On why we were born

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."
Mark Twain

Hmm, this one makes me think. Why are we here?

Your turn: Why were you born?

It's a Jeep thing

Stopped in its tracks
London, ON
November 2014
For more vehicular-themed Thematic, click here

As much as I don't ever see myself driving a vehicle painted in such a bright color - way too attention-getting - I admire folks who do. I imagine it takes a certain kind of whimsy to decide you're going to park one of these things out front for the next bunch of years, and I wish I had a little more of whatever makes them tick embedded in my own DNA.

Until my genetic code gets rewritten, I'll admire their wheels from afar. Or, in this case, up-close. I caught this lovely example of a Jeep Wrangler on my way back to the office from an early interview, and secretly thanked whoever drives it for giving the rest of us an extra, colorful reason to smile.

Your turn: Most modern cars are painted in colors that are too boring for words. Agree? Disagree? Please discuss.
 

On politeness

"Politeness is an inexpensive way to make friends."
William Feather

I think the action items from this are quite clear. Don't you?

Thematic Photographic 317 - Vehicular Etc.

City lights
London, ON
November 2014

No matter what side of the car-love-hate equation you happen to fall on, you can't ignore their dominance of the urban and suburban environment. From the moment you first step out of the house in the morning, your entire experience will, in ways large and small, be defined by the overwhelming presence of automobiles and the infrastructure designed to support them.

For what it's worth, I lean toward bicycles. Way more fun. Healthier, too.

Your turn: Take a picture that supports, evokes or otherwise reflects this week's theme, "vehicular, etc."‎ Post it to your blog or website, then pop back here to leave a comment so folks know where to find it. Visit other participants to double - or even triple - your photographic fun. Head here to learn more about how Thematic works. Feel free to share additional photos through the week. Friends are always welcome.

A little extra zing

I wanted to end off this week's "food from the earth" theme - head here for any last-minute submissions - with a reminder that ‎even something as seemingly insignificant as a radish can be meaningful in its own way.

Bear with me. There's method to my vegetarian madness.

The scene: I'm shopping for groceries - at the Great Canadian Superstore, because the Mediocre Canadian Superstore was closed last Sunday - and I'm wandering through the vegetable aisle. I come across the radish bin and stop. For reasons I don't quite understand, I linger over them for a bit. Maybe it's the color. Or perhaps the texture.

Then it hits me: I haven't eaten these in a while. I remember my mom used to toss them into salads when I was a kid, but being the silly boy that I was, I didn't fully appreciate the virtues of vegetables, and inevitably tried to drown the poor things in pools of dressing. In retrospect, ew.

My childhood food issues aside, the radishes always stood out. They had this neat bite to them, an extra zip of taste and an equally sharp texture. If a vegetable went to finishing school, I always surmised it would come out looking like a radish.

Which largely explains my little photographic moment all these years later. Because some seeds take a little longer than others to take root.

Your turn: ‎Your most/least favorite veggie is...? Why?

Renaissance comes to London

London's downtown has had its fair share of difficulty in recent years. In many respects it's no different than any other central core area that's struggled with the flight to the suburbs and endless debates over parking, traffic, empty storefronts and scary streetscapes as soon as the office workers leave for the day.

While the civic agenda was preoccupied with fraudulent mayors and bullying councillors, a quietly diligent group of entrepreneurs has been working largely beneath the radar to change that trajectory. Job by job, block by block, they've been bringing life back to a place that many once wrote off. In doing so, they're laying the groundwork for a very different - and significantly more agile and opportunity-filled - city than the one I thought I was moving to all those years ago.

I'm proud to say I'm now part of that story - I joined Voices.com a couple of months ago as their senior writer. Our offices are right in the middle of the downtown renaissance zone, and more importantly we are one of those digital companies doing world-beating work that most Londoners may never otherwise see.

London Free Press reporter Kate Dubinski published a piece, The downtown you don’t know - but should, in the paper on Friday, and as tickled as I am that we're mentioned, it's the fact that we're not alone, and that we're part of a bigger story of urban renewal, that jazzes me.

Exciting times around here.

Your turn: What's exciting in your neck of the woods?

Found: Cover art for my next horror film

Eddie Murphy would be proud
London, ON
October 2014
Thematic. Food from the earth. Here.

I'm somewhat pleased that the pumpkins have been recycled and the world can now focus its attention on spending itself deeper into debt so that merchants can have a happy holiday shopping season. Yay for retail priorities!

Please note that I have nothing against the pumpkins themselves. While I fail to appreciate their taste or texture - and don't pull me into the pumpkin spiced latte debate, because that's just a vortex of culinary sadness masquerading as urban myth - I somewhat enjoy taking pictures of them during the brief period when they dominate the landscape.

They have so much character as passive photographic subjects that it's difficult to ignore them when there's a camera nearby. Which, in my world, is something of a constant.

I don't know what's going on with this particular one, though. Perhaps a rash of some sort. Or an aversion to my kitchen table. Weird surface growth notwithstanding, I found the shadows too fascinating to pass up. So I didn't, and I hope when some bizarre-looking subject reaches out to you, too, that you find yourself doing the same thing.

I can't wait to see what you come up with.

When stuff looks like an animal, 163rd in a series

I don't tend to hang out much by the roots-from-the-earth bins in the vegetable section of the grocery store - probably an aversion to dirty things that look like they'd make better weapons in a neighborhood snowball fight than something sane humans would consider eating.

But this one spoke to me. Maybe "spoke" is the wrong word. It whispered. In the dulcet tones that only a bunny-rabbit-shaped root-like thing could muster. Call me smitten. Call the person behind me confused as I lined up the shot and smiled limply at her, the same smile I seem to flash every other confused stranger who happens to be nearby when I get that photographic inspiration and start snapping away.

Hop on, little buddy. Looks like I'll be back in this part of the store before long.

Your turn: Am I imagining things or do you see it, too?

