🏖️ Tomorrow marks the last dog day of summer. Love the term but never realised which days it signified.

Canadian geese just be chillin’.

We had a visitor this evening on our patch of grass.

It’s becoming a family tradition. Have a meal at the Beach Club.

Mine!

Seeing CDs being sold just takes me back to when music was a physical object that somehow enhanced the listening experience.

I’ve been on a little upgrade kick these last few months. Back in Dubai I bought this tiny Mi speaker that was better than it had any right to be for the price. It last a decent amount of time (and still works). Upgraded to a Roam 2 speaker and this thing honestly is tiny but fills the room with crisp tunes.

The last embers of summer. In Southern Ontario the seasons are totally distinct. The summer will be winding down next week where it is no longer this blistering heat. Still outside weather for sure but the heat and bite is gone by Sunday.

I don’t usually complain about the weather but I felt it was much shorter this year than I would have wanted in general.

Just finished watching Kpop Demon Hunters and actually enjoyed it…even though it was a musical (I notoriously dislike musicals).

Field Notes 50 Anniversary Desk Ledger. This was really a fantastic piece of design. I loved it and would have kept it in its plastic if I had this pdf to see all the goodies inside.

The kids finally saw a real live Capybara. They’ve been talking about these things all winter (and singing about them).

Sadly we had to take Cookie back. Our eldest developed an allergy to her (puffy eyes, sneezing and a cough). As much as it broke our hearts giving her back it was the only call. Great dog, with an awesome temperament and just pleasant to be around.

I really enjoy what I do, but there can be too much of a good thing. Summer holiday begins today. Just turn off and recharge.

First pic.

Important day for our family. We got the latest member, a three month old Havanese doggy. She’s an incredibly chill dog. Incredibly well natured. Expect a ton of photos.

I couldn’t bring myself to read Tigana in printed form. It’s set in Times New Roman, and the ink was bleeding into the page just annoyed me. So instead got myself a Kindle version. Quick search and I found that it was also available on the Kobo (for the same reduced price). Might look into getting a bigger Kobo because you can tell the difference between two.

Time to reconsider my notebook situation.

A general Lifebook is essential in my life. What I am now considering is actually combining my Lifebook and projects related book into one. They don’t necessarily need to be separate. I have a few more pages left in one of the notebooks will finish that off and then consolidate into one.

No idea why I haven’t done this which is to have a single sketchbook notebook. Fill it up with everything. I did this a few years ago and loved the output but somehow decided (foolishly) to create a Moon Racket! only sketchbook. That’s going to change. Back to paints and inks and all sorts of randomness in there for the sake of just letting my mind go a little.

Finally, moving away from my B6 slim journal into the Hobonichi 5 years is going to be interesting as it’s a few lines a day. If I feel the need to write more (which is not very regularly), there is a free page for that.

At work this has honestly gone to shit. Total and utter shit. I continue to jot things down in my A5 notebook, except I do it poorly and without a view to extract information at a later date. I need to be more purposeful in how I use this notebook.

Part of an early birthday present to myself, finally got another Hobonichi product, this time one that will hopefully last me 5 years and be a place to pile in my short missives.

What a solid couple of weeks for creating new habits that are sticking. I usually don’t like to add to much new stuff because it inevitably means that something will fall off. This last couple of weeks I’ve added the following:

1. Do my five Tibetans while waiting for the water of my morning coffee to boil.
2. Armed with my coffee I write for 30mins every day.

I can’t fully see the results of my exercise (as little as it is), but the writing has gone to essentially writing one 500ish chapter/article per week. This subtle progress allows me to extrapolate both new habits together. I’m excited to see the results in 3-4 months.

We got rid of Nazism.
We got rid of South African Apartheid.
It’s time we get rid of Zionism.

Zionism has become the successor to these abhorrent, nasty and inhuman ideologies.

And none of them have a place in the civilised world.

At the rate that I’m going, I hope to be around my target weight and body shape by March 2026. That’s 8 months from now. My brain is there already, it’s just going to take my body a little while to catch up.

