Return to the Dirty Bakery

Breaded Bliss
Laval, QC, October 2011

About these photos: We're celebrating edible week as part of our latest Thematic theme. Please click here to share your own.

We've been here before. Indeed, my wife and I practically grew up here, as this is the bakery in the middle of the neighborhood, a place known as Chomedey, where we both grew up.

My parents used to give me money on Sunday mornings, and I'd walk the few blocks to this once-upon-a-time-residential-duplex and buy bagels, salt sticks, and other core components of our family brunch. The place was always packed, and the combination of little, quiet me and a boisterous crowd of hungry customers often meant a long wait until some kind-hearted staffer took pity on me. Eventually, they put in a number-ticket-queuing system, but I still got lost in the bagel-seeking mosh pit.

Quebec being what it was back then, there was no Sunday shopping. So the stretch of Samson Boulevard, normally so busy during the week that I'd never be allowed to walk there alone, was virtually empty. As I gathered my bags of baked goodies in my arms and headed for home, I remember feeling how warm everything was as I tried to resist the urge to grab a bite before I got home. Resistance was usually futile, and I'm sure my parents often wondered why the baker's dozen was often 11 when I did the shopping.

The place is officially known as Boulangerie Premiere Qualite, or Best Quality Bakery, but no one ever called it that. It always was, and likely always will be "The Dirty Bakery", which the current owners proudly echo in the corner of the sign. My in-laws and mother still live nearby, so whenever we visit, it's a must-stop spot for us after we leave them and turn the car toward home. We'll load up on bagels, danish and anything else we can think of and sneak a few bites in before we buckle in and hit the highway.

The kids always come inside with us, and we always step back a bit as they walk the same dusty linoleum floor that we walked - and waited on - so long ago. Back in London, a place where "bakery" doesn't grab the psyche of the community to the same degree that it does here, they get their bread from the baked goods aisle of the supermarket. They don't know what it's like to have time-worn businesses like the Dirty Bakery a short walk from the house. They don't get to walk through the doors and go back in time, to a place where the same oldish ladies clucked over the little ones after finally picking them out of the crowd, where every fixture seemed to be as old as time, where everyone in the place - customers and staff alike - seemed perfectly content that nothing ever really changed.

I'm sorry that my kids don't have access to the same experiences that we did. That they don't get to walk nearly-empty streets while the world took a much-needed one-day breather. That they didn't get to nibble surreptitiously on the warm end of a sesame-seed salt stick before turning back into the cold for the lonely, quiet walk home. As we finally pack our overstuffed bags of bagels into the hatch and leave this unassuming yet pivotal piece of our shared history in the rear-view mirror, I wonder what experiences our own kids will eventually try to share with their own children. I wonder what other Dirty Bakeries they'll get to hang onto - and pass along - as they become the parents that we are now.

Looking back, I wonder if my own parents ever had similar thoughts as they carefully prepared the package of money and instructions for my weekly trips to this place. I hope I was able to bring back everything they expected.

Your turn: Do you have an important place like the Dirty Bakery in your own history?

On dreaming like Superman

"At first dreams seem impossible, then improbable, then inevitable."
Christopher Reeve

The most famous character that Mr. Reeve played flew with the help of well hidden wires and pulleys. Yet later in life, he managed to fly in ways no camera could ever record. As the week draws to a close, his words are bouncing around my head a little more energetically than usual.

Something's up, I think. I can't quite put my finger on it, but an inflection point seems to be looming. Time to dream a little harder.

Your turn: What are you dreaming of?

Buns of steel

Breaded
London, ON, July 2011

About this photo: If it's edible, we want you to share it. We call it Thematic, and the fun starts right here.

There's something about the texture of a hamburger bun that gets me every time. It's not that these things taste particularly good. Nor are they remotely nutritious: They're simply vessels that keep the messy stuff from your burger from getting on your hands. But that's all irrelevant as far as aesthetics are concerned. Yes, I am indeed that shallow.

Looking at this bunch of buns awaiting their fate at a summer BBQ, I had to resist the urge to poke them in the middle, Pillsbury Doughboy-style. So I took this picture, instead. It'll have to do for now.

Your turn: What ever happened to the Pillsbury Doughboy? Got a favorite television ad character floating around your memory?

On change

"Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change."
Jim Rohn

I'm thinking change is good for the soul. You?

