Week one teaching my new grade five class was a 10 out of 10. Nice kids, high energy, tons of movement, and the feeling of untapped potential. I loved the whole week. The best part. Every day after ten short periods across a variety of subjects, I’d look up at the clock and be surprised at how fast the time had evaporated. The time dilation was a stark contrast to my typical desk workday. The world is changing fast as knowledge work is being eaten alive by AI, however I beli

Three and a half years into my Jiu Jitsu journey, and I am still a beginner. Every single class I am humbled by how little I know, and how the opportunity for growth is infinite. The best part is that I know that forty years from now (at 86) I will still be learning. I’m also convinced that despite all the bumps and bruises, the ‘forced contortionism’ combined with the sheer difficulty of the sport, has resulted in the best health and mobility of my life. As a middle-aged m

Hazel won’t eat home cooked burgers. Surprisingly, Hazel will eat multiple homemade ‘smash burgers’. Both burgers have the same basic ingredients, beef, veggies, bun etc., however Karina informs me that smash burgers have two small but significant differences. First they are smashed at a high heat which sears them and locks in the flavour and juice, and secondly they contain a special ‘smash sauce’. Like so many things in life the difference between a great experience, and a

I am able to bookkeep thousands of bank transactions in minutes using Claude AI. The best part is that once I give clear instructions, and the input data, the agent works autonomously freeing me to complete other projects or simply hang out. The future is here. We live in a world of agent assistants and Artificial Intelligence hungry to devour complex knowledge work with a few dollars of tokens of compute cost. Frontier AI models such as Claude, Chat GPT, Gemini, Grok, Kim

A Megan Maroney concert gave us the excuse to visit Seattle over the long weekend. In the months leading up to the concert we learned her tunes, found our favorites, and let the excitement build. Having attended many concerts over the years, I was taken aback by the quality of the show and how different it was than most other shows. 90% of the stadium was 15 to 25 year old females, dressed in matching pink outfits, versed in all the lyrics, and super excited. The youthful v

It would be an understatement to say I was frustrated during our last cabin visit when a leaking cistern caused a water pump failure, which identified a sump-pump problem. This gave us a weekend of carrying water for toilet and cleaning, and more importantly added three new projects for my to-do list. Fortunately with a shop full of tools, and a farming father up to any challenge, we booked another family road trip, and went to work on the repairs this week. It took many hou

Cosmo would spend all day hunting prey. Bounding hole to hole, sniffing, digging, waiting, never tiring, and never stopping for food. It's in his nature. It's what he was designed for. Unfortunately, his tether to our civilized world has limited him to a three acre farm yard, with intermittent escape missions requiring search party retrieval. We love him too much to risk him being run over by traffic, or lost to nature. Many humans I know share an analogous problem. While d

Overthinking plagues many of us. It restricts our ability to take decisive action, iterate, or move forward quickly. ‘Analysis paralysis’ and perfection, preventing work from ‘shipping’. I now keep the word "underthink" stuck to my desk, to remind me to take action. I have had this blog in ‘draft’ for months…. I have work to do. Underthink. Now that's a peak ethos.

I was proud watching Olive return from a run with Karina this week. Though she has just turned thirteen she is already building an impressive routine of health and fitness habits. She has also won the life lottery by having a mother who emulates these positive behaviors. If your peers consume alcohol often, you will likely drink. If your friends eat junk food daily, your eating habits will suffer. And if you surround yourself with people who prioritize exercise and fitness,

For the past seven days I’ve been unplugged in Maui. Between making espressos, hitting the morning workout, packing for the beach, swimming, boogie-boarding, and shopