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Being on the cutting edge of technology is something I really enjoy, but in terms of gadgets there is a bit of restraint. That’s why there isn’t an iPad in the house and recently I took the leap and finally purchased an iPhone. Waiting was a good thing. The transition from iPod Touch (2nd generation) to iPhone isn’t a huge leap, but being constantly connected is quite amazing. The timing was perfect with my previous mobile contract being up, giving the flexibility to choose any of the mobile providers for service. While I didn’t camp out or line up, there was a bit of research that was done to figure out which provider would be best and where a theoretical iPhone could be purchased. The chosen provider was Telus and it looked as though the store in New Minas would be good. On July 29, launch day in Canada, they expected their shipment in between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. But I was going to be leaving for a trip earlier than that and didn’t want to wait. As the stories of people waiting in lines started to trickle out, I stopped in to Future Shop at lunchtime to see if they had any. Luckily they did and without a line. 15 minutes later there was a 32 GB iPhone 4 in my pocket. The first thing you notice is the screen. It’s bright and sharp. The next thing is the speed. It feels a lot faster than my iPod Touch, both with the apps and everything online. It’s an amazing device. The signal strength is good and the antenna problem doesn’t seem to be that big. But the phone part is the least interesting. Now it seems as though it’s the camera I use the most and discovering apps that use the camera and the GPS is a lot of fun. Being on vacation while getting it is a good thing as this takes up a bit of time. There are no regrets and this is one of the most amazing devices I’v ever used. It’s kind of magic.

Living in Wolfville is wonderful, but every now and then it’s nice to get into Halifax for some shopping and eating in a big and vibrant city. A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to participate in a promotion for Downtown Halifax. The deal was that a number of bloggers would be given a $100 gift card and they would spend the money in downtown Halifax and share their experiences. On Wednesday, August 4, my Big Day Downtown happened and it was documented with my new iPhone 4 (with the pictures in my Big Day Downtown set on Flickr). While I could probably have stretched things out to a whole day, it turns out that one my special talents is being able to spend money rather quickly. In thinking about the day there were a few places that seemed to be good to check out along with a balance between food, drink and more tangible and permanent things. It took about four hours for my solo foray through the streets and shops on an afternoon with a little bit of rain that seemed timed just about perfectly with the times I was inside in shops.

The first stop was at the restaurant Morris East for some lunch. With a wood-fired oven, there was a high probability that one of the options for the meal would be pizza. I chose the quite reasonable lunch 1/2 pizza which gives you half a pizza and organic greens with a sherry Dijon vinaigrette. The pizza was the simple, basic and delicious tomato, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil. It was quite amazing and my plate was clean after a few minutes, which gave me the chance to accept the suggestion of the wood-fired s’more along with a coffee. The s’more was quite a lovely and perfect way to end the lunch, leaving me happy and full and ready to explore more of the downtown.

One of my favourite places to browse and find cool stuff downtown is Carbonstok on Barrington Street. Filled with quirky gadgets and things for the home and kitchen, there is a range of products for any budget or mood. Keeping the limited budget in mind, it was good to look at the small and inexpensive things. A wide range of lomographic cameras along with film and various little things for displaying images always catch my eye. I picked up a package of 3 rolls of ISO 400 colour negative film that will be used in one of my 35mm film cameras. To keep stuff on the refrigerator (or maybe on the cubicle in the office) a package of 8 small and strong magnets. They’re great for holding a lot of things up and these new ones will supplement the magnets as you always need things to hold paper and postcards and notes and photos.

When the challenge of shopping downtown was first presented, one place that went on the list first was Trident Booksellers and Cafe on Hollis Street. With the motto “The Senseless Pursuit of Excellence”, it’s a gem of a cafe snuggled alongside a great used bookstore. The atmosphere is cool and it’s a relaxed and welcoming place to shop or spend time catching up with friends. There is wi-fi and comfortable chairs and tables with a laptop-free table at the front where I sat and wrote a manual tweet to respect the more technologically free vibe at the table. Needing some coffee beans for home, I went to the back where there are containers of freshly-roasted coffee beans. The roasting is done on site and you pick out the beans and weigh them yourself before bringing them to the counter. To perk me up while there I had a cappuccino which is one of the best ones you can get anywhere. Sitting down and sipping the cappuccino while I added up what I had spent and thinking about where to go next was very nice.