Fast food in farm country

I'm lovin' it
Exeter, ON, August 2011

Your turn: Thematic. Edible. Here.

It had been a grand day at the beach. We took our kids and our daughter's friend to Grand Bend not because we had any kind of plan, but because we had an unscheduled day and this seemed like the ideal way to spend it.

I spent most of the day hovering over the kids - partly my old lifeguard legacy kicking in, and partly because watching them reminds me that the things that really matter to a kid should matter to me, too. They played so well together, the two older girls seamlessly accepting our youngest son into their day, that I found myself wishing I could somehow stuff the day into a bottle. It might come in handy on a cold, sad winter's day, I thought.

Soon enough, the shadows on the footprinted sand grew longer and it was time to head home. We reluctantly packed our gear up and walked over to the boardwalk, little wisps of sand stubbornly sticking to our feet as we stepped onto the wood and slowly meandered back to the car.

We drove through the spectacular agricultural hinterland between the lakeside resort town of Grand Bend and London, the car quiet with the kind of contentment I wish we could experience more often. As we approached a small town called Exeter, the golden arches loomed in the distance. I'm hardly a fan of fast food, and am counting the days until our kids are old enough to leave this nasty excuse for food behind. But at that moment, it seemed like the right thing to pull in and grab something to eat.

We took our time eating, enjoying the spectacle of this icon of urban existence planted right next to farmer's fields and a line of tractors. On the surface, I think we were all a little bit hungry. A little deeper down, I think we all wanted to prolong the day just a little bit.

Your turn: What does a perfect day look like to you?

On appeasement

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last"
Winston Churchill

I've always appreciated the man's ability to put impossible-to-comprehend adversity into perspective. Not that I want to overstate it, but he led his nation through a period where it stared into the abyss of a new dark age, and fought back.

Amazingly, his words seem align as cleanly with today's world as they did back then. I wonder what he'd think if he could see today's leaders in action.

Or maybe I don't want to know.

Who are you calling "Butterball"?

All I need is some bread and a knife
Rigaud, QC, July 2011

About this photo: It's Thematic's edible week, and you're invited to share your own edible vision. Just click here to get started.

When I was a munchkin, my uncle lovingly referred to me as "butterball" (it was #2 on my first 100-things-about-me list.) I was chubby, red-headed, and cross-eyed, just right for some bizarro-Gerber marketing materials, I suppose. I've thinned out since then, but the term has stuck in my mind ever since, because no one else ever used it, and it's always been one of those neat things that connects me to him.

So every time I see butterballs like these, I take a picture. I do so partly because it's in my nature to capture the strange, and to give strangers around me a reason to smile. I also do so because everything, no matter how routine it might seem, has some meaning to somebody. For me, one of those things is the lowly butterball. What's meaningful for you, and are you doing everything you can to hold on to it?

On self improvement

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."
Ernest Hemingway

I keep looking at my former self, and I keep wondering if I'm being superior to who he was. Not sure I'll ever know the answer to that one - sometimes, it sure doesn't feel like it - but I'll keep trying.

Your turn: How do you raise the bar?

Thematic Photographic 167 - Edible

Let them eat cake
London, ON, July 2011

I'll leave it up to you whether the subject of this particular photo is, in fact, edible. I'm not entirely sure what goes into cake icing, but I'm quite certain it's as far from natural as you can possibly get without enlisting the assistance of a team of Iranian nuclear scientists (who will swear it's all for peaceful purposes, but that's an entirely different story.)

Whatever. It was our son's birthday. And you can't have birthday without cake. So there we were. And we ate it. And we were happy. Most importantly, he was happy. Which is the only thing that matters.

Which brings us to the whole point of this week's theme, edible. Food isn't just a nutrition/survival thing. It's a happiness thing, too. Preparing and consuming food has become the core of an extensively complex modern sociological reality. It's easy to understand why the kitchen is such a central component of the modern home, and why life seems to revolve around this pivotal space.

So for the next week, let's celebrate all things edible. If we put it in our mouth, let's shoot and share it. Then eat it. Because I'm hungry, and I'm pretty sure you are, too.

Your turn: Please share a pic on your blog that reflects the new theme - or simply point to something you may have already posted online. Leave a comment here letting folks know where to find it. Visit other participants to spread the photographic happiness. New to Thematic? Click here to learn more. Otherwise, dive right in and have fun!

