Bee wants coffee

What's amazing about this image, taken in the Eclipse restaurant during our recent long weekend (see here and here) up north, doesn't lie in the image at all. Rather, one of the servers put a coffee mug over said bee, walked the whole thing outside and set the little critter free.

Most folks would have simply smacked the sucker into the next dimension. Instead, he showed a level of compassion that seems to be decidedly absent from society today. That's inspiring.

Your turn: How have seemingly small random acts of kindness touched your life? How have you touched others in this way?

My CrackBerry addiction returns

I should have known that today would be a big day. Research In Motion announced its second-quarter results, and that somehow affected my life from afar.

For those of you who've been reading me for a while, you might remember that I spent a lot of time speaking about the big patent-based lawsuit that hung over RIM like a Sword of Damocles until earlier this year. A small company named NTP had sued RIM for patent infringement. NTP claimed RIM violated its intellectual property rights when it brought its BlackBerry to market.

When I'm not shooting close-up pictures of flower petals and our sleeping children's faces, I cover the mobile space for the tech research firm where I work. Through the course of this lawsuit, we became the BlackBerry thought leaders. If anyone wanted to know the BlackBerry zeitgeist, we were their next call.

Fast forward to this morning. I was donating blood (I like large-bore needles and pre-packaged cookies) and my cell phone rang. A radio station in Montreal was hoping I'd be able to comment. But of course. So I chatted from the chair.

Before long, I heard from Gary Doyle at 570 News in Kitchener (RIM's hometown station...see roundup here) and Report on Business Television. My intentions of spending a quiet Friday catching up on reporting and other must-do work were suddenly scuttled by a bunch of live interviews. But that's OK, because these are all some of the best interviewers one could ever hope to work with, and it's always a privilege to have the opportunity to share our perspectives through major media channels.

I got back to the office, quickly rented a car (my bicycle just wouldn't have been fast enough for the 120 km drive) and, once I was finished the lunch-hour chat on Kitchener radio, drove to Kitchener (I know, irony...but the London studio was unavailable) and did the ROBTv hit. It was a really neat format, called Toe-to-Toe, where I went head-to-head with a financial analyst and we debated RIM's prospects. I did the interview from a studio at the Kitchener CTV affiliate, CKCO, and once again it was a great learning experience.

As I drove back to London to make the rest of the day's appointments, I stared at the beautifully painted clouds in the sky and thought that this really wasn't a bad way to work. Some days, I have to pinch myself.

The ROBTv interview is available here. I hope you enjoy watching it!

Your turn: Do you love what you do for a living? Why/why not?

Playing with trains with my daughter

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Ferris Bueller (played by Matthew Broderick)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986

Yesterday morning, I took our daughter to the dentist. As seems to have become our tradition, we had an adventure along the way.

First, some background: London is a city of railroad crossings. The one along our route was just before a stop sign. Since there's only room for one car behind the stop sign, I always come to a full stop before the tracks and wait for the car ahead to clear. Few things terrify me more than the prospect of sitting astride the tracks and having the bells ring, the arm come down, and a ten-million-kilogram freight train barrelling down on the car. No sirree.

So I stopped before the track and waited. And the bells began to ring. My first instinct was to stick the car in park because I knew we'd be there for a while. I also made a mental note to call the dentist's office to let them know we might be late.

Then I stopped caring about time when I heard squeals of excitement from the back seat. My nine-year-old daughter, normally so fashion-conscious, popular and cool, had up until today never been first in line at a train crossing. It was a new experience for our little girl.

So I opened all the windows, killed the CD, and we tried to predict which side the train would come from. She correctly guessed the left, then sat enthralled as a fast-moving train whipped by just a couple of meters in front of our bumper. We tried to figure out what was inside the sleek steel cargo carrying-cars, and eventually figured that it was carrying new cars. She marvelled at how, safely ensconced in the middle of a cushy minivan, she still could feel the ground shake.

Almost as soon as it began, it was over. The last car whooshed past and the arms went back up. The bells stopped ringing as the speeding train receded in the distance and we crossed the now-empty track. We excitedly chatted about trains for the rest of the trip and arrived at the dentist's office just on time.

I feel sorry for those who are in so much of a rush that they always cross ahead of the train. I feel privileged that I got to experience that small moment with a little girl who won't always be enthralled with the front row seat at a railroad crossing.

Your turn: What makes moments like this so meaningful? Is it possible to make magic out of the ordinary? How?

