On living, for however long

"Be life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for."
David Starr Jordan

Your turn: How are you making your life complete? (Apologies for the existential tone. I'm feeling deep thoughts coming on. Just because.)

A life on rails

Clickety clack
Somewhere near Oakville, ON
October 2012
Please click here for more shiny Thematic

There's something reverent about sitting in a train and just listening to the sounds of travel. You can almost feel the rails below you, and if you close your eyes just so, you can almost go back in time. i know that's stretching it a bit, but it's been a long, productive day in the big city, and I'm kicking back on the train home.

My GPS app tells me we're doing 147 km/h...which I'm guessing is the point at which I really should stop looking at the GPS app because, well, this is Via Rail and my uninformed gut tells me they really shouldn't be pushing these old trains that fast.

I'm all for the romance on rails thing, but I really just want to get home in one piece so I can see my family again.

Your turn: What is the appeal of rail travel? Or not...I don't want to presuppose.

One more thing: I left the camera at home for this trip. It was a quick one - one night, all day conference, then train back home - so I was trying to keep it light. Instead, I carted my iPad with me, and dutifully shot from the train window, and again as I walked through downtown Toronto. It's a little freeing to have such a simple piece of kit - it forces you to think about your shooting with a little more care. To wit, this shot: it betrays the iPad's inability to handle anything in motion. Still, the controlled blur that resulted somehow feels like more of an achievement than a tack sharp one from my DSLR would have been. I had to work for this one.

Thematic Photographic 215 - Shiny

Them's fighting pandas!
Shanghai, China
May 2012

I've always been fascinated by shiny objects. Sure, it makes for a funny bit of self deprecating humor, but beyond that there is a photographic reason for it all. Unlike a matte surface, a reflective one can change significantly by shifting position or light source or style. It's entirely likely you'll never see the same subject in the same manner twice, and that somehow moves me whenever I find myself in front of one.

Like these pandas near the site of the world expo in Shanghai. I never knew pandas to be particularly violent animals, which made this scene even funnier. Don't they just sit around all day looking impossibly cute while they pose for touristy pictures and munch on endless supplies of bamboo?

Whatever the reality of panda life is - and perhaps this is something we'll just have to avoid revealing lest we ruin a perfectly good childhood memory - shooting this artistic interpretation through the window of a moving bus at the end of a smoggy/overcast day only added to the photographic fun.

What kind of shiny have you got lurking on your memory card?

Your turn: Share a shiny pic on your blog, then leave a comment here letting folks know where to find it. Repeat as often as you wish through the week, and fee free to invite a friend or six. Thematic Photographic is our weekly photo sharing activity, and everyone's invited. Click here for more background on how it works.

Lean in a little

A different world
Grand Bend, ON
July 2012
Click here for more Thematic "grounded"
New theme, "shiny" launches tonight at 7:00 Eastern

To most folks, it's just sand, something that burns your feet as you make your way down to the water, and something that sticks to them as you wander back out. It finds its way into every nook and cranny, and keeps appearing, unwelcome, for months to come, as you fetch groceries, cart kids and give lifts to parents who berate you for not cleaning your car more often.

At first glance, it's monolithic, monotone and absolutely not worth a closer look, the aesthetic equivalent of the grit that accumulates around the light poles in the mall parking lot. But if you crane your neck just a little, you realize there's more to this stuff than meets the eye.

At least that's what I found myself thinking on this brilliantly sunny day at the crowded lakeshore.

Your turn: What else in your life is worth a closer look?

That was the day that was

I thought it would be fun to timeline my day on Friday (I wrote about it here). Why? Because it was insane. And hellishly fun. All at the same time. I've set the 6 interviews in blue. Here goes...

