O Canada

Inspiration can hit you anytime, anyplace. This one occurred to me while we were walking our brood back to the car at the local big box megastore/neighborhood-economic-vacuum-cleaner.

Ordinarily, acres-wide expanses of asphalt - with their legions of really stupid middle-aged people not watching where they're driving and shopping carts strewn haphazardly because people couldn't be bothered to spend the 24 seconds to walk them back to their designated gathering places - don't really do much to inspire me. I go into a numb, trancelike state as I try to safely get myself and my family out of there before one of the aforementioned middle-agers mistakes me for a lost squirrel and tries to turn me into a hood ornament.

The flag was so loud in the blustery wind that I couldn't ignore it, even though I was parked a good 50m away from it at the time. Luckily, I had the camera in its pouch (I've started carrying it here and there to ensure I don't miss the little stuff that comes up when you're busy with the everyday activities of life) and racked off a few backlit pictures of our Canadian flag.

I've always loved the vibrancy of our flag, and something about the way it was backlit just caught my eye. I was tempted to salute, but the guy who corrals the carts was looking at me funny, so I put the camera away and headed back to the car.