Thematic Photographic 316 - Food from the earth

Rooted
London, ON
November 2014

I had a bit of a moment in the grocery store the other day. I was in the fresh produce section when I came across a knot of other shoppers. This being London, no one quite knew which way to go, so it didn't take long before a hopeless traffic jam of shopping carts stopped everyone in their tracks before, polite Canadians that we are, we slowly extricated ourselves from the brightly lit commercial kill zone.

As I stood in the middle of the grocery-festooned zoo, I found myself staring at the almost embarrassing overflow of goods available for sale. The fruits and vegetables made for quite the riot of colors and textures virtually everywhere I looked, and I couldn't help but think that any planet that can create all this cool, edible stuff has got to be a pretty magical place indeed.

I don't even know what I shot in this particular frame, but I decided it was interesting enough to use as the launch photo for this week's theme, food from the earth. Are you game?

Your turn: Take a photo that evokes or suggests this week's "food from the earth" theme. Post it to your blog or website, then leave a comment here letting other folks know where to find it. Visit other participants, and feel free to share additional pics through the week. If you're new to Thematic, or want to explain it to a newbie, head here. Otherwise, happy shooting. Can't wait to see what you come up with this week!

On being considerate

“One of my main regrets in life is giving considerable thought to inconsiderate people.”
Jarod Kintz

It's funny how life beats the need to prioritize into your head. We don't necessarily appreciate why spending our time wisely matters as much as it does - until we come close to having no time left at all. From that moment on, time becomes precious, and those who would squander it on our behalf, namely the inconsiderate ones, become that much easier to leave behind.

So, over to you: Will you stop giving thought - and time, and energy, and attention - to inconsiderate people? How will you make this happen?

(Hat tip to Cloudia Charters, who pens the delightful Comfort Spiral and who never ceases to inspire, for sharing this.)

Excuse me, but you forgot your coffee

Work/life balance

Don't let the world intrude
Laval, QC
August 2014
Thematic metallica. Here. (Yes, that's aluminum)

Writing doesn't always fit a 9-to-5 schedule. Assignments bounce into your inbox at all hours of the day and night, the news cycle does its thing whether you're awake or asleep, and the complexities of juggling your life often result in laptops being pulled out of their sleeves at the strangest times and in the oddest of places.

At the same time, that teenaged boy making his way across the deep end of the pool at his grandfather's condo in the photo above isn't going to be a teenaged boy forever. And he isn't going to want to hang with his dad forever, either. So when he asked if we could go down to the pool for a bit, "no" wasn't an option for a whole lot of reasons.

And yet, deadlines beckoned and life on the outside continued to do its thing. The world doesn't stop just because you've decided to chill out for a bit. So I toted my backpack-full-of-tech with us to the pool, and set myself up on the lovely outdoor furniture you see here.

It didn't take long for me to finish what I was working on so I could get back to the very serious business of simply watching our son be the little boy that he still is. Someone, after all, needed to time his laps, suggest changes to his stroke and complain about the bugs that always seem to come out as the sun begins to set.

I appreciate that when deadlines beckon, the folks on the other end of all that geeky equipment you see here don't care much that you have a life outside of the narrow window of work that guides your professional relationships. They want you to deliver so that they can keep their lights on. And you need to deliver so that you can keep your own lights on.

But unless we find room in all that keeping-the-lights-on-focused activity for moments like this, we'll never know what it's like to snapshot an indelible moment in the life of a child. Or feel like all that busy work we do on the outside is being done for some higher purpose.

Because if the work is all that matters, to the exclusion of seemingly small moments like the one you see here, then it doesn't really matter much at all, does it?

The K-Car time machine

Quick, get me Lee Iacocca
London, ON
November 2014
Thematic. Metallica. Here.

‎You don't see a lot of these on the road anymore. In their day, Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant coupes, sedans and wagons (remember those?) dominated the North American concrete jungle. They were cheap, simple, and relatively huge on the inside. As the typical vehicle like this was often the only car at that price point that could seat six, it often won the buy decision based simply on its carrying capacity.

Alas, they were, um, not all that refined. I'm being gentle here. They may have singlehandedly saved Chrysler from oblivion, but in the near-post Malaise Era‎, when vehicle quality was something of an oxymoron, the K-Car twins defined the worst of the lot.

Still, there were enough made that they continued to clutter around for years, and now that their slow fade to the junk yard is almost complete, seeing one in the wild has become something of a special occasion.

So I did what any dark geek would do: Grabbed a few pics of this ancient conveyance before the owner returned and busted me. Until Mother nature turns the rest of this tired old car to rust, I see life in her old bones yet.

Thematic Photographic 315 - Metallica

Shiny train at night
London, ON
November 2014

I've chosen "metallica" as this week's Thematic theme because of its ability to shift its look and feel based on the prevailing conditions. Change the light a little and it's a whole new ballgame. Which means you can keep coming back to the same subjects and stand a reasonable chance of capturing them in a completely different way.

If variety is the spice of life, I'm guessing it had some metallic, reflective qualities baked in.

Your turn: Take a metallic-themed picture, post it to your blog or website, then pop back here and leave a comment to let folks know where to find it. Visit other participants throughout the week to spread the fun around a little, and feel free to post additional contributions to the theme if the creative urge strikes again. For more info on how Thematic works, head here. If you tweet, use the #ThematicPhotographic hashtag. Otherwise, metallic-themed photographic joy awaits. Have fun with it!

A view from the train

Rolling artwork
Woodstock, ON
November 2014
Thematic. Round (it has wheels!) Here.

I'm headed to Toronto today for some meetings with some really cool people, but that doesn't mean I can't steal a few minutes along the way for a little photographic therapy.

I've left the supposedly "real" camera at home today. I just couldn't fathom stuffing a DSLR into my laptop bag, then stopping every few minutes to put the bag down, take the camera out, shoot, put it away, then repeat a few minutes later.

Plus, the prospect of walking into a meeting with a bag overflowing with doodads that have nothing to do with said meeting made me feel like those folks who pack ginormous bags for a three-day trip, then try to stuff them into the overhead bins on the plane while the rest of us stand in line and watch.

