Bloorp.

While cycling through my modest photo collection from Panama, it struck me that my former paparazza tendencies have changed.

I was a shutterbug in high school before digital cameras became ubiquitous — think back to the days when as soon as the flash went off, someone would cry out “Doubles!” to lay claim to a second copy once the film was developed.

It’d make more sense for the opposite to be true, wouldn’t it? That in the era of digital cameras where passable images can be instantly deleted, I’d feel more inclined to snap away freely.

But I’m more selective than ever with the moments I decide are worthy of my time to capture.

I am no photographer. I have no aspirations to be a photographer. It’s never my intention to snap a prize-winning photo and I leave those skills to professionals who know what they’re doing.

But I’ll admit it can fun to experiment with my little point-and-shoot — and when you’re on vacation, there’s an endless wealth of subjects to explore. Well, once you’re off the resort.

That’s really the best part. I’ve already made clear my feelings about resorts and ignorant resort people, so day trips helped take my mind off the scads of uneaten buffet food and plastic cups half-filled with locally brewed cervezas.

And of the few photos I took — compared to Matt’s forty zillion — this photo of a convent among the old city ruins in Panama City is probably my favourite.

I may not have many pictures from this trip. But the few I do have are ones I really like. That ought to count for something.

Imagine boarding a bus en route to the indigenous Embera community in Panama, a long drive and boat ride down a river, far away from a privileged resort life of excessive food and free-flowing alcohol.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First, picture a tour guide named Tony, speaking into a little microphone for his voice to carry over the din of the mini-bus speeding its way across the Pan-American highway.

Tony announces that a typical Panamanian salary is around $400 a month, and a post-secondary education runs about $30 for the year.

Suddenly, a woman from B.C. in the tour group decides this is the perfect moment to bring up her own plight.

“That’s so cheap!” she exclaims incredulously. “Do you know how expensive everything is in Canada? It’s going to cost me $100,000 to put my daughter through school! Oh, and our health care system is the worst, you have to wait forever…”

Then you think/hope she’ll shut up any second because she’s embarrassing herself, not to mention the person who chimed in to agree that, yes, everything costs far too much in Canada and we have such a rough life, especially compared to the high-rolling citizens of Panama!

But she doesn’t shut up.

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You know what’s a great feeling? Thinking you won’t like doing something, but doing it anyway only to discover that you were right all along.

Not that I have anything against being satisfyingly wrong. But when I realized a long time ago that going to a tropical resort was just not appealing, someone said, “You can’t say you don’t like it if you’ve never gone.”

I’m usually not the sort who will dismiss something because I think I won’t like it. I used to hate olives, then I made myself try them after a long time of staying away and now I love them. I never thought I’d like SpongeBob SquarePants and Matt practically begged me to watch it with him — now it’s one of the only scripted comedies that makes me laugh.

Food and television are easy fixes. You try it and don’t like it? Spit it out. You watch it and don’t like it? Bitch about how unfunny it is and switch the channel. A resort is a much more costly experiment.

Then, just days after Christmas, we had a good excuse: Matt’s friends were getting married.

On a resort.

In Panama.

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At first, I couldn’t help but admire the “ugly sweater” charm of my colleague’s suspenders (never mind that I loved he was wearing suspenders in the first place): birds, dogs…guns…?

Admiration was soon replaced by curiosity upon closer inspection.

“Is…is the dog eating that bird?”

Some things just aren’t as they seem.

Finding old files is like uncovering forgotten treasure, isn’t it?

I’m not sure how I could have possibly forgotten about this one, which I took in New York this past February. (I must have been too preoccupied posting pictures of rhino iguanas and emu carpaccio.)

February was my last month with KidScreen before moving over to its sister publication Playback, thus ending three memorable years of covering a most fascinating industry.

And what a way to end it all — watching the legendary Bobby McFerrin and his son Taylor belt out an a capella version of “Misty” one of my all-time favourite standards.

Bake ‘em away, toys.

When you said ‘Warren Buffett,’ I thought you said, ‘warm butt-fucking.’

—

I won’t reveal who said this during lunch at the Whistler Film Festival, but I will give context, even though it could be just as fun and inappropriate to leave it be as I’ve done in the past. (Or the times I probably went into far too much detail.)

A person at my table commented that the chocolate cake for dessert was quite rich, to which someone else piped up, “Rich like Warren Buffett.”

The man on my left looked up for a moment, gave his head a slight shake and said, “…I totally thought you said something else and you really don’t want me to repeat what I thought it was.”

Of course when someone says that, you do want him to repeat it. So he did.  And I thought my hearing was bad…

I never thought I’d be so enamoured by mountains. Then again, I never thought I’d be standing on one, either.

Spending time in B.C. during December (for this) is perhaps the antithesis of what some may call “getting away.” I’m not one for escaping to warmer climates in the winter and I can say without hesitation that I really enjoy snow, even though I’m not a skiier or snowboarder.

And when you’re in Whistler, how could you not enjoy snow? Watching falling flakes dusting the village stirred up the romantic, dreamy sensations that give me the right kind of chills.

If I sound in love with snow, it’s because I am. Whistler deepened that love affair, especially when I was whisked away to Whistler Blackcomb and was almost literally stunned by the surrounding beauty. Who could tear their eyes away from the cloudless sky, the tops of the snow-capped evergreens, the neverending blanket of white?

Not me, that’s for sure.

I found a banana in my pocket.

—

It’s not a euphemism. Dad actually found a piece of a banana in his pocket when we were about to leave Cleveland. Grandma, brother and Mom look on with unidentifiable expressions in the background.

More than 15 years (15! 1-5!) have gone by since I’ve gone on a road trip with my parents and brother, and I thought those days were long behind me. But this past weekend, we took a whirlwind weekend trip to Cleveland, OH, where my cousin Jenny became the second in the family to get married.

The trip was more than a little surreal when I realized that my brother and I spent most of the time in the front and behind the wheel while our parents took it easy in the backseat.

We spent much of the trip making Simpsons references, from imitating Homer’s scream when he tried to sneak fruits and veggies across the border — and then driving past Bort Road shortly thereafter (!!!) — to saying “Free shower curtain!” when we arrived at the hotel and wondering whether or not Free Willy would be on TV.

We’d burst into random spurts of laughter, making our parents laugh.

After the fact, Dad would say, “What are we laughing at?”

Mom replied, “I don’t know. They have their own inside jokes, we’re just laughing at them laughing.”

We stopped at a McDonald’s for a pee break — Mom always has to go…again, weird role reversal — and Dad bought a coffee. He was confused trying to figure out the newfangled coffee lid when my brother impatiently flipped up the flap.

Dad’s eyes lit up in fascination and he exclaimed, “Amazing!”

To which Andrew dryly responded, “What a time to be alive.”

More tales from Ohio to come, including strange pictures, bananas and polka dancing. Welcome (back) to my life.