Vintage Clothing Sale

Last year Rosa and I attended the Vintage Clothing sale at the Château Laurier. It was a lot of fun, so we made plans to make sure we did not miss it this year.

We dropped off Rosa’s mother Lemin at Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica for the French service and then went to the sale. In the morning it was so crowded. I could barely move around. I stayed only 45 minutes before I left to pick up Lemin. I took her to eat a quick lunch at the RichTree Market in the Rideau Centre then we returned to the Vintage Sale.

There was a little more room to move around. But it still took 10 minutes to find Rosa in the three huge rooms.

I set a special goal this year. Last year, I was so shy I didn’t take any pictures of anyone except Rosa. This year, my goal was to actually talk to people and take pictures. There are so many interestingly dressed people at the show; it should be easy, if only I was an extrovert. Which I am not.

I found by speaking with some of the sellers, that it was not as busy as last year. I found that astounding as I could hardly move around in the morning.

I did talk to a few people. Not a lot but at least a few. It’s hard to overcome my shyness.

Rosa and friends

Rosa introduced me to a few people that she knew through other events like the Ottawa Fashion week (when I was at Mosport). It was a pleasure to meet Joa and friend. He is from El Salvador and is working in Ottawa ex-pat for a global professional services company.

I was not the only photographer at the show. I was envious that some of them were so at ease with approaching people. A few people stopped Rosa, as she was dressed stylishly as always. Marcia from the blog MarciaBCreative talked with Rosa and the photographer John Smith took her photo.

Rosa and I are looking forward to next year, which will likely be in a different location. I’ll remember get a press or photo pass from the organizer. I have been questioned by the organizer each year I show up with my DSLR camera.

Additionally, I have felt unfocused and scattered. I need a way to find calm, learn to relax and focus, and deal with the issues at hand.

I also just finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Steve practiced Buddhist meditation, although he did not seem to live a Buddhist life – he was a fantastically talented asshole. But he was also incredibly focused. I wondered if Buddhism was a key to that focus.

White Wind Zen Centre

A week ago, I found that the White Wind Zen Centre was offering an Introduction to Zen Workshop, so I signed up after some hesitation. The course was today.

The information page asked the participants to wear comfortable, dark clothes that will not cut-off circulation while sitting. I gave this much thought and decided to buy a pair of medical scrubs. I always wanted a pair. When I was in high school the cool kids wore scrubs. I found that only one place in Ottawa sells scrubs so I headed there. They had many different colours but I chose a pair of black bottoms. They were so comfortable. They only had V-neck tops, which I am not comfortable wearing, so I had to find a top. I headed to the new Walmart on Baseline. The parking was a nightmare – they don’t appear to have enough spaces. I bought a simple dark-grey button-up shirt.

Then I left for downtown.

The White Wind Zen Centre is in Sandy Hill, surrounded by a tall hedge. It also has a monastic name: Honzan Dainen-ji. When I arrived, there were two other participants waiting outside on the porch. The centre is a heritage building with a large wrap-around porch. There was a small pond with a waterfall beside the Centre. There was a multitude of birds eating and bathing in the water. The biggest grey squirrel I have ever seen was exploring in the front yard. It was so peaceful; I could have just sat on the porch for hours taking in nature. 
At precisely 1:30PM, the front door was opened and one of the monks allowed us to enter. We had to remove our shoes and socks upon entering. I changed into my new purchases.

There were 6 participants. Our training was conducted by two monks. Both had cleanly shaved heads and wore simple dark tunics. We had a short introduction in the kitchen before we entered the zendo.

In the zendo or meditation room, we were introduced to the basics of zazen. This is a sitting practice. Everyone sits on a zabuton (like a large flat throw cushion) and zafu (round meditation cushion). During zazen it is important to sit up straight. The key is to form a stable base by creating a triangle with the butt and knees. For example, most people know the lotus or half-lotus position. I was not able to use either so I chose to tuck my feet behind the opposite knee. Our hands must also be positioned correctly.

Once everyone is seated, the zazen begins with three strikes on a bell. The zazen participant will breathe deeply and bow with the strikes.

Zazen is a 30-minute sitting meditation, with eyes open. One must experience all of the sensations. This includes the feeling of breathing, the feel of sitting, the feeling of your clothes, the sounds of the room and what you can see without looking around. It was important not to get lost in thought about the sensations. The purpose was just to experience the sensations without a mental commentary. The zazen ends with another strike of the bell.

Between the 30-minute zazen sessions was a 10-minute walking practice called kinhin. This is a slow walk around the periphery of the room. It also focused on the physical experience, including breathing, the feel of your feet on the wooden floor, the feeling of your clothes, the sounds and so forth.

The first two zazen were done facing the room. The last zazen was facing a wall, which is the normal (non-novice) practice. This was more difficult for me, as my eyes hurt. Although I was at the correct distance, my eyes strained to find focus on the white, textureless surface of the wall.

After three sessions of zazen and kinhin, we left the zendo and went to the kitchen for a question and answer session.

During the practice, I did not understanding the theory behind zazen and kinhin. I was expecting it would be more trance-like, an unguided daydreaming state. Instead we were told to focus on just the physical sensations and not on the mind.

It took a while to really understand this. The purpose is to attain mindfulness. There is much about our lives that are just ideas running around in our heads. Stress and worry are created only within ourselves. Although external influences cause us to feel bad, our emotions are only what we feel in our mind.

The first Buddha started with what is known as the First Noble Truth – that there is suffering and sorrow in the world. We experience pain and sorrow when we contemplate that our life is not as we wish it would be. Although we rarely think about it consciously, we are also afraid of our inevitable death. No matter how hard we wish it, it is not possible to achieve the life we desire for ourselves. The dichotomy is a source of internal suffering.

The Buddha concluded that suffering was not caused by the nature of the world, but rather our reaction to the dichotomy.

The Buddha realized that by being honest with oneself and understanding that everything is impermanent. Our possessions, our desires, our thoughts and our lives are fleeting on the scale of the universe. This understanding is the path to Buddhist enlightenment.

By concentrating on only the physical sensations available, zazen is a starting point to this understanding. Although we think we feel emotions and thoughts, in reality we can only sense (feel) our immediate physical surroundings. All else is created in our minds. This understanding comes from experiencing the physical world without an analysis in our minds.

The teachings of Buddha are much deeper than this, and include the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. The course at the Zen Centre covered only the smallest fraction of Buddhism.

Now that I have taken the course, and have completed some supplementary reading, I need to think about this some more. I need to understand how this fits into my mental framework, and how I can incorporate what I find valuable. My goal is still to achieve a more balanced, focused life and to reduce the stress and worry that I feel.

Ottawa Zombiewalk 2011

Today, Rosa and I attended the annual Zombie Walk downtown. It started in the east and ended up on the front lawn of Parliament Hill.

We arrived late, so that limited me to only the Hill for taking photos. I would have liked to take some along the walk too. Additionally because of the late afternoon sun, and the desire to avoid the modern city scape as a background, I was very limited in the angles I could use.

I found a spot just inside the gates, where all of the zombies were entering. It was the best I could do, but once settled in, crouching down low, it actually was a pretty good spot. The low vantage point, looking up at the zombies backlit from the setting sun, it gave an ominous feeling.

There were some excellent costumes. One of the most photographed was the zombie of recently deposed and disposed Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. Also of note were the Lego Minifig zombies.

Some other photos from the Zombiewalk are here: http://gallery.myredbmw.net/v/Events/Zombie2011.

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.