Category: People
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Spying On Your Neighbours
There are all kinds of miraculous way, via the internet, to find out about our neighbours without ever having to actually speak to them in person. We can be envious and vindictive about their choices in housing, work, children, political contributions, and land values from the shadowy corner of TechnologyLand. Read more
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Putting the Urban in Suburban
Okay, I admit it: I grew up in Surrey. Go ahead and take your pot shots and be done with it. Here’s an article by Frances Bula for The Globe and Mail on the work of Canada’s largest municipalities, including Surrey, to add some urban freshness to their typically strip mall-lined main streets. It’s about… Read more
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Becky Blanton is Invisible
Becky Blanton is a writer, journalist and self-described “insanely curious person.” After the death of her father she decided to live in her van for a year, travel the country with her cat and dog, and take the time to grieve. It was an experience unlike what she expected. She ended up becoming one of… Read more
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Connecting the Dots With the City of Ottawa
Just whipped this off to the editor of The Ottawa Citizen. I’m not so much crabby as tired of the same old, same old (though it may be difficult to tell the difference). **************** Planning. Building Permits and Approvals. Bylaws. Community and Social Services. Heritage. Rural Affairs Office. Community Development Framework. The commonality of all… Read more
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Positioning Solar
I was, literally, in the middle of writing an entry on John Abrams’ book Companies We Keep, when his latest RSS feed popped into my basket. Since my dedicated blog entry will be choc-a-bloc full of interesting bits I’m sending this link out with no introduction. In the New York Times I also came across… Read more
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The Quick Brown Fox
The quick brown fox might have jumped over the lazy dog, but our beloved local red fox couldn’t avoid the front bumper of a speeding vehicle. I pulled out of the village early Friday morning to find the body of Red spilled across the double yellows. Road kill is common on country roads and sometime… Read more
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Dear Vanny R.I.P. (Part 1)
Here is our (my) dilemma. We live in a rural village about forty-five minutes from the city centre. I really, really want to try life as a one-vehicle family. But I’m thinking this may be impossible. Read more
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On Go the Lights
Neighbour cruises by on his lawnmower shouting “Check your power! It’s back on!!” Sure enough, he was right. Guess I have to take that shower now. I liked the idea of spontaneous indoor camping and caffe lattes compliments of the Coleman stove out on the deck, especially on such a gorgeous day. All the kids’… Read more
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Leveraging Disasters and Other Pesky Inconveniences
Note: I write this from a sunny window seat of Starbucks on Bank Street South, forty-five minutes drive from home. I had to drop my eldest off at a writing workshop and am using the time to catch up on my own writing. I’m surrounded by an interesting array of other folks without power, offering… Read more
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All in the Family
The Bay Citizen reported in today’s The New York Times that multigenerational housing is a real estate growth niche around the San Francisco area, aimed at the needs of a growing immigrant population http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/us/22cncmultigenerational.html?pagewanted=2. However, it is a form of housing that is more likely to be adopted by North Americans in general as the challenges… Read more