The view beyond the curtains

Sometimes, just a peek is enough to whet our appetite for more.

Your turn: When is this true?

Space blogger

It had to happen sooner or later: someone has actually blogged from space. Anousheh Ansari is half of the husband-wife team that funded the Ansari X Prize. The self-made tech entrepreneur is currently orbiting the planet aboard the International Space Station, and she's been documenting her travels on her self-titled space blog.

Point your browser toward http://spaceblog.xprize.org and prepare to be inspired. Her first-person view of this rather extraordinary experience goes well beyond the usual PR-limited perspectives that NASA astronauts are allowed to share with the world - assuming they share them at all.

As you wonder what the heck this has to do with you, I hope you'll keep this in mind: As a little girl in Iran, she used to look up at the sky and wonder about possibilities. If anyone is a candidate for validating the old saw that the sky is the limit, it would be Ms. Ansari.

Your turn: Is her experience inspirational to you? How?

Facadism

Look up from any street in New York and you're greeted by a diversity of building facades that few other places on the planet can match. I wish I had had more time on-site to appreciate the sights for a little longer. As it was, I took this picture as part of a series on my rapid walk back to the hotel after my interview. I held my laptop in my left hand (in retrospect, likely not the smartest thing to do in Manhattan) and grabbed quick snapshots with the camera in my right.

Not the most thoughtful way to take pictures. But sometimes, that's enough to paint a quick picture of a very rushed afternoon.

Your turn: What story do these buildings tell? Does it matter? Why?

Publish Days - Ink Blog - Garbage Cubed

Last week was another on week for my newspaper column. I've got a three-cycle backlog (that's 15 pieces...you poor readers!) that I'll post to the blog in the days to come.

This week, I was somewhat fixated on one issue - and I ended up writing three pieces on this one topic. This is highly unusual, but it was an issue that resonated strongly with local readers, and they responded in droves with passionate e-mails outlining their perspective. I felt a huge responsibility to continue the dialog on their behalf.

The issue? The city of Toronto - about a two-hour drive east of here - has been shipping its garbage to Michigan for a few years. Every day, hundreds of huge dump trucks make the round trip down the 401 highway that skirts London's southern border. The state of Michigan recently announced it would ban such dumping starting in 2010. So Toronto, unable and unwilling to solve its garbage problem, sought another dumping ground. After a series of secret meetings which failed to involve the regions that would be most directly affected, the city announced it had purchased a landfill near London. Toronto said too bad. The provincial government pretended there was nothing it could do. London was screwed over in the process.

As a crusading journalist, this ticks me off to no end. It ticked off large numbers of readers, too. So I wrote and wrote and wrote about it. I coined the term "garbagegate" and managed to get the word "shafting" into print. Here are the three pieces from last week's writing cycle:

Toronto garbage not welcome here
Published Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The London Free Press
By Carmi Levy

Garbage stinks, of course. But Toronto’s garbage stinks worse after reports that it wants to ship it to a London-area landfill.

Our mayor says London has been actively lobbying the provincial government to get Toronto to keep its garbage within the Greater Toronto Area.

This effort apparently continues to fall on deaf ears, which serves as an ominous message to Ontarians who live outside Toronto. Essentially, if you’re not a big city, you’re second-class.

I refuse to accept Toronto’s bid to dump its mess in places that are too small to fight back. You should, too.

And with a municipal election fast approaching, the time is now to press your candidates on this make-or-break issue.

Cities that fail to clean up their own garbage act shouldn’t be allowed to override the rights of others. Governments at all levels that fail to address our fundamental right to not be bullied deserve to be voted out of office.

Toronto must learn to keep its garbage in its own backyard, not in ours.

-30-

A whole lot of green for garbage dump
Published Thursday, September 21, 2006
The London Free Press
By Carmi Levy

You’ve got to give Green Lane Landfill owner Bob McCaig credit. Though the terms of the sale of his property won’t be made public for another 90 days, the deal is estimated to be worth around $200 million. That’s a lot of green for a garbage dump.

However, McCaig lost me when he said he was pleased to be working with Toronto “on an environmentally viable solution to a major problem.”

I’m having difficulty understanding the so-called environmental viability of this deal. Is McCaig referring to the hundreds of trucks burning incalculable amounts of diesel fuel between here and Toronto? Does he mean the money that Toronto still doesn’t spend on increased waste diversion or recycling programs?

The only thing that seems really viable in all of this is Mr. McCaig’s profit. The rest of the region will now spend the next 20 years paying the price for this so-called “solution to a major problem.”