• About 12:30 a.m. - we pull into the driveway in front of the in-laws' building just outside Montreal. We'd been on the road for a good chunk of the day. Sometimes, you just need to pile the kids into the car and go for a drive, and thanks to life's twists and turns, this was one of those times. So we drove.
• 1:30 a.m. - the car is unpacked, the kids are slowly settling into sleep. I haul out my iPad and download Bad Piggies, the followup to the Rovio megahit game, Angry Birds. It was launched on Thursday, and it's already #1 in Apple's App Store. It's for work: I'll be talking about it on-air in the morning (I know...crazy-neat), but first I must play it for a bit to get my journalistic head in the game.
• 1:45 a.m. - Enough play. I suck at it, anyway. Debbie tucks me in. I put my head down for a nap while my wife reads. Why is she awake? Because I'm nervous we'll both sleep through whatever alarms we set. I had originally proposed simply staying up. She proposed this method instead. She's a lot smarter - and more generous - than I am. (Flashback: When we were dating oh so many moons ago, she used to wake herself up at 2:30 a.m. so she could call me to make sure I was awake in time for my 4 a.m. shift in the newsroom. History repeats, and she's awesome.)
• 3:15 a.m. - She wakes me up, then tucks herself in. I pull out my laptop and write like the wind.
• 3:58 a.m. - File my first article of the day (exhaustion makes me write faster, apparently. Who knew?) Dump one last round of overnight feeds and research onto my iPad (note to self: Readability rules), then throw both devices into my backpack, toss on my clothes, make myself look as pretty as my Gumby-like hair and off-centre-and-oversized nose will allow and head for the door.
• 4:30 a.m. - Get into the car. It's clear and chilly, and the gigantic, Wallace-and-Gromit-with-cheese moon is painting the road with light. The air seems to crackle with expectation. I select appropriate tunes for the drive into the city, program the GPS and slowly roll onto the street.
• 5:16 a.m. - Arrive outside CTV Montreal's studios. Connect with producer and settle into the green room.
• Just after 6:00 a.m. - CTV's Canada AM - interview with Marci Ien. Video here.
• 6:25 a.m. - Pull out my laptop again and hammer out second piece of the day, this one for Yahoo! Canada.
• 7:17 a.m. - Bounce emails back and forth with 570News's Gary Doyle. Book radio hit for just after noon. Pull out headphones and select new playlist to pace the next little bit.
• 7:54 a.m. - File article 2 - Yahoo! soon publishes it: RIM stock soars but rough ride isn't over. Geek factor: There is no wireless here. I pull the microSD card out of the BlackBerry, throw it into an SD card adapter, pop it into my MacBook, save the article to it, throw the card back into my BlackBerry, then email it from there. Could I have Bluetoothed it? Um, yes. But this seemed more visceral, like I was actually accomplishing something. I make weird decisions when I'm tired.
• 7:56 a.m. - Switch gears into gamer/Bad Piggie mode. Ironically, on the drive in from London, we got stuck in traffic for a while on the 401 in Toronto. As we slowly idled along in the left lane, a huge truck slid in beside us and kept pace with us for about a half hour. In the back of said truck? Countless baby pigs, their pink snouts sticking forlornly out the too-small slits in the trailer.
• 8:15 a.m. - CBC Ontario Morning - spoke live with Wei Chen about those frustrating iPad-bound pigs. Audio here. FWIW, I truly suck at the game. It's a lot harder than Angry Birds, and I share my ineptitude on-air.
• 8:30 a.m. - Close my eyes for a few minutes. With both articles behind me, I figure I can cruise for a bit. My conscience soon has second thoughts...
• 8:40 a.m. - Realize it probably doesn't look too good for the strange guy to be lying with his feet up on the green room furniture. I make a mug of coffee in a very sweet-looking Canada AM mug. I resist the urge to bring one home. But I do tweet the pic. Tweeting is good for the soul on days like this.
• 9:30 a.m. - CTV News Channel - interview with Jacqueline Milczarek and Dan Matheson. (Sorry, I can't find the video just yet.)
• 9:50 a.m. - Wander into the newsroom and Margaret - my den mother for the day who ensures I have everything I need, then produces everything from the remote site before and during my on-air segments - logs me into her own PC and lets me use it. Seriously, how cool is that? We discuss the limitations of Internet Explorer 7 and I recommend installing Chrome and Firefox on every machine she uses.
• 10:16 a.m. - Bounce email messages back and forth with reporters for upcoming interviews. BlackBerry battery is holding up nicely under the strain, but I brought along a second, fully-charged batter just in case. Also keeping the phone tethered to my laptop to trickle-charge while I work. Scourge of the modern era: Managing juice when you're on the go.
• 10:42 a.m. - Throw some pitches together on my BlackBerry and send them into my editor. Because freelancers like me are always pitching. It's like breathing.
• 10:45 a.m. - Pull together showprep - basically notes and links and other resources - for my 1pm segment with CJAD (see below). Coolness factor: They've moved their studios since I was last here, and they're now directly across the street from CTV.
• 11:30 a.m. - Write this blog entry. From my BlackBerry. Because I like to type with my thumbs.
• 12:05 p.m. - 570News Kitchener - interview with Gary Doyle. Podcast here. How to describe Gary: Everything I've ever loved about talk radio, he exemplifies.
• 12:15 p.m. - Finish up showprep, touch base with Margaret to let her know I'm popping out to head across the street.
• 12:20 p.m. - I'm a bit early. Receptionist says I'm welcome to wait till my producer is off-air at 12:45. I decide to take a stroll through the neighborhood.
• 12:30 p.m. - I find myself standing under a very large bridge - the Jacques Cartier Bridge. I take pictures with the iPad. Well, first I have to figure out how to crank the brightness on the iPad up because it's really sunny and I can't see a damn thing. I duck behind a rusty Dumpster because I figure it's shady enough there. Somehow, I fat-finger my way through and make it work.
• 12:35 p.m.  Almost trip over a piece of shattered concrete as I walk under the bridge to compose my next shot. It dawns on me that perhaps I shouldn't be standing in a concrete-falling zone (old bridge + rusty rebar + stupid Montreal maintenance practices = a sudden feeling of nausea as I slowly step back.)
• 12:40 p.m. - On the stroll back to the radio station, I have to decline another interview request because I'll be completely out of position. I don't like saying no, but at some point, when you're running right near the edge of what most folks would consider sane, you just have to leave some things for another day.
• 1:00 p.m. - CJAD Radio 800 Montreal - weekly tech segment with Ric & Suzanne (Ric Peterson and Suzanne Desautels). Podcast here. I'd hang out in the studio indefinitely if I could: Seriously cool space. With seriously cool people. Newsrooms have always felt like home to me, and this station gave me my first exposure to this incredible world.
• 2:15 p.m. - Back at CTV to record clips for the CTV National News. I work with Parliamentary Correspondent Richard Madan, and the report is included in the 11 p.m. newscast. Video here.
• 2:45 p.m. - After saying goodbyes and thank-yous to the CTV Montreal team - it takes a lot of heart to allow a total stranger to just wander in and consume resources for much of the day - I head down to the car. I get momentarily distracted in heavy traffic and take a wrong turn that sends me over the bridge (southbound...I need to go north.) I eventually straighten myself out, only to run into the kind of traffic that reminds me why I so enjoy living in a smaller city where rush hour is little more than 10 cars at a red light. But I've still got good tunes, the sunroof is open and I'm pretty pleased that I've managed to carve out another pretty unique day. I still don't know where all this is leading, but I'm glad to be on the journey.