When I need to get things for outdoor activities my membership in Mountain Equipment Co-op always comes in handy. The store on Granville Street is a regular stop and it is a challenge to not buy too many things when I go in. With two floors of outdoor equipment, clothing, footware, bags, tents, kayaks, tools, and gadgets it’s a different experience every time. But today I was focussed and knew that I wanted to get one of the $12 cotton t-shirts that are organic, good looking and comfortable. Knowing that I had about $30 left before going in to MEC, there was the possibility of getting something $18 or less. Close to the checkout I saw a very cool Gerber Curve Mini-tool that is small with a knife, bottle-opener, file, and set of screwdrivers. A tool like that is quite useful to always have along with your keys.

Knowing that the allocated budget was just about done, a detailed calculation showed that there was about $1.86 left to spend, so I went over to Barrington to get some penny candy at Freak Lunchbox. The store is small and packed with colour, candy, and chocolate. It’s a quirky place where every possible treat desire can be fulfilled. The plastic bins along with wall have a wide range of snacks that you put into a plastic bag. I choose a small amount of candy and only needed to add a little bit more to get to the total that I wanted. With a bag of candy in hand and the realization that there was a lot more that could be explored, it looked like it was time to call it a day.

But even though the budgeted money was all gone I decided to spend a bit of my own and walked over to Taz Records on Market Street to browse through the aisles of vinyl there. This was a bit of bonus downtown shopping since I don’t really get to spend a lot of time in Halifax especially in the downtown area. With a wide range of music you can spend a lot of time in Taz looking for things, but after walking around for a while I settled on The Black Keys album “Attack and Release” and Regina Spektor’s “Begin to Hope” (which had a bonus disc with other songs on it).

With a bag full of stuff and a couple of records I felt happy and grateful to Downtown Halifax for giving me the opportunity to explore, shop and share my adventures.

Sometimes there are lucky coincidences in life that expand your image creation possibilities. One of my daughters found a previously enjoyed Polaroid OneStep CloseUp camera. The challenge with a Polaroid camera is that Polaroid stopped making film for it. But luckily The Impossible Project came along with some remarkable people with the idea of creating new instant film for old cameras.

Instead of simply making the same films that were made before, The Impossible Project went in a bolder direction with their first film by choose to create a monochrome sepia-toned film called Silver Shade. The images are dreamy and soft with variations in the colour happening when the temperature is different. It’s lovely and magical and unpredictable which is one of the pleasures of film.

The design of the camera is quite interesting. It takes Polaroid 600 film, which is ISO 600 film that comes in a pack with a battery. The film and battery (and chemicals to develop the film) are all within the pack that goes into the camera. The camera has a flash which flips up to take a picture. The focus is fixed with a plastic lens that can be adjusted to two focus ranges – closeup (2 feet to 4 feet) and the normal setting (4 feet to infinity). A very simple and inexpensive camera when it came out in the late 90s.

The film arrived in the mail from The Impossible Project and I eagerly opened it. Inside the beautifully-designed package was the pack of film that I put into the camera. When I swung up the flash the dark slide popped out with the distinctive sound of a Polaroid motor ejecting a print. The first thing in a pack of Polaroid film is the darkslide, which protects the unexposed film beneath it and that is what gets ejected first. For The Impossible Project they made each one of their darkslides special by turning them into collector cards with different challenges and messages on them.

The camera appeared to be working, so I ran outside and took a picture of the car with the kids waiting in it. The picture popped out and I shielded it and shook it to assist the development. It worked! Then I took a couple of pictures of the kids and then it stopped working. Either something jammed in the camera which drained the battery or there was something wrong with the film. The Impossible Project very generously sent me another pack of film to test out. While waiting for the film I searched on eBay for another camera and purchased. Before that camera arrived, the replacement film did, and that worked, so I’ll have two identical cameras to take Polaroid pictures with.

It’s a magical experience to take instant pictures with the unpredictability being part of the thrill. Embracing constraints is fun and I look forward to creating some instant images with sepia-toned film and look forward to the other films The Impossible Project are working on.

The final event of the Being the Change peace conference in early July was a field trip to Pugwash where Thinker’s Lodge is located in the seaside community. It was a beautiful and slightly windy day for a drive, but after a few days of warm weather it was very pleasant to have cooler temperatures. Pugwash is a very small and lovely town where Cyrus Eaton provided the space and support to allow the first Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs in July 1957. At the height of the Cold War, the conference was a critical first step in moving back from the brink of war and it established a process and lines of communication that continue to bring peace to the world today. The small town pulled together for the conference where local residents opened their homes many of the top scientists in the world. The meals took place in the Lobster Factory and meetings happened there, as well as in the Masonic Hall and Thinker’s Lodge. The tranquil and somewhat isolated location provided the ideal setting to put people at ease to be able to discuss the important issues that faced the world.

