Looking at a 4.55 billion year old meteor is to imagine the fiery birth of our solar system.

The gallery of crystals was also very interesting. There are so many shapes of crystals. However, I found that some of the displays were too low (presumably for young viewers); it was too hard for me to stoop down to see the displays with a camera and heavy camera bag around my neck.

Blue whale skeleton

The second floor houses the RBC Blue Water Gallery. The highlight is the extraordinary blue whale skeleton in the centre of the gallery. It is so massive – 19 metres long. And imagine that it was not close to being full-grown – blue whales can each 33 metres in length and weigh more than 180 tonnes. That’s as much as a fully-loaded Boeing 767-300ER! Blue whales are the largest animals that have ever lived.

Also on this floor was the Mammal Gallery. They had some large dioramas with stuffed bears (polar and brown), moose, Dall sheep (thinhorn sheep), cougars, beavers, and some smaller animals. I finished this section quickly, taking in each of the dioramas and moving on.

The ground floor housed the Talisman Energy Fossil Gallery. This is what I really came for. I’m not a fanatic about dinosaurs like some, but I do find that entire extinct ecosystem fascinating.

When first entering the Fossil Gallery, you are greeted by a Daspletosaurus torosus towering over everyone. These carnivorous dinosaurs were between 2 and 4 tonnes and could be 9 metres (30 feet) in length. They lived between 77 and 74 million years ago. They had about 6-dozen teeth!

Carnotaurus Sastrei

The other meat-eating dinosaur on display was the Carnotaurus Sastrei, which was as long as the Daspletosaurus, but thinner and less massive.

The museum has a connection with the Chasmosaurus Irvinensis, as the museum staff did some of the original research. There are skeletons in the Fossil Gallery, plus the diorama I saw outside the museum, and another diorama of a family of Chasmosaurus Irvinensis being hunted by an unidentified family of Theropod.

Other horned dinosaurs were also on display, such as the well-known Triceratops. Where were some aquatic skeletons mounted along the ceiling, such as the biggest damn turtle I could ever imagine (Archelon) and an Elasmosaur.

Behind the dinosaurs were some extinct mammal exhibits. A diorama of a family of Megacerops was interesting. They are distantly related to rhinoceroses and lived 38-33.9 million years ago here in North America.

Evolution of the whale

For me, the most fascinating exhibit in the entire museum is the evolution of the whale. There were three skeletons mounted in succession – the Pakicetus, Ambulocetus and Dorudon. The Pakicetus lived 55.8-40 million years ago and was a terrestrial carnivore. The Ambulocetus is also known as the ‘walking whale’. It is larger than Pakicetus and looked more like a crocodile with a long head like a whale. You can see the enlargement of the legs as one step in the evolution to flippers. It lived 50-49 million years ago and would have been a branch off the Pakicetus family tree. The final specimen is the Dorudon. It was entirely aquatic and lived 41 to 33 million years ago. It is obviously related to the whale at this point. It was fantastic to see these three specimens lined up showing how the species changed over tens of millions of years from a land animal to a fully-aquatic animal with whale-like body structures. It’s a great example of evolution that is easy to see and comprehend.

Another fossil that was very cool was the skull of a Parasaurolophus. This dinosaur has a long cranial crest that contained air tubes. It seems that it would be used for producing sound. Next to the skull were a pump handle and a long metal tube. Pushing the plunger forced air through the tube and created a sound similar to what the Parasaurolophus. Imagine – hearing a long extinct animal call, the sound of a dinosaur.

In the basement was the Animalium. There were many terrariums with various insects, spiders and small mammals. By far the creepiest were the Giant Spiny Stick Insects (Eurycantha calcarata). They are from New Guinea and can grow to about 6 inches in length. They look like H.R. Giger designed them.

The entire photo set from my visit to the museum is available on my gallery: http://gallery.myredbmw.net/v/Events/Nature/

No Photos Please

Tonight, Rosa and I went to the NAC to see David Sedaris, one of my favourite authors. He was just starting his new tour, and had all new material, including some readings from his diary and a few short stories. Interestingly enough, as he was reading them, he was marking the paper with a pencil, presumably to indicate if something needed a little work, or perhaps notes on how to read the stories. He was also noting how long it took to read each of the short stories. Some of the stories had never been previously read to an audience.

For the other author nights (Douglas Coupland and William Gibson), I took their pictures. David Sedaris does not want his photo taken, so instead I took a photo of the sign saying not to take his photo.

I wish I had even the smallest fraction of his talent at telling stories.

I was asked to represent Les Petits Ballets at the meeting. As a representative of Les Petits Ballets, our goal was to secure the preferred rate for community programming at Centrepointe Theatre as well as other cost-related questions around Centrepointe Theatre and its recent expansion.

