On being considerate

“One of my main regrets in life is giving considerable thought to inconsiderate people.”
Jarod Kintz

It's funny how life beats the need to prioritize into your head. We don't necessarily appreciate why spending our time wisely matters as much as it does - until we come close to having no time left at all. From that moment on, time becomes precious, and those who would squander it on our behalf, namely the inconsiderate ones, become that much easier to leave behind.

So, over to you: Will you stop giving thought - and time, and energy, and attention - to inconsiderate people? How will you make this happen?

(Hat tip to Cloudia Charters, who pens the delightful Comfort Spiral and who never ceases to inspire, for sharing this.)

Excuse me, but you forgot your coffee

Work/life balance

Don't let the world intrude
Laval, QC
August 2014
Thematic metallica. Here. (Yes, that's aluminum)

Writing doesn't always fit a 9-to-5 schedule. Assignments bounce into your inbox at all hours of the day and night, the news cycle does its thing whether you're awake or asleep, and the complexities of juggling your life often result in laptops being pulled out of their sleeves at the strangest times and in the oddest of places.

At the same time, that teenaged boy making his way across the deep end of the pool at his grandfather's condo in the photo above isn't going to be a teenaged boy forever. And he isn't going to want to hang with his dad forever, either. So when he asked if we could go down to the pool for a bit, "no" wasn't an option for a whole lot of reasons.

And yet, deadlines beckoned and life on the outside continued to do its thing. The world doesn't stop just because you've decided to chill out for a bit. So I toted my backpack-full-of-tech with us to the pool, and set myself up on the lovely outdoor furniture you see here.

It didn't take long for me to finish what I was working on so I could get back to the very serious business of simply watching our son be the little boy that he still is. Someone, after all, needed to time his laps, suggest changes to his stroke and complain about the bugs that always seem to come out as the sun begins to set.

I appreciate that when deadlines beckon, the folks on the other end of all that geeky equipment you see here don't care much that you have a life outside of the narrow window of work that guides your professional relationships. They want you to deliver so that they can keep their lights on. And you need to deliver so that you can keep your own lights on.

But unless we find room in all that keeping-the-lights-on-focused activity for moments like this, we'll never know what it's like to snapshot an indelible moment in the life of a child. Or feel like all that busy work we do on the outside is being done for some higher purpose.

Because if the work is all that matters, to the exclusion of seemingly small moments like the one you see here, then it doesn't really matter much at all, does it?

The K-Car time machine

Quick, get me Lee Iacocca
London, ON
November 2014
Thematic. Metallica. Here.

‎You don't see a lot of these on the road anymore. In their day, Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant coupes, sedans and wagons (remember those?) dominated the North American concrete jungle. They were cheap, simple, and relatively huge on the inside. As the typical vehicle like this was often the only car at that price point that could seat six, it often won the buy decision based simply on its carrying capacity.

Alas, they were, um, not all that refined. I'm being gentle here. They may have singlehandedly saved Chrysler from oblivion, but in the near-post Malaise Era‎, when vehicle quality was something of an oxymoron, the K-Car twins defined the worst of the lot.

Still, there were enough made that they continued to clutter around for years, and now that their slow fade to the junk yard is almost complete, seeing one in the wild has become something of a special occasion.

So I did what any dark geek would do: Grabbed a few pics of this ancient conveyance before the owner returned and busted me. Until Mother nature turns the rest of this tired old car to rust, I see life in her old bones yet.

Thematic Photographic 315 - Metallica

Shiny train at night
London, ON
November 2014

I've chosen "metallica" as this week's Thematic theme because of its ability to shift its look and feel based on the prevailing conditions. Change the light a little and it's a whole new ballgame. Which means you can keep coming back to the same subjects and stand a reasonable chance of capturing them in a completely different way.

If variety is the spice of life, I'm guessing it had some metallic, reflective qualities baked in.

Your turn: Take a metallic-themed picture, post it to your blog or website, then pop back here and leave a comment to let folks know where to find it. Visit other participants throughout the week to spread the fun around a little, and feel free to post additional contributions to the theme if the creative urge strikes again. For more info on how Thematic works, head here. If you tweet, use the #ThematicPhotographic hashtag. Otherwise, metallic-themed photographic joy awaits. Have fun with it!