It’s taken me a while, but I finally ‘get’ how to use ChatGPT for myself, beyond just a curiosity. As expected these LLMs are getting better. The best way to think of them is actually that they are an assistant at the moment. They’re not brilliant, but they do a serviceable job. Over time, they might take over complete tasks (which is scary but also kinda exhilarating).

I just finished writing the first chapter of my new book, A Simple Guide to the Construction Industry. This is the new chapter of Stet.

I took a good while off to regroup my thoughts and efforts and reassess what I want to do with the project. It’s one of my favourite things that I have created and want to continue creating for it, just not in the way that I had started.

I’m probably 6 months away from starting to share anything, but as long as I can continue at this steady pace I think I will have something to share.

Also I really missed working in iA Writer, but my new favourite feature is the proofreading option on MacOS, which is part of Apple Intelligence.

The Hopeful Romantics. That’s two from two from Howey. He very well may have helped change my life - I will certainly be writing more about this in the coming months is true. But with this post he’s definitely helped me deal with the misery in Palestine. Incremental things. Do as much as I can.

It’s nearly been one week since I started my new ‘life’ as someone healthy. Howey is completely correct, it is 50% a mental game. Something in your brain has to switch for you to find a gear in anything that you do. Even something as difficult as changing your body. I’m shocked at how easy it’s been to remove carbs for 70% of my meals. I’m also shocked that I no longer crave any snacks, whether throughout the day or in the evening. For years this has been my achilles heel but once I worked through the mental game, poof, it’s gone.

It’s still very early days and so the impacts of all the little cuts and additions to my routines have yet to yield any visible output (I never expected them to), but I’m invigorated by what the future holds. 1 month from now. 2 months from now. 6 months from now.

🏊‍♂️ Parenting point unlocked today. Ryan finally was swimming in the pool without any assist. Didn’t think it would be so quick but the boy only took 3 weeks of regular swimming and he’s now swimming from one end of the pool to the other. Proud moment and totally worth the effort to get him here.

Short walk around the East York Civic Center.

Fleuss Chronograph SpongeBob SquarePants Eyedial. Spinnaker watches is killing it with their cartoon character releases. These things are so well designed and at a great price point as well. Just really fun to see what they come up with next.

I’ve heard of this state. A switch flips in your head and it becomes your way of life. This happened to me 3 days ago. I do know what instigated it and what finished it off. The brain is the ultimate tool. Given the right types of prompts it will allow you to do things. Given the wrong prompts (or no prompts at all) and it will continue to meander. I’m not even concerned about falling back into bad habits, because my brain has been rewired. Willpower is not actually what is keeping this together. It’s my new way of life.

How To Make Better Burgers. I have generally honed my burger making to a level I am happy with, except as it relates to the patty itself and bloody shrinkage. This video explains why my burgers have always sucked and it’s all down to the burger and the grind. Guess I’m getting a KitchenAid meat grinder attachment.

🇨🇦 I fucking love Toronto in the summer. It’s got the right balance of hot and cool going. It’s a time to make the absolute most out of the incredible Toronto Public Library system. Pools/beaches are open across the city. Good vibes all around.

For years I have know that the secret to getting trim, fitting into your favourite clothes and general long term health is down to the food you eat. Not sure where my brother heard this but I got it off him:

Diet begins in the kitchen.

I honestly thought that the No-S Diet was the thing for me, but turns out it was only the start of the journey (or at least that is where I am right now). One of the biggest concepts that the No-S diet gave me was the no sugar and no snacking. Even though it did talk about being in the right mental state for things I lost my way.

A switch has been flipped in my brain this week. It wasn’t revolutionary but clearly I am someone who likes things framed in a certain way so that I can get onboard. The feel of hunger is ok. There is an abundance of calories waiting for me to consume just a few meters away from me. Clearly for much of my life to my detriment.

Diet is fundamentally a mental state.

Taking control of my food in my mid 40s is a little late but I can see how this might define the quality of my life in later years. I’m in the worst shape of my adult life at the moment (in my teens I had an obese phase), but the truth is the barrier to fix that is actually relatively low, I’ve just never been able to course correct since I got married — not blaming Yasmine, but it’s only natural that mealtimes and meals become more important when you become a couple.

So what’s the plan Batman?

Simples:

• Generally limit my carb intake. Maybe once a day at dinner.
• Breakfast is yogurt with different toppings (fruit, nuts, granola), to offer some variation).
• Lunch will be a pre-prepped salad (I have the containers so am ready to rock and roll on this).
• Dinner is whatever I want. No seconds.
• I don’t tend to drink sugary drinks, but orange juice and lemonade will be limited to a glass maybe on the weekends.
• Water and a slice of lemon is my new favourite thing.
• Beer consumption will also be limited (I do like a beer on a weekend though, so not going to stop myself from everything).
• Chocolate intake was also limited, but now that’s off the table, except on special occasions.
• The hardest one for me is salty snacks in the evening. This one is a conversation with the family to not bring this stuff into the house until I can break these cravings. Hopefully a month or so should do it. Maybe I get ahead of this and prep some carrots I can nibble on as a substitute.
• Also, do the Five Tibetans every day and lunges. In time I might supplement this with some weight training as well for chest and legs.

The Five Tibetans . So I read Hugh Howey’s article about health and fitness, which lead me to his short, which lead me to the above video about the daily exercises to carry out and I think this whole journey will help me better understand my own body and how I can get healthier.

The Secrets of Unreasonable Hospitality. If you need more incentive to go read Unreasonable Hospitality, this short video with Will Guidara from a few months ago should be enough to get you over the line.

In restaurants — and in all customer-service professions — the goal is to connect with people.
— Will Guidara

It’s a muggy summers day today in Toronto. I like feeling this way in contrast to what winter brings.

Run out of space on your Mac? External storage explained… . Got a message today that I was running out of storage. This video is the perfect primer to understanding the options available to me.

Gawd the neighbours are annoying. Their ill placed external unit which first turned on at the start of May. Their yappy little dog. They’re annoying conversations that I can’t hide from because they’re too loud. It’s all unwanted noise pollution.

I’ve been dipping my toes into using AI slowly. My first foray was in text descriptions for photos. It’s something I have very little interest in doing but would love to. Solved. Recently got it to help me do some coding and actually worked through Hugo version number issues and even bugs!

First pair of reading glasses. Another clear signal of age.

Took the family to watch Jurassic World. It was ok, except I was not that into the mutant dinosaur thing - tbh the whole movie is really not my thing, but Yasmine is a massive Jurassic Park geek and got everyone t-shirts. I’m looking forward to the new Tron and Superman movies this year.

Creativity is the missing pillar in self-development.
— Amie McNee, We Need Your Art.

I’m reading The World in a Grain of Sand and this quote really frames what the book is about:

Without sand, we wouldn’t have contemporary civilisation. And believe it or not, we are starting to run out.

Was looking for a way to export my highlights/annotations from my Libby/Overdrive borrowed books. Couldn’t see a way. Quick search and it’s a simple bit of text to unlock an existing feature. No idea why this isn’t just a default setting — a slightly nicer looking place for your annotations is kobli.me.

I love that there is a Cardinal living near the house this year. I get to see him a few times a week. So rare and such a dude.

One of my many vices is that I do enjoy collecting books. Most of the times I read them. Sadly sometimes I do not. I might remember how important a book was to me as it provided something very specific to me that has lasted me many years after I read it. The book changed the way I think. Sometimes the story haunts me years, even decades after I read it. This is the very best stuff. The canonical stuff.

Amongst a wide range of ‘adulting’ activities carried out this week, I have managed to review my personal collection to try and pair it down to only the very best. One idea that I am considering is a single book, the best work by any individual artist, writer, designer, philosopher. There will be the occasional writer that gets an additional book here or there, but there is always one that stands above the rest. Of course I have a range of digital books. These I feel infinitely less pressured to culling. Being able to look at a shelf of books and know ho much they mean to you because they helped you grow as a human.

