I took my three granddaughters to Stobie's Pizza so each could have a piece of Stobie's excellent pizza for lunch. The plan was to grab some slices and then head over to Victoria Park and enjoy the park and our pizza.
I am so surprised at all the controversy surrounding masks. There is no question about mask wearing in London. Vaccinated? Good. But wear a mask anyway. Until this COVID-19 pandemic is under control, masks are going to be de rigueur in most public places.
Saying no to pictures is so today. When I started taking photos for publications in the late '60s, the risk one ran when taking pictures in public was being harassed by folk yelling, "Take my picture! Take my picture!" People thought it cool, even an honour, to be thought important enough to have their picture taken. Not today.
I saw a small group of young people in downtown London setting up for a shoot of some type. I thought they might be students from the community college or the local university. I asked and they said, "No pictures," and refused to say anymore. They turned their backs to the camera.
A young man insisted they did not have the time to answer any questions. I told him a one word answer would suffice. Are you students from Fanshawe? No reply. From Western? No reply. But they did have time to insist that I not take any pictures. Never tell a photojournalist not to take your picture. I have shots of police, military and criminal gang members all taken because of that order.
If you are up to something that you feel uncomfortable having photographed, that is worth a picture. At least, it might be worth a picture unless you are just going with the flow and turning your back on the camera because it is the in thing to do.
The Avon River, where it forms a reservoir behind a flood control dam in Stratford, Ontario, is more than a place to store excess water. It is a place for fun and fun is never excess. Rental paddle boats, canoes and kayaks are all available, complete with life jackets, from Avon Boat Rentals.
Noodoe EV is a Taiwanese maker of electric vehicle charging systems has operated in Asia and Europe for the past decade. A few years ago Noodoe EV expanded into North America and has now installed nearly 1,000 EV charging stations in the U.S. at casinos, hotels and shopping malls plus more.
The feature that Noodoe EV most likes to brag about is its use of a cloud-based platform. Does the cloud connection benefit drivers? Yes but it benefits the owners of the Noodoe EV charging stations more. Noodoe EV provides the parking lot owners with the charging stations with a wealth of information: how long does the average user charging their car, how much power is used during an average charge and how much profit is being made from each charging unit.
Noodoe EV like to brag that its technology transforms parking lots into "hands-off revenue generators."
Upper Queen's Park is right next to the Festival Theatre. One can stroll into the park from almost any direction, it is not surrounded with a barrier of any type. Yet, it does have a proper entrance off Water Street. It is clearly a proper entrance as there are two matching stone arches over both sidewalks bordering the roadway. In front of these, there are two dogs, two pleasant dogs. One might expect lions, or at the very least large guard dogs, but no, these mellow dogs look like a couple of family pets.
The occasional intermingling of the two Stratfords, the one in England and the one in Canada, shows up in the most surprising places.
The statue of William Shakespeare in the garden at the Stratford Festival was done by Frank Holte. Holte headed the Stratford Festival prop department for some 39 years. And, this is where the link appears, Frank Holte was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in England.
The American Southwest is in the middle of a drought of historic proportions, but not Southwestern Ontario. The southern most province in Canada, Ontario, is having a rather wet summer. There are weeks when residents don't have to water their plants at all. In fact, some of the local strawberries have had their flavour diluted by all the rainfall which has made the berries bigger, wetter and with a less intense flavour than one expects.
