2025-12-31 09:29:28
We’ve reached the perineum of the holidays and I’m enjoying some quiet time before the new year—a perfect time to reflect on the year just spent.
This year was a quiet year for air travel, perhaps even quieter than expected. I have been avoiding travel to the States, for the most part. That has meant not getting any status on United next year—the first year in probably 15 years or so I haven’t reached at least silver with them. I did travel to Europe enough on Air France, though, to get Silver status on Delta.
I made it to Italy, France, and Belgium, which were all lovely trips with more casual time, rather than trying to pack all the tourist spots in. I’ve really enjoyed getting to settle into a place, even for a week, find a local coffee shop, and then hit up the occasional museum. I was absolutely delighted with Bruges and would love to go back.
The new year is already looking full of travel. My mom is trying to finish off bucket lists and I’m planning to join her for a couple trips including my first time to Alaska. I’m hoping to make it back to Norway. I’d like to visit more of Asia. No specific plans for either of those yet.
I didn’t really get any projects done this year, but also didn’t give myself any.
I’ve been bringing my Leica more often instead of just relying on my phone for photos. I’ve been enjoying getting back into photography and hope to do more of it in the new year. I have my photo blog but keep forgetting about it. Whoops.
I thought about doing a new food blog and started in on some designs. I might kick that off in the new year but considering I’ve already got a photo and whisky blog that are languishing, I’m not rushing off to create yet another dead site. Instead, I’m using Instagram as a placeholder for the time being.
The idea behind That One Dish is exemplifying the best of a particular restaurant. Especially when having a fine dining experience, I could say these dishes were good and those dishes were okay but it was hard to really showcase a meal that had a dozen or more courses. I want to celebrate amazing food and picking out a particular dish felt easier to write about than detailing each course with mundane descriptions or ingredient lists.
I didn’t think I had made it to that many fine dining restaurants this past year and while it was definitely my slowest year since I started going to fine dining restaurants with any regularity, I still went to a dozen Michelin-starred restaurants. Highlights include Lido 84 in Italy, The Jane in Antwerp, and Epicure in Paris.
Ottawa is levelling up, even if we don’t have the Michelin guide here. I try to make it to Perch at least once a year and I should go more often. Antheia just opened up and it’s spectacular.
I haven’t set myself any specific bucket lists for the new year but already have more than a handful of restaurants booked.
I’ve considered trying to get to every Michelin starred restaurant in Ontario, which is about 16 restaurants. I’m still uncommitted to that but unsure why. I think it’s because I don’t love Toronto. I find the city large and spread out in a way that doesn’t make it easy to get to everything. Like, New York is big but public transit makes it pretty easy to get around. Going to a couple restaurants over the course of a week is one thing. Going to more than a dozen restaurants over weeks or months becomes a logistical task that isn’t as fun to organize.
Life really quieted down over the course of this year. My oldest son got a full-time job in the career he wanted. My youngest son moved out for school. I sold my house and am now living downtown in an apartment. I barely drive because I can walk or Uber/Lyft wherever I need to go. I no longer need to mow the lawn or shovel the driveway. My expenses have dropped and simplified and I’m using the extra room for a few revisions to the apartment.
I upgraded my gaming PC after I thought my old one was dying. The old PC was an Intel i7 with Nvidia 3070. The new PC is an AMD with Nvidia 5090. Then I got a dead pixel in my monitor a week later so I upgraded to an Asus ROG 32” 4K 240Hz monitor from an Acer Predator 27” 4K 144Hz monitor. I’m mostly just playing Call of Duty Warzone with friends and the upgrade feels real nice.
This year felt mostly good for me. I was able to steady myself and be there for others. The end of this year also saw the end of a regular schedule dictated by kids and as such, I find myself ebbing and flowing between productive and not. I started introducing a modicum of structure back in by giving my weeks a theme to focus on.
For example, I might say that this week will be focused on organizing a particular trip and all the research that goes into booking lodging, flights, and everything in between. Or perhaps it’s a week to focus on a particular project, working on writing, photography, or design.
I keep considering learning a language or instrument but have yet to do so. Maybe the upcoming year is when that might happen. With all the travel, I have some incentive to learn the language of wherever I’m going, even if it’s just basic understanding.
I was smart in not trying to predict what the 2025 theme would be. Change definitely happened but it didn’t turn out exactly like I expected. It didn’t turn out badly, just different. “Steady” is probably the best word for the past year.
The next year feels open, like anything or nothing could happen, and I’d be good either way. I’m looking forward to the year ahead…
2025-12-28 03:51:42
As a child of the 80s, I have distinct things that I associate with successful people. We’re talking the age of shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Dallas, and Dynasty. Sports like tennis, racquetball, golf, and sailing. People in their white short shorts, and polo shirts, with a headband.
