Watching Falcon Heavy...from the anchor desk

T+3, as Ron Burgundy might see it
London, ON
February 2018
Photo originally posted to Instagram

I lead a somewhat surreal life. Not predictable. Not conventional.Not remotely normal. But all that weirdness sometimes leads to cool moments. Like today's.

Most Tuesdays, I participate in a live segment called Tech With Todd on CTV News Channel. The anchor, Todd van der Heyden, hosts it from Toronto, and I join in from the CTV London studio. Erin Bury and I spend a few minutes touching on some of the more notable tech stories of the week, and it's always great fun.

The segment usually runs at 2:40 p.m. Eastern, but given the realities of live, news-driven TV, can sometimes get bumped into later slots if breaking news comes along. As you can imagine, delays happen fairly regularly, and represent another neat aspect of life in media. Stuff changes, so you roll with it. No biggie.

The Falcon Heavy rocket was originally supposed to launch at 1:30, well before our scheduled 2:40 airtime. Then two things happened: A press conference bumped us to 3:40, and unpredictable upper-level winds in Florida kept pushing back the launch time. Eventually, it became apparent that SpaceX's schedule was about to align perfectly with ours.

And sure enough, the rocket lifted off while we were on the air. So when the big moment came, we shifted gears from what we had planned to talk about, and simply talked about the vehicle's significance as it rose into the sky.

It seemed surreal: Sitting at the anchor desk on live TV, providing play-by-play of the biggest milestone in U.S. space history since the Columbia first lifted off. I was a kid on that day, and I watched that first space shuttle leave the planet on that day, too. Then, as now, it felt like something had changed, like we'd ended one chapter and started in on the next.

Some days you just get lucky, and this day was one of them.

Your turn: Did you see the launch? Starman? Is this as cool as I think it is?

Switched off

Old school electric
Deerfield Beach, FL
December 2017
Photo originally posted to Instagram

You don't see light switches like these much anymore - at least not in new-build homes. But my father-in-law's condo, like all the condos around it in this cookie-cutter-concrete retirement development, is delightfully reminiscent of the style that reigned when the place was first built in the 1970s.

So during our recent visit, I found myself taking photos of the small-ish details that jumped out at me. While everyone else chatted and chowed down on snacks, I wandered around and quietly recorded scenes like this one. Life at the fringe isn't always glamorous, but it is memorable. To me, anyway.

Ivy on Kipps Lane

Life, defiant
London, ON
January 2018
Photo originally posted to Instagram

I took a walk in one of London's toughest neighbourhoods this morning. Just before 5 police cruisers screamed past, I captured this snippet of defiant, dormant life. Funny how this nature/urban thing works.

More than a mere train

Waiting for departure
London, ON
December 2018
Photo originally posted to Instagram

It may look like an simple Via Rail train sitting in the station in the middle of downtown London. But it's really a connector that brings people together at the times - and for the things - that matter most. Something to be thankful for, I'm guessing.

8 crazy nights

Burn, baby, burn
London, ON
December 2017
Photo originally posted to Instagram

There's always one candle with an apparent rush to end it all.

Seriously, though, every year, this moment, when the last candles are lit, and slowly fade to darkness, I feel more than a little vaklempt. Somehow, we need to do more, not just as Jews, but as citizens of this crazy, damaged, gorgeous, unpredictable and miraculous planet, to find the light and keep it lit.

It doesn't matter which imaginary being you worship: This should touch all of us. Who's in?

Sour cream in the morning light

Foodporn, Part 762
London, ON
December 2017
Photo originally posted to Instagram

The cream may have been sour, but the breakfast-table light and texture were way sweet - and too good to resist.

After the game ends

Perfect emptiness
London, ON
August 2017
Photo originally shared on Instagram

I'm a big fan of the Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams. Despite my less-than-stellar Little League Baseball experiences - I became a better buttercup-picker in left field than anything else - baseball has remained one of my favorite things to watch or to simply be around.

Why? Maybe it reminds me of a simpler time. Maybe the rules of the game form a nice analog for how a life well-lived should be lived. Maybe we all just need a little time-out from the planet every once in a while, and a storied game played on a storied field could be just the ticket.

Whatever the reason, I found myself drawn to this field in south London. It was after the game was over, after the players had gathered up their equipment and cleared out of the dugouts, after the spectators - largely friends and family - had folded up their chairs and trudged off to the dirt paths on their way to the gravel-covered parking lot, trailing dust all the way.

The silence of the field on one side of me contrasted with the ebbing burble of the departing crowd on the other. A picture seemed in order.

Monochrome? Not quite.

Towering
London, ON
August 2017
Photo originally shared via Instagram

These towers are everywhere, and as ugly as they may seem to some, they're an essential component of modern, mobile life. You may say you don't want one of these things in your backyard, but you'll probably also curse the sky when you lose your bars on your phone. NIMBY much?

What originally started out as an inadvertent monochrome photo shot quickly on the walk back to the car became, on closer inspection, something more Pleasantville-like than I originally intended. Photography still has the potential to surprise, which is why I keep at it.

A puppy, a carpet, and some insanity, too

The view from the stairs
London, ON
August 2017
Photo originally shared via Instagram

You have to be borderline-insane to bring a puppy into your family. You lose sleep. Furniture and objects that matter to you are summarily destroyed. You need extra makeup to cover up the inadvertent (or are they deliberate?) bite and scratch marks. You live in fear of her getting into something that could hurt her. Or you.