BlackBerry meltdown

Remember when your BlackBerry went blessedly silent last week? When a highly publicized service outage stopped email and BBM traffic in its tracks for millions of users first in Europe, the Mideast and Africa, and later in Latin America and North America? Sure you do: It gave us all a long-overdue opportunity to put our electronic leashes down and head outside. Lovely, wasn't it?

Well, somewhere in the mix, I was lucky enough to appear on CTV's Canada AM on Thursday morning. I chatted with Omar Sachedina, and the interview is here.

Later that day, I got to meet John Vennavally-Rao, a reporter with the CTV National newscast, and his report aired that night. Here's the video. I also chatted with CTV News Channel's Jacqueline Milczarek and Dan Matheson, and did a live hit with CBC Radio's Wei Chen, host of Ontario Morning, as well as AM980's Jeff McArthur.

The next day, the fun continued, as the Toronto Star published my op-ed piece, Crunch Time for RIM. It's my first op-ed article for them, so it was a bit of a happy moment to see it in print. Sadly, this will not get me invited to RIM's Christmas party. Bummer: I was looking forward to being there.

Wind power

Green transit
Grand Bend, ON, August 2011

About this photo: It's been a great week for triangles, but all good things must eventually come to an end. If you're still on the geometric fence, click here. Otherwise, we're back at 7 p.m Eastern - tonight! - with our new Thematic theme for the coming week. What will it be? How does edible grab you?

I learned to sail when I was 13 years-old. My logic? What better way to get around the lake than by letting the wind shove you around? The lazy kid in me felt pretty darn smug as I tacked back and forth and watched the canoeists and rowers work themselves into a sweat.

I haven't sailed in years. Life got in the way, and not living near a major body of water pushed my dreams of Laser ownership into the distant past. But that doesn't mean I don't get a twinge every time I see a sailboat cruise past the beach. I wonder if the folks on board have similar dreams of easy, inexpensive transport. I wonder if they get that same feeling of almost magical control when the wind fills the sails and begins to move the boat. I sure hope so.

Your turn: Did you ever do the boating thing?

On birds. And brains.

We just pulled into the driveway after a long day of staring at an endlessly unfolding ribbon of asphalt. Since I'm typically the one behind the wheel on days like this, I end up with a lot of time to ponder the meaning of life. In between keeping everything safely between the appropriate lines and not bending any metal in the process - a challenge today, given the pretty intense winds that followed us from start to finish - I got to listen in on the kids' observations of the blurred world outside.

The London-to-Montreal-to-London trip is old hat to them by now, but they still manage to find new ways to paint the experience. Our daughter, for example, provided a running commentary on a very angry-looking, wind-whipped sky. She kept finding shapes in the clouds, and although I couldn't spend a whole lot of time enjoying the view, it was nice to see the experience through her eyes.

Our journey takes us through one of the busiest migratory flyways on the continent. We saw lots of birds flying south, and a few misguided ones heading north (would love to know what's going through their heads) and as I watched them instinctively adapt their vees to accommodate the ever-changing wind, I thought of this quote:

"A bird only flies. It does not turn to another bird and ask 'Am I doing this right?'"
Mary Anne Radmacher

Your turn: What three words come to mind when you see birds in flight?

Before the fall

Sawtooth
London, ON, October 2011

About this photo: We're slowly bringing our week-long celebration of the humble triangle to a close - but we're not quite done yet. We've got until 7 p.m. tomorrow (Monday) to raid the archives for similarly geometric pics. Head here if you're still feeling pointy.

I probably shouldn't have taken this one. It was windy, with fading light and a seemingly endless series of yappy dogs being walked mere feet from my feet. Not ideal conditions for anything, much less taking a closeup picture of a leaf.

Mind you, if you wait for the planet to align before you take out your camera and start shooting, you'll never actually take the camera out. Sometimes, you just have to get started, anyway, imperfection be damned.

Your turn: Please head outside when you have a moment. Find a leaf, any leaf, and bring it inside. I'd like you to take a picture of it, then stick it in a book. Pop the pic onto your blog...kinda like a "before" photo. We'll come back to it later. Yeah, I'm odd.