Having a briefcase was yet one more sign of success. As a teenager, I had a briefcase. Brass buckles. Black leather. I doubt it was real leather but what did 17 year old me know. It made me feel like I could be successful.
I had a high school co-op program placement in the IT department of the local hospital. I brought my briefcase to work with me because that’s what you do when you’re a successful person going to work in an office. In that briefcase was my lunch and nothing else. I didn’t have anything else to put in it.
None of the adults there had briefcases and I quickly realized how silly it was. I imagine they got quite the chuckle when I showed up that first day but thankfully, they were very kind and never made fun of me.
Fun little story from my time there: I was in the server room with its towers and tape drives. There was even a little television in there. How cool is that? I changed the channel to something I wanted to watch. It was probably a game show like Price is Right and not one of those silly soap operas my mom liked to watch.
I was informed later that day that that TV is broadcast to all the sets in the hospital. Whoops. Good thing I didn’t change the channel to something… inappropriate.
My markers of what success looks like have definitely changed. I don’t play tennis or have a briefcase. I do have a home I care for and lots of friends and family. Okay, and a Porsche.
2025-11-25 05:28:22
It’s gotten to the point where I almost pathologically avoid television shows. Name a popular tv show from the last 20 years and there’s a good chance I haven’t seen it. Game of Thrones? Nope. Succession? Nope. Mr Robot? Nope. Breaking Bad? I saw the first two seasons and gave up. Strangers Things? Also gave up after two seasons.
It’s been difficult for me to articulate exactly why I don’t find television that captivating. After all, I grew up on television. Name a popular tv show from the 80s and there’s a good chance I’ve seen it. Punky Brewster? Yup. Three’s Company? Absolutely. Night Court, Cosby Show, Cheers, A Different World, Growing Pains? Yuuuuup.
Perhaps it’s the format? Shows back in those days were episodic: each episode mostly stood alone. There wasn’t any stakes in missing an episode or two, except perhaps not being able to participate in conversation around the water fountain.
These days, every episode feels high stakes. Everything is designed to keep you locked in from episode to episode and from season to season.
This is where I feel it’s gone wrong: it feels like a social media algorithm. It’s not about telling a good story and needing a certain amount of time to tell that story. It’s about how long they can capture and retain attention. Filler episodes. Backstories. Cliffhangers.
Prison Break, Heroes, and Lost might’ve been the three shows that I felt betrayed me the most. Each show descended into absolute absurdity pretty much after the first season, despite starting off with a great concept. It’s like they were surprised by their own popularity and now had to figure out a way to sustain it.
Other shows, like Scavengers Reign, get cancelled, despite fantastic writing because the concepts are perhaps too eclectic to garner a big enough audience. Kaos got cancelled, too, after one season which surprised me, given the cast.
I’m also bailing on shows early and often. I liked Poker Face, The Bear, and Severance but haven’t watched the last season of any of them—for no particular reason.
There’s a high level of inertia I need to get over to get into a show.
All is not lost. Ted Lasso pulled me in with the promise of a three season arc. They delivered. Russian Doll was fantastic. I’ve watched every episode of Silo and Shrinking and Fallout, so far.
Sometimes I think I’ll wait until a show reaches its end before I watch it but inevitably feel a lack of desire in committing to multiple seasons of a show that nobody is watching anymore.
And it’s at this point where I recognize my growing and perhaps needless skepticism as I age. The world isn’t out to get me, after all. Not all stories need to have a conclusion. Closure is overrated. My disdain for television seems silly and will likely continue in classic “old man yells at cloud” form—even while I continue to consume the format.
Anyway... I started watching Pluribus and already feeling like bailing after four episodes… what else is on?
2025-10-27 23:30:40
Yup, the colder weather has arrived. My days of sitting on the balcony, basking in the warm sun, are tucked away for the year. They’ll return next year, for sure.
After quickly getting the house cleaned out, I put it on the market. Less than two weeks later, I got an offer. I ended up selling for less than I wanted but a confluence of factors were at play. Before I listed my house, there were three other houses on my street, with nearly identical layouts to my house, up for sale. Two of them had sold. Then, one of them came back on the market listing for $10k less than they originally listed for. I don’t know the reason for why that sale fell through but it wasn’t helping me sell mine!
I’ve already moved into my condo and didn’t want to keep maintaining and paying for a house that was empty. It was worth it for me to accept the low offer and be done with it.
The house officially closes later this week but I’m considering it done. I’ve done everything I need to do for now.
