Photo: The park area overlooking the Rideau Locks opposite to Parliament Hill, Ottawa.
Got up a bit later today, although I still woke up around 07:30ish. Had a shower eventually and got downstairs around 09:30 for some breakfast and coffee with Laura Drepper and her brother Dave (the kind folks who run the Rideau Inn and genuinely seem to put their best effort in to having a successful business). Used their connectivity despite there being an open wifi network reported by my laptop, because I figured it was better to be a good boy 
.
Went to a Second Cup across the street and got in to a conversation with a local resident who seemed too interested in me, and since I did not feel the same, I had to tactfully leave instead. Fortuately Hannah called anyway and when I rang her back we had a brief chat about their house plans. Cool. Scary but fun nonetheless. I don’t think I’m ready to buy a house since I scarcely know where I will want to end up living – well I know where I want to live now (Ottawa for a while would be quite nice) but it’s making that happen which would turn out to be somewhat more complex.
Tried looking for the cache on top of the Rideau Centre (it must be in the rooftop garden) but the snow on the roof was a little hindering to finding the container and the co-ordinates were fluctuating slightly as my GPS tried to lock on to my location. The guesthouse is around 3303 miles away from my home in Reading, UK. Closer than I thought.
Went downtown, had a non-meeting with Linux Studio after they got the times slightly mixed up and we then missed eachother. We are trying it again tomorrow if it works out. Had lunch in the Marché in the Rideau Centre again, although I hope to be at the Bytown Market for lunch tomorrow – especially if I swing by the folks at TG and SB for some coffee and a quick update on the ins and out of Linux Gaming. Hopefully that’ll be quite interesting to me since I’m not a hardcore gamer by nature.
The Chapters “Internet” access terminals are misslabelled – in the UK I might be able to get them to change the name because it’s really only limited web and not untrusted downloads or similar stuff. No mindterm available at that moment and I’m not inclined to bother too much about that now in case they also block certain applets. I note that the service allows free use of the Chapters website (as you might expect it to do so in this kind of situation) but they cunningly break all usability by not allowing the evil popup windows or whatever the website wants to do. LKD still not on the shelves so I’m guessing it hasn’t come in yet – or some very keen person bought it as soon as it did and managed to annoy me in the process .
Went to the Canadian National Gallery and the Museum of Canadian Civilisation (as I noted on #nott earlier on tonight – the same in the US would be an oxymoron these days, I am looking forward to visiting Boston but doubt it compares to anywhere else on the same level. For your amusment and general interest, the USian stupid laws on immigration assume all visitors will want to stay – the irony. I should watch what the evil bastard said in the State of the Union address earlier on whenever – then we look out for the much more interesting videos parodying and sponsorted by online prezel gift services). The latter is over in Gatineau (formerly Hull), which is part of Quebec and over Victoria Bridge (verify that). I am inspired to investigate ways I might ultimately live here for a while at some point. Did you know about the sheer scale of the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway – an immediate benefit of the early Confederation)? did ya?
Had some pizza in the Earl of Sussex and am using the wifi again. I didn’t eat here last night, and the wifi is convenient so I don’t mind being in the same place again. I am planning to Pop in to the GOSLING Ottawa meeting tomorrow afternoon to see where that is going to, thanks to the heads up on #oclug from mcr (also wanted to meet him for some coffee too since he’s doing some work I have an interest in. Found out about FUDcon and registered my interest. We can hopefully go along for at least a few hours on the 18th.
Jon.