{"id":6331,"date":"2014-10-29T18:54:57","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T22:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=6331"},"modified":"2014-10-29T22:56:26","modified_gmt":"2014-10-30T02:56:26","slug":"playing-tourist-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=6331","title":{"rendered":"Playing tourist at home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This afternoon, I felt compelled to take a walk to downtown Ottawa. Our home is within walking distance of Parliament Hill and the National War Memorial, where a deranged shooter killed a ceremonial guard, Corporal Nathan Cirillo.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6332\" src=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Screenshot_2014-10-29-17-30-10.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Screenshot_2014-10-29-17-30-10.png 640w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Screenshot_2014-10-29-17-30-10-300x168.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It was a beautiful autumn day and the walk was very enjoyable. On my way downtown, I dropped by my favorite computer store (Canada Computers, on Rideau Street) to purchase some needed cables. Then I continued.<\/p>\n<p>There was quite a crowd at the War Memorial, and it was full of flowers. Flowers, flowers and more flowers. Also, many Canadian flags.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6333\" src=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141029_145720.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"653\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141029_145720.jpg 653w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141029_145720-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And it so happened that I was very lucky: I caught the changing of the guard ceremony. I\u00a0even managed to record it on video.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7MOci5Dbbq8\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Near the end of the clip, a\u00a0police\u00a0officer (armed with what appeared to be a fully automatic weapon)\u00a0crosses in front of my phone camera. He apologized for doing so (I can be heard muttering, &#8220;no problem,&#8221; on the video). After I was done recording, I stepped over to the policeman and had a brief conversation with him. I mentioned to him that it is an unfortunate necessity that he has to be part of the picture. He understood immediately what I meant. I also thanked him for his service.<\/p>\n<p>I then carried on, right up to Parliament Hill. As a free citizen of a free country, I entered the grounds without encountering any guards, obstacles, metal detectors or other obscenities. It occurred to me that this is the first time I walked on Parliament Hill in 41 years.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6338\" src=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141029_151038.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"653\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141029_151038.jpg 653w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141029_151038-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The flag on top of the Peace Tower is still at half mast.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6340\" src=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141029_151826.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"621\" height=\"441\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141029_151826.jpg 621w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141029_151826-300x213.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 621px) 100vw, 621px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I also managed to take a panoramic photo of sorts of the view from the Hill:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Hill-panorama.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-6334\" src=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Hill-panorama-1024x471.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"695\" height=\"319\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Hill-panorama-1024x471.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Hill-panorama-300x138.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ottawa is still a beautiful city. And, having just returned from the Middle East, it was good to reassure myself that it remains a free city of a free people.<\/p>\n<fb:like href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=6331' send='true' layout='standard' show_faces='true' width='450' height='65' action='like' colorscheme='light' font='lucida grande'><\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This afternoon, I felt compelled to take a walk to downtown Ottawa. Our home is within walking distance of Parliament Hill and the National War Memorial, where a deranged shooter killed a ceremonial guard, Corporal Nathan Cirillo. It was a beautiful autumn day and the walk was very enjoyable. On my way downtown, I dropped <a href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=6331' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,44,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada","category-local-ottawa","category-personal","category-22-id","category-44-id","category-35-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6331"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6341,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6331\/revisions\/6341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}