When I put my questions to the city representatives, the answer was that the community rates would float up at 2.5%, the same as the rate of inflation. Councillor Rick Chiarelli responded that other rates had increased at more than the inflation rate, and the Centrepointe rates were increasing at a lower rate. However, the other recreation fees (i.e. fees for rink rentals or soccer field rentals) would be frozen at the 2010 levels.

I also learned more about the Ottawa city budget. The budget is $2.632 billion, no small amount. I was surprised it was that big. It is larger than the federal budget of the country of Honduras. 48% of the revenue comes from property taxes. 16% comes from federal or provincial grants. 26% comes from usage fees and charges.

Each year, 6000 new tax rolls are added to Ottawa – meaning roughly 6,000 new homes. That’s a lot too. And it explains why there are so many new subdivisions being created here in Barrhaven.

The budget has $700 million in capital expenditures (as opposed to services or payroll). The city owns assets that cost $10 billion, but that would be worth $30 billion to buy in today’s dollar. Large capital items, like new bridges, are amortized over the life of the infrastructure. For example, the Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel (DOTT) will cost $735 million, but each year taxpayers would pay only a fraction of that total expenditure.

The city of Ottawa cannot declare OC Transpo, the public transportation system, as an essential service. This is because OC Transpo also covers parts of the city of Gatineau in Quebec. Because it crosses the provincial boundary, it falls under federal jurisdiction, not city jurisdiction. The city of Windsor has the same issue, as the city busses there go to Detroit, Michigan.

I had been to the older museum about a decade ago. The new building, which opened in 2005, is much nicer with more room for exhibits.

LeBreton Gallery

First, I took the ramp down to the LeBreton Gallery (the main display floor). The ramp is lined with huge paintings, but they are mounted so high up on the wall it distances the viewer from the works. I think the paintings should be lower and closer to the viewer so that they may be more engaged.

The LeBreton Gallery contains a large collection of military vehicles and other large hardware. It was focused more on the army; there was only a single plane and a few naval guns. There were dozens of vehicles. The main museum for aviation would be the Canadian Aviation and Science Museum, and the Navy is well represented by the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax.

Of interest to me was the 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft naval guns. They were ubiquitous during the later stages of war in the Pacific. They were mounted en-mass on every naval ship. They were complemented by the smaller, close range 20mm singles. They were key to dealing with the ship protection until the introduction of the kamikaze threat in the later stages of the war required the new 3″ anti-aircraft gun.

Along the same row were the main battle tanks, including the famous World War II M-4 Sherman, Russian T-34 and the German Panzer MkII and Panzer V tanks. At the end of the row were the Cold War tanks like the Chieftain and Leopard I.

A CF-101 Voodoo was mounted high in the ceiling, as if flying over the battlefield.

Also on display in the LeBreton Gallery were a jumble of smaller vehicles, including motorcycles, snowmobiles, ambulances, artillery and so forth.

Next, I went upstairs to the exhibits. The layout was a little confusing; I had to use a map to find out where I should go.

The history of military in Canada starts long before Canada was a country. Before the Europeans arrived, tribes of First Nations would wage war against each other. Forts were built using wood an other available natural resources.

Once the Europeans arrived, there were wars between the French and British, culminating in the French defeat in Quebec City (Battle of the Plains of Abraham), the destruction of Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, and the deportation of the Acadians (Le Grand Dérangement).

Canadian troops participated, as part of the British Empire, in some of the African campaigns of the British at the turn of the 20th century.

Medals of Billy Bishop, Canadian WWI Ace

Canada was first forged as a nation on the battlefields and trenches of World War I. Though a country with a small population, Canada contributed to the eventual success in the Western Front through gallantry and the use of new tactics.

The Second Battles of Ypres, where the Canadian troops were gassed by the Germans), was the first time a former colonial force pushed back a major European power, in this case the Germans. The Third Battle of Ypres ended when Canadian Troops captured Passchendaele. In the Battle of Sommes, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment was almost entirely wiped out in a single attempt to advance to the next line of Allied trenches. This was indicative of the murderous attrition rate of trench warfare.

At the Battle of Vimy Ridge, where “all four four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force participated in a battle together, and thus became a Canadian nationalistic symbol of achievement and sacrifice”. Tactically, it was a brilliant victory for the Canadians. Using a rolling artillery barrage to keep the Germans undercover in their trenches, the Canadians were able to advance to their objectives without coming under attack from the withering machine gun fire.

In both World War I and II, a major part of the Canadian contribution was our navy. The first Battle of the Atlantic (WWI) and Second Battle of the Atlantic (WWII) against the German U-boat threat was important to Canada and also to the Allied European powers – United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.

Hitler's 1933 Mercedes-Benz 700k staff car

Canada entered World War II in September 1939. Canada was a location for the training of troops, a strategic location for the transatlantic convoys, and a major military force for the liberation of Europe. In the World War II exhibit, the museum had a Spitfire flying overhead and Hitler’s 1933 Mercedes-Benz 700k staff car.