So it's just me and a smartphone. Will my Passport hold up to the pressure? Stay tuned.

Your turn: Shooting with a smartphone...yes or no? Why/why not?

Get your gourd on

Convenient handle included
London, ON
October 2014
Thematic. Round. Here. (It's not too late.)

I think it's only a matter of time before the good folks at the grocery store forcibly remove me from the premises for my spontaneous photography.

Granted, given the fact that my ninja-photography weapon of choice is now a somewhat lower-profile BlackBerry Passport instead of a relatively obvious Nikon DSLR, it's a lot easier to fly below the stock-boy's radar. But I suspect there are only so many ways to fake like you're reading your grocery list before someone realizes you're actually shooting the pumpkins.

Which is what I did here. Because nature works in some amazing ways, and you miss all the fun if you don't commit the moment to pixels.

In the end, I think it's a risk worth taking.

Your turn: It's time for a photographic challenge. This week, take a picture in a place you normally wouldn't shoot. Post it and share a link/comment here. Time to expand our horizons a little, no?

Four score...

My dad would have been 80 today. He died just over 5 years ago, and ever since then I haven't quite known what the most appropriate way to mark November 2nd might be. Do you celebrate? Mourn? Something in between?

I'm pretty sure there's no one, universal answer for this question just as there's no one, universal answer for any other question revolving around losses like this. You do what makes sense to you, what feels right, what helps you move forward. And in the process you learn to ignore those who seem to have no problem spontaneously disagreeing with your choices.

It's been an interesting journey since we lost him. I've learned at a profound level just how important it is to hold on to those who are most important to you. My understanding of the word "family" has undergone a fairly radical re-think since then. Whereas it was once very much tied to the family tree, it's evolved significantly in the years since.

I've learned to hold on ever tighter to my immediate family, my wife, our kids, the friends in our community who may as well be family. I've learned to gravitate toward the good souls, wherever they may be, who reflect our values, and I've learned to listen to that inner voice instead of the voices of others. I'd like to think that I've grown as a person, which is more or less what any parent wants for a child.

Maybe my own brush with fate changed the way I look at things. Maybe I simply wanted to make the best use of the limited time I've got - indeed, that we've all got - on this planet. For all the challenges he faced in the last few years of his life, my father was adept at finding the good in a moment, at enjoying something for what it was, and boiling it down to its most elemental form. It's a decent trait to carry forward, so that's what I've been trying to do.

Eighty years to the day since his journey began, and just over five years after it ended, I hope I've figured out how internalize and exemplify the best that was him. I'm guessing it's what he would have wanted, and I'm guessing it's what we always hope to teach our own children so that they, too, will grow something inspirational from the seeds we've been planting all along.

Looks like I had some pretty good seeds to start with. Thanks Dad.

Lost in Space

It was already a bad week in the space business, with experts continuing to investigate what caused an Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo craft to the International Space Station to falter just seconds after launch on on Tuesday. Range safety officers sent auto-destruct commands to the rocket, which caused significant damage to the launch complex in the subsequent crash and explosion.

At the time, the saving grace was that no one was injured or killed. Today, that all changed.

SpaceShipTwo, the prototype rocket-powered craft being readied for suborbital flights for space tourists, experienced what Virgin Galactic called an "anomaly" during a test flight and crashed. The pilot and co-pilot ejected, but the co-pilot died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident.

I'm sure the debate over whether we should even be in space in the first place will rage even brighter in the wake of this accident. Detractors call it risky. They say there's no reason for mere mortals to put their lives on the line for little more than a high-speed thrill far off the planet.

Yet those same people think nothing of getting on a plane to head south for winter break. Conveniently, they forget that their routine flight on an Airbus A-320 to some beach resort was made possible by aviator sacrifices not unlike the one that played out earlier today in the skies over California.

Flight didn't become routine on its own. Neither did anything worthwhile in the history of humankind. Spaceflight should be no different, and I'm guessing those who test-fly the machines of tomorrow wouldn't want us to give up the quest just because it might end up in failure.

We learn. We move on. We raise the bar. It's what humans do.

Now, we have another pioneer to thank for all that we have, and will have.

Update: I'll be discussing this very issue live on NewsTalk 1010 with John Downs just after 9:30 p.m. Eastern. Listen in live here: http://player.newstalk1010.com/

Would you recognize a stroke?

Today is World Stroke Day. I usually don't write about special days like this on the blog, primarily because there's pretty much a day for everything, and I'd never cover them all if I decided to start writing about them here.

Still, this one's personal. And after giving a lunchtime talk about assistive technology - AT - for folks with disabilities at our library's downtown branch today, I realized how profoundly all of this applies to me.

I touched on my stroke - somewhat strange at first given the fact that I was chatting with complete strangers - because it felt like the right thing to do, and an ideal means of springboarding the discussion. What followed was a lively, interactive hour that opened my eyes to the realities of figuring out how to live in today's world when parts of you may not necessarily be fully functional.

Last year I learned firsthand what it's like to lose critical functions - in my case, I couldn't speak, and my right side was paralyzed. I also learned how lucky I was to get it all back with little more than lingering dizziness as a reminder. I can live with a bit of wonkiness in my vestibular system, but I can't shake the realization that it could have just as easily gone the other way.

Since I began sharing my experience with a wider audience, I've heard from countless people who learned the hard way that ignoring the symptoms can lead to tragic results. From the moment a stroke occurs, you've got a four-hour - give or take - window to seek treatment. The sooner you act, the less damage is caused. But if you wave it off, you miss that window. It kills me to think of all the people I now know who chose to ignore the signs. Some died, while others were permanently disabled.

I'm sharing news of World Stroke Day because I don't want anyone to ignore the symptoms, and I don't want anyone to have to live with the consequences of not seeking immediate medical attention. It can touch us all, at any age, no matter how fit we might be. Stroke crosses all demographic lines, and is increasingly showing up in otherwise young and healthy people. Like me.

