Over on my Flickr page, I took a bit of a hiatus for a month and didn’t post anything artistic. I was quite busy at the time while my wife was studying for a big exam and my free time was in even shorter supply. So I figured I would do simple “day-in-the-life” (365) portraits. Pictures usually taken at arms length showing something interesting from you day. After a while I realized that they actually took as much time as the artistic shots, so had to stop all together.

But before I stopped, one of my contacts, Thee Erin, has been participating in something called Face Down Tuesdays. A picture of you face down somewhere. I saw them and decided that I had to try it out. So one day I brought my tripod and camera to work and said I would take a shot up on the belvedere overlooking Montreal. The problem was that it was drizzling when I left and it never let up. So the pavement up there was wet and I was soaked after taking nine different shots. I went back up on Mont Royal a few weeks later and took this shot also:

I had fun taking them in that it’s a bit covert to take them without people noticing. I may try it again after the snow arrives.

Check this out! My cousin Robbie playing Maple Leaf Rag in one shot. I’d always heard that he is a great piano player so it’s great to finally see him in action. His son Noah took and created the video.

One thing I realized over the time leading up to my reunion weekend last month is that Facebook may really be changing the dynamic of reunions. It used to be that you would come to a reunion and the appearance of a good number of people had changed. So you may spend part of the time scanning nametags in order to find the names you recognize. And maybe even after recognizing the name or the face, you still don’t remember your relationship to the person.

If you do encounter someone you knew and their appearance changed, you may be shocked negatively or positively and you may be unable to hide that surprise. You may spend the evening racking your brain to remember the people, your relationship to them, and what transpired back in the day. Even then a good portion of those memories may not come to the fore until afterward.

The other thing is that you’ll likely be repeating the same recap of your life endlessly for the next few hours. “I am a deep sea peanut biologist. I’ve been married five times and divorced twice. I have a dozen children but only a couple are mine. All of their names start with “X” and the first is actually named “X”. I wandered aimlessly around Antarctica for a few years after college, but eventually settled on Pitcairn Island after my ship ran aground. I’ve changed my name to Fletcher Christian.” You know, the boring stuff.

But in this age of increased connectivity and everyone reconnecting on Facebook, so much of this classic reunion experience is changing. Of course this change depends heavily on what you put out there online and even how interactive you are through direct messaging or chats.

The experience of being shocked by how people have changed has been relocated from the high school gym to your home computer. It’s become a very private affair allowing you to tailor your reaction to their current appearance. One upside is that there is already a level of familiarity since you’ve seen what they look like now through many of their photos. You also have the time to dig out the yearbook to remember who these people are. You may each post old photos which will jog your memory. Or you may also converse about old times either online, by phone, or even in person. You may also know much of what your fellow alumni have been doing over the years and seen the photos of their journey though life.

So then what will happen at the reunions in this day of connectivity. I think it’s an excellent opportunity to take it to the next level. Much of the fundamental information is out of the way so you can talk about either items related to that fundamental info that interests one or both of you. There may also be secondary items on your FB page that are conversation starters. “I saw that Ishtar was your favorite movie. Me, too!!!” Plus with the fundamental info out of the way, it allows more time to reminisce.

I find also that the combination of the reunions and Facebook provide a lasting effect to the reunions. I suspect in the past that the reunion was a one-time affair where many people said they’d get together again, but it was rare for them to actually do it. But with these social networking sites, the connection remains both before and after. As I mentioned at the beginning it depends on how active people are with the sites, but I suspect that quite a few of the connections that have been reestablished will continue for sometime.

Granted most of the interaction through social networking sites can be fairly superficial. “I ate a jar of peanut butter for lunch.” It’s not the end-all be-all of human interaction. Real interaction necessitates effort by the users or actual face time. Hence a reason why the real life encounters work well with the keeping-in-touch through the websites.

Over the next few years it will be interesting not only to see if these connections last, but also if Facebook itself lasts. I’ve already seen how a few online mediums like blogs and to a certain degree Flickr have gone from everyone participating heavily to a moderate (balancing it with my life) participation. Using history as a reference, it will likely be replaced by another medium. Be it another website or some other technological advance. But for right now, despite it’s flaws, I think it’s a good way to keep these rekindled connections flourishing.

Since today is Thanksgiving in the US, I figured that this would be a good picture to post. It’s actually my 6th most “interesting” photo out of the 1634 that I have posted on Flickr so far. I think that’s much more about the subject of the photo rather than the quality of the photo. It is an installation in our guest room consisting mainly of photos of people who are important to us. Here’s a little explanation of how it came to be.

A few years ago we had a bunch of people coming in from out of town for a big event. We had moved in the house a year before and had not yet finished the guest room. We painted it and installed the furniture, but we wanted to create some sort of collage of photos over the bed showing the people important to us. We both have very modern tastes so a patchwork of various photos of differing sizes and frames did not capture our interest. So I came up with this idea of creating a grid of 5×7 head shots of each person. And of course we did it in black and white since it has a more artistic appearance.

