Last week was busy, and it ended with a long walk. The highlight was a stroll downtown on a beautiful sunny day. Here are some highlights. Some of these pics can be enlarged if you click on them.

There used to be a big Best Western hotel just a block down the street from where I live. It was torn down and the plan was to build student housing in its place, as the location is just across the road from the University. But that was ten years ago. They did tear the hotel down but there’s just been a hole in the ground ever since. At least it fills with rainwater and gives a nice fenced enclosure for geese to rest.

Proceeding down Gordon Street we find the Guelph Lawn Bowling Club. You may not have known Guelph had a Lawn Bowling Club. Now you do. In the background you can see our famous covered bridge. To the right (not in the picture) is the Boathouse, which is an eatery where you can get an ice cream cone and then sit and watch the geese and ducks on the river (which we’ll return to).

This is the splash pad in front of City Hall. Kids can cool off in it in the summer. I never have business with City Hall (if I can help it) but I pass by it often.

I had a bunch of errands to do downtown, and these were made more difficult by the fact that the main square, which is called St. George’s Square, is currently under construction. A lot of construction. To get to Scotiabank, where I was heading, I had to wander through a maze of walkways surrounded by barricades. What a mess!

I was tired out by this time so I went to sit for a while in the main branch of the library. This gentleman seems to have had the same idea, but was even more tired than I. Note the poor condition of the carpet. Given that this branch is going to be closed down when the new main library opens I guess they’re not worried about keeping up appearances.

I posted a picture a while back of the construction on the new library, which is just a block away from the old one and only a stone’s throw from St. George’s Square. This is what it looked like then.

And this is what it looks like now. They’re coming along. Lots of construction in this town.

I had to head to a lawyer’s office next and passed by the display window of a toy store where a Guelph Monopoly game was being sold. I had to go in and check it out. Nice conversation piece, but Monopoly is one of the worst board games in the world. I don’t know how it ever became so popular.

A few weeks ago the fabulous Fraggle posted an AI mock-up of Guelph that surprised me. Some of the landmarks were there but they were in the wrong place, or incorrectly rendered. One such location was the Albion Hotel. Well, here is the real place. First opening in the 1860s (under another name) there are a lot of urban legends associated with its history, including a visit from Al Capone during Prohibition (there was a Guelph connection, supposedly). Recently renovated, just last month it was listed for sale for $1. You can’t tear it down because it’s a heritage site so I’m not sure what’s going to happen to it.

The kids were back in school this week, and they were greeted by this cheerful, and maybe overly optimistic sign, at Central P.S.

Directly across from my lawyer’s office is the Guelph Civic Museum. I’ve only ever been in the gift shop. Some day I’ll go through it. I’m not a fan of the glass and stone effect.

My lawyer has been with the family for decades. He’s semi-retired now. The flowers in his front window looked like they could use some attention, but the office has a real old-school charm.

On my way back home I had to take a picture from the bridge overlooking the Eramosa River. In the summer you often see people in kayaks and canoes paddling about on it. But on this day it just looked peaceful.

And that’s a wrap. Hope you enjoyed this quick tour of some of the sites about my hometown. According to my phone I put in 30,000 steps so I was bushed when I got back. I’m not the man I used to be, as the song says.

This is the week the students move back into residence at university, with classes starting next week. So lots of fresh-faced youngsters are bustling about, their eyes aglow with the joy of learning, full of idealism, hope, and a desire to change the world.

Who will tell them that nothing lies ahead but disappointment, despair, debt, and the crushing of all their dreams? Not me! That will come in time! In the meanwhile, long line-ups at the bank, the grocery store, and good luck finding a place to park at Wal-Mart. As I’ve shown before, this lot is usually pretty deserted. But not today!

As noted in my previous post, this place won’t be ready to move into on September 1. I’ve heard they’re having to put the students who signed leases up at a nearby hotel.

This weekend they had the road out front dug up, leaving quite a hole. I took this picture from across the street, so the hole basically takes out the whole road. You have to take a detour as there’s no driving around it. The people who live on this street must be loving it.

Well, they are certainly coming along. But they are being rented out to students and I thought they were listed as being ready to move into by September 1. Which is only a week away. They don’t look like they’re a week away from having people living in them. So I don’t know how that works. I hope they don’t try to finish them in a rush. A man in a rush makes mistakes.

Just after posting on the fallen soldiers I went for my morning walk and came across this sorry sight. Toppled bins is one thing, but not if they’re out in the road. Luckily it was early and I was able to pull this comrade up onto the curb. Not good!

After the truck has finished emptying them, the bins aren’t always put back down neatly. Sometimes, like on this street, they fall over. But they will rise again!

Over at Alex on Film I recently had two comments that appeared on my review of Escape Room that I suspected were not written by an actual human being:

Spot-on analysis. The room designs looked interesting on the surface, but the puzzle solutions felt far-fetched and the alternate/cliffhanger endings were definitely disappointing. It’s a shame it didn’t push the boundaries of the genre further.

Great analysis. I completely agree that Escape Room relies heavily on familiar ‘Game of Death’ tropes seen in films like Cube and Saw. While the premise is intriguing, the contrived character conflicts and weak, open-ended conclusion definitely hold it back from standing out in the genre.

The tip-off, of course, is that both these comments were posted together at the same time. Plus the fact that the email attached was just a random collection of letters at a gmail address. Also, the website they linked to was a professional football betting site.

Still, the reason I bring this up is that either one of these comments I would have allowed through and probably even responded to on its own. They are well expressed and do respond directly to the points I was making in my review, even using some of my own language (like calling this the “Game of Death” genre). Gone are the days of trash spam like “Best free pharmaceuticals!” and “Free pr0n!” This is good stuff.  I assume it’s being produced by AI. AI that has actually “read” my reviews!

Still, it is spam. And as spam gets better, both in how its written and how its targeted, I feel like it’s going to get harder and harder to identify. This will lead to a “death of the Internet” situation where nobody will even know that the zombie apocalypse has happened until it’s already run its course.

Some little person got quite creative with their sidewalk chalk. Spelling your name and jumping on your favourite colour sound like fun. Not sure what the Dino Stomp is.

Well, not really my backyard. My backyard is basically this deck. But if you extended this picture out to the right you’d see the side of my house. This is the backyard of the house adjacent to mine. As you can tell, it’s seen better days. It’s been abandoned for the last ten years, after the previous owner, a lady who lived there alone until the age of 93, moved on. The guy (or group) who bought it seem to have no idea what to do with it. So it just falls apart.

I’m sure it will be torn down eventually, which is a shame because back in the day this was a really funky, stylish house. That backyard was such a peaceful little oasis in the city. On the left of the picture is the indoor swimming pool. And glass walls were everywhere, because the family who built the place were the owners of a local window company. Now most of the windows have been smashed by kids and boarded up.

Oh well, at least it’s quiet. And makes for a nice, moody picture. (You can click on the pic to make it bigger.)

Got some windows in. And some doors. Roofs done, and one is already shingled. I guess they’re on schedule. Here’s a pic from a few weeks ago. I’ll probably do a post with all of them together whenever they’re finished.