Entries 142

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Now that I am retired, I prefer weekdays to weekends. I like it that everyone is going about their business, going to work, going to school and I am free to do what I do, which is a whole lot of...

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It’s funny how times change. We went and looked at used vans yesterday. A regional dealer. It is all he does - vans. Big ones, little ones, tall ones, short ones, high milage ones, low milage on...

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I was thinking just now how busy I used to be twenty years ago, when the kids were young and I had an office job that I had to get to. I don’t know how I did it. I could never do it now. Today...

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For me, this is where it starts everyday. Just a quick mind dump, not the stuff on top, the stuff I did yesterday, the trails and tribulations of being a human on planet earth. I try to not to b...

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I hate it when people tell me stuff I already know. I know everything So don’t tell me stuff It seems to be an Asian thing, obeying the rules, being pedantic, reminding others of things th...

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So I have a good friend that I have never met. Allen. It’s one of the joys of having a Youtube channel, lots of online friends. One guy that I met said that having a YouTube channel was an exc...

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If I don’t want to talk about the neighbours and the neighbourhood and I don’t want to talk about Youtube or van building, and I don’t want to talk about the routine things I do like read books,...

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It started with ‘would Friday morning or afternoon work better for you?’ That’s a sales line. The either/or close. So I was highly alert for more. And there were more - the takeaway close. ‘The...

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My friend Allen must have money problems. Aspirational money problems. He has enough money. I’ve seen all the stuff in his garage. He spends too much. So a few months ago, Allen started a Yout...

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There is a boomer couple who have been traveling and making videos for a few years. They sometimes pop up in my feed when they are in China or Taiwan. I can’t stand to watch them. Their videos a...

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I don’t know where the time goes. Weird. Especially since the days are so long. Summer solstice. I was still out on the front porch when the patio lights came on. Shortly after 9pm. The sky was ...

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The missus has a birthday coming up and I am fresh out of ideas. The two areas I usually go to are the garden and the pottery studio. But that’s not going to work this year. The missus did a pre...

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June the first and the weather could be worse. It is clear and cool, a little windy but I am out on my front porch in my hoodie and sweatpants, wool socks and fake crocs. It is just warm enough ...

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So it was old timey night on my front porch. Greg came over with a can of beer in hand. This is the third time this year that he has seen me and invited himself up. That’s ok. I don’t mind havin...

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Sometimes in life, you make a little decision that changes your trajectory a little bit and sometime you make bigger decisions that change everything. 25 years ago today, I arrived back in Canad...

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I was told by an American friend yesterday that my estimation of $60 for a nice golf shirt is too low. It would likely be over $80. That would put it over $100 in Canada. For that I could go to ...

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Everyday is pretty much the same. Sometimes the cat stays out all night. Sometimes we manage to keep her in. Sometimes I take a walk around the lake. Sometimes I take a walk through the city. Th...

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I like the way that the Taiwanese talk. Specifically, I like the way they speak English. Everything is flattened somehow, which is interesting because Taiwanese is a tonal language - when they s...

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15% of suffering is uninvited sickness and disaster. The rest we bring on ourselves. That is a line from a book I am reading. The line jumped out at me as a little nugget of wisdom after a sce...

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My first office job ruined me for all office jobs that followed. There is more pain caused by unmet expectations than happiness caused by exceeded expectations. Early successes ruin you for l...

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I can’t help thinking that this would be so much better if I was in Taiwan and that thought is not fair to my Canadian life. I mean the weather has not been very nice - two days of rain, but oth...

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It was a crazy idea. But then, all ideas are crazy until they work. Going to the moon. Crazy idea. Electricity. Crazy idea. Even automobiles were a crazy idea at one time. Early adopters when t...

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Just like a lot of unhappiness is caused by unmet expectations, a lot of unhappiness is also caused by unrealized dreams. And often these unrealized dreams are blamed on someone or some set of c...

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One of the podcasts that I’ve been listening to for years is “The History of the English Language.” I’m actually listening to it a second or third time through already. It puts me right off to s...

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I restarted my Mandarin studies yesterday. The target is 100 intermediate sentences a day. I know a lot of characters but my listening ability needs a lot of work. So today, since I know that th...

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