After we worked out what spacing we felt would look best, we had to choose exactly who are the 52 most important people in our lives other than ourselves. In the end, our time crunch to finish it before the big date limited the photos to those we had on hand. That is why in this photo there are still a few blank ones. But of course the choice of who makes the wall and who does not can be quite a touchy situation considering who visits the house. There is actually a fairly easy solution to that. The pictures can be changed out, so you can tailor it to who might be visiting. As long as everyone you know doesn’t show up on the same date, you shouldn’t have any problems. In the meantime, we can put up the people we feel should be up there. Currently it is still the photos of those we had on hand when we first set it up. Updating it has long been on my to-do list and maybe someday I’ll get to it. BTW, the interchangability also allows us to change-out people if they piss us off or change-in people who share their lottery winnings.

The commentary concerning the photos has been interesting. Some people have said that they look like mug shots. Though I don’t really think so since they are all smiling. Some have said they would feel weird sleeping with all those faces staring back. Well, I’ve always thought it would be a good place to practice my public speaking. Or others could practice their exhibitionist tendencies in the privacy of our guest room.

Like I said earlier, the photo is one of my most popular. Much of the traffic has come from the Flickr group “IKEA beds“. Yes, the bed is IKEA and the frames are 5×7 side-clip frames that come in a bundle of 4 for 3 bucks. It was also posted on LA Apartment Therapy back in April.

It was a fun little project and I’ve been happy that it’s been getting such a positive response. It’s gotten quite a bit more exposure on the web than through the dozen of people who have been in our basement.

Last month I flew back to Chicago for three days packed with get-togethers and reunions which ran the gamut of people from grade school, to guys from high school, to fellow college architecture alumni, to Flickr peeps who I may or may not have met before. It was a great weekend and while I was glad to meet the latter two groups, it was primarily the former two groups who were the reason for the trip. In part because it had been so much longer since I’d seen them and because I’d lost touch with many of them.

Both the grade school and high school reunions were quite interesting. For each of them only about a dozen people made it out. Our grade school class had been about 60 while our high school class was 476, so the high school reunion was rather sparce considering. But in both cases, I pretty much knew everyone who came. One of the things that amazed me about both reunions was that some of the barriers that limited how much we interacted back then were gone. It seemed that divisions such as cliques in grade school or jock vs. nerd in high school were gone. (BTW, I was fortunate to be on both sides of the jock/nerd fence. So I got to know a lot of people.) Contrary to what you would expect, time seems to have leveled the playing field socially. Or more probably, time has diversified our experiences such that we can now find areas of common ground. I’ll go into what effect Facebook seems to be having on reunions in the next post. But if we were not reminiscing about old times or characters from our past who didn’t make it to the reunion, there always seemed to be common topics like kids, travel, or moving away (for me, anyway).

For the grade school reunion in particular, no one seemed to pull any power trips. There was no showboating about status. There was genuine interest in finding about each other and what we were doing in life. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had largely lost contact with the people from this part of my life. So I was looking forward to reconnecting and seeing what had happened to everyone. It was actually quite refreshing to see that the character of those people from the old neighborhood was the same. Conversations flowed quite naturally and I think much of that had to do with having grown up together despite all the years since. And it probably had to do with us all actually growing up.

Despite very few of us still living in the neighborhood, partly due to it’s gentrification, we are still quite the cross section of middle-class urban society. Policeman, firemen, insurance salesmen, secretaries, mechanics, construction workers, stock brokers, real estate agents, and quality assurance managers. We are definitely just a group making our way through life trying to make life better for our kids. It felt really good to reconnect with that.

the thing which was amazing about both reunions was that it seemed that many barriers had disappeared. Clique’s had dissolved and everyone was genuinely happy to see each other after all these years. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had lost contact with almost everyone and have yearned over the last few years to reconnect. So I was very excited from the get-go to see everyone. And it was so easy to talk to everyone. No one was pulling power trips and no one was judging each other.

I’d say it is because we all came from the same background and the people who made the effort to come were already open and interested in seeing everyone and genuinely interested in knowing about htem. It shows the caliber of people who I grew up with and further fostered my interest in reconnecting with them.

I took photo this during our trip to the Saguenay region this past summer. This is a Fin Whale that local observers gave the name "Captain Hook" due to the shape of his dorsal fin.

After "she" had a baby, they decided to keep the name regardless.

The whales come here to the convergence of the St Lawrence River and the Saguenay fjord to feed during winter. The food supply for them here is plentiful due to a combination of the subsurface geography and the tide meeting the convergence of the rivers.

