Kingston-Wayne

Thanks to cleaning out some of my mother's house we now have a working turntable and a bunch of old vinyl.

Over the last few months the teenager of the house has stared to collect new vinyl. Mostly singles from current bands, plus some older stuff. Over the last few days we've been listening to almost nothing but vinyl. I am somewhat stumped as to the appeal. Most of what has been played we also have in digital format which is easier to use and doesn't sound dusty and scratched.

Now, we do have some old albums, mostly folk and blues, that will never be re-issued. I will get around to digitizing soon I hope. Also it has been fun to nostalgically recall hunting for used LPs through the bins at the Incredible Record Store on Yonge St., or haunting the Vinyl Museum on Bloor. I can remember the exact feeling of finding some odd import or some unknown collaboration between favourite artists.

Maybe the best part of 12" LPs was the album art.

Or text as the case may be.

I've shared items from Library and Archives Canada and many from the City of Ottawa Archives. I've recently discovered that the Glebe Report, the community newspaper, has put their archives online at http://www.glebereport.ca/Newspaper/Archives.php.

The archive is not searchable or indexed, but the PDF files high-quality and  are easily browsable. Every issue I looked at has something of interest from the ongoing debate over Lansdowne Park to the controversy over enclosing the Fifth Ave. Court. It turns out that renovating/closing/reviewing Glebe area schools has been going on a long time.

This is a fanstastic resource for local history and heritage.

The school news sections are great, trying to imagine what the grade six students with their science projects are up to 30+ years later. I have copied some examples below.

Glebe Report Feb 1980 http://www.glebereport.ca/Archives/Glebe_Report_1980_02_15_v08_n02.pdf

Glebe Report, January 1980 http://www.glebereport.ca/Archives/Glebe_Report_1980_01_19_v08_n01.pdf

So after a couple of false starts I have converted this site over to Drupal 7. Upgrading from 6 to 7 was fairly uneventful and I am impressed with how many of my installed modules are no longer necessary.

Moving to 7 has also given me the opportunity to learn about theming and some custom design issues. Of course I am way too busy to do any of this for some time. So... what theme should I install in the meantime? What looks good, has some basic configuration options and at least leans towards accessible design. If I could find a theme that had a easy to configure mobile version I would be thrilled.

Suggestions?

Happy New Year 2012 Everyone

Date: 1954-01-30 
Credit/Crédit: City of Ottawa Archives / Archives de la Ville d'Ottawa

My kids have been taking music lessons at Metro Music on Bank St. for a while so I have spent some time hanging out there while they learn. It is in a old commercial building that in the 1920s was a car repair and/or a tire dealership. It has been a music store for while.

Here is an ad from 1966:

Much has changed on that stretch of Bank St., but not everything.

As the water is drained out of the Rideau canal the remains of the Dow's Lake Causeway becomes visible.

I'm not sure when the causeway was removed but the picture below is from the Report and Correspondence of the
Ottawa Improvement Commission (Ottawa, 1912).

A quick picture taken today.

Cropped map of Ottawa from 2nd Edition, 1915, Atlas of Canada

Some of the highlights.

Muybridge's Strings, was excellent. An interesting use of different animation styles and a creative approah to the narrative.

Bout, which has a much simpler story was also really well done. The images and sounds from this short stayed with me.

All three were good. Both Moxie and I'm Fine Thanks  were visually really interesting as well as being pretty bleak in there own ways.

boingboing has posted this book trailer for a new book by Art Spiegelman about his billiant book Maus. Maus is one of my all time favourite books. It can be read in so many different ways I'm curious to read what Spiegelman has to say about it 25 years later.

I haven't been buying many books lately, but this looks like a must-have.

As usual the site has been neglected for a while. Well, the kids are back in school, the seasons are changing. Time to turn over a new leaf and update the content and technology of the site. I started this site to give the family an online presence and to have a personal sandbox to play with Drupal and other technologies. Time to get back to it.

From http://www.letsgetitright.ca/blog/364. A well written summary of recent developments with the Lansdowne Park development. Key paragraphs:

In fact, had the City not abandoned the international design competition it launched in early 2008, redevelopment of Landsowne Park would already be underway. But that open, transparent and competitive process was discarded by the City in favour of a back room deal and an overly-complex scheme to privatize a large part of this valuable public land.

The reality is that it is not FOL that has slowed the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park. The delay is due to the City's decision to proceed with a complex, ill-conceived redevelopment scheme that has disregarded virtually every rule of prudent public planning and fair process. We have hired three of Canada's leading experts in public procurement and accounting who have given sworn evidence roundly criticizing the redevelopment plan as failing to meet any reasonable standard of due diligence.