Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Defiant, cooperative blades of grass

Let's work together, shall we?
Port Stanley, ON
July 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

A single blade of grass doesn’t seem like much, a wispy, barely-visible strand that’ll disappear when the first winds blow in.

But surround it with other strands just like it and an entirely new story emerges. Suddenly those same winds don’t stand much of a chance as countless roots dig deep into the sand.

The grasses now dance defiantly together, swaying back and forth as the forces of nature do their best to dislodge them.

I stand alone below the dune and take it all in, the soft sounds of windblown grasses layering over the thrum of waves and children playing nearby. I could probably stand here all day.

It may seem like a simple, easily overlooked thing to some, but I can’t help but think there’s a broader lesson playing out here. If they can work together as anchors in the wind, why can’t we?

#portstanley #beach #ldnont #ontario #canada #grasses #naturephotography #landscapephotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

From lemons...

Sign of opportunity
London, ON
July 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Entrepreneurship is apparently alive and well in our neighbourhood.

Good.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #sign #lemonadestand #streetphotography #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone


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Monday, July 14, 2025

Be the light, please

Illuminated inspiration in a hardware store
London, ON
July 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

As the new week gets underway, I have a simple request for all of us: be the light.

And because I’m Canadian: please.

It really doesn’t take much. A smile. A word of kindness. A skipped beat before jumping down someone’s throat. An occasional attempt to see what life is like for others.

Not so difficult, is it?

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #rona #hardware #bulb #stilllife #abstract #macro #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Erasing the shadows, August 2020
Just shine, July 2020
The meaning of lights, January 2019

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Sunday, July 13, 2025

Deadly Spirit

Now you see me...
London, ON
September 2022
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The flying wing shouldn’t be a thing. But it’s hard to argue with that notion when one of them is flying a few hundred feet over your head.

This B-2A Spirit is easily the most difficult plane I’ve ever shot through glass, as its surfacing seems to suck light like a black hole. Given its mission, though, that seems to make eminent sense.

#airshowlondon #ldnont #london #airport #ontario #canada #aviation #northropgrumman #b2a #spirit #stealth #bomber #flight #planespotting #instaplane #photography #Nikon #NikonPhotography #Nikon_Photography

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Saturday, July 12, 2025

Cherubs in a coal mine

The current state of humanity
London, ON
July 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

We see some weird things in the not-so-big city, like a random cherub left on - not in - a garbage can for reasons we’ll likely never understand.

In a way, this scene seems to explain the current state of humanity rather effectively. That’s because this is a rather special garbage can. It sits at the edge of a playground, and while the photo makes it difficult to see, it has a steel cover with a small hole in the middle. This makes it easy to drop, say, small dog poop bags in, but not the overflow from last week’s household garbage run.

Yet a day after this photo was taken, the abandoned cherub had been joined by a towering pile of poo bags and other ickies that cascaded off the clearly filled can and into an unholy mess below.

Is it a first world problem? Of course. It hardly ranks as a headline when dictators are trying to rewrite the rules to feed their own need for power, economies are collapsing, and kids go to summer camp only to come home in body bags.

Yet as I walked our clearly unimpressed puppy home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the thought processes of total strangers who lacked the wherewithal to simply take their garbage home with them, and instead just added to the pile.

It speaks to who we are as people, and in that moment, I was rather saddened by what this scene was telegraphing. Because if we’re so self-centred and unkind that we’d willingly leave this kind of mess behind, what other unkindnesses are we sending out into the world?

Maybe I’m being dramatically trivial, but it makes me shake my head and worry for our future. I hope we can learn to do - and be - better.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #optimistpark #abstract #street #stilllife #streetphotography #photography #apple #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Statuesque, January 2009
Caption This 81, July 2008

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Friday, July 11, 2025

Beachside reflection

The things we see
Port Stanley, ON
July 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I can’t help it: beaches make me reflective.

There doesn’t seem to be much point to sitting on sand, but no one ever said everything needed a point to begin with. Perhaps the fact that there IS no point is, indeed, the point.

Countless lives all intersect in this rather chaotic place where water meets land, each one making some kind of core memory to carry back with them after the sun finally begins to set.

I’ll often stand in one spot, close my eyes and just listen to the wind and the waves and the birds and the distant and not-so-distant sounds of strangers enjoying their time here. Or I’ll open my eyes and take in the spectacle of folks disconnecting from the outside world.

Because this kind of is its own world, separate and distinct from wherever else we might live or work. It’s a place that lets us put our outside lives on hold for a bit while we soak in an admittedly wild environment that mercifully hasn’t been paved over in the name of so-called progress.

Comparing old photos to new photos always makes me smile, because not much ever really changes here. Which is as it should be.

Sometimes I’ll stand in the shadows of this beloved beachside restaurant that’s been around for over a century and wonder how many others have stopped here for similar moments of reflection. I wonder if they, too, have ever stood beside the glass and wondered about the moments on the outside that it has reflected, as well as those on the inside that it has made transparent.

For glass can do either, as it tells stories both directly and indirectly, for those willing to stand here and look.

#portstanley #beach #ontario #canada #great #lake #erie #mackies #glass #geometry #reflective #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
A Mackie's moment, March 2021

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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Talking about Texas flood tech lessons on the CBC

As recovery efforts following the Texas floods continue, debate intensifies over the role weather alerting technologies, processes, and policies may have played in the tragedy.

I’ll be joining CBC Radio stations across the country Friday morning to discuss learnings and gaps - and what we should be doing to mitigate the risks.

Hope you can tune in!

#analystlife #wx

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Too hot, even for ice cream

Melting away...
Lucan, ON
May 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

As the heat shimmers blindingly off of the sidewalk in this idyllic little town, the picture-perfect local ice cream shop sits empty.

