Cherry Blossom memories

Sticky sweet reflection
Thornhill, ON
March 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

They say we are what we eat.

And while I don’t think I actually AM a cherry blossom, I’m just old enough to remember how these treats made me feel when I was a child.

The Cherry Blossom was very much an acquired taste kind of thing, a sickeningly sweet and limitlessly messy confection that based on this more recent example, had made some enemies over at Health Canada.

They stopped making them last year, and in doing so touched off a wave of nostalgia among folks of, um, a certain age. So when our dear friends allowed me to have some reflectively photographic fun on their kitchen counter with their lovingly stockpiled collection, I couldn’t say no.

I remember not so much the taste - which was, frankly, too much of everything that makes us feel icky afterward - but the simple joy of sharing something sweet with friends. I remember the idyllic suburban street we lived on, the neighbours we played with, and what we snacked on when we needed to refuel before the next round of hide and seek or street hockey.

When we were kids, it was a given that these things would always be around. Adulthood taught us that nothing lasts forever. It’s a lesson I’m still not ready to fully accept.

#toronto #canada #throwback #stilllife #foodporn

Punch buggies are everywhere

Fahrvergnügen
Spanish River, ON
May 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Small towns alongside the Trans-Canada Highway share their secrets in fits and starts, with picture-perfect main drags giving way to spectacular cliffs rising out of Great Lakes, and endless stretches of supertall evergreens filling in the rest.

Every once in a while we’ll roll past a crumbling, graffiti-covered motel, or, in this case, a lonely garage with a motley collection of old cars parked haphazardly outside. Where an icon of automotive history bakes under the midday sun, a silent witness to a world few of those driving through bother to ask about.

I smile at the prospect of a yellow punch buggy being lovingly wrenched on beside the road that connects its dusty home to the outside world. I imagine this being the humble start of an epic journey in an epic machine.

Drive safe, friend.

#spanishriver #canada #roadtrip #vw #throwback

13 years on...

Still here...
Middlesex Centre, ON
August 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

13 years ago today, I went for a bike ride that almost killed me.

On my way home from a fast, hot loop through the countryside, I came across road construction. As I threw my head over my shoulder to make a u-turn on the usually busy regional highway, I accidentally tore my left carotid artery.

A few hours later, after I had somehow made it home, the injury site sent clots into my brain and caused an ischemic stroke. My right side was paralyzed, and I could not speak.

I recovered because my wife and kids knew the signs and immediately called 911. I recovered because I live 10 minutes away from a world-leading research hospital filled with miracle workers who knew exactly what to do the moment I rolled through the doors. I recovered because I got the help I needed within the magic window that every stroke victim knows is key to their very survival. I recovered because I live in a country that has decided that health care is still something of a priority. I am insanely lucky.

I should have taken the hint from the universe that cycling was trying to kill me. Over the years, I had been doored, assaulted by a road-raging motorist, t-boned on a bike path, and hauled over by the cops.

I carry scars from them all, signs of a journey that hasn’t always been charmed, imperfections that remind me things don’t always follow a set plan.

Despite it all, a key milestone for my recovery was getting back on the bike again. I knew it would make me feel whole again.

Lying in a deliberately dark and quiet house for weeks afterward, I imagined that first pedal push, that feeling of the bike gathering momentum with each turn of the pedals. I played the movie countless times in my scrambled brain, hoping it would eventually be more than my imagination.

Soon enough I took that ride. And today, 13 years on, I stand at the very same crossroads where my life took an unplanned turn.

Not everyone gets to continue the journey. That weight will stay with me as I leave this intersection behind and push once more toward the horizon.

#strokeawareness #family #health #everything

Related:

START HERE: So, about that stroke - August 2014

#2: When even "thank you" seems lame - August 2014

#3: More stroke stuff... - August 2014

Stroke survivor shares his story, London Free Press, Aug 14, 2014

Coming up on Canada AM - Lookahead to February 2015 interview

Winding down the day that was - February 2015 - incl link to Canada AM/Heart/Stroke Month segment

Life at the crossroads - April 2015

Two years on... - August 2015

Three bonus years - August 2016

Four years later - August 2017

Five years on - August 2018

Luke Perry could have been me - or any of us - March 2019

The day everything changed - August 2019

Seven years on, August 2020

Eight years on, August 2021

#StrokeAwarenessMonth, the video, June 2022

PODCAST: Lessons to my Younger Self, with Sam East, July 2022

Nine years on... August 2022

Ten years on... August 2023

Stroke Month, FAST, me, and maybe even you, June 2024

11 years on... August 2024

12 years on... August 2025

Remembering Lloyd Robertson

Canada lost its most trusted voice today.