Tomorrow won't be World Stroke Day, but the need for awareness will be just as acute. Please keep it on your radar, and please talk with your close family and friends to ensure you all know what to look for, and what to do.

Only in health...

On the lost concept of simplicity

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."
Confucius

Rocket science is hard

Make no mistake: launching rockets will never be routine. Whenever you put massive amounts of highly explosive fuel into a machine, then light it, there's always a chance that something unplanned will happen.

Challenger and Columbia drove that lesson home all too tragically in 1986 and 2003, respectively. Both space shuttle accidents claimed 14 lives and reaffirmed just how much is at stake every time we light the wick and head towards the heavens.

The U.S. space program suffered another setback tonight when an Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket, with a Cygnus cargo vehicle loaded with supplies and experiments destined for the International Space Station, exploded six seconds after liftoff from the seaside Wallops Launch Facility in Virginia (video here.)

Thankfully no one was killed or injured. Insurance companies can figure out what was lost and cut checks to the appropriate companies, and engineers can figure out what went wrong and make changes to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Whatever that "it" is that caused the accident we don't yet know. And when it's discovered and refined to the point that it no longer exists, it's a given that some other "it" will lurk, silently, until someday it, too, causes another accident. There's no such thing as risk-free spaceflight.

The flight, officially known as Orb-3, was part of NASA's plan to privatize cargo deliveries to low earth orbit, which would free it to focus on deep space missions (Orion's first test flight, EFT-1, atop a Delta IV Heavy, is scheduled to fly next month.) Sadly, the accident will cast a shadow over NASA's strategy, and yet again the beleaguered and budget-challenged space agency will have to devote resources to fighting off the naysayers.

They'll trot out the old familiar arguments - spending on space is a waste when the money is needed back on Earth, nobody benefits from it, etc. - and politicians who understand little about what's really at stake will bend to the voters' will. Democracy at its best.

No one ever said it would be easy. But nothing worthwhile ever happens if we simply walk away at the first speed bump. The next flight already awaits.

Your turn: Rocket flight...worth it or not?

Jian Ghomeshi - A very Canadian scandal

The other day, I wrote this on the blog about the former host of CBC Radio's Q, Jian Ghomeshi. And, since the Interwebs work a certain way (sex scandal + Internet = moths to flame) this site was slaughtered with traffic for a while. It's somewhat funny what tickles folks to read stuff, no?

I noodled the idea a little more and wrote this for Yahoo Canada:

Jian Ghomeshi: Did the CBC cross the line as an employer?

And sure enough, if the volume of comments is any indication, more folks have been tickled.

If this raises awareness of violence against women and bullying, then it'll end up being, on balance, a good thing. I doubt anyone directly involved in this mess would fully agree with me on that, but I've got to believe that there's a greater good here.

Your turn: What's an employer's role or responsibility when an employee's outside-the-office behavior crosses a line?

Thematic Photographic 314 - Round and round

Who's thirsty?
London, ON
October 2014

It's been a while since we did the geometry thing for a Thematic theme, so we're going to touch on round objects this week. As you can tell from this photo, I've been playing with my camera - actually my BlackBerry* - at the dinner table again. Funny how a little light and a simple glass filled with water can make for an interesting still life study. What's that they say about small minds?

Your turn: Take a picture that evokes or otherwise supports this week's theme, round and round, and post it to your blog or website. Leave a comment here to let everyone else know where to find it. Visit other participants to elevate everyone's collective sense of fun. Feel free to share additional photos throughout the week, and everyone's encouraged to bring a new friend along. If you're new to Thematic, head here to learn more about how it works. If you tweet, use this hashtag: #ThematicPhotographic. Otherwise, enjoy, and thanks!

* For the record, it's a Passport. In a word, epic.

On the outside looking in

Not a health food store
London, ON
October 2014

There's a convenience store near the house. I admit we don't come here often, as between the prices (you pay for the convenience) and selection (healthy? Not quite) it's pretty much a store you use for emergencies only.

Still, as I wandered past one night last week on a walk with the dog, I couldn't help but notice the fluorescent light pouring out of its locked facade. The scene struck me as particularly sad-looking, the kind of thing that's all too common in an urban or suburban setting, but something we aren't especially proud of. Somehow, humanity can do better than this.

Despite my neo-artistic misgivings, the pool of light spilling our into the parking lot attracts my eye every time the pup and I walk past. Maybe there's hope for these places after all.

* Thought I'd slip in one last look at night-time photography - head here to share yours - because I've rather enjoyed this week's theme and hope you have, too. Our new one goes live at 7 p.m. Eastern. What will it be? Good question. What would you like it to be?

Jian Ghomeshi and you

I've been listening to Jian Ghomeshi for as long as he's been associated with the CBC. His interview style, honed on his national show, Q, is an almost otherworldly mix of the familiar and the probing. I wish I could "do" radio like he does radio, wish I could talk to people with the focused ease that he seems to bring to any conversation.

Doesn't matter if he's talking to rock royalty, actual royalty, or some guy we had never heard of until the mic went on. Whoever the guest and whatever the topic, you know it'll be a worthwhile thing to listen to simply because he's the guy with the baton, and the guy who's helping the guest tell his/her story in ways no other interviewer could manage.

All that seems to have blown up in an uncharacteristically un-Canadian manner this weekend with news that the CBC has let him go, and that he is suing the broadcaster for $50 million. In an explanatory post (here), he goes into rather painful and sordid detail about what may be behind the latest turn of events.

I'm no judge, and I won't get involved in breathless social media speculation over who said what, who's right and who's wrong. That's for the courts, the lawyers, the HR experts, arbitrators and union officials to work out in the weeks and months to come.

But my feelings as a journalist need not wait that long. For now, a major Canadian media voice has been silenced, apparently over allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law, and that apparently revolve around behaviors that might make a lot of Canadians uncomfortable.