A view from the train

Rolling artwork
Woodstock, ON
November 2014
Thematic. Round (it has wheels!) Here.

I'm headed to Toronto today for some meetings with some really cool people, but that doesn't mean I can't steal a few minutes along the way for a little photographic therapy.

I've left the supposedly "real" camera at home today. I just couldn't fathom stuffing a DSLR into my laptop bag, then stopping every few minutes to put the bag down, take the camera out, shoot, put it away, then repeat a few minutes later.

Plus, the prospect of walking into a meeting with a bag overflowing with doodads that have nothing to do with said meeting made me feel like those folks who pack ginormous bags for a three-day trip, then try to stuff them into the overhead bins on the plane while the rest of us stand in line and watch.

So it's just me and a smartphone. Will my Passport hold up to the pressure? Stay tuned.

Your turn: Shooting with a smartphone...yes or no? Why/why not?

Get your gourd on

Convenient handle included
London, ON
October 2014
Thematic. Round. Here. (It's not too late.)

I think it's only a matter of time before the good folks at the grocery store forcibly remove me from the premises for my spontaneous photography.

Granted, given the fact that my ninja-photography weapon of choice is now a somewhat lower-profile BlackBerry Passport instead of a relatively obvious Nikon DSLR, it's a lot easier to fly below the stock-boy's radar. But I suspect there are only so many ways to fake like you're reading your grocery list before someone realizes you're actually shooting the pumpkins.

Which is what I did here. Because nature works in some amazing ways, and you miss all the fun if you don't commit the moment to pixels.

In the end, I think it's a risk worth taking.

Your turn: It's time for a photographic challenge. This week, take a picture in a place you normally wouldn't shoot. Post it and share a link/comment here. Time to expand our horizons a little, no?

Four score...

My dad would have been 80 today. He died just over 5 years ago, and ever since then I haven't quite known what the most appropriate way to mark November 2nd might be. Do you celebrate? Mourn? Something in between?

I'm pretty sure there's no one, universal answer for this question just as there's no one, universal answer for any other question revolving around losses like this. You do what makes sense to you, what feels right, what helps you move forward. And in the process you learn to ignore those who seem to have no problem spontaneously disagreeing with your choices.

It's been an interesting journey since we lost him. I've learned at a profound level just how important it is to hold on to those who are most important to you. My understanding of the word "family" has undergone a fairly radical re-think since then. Whereas it was once very much tied to the family tree, it's evolved significantly in the years since.

I've learned to hold on ever tighter to my immediate family, my wife, our kids, the friends in our community who may as well be family. I've learned to gravitate toward the good souls, wherever they may be, who reflect our values, and I've learned to listen to that inner voice instead of the voices of others. I'd like to think that I've grown as a person, which is more or less what any parent wants for a child.

Maybe my own brush with fate changed the way I look at things. Maybe I simply wanted to make the best use of the limited time I've got - indeed, that we've all got - on this planet. For all the challenges he faced in the last few years of his life, my father was adept at finding the good in a moment, at enjoying something for what it was, and boiling it down to its most elemental form. It's a decent trait to carry forward, so that's what I've been trying to do.

Eighty years to the day since his journey began, and just over five years after it ended, I hope I've figured out how internalize and exemplify the best that was him. I'm guessing it's what he would have wanted, and I'm guessing it's what we always hope to teach our own children so that they, too, will grow something inspirational from the seeds we've been planting all along.

Looks like I had some pretty good seeds to start with. Thanks Dad.

Lost in Space

It was already a bad week in the space business, with experts continuing to investigate what caused an Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo craft to the International Space Station to falter just seconds after launch on on Tuesday. Range safety officers sent auto-destruct commands to the rocket, which caused significant damage to the launch complex in the subsequent crash and explosion.

At the time, the saving grace was that no one was injured or killed. Today, that all changed.

SpaceShipTwo, the prototype rocket-powered craft being readied for suborbital flights for space tourists, experienced what Virgin Galactic called an "anomaly" during a test flight and crashed. The pilot and co-pilot ejected, but the co-pilot died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident.