Your turn: Crazy? Or what?

Rogers goes down. Ears turn red

News from Pitkinville - okay, southern Ontario, but Pitkinville sounds so much more sardonic - is that Rogers, the largest telecom company in the known universe, is experiencing a major outage. As a result, Internet users in Canada's most populous zone are stuck sending each other messages via carrier pigeon.

I know this to be true because I learned it all on the Internet - TechCrunch article here. Which, for me, apparently still works. Because I'm not using Rogers. Please don't hate me.

Your turn: What do you do when your Internet goes down? I lean toward reading, walking and speaking with real, live people. What's your backup plan?

Update - 9:00 p.m. - Heard from Melissa James on Facebook. She sat on the phone waiting for someone from Rogers. When she got through, this is what she was told: "It'ss not just Rogers customers, but Bell and others because it's a DNS problem. If you type in Google's IP address (74.125.226.84 ) and it appears, your service with your provider is fine, just the internet (DNS) is down." This is confirmed by one of the top telecom analysts I know, Mark Tauschek: "Apparently DNS is the culprit - try 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 for DNS servers." So...change your DNS settings and you should be fine.

Update - 9:04 p.m. - Stuart Clark and Derek Silva - more uber-geeky members of our city's technology elite, and friends of mine - share this advice: Use OpenDNS's DNS servers. 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220. Derek - head honcho of Orpheum - also says "it's just Rogers' DNS servers that are flaky, not the network itself."

Update - 9:12 p.m. - Tom confirms the following: "Using openDNS settings 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 and working well now."