So many members of Canada’s media community lost a mentor.

The day Lloyd Robertson sent me the kindest note about my work helping viewers make technology easier to understand was one of those days I wish I could hold onto.

I was privileged to experience kindness from a giant whose life seemed to revolve around countless small acts of grace to anyone who crossed his orbit. He truly was a mensch, and the world is a little dimmer in his absence.

Showing some LRT architecture love

Mass transit coolness
Toronto, ON
May 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

And they say public transit infrastructure can’t inspire.

Pfft.

Who are they, anyway?

#toronto #eglinton #lrt #architecture #shadows

Bug off the BBQ, please

What's for dinner?
London, ON
August 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

When BBQs aren’t heated up to temperatures approaching the surface of the sun, they sit quietly awaiting their opportunity to help craft their next meal.

Invariably they get visited by all sorts of wildlife. Because, you know, outside.

Ours is no exception.

Which explains the pleasant surprise that awaited me as I got set up for burning the bejeebers out of our dinner the other night.

I’m guessing she was a grasshopper - sorry, entomology was never really my thing - and we had a bit of a staring contest before she decided to spring off to parts unknown.

Maybe she found another BBQ. At least that’s the hope. Stay safe, little green one.

#ldnont #canada #insect #bugslife #stilllife

Cycling through the weather

Just grab on
Middlesex Centre, ON
August 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The plan was to wake up with the sun, then ride.

But there was no sun. Just thick clouds and the looming threat of thunderstorms.

I rode, anyway.

It didn’t take long to leave the city behind, and soon enough I was waving at cows and horses and one very sad farm dog as I zoomed past.

The rains held off. I crossed paths with countless other cyclists who also decided to bet against the weather. We all waved at each other, happy to just be out there.

I pointed the bike toward new roads, unsure what I’d find along the way.

Eventually I needed to double-check the map, so I stopped beside a field filled with hay bales for some up close and personal time with Google Maps. I also snapped a few photos and grabbed a snack. Because every ride needs to be remembered. And fuelled.

Somewhere in the distance a tractor was digging a trench around the edge of a corn field, the stalks hiding most of it from view.

Overhead, a hawk dove out of the sky and disappeared behind a gravel pile, re-emerging seconds later with a very large piece of something unidentifiable dangling wildly out of its beak.

Eventually it was time to turn for home, and I pulled into the driveway filled with gratitude.

From the outside looking in, it might have looked like an ordinary ride on an ordinary early morning. But there’s no such thing as ordinary when we’re on a bicycle.

I’ll have to keep finding new roads, then.

#ldnont #middlesex #canada #cycling #justride

Mirrors and clouds

Painted
London, ON
July 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

There is always more than one way to look at the sky.

Come to think of it, there’s always more than one way to look at just about anything.

Anyone, too.

#ldnont #architecture #reflective #bluesky #cloudspotting

Little Man turns 26

All grown up
Old Woman Bay, Lake Superior Provincial Park, ON
June 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Noah has been our Little Man since the day he was born, but as he celebrates his 26th birthday, I wonder if the title even applies anymore.

Because there’s nothing little about him. He’s limitlessly kind, whip smart, incredibly funny, and the best uncle two little girls could ever ask for. He is loved beyond measure by everyone who knows him, and reminds us daily why we’re so proud of the remarkable human he’s grown into.

I don’t know where the time has gone, and I wish we could slow it down a bit. But as our youngest starts his second quarter-century, he continues to make every moment together count, and we all appreciate just how blessed we are to have him.

#LiveLaughLevy #birthday #life #parenthood #family #everything

Mother Nature takes out her colours

Multi-hued sky
London, ON
July 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Mother Nature decided she couldn’t end the day without a bit of a show in the skies.

Luckily I happened to be walking the dog when she did.

Luckily the dog decided to pull the leash in an entirely new direction, so we were under an especially open patch of sky just as the sun was setting.

Circumstance is a fascinating thing, an unknown and unseen convergence of countless factors that puts us in certain places at certain times, that dictates which stories get told, and which ones don’t.

And last night, this is the story that played out far above our heads.

We were lucky to witness it.

#ldnont #sunset #cloudspotting #optimistpark #shotoniphone

Snowbirds to be grounded

Dreams take flight
London, ON
September 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The Royal Canadian Air Force’s 431 Air Demonstration Squadron - better known as the Snowbirds - is flying its final airshow season in its geriatric CT-114 Tutors.

Soon enough, the jets will land for the final time as the team goes on hiatus for a few years before its new CT-157 Siskin II turboprops are ready.