In the two times that I’ve been to Tadoussac to see the whales, this is the extent of what I have seen having only seen Minke, Fin, and Beluga whales. They come to the surface to breath and then dive with only the Belugas occasionally lifting their tails out of the water. We have not seen the occasional Humpback or Blue whales in the area. Those two types of whales tend to lift their tails out of the water. There is also very little breaching of whales since it is more of a mating activity likely to be seen during the winter months in the warmer waters like the Caribbean and near Hawaii. So many like myself tend to be a bit disappointed on their first whale watching tours here since they think those activities might happen. Since this was my second tour, I was much more open to appreciate the simple breath and dive that normally occurs. Plus we were very fortunate to have incredibly still water.

Our oldest turned seven today. A while back when I noticed that she would be turning seven, it kinda took me aback. We all have in our minds certain milestones that define age and in my mind seven years old is one of them. When they are young, the milestones are quite frequent. One month, two months, three months, one year, two years, three years, then the following year milestones seem not as important as they make their way through their preschool years.

But why does seven years old stick out in my mind. Of course there is that it is the age that they start going to “real” school. It’s not constant playtime like daycare and it’s not playtime peppered with elements of attentive learning thereby phasing them into first grade. First grade is much the opposite. Attentive learning most of the time with elements of playtime mixed in. They begin learning how to read and write. They learn math in a more formal setting. That’s part of the reason it feels significant, but there’s more.

For myself, it was the age that I became aware of the larger world. It was when I asked my mother what year it was (1978). I remember that moment distinctly and I remember every year since. In many ways it seems like my consciousness began at that age. I have more memories after that time. I remember much about that time at grade school, but I remember very very little about kindergarten the year before. Though that may be due to attending kindergarten at another school and then spending eight years at the grade school. So some of those first years at the grade school likely bleed together.

That consciousness is what excites me about my daughter turning seven. One of the main reasons I wanted to become a parent is to pass along much of the information I’ve learned. Much as my parents did for me. So it excites me that she is at an age that takes interest in issues other than cartoon characters and princesses. My father got her an interactive globe for her birthday and she was ready to stay up learning about all the different countries before we told her she would have to wait until tomorrow. As with most kids her age, dinosaurs were of great interest and she can rattle off all the different kinds. Today she mentioned a Quebec artist named Marc-Aurèle Fortin and was describing his life story and work to us. When we were at the Guggenheim in New York, she followed my wife around the exhibit with the free audio guide learning about Frank Lloyd Wright. We bought the series Blue Planet and Planet Earth and she not only takes interest in it, but remembers the information they talk about. She’s started learning more about sophisticated subject matter.

It’s an exciting time and I’m really looking forward to presenting her with all the knowledge available to us. We must also take advantage of the time before she reaches that next stage: adolescence.

The Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Well, actually that’s not true. My original idea was to give my impressions of working downtown after a year, but I never really got around to it. Now it’s actually a month short of two.

So almost a couple years ago our office moved from the southeast part of Plateau Mont-Royal to the west end of downtown Montreal. Being in the Plateau was fun, but we were a good 20 minute walk away from the east end of the action of Mont-Royal Avenue. So unless we took a long lunch there was very little chance to enjoy or take advantage of the shops and restaurants. There were a few restaurants that were closer and some have become my favorites, but you can get bored with a limited selection like that quite quickly. Though one advantage about being away from the action was that parking was quite easy. But we were quite a hike from the nearest metro station. Not fun in winter. The area was largely francophone while often English or other languages could be heard on the street. This along with working in a primarily francophone office greatly helped my learning of French.

Although I enjoyed many aspects of living in that area, after four years, the prospect of moving downtown was a welcome change. I’ve always loved working downtown despite some of the downsides. Having the wide assortment of restaurants, shops, and cultural establishments make life so much more interesting. I guess I’m just a city boy and love having all of that at your fingertips.

Of course, working downtown offered all of that. But what has been interesting is seeing the difference. We are not far from both of the large anglophone universities (Concordia and McGill). So a large number of the people behind the counters at many stores are college kids working part-time. Even though I can speak French quite well, it is nice to be able to walk into a store and speak English. Not something I’d do in other parts of Quebec out of respect for the language, but this area seems slightly more anglo than franco.

Another difference is the wealth. It’s hard to miss. Luxury cars are everywhere and teenagers from money seem to spend their days walking up and down Ste Catherine from fashion store to fashion store. I don’t have a problem with the wealthy, but I am annoyed at the aire of superiority and entitlement that often accompanies it. But that’s nothing new.

One aspect that I’ve really enjoyed is the influence of the universities nearby. It’s like it infuses elements of that college atmosphere into the overall energy of the city. You have the combination of socializing and studying in coffee shops. You have many cheap eats shops nearby. Plus there’s the addition of both the youthful energy and looks. It’s a welcome dynamicism.

So it’s been a blast moving back downtown. Exploring the different restaurants, taking photo strolls, climbing Mont Royal, or just hanging out at a cafe. I just enjoy the energy.

From our recent trip to New York City. You kinda loose the sense of scale. This portion is some 40 feet tall. It looks like it could be only a couple feet.