Pie Palace

Here’s a quick rundown of my experiences with the vendors I used for my wedding. These vendors are in Ottawa, and, for the most part, they did a decent job at a reasonable price.

Venue and catering: The Carleton Golf and Yacht Club hosted our wedding. We were looking for an all-in-one venue that would handle the ceremony, the reception, and the catering. The CGYC clocked in at about $60-$70 per guest. The cost was less than other locations we looked at (notably Strathmere), and the hall was nicer than either the Monterey Inn or Bearbrook Farms. Laurie O’Brien, the clubhouse manager, did a fantastic job at ensuring the reception hall was properly decorated and that everything went smoothly. She (and her staff) were fantastic. Highly recommended.

Transportation: Because our venue was out in the middle of nowhere, we chartered a school bus from Rideau Bus Lines. Their driver knew how to pacify a bunch of drunk wedding goers (turn out the light, natch), was friendly, and knew where he was going. Recommended.

Photographer: We went with Julie Young Photography. She (and her lovely assistant) did a great job at herding the wedding party and composing us into something that I hope is photogenic. We haven’t gotten the final pictures yet, so I’ll hold out on my assessment.

DJ: First Choice Entertainment (613-830-7009) satisfied our music and MC needs. The owner, Greg Fedor, was easily the most energetic vendor we hired. His posse had a good selection of music (even if they didn’t know a good track to foxtrot to), and good equipment. They provided music for the ceremony as well as the reception and dancing. Recommended.

Officiant: Lynne Langille of Exceptional Wedding Ceremonies in Ottawa presided over the ceremony. She did a good job, given the various hiccups we threw at her (collapsing chairs, wrong rings, and a giggling bride and groom). Recommended.

Limousine: We hired Elite Limousine to ferry us from our photo venue to reception/ceremony venue. The driver got lost en route, making us 20 minutes late for our own wedding. Disappointing.

Cake: We ordered cupcakes from the Buttercream Bakery. The cupcakes weren’t bad, but they didn’t have the richness I had hoped for. I can take part of the blame for that – I should have bailed when we did our tasting. Similarly, a cake we ordered for the cutting proved to be pretty bland. What’s worse, a day before the reception, we called them to make sure they had the right address for delivery. They didn’t. Recommended with reservations. If you go with these folks, call at the last minute to make sure they have the right address.

Rings: I tried various jewelery stores, but I didn’t see anything I liked until I went to Magpie. They had a wider selection in styles and materials than we found elsewhere. Their stuff has a bit of a hippy look, but some of us like that kind of thing. Recommended.

On Monday I went to the City’s open house on the Lansdowne Live plan. It was a zoo. Concerned Glebe-ites singing protest songs; people asking passersby to sign petitions against the “sole-sourcing” of the plan; and people handing out leaflets telling the truth about the deal.

Inside, it didn’t get much better. Tiny posters in small font, replicating the text of the City’s Lansdowne Live website. Each poster was surrounded by a crowd three or four people deep trying to read what was on display. There were officials from the city and/or the developer, but they were too inundated with people for me to get close to them.

It was insanity.

I went there to find out what was proposed, and ended up with more questions than answers:

What happens if the CFL team folds? The Ottawa Renegades lasted only four seasons. Aside from the $300k in annual rent[1], where would the team’s failure leave the city? According to the business plan, the CFL team is supposed to contribute $42 million dollars back to the city and developers.[2] That seems like an awfully large risk in a $200 million plan.

How will people get there? The transit portion of the slides seems optimistic. Lansdowne is far from the transit way, far from the planned LRT, and far from the nearest highway on-ramp. During peak use, the plan suggests that people will park and ride from the burbs to get to Lansdowne. That seems optimistic. Bank street becomes terribly congested for anything larger than a 67s game (eg, the Ex). Without a change in infrastructure, that seems unlikely to improve.

What about public use? The City of Ottawa is short on centrally located sports fields. There doesn’t appear to be an allocation of land for amateur sports such as soccer and ultimate. The plan would see a “front yard” that would serve as parking for large events. There’s no mention of use for amateur sports.[3] It sounds like they’d keep the winter bubble over the field at Frank Clair stadium, but that’s about it. Even though the pictures show fountains and a plaza, but I couldn’t find any mention of those in the posters or business plans.

What about the extras? The first phase of the plan is replacing the stadium and asphalt parking lot with something a little nicer and adding retail to the site. Phase 2 is the development of hotel, residential, and office components. The plan doesn’t describe what those developments will be. How large will each retail space be? What is the 41,000 square foot “unique food store“? Since the site is far from major arteries, it seems unlikely that a big box store would move in there. What will happen if the space can’t be rented out?