Update - 9:15 p.m. - CTV anchor Tony Grace just tweeted this: ROGERS OUTAGE: MP @tonyclementcpc, tech expert @carmilevy & others among the many tweeting about a widespread #Rogers internet outage today.

Update - 9:17 p.m. - Leanne Fenton reports from London: "Cable seems back with a reboot and twitter is working on WIFI for the 1st time in hours... Still sketchy access on most sites tho."

Update - 9:20 p.m. - Stuart Clark just posted this update to his blog.

Update - 9:27 p.m. - Just noticed the one tweet from Rogers on this issue. Follow @RogersHelps and re-read that single tweet if it'll make you feel better.

Update - 9:29 p.m. - Hallie Moyse, in whose house I pretty much grew up, reports possible spread to Montreal. Tracking comments on my Facebook page here.

Update 9:31 p.m. - Oops, I spoke too soon. @RogersHelps just tweeted again. TWO tweets. I hope they're paid by the word.

Update - 9:34 p.m. - TechCrunch reporting service returning for some. Article updated here.

Update - 9:50 p.m. - DSLreports.com community thread here.

Update - 9:53 p.m. - Darrell Etherington is the Toronto-based TechCrunch writer who's covering this story. Follow him on Twitter at @drizzled.

Update - 9:55 p.m. - Rogers reporting the following from its Twitter account (link):

"Internet issues some wireline / wireless customers were experiencing should now be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience."

What are you seeing?

Street sweeper man

So clean you can eat off of it
Shanghai, China
May 2012
Thematic. Grounded. Here.

This city seems to be filled with nameless, faceless workers who keep the streets, sidewalks, staircases and other outdoor infrastructure clean. Or maybe it's just a matter of perception, as I stayed in a part of Shanghai, Pudong, that is the city's financial district, with some of the world's largest skyscrapers competing cheek my jowl with upscale malls filled with the creme de la creme of American and European brands.

Maybe other parts of the city, the ones that look less like tomorrowland and more like the rapidly disappearing traditional China, don't have their public surfaces swept on an almost constant basis. Maybe this kind of thing is only for the benefit of foreigners.

Whatever. I still found the sight of this man, toiling away alone far below my hotel window, to be somewhat sad. I know he's working, and I know he's contributing to the lives of others in a certain way. But I wondered if this is really what he wanted to do, and I hoped when he got home, he was surrounded by a family that welcomed him, encouraged him to smile, and connected with him in ways the scurrying office workers and foreigners who ignored him on his perfectly clean stretch of sidewalk did not.

Your turn: Who is this man?

Blink...

I'm having one of those days. You know how it goes, where the next day begins before the previous one ends, where you keep eating into sleep until sleep simply has no room on the clock.

Thankfully it's a good day, and I'll share more on it later. For now, I'll leave you with an image from early this morning. I drove out through the darkened suburb at barely 4:30 am. I had already been up for close to a couple of hours, and had already finished and filed my first article of the day. My wife, bless her, had earlier watched over me while I napped for a little over an hour. Why? Because I was afraid we'd both sleep through the alarms. She's amazing like that.

As I turned onto the highway on-ramp on this cool, clear ungodly-early morning, an enormous, yellow moon stared out at me. It seemed to bathe the road in warm light. Indeed, I'd never seen so much light at this time of night. It struck me as beautifully odd and oh so memorable.

So I filed it away, snapping my mental shutter (no jokes, please) so I wouldn't later forget what it felt like to be precisely in that place, alone at the wheel on a magically lit road, at precisely that moment.

The rest of the drive into town was similarly rich, recorded with a level of hyperawareness that seems to kick in when I'm heading out to do media work while the rest of the world sleeps. It's all potential, then, and no one else around me knows what's about to play out. It's like I've got a neat little secret. And it makes me smile a little as I cruise through the night, and get ever closer to my destination.

More soon. The clock tells me my phone is set to ring again in a few minutes. Time to spin up and get ready.

Your turn: ever have a day that stood out from all the rest? What made it extraordinary? Can you paint the picture?

Shaped by nature. Then wiped away.

Transient waves
Delray Beach, FL
January 2012
Please click here for more Thematic grounded

My favorite spot on any beach is the zone right by the water where the waves break and eventually wash up on the sand. The scoured zone is constantly being shaped and reshaped by the never-ending force of the wave action, and it never looks the same way twice. I could stand there all day as the water washes over my angles and gradually pulls my feet down into the oozy muck. Good times.