It makes me wonder what a vengeful ex-anyone might dig up if they dug deeply into my own private life, and how that might affect my own professional trajectory (for the record, they'd find an incredibly boring pile of nothingness, but still, that's not the point. What matters is that anyone has this kind of power over anyone else in the first place.)

In the age of social media, expect the number of victims of this kind of thing to increase over time. Whether the allegations are founded or unfounded is almost irrelevant. The fact that they can be made in the first place, and fanned with relative ease in today's online forum, should make us all afraid that the same thing can happen to us.

More man, less child

Once, long ago
London, ON
June 1998

He's always been our little man, but today he somehow seems that much less so. Zach, our firstborn, turned 20 today. Which, I'll admit, freaks me out a little bit because, well, 20!

It seems like just yesterday that he fought his way into the world, just yesterday that we were settling into our home in the Montreal burbs with him, just yesterday that we sold that house and drove through a winter storm's aftermath to a strange faraway city to start a new life, and just yesterday that he became a big brother to Dahlia and then, again, to Noah.

In many respects, the story of us wouldn't be the story of us without the story of him. And he now looms over us all as he figures out this world thing and takes one step after another toward the man he is destined to be.

He is smart, funny and very sweet. He has a personality that fills a room and sticks with whoever's there long after everyone's gone their separate ways. He's well on his way toward putting his own ding in the universe, and it leaves me wondering why time has to move so quickly.

I guess when life is good, there's never enough time. Happy birthday, little almost-grown man.

Your turn: What do you wish Zach as he begins another decade?

As the day slips below the horizon

Say goodbye, for now
Grand Bend, ON
July 2014
For more night-themed Thematic, click here

My wife and I have evolved a bit of a tradition around our wedding anniversary. If circumstances allow, we take the day off and head for the beach. We don't do anything formal: We just spend a quiet day in a place that has always resonated with us, where the land ends and the water begins.

I think the disconnected vibe of it all serves as a handy reminder to us that life can, and should, be a simpler affair than modern society has made it out to be. Because when you take away the packed schedules, the never-ending deadlines, the pressure to deliver this before immediately diving into that, what really matters is time. And ensuring we use some of that time to reconnect with each other, whoever those "each others" may be.

This year, we lingered on the beach a little longer than usual, and as the sun slipped beneath the faraway horizon line and the sand beneath our feet turned colder with the arrival of the shadow of night, I thought about the simple joys of being with the right person at the right time in the right place.

When the sun disappeared for good, I looked over at her and said a quiet thanks that she gets it, and that she picked me. And I resolved to not wait until next year's anniversary to try to repeat, or at least enjoy, the moment.

Your turn: How do you enjoy small moments?

Where the sidewalk ends

Watch your step
London, ON
October 2014
Head here for more night-themed Thematic

A time-worn sidewalk beside a similarly time-worn parking lot probably doesn't top most photographers' must-shoot lists, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth a second look. Or even a third.

Come to think of it, maybe there's a broader lesson in there. Maybe there's a reason my dog decided to turn left instead of right on this particular walk.

I should follow his lead more often, as he seems to know where he's going.

Vandalism that inspires

Putting my foot on the truth
London, ON
October 2014

‎I normally don't advocate defacing public property. Come to think of it, I don't advocate defacing private property, either. But as I was heading back to my car in the parking structure beside my office last night, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this ink-scribbled missive on the bottom stair.

In the wake of yesterday's trauma in our national capital (see here if you're just joining us), perhaps more spontaneous vandalism like this might add some good karma to the universe. I often wonder if the individuals who commit these crimes - radicalized, disconnected, hopeless - would have been influenced in some way by seemingly little things like this.

Would they have been stopped in their tracks, too? Would they have decided to change direction, perhaps return to a peaceful, community-minded life? We'll never know, but there's someone out there in London, armed with a Sharpie, who seems intent on finding out. Whoever you are, you have my thanks for at least trying to change the landscape. And us.

Ottawa shooting: Making sense of that which makes no sense

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'"
Fred Rogers

I've got to hand it to Mr. Rogers, as he always had a way of cutting big stuff down to size and restoring that sense of comfort that seemed to insulate my childhood from the nastiness just outside. Every time something would threaten that delightful cocoon, a little time with him - well, his televised persona - seemed to fix whatever had caused that breach to occur.

Today, these are just words. They do nothing to fix what happened in our nation's capital today. They don't bring back the life of a Canadian soldier, Nathan Cirillo, shot in cold blood as he stood guard at the National War Memorial. They don't undo images of police sweeping through our House of Parliament as deafening gunshots ring out - the police bravely continuing into harm's way, the journalist bravely continuing to shoot the surreal scene.

This is not the Canada I know. Things like this aren't supposed to happen here. Yet, now, they do. And we are forever changed because of it.

Maybe the blissful sense of contentedness that marked my childhood and seemed to extend into my very Canadian adulthood is no longer as blissfully content as it once was. Maybe the outside world - of terrorists, of those who wish us ill because of who we are, of those to whom freedom is something to be hated and forcibly taken away from others instead of protected and aspired to - leaked in today, and we'll never fully sweep it back from where it first came.

But I'll go back to the inimitable words of Mr. Rogers, because there always has to be hope. And despite the growing threat to our sacrosanct freedoms posed by those who seem to play by their own murderous, life-hating rules, tonight I'll tell my kids that they should always look for those who help. And to fashion their own lives so that they, too, will become those individuals who seek to become those helpers, running toward peril, when everyone else would be running for safety.

Update:

I'll be talking live with NewsTalk 1010 Toronto's John Moore tomorrow (Thursday morning) at 6:40 a.m. Topic: Technology's role in the events of today, and whether online tools like Google Maps (here's an interactive map of every building on Parliament Hill) made it easy for the gunman.

Thematic Photographic 313 - When night falls

Scary place to be
London, ON
October 2014

The creeping advance of autumn brings with it two rather cruel truths:

1. Peak color has come and gone, leaving a swirling mess of brown leaves and grey landscapes in its wake
2. Nightfall comes ever earlier with each passing day

I don't say this to depress anyone. It just is. And as the planet moves through another phase of its yearly dance, it's simply something I'd rather notice and record, in some way, than ignore and miss all the fun.