Aside from these questions, I have to say that the event didn’t feel like a consultation. It felt like something verging on a coronation, or perhaps a revolt. The vocal members of the crowd clearly didn’t like what they saw. The city and the promoters did little to answer visitor’s questions – although there was a Q&A session at Wednesday night’s consultation.

After reading the City/promoter’s docs I’m left with the simple conclusion: even though the Lansdowne Live proposal is no worse than what’s currently at the site, it doesn’t have much going for it. The proposal envisions Lansdowne as an attraction, but without the necessary transit to get visitors to the site. It lacks public space: no statuary, no gardens, no playing fields, no plazas, no skate parks, no amphitheater. Nothing.

[1] – Business plan, page 20.
[2] – Business plan, page 23.
[3] – Take a look at the stadium page and search for “winter”.

When OC Transpo tried to prevent atheist ads from appearing on buses, I started thinking a bit more about my philosophy. I’m an atheist. In general, I have no problem with religion, as long as people don’t use it as a weapon against others (that’s a shout-out to you al Qaeda! And you too, Jerry), or as an excuse to harm themselves (I’m looking at you, Jehovah’s Witnesses). So, as an atheist, I thought I’d start reading what other atheists had to say.

And I got bored.

There are plenty of atheist blogs out there, but they spend a lot of time talking about religion. Like 99.9% of their time. I don’t get it. Consider how far women’s magazines would have gotten if they spent all their time talking about how lame men are. Or where Sports Illustrated would be if every issue was “Chess sucks!” Or if Playboy was full of pictures of naked guys, just to show how ugly men are.

I’m an atheist. If you want me to read your blog, stop writing about religion.

I ended up emailing Ebon, who posts to Daylight Atheism. I asked him why there was so much religion on his blog. In response, he wrote back:

First is the trivial answer: [...] I keep a cache of posts that I wrote some time earlier and can release at my convenience, so the site doesn’t go dark for too long. Since these stored posts have to be timeless, many of them are about philosophical or theological topics rather than current events. [...] I think it helps to be a knowledgeable and well-equipped atheist, and I find human culture fascinating no matter how it manifests itself.

Second, and maybe more importantly: While I do write about positive atheism and humanism as often as possible, I want to maintain a balance. And one thing I’ve found is that posts which pick a fight, or disassemble an argument, often get more hits and more attention than posts which promote atheism as a positive worldview. [...] That’s not something I’m thrilled about, but that’s how it is. I don’t want my site to be all arguing all the time, but to keep things lively, it does help to stir the pot on occasion.

(I’ve abridged his response – I’ll post the whole thing in the comments)

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy reading his Contributions of Freethinkers series, and some of the other posts up there. But I just don’t care about the fiddly bits of Christianity, and how demonstrably wrong they are.

I hope this is a phase in the growth of atheism. Many posters to these blogs talk about “deconversion”¹ or how they decided that religion wasn’t for them. My hope is that these are first generation atheists who are reacting against their upbringing, and that their kids will be able to be atheists who don’t care about religion, and are able to write blogs that can talk about atheism itself.

It’s too bad. I enjoy my atheism because it doesn’t force me into anything. I enjoy being able to construct my own morality. I enjoy being ethically responsible to myself. I’d like to see what my fellow atheists think about their newfound world view. I’d love to know what society would be like if atheism was the dominant philosophy. It’s a pity that I haven’t been able to find a blog that scratches that itch.

1. For a well written deconversion story, take a look at Confessions of an Atheist. (back)

I saw Food, Inc at the Bytowne over the weekend. For those who don’t travel in hippie circles, it’s this summer’s blockbuster lefty documentary, brimming with the such granola celebs as the author of Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan¹ and Eric Schlosser (author of the excellent Fast Food Nation).

The gist of the documentary is pretty straight forward: our food supply has gone industrial, with almost all forms of food production being done in vast factories. The industrial process creates cheap unhealthy food, pushes small producers out of business, and has potentially fatal side effects (notably e. coli and salmonella poisoning for consumers). On top of that, the companies that do the processing act like bullies: litigating against farmers who attempt to save part of their crop to plant the following year, suing anyone who openly speaks against their products, and lobbying various legislatures to pass consumer-unfriendly legislation. Special attention is paid to Monsanto, everyone’s favourite corporate Big Brother.

