Whatchu lookin' at?

Nice to meet you, Surly
London, ON
May 2012
Thematic. Smartphones. Here.

I couldn't resist a little more airport-smartphone fun as I gradually made my way back home from a faraway land (see part 1 of this journey.) I was in the lounge at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, waiting for the final short flight before home. I was chatting with my wife via Skype - thank you, oh blessed free Wi-Fi-granting angels, wherever you are - and noticed brown t-shirt guy was staring intently at me. I'm guessing he had never seen someone use a laptop in an airport before.

Quick level-set: I was speaking quietly, I had my earbuds in, and I had at least one or two seats of buffer around me in all directions, so it's not as if I was carrying on a loudly obnoxious conversation in full view of everyone. But I'm guessing he was bored, and the not-so-subtly-grabbed stares were starting to bother me a bit. So as I chatted with my wife, I furtively pulled out the BlackBerry - using the fake-like-you're-reading-email technique described in my recent entry from this trip - and snapped away.

If he noticed me, I'll never know, but the guy next to him sure caught on (I know, I seem to be making a habit of getting busted-by-eye-contact by the person next to the main subject - see previous.) Turns out he wasn't on my flight, so once I boarded, our paths diverged, likely forever. Or until Google rolls out its next generation of facial recognition software, merges it with supercharged search and forever changes the calculus of shooting strangers in distant places.

Until then, I think my little not-quite-a-camera camera is going to be busy.

Your turn: What's white-t-shirt-guy thinking?