Wednesday, February 19, 2025 →
At the pool for high school city championships. Lots of excitement!
❄️ Running out of room for the snow
📝 A new season for my notes
Sunday, February 16, 2025
The sun rises, seasons change, and I reconsider my note-taking system. Some things are endlessly cyclical.
These days I use a split system: personal notes in Apple Notes (using a simplified Forever Notes structure) and work notes in OneNote, following the PARA method. My daily logs feed into ChatGPT for a summarized weekly note. It’s efficient, structured, and searchable—but also sterile and fleeting.
This week, after a nudge from Lee Peterson in the Hemispheric Views Discord, I dusted off a Field Notes notebook I last used in 2015 and started writing again.
Each day gets a fresh page. I list my two or three most important tasks, then jot down whatever comes up. I’ve even revived Patrick Rhone’s Dash/Plus system.
As plenty of folks will tell you, paper is nice. I also like how it keeps my phone on the charger instead of in my pocket, waiting for me to type something.
I’ve stopped being precious about my note-taking. My needs evolve, and so should my system.
🇨🇦 The Sutherland Quarterly
Friday, February 14, 2025
For my fellow, like-to-be-informed Canadians, I recommend the Sutherland Quarterly. As a subscriber, each quarter you get a short book (around 100 pages) on a current, important topic.
So far, I’ve read:
- An Emergency in Ottawa by Paul Wells on the trucker convoy
- Fleeced by Andrew Spence on Canadian banking
- Justin Trudeau on the Ropes also by Paul Wells on Trudeau’s challenges as Prime Minister
- Superintelligence by The Logic on AI in Canada
And I’m about to start Jasper on Fire by Matthew Scace. Each has been really good: informative, well written, and relevant to Canadians.
Subscriptions are available for both print and digital, while each book is also available separately.
🏃♂️ Sidewalks were mostly clear on today’s recovery run
Added new screen to manage your muted users, keywords, and blocks.
A nice addition to make it easier to quiet down the timeline, especially these days. Good to see this synchronizes across to Greg Morris' micro.social app too.
🔗 Matt Gurney: I hereby propose the Ice Bucket Challenge for National Survival
The premiers can and must break the stifling complacency that is such a hallmark of modern Canadian politics and use the power of social media, and simple shame, to get the ball rolling. To do something. And then do another thing, and another thing, and another thing.
Bad day for a broken shovel ❄️
🚴 Updating my indoor bike setup
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Over the past three years, I’ve traveled more than 7,600 km through the virtual worlds of Zwift (adds up to a ridiculous 11 days and 11 hours on the saddle). This has all been on my main racing bike in a somewhat awkward setup that I described earlier:
I don’t have enough space in my house for a spot fully dedicated to cycling. So, I’ve got the bike trainer tucked in a corner of the basement and then I slide our basement couch out of the way and move the bike in front of the TV when I’m riding.
The whole setup is a nuisance, especially for some of those really early morning starts. Moving furniture around while in the dark and only half awake isn’t great. So, I’m considering the new Zwift Ride.
I think the pros are (in order):
- Always ready without any setup required
- Stays inside, so stays clean
- Preserves the racing bike, avoiding all the indoor sweat (so much sweat 🥵) and wear and tear
- Optimized for indoor riding and for Zwift specifically
While the cons are:
- Only works with Zwift. What do I do with it if Zwift goes away or I want to switch to a different platform? (Although, there are developments)
- Riding it doesn’t build up comfort and familiarity on my actual racing bike (although after close to 12 cumulative days on the bike, how much of this could be left?)
Given all of this, I’m leaning towards getting the Zwift Ride. There’s a spot in the basement with enough room for it and I like the idea of just getting on and riding. However, the recent tariff nonsense seems to have cleared out the Canadian inventory. So, I have some time to think this over, before making the investment.
For more on the Zwift Ride, DC Rainmaker has a good video.
Finished reading: Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern is a lot of fun 📚
George had a busy day
🏃♂️ Winter wonderland on today’s run. Slippery and uneven conditions helped keep the easy pace on target while adding in extra ankle and calf work.
🎵 We Didn’t Know We Were Ready by Ólafur Arnalds is a lovely song
🎵 Afterlife - Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is setting the right mood for me today
I found a great place to deposit my $200 bribe. I’d like the money to go somewhere helpful and to counter some of the nasty rhetoric and actions around LGBTQ issues 🏳️🌈
Finished reading: If you like creepy, weird books (and I do), you’ll enjoy Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer. But, you have to read the great Area X trilogy first 📚
It may seem priggish to say it, given the current “vibe shift,” but we really can’t give up on personal integrity just yet. The day we celebrate our children for their selfishness and cruelty will be the point of no return.
I can’t believe that I’m about to type this sentence: Now that America is threatening Canada with economic ruin and potential annexation as the 51st state, I think it is very important for Canadians to stay well informed. To that end, I recommend two great sources: Paul Wells and The Line. Both are high quality, independent journalism with important voices in the True North, Strong and Free 🇨🇦
A fun episode of The Incomparable on my favourite fiction book of 2024
🔗 What Aging Can Teach Us About Sustainable Success
With that in mind, here are a few lessons I’ve learned as an aging athlete who can still run pretty fast, but is having a lot of doing it.
- Stop short. Almost always.
There’s an old adage in running that you should have one more rep in the tank. It’s also called the no hands on your knees rule. Both get a simple point, the risk of pushing to get that final repeat is seldom worth it. The benefit is small, if it even exists.
I’m tempted to write this on my shoes. Good advice that I followed this morning: the workout called for 5–8 reps and I stopped after 5 good ones.