I'm sure the debate over whether we should even be in space in the first place will rage even brighter in the wake of this accident. Detractors call it risky. They say there's no reason for mere mortals to put their lives on the line for little more than a high-speed thrill far off the planet.

Yet those same people think nothing of getting on a plane to head south for winter break. Conveniently, they forget that their routine flight on an Airbus A-320 to some beach resort was made possible by aviator sacrifices not unlike the one that played out earlier today in the skies over California.

Flight didn't become routine on its own. Neither did anything worthwhile in the history of humankind. Spaceflight should be no different, and I'm guessing those who test-fly the machines of tomorrow wouldn't want us to give up the quest just because it might end up in failure.

We learn. We move on. We raise the bar. It's what humans do.

Now, we have another pioneer to thank for all that we have, and will have.

Update: I'll be discussing this very issue live on NewsTalk 1010 with John Downs just after 9:30 p.m. Eastern. Listen in live here: http://player.newstalk1010.com/

Would you recognize a stroke?

Today is World Stroke Day. I usually don't write about special days like this on the blog, primarily because there's pretty much a day for everything, and I'd never cover them all if I decided to start writing about them here.

Still, this one's personal. And after giving a lunchtime talk about assistive technology - AT - for folks with disabilities at our library's downtown branch today, I realized how profoundly all of this applies to me.

I touched on my stroke - somewhat strange at first given the fact that I was chatting with complete strangers - because it felt like the right thing to do, and an ideal means of springboarding the discussion. What followed was a lively, interactive hour that opened my eyes to the realities of figuring out how to live in today's world when parts of you may not necessarily be fully functional.

Last year I learned firsthand what it's like to lose critical functions - in my case, I couldn't speak, and my right side was paralyzed. I also learned how lucky I was to get it all back with little more than lingering dizziness as a reminder. I can live with a bit of wonkiness in my vestibular system, but I can't shake the realization that it could have just as easily gone the other way.

Since I began sharing my experience with a wider audience, I've heard from countless people who learned the hard way that ignoring the symptoms can lead to tragic results. From the moment a stroke occurs, you've got a four-hour - give or take - window to seek treatment. The sooner you act, the less damage is caused. But if you wave it off, you miss that window. It kills me to think of all the people I now know who chose to ignore the signs. Some died, while others were permanently disabled.

I'm sharing news of World Stroke Day because I don't want anyone to ignore the symptoms, and I don't want anyone to have to live with the consequences of not seeking immediate medical attention. It can touch us all, at any age, no matter how fit we might be. Stroke crosses all demographic lines, and is increasingly showing up in otherwise young and healthy people. Like me.

Tomorrow won't be World Stroke Day, but the need for awareness will be just as acute. Please keep it on your radar, and please talk with your close family and friends to ensure you all know what to look for, and what to do.

Only in health...

On the lost concept of simplicity

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."
Confucius

Rocket science is hard

Make no mistake: launching rockets will never be routine. Whenever you put massive amounts of highly explosive fuel into a machine, then light it, there's always a chance that something unplanned will happen.

Challenger and Columbia drove that lesson home all too tragically in 1986 and 2003, respectively. Both space shuttle accidents claimed 14 lives and reaffirmed just how much is at stake every time we light the wick and head towards the heavens.

The U.S. space program suffered another setback tonight when an Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket, with a Cygnus cargo vehicle loaded with supplies and experiments destined for the International Space Station, exploded six seconds after liftoff from the seaside Wallops Launch Facility in Virginia (video here.)

Thankfully no one was killed or injured. Insurance companies can figure out what was lost and cut checks to the appropriate companies, and engineers can figure out what went wrong and make changes to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Whatever that "it" is that caused the accident we don't yet know. And when it's discovered and refined to the point that it no longer exists, it's a given that some other "it" will lurk, silently, until someday it, too, causes another accident. There's no such thing as risk-free spaceflight.

The flight, officially known as Orb-3, was part of NASA's plan to privatize cargo deliveries to low earth orbit, which would free it to focus on deep space missions (Orion's first test flight, EFT-1, atop a Delta IV Heavy, is scheduled to fly next month.) Sadly, the accident will cast a shadow over NASA's strategy, and yet again the beleaguered and budget-challenged space agency will have to devote resources to fighting off the naysayers.