Related but unrelated, I’ve had so many shed related conversations with my neighbours these past couple weeks. One neighbour offered to pay to have the shed between our two homes taken down because it ruined their view…of the beige vinyl siding of my house? I don’t get it. I let him take down the shed. Afterwards, he let me know they’d probably be moving which just left me even more puzzled as to why this shed was so important to remove. I still don’t get it.
October was also the month of my food writing class from UCLA. It was only four weeks long. The class size was small with 9 people having signed up and only 6 people attending.
The bulk of the class was working on an 800 word piece and iterating on it over the three weeks in between classes and receiving feedback from the teacher and classmates during class. Everybody was very supportive, friendly, and helpful. There were some talented writers in the group and I definitely wish to raise my writing to their level.
There were little tidbits that proved helpful and I wondered how I’d apply this to a regular writing routine, especially around restaurant reviews. It wasn’t until after everything was completed that I was struck with an idea for a new project that is starting to excite me. I’ve already started designing it!
It felt like a hectic month between just the house and class but there’s all of the other things with day-to-day life. I spent this month catching up on things I had been putting off and as a result, my to-do lists have been shrinking. It’s been very satisfying.
Interestingly, one of the few projects I’ve been putting off is “me”. I have a project labelled Self-care that I’ve been ignoring and with the weight being lifted from completing these other projects, it is perhaps time to lift some new weights and get into better shape.
2025-10-23 23:08:27
Life has been a bit hectic as of late. I don’t like the platform I have running my blog, which means I have a mental hill to get over before I can blog. Right now, I’m inside a coffee shop killing time waiting for a truck to show up and haul away a pile of junk I have in the garage. I decided to crack open the less than stellar editor to write this. Might as well make some use of my time—even if the writing experience isn’t ideal.
It’s 10:30 in the morning and I was surprised at how packed it is in here. Three different clusters of seniors. A couple people with headphones tethered to their laptops. And then a couple people like me, sipping their coffee, flicking away at their phones.
The house went up for a sale a couple weeks ago and a dozen showings gave me some hope an offer would arrive and sure enough, one did. Things are moving quickly but the house inspection still to happen might reveal something unbeknownst to me. Assuming no surprises, things will finalize by the end of the month.
My writing course has been going well, although it isn’t quite what I was expecting. At the end of the day, it’s helping me think about my writing process even though they aren’t really teaching us about writing process. As I consider embarking on a food writing journey, I want to make sure I’m not setting myself up for failure or giving myself too much work. I want this to be enjoyable, after all.
2025-10-02 09:10:30
My kid got moved into college. I originally typed “settled” but I think it’s going to take awhile before he feels settled. It’s a big change. A new school. A new city. It might be awhile before I feel settled, too.
On the way down, I stopped in Toronto to try Michelin-starred Kaiseki Yu-zen Hashimoto Restaurant that sits in the Japanese Canadian Cultural Center. It was a lovely experience, placed at a table in a room separated from the other diners. I suspect all of the tables are like this, which makes for a subdued experience—especially dining alone. The food was subtle and really focused on the ingredients. I received an email the next day with photos of each of the dishes (and a photo of me that they took before I left). The service was immaculate and friendly, even inviting me to contact them if I ever find myself on a future trip to Kyoto.
The experience felt very Japanese which had me thinking about “authenticity”. Was this experience authentic to Japan? What part and what time in Japan is this being authentic to? A “lack” of authenticity used to bother me. I’ve given up on caring about it because I couldn’t define it if you asked me to. I was reminded of that recently in a video talking about trompe-l’œil and how artwork was created to trick the eye. Would that be considered authentic? Are people walking around Italy talking about how this 1500s artwork isn’t authentic?
In any case, I enjoyed the experience at Kaiseki Yu-zen Hashimoto, regardless of any interpretation of authenticity.
After my return, I became focused on getting the house cleaned. Guests would be staying at the house for a couple weeks and I needed to get the place in decent shape before then.
Then, mid-September and another road trip—this time to Indiana to visit friends. Once again, I stop in Toronto for another restaurant. This time it was Michelin-starred Osteria Giulia. A couple friends joined me for this outing as we enjoyed a handful of plates.
In Indiana, I went to my first football tailgate experience and let me tell you, what an experience it was. It was very surreal to take it all in. So many people, all in great spirits and full of great spirits, with the beer and whisky flowing freely. It was such a vibe and I would totally do it again.
Now that I’m back, the friends have vacated the house, and it’s time to get it ready for sale. I’ve been cleaning windows, getting the place painted top to bottom, getting the patio fixed, and been pulling weeds. I met with a real estate agent and should have the place on the market by next week.
Autumn is the season of change but it has felt like an extended summer as the warm weather pushes its way into October. The leaves have started their fall display, though, and I’ll go through my own change, closing the door (literally) on a place that has been home for me and my kids for over a decade.