There’s a sad irony here.

#lucan #ontario #canada #dairylovers #icecream #patio #food #foodporn #streetphotography #yellow #architecture #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

Related:
No cones for you, March 2021
Storm's coming, September 2018

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Wednesday, July 09, 2025

Talking chatbots and search on The Night Shift

Can AI chatbots replace traditional search engines like Google?

I joined Shane Hewitt on The Night Shift on the iHeart Talk Radio Network to talk about the dangers.

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Water over water

Putting the great back into the Great Lake
Port Stanley, ON
July 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

It was a stiflingly hot summer afternoon, and the lake seemed to have a story to tell. So it made perfect sense - to me, at least - to hit the pause button and take it in.

I’m doing that a lot lately.

#portstanley #beach #ldnont #ontario #canada #greatlake #erie #blue #sky #green #water #waves #cloudspotting #naturephotography #landscapephotography #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Bird, air, water, July 2024
Blown away, September 2023

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Tuesday, July 08, 2025

Rainbow sidewalk

The pastel spectrum
Dryden, ON
May 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Make the world more colourful.

Use whatever tools you can.

Draw outside the lines.

Make complete strangers smile.

The images may soon be washed away.

But the memories are indelible.

#dryden #ontario #canada #throwback #sidewalk #childhood #crayola #chalk #rainbow #texture #stilllife #streetphotography #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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Monday, July 07, 2025

When the sign says stop, listen

Painted intersection
Middlesex Centre, ON
July 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The scene: Ten Mile Road, north of the not-so-big city. I’m in the middle of a hot and humid slog of a ride when I take an unplanned turn onto this gravel road.

I ride a gravel bike, so I tell myself it makes sense to ride it on gravel every once in a while. But a few hundred metres in, I realize you roll a lot more slowly on gravel than on pavement, and I’m watching the clock. So I turn around and head back to more familiar - and speedy - asphalt.

As I approach the intersection, I zero in on the giant stop sign that makes it almost impossible to see anything else. As often happens when I’m wandering the countryside, the scene speaks to me, and soon enough I’m getting off the bike for a fast photo shoot.

I’m learning to listen to the inner voice that whispers encouragement to slow down and appreciate tiny moments like this one, even as the clock ticks and the not-so-big city calls us back to everyday reality.

Because that reality will always be there. But scenes - and moments - like this might not.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #tenmile #hydepark #cycling #bicycle #instabike #landscapephotography #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Mailboxes Etc. January 2025
Goose reads the sign, September 2024
Arrows everywhere, January 2023
No stopping here, February 2021
Where it all began, February 2019

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Sunday, July 06, 2025

Parking-challenged pickup

Where rules apparently don't apply
London, ON
June 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I want to think that whoever parked this pickup truck really tried their best, but I suspect I’d be disappointed by the truth.

Perhaps it’s for the best that this remains unanswered.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #hydepark #parkinglot #pickup #truck #photography #apple #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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Saturday, July 05, 2025

33 years...

Where it all began...
Laval, QC
July 5, 1992
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I’ve been pinching myself for 33 years, which is how long ago this photo was taken.

That she agreed to marry me at all remains one of those unanswerable mysteries of life, because she was out of my league then, and she still is.

That I’ve loved her more with each passing day, however, is no mystery at all. She makes it easy. Fun, even, despite my doofus-like personality.

I don’t know what I did to deserve someone like her, but I’m thankful our paths crossed, and thankful I get to spend every day with her.

This life thing is unpredictable, with a fair bit of queasiness thrown into the mix. Yet navigating it with her is an indescribable privilege, and nothing makes me happier or more proud than to reflect on the story we’ve written thus far together - and the chapters that still lie ahead.

Happy anniversary, sweets. Thank you seems inadequate for all you’ve given me since we first met, but it’ll have to do for now.

Love,

Me

#montreal #ldnont #july5 #blink #LiveLaughLevy #family #everything

Related:
32 years... July 2024
31 years of us, July 2023
30 years... July 2022
29 years... July 2021
28 years... July 2020
27 years... July 2019
23 years on, July 2015
22 years... July 2014
21 years on... July 2013
20 years on... July 2012
Sweet 16, July 2008
How many years? July 2007

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Friday, July 04, 2025

Tasty patterns on an orange floor

Chichi shopping
London, ON
June 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I know grocery stores aren’t exactly happy places these days thanks to extortion-level pricing, shrinkflation, and the distinct lack of competition in the Canadian market.

But goodness does that orange floor look lovely, does it not? And perhaps I’m just shallow enough to find joy in simple aesthetics.

Sure, let’s go with that. I’ll be on team orange.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #grocery #store #loblaws #overhead #orange #shopping #retail #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Late night cake shoot, September 2022

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Thursday, July 03, 2025

Talking about Iranian cyberthreats on the CBC


Now that the dust has settled from the U.S. stealth bomber attack on the Iranian government's nuclear facilities, the FBI, NSA and other top agencies are warning of targeted attacks on critical infrastructure.

It is as frightening as it sounds - imagine a threat actor remotely controlling your town's water supply or shutting off the electrical grid. And since the internet knows no borders, Canadians are also at risk.

I'll be joining CBC Radio stations across the country this afternoon to explain why this is so worrisome, and what we should be doing to address the risk.

#cybersecurity #canada #medialife

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Post-storm dance in the sky

Dying light
London, ON
May 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

After the storms have passed, messy clouds crowd the skies, lit from below by the fading sun.

Ripped branches litter the soaked grass at my feet, rocking back and forth in the remaining gentle breeze.

Some things can be seen. Others felt. But only if we allow them. Until they’re replaced by whatever else sweeps in from the skies before disappearing into the night.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #optimistpark #sunset #orange #cloudspotting #naturephotography #landscapephotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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