All the summer colours.

Hermétique Summer from Baltic Watches is a a great collection of colours to add to this solid design. Love all the new colours (except the pink which isn’t for me). I can easily see myself rocking the turquoise, yellow or orange versions.

The Fairphone (Generation 6).. Not in the market for a new phone (my iPhone 15 Pro easily has 3 more years in the tank…at least), but if I was in the market, honestly I would have considered this as a pretty decent option. That or the Punkt MC02.

Clearly I have become a TV person over a movie person in terms of consuming a visual narrative. The standout shows for me this year have been (anything) Yellowstone related (there are always some weak points in those shows but the highs are very high) and The Bear.

I think this was confirmed to me when we finished watching Gladiator II. I can see what they’ve done here but I just didn’t care enough for the characters, even though the groundwork for these characters was established 10-15 years ago (whenever the first movie came out).

Which then got me thinking that the most important part of any creative narrative, is the story. Without the right story, it doesn’t matter if the visuals are great. It doesn’t matter that you’ve got Denzel Washington speaking the words. It never reaches the levels it could reach. Sometimes stories need room to breathe.

Maybe I’m just wired to accept episodic material, on the basis of my steady diet of serialised comic stories when I was younger?

First time playing pickleball.

The Bear season 4 drops today. 10 episodes of the bear. Average of 30min each, so we’re looking at 5 hours of screen time minimum over the next few days. I can’t wait.

Took me a minute, but finally updated the style of my weekly newsletter. Very basic, but honestly that’s about the right level of complexity with email…which sucks at rendering anything fancy unless you are a backwards ninja.

Been using my Kobo to read a book for the first time. Can’t help but compare it to the Kindle and I find the software snappier and pretty much at full parity to the Amazon product…except it’s better because I get to connect my library card and download away. Magic.

With our holiday completely upended we have tried to find alternatives. The realities of what is available in Canada comes and bites us in the ass. Even the place we went to last year and really ended up enjoying isn’t an option anymore (the pools are no longer working for the entire summer).

Soo we’ve decided to embark on a home improvement project throughout the week while we reduce our body tempo. Hopefully with a little bit more time we can find a nice 2 week get away for the summer and then finally make it to Lebanon in time for Christmas.

Fleuss Automatic Popeye Bronemies Limited Edition SP-5161. I have been enjoying the character design collaborations that Spinnaker have been coming out with. The colour combination on this one is just a lot of fun. My only issue is that I don’t know if I would wear one. Great design to admire.

Inspiration exists, but it must find you working.
— Pablo Picasso

No idea how long this is going to last but having a kid obsessed with something has its perks - like this conversation :).

Transcript

Feeling soo deflated at the moment even though there is much to be thankful for, I’m just disappointed not to be seeing my mother and father after 6 years (see from three years ago when we tried this the last time). The universe transpired against us then just like it has now. Just frustrating, but alas others around the world have much, much existential issues to deal with that this is certainly one of pure privilege, which I understand.

It’s not even close but it does bring back memories from 3 years ago when circumstances beyond our control forced us to cancel our plans and holidays. I know that as a family we have precious few years to create memories together and the last 5 years have been a big hot mess. Seriously disappointing and just mentally annoying. Our bags were partially packed.

While we’re at it, Kevin ‘Kal’ Kallaugher’s new newsletter Kal Draws the Line is an instant subscription.

Glued to this post on Al Jazeera for coverage.

Bassem Youssef’s interview on Piers Morgan is a thing of beauty. So many wonderful quotes:

You don’t argue with pathological liar, you diagnose them.
Your optic nerve is antisemitic.
Israel has broken more international laws, than Diddy has violated young rappers.

The AiTelly youtube channel is a very different but massively informative channel on what’s going on in the Israeli/US/Iran war. Expect very little true information to come out, but 200 missiles used by the Iranians, from an approximate stockpile of 3,000. It will slow down but they will keep firing as it’s existential now.