Since it's only a matter of time before we both leave and return home in total darkness, I thought we'd embrace that fact with this week's Thematic theme, "When night falls."

Your turn: Grab a night-themed shot, post it to your blog or website, then leave a comment here letting folks know where to find it. Visit other participants to share the photographic fun. Feel free to share additional pics through the week, and don't be shy to pull a friend into the fray. I hear they like that kind of thing. For more info on how Thematic works, head here. Enjoy, and thanks!

Can I have a lift to choir practice?

Our daughter has been part of her high school choir since she first got to the school. It's been an incredible experience for her, and it's become one of those things we wish she could bottle up and take with her after she graduates.

As any parent of a child in choir - or hockey, or swimming, or any other activity that involves showing up - knows, early morning practice is part of the deal. As they commit to pre-dawn wake-up calls, so, too, do mom and dad to making sure they get there on time.

Every time there's a concert or music night at school, her music teachers take a moment to thank parents and caregivers for driving them to early-morning practices and otherwise ensuring they get up and out of the house on time. But if we're being realistic, I don't understand why we need to be thanked in the first place.

The reality is I can't imagine it being any other way. The years where I'll be able to drive them to school, or pick them up from a program, or otherwise make sure they make it from Place A to Place B within Timeframe C are, as we all know, remarkably brief. The driving and more-complex-than-an-aircraft-carrier-deck scheduling are part of the deal we make when we decide to become parents in the first place, and I admit I rather enjoy being part of the barely-controlled chaos.

So this week, as she stepped out of the car and into the chilly early morning darkness, I waited and watched her as I always do until she made it inside and disappeared up the stairs. It's her last year of high school, so I've got a limited number of these early morning minutes with her before she moves into another chapter of her life.

And after she's gone to her final choir practice, I'll have plenty of opportunity to sleep in. But I admit I'll miss the early alarms, the quiet discussions as we get our stuff together in the kitchen, the feeling of dark chill that settles over us as we open the front door and step outside and head over to the car in the driveway.

If anything, I should thank her for the opportunity to have moments like these. I'll miss them when they're gone.

The view from the anchor desk

All eyes on you
London, ON
September 2013

I admit I lead a pretty charmed life. I get to do work I love, surrounded by a family I adore, supported by incredible friends and a community that's always felt like home. And I've got a pretty neat dog.

And in between all this fun, I get to hang out in some really cool places, with some really cool people. For example, this place. The picture is taken from the anchor's chair at CTV London. If you're wondering what it looks like to deliver the evening news, this is it.

Don't worry: I'm not about to become an anchor (pity London viewers if I ever do!) But I drop into this remarkable place often enough that every once in a while I get to do an interview from this location instead of the secondary studio that's way down the hall just right-of-center of this shot.

And when I do anything on-air, my laptop and iPad, like high-tech security blankets, are never too far away. I don't actually use them when the red light goes on. But finalizing my notes in the few minutes before we go live, and knowing they're nearby, is often all that I need to feel just right as the conversation gets underway.

There are so many moving parts to doing an interview that sometimes it just makes sense for me to sit in the big chair, where I get to follow in some very big, very accomplished footsteps. While it looks a little terrifying at first glance, the reality is that this place has become something of a second home to me, and it's easy to do what I do when I'm surrounded by the best in the business.

Your turn: Is there one place on the planet that frightens you? What is it, and why?

A dog dreams

‎I often wonder what goes through our little guy's mind. He seems outwardly happy, but his complete absence of English skills keeps us from being absolutely sure. If only I could travel, Magic School Bus-style, into his canine brain to observe, first-hand, what's really going on in there.

Or I could steal a picture of him while he naps and leave reality for another time. Sometimes it's good enough to simply wonder about what might be.

Sleep well, sweet Frasier.

Your turn: Three words...go!

Stairway to not-heaven

Don't. Drop. It.
London, ON
October 2014
For more Thematic patterns, go here

I'm not afraid of heights, per se. I can sit in an airplane all day and be as comfortable seven miles above the countryside as I am at my kitchen table. But scenes like this weird me out. Especially when I'm the one leaning over the opening in the middle of the staircase and looking down.

I think it has to do with whether or not I'm inside the thing. Plane? Yes. Here? Not so much. Maybe there's a little worry about dropping the smartphone down the middle, as well. So despite the fact that we're looking at "only" 11 storeys of vertical space here, it's enough to give me pause. I grabbed the shot and beat a hasty retreat before gravity had its way with me.

Already I can see opportunities to improve on this initial treatment of the subject. So a return trip is already churning in my head. And you can bet I'll be as freaked out then as I was here.

It's what we do to get the shot.

Your turn: What do you do to get the shot?

Railroad to infinity

Never ending
London, ON
August 2014
For more patterned Thematic, head here

Never mind the fact that positioning yourself on a set of railroad tracks to get the shot is probably not the safest thing to do. But I figured I'd hear and feel an approaching train long enough before its arrival to get myself out of harm's way.

The double-standard for my kids, however, still applies. They are so busted if they ever come home with anything like this on their memory cards.

Your turn: Where does this track lead?

On hope

"Once you choose hope, anything’s possible."
Christopher Reeve

Hard to believe it's been a decade since the world lost him. Yet thanks to the way he chose to lead his life, his legacy burns just as brightly today as it always has. Makes me think.

Your turn: So what do you hope for? Think big...

Thematic Photographic 312 - Patterns

Destroyed by unseen predators
London, ON
October 2014

The emerald ash borer is a nasty little bug, devouring ash trees and leaving them for dead. We live smack in the middle of a kill zone, and for years there were signs just down the road from us warning people against moving wood products out of the area.

From the looks of what was left of this particular tree in a ravine just a couple of blocks away from the house, it didn't work. The beetles came, and they ate and ate and ate, leaving no surviving ash trees in their wake.