After the war, Canada was on the front lines of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The Canadian Navy excelled in anti-submarine warfare and was a member of STANAVFORLANT, a NATO task force. Canada was between the two superpowers. Any nuclear war would see Canada stuck in the middle. The most important part of this history was the creation and later cancellation of the Avro CF-105 Arrow (the most advanced interceptor of the time) and the subsequent purchase of nuclear tipped BOMARC missiles for Canadian airspace protection (as part of the larger NORAD organization).

Soviet T-72 main battle tank

This part of the exhibition had a Soviet T-72 MBT and a MGR-1 Honest John short-range missile.

The final exhibit was Canada as peacekeeper. I am justly proud of the Canadian peacekeeping missions. We have earned our reputation in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. If I were in a position to influence the future direction of the Canadian military, it would be to expand the peacekeeping missions and sovereign territory protection (cough, the Arctic Ocean, cough), at the expense of large-scale offensive military actions (i.e. NATO).

I had only a few minutes at the end of my visit to walk (nearly run) through the extensive art gallery. I really enjoyed seeing the wealth and variety of art pieces on display, which cover all the major combat areas and conflicts, up to and including the current mission in Afghanistan and our on-going peacekeeping missions. The museum closed as I was in the gallery section.

Overall, it was good to go through the museum, but I don’t know that there is much to draw me back for return visits.

Interesting research notes: Canada has the 13th largest defence budget ($21.8 billion Cdn), and 58th largest in terms of personnel (67,000).

The photo gallery for my visit is here: http://gallery.myredbmw.net/v/Events/WarMuseum/.

We chose Milestones (as if I don’t already have enough milestones at work). As we were driving north on Greenbank in a light snow, the traffic light at Baseline turned yellow. The SUV in front of us stopped, and I stopped with quite a gap, although I did have to pump the brakes because of the slippery conditions. However, the car behind us didn’t stop and they hit us from behind with a huge whallop.

I turned off the car, which is normal procedure for a car accident to prevent fire, and checked that Rosa was ok. I checked the mirror to see if there were any other cars coming and got out to check on the other car. Everyone was ok.

Despite the big hit, there did not appear to be very much damage to Rosa’s car. The bumper cover was pulled out about 8-10cm on the drivers side, and there were two wide grooves gouged in the bumper cover; the licence plate was crumpled. After exchanging our details, we pulled off to the nearby Petro-Canada station. As it was too cold to write, we used our phones to take pictures of each others drivers license and insurance.

I looked over Rosa’s car and could not see any safety issues, so we decided to continue with our evening.

After a noisy dinner (we had to sit in the bar area as all the tables were full), we drove (slowly) to the NAC.

Canadian Brass was backed by the NAC Orchestra. I was not expecting that, as I had assumed it would be just the five brass players. Having the full orchestra actually detracted from the headliners. In some of the pieces, the orchestra drowned out the brass instruments.

The highlight for me was when they brought out a piccolo trumpet and played “Penny Lane” by The Beatles. It was awesome.

They followed up with two other Beatles songs. “Blackbird“, the simplest Beatles song, was just Paul on acoustic guitar and a metronome for the beat. This didn’t translate well into a full orchestra. The french horn lead could hardly be heard, which is a shame as the french horn can be one of the richest, melodious sounding instruments. The last Beatles song was “Come Together“. Come Together (ironically, once used by Nortel in TV ads) also doesn’t work with an orchestra and brass ensemble. An orchestra lacks that driving buzzy guitar for the chorus, the insistent beat from Ringo and the poetry from Lennon.

I was surprised that “All You Need Is Love” wasn’t used. It would have been perfect the evening. It already opens with trumpets blaring “La Marseillaise” and is already scored for strings and brass. It would have been a great, upbeat song with rich musical textures for the NAC Orchestra and plenty of opportunities to highlight Canadian Brass.

He is reading the entire book, which is in fact the 2010 Massey Lecture Series. It will be presented during the week of November 9th on CBC Radio’s Ideas show.

This is the first time that I have had the original author of a story read it to me (well, to an auditorium). I’ve been to see a few other authors, and it’s usually a Q&A.

After the hour-long reading, there was a Q&A, presented by Ideas host Paul Kennedy.

Author Douglas Coupland

Interestingly, Douglas echoed what William Gibson had said the day before about airports being a stateless location - Player One is set in an airport hotel bar. Douglas mentioned that he and William often do things together, such as trips across the border to the US.

After the Q&A, there was a long line for the book signing in the lobby. I was setting up my camera (ISO, exposure, etc) to take a picture when Douglas looked right at me and I hit the trigger as a reflex. It was a nice shot without too many distractions. But for just a microsecond, I saw a look on his face that I read as annoyance at being photographed. It has bothered me a lot. I had just broken the rule – try to connect with the subject and ask permission. So many others were also taking pictures, which spurred me into wanting to take a picture, but I could have handled actually taking portrait better. It is a valuable lesson.