If you’re as ticked off about this as I am, e-mail me and we’ll share our thoughts with city hall.

-30-

'Garbagegate' will bite provincial Grits
Published Saturday, September 23, 2006
The London Free Press
By Carmi Levy

If politicians at all levels of government are reading this – assuming they read at all – I’ve got news for them: voters are angrier than I’ve ever seen them.

My inbox has been blasted by responses from livid readers who say the deal to sell the Green Lane Landfill to Toronto smacks of political opportunism and abject greed. They’re fed up with the province’s pandering to the large number of Toronto-area voters, and to the never-ending backroom deal-making that continually violates the letter and the spirit of government accountability. They almost unanimously agree that this marks a new low in political backstabbing.

While local politicians argue over Garbagegate’s potential impact on the upcoming municipal election, the real story lies squarely within Toronto’s borders. The true villains are the self-centred leaders of Toronto and a morally bankrupt provincial government that will do almost anything to hold onto office – even if it means shafting the Southwestern Ontario electorate.

But voters have long memories. The provincial Liberals can expect a very rough ride from this region the next time we go to the polls.

-30-

Your turn: What would you do if something similar happened to your otherwise-sleepy city? How do you fight back against faraway, disconnected political forces? Can the individual truly make a difference?

Interviewed, quoted, etc.

I've fallen somewhat behind on posting links to my media-related work of late. Since it's been a bit of a busy week, I thought I'd toss up some quick snippets of what I've been up to of late:

• Report on Business Television. I did a live interview from the CKCO CTV affiliate in Kitchener, Ontario. I spoke about Motorola's purchase of Symbol Technologies with ROBTv anchors Pat Bolland and Lisa Oke. To view the streamed video, click here, then scroll down to the entry that looks like this

2:05 PM ET
Trading Day with Pat Bolland
Motorola Buys Symbol Technologies
Carmi Levy, senior research analyst, Info-Tech Research Group
Duration: 5 m 18 s

Click on the Play icon and you're off to the races. (Note: this link will likely go dead late Monday or early Tuesday.)

• Unstrung. I was interviewed by Senior Editor Richard Martin on this same issue. The resulting piece is called Motorola's Vertical Leap, and can be found here.
  
• Marketplace on American Public Media. I was interviewed for a radio report entitled More battery problems for Sony. Janet Babin was the reporter, and you can hear the piece by clicking here. Don't tell anyone, but I did this interview from my kitchen table. Shhh.
  
• Detroit Free Press. How AdWords work: New Ann Arbor office is part of Google's ad strategy changing the world of marketing. Byline Jewel Gopwani, Free Press Business Writer. Click here to read the article.
• Unstrung. Palm: Struggles Ahead. Also by Richard Martin. Read it here.
• Red Herring. Yahoo Latest Dell Laptop Casualty. Byline Eydie Cubarrubia. Read it here. Note that I work for Info-Tech, not In-Stat (I'm still not sure where that one came from.)
  
• Processor.com. Who Gets What? Deciding How To Distribute the Goodies. Byline Sixto Ortiz. Click here to read.
• We also released a quick news brief in response to the latest large-scale recall of laptop batteries. This one was a little different in that the batteries were not at risk of exploding. But still...here's the lowdown: Tekrati picked it up here: Toshiba Laptop Battery Recall Reaffirms Need for Industry Action, Says Info-Tech Research Group.

Your turn: Do I look/sound like I enjoy this? I hope so, because I do. Immensely. What is it about your calling that makes it so enjoyable for you?

Not quite strawberry shortcake

We're in an interim, early stage of autumn when the warmth of summer has started to fade, but the colors haven't quite started to make themselves known. As I look through my kitchen window, the world outside seems dull, gray, and somewhat muted. So I thought I'd shift gears a bit and drop in a shot of color.

Your turn: I'd like to know where you find bright, inspirational colors. If you've posted any examples online, I hope you'll share a link or two with us.

To be a fly on the wall

They don't have much of a brain, and they tend to be on this planet for about as long as love lasts between Hollywood's latest power couple. But sometimes I find myself looking at a flying insect and wishing I had the ability to fly, to stand on walls and ceilings, and to watch and listen to whatever's going on.

It's funny how those beings who have the ability to fly don't much appreciate the significance of this gift.

Your turn: If you weren't human, what would you rather be? Why? (Yes, it's an odd one. Sorry.)