It was a sobering moment for me and my daughter as we walked along the path and captured the scene in photos. Life doesn't always follow the intended path, and even if you take every precaution imaginable you won't always win the battle.

Your turn: This week's Thematic theme is "patterns". Oddly, the patterns left by these destructive beetles are somehow mesmerizing, and I'm guessing there are lots of other patterns - both in nature and not - out there just begging for a picture or two. So here's the deal: Grab a picture of something that supports the patterns theme, then post it to your blog or website. Leave a comment here letting folks know where to find it. Visit other participants and feel free to share more photos through the week. For more background on how Thematic works, head here. Thanks, and have fun with it!

Netscape Navigator turns 20

I risk dating myself, but I remember the first time I used the Netscape Navigator browser to surf the then-radical World Wide Web. It wasn't my first browser experience, mind you - I had been using the character-based Lynx for some time, and although the experience was somewhat lame, It was still something that moved the soul.

Still, installing Netscape from that stack of 1.44-megabyte diskettes and firing it up was a revelation. Dusty old DOS was tossed aside in favor of a graphical view of the Web. It was laughable by today's standards, but compared to what we'd been using all along - and let's not even talk about the non-webby services like WAIS, Archie, and Usenet that dominated the online world then - it nevertheless rocked our world. Well, mine, anyway.

Netscape Navigator was released 20 years ago today, on October 13, 1994. It quickly became the browser of choice and for a while, seemed to have caught then-dominant Microsoft off-guard. We all know what happened next, and Netscape became the first high-profile flameout of the commercial Internet era. Lessons learned in its rise and fall were ignored by virtually every dot-com startup over the next six or seven years, and to this day there are those who still wish Netscape had prevailed in those early Internet-borne battles.

Like me. And, if we're being honest with each other, I still don't get why anyone uses Internet Explorer. At least willingly.

Ah, good times. Who says tech is boring?

Here's to the next 20. It almost boggles the mind to imagine how we'll look back at today when we finally get there.

Not quite following in dad's footsteps

In focus
London, ON
October 2014
Click all photos to embiggen

Dahlia is 17 going on adulthood, an old soul who seems to have figured out the ins and outs of the world far sooner than I ever did.

She's discovered a few things about herself in recent years, chief among them an innate artistic gift, inherited from my lovely wife. This kid can draw. Jaw-droppingly well. And she'll often work on her sketchpad in the living room, finishing up her latest work while she chats with us or pets the dog.

She also loves to shoot with a camera, so when she asked to take a nature walk on Saturday afternoon, it was an easy call to plop my DSLR into her hands and let her loose. I grabbed Debbie's camera and hung back as we idly wandered to the nature path near our house and looked for things that interested us.

To no one's surprise, she found lots of autumn-themed subject matter. And as we strolled and chatted - about composition, settings, photographic theory and the challenges of fading light and temperature, basically whatever came to mind - it dawned on me that she'll easily be far better at this photography thing than I ever was.

Of course, technology makes learning a much more iterative process today. When I bought my first SLR, a Minolta XG-1, with the money I earned from my first summer as a lifeguard, I was stuck in the bad old days of film. Learning to shoot involved writing down settings for each shot, then trying to remember the scene when I got the developed film back. Great fun!

These days, digital turns every shoot into an interactive lesson. She reviewed her work as we walked deeper into the woods, and adapted her approach and the camera settings to compensate if she didn't get what she wanted initially. I shared what I could, but it was clear she could have easily done it all on her own.

If today's better tech was enough, then everybody would be a pro. But as we wandered from one scene to another I saw something in her that made it clear it has nothing to do with the tools in her hands. Her entire approach to photography is very much identical to her approach to anything else that fires her passion: She methodically considers what she needs to do, figures out how to make it happen, then shifts her focus as conditions warrant.

I could almost hear the wheels clicking in her head as she zeroed in on something to shoot, then thought about how best to convert that initial feeling into a two-dimensional set of captured pixels that would, in turn, make viewers feel what it felt like to be there.

I idly took a few pictures, as well, but if we're being brutally honest the day wasn't about me. I grabbed a few shots of her plying her craft because I wanted to remember what it felt like to be out and about as she discovered another activity that fired her soul. I remembered what it felt like when I first hefted that camera, and it somehow felt right that we had come full circle a full generation later.

Your turn: I see other walkabouts in our future. Where should we head next?

Related links:

• Dahlia's Flickr photo set from this shoot
• Other Flickr photos

Zero dark thirty

The scene: It's 2 a.m. and my alarm goes off. Oddly, I'm already awake. I've been staring at my smartphone's clock for the last 15 minutes, waiting for the minutes to tick down. Part of me is afraid to fall back asleep. The other part of me can't wait to get going, because it promises to be an incredible day.

That's because I'm scheduled to be in Waterloo for a live interview just after 6 a.m. CTV's Canada AM has set up shop in the parking lot of the St. Jacob's Farmers Market, its intricately planned road show designed to coincide with the launch of Oktoberfest. The agenda: Tell the story of this remarkable region. My job: Talk about the area's tech economy, explain what sets it apart, and why it's so special no matter where you might live.

But first I have to get there. So I quickly run through my usual morning routine - albeit quietly - and, using my phone's flashlight to light my way through the darkened house (best app ever, btw) I slip out into the crisp, clear and silent morning. I pause in the moonlit shadows of my driveway and breathe in the moment. Every road trip starts with a pause, hand on my car's cold metal, a wish for a safe drive. And this one's no different.

But the clock is ticking. It's 3:45. In I go. Strap in. Cue the tunes, boot the GPS, go handsfree and ease out of the driveway, my headlights sweeping past the house one last time as I pull into the night.

Logic?

To some, it makes no logical sense to drive 90 or so minutes through unfamiliar landscape, speak on live national television for five minutes, then drive straight back to the office where I'll put in a full day. But some things in life don't line up perfectly on a spreadsheet. And when the opportunity to work with some of the most accomplished folks in the media business presents itself, saying no means you'll always wonder what might have been, what that adventure might have felt like, and what you would have learned in the process.