What I especially love about what's left behind is how it seems to lack scale. This particular shot happened to be shot from about eye level. But without too much additional imagination, it could just as easily be from a plane flying above a desert.

We really do live on a beautiful planet, and sometimes the proof is quite literally at our feet. If you do one thing today, please take that extra moment to look for it.

Your turn: So...what's down at your feet right now?

Where's my rice? Oh yes...

A strange place to eat
Toronto, ON
July 2012

I've just spent the day not eating, so I hope you'll forgive my choice of photo for this week's theme, grounded (click here to share yours.)

I rather liked the look of the white plate with the yellow rice - it seemed to have such a nice, simple balance of geometry and color - and needed a convenient place to set it down so I could take the shot. I might have plunked myself right down there when I was done, but our friends were already seated at the table, and they might have thought me a little weird had I not joined them.

I know what you're thinking: they already thought I was weird. And yes, you'd be correct.

Your turn: What else should I add to the dish?

Thematic Photographic 214 - Grounded

Thirsty
London, ON
July 2012

It occurs to me that we are incapable of defying gravity (forgive me, I'm dense.) Sure, we can get into a plane and fly, or if we're really, really lucky, we can go into orbit and float around for a while. But we're still subject to the same fundamental force, and we're still doomed to spend most of our life on the ground.

So if we're stuck down here, I thought we may as well celebrate it for a bit. Hence this week's theme, grounded. As you can see from the photo above, it should include some form of ground. In this case, it's a grassy soccer pitch. How you choose to interpret it is entirely up to you. And there are no rights or wrongs, just enjoyable moments as we individually and collectively try to interpret the theme.

Your turn: Please take a picture that evokes this week's theme. Share it on your blog or website, then leave a comment here letting folks know where to find it. Visit other participants to spread the photographic joy. Also feel free to repeat the process through the week. Pulling in friends is also highly encouraged. We're like that here. If you're new to Thematic Photographic, please click here for more background. And please have fun, as that's the entire point of all of this.

On lots of science, but little wisdom

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."Isaac Asimov

 Too bad this can't be reversed.

Smart phones, dumb social media and a post-RIM future

It's been a good few days in televisionland. On Friday, CTV's John Vennavally-Rao included me in a report he filed for the national newscast on the iPhone. My bit touched on RIM's BlackBerry outage in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and how the timing for this outage was probably not ideal. Video here.

I was back at it on Saturday, this time for Richard Madan's report on the Dutch party that got completely out of hand because of social media. The event, an echo of the Project X movie, illustrates the dark side of social media. Video here.

Tonight, I'll be part of a panel on TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Our topic, Innovating Success, deals with the future of the Kitchener-Waterloo region in the wake of RIM's downsizing, and it's quite an honour to be included with such an accomplished group (Iain Klugman from Communitech, Mike Kirkup of the University of Waterloo's VeloCity, and the University of Toronto's David Wolfe. Video here.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, I'm on-air with CTV's Canada AM at 7:40 a.m. Eastern. Talking about Research In Motion as developers gather in San Jose for the BlackBerry Jam Americas event, and as the company gets set to release its quarterly earnings report this Thursday. Video here. Story here.

Busy week. Man, this is fun.

Three years on...

My father died three years ago today. They say time heals, but aside from not knowing who "they" are, I'm going to politely disagree with them.

Time tends to file down the edge of the shock of loss. It dulls the rawness into an ongoing form of numb. It gives you perspective to figure out where you go from here. But it does not heal, for healing implies a return to what you were before. And that's just not how it seems to play out.

But the flip side of being given the gift of life in the first place is that we will have to deal with its loss - both of those who matter to us and, eventually, of our own. So we treasure what we have as long as we have it, mourn its loss when we no longer do, and do our best to avoid regretting any of it along the way.

I'd rather it be this way than any other. At least we're here to mull its meaning and learn for the future. At least I still have so much in my own life, compared to others who do not.

Your turn: How do you move on from loss?