The group from the peace conference assembled in the Lobster Factory for some refreshments and then we had presentations by Sandra Ionno Butcher on some of the important women such as Ruth S. Adams and Anne Kinder Jones who made the process a success and by Ru Ling Susie Chou about her father Pei-Yuan Chu, who participated in many of the Pugwash Conferences. Members of the town also provided fascinating insights into the history of the village of Pugwash. John Eaton (grandson of Cyrus Eaton) spoke about the restoration and preservation of Thinker’s Lodge and invited the participants into the historic building for a tour. Being able to walk through a place filled with such important historical discussions and connections was fascinating. The walls of Thinker’s Lodge are covered with photographs of participants and those who inspired those who lived there. It is a comfortable and inviting place.

During the lunch break we assembled as a group and Alyn Ware brought out torches that were part of the Abolition Flame and the World March for Peace. The torches were passed between the participants as we walked along the harbour with the wind blowing. We walked from the Lobster Factory, to the Masonic Hall, and down to the centre of the Villiage of Pugwash. It was a beautiful way to remember the past and to continue to work for peace and disarmament in the world.

The conference was a great experience and gave me the chance to meet some amazing people and participate in something important that is connected to the province where I live.

In the final concurrent workshop slot I was part of the panel for Effective Communication Strategies for Disarmament and Peace. The session was moderated by Bobbi Dunham-Carter of Organizational Learning at NSCC as well as the holder of fellowship with the United States Partnership for Education and Sustainable Development. The focus of the session was on a critique of the mainstream media and how both traditional and new media can be used by activists to make their voices heard.

The first presenter was Richard Zurawski, documentary filmmaker (with a focus on science, weather, and history), writer, meteorologist, public speaker and member of the media for a number of years. He gave a perspective on the way stories are constructed in the media along with advice for cultivating relationships with the media and how the mainstream media probably will not change, which is why you need to try to work within the system to get your message out.

Next up was Bruce Wark, Inglis Professor of Journalism, University of King’s College, and a former CBC Radio journalist and producer who also writes a regular column for The Coast. He wrote about how “Peace Works” in a recent column for The Coast and expanded on those ideas drawing on some of the thoughts of Ursula Franklin in his presentation which also drew out the idea of directed listening as a better way for journalists to work on their craft.

Finally it was my turn and my presentation (connect, share, be yourself) was about new media with blogging and Twitter. I drew inspiration from my late dear friend Errol Williams who had me edit his documentary film “When Voices Rise…” which told the story of the non-violent movement in Bermuda in the 1950s that ended segregation through a boycott of the movie theatres. The world now is a much different place with tools such as blogs and Twitter providing a platform for people to connect with each other in new ways. These new technologies and social media can be used to build your network of connections with people who have similar interests.

Not being intimidated by the technology is critical. You need to start making and sharing stuff an not lose focus on what is important. It’s about people and not technology and the most important network is made of flesh and blood. The media that connect us are only as strong as the people at both ends. The focus doesn’t need to be on the tin cans and the strings, but the people holding the cans and the people they talk to. Having followers on Twitter or fans on Facebook doesn’t translate into action. It’s quality, not quantity and connecting with people in meaningful ways will translate into action.

In the morning workshop session on Friday, July 9 at the Being the Change peace conference at Mount Saint Vincent University I attended “Integrating Movements: Women, Peace, Development and Environment” moderated by Lana Neil (Communications & Research Officer, Canadian Cancer Society, Nova Scotia). The workshop was conducted by long-time peace activist, development and women’s advocate Pat Kipping (long-time member of Voice of Women for Peace and former officer at the Nova Scotia Arts Council and board member and fundraiser for Oxfam Canada).

In an interactive session built around Ursula Franklin‘s definition of “Peace, not as the absence of war, but as the presence of justice and the absences of fear” the group of mainly women shared the connections that made them part of the various movements. It was a remarkable and casual session where we made a web out of yarn as the participants told stories and shared history and ideas for more actions in the movement. History and personal anecdotes joined everyone together in a positive and nourishing way that will lead to more action and connections in the future.