Jared Young shot this timelapse video on June 27 during that massive thunderstorm that attacked Ottawa. The clouds are menacing. All that’s missing is some AC/DC Thunderstruck for the soundtrack. (You may remember Jared’s incredible photo of a lightning strike at the Experimental Farm back on June 8. ...

[  ](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-04-campground.jpg) Photo by [ Glen Gower ](http://about.me/glengower) . We recently launched the Ottawa Campgrounds and RV Guide , a new page on our site with a huge listing of Ottawa and Gatineau campgrounds. ...

[ ](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/weekly-event-roundup250.gif) You may have heard about a little music festival known as " Bluesfest " that’s on this week in Ottawa. But you might not have heard about some of the other events in this week’s list. _ Thanks to all of our contributors for their ideas this week, including our newest contributor, Bryony. ...

[ ](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/speakingat-350.jpg) So I’m one of the keynote speakers at Social Capital , a “social media learnathon” here in Ottawa on July 23. My talk will be about ** “building our city through social media” ** . I’ll offer some ideas on how we can harness the power of social media to make our city a greater place to live. ...

Saw this on Andrew King’s twitter feed last night and it made me laugh. [ ](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/shoulders.png) There are more (many more) Bluesfest photos from last night on Flickr . ** See also: ** Ottawa Bluesfest Guide If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to our blog via email, Twitter, Facebook or RSS. ...

I’ve posted a lot of great photos of Ottawa sunsets here in the past, but this is the first sunrise. Great photo from Robert Lachaine , published here with his kind permission. If you have a great photo of Ottawa, please send it along to feedback@ottawastart. ...

[ ](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/iheartoctranspo2.png) Ben Wood sent me a note to tell me about the launch of his new blog, I (Heart) OC Transpo . Ben has been taking the bus in Ottawa since he was born. (As a newborn he rode the bus home from the hospital with his parents, back in December 1984. ...

Last week was busy with prep for Canada Day, and the week before I was on vacation, and the email box is overflowing. So in an attempt to clear it out, here are a few reader photo submissions. Alicia Wanless sent along these two colourful photos from the recent Spencerville Mill Heritage Fair. ...

We had another record month for visitors on OttawaStart in June, and July 1 was a record setting day with over 30,000 visits to our web site. We also surpassed 3,000 followers on our Twitter feed . ** A HUGE THANK YOU ** to all of our readers and visitors for coming back again and again to OttawaStart. ...

I cannot think of any other word than " awesome " to describe this photo. UPDATE: The previously unidentified purple cat has been identified by several of our readers as “Kitty Purry”. [  ](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/harper-perry.png) From left to right, an unidentified purple cat, Rachel Harper, Katy Perry and Stephen Harper. ...