No wondering for me this morning. I said yes, and I'm glad I did. I've worked with these caring, remarkable people for months and years, yet because I'm always in a remote studio or online, have never met most of them in-person. So here I am, alone, Imogen Heap wailing in my ears as I drive through the farmlands of southern Ontario. Why Imogen Heap? Not entirely sure. But for some reason, the music seems to fit the moment.

I feel alive.

I've entrusted myself to my GPS. I had carefully plotted the route the previous day, and programmed the unit with enough backup destinations and routings that I should easily find my way. But I've never taken the back roads before. Nor have I done so in the dark, on my own: My navigator-extraordinaire wife is deservedly sleeping back home. That Garmin had better know its stuff.

Alas, it doesn't. Somewhere near Stratford, I hit a detour and before I know it, the signs that were supposed to eventually bring me back to the original route seem to have disappeared into the inky blackness. The road I'm on turns from smooth two-lane asphalt to a one-lane-and-a-little-bit gravel-dirt path. The sky seems darker still as I move further away from the atmospheric glow of nearby towns. The GPS unit seems to be pointing me away from where I should have been going, the distance-to-destination counter going up by ominously large chunks with each successive minute. So I ignore it and dead-reckon the navigation like I used to before satellite-driven tech came along.

Back on track

I eventually figure it out. I'm not lost, per se, but I do end up spending more time covering my car in dust I would have liked. After crossing too many intersections to count, where each stretch of road gets narrower and rattier than the last, I follow my instincts, turn back in the direction where I think the road should be, and sure enough I find the original routing - no sign of any construction - and continue on my merry way. The GPS snaps back into compliance - I've even saved some time along the way - and I go back to churning today's talking points in my mind.

In the end, technology wins the day as a final right-left-right-left combination drops me almost directly from endless farmland into the apocalyptic site of a temporary TV studio in the middle of a massive parking lot beside a market that forms the core of a remarkable community. It's surreal, it's magical, and I get to experience it first-hand.

As soon as I park, a producer manages to find me in the corner of the lot, and, cool enough, he knows who I am. He takes me to the central tent where I meet the team, drop my stuff and get ready for a morning I won't soon forget.

Sure, I could have slept in, but where's the fun in that? Life needs a shakeup every now and then - or perhaps more often than that - and unless you're willing to follow your gut, you'll never know whether or not you have what it takes in the first place.

On this day, my gut wins the day. And the surreal life that I lead adds another chapter. If you know me, you know how deeply grateful I am to have been given the chance in the first place.

More to come, as this is a day that almost begs for more...

Breakfast is served

‎I recognize the irony here: I often make fun of people who share photos of their meals via social media, and here I am doing precisely that. But I got a new phone this week, and I'm figuring out what its camera can do. 

Apparently, it's a pretty decent addition to my photographic toolkit. I suspect I'm going to have a lot of fun with it. Bon appetit!

Thematic Photographic 311 - Run down

Sad sight
London, ON
October 2014

Not everything gleams brightly in the big bad city. In fact, look deep enough into the shadows and it can look - and feel - downright depressing. Or dangerous. I found this rather confidence-sapping crack on the third floor of a parking structure. And as I wrestled with idle thoughts of complete structural collapse, I decided I probably had enough time to snap a picture.

Got any superglue?

Your turn: This week's Thematic theme is "run down". If it (whatever "it" might be) has seen better days, or if it simply looked depressing from the day it was made, grab a pic of it and post it to your blog or website. Leave a comment here letting folks know where to find it, visit other participants and feel free to add more pics to the pile as the week wears on. For more info on how Thematic, our weekly photo-sharing, learning and enjoying activity, works, just click here. Enjoy this one...I know I will!

Abandoned shoes by a park bench

No feet in sight
London, ON
October 2014
Thematic. Messy. Here.

I came across this forlorn pair of shoes during a recent lunchtime walk through London's Victoria Park. For anyone who doesn't live here, this lovely park is a wonderfully kept icon of another era when grand public spaces seemed to matter to society more than they do today.

Scenes like this seem so out of place in a park that seems almost immune to the kind of day-to-day grind that marks Dundas Street, the sometimes-gritty-at-the-edges mostly-retail street just a few blocks south of here. London's homeless don't seem to sleep here. The white collar types who hang out at the picnic tables here seem worlds apart from the folks who struggle, virtually out of sight, barely a three-minute walk away.

Which makes this sight a fascinating one. I'm not sure who left these shoes here, or what the underlying story might have been. But I felt compelled to capture it all the same. These shoes were new and shiny once, but time has worn their soles down, scuffed up the once-pristine leather and covered it with a thin patina of dust. It's almost as if Willy Loman decided to leave his final mark before slipping once again into the shadows of history.

Whoever it is, I hope he finds peace.

Your turn: These shoes have a story. Care to take a guess what that story could be?

On the inevitability of change

"Life is like dancing. If we have a big floor, many people will dance. Some will get angry when the rhythm changes. But life is changing all the time."
Miguel Angel Ruiz

Learning a life lesson from...noodles?

International flavor
London, ON
September 2014
Thematic. Messy. Here. 

It's been a busy week in Pitkinville, so I've been somewhat remiss in keeping up on the personal blog side of the house. Bad Carmi.

I've also been miserably sick with a miserable cold, and I figure in these days of Ebola and Enterovirus, no one wants to hear another whining sickie. Besides, I'm not much of a whiner.

But before life got busy and my bacteriological load became imbalanced, I was out running errands with my lovely wife. And we went out for lunch. Nothing fancy or permanently memorable: just noodles at a quick stop place in the mall. But we managed to slow down time just enough, and fancy or not, it was a moment that matters just as much as any other in a more formal package.

Sometimes simple just works.

Your turn: A simple moment that stands out for you. Please discuss.