Touch the sky

Broadcast standard
London, ON, August 2011

London isn't exactly a city of towering skyscrapers. A sleepy southwestern Ontario burg surrounded by farmland and cow pastures isn't going to challenge for the planet's top metropolis anytime soon. But that's kinda the way we like it.

Being relatively small doesn't mean we don't have neat things going on in the sky, though. We get our fair share of hot air balloons floating overhead. And lots of migratory birds. And Diamond Aircraft planes. And we've got this, the third-tallest broadcast tower in the country. The very top is 1,030 feet above ground. I couldn't verify this, of course, but based on the intensity of the nausea I felt as I walked close to the base and looked waaaay up, I'm going to ask you to trust me regardless.

This remarkable piece of engineering is 50 years-old, and stands just out back of CTV London - my broadcast home away from home when I do interviews. I wanted to get a closer look to make sure it was good for at least another 50 years. Once again, my untrained eye says all looks well.

Your turn: What's the tallest thing near you? What's the appeal of looking up, anyway?

One more thing? What does this pic have to do with "triangular"? The angle of the shot makes it hard to tell, but this is a triangular-cross-section design. I know, such a thrill. If you're still feeling like sharing a triangle or two, head here. We're still at it.

On those who change the world

As some of you may have noticed, I like to share quotations. I like how words of others can settle into our souls and inspire us to do more, to do better. I hope you're enjoying them.

"History shows us that the people who end up changing the world – the great political, social, scientific, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries – are always nuts, until they are right, and then they are geniuses."
John Eliot

Your turn: Who changed your world? Who inspires you?

On life as a comedy

"Our life's a stage, a comedy: either learn to play and take it lightly, or bear its troubles patiently."
Palladas

This old house

Don't forget to set the parking brake
Quebec City, QC, July 2011

As we continue to explore the world of triangles - click here for more - I find myself thinking back to this house that I found while walking alone on a tiny side street in Quebec City. Within the walled city - the only such community in all of North America - there are homes that are hundreds of years old, all lovingly restored, all being used today.

My own home is decidedly younger than this one. It sits on a flat piece of land, and has actual grass around it. I love it because it's my home, my family's home, the center of our world. But standing outside this one house, I thought of how many others have said the same thing about this place in the centuries it's been around. And suddenly I felt a chill wind on this otherwise hot and sunny day. A reminder, perhaps, that we're all just passing through.

Your turn: Who lives here now?

On adventure

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
Helen Keller

I'm digging the late Ms. Keller's words tonight. This week's been a particular adventure for us, and I'm still not sure where this big wave I've been riding will end up.

Your turn: What's your adventure?

In the land of the big iron

Bridge to somewhere
Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, July 2011

About this photo: It's Thematic's triangular week, and you're invited. Just go here and all will be explained.

There's a reassuring quality to old engineering that I just can't get enough of. I dig old bridges and buildings, built long before the era of supercomputers turned building stuff into a lowest-common-denominator process. They were overengineered, and as a result many of them not only still stand, but they continue to carry massive loads central to a modern world their builders never envisioned.

In this case, one fully loaded freight train after another rumbled over this phenomenally beautiful structure while our family explored the canal and locks below. It was humbling to stop whatever we were doing and feel their vibrations passing through our feet.

Whenever I have the time, I like to linger alongside creations like this one to not only admire the visuals, but to also feel that intangible force that makes them special. Because we truly won't see anything like this again.

Your turn: What's the appeal of something old?

BlackBerrys go dark...

...which makes for a busy evening and morning for me. Whenever tech news happens, I tend to get calls asking for my take on stuff. And since Research In Motion is having a bad week with a spreading global service outage that's affected email and messaging traffic from Europe and the Mideast to Latin America and now North America, I'm getting a few requests for comment tonight.

Stay tuned to CTV's Canada AM tomorrow morning just after 7:00 Eastern. I'll also be on CTV News Channel just after 9:00 a.m. And because a little radio is always fun to toss into the mix, I'll be speaking with CBC's Wei Chen at 6:40 a.m., and 570News's Jeff Allan at 10:00 a.m.

Along the way I've also spoken with CTV London's Tara Overholt and CTV Kitchener's David Imrie. I'm sure there's more in there somewhere, but I've got to power through some writing before I can digest it all.

Interesting times.

Your turn: Do you own a BlackBerry? How has this outage affected you?