100 Things - Part 3

1. This is my third such top-100 list (you'll find the first and second lists here and here, respectively.)
2. A bunch has changed since I last wrote one of these.
3. I lost my dad. The kids lost their grandfather. Three years ago tomorrow.
4. Our immediate and extended families have been changed forever. That's to be expected, I guess.
5. Change can be a good and a not-so-good thing.
6. We've experienced both sides of it.
7. We choose to focus on the good.
8. It's been an important life lesson for our kids.
9. Still, I wish it could have waited a bit longer.
10. Okay, a lot longer.
11. The bubble of childhood doesn't last as long as I'd like.
12. Both theirs and mine.
13. Navigating that dark period made me realize how many remarkable friends we have.
14. It also deepened how I feel about my wife. Of course I loved, appreciated and worshipped her before all this happened. But she somehow found a way to further wind her way around my soul.
15. I'll never be able to thank her enough.
16. I still work from home.
17. Our dog, Frasier, often lies by my feet while I write.
18. He's the sweetest soul.
19. Except if you're a squirrel or a chipmunk on the other side of the patio door.
20. His bark could wake the dead. A mile away.
21. So when I do radio interviews from the house, I have to sit in my wife's car in the driveway.
22. I'm guessing live radio and a howling schnauzer don't go all that well together.
23. Sometimes I do live television interviews via Skype.
24. I can't use the car for those. It would just look too weird.
25. So I set up shop in the living room.
26. With the dog.
27. Where I live in fear he'll go ballistic while I'm on-air. (Please see squirrel.)
28. I've learned how to pat him with my foot or arm without it showing up on camera.
29. More on the dog in a bit. I suspect he'll merit his own 100-things list before long.
30. And you thought media work was so glamorous.
31. I often trundle out to the car in the early morning murk, in my jams.
32. I tote along my iPad, a cordless phone from the house, and a smartphone.
33. I think some of the neighbors think I'm a spy.
34. I'm not inclined to set the record straight. I find it funny when they stare.
35. I'm still shooting pictures with reckless abandon.
36. It often takes me longer to get where I'm going because I just have to stop to get that shot.
37. My wife still has the patience of a saint.
38. I often like to wander through my photo and written archives.
39. I've never kept a diary or a journal, but I surmise the archives fulfill a similar purpose.
40. There's something cathartic about seeing snapshots of your past. I can't explain it, but the albums - printed and electronic - keep calling my name.
41. Sometimes I think I see the world through a rectangular grid.
42. On reflection, maybe that's not an entirely bad thing.
43. It simplifies things, forces you to break them down into bite-sized chunks.
44. I like simple. It brings me comfort.
45. I love to sleep. I'd stay buried under a comforter until noon most days, if I could.
46. With the dog. He sleeps at our feet.
47. I know most dog trainers would likely be aghast at that. Oh well.
48. We've never had illusions of him winning best in show, anyway.
49. We just like having him close by. We think he likes it, too.
50. I love to write even more than I love to sleep.
51. So most mornings, I wake up super-early - 4:30-ish - and pad downstairs to my office. Writing vs. sleep. Was there ever any doubt?
52. Writing alone, before the rest of the world wakes up, is one of those joyous slices of time that makes you glad you became a writer in the first place.
53. There's nothing like going heads-down, just you, your glowing keyboard and display (okay, displays), and some tunes on your headphones. The words almost seem to form themselves in your head before they slip out through your fingers.
54. I like hearing the birds begin to sing just before the sky slowly flickers to life.
55. It's more than just a time cue to finish up and get on with the day.
56. It's a reminder that there's more to life than our own projects and deadlines.
57. The planet has its own rhythm. It's not a bad thing to listen in on it every once in a while.
58. I find that a little humbling. Also not a bad thing.
59. By the time the article in question is finished and sent on its way, the house begins to stir. In my world, there's no better way to start the day.
60. I've been a cyclist for much of my adult life. I've always loved the freedom of powering myself across the landscape.
61. I'm ashamed to admit I've spent a lot less time on my bike over the past couple of years.
62. Truth be told, I'm afraid of being mowed down.
63. Almost every ride I take, some idiot in this often-backward town yells at me to get on the sidewalk.
64. Squeezing me into the side of the road is another fun redneck-Ontario pastime, apparently.
65. I'm still taking license #s (I'm talking about you, black Jetta, Ontario plate BLAM 495.)
66. Because data trumps boorishness. Every time.
67. I wonder when the idiocy will stop, when motorists and cyclists will learn to respectfully share the road and look out for each other.
68. Probably never.
69. I hate that I've allowed fear to get in the way of something I've loved to do for so long.
70. Thanks to my wife's encouragement, I still hit the road. I'm still afraid. But at least I'm out there.
71. Some journeys you simply must continue. This is one of them.
72. The best way to end a writing day: roll the bike out of the garage, fire up the GPS, then roll through the hinterlands that surround our city, with only the farms and some cows and horses as company.
73. There's something magical about flying down a country road, tall fields of corn rustling gently just feet to your right, the sun's rays streaking down through the clouds just above the horizon, with miles and miles to go before you turn for home.
74. I think it's almost as good for my mind as it is for my body.
75. Some of my best ideas flow when I'm cranking along some quiet back road. Among the corn.
76. We often speak of getting off the so-called grid. I suspect this is what it feels like.
77. The rest of the world can wait a little while longer. Life doesn't end just because I'm far from home.
78. I wish more folks got that. The world would be a much less stressful place if they did.
79. Our dog is now six years-old. He's become a sick pup, as Diabetes is a relatively high risk with schnauzers.
80. Watching our daughter give him his insulin is a humbling exercise. He knows what's coming, trusts her implicitly, waits for her with a look in his eyes that convinces us all that he gets it. And gets her, too.
81. The boys feed him, walk him, talk to him and fret over him.
82. They wouldn't be the people they're becoming had it not been for him.
83. His getting sick has been, perversely, a blessing in disguise for our kids and for our entire family.
84. As challenging as it can be to live with a diabetic dog, I wouldn't change a thing. If we could go back in time, knowing what we know now, I'd rescue him again.
85. The expense, uncertainty and worry often make me nervous. It seems like so much intervention for an unknowing little pup.
86. Still, for as long as we have him, we'll cherish him.
87. Because life isn't about how many days you're given. It's about what you do with those days.
88. We're not fans of wasting any of them.
89. With him or with each other.
90. I wish people were more like dogs.
91. They're so non-judgmental and happy.
92. You can even see it in the way they walk: bouncy, carefree.
93. I always believe in the best in people.
94. Until they prove otherwise.
95. I still don't get - and probably never will - where mean-spiritedness comes from.
96. Back to the using-every-day-wisely thing, it saddens me how some folks waste the time they've been given.
97. We can choose to either cave to it, or move past it. I choose the latter.
98. No choice, really. Otherwise, the darkness wins.
99. Brightness is so much more inspiring, don't you think?
100. I'm done. The bike awaits. Wish me luck.