Ironically enough, Food Inc also paints large corporations as our potential saviors from this economic and health nightmare: they talk to the entrepreneur that started Stonyfield Farm² who gives a wonderfully cogent explanation of why companies can actually produce good food, and why companies aren’t necessarily bad. They even end up painting Wal-Mart as part of the solution. (I hope that the NDP listen to their new golden boy, Darrell Dexter and integrate this idea into their world view – but that’s a topic for another post)

Do I recommend it? Yes. But with a caveat.

If you haven’t read Fast Food Nation, the Omnivores Dilemma, or any of the other books on modern food production, then I highly recommend this documentary. It’s informative and engaging without being overly depressing. Perhaps most importantly, it ends on a fairly positive note: we aren’t as screwed as all this sounds – as consumers, we have the corporations who have built this system under our control. We can vote with our dollars, and vote with our feet. Industrial production methods can be reformed to produce healthy, tasty, and safe food.

Now, if you have read one or more of those books, and are up on the vague shape of the American (and Canadian) food production systems, then I still recommend this movie, but not as glowingly. It doesn’t bring a great deal of new information to the table, but it does give a succinct reminder for why you’re doing what you do. I’ve been falling off the conscientious objector train recently – I’ve stopped going to the farmer’s market, I’ve stopped trying to buy locally grown stuff, and I’ve been buying more and more junk food. The end of this doc was a not so subtle hint that I really should be paying an extra dollar or two for my grub, so long as it goes to the right people and supports a production system that has to get back to the main stream.

Overall? go see it. Seriously.

Images from Food, Inc website and wikipedia, respectively. Used without permission.

1. Okay, I don’t know if Michael Pollan is a real hippie celebrity, since I haven’t read his book. He may be a seal clubber in his spare time, for all I know. (back)
2. Makers of fantastic yoghurt, and with some legitimately green cred. (back)

Have you heard about the folks out in Constance Bay who want to turn their lawn into a wildflower garden?

It looks like improving biodiversity may slow the spread of animal-borne diseases. According to New Scientist researchers in Oregon have discovered that there’s an inverse correlation between the number of species of mammals in an area and the incidence of hantavirus¹. Similarly, the more species of mammals there are in an area, the lower the likelihood that they will be carrying Lyme disease. The paper suggests that an increase in biodiversity limits how wild our little mousy friends run, limiting the spread of disease.

As these diseases are spreading in Canada, perhaps the City should be encouraging people to replace their lawns with something a little more diverse.

1. Hantavirus is spread between deer mice, and can be fatal to humans. (back)

Blogawa welcomes TheatreGirl to its fold. TheatreGirl is writing reviews of Ottawa’s theatre shows. She promises to be keeping an eye on the Fringe – which I’m looking forward to. I refuse to have any experience unless I’m told beforehand that it will be good.

For those of you who enjoy your sweets to be both inexpensive and ethical: the Metro Central Y sells excellent Cocoa Camino hot chocolate for a measly $7, including tax. That’s 20% cheaper than Bridgehead! NOM NOM NOM NOM!

Observent readers of Blogawa will notice that I’ve added El Maks (of swapbox fame) to Blogawa. El Maks, (no relation to the awesomeness of Maki), is, well, awesome.

As always, suggestions for new blogs can be made to erigami@piepalace.ca.

I have to say that I don’t fully understand the charges against Ottawa mayor Larry O’Brien. If we’re to believe Terry Kilrea, Larry O’Brien offered him a job with the National Parole Board if he give up his mayoral candidacy. Now O’Brien is being charged with influence peddling, but hasn’t been charged with an offense under the elections act.

Doesn’t that seem a little backward? Shouldn’t the (alleged) attempt to throw a municipal election be part of the charges? As an elections weenie, I would argue that any attempt to buy off a candidate is at least as serious as influence peddling. Does this mean that if Terry Kilrea had been offered a plum job with Calian, no crime would have been committed?

The Ontario Municipal Elections Act does specifically say:

No person shall [...] promise or agree to procure an office or employment to induce a person to become a candidate, refrain from becoming a candidate or withdraw his or her candidacy

That does kind of sound like the the first half of what O’Brien is alleged to have done, n’est pas?

I’m back. My wrists aren’t 100%, but they’re much better than they were. To prove it, I’ve squeezed another feature into Blogawa: events. Our friendly events robot reads OttawaEvents.org daily, randomly picks some upcoming events, and posts them to Blogawa.

The events are currently jumbled together, regardless of category, but that may change with time.