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HELLO OTTAWA

🚊 NO Train: Day 1️⃣6️⃣

Here are today’s updates on the closure of the Confederation Line.

•  OC Transpo has remembered that they also operate ParaTranspo and have added a rail replacement bus ParaTranspo service. R1 Para will service Line 1 stations between Tunney’s Pasture and Blair stations. Customers can book this service the same day or speak to OC Transpo staff at stations to request the service. Customers who require additional supports should call 613 560 5000.
•  The contractor of the O-Train, Rideau Transit Group, has hired a subsiduary of one of its own members to assist them. Design, engineering and consultancy firm Atkins is a division of the SNC-Lavalin Group, which itself is a partner in Rideau Transit Group.  (Railway Age)
•  University of British Columbia engineering professor Gordon Lovegrove wonders if the experts will find O Train will need to rip up and remake the tracks. (Elyse Skura at CBC)
•  OC Transpo says that, when it takes a bus off a regular route to put it on Rail Replacement duty, high frequency trips are chosen first with school routes, first and last trips on a route, less frequent routes chosen last. (Josh Pringle at CTV)
•  If you are intending to buy a Presto card to use on OC Transpo, wait until Aug 8, when the price will drop from $6 to $4. No thanks to OC Transpo, it’s Metrolinx doing it for Toronto commuters but we benefit as well. (Metrolinx)

📨 Reader Mailbag

•  Reader Cindy took us to task for spelling the Department of National Defence like the American Department of Defense. Cindy of course is 100 per cent correct, it is Department of National Defence. 

– Martha & Darren

🍲 🍸 🍺 

•  Asian grocery superstore T & T is opening a second Ottawa location at Kanata’s Hazeldean Mall in 2024. 
•  Peter Hum at the Ottawa Citizen visited Vain In Versailles Bistro in Little Italy and wrote this sentence with a built-in cliffhanger: ‘they cook French food the way that I speak the French language’. That could go so many ways: For Darren it would go, ‘Decades of effort with laughable results’ or Martha, ‘Self-conscious but sort of gets the job done’. In Hum’s case, Vain In Versailles cooks ‘confidently and with an endearing accent, but also with some occasional fuzziness about the details’.
•  Hum also ate at Caribbean fared Tropikàl on Clarence. The Montréal import impressed him with jerk calamari and oxtail mac ‘n’ cheese but found only sogginess in the truffle fries.
•  Bridgehead Coffee’s business is doing well, with revenue increasing 26 per cent in the Apr - Jun period. Bridgehead is based in Ottawa but owned by Second Cup. We tried out the new Bridgehead location airside at the Ottawa Airport and it should have great custom both because it was completely satisfactory and because there is such a poor selection of restos there.
•  For those looking for something neurodivergent and queer in their pastries, Hello Dolly promises to deliver that all year long not just during Pride. It’s located at 992 Wellington Ave. 
•  For those who loved the Automat in old movies, you can get a similar experience at Grounded Kitchen on Carling Avenue. Diners order their food online and pick it up from an insulated locker using a QR code. You do not need to tip the locker.

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Sports

• ⚾ FRONTIER Ottawa Titans 8 – New York Boulders 5 last night

🏗️ Experimental Farm

•  Food scientists say that two planned apartment towers will cast shadows on the Experimental Farm. Taggart Realty Management wants to increase the height limit on its project west of the Ottawa Civic Campus to create a 16 and a 27 storey tower. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada says the towers will block the sun significantly enough to affect their experiments. ( Arthur White-Crummey at CBC)

🐴  Horse Virus

•  The health unit next door to Ottawa warns the public to beware of mosquito bites after a horse was discovered with eastern equine encephalitis virus. Mosquitos can carry the virus between people and horses, says the the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit. Symptoms include symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, and drowsiness.  (Josh Pringle at CTV)

⚡ Hydro Ottawa

•  Hydro Ottawa theorizes that O Train construction caused a high-voltage wire to fall onto Highway 174. An Orléans resident wrote to the City-owned utility asking how such a dangerous thing could happen. Hydro Ottawa answered that it is random and could not be predicted but it was possible that the rockdrill used in the nearby O Train extension construction loosened it. (Ottawa Bulldog)
  
  ➕ Related The Bulldog also dreamed up a list of the ten phrases banned at City Hall. No. 10: ‘We take full responsibility’.

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Tomorrow

•   All-female band Lipstick Rodeo gets the party started at Country Festival Gatineau (7:00 pm) before headliners CCR Reborn heat up the stage at 9:00 pm.
•  The Ottawa Psychic and Crystal Fair returns to Nepean Sportsplex today through August 6, but you already knew that.
•  If your idea of football involves a soccer ball, you should check out the Ottawa Swans Training session at the Ottawa Polo Club. The Ottawa Swans Australian Football Club will be training both the Men’s and Women’s teams, and they welcome players of all levels to take part. 6:00pm to 8:00pm at 1600 Backfield Road.
•  A Company of Fools' production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet plays parks and venues around Ottawa and region this summer. Tonight’s venue is Robert Simpson Park in Arnprior. Showtime 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.
•  Merry Dairy’s Postal Code Pop-Up visits Memorial Grove Park in Gloucester (K1X 0C8).
•  Ottawa Recreation and Culture screens The Super Mario Bros Movie as part of Lansdowne Movie Night. In case of rain the film will be shown inside the Aberdeen Pavilion.

Friday

•  The Country Festival Gatineau lineup incudes The Day After, Phil Denault, and JC Harris. Stage shows start at 1:00 pm.
•  Celebrating 30 years, Ottawa International Busker Fest returns to Sparks Street today through August 7. Watch the three stages and wandering the street, and try your hand at juggling, plate spinning, and other free workshops, each day from 11:00 am to 3:30 pm. Sparks St. between Kent and Elgin.
•  A Company of Fools' production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet plays parks and venues around Ottawa and region this summer. Tonight’s venue is Patterson Creek in the Glebe. Showtime 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. 
•  Capital Ribfest sets up shop at City Hall (110 Laurier Ave W) until Monday, bringing with BBQ and smokehouse flavours downtown. If ribs aren’t your thing, poutine, pulled pork, chicken and brisket are also on the menu.

Just Announced / Now Booking

•  The ReStore Reads Book Fair in Stittsville promises low, low prices on second hand books August 12-13 (in-person only). The Stittsville branch of Habitat for Humanity Greater Ottawa ReStore is located at 3 Iber Road.
•  There’s more than just a wee dram on offer at the Whisky Wonderland event, February 22-24, 2024. You’ll have your pick of whisky vendors plus more selling beer, spirits, and food. Live music will set the mood, Masterclasses will raise your knowledge level, and we hear that there might even be a cigar lounge.

Artist Mitchell F. Chan has created a new online game combining hardcore baseball stats with experimental blockchain tech, The Boys of Summer.

We’ve read this story three times and we still don’t understand how this works, only that we could pick out Chan used to collect stats of the old Ottawa Lynx franchise for baseball statistician Bill James (Moneyball, amongst other things), and there is a desire to remove money from the players.

(Andrew Cohen in Decrypt) (The Boys of Summer)

We will see you tomorrow  – Martha and Darren
 

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