Your turn: Should I keep doing lists like this? Do you have a list you'd like to share, too?

Gangnam style? No, gangsta.

Quick, to the getaway vehicle!
Shanghai, China
May 2012
Thematic. Retro. Here.

Retro takes on many forms, but this is not quite what I expected as I wandered over to the waterfront in the shadows of Shanghai's main financial district.

As far as I could tell, this was a video shoot, and that gun was decidedly fake. But until I figured it out, I admit my blood pressure may have climbed a few points.

Your turn: Care to take a crack at a plot point or two for this movie?

I did not wait in line

I didn't camp out on a cold sidewalk for days on end. I didn't join the legions of fans willing to put their lives on hold for the privilege of being the first of their friends to have the latest doodad. I watched it play out on Twitter, in the fleetingly few moments when I wasn't otherwise running on the treadmill that qualifies as my everyday. And I don't think I missed a whole heck of a lot.

Call me a curmudgeon. Call me an enemy of neighborhood kids everywhere. Call me an inveterate protector of my lawn (and please get off of it) but I never quite understood the appeal of waiting in line when, two weeks later, I could walk into any store, pull the latest object of mass market lust out of an overflowing pile of inventory, pay for it and be on my way in under 15 minutes.

I don't get the need to be the center of attention. I don't get the need to break an existing contract and spend hundreds of dollars in termination fees all for the sake of an extra row of icons and a slightly better camera. I don't understand why we define ourselves by the stuff we buy. I don't get the need to worship at the altar of consumerism.

Sure, I buy my fair share of so-called stuff. But I don't show my shiny new doodads off at parties. I use them. Hard. Often to the point of wearing them out. Because shininess isn't the point. Living a better life is. And I don't much care whether the things I hang off my belt or toss into my backpack define me as so-called cool or something decidedly less worthy of adulation. They're tools. Nothing more.