They'll trot out the old familiar arguments - spending on space is a waste when the money is needed back on Earth, nobody benefits from it, etc. - and politicians who understand little about what's really at stake will bend to the voters' will. Democracy at its best.

No one ever said it would be easy. But nothing worthwhile ever happens if we simply walk away at the first speed bump. The next flight already awaits.

Your turn: Rocket flight...worth it or not?

Jian Ghomeshi - A very Canadian scandal

The other day, I wrote this on the blog about the former host of CBC Radio's Q, Jian Ghomeshi. And, since the Interwebs work a certain way (sex scandal + Internet = moths to flame) this site was slaughtered with traffic for a while. It's somewhat funny what tickles folks to read stuff, no?

I noodled the idea a little more and wrote this for Yahoo Canada:

Jian Ghomeshi: Did the CBC cross the line as an employer?

And sure enough, if the volume of comments is any indication, more folks have been tickled.

If this raises awareness of violence against women and bullying, then it'll end up being, on balance, a good thing. I doubt anyone directly involved in this mess would fully agree with me on that, but I've got to believe that there's a greater good here.

Your turn: What's an employer's role or responsibility when an employee's outside-the-office behavior crosses a line?

Thematic Photographic 314 - Round and round

Who's thirsty?
London, ON
October 2014

It's been a while since we did the geometry thing for a Thematic theme, so we're going to touch on round objects this week. As you can tell from this photo, I've been playing with my camera - actually my BlackBerry* - at the dinner table again. Funny how a little light and a simple glass filled with water can make for an interesting still life study. What's that they say about small minds?

Your turn: Take a picture that evokes or otherwise supports this week's theme, round and round, and post it to your blog or website. Leave a comment here to let everyone else know where to find it. Visit other participants to elevate everyone's collective sense of fun. Feel free to share additional photos throughout the week, and everyone's encouraged to bring a new friend along. If you're new to Thematic, head here to learn more about how it works. If you tweet, use this hashtag: #ThematicPhotographic. Otherwise, enjoy, and thanks!

* For the record, it's a Passport. In a word, epic.

On the outside looking in

Not a health food store
London, ON
October 2014

There's a convenience store near the house. I admit we don't come here often, as between the prices (you pay for the convenience) and selection (healthy? Not quite) it's pretty much a store you use for emergencies only.

Still, as I wandered past one night last week on a walk with the dog, I couldn't help but notice the fluorescent light pouring out of its locked facade. The scene struck me as particularly sad-looking, the kind of thing that's all too common in an urban or suburban setting, but something we aren't especially proud of. Somehow, humanity can do better than this.

Despite my neo-artistic misgivings, the pool of light spilling our into the parking lot attracts my eye every time the pup and I walk past. Maybe there's hope for these places after all.

* Thought I'd slip in one last look at night-time photography - head here to share yours - because I've rather enjoyed this week's theme and hope you have, too. Our new one goes live at 7 p.m. Eastern. What will it be? Good question. What would you like it to be?

Jian Ghomeshi and you

I've been listening to Jian Ghomeshi for as long as he's been associated with the CBC. His interview style, honed on his national show, Q, is an almost otherworldly mix of the familiar and the probing. I wish I could "do" radio like he does radio, wish I could talk to people with the focused ease that he seems to bring to any conversation.

Doesn't matter if he's talking to rock royalty, actual royalty, or some guy we had never heard of until the mic went on. Whoever the guest and whatever the topic, you know it'll be a worthwhile thing to listen to simply because he's the guy with the baton, and the guy who's helping the guest tell his/her story in ways no other interviewer could manage.

All that seems to have blown up in an uncharacteristically un-Canadian manner this weekend with news that the CBC has let him go, and that he is suing the broadcaster for $50 million. In an explanatory post (here), he goes into rather painful and sordid detail about what may be behind the latest turn of events.

I'm no judge, and I won't get involved in breathless social media speculation over who said what, who's right and who's wrong. That's for the courts, the lawyers, the HR experts, arbitrators and union officials to work out in the weeks and months to come.