We saw them last September, and they’re not scheduled to return here before standing down.

I’m going to miss the jets.

Apparently so will he.

#airshowlondon #ldnont #canada #aviationphotography #planespotting

That northern Ontario hotel lampshade aesthetic

Light the way there
Wawa, ON
May 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Every time we stay in a hotel, I like to find ways to remember the experience.

To a certain extent, all hotel rooms are remarkably similar. And given that the logistics of the typical road trip revolve around fitful nights of sleep before hitting the road early the next morning, we rarely have the time for much reflection.

But on occasion we end up with a spare minute or two amid the rush to get from here to there, and I find myself recording the tiny details - lamps, room numbers, fixtures, window views, whatever - that make these otherwise forgettable places a little less forgettable.

It’s an admittedly weird habit. But if it helps us hold on to moments and experiences that would otherwise be lost to time, I’d argue it’s more than worth hitting the pause button for a bit.

#wawa #ontario #canada #travelphotography #stilllife #throwback

Defiant leaf

Survivor
London, ON
October 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Time hasn’t been kind to this leaf. And if I had to guess, bugs and parasites have had their way with it, too.

Yet it still manages to catch the late-afternoon sun just enough to stop me dead in my tracks. And as I hover over this worn-out example of nature’s respiratory system, I ponder the fragility of life, and the fact that most of us would simply look away.

Humans seem to have some odd - or, more precisely, narrow - notions of what is and is not beautiful. Which likely means they miss out on anything outside the limited range of what they deem worthy of their time and attention.

Soon enough this leaf will be gone. Its quiet lessons will stick with me much longer.

#ldnont #medway #green #backlit #stilllife

They're shooting at Jews again

Abstract distraction from reality
Dryden, ON
May 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Two locations of a beloved Toronto bagel bakery chain were attacked yesterday, with at least one of them showing evidence of gunfire.

We’ve been to Kivas many times over the years, and the never-ending wave of violence against Jewish-owned businesses continues to rattle us to our core.

Statistics Canada data puts numbers to the fear: 70% of all hate crimes that target religions in Canada are aimed at Jews - this despite the fact that we make up 0.9% of the general population. Let that sink in for a moment.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow was too busy celebrating the federal government’s Billy Bishop Airport decision, and did not feel it necessary to connect directly with members of the Jewish community. We’re used to this by now, the ignorance and indifference from the leader of Canada’s largest city, the barely concealed contempt that happily fuels Jew hatred among her base.

If you’re Jewish in Canada, a nation often considered a bastion of tolerance, the deal is stark: our fate rests in the hands of those in power who often view us with the same uninformed world view that results in shattered glass and random street assaults in the first place. They’ve run the math and have decided there aren’t enough Jewish votes to justify changing the status quo.

But here’s the thing: after they’ve come for the Jews, they’ll come for everyone else. Ms. Chow and her acolytes might want to learn from history, assuming they even care.

So don’t mind if I post trivial still-life photos of candied chocolate on an Airbnb dining room table. Because I’ll take any refuge from the relentless and increasingly normalized hatred. I have no choice but to live my life, even if I do so looking over my shoulder.

#antisemitism #enough

Rear view cyclist

Gravel bike, in its element
Middlesex Centre, ON
July 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The view from the office this morning was particularly inspiring.

#ldnont #middlesexcounty #canada #cycling #justride

Everywhere I see green

Game of (midsummer) tones
London, ON
July 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

There’s a walking path that winds its way through a nearby river valley, at one point crossing underneath four lanes of high-speed traffic.

The drivers high above, speeding from here to there and back, likely have no idea what lies below them. The only evidence from way down here of their passage is a constant thrum of rubber on asphalt, underpinned by the drumbeat of expansion joints being pummelled from above.

Which makes this scene all the more extraordinary, for it exists within an urban context seemingly focused on destroying it.

It’s around lunchtime on a Sunday when I find myself pedalling through here on the final few kilometres of the day’s ride. I capture a slash of multi-hued green out of the corner of my eye as I emerge from underneath the concrete overpass and decide it needs to be remembered.

As landscape images go, it isn’t much of one, just a quick capture of a scene that I could have just as easily cycled past. I don’t want to overthink the moment, and snag just a single frame under the midday sun before I continue on my way.

But that colour, the tones, the shades, the reflections, all of them existing in the very shadows of a city that could very well have swallowed it all, but miraculously didn’t.

As I get back on the bike and push off, I say a quiet thank you for the continued existence of this place, and others just like it. Sometimes we need timely reminders of just how much we need them.

#ldnont #canada #fanshawe #gameoftones #landscapephotography