Because the moment people like me for what I have, instead of for who I am, I may as well call it a day.

Your turn: Thoughts?

On maps and journeys. Oh, and iPhones

"Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys."
Gail Pool

With the iPhone 5 scheduled to hit store shelves tomorrow, geeks everywhere are already lined up on autumn-chilled sidewalks for the privilege of being the first of their friends to buy something that everyone else will be able to grab from a ginormous pile of inventory barely two weeks from now.

As they ratchet their tents down and plan their next Starbucks run, many of these line-waiters are doubtless complaining about the new Maps app. Long story short: Apple and Google are no longer friends, so Apple's replaced the Google-powered old Maps app with something it cobbled together on its own. The initial version is somewhat underwhelming, and listening to folks carry on about its shortcomings, you'd think we were all reverting to paper-based maps (which I still can't re-fold...please discuss.)

Of course Apple will improve the offering, and mapgate will eventually join antennagate in the dustbin of geek history. But for now, I found this quote amusing given the timing.

Your turn: Have you ever lined up for lots and lots of hours, or even days, for something?

The mixtape is dead

Analog tunes
London, ON
July 2012
Please click here to share your Thematic retro

I'm just as fascinated by what happens at the trailing edge of tech as I am by the leading edge. In our crazy rush to touch the future, we leave stuff behind. Even more telling, we often forget what we've forgotten until it's too late.

To wit, the cassette tape. Back in the day (seriously, way back), I spent too many nights painstakingly putting together just the right mixtapes. You had to pick the right tunes, in just the right order, and you had to record them just so. And if you didn't have the album or CD, you recorded it off the air. Good times.

The 12-year-old me listened to them at home or on my, gasp, Walkman. A few years later, they came along with me as I hit the road in mom's Pinto (don't laugh; it worked. Some of the time.) If I close my eyes, I can still see the carefully Sharpie-scripted titles on each label, each one indelibly connected to a slice of time in my life, a trip we took, a moment in my developing relationship with the girl who eventually overlooked my mixtape looniness and married me anyway.

In retrospect, the audio quality was abysmal. And it only got worse over time as the tape stretched, degaussed and greased itself into the sonic equivalent of hell. Today, we download or rip tunes, assemble them into a playlist, sync our media players or phones and call it a day. It's so much more convenient, and the quality is worlds apart from those basement-borne creations.

Yet somehow, I don't feel as attached to my playlists as I did my mixtapes. They may have been as annoying as sin, especially when they either melted on the dashboard or spit themselves out of the tape deck in an inglorious riot of stringy, crinkly brownness. But we put so much more of ourselves into them than any iTunes-toting kid would do today. I don't think today's technology will ever come close on that front.

So when I saw this new-looking TDK cassette - essentially identical, down to the brand, to the ones I once owned - sitting on a desk in a local studio, I had to snap it. There's no telling when even these pristine examples will disappear for good.

Your turn: What other technologies are we losing to time?

On the power of storytellers

"Those who tell the stories also rule the society."
Plato

The journalist in me once believed this to be at least somewhat true. I saw a career in media as a calling, a privilege, a means of helping entire communities see the world around them more clearly. Yup, I've always been an idealist, and I guess I always will be.

The Winnipeg Free Press laid off 7 folks from the newsroom today. This is the second round of cuts there this year, and union officials there fear there's more to come. As is so often the case, journalists seem to pay for the industry's inability to find its way in an Internet/wireless/mobile/social-enabled age. Conventional advertisers drift away from ever thinner product, which hits revenue, which prompts more layoffs, which further thins the product, which...

I still believe in the privilege of those who tell the stories, that the work we do matters on a number of levels. I'm just no longer convinced the model we've been following is the one that'll ensure the survival of conventional media. Indeed, perhaps the notion of a conventional media at all is now something best left to history.

More to come on this. It's too fundamental an issue to ignore. And as I spend my days learning, writing and speaking about ever more capable tools of communication, I've got to believe that we're sitting on a treasure trove of potential. If only we have the courage to break the media decline/layoff/decline cycle.

Your turn: Thoughts?

Update: I spoke about this live this morning with CBC Radio One's Terry MacLeod on Manitoba's Information Radio. Will post a link to the audio if/when it gets posted.