My equipment

I've often been asked what I shoot with. I think many of you would be surprised at the answer.

This is my camera. It's a Kodak C330, a basic 4.0 megapixel digital unit with a lovely glass lens and a fairly intuitive set of controls. It gives me a lot of room to play with the settings to get the results I want. Most of the images on my blog and accompanying Flickr site were taken with the Kodak.

I also have a lovely old Nikon F-801s 35mm SLR. I've had it forever, and love it to bits and pieces. But in this day and age of digital, shooting 24 images at a time and then paying for development just doesn't seem to be the way to go. I'm holding on to my old camera because it's become more than a mere piece of equipment, and I'll always want to have the ability to rack off a roll of black-and-white. But I have ordered a digital SLR and am counting the days until it arrives.

Which begs the question: isn't the Kodak a bit out of its league?

The answer may surprise you. Technically, it probably is. It lacks the gee-whiz features and downright sexiness of a full-blown SLR or higher-end all-in-one. It doesn't look cool. It doesn't impress.

And that's the point. Its very simplicity is what makes it such a great tool. It's inexpensive, so I carry it with me virtually everywhere I go. It takes a lot of pictures on a pair of NiMH rechargeables, so with a couple of extra sets of batteries and a big memory card, I can shoot all day. It allows me to play with exposure time and ISO settings to coax some neat-looking scenes. It sometimes demands a little creativity to coax the more unique shots out of it, but that's the point, after all.

I grew up listening to people with more money than brains explain how their camera was so much better than any other. They'd wave their expensive equipment around whenever they felt the need to impress other folks. Oddly, they never seemed to be willing to share the results of their work. Those who did showed shot after shot of flat, dull images that didn't tell a story. I call these folks posers. They're usually the ones who walk around with the lens cap off.

Ansel Adams, arguably the greatest American photographer in history, shot most of his work with simple box cameras. He often made his own cameras to suit the needs of a particular shoot. His contention was that photography was driven by one's creativity and not by one's equipment.

I just love that perspective.

Your turn: What do you shoot with? Do you agree/disagree with my perspective? Have you enountered posers in your neck of the woods? How do you handle them?

Still wet

Thought I'd keep going with the theme of water and muted colors. My somewhat strange photographic mood continues.

Your turn: Should I keep sharing more of the same?

Flash fountain

Photographers control light to tell stories. Sometimes, there just isn't enough light out there to record the shot effectively, so they need a little help. Electronic flash units can do the trick, but directly lighting a subject can often reduce apparent depth and wipe out surface features. For that reason, indirect or bounce flash often helps. But that isn't always feasible, especially when you're outside.

But flash units have one critical advantage: they freeze an image like nothing else. So I tried my hand with the fountain outside our hotel room. Because the shutter was open for significantly more time than the flash was firing, I still got some subtle motion effects on some of the edges. If you squint just so, it almost looks like the water is throwing a shadow back against the sky.

Sometimes, cameras can be so much fun to play with.

Your turn: I think there's more water in my photographic future? Any suggestions what kinds of water scenes would work best?

Reflective

I like to walk slowly when I'm outside. It helps me catch glimpses of things that would be otherwise missed. This latest image continues my 'naturally b&w' theme, and reinforces my belief that beauty is found in the most unexpected places, but only if we take the time to look.

Your turn: I'm having trouble figuring out why I like this image. Any suggestions are welcome.

Towels on a bathroom shelf

Bathroom photography, Hudson Hotel, New York City

A hotel room provides a welcome refuge from chaos when you're otherwise running from event to event in a place that's completely alien and very far from the people who usually bring you comfort. In the relatively few free moments that I have when I'm attending a conference or similar event, I often use that blessedly quiet time to (unsuccessfully) calm myself down from the stress of the trip.

Sleep doesn't come easily in these places, which leaves me ample late-night free time to observe. I found this somewhat odd scene in, of all places, the bathroom. I liked the simple white-tile-and-chrome mood of the place. Nice and stark, with just enough ethereal backlighting to complete the scene.

Your turn: In your opinion, why am I obsessed with minute details of architecture? And what's with my sudden obsession with monochrome?

Purple vista

The non-gender-specific meteorological expert (aka weatherman in a pre-PC world) is calling for grayness and rain tomorrow. Which is unfortunate, because I'll be riding my bike through it, and I'm not usually at my happiest when I pedal through the wet.

To boost my mood to the point that I'll actually be able to write cohesive prose - it's an on week for my newspaper column, among other major deliverables on my writer's plate - I wanted to post this somewhat colorful and hopeful image.