But my feelings as a journalist need not wait that long. For now, a major Canadian media voice has been silenced, apparently over allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law, and that apparently revolve around behaviors that might make a lot of Canadians uncomfortable.

It makes me wonder what a vengeful ex-anyone might dig up if they dug deeply into my own private life, and how that might affect my own professional trajectory (for the record, they'd find an incredibly boring pile of nothingness, but still, that's not the point. What matters is that anyone has this kind of power over anyone else in the first place.)

In the age of social media, expect the number of victims of this kind of thing to increase over time. Whether the allegations are founded or unfounded is almost irrelevant. The fact that they can be made in the first place, and fanned with relative ease in today's online forum, should make us all afraid that the same thing can happen to us.

More man, less child

Once, long ago
London, ON
June 1998

He's always been our little man, but today he somehow seems that much less so. Zach, our firstborn, turned 20 today. Which, I'll admit, freaks me out a little bit because, well, 20!

It seems like just yesterday that he fought his way into the world, just yesterday that we were settling into our home in the Montreal burbs with him, just yesterday that we sold that house and drove through a winter storm's aftermath to a strange faraway city to start a new life, and just yesterday that he became a big brother to Dahlia and then, again, to Noah.

In many respects, the story of us wouldn't be the story of us without the story of him. And he now looms over us all as he figures out this world thing and takes one step after another toward the man he is destined to be.

He is smart, funny and very sweet. He has a personality that fills a room and sticks with whoever's there long after everyone's gone their separate ways. He's well on his way toward putting his own ding in the universe, and it leaves me wondering why time has to move so quickly.

I guess when life is good, there's never enough time. Happy birthday, little almost-grown man.

Your turn: What do you wish Zach as he begins another decade?

As the day slips below the horizon

Say goodbye, for now
Grand Bend, ON
July 2014
For more night-themed Thematic, click here

My wife and I have evolved a bit of a tradition around our wedding anniversary. If circumstances allow, we take the day off and head for the beach. We don't do anything formal: We just spend a quiet day in a place that has always resonated with us, where the land ends and the water begins.

I think the disconnected vibe of it all serves as a handy reminder to us that life can, and should, be a simpler affair than modern society has made it out to be. Because when you take away the packed schedules, the never-ending deadlines, the pressure to deliver this before immediately diving into that, what really matters is time. And ensuring we use some of that time to reconnect with each other, whoever those "each others" may be.

This year, we lingered on the beach a little longer than usual, and as the sun slipped beneath the faraway horizon line and the sand beneath our feet turned colder with the arrival of the shadow of night, I thought about the simple joys of being with the right person at the right time in the right place.

When the sun disappeared for good, I looked over at her and said a quiet thanks that she gets it, and that she picked me. And I resolved to not wait until next year's anniversary to try to repeat, or at least enjoy, the moment.

Your turn: How do you enjoy small moments?

Where the sidewalk ends

Watch your step
London, ON
October 2014
Head here for more night-themed Thematic

A time-worn sidewalk beside a similarly time-worn parking lot probably doesn't top most photographers' must-shoot lists, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth a second look. Or even a third.

Come to think of it, maybe there's a broader lesson in there. Maybe there's a reason my dog decided to turn left instead of right on this particular walk.

I should follow his lead more often, as he seems to know where he's going.

Vandalism that inspires

Putting my foot on the truth
London, ON
October 2014

‎I normally don't advocate defacing public property. Come to think of it, I don't advocate defacing private property, either. But as I was heading back to my car in the parking structure beside my office last night, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this ink-scribbled missive on the bottom stair.

In the wake of yesterday's trauma in our national capital (see here if you're just joining us), perhaps more spontaneous vandalism like this might add some good karma to the universe. I often wonder if the individuals who commit these crimes - radicalized, disconnected, hopeless - would have been influenced in some way by seemingly little things like this.

Would they have been stopped in their tracks, too? Would they have decided to change direction, perhaps return to a peaceful, community-minded life? We'll never know, but there's someone out there in London, armed with a Sharpie, who seems intent on finding out. Whoever you are, you have my thanks for at least trying to change the landscape. And us.