Yet when you watch and listen to her in the very middle of what once was a much quieter, calmer, predictable home, you realize the little hell-raiser you see here is just what we needed.

I may not be happy when you pee on the floor, Calli Finn, but I can't imagine our family without your feisty self in it.

Remembrance stones

In the end, we're more similar than not
Duvernay, QC
August 2017
Photo originally shared via Instagram

I don't often make it here, because if we're being brutally honest I've never believed a grave or similarly physical monument is the sole marker of an individual, or the only means by which we should remember him or her.

My father and mother-in-law are buried here, literally in adjoining rows. I'd hate to think the only time their memory touches me is every year or so when I take the long-ish drive to visit their respective resting places. Their memory, and the lessons I hopefully learned from them, aren't tied to this or any place. And as the relentless passage of time puts their passing further in the rear-view mirror, I often find myself thinking of them wherever I happen to be.

I'll still come to this place, but it's merely one touchstone, not the only one.

Curved glass under a partly cloudy sky

Look up
Toronto, ON
August 2017
This photo originally shared via Instagram

Some of my most satisfying moments with a camera in my hand tend to happen when I'm seriously pressed for time. When I'm moving between one place and another, and don't have the luxury of time to stop what I'm doing and slowly ponder the scene. Instead, I walk and shoot, often getting only one shot of a particular scene before I move quickly to the next one.

I find it exhilarating. Just as it is when I'm writing on deadline, the pressure of time forces your brain into another gear. Everything non-essential gets tossed, and you're forced to live explicitly in that moment, to the exclusion of all else.

Sometimes you get good stuff, and sometimes you don't. But you remember what shooting-and-running felt like, how satisfying and soul-nurturing that process can be, and you hope it won't be long before you're doing it again. It isn't always about the end result, after all.

Not-so-small dog in a big world

She surveys her domain
London, ON
August 2017
Photo originally posted to Instagram

We had a bit of an eye-opening moment at puppy training this week. Calli is, by far, the smallest dog of the group. The next-smallest dog is Max. Last week he was still visibly larger than she was, but this week, she caught up. Just like that.

In a seeming blink, she's stretching out, getting taller, bulking up. She's still no bruiser, and will always easily fit into the shadows of the big dogs in the hood. But in the context of the guinea-pig-sized schnauzer pup we brought home just over 6 weeks ago, suddenly she's huge.

So I find myself trying to slow down time a bit. I try to shoot videos and photos that somehow illustrate her size, that will serve as markers, of sorts, when she's full-grown, of a time when she was still a munchkin.

I don't think this is even possible to pull off, but it's worth a shot. Time, after all, moves too quickly no matter who's on the other side of the lens. It can't hurt to try to hold onto those fleeting moments for a little while longer.

Your turn: How do you freeze time?

Corridor at Union Station

Under the great glass ceiling
Toronto, ON
July 2017
Photo originally posted on Instagram

The Scene: Toronto's Union Station. We're walking through the pedestrian corridor that connects this massive transit hub with the CN Tower and Rogers Centre stadium to the west. We've just finished watching one of the most intense baseball games in Blue Jays history - they erased a 10-4 deficit i ninth inning and beat the Los Angeles Angels 11-10 with a walk-off grand slam - and everyone is jubilant. As much as we need to find the car and head home, no one really wants this moment to end.

We turn the corner into the long, glass-enclosed corridor that overlooks Front Street. I can't stop staring at the curved ceiling, which is nothing new for me. I stop at the top of the stairs while my family continues down - also nothing new for me, as I'm always dawdling. I shoot fast before catching up to them, another furtively-grabbed moment in pixels from a day we won't soon forget.

Your turn: How do you use your camera to freeze time?

Life in the abstract

Somewhere to sit
Toronto, ON
July 2017
This photo originally posted to Instagram

The game was over. The good guys had come from a seven-run deficit in the 9th inning to win the game 11-10. It was just one game in the midst of a miserable season, but it was an historic moment - the biggest final-inning comeback in Blue Jays history - that made our kids incredibly happy.

I waited a while for the stands to clear out. We weren't in a rush - I think everyone just wanted to hang around a little longer to drink in the moment, to pinch themselves one more time that they had actually seen it, for real. It isn't often that you get to share a simple experience of unadulterated joy with your family, so we stayed.

Eventually the Roger...er Skydome (sorry, it'll always be Skydome to me) emptied out and I spotted an empty section of seats directly opposite us in the deck overlooking left field. Since I have a thing for patterns and colors, I thought one final abstract scene before we headed for the exits was in order. Of course, we have no idea who sat here on this brilliantly sunny and hot July afternoon, but we're pretty sure they left the game filled with as many indelible memories and feelings as we did.

Your turn: Who's your favorite team? Why?

Payphone against a concrete wall

Who you gonna call?
Toronto, ON
July 2017
This photo originally shared on Instagram

In light of today's massive landline and cell phone outage in Atlantic Canada, this quick capture from a Toronto subway station last week seemed somewhat timely.

We're never more than one quick mistake away from technological meltdown. Today, we saw that reality in action.

Binders on a forgotten shelf

Every once in a while, we come across a scene that reminds us how quickly life moves, and how quickly today's commonplace items become tomorrow's forgotten relics. I found this in deep, deep storage, and for some reason it made me stop and think about what we lose when we move on from paper.

I don't think I have the answer that that one. Nor do I ever expect to.