It's a scene from Deerhurst, and every time I look at it, I'm right back in a blissfully peaceful place with the one person on this planet who finishes my sentences, laughs at my admittedly lame sense of humor and tilts her head just so when I lag behind her because I wanted to take just one more picture.

Your turn: Do you dawdle, too? Why?

The evil eye in Times Square

Walk the streets of any major city and you're bound to run into some folks who might charitably be classified as living on the fringe. Walk the streets of New York and that truth is amplified somewhat. Not that there's anything (Seinfeldianly) wrong with that, of course. Running into folks from all across the human spectrum is what makes the urban environment as rich and frenetic as it is. I wouldn't change a thing.

So as I walked through Times Square on my way back to the hotel following my interview at the NASDAQ, I crossed paths with this individual. Now, I wasn't about to get into a protracted theological discussion with him. On a quieter day, I might have. But I was rushing back to the conference. Still, I didn't want to forget this moment: he looked so forlorn, standing in the middle of the sidewalk while masses of pedestrians did their utmost to avoid him - even turning their heads so they wouldn't catch his eye.

I wanted to ask his permission to shoot him. But the street corner was just too busy, and I didn't want to ruin the spontaneous nature of the moment. I just wanted to snap and run. I know, it was chicken and immoral of me, and I still feel somewhat guilty for throwing caution to the wind. I lifted the camera, prefocused on a nearby element so as not to draw his attention, then shifted my composition toward him and tripped the shutter. Just as I did, he spotted me and his gaze changed. As you can see, he didn't seem to be very pleased with my invasion of his privacy.

Your turn: Would you have taken the shot? Why/why not? What story does this image tell?

Swizzle sticks and light

Found these at my parents' place. I liked 'em because they shoot b&w any way you look at them. (This seems to be a recurring theme lately. Maybe I'm destined to shoot monochromatic scenes.)

This isn't an earth-shatteing image by any stretch of the imagination. Just a simple composition that incorporates an interesting play on light. Simple, but still something that has stuck in my mind since the moment I first captured it. I hope it has a similar effect on you.

Your turn: What are the first 3 words that come to mind when you see this? Why are images like this memorable?

Travel delay

Pearson International Airport, Toronto, September 5, 2006, 2:25 p.m.

When the airline cancels your flight a few minutes before boarding and the agent at the gate is as rude and useless as can be, you have a number of choices:

1. Go medieval on his sorry unionized persona.
2. Slink meekly to the nearest phone and convince yourself that he's just having a bad day.
3. Wait in line, but try to have a little fun in the process.

I think it's obvious which way I went. Po hangs off of my backpack on every trip I take. I do my best to photograph her somewhere in an airport. It's my way of signposting my travels and putting a somewhat human (OK, Teletubby?) face on what is typically a faceless, dehumanizing experience.

So in this, the longest and most chaotic lineup I've ever seen in an airport, I pulled Po off the bag and had her help me add a little perspective and levity to the moment. Elizabeth the ticket agent was gamely trying to direct the lines, and my fellow travellers seemed to take it all in stride. And a small red stuffed animal gave total strangers a reason to smile.

Your turn: How do you turn a bad situation into a good one?

Take off, eh

Out of deference to Bob and Doug McKenzie, I'll voluntarily refrain from further hoser references and other dated Canadianisms for at least the rest of this entry.

But I did want to share this image from my travels last week. It is of the landing gear of a Dash-8 Series 100 (DHQ-1) on takeoff from Toronto's Pearson International Airport (YYZ) bound for London, Ontario (YXU). Lifting off on my last leg home is always an exciting time, because the flight lasts barely a half-hour, and I know what awaits me at the other end.

The photographer in me likes this image because the blurring is pretty neat. It's also one of those rare pictures that, despite being shot in color, renders as a b&w simply because of the composition. I have a few more in my archives that I'll post in the near future.

Until they ban cameras on board aircraft, I'm going to keep bringing mine on board. Aviation's routine reputation notwithstanding, there's something surreal about strapping into a winged tube that slices through the air near the speed of sound some seven miles above the earth, depositing you in a place that would have taken days to get there by car. If I ever lose the sense of flying-related wonder, I hope someone will take the time to reintroduce me to this entry. Deal?

Your turn: Coming home. Please discuss.

One more thing: Please see the entry, The wheels in the sky, posted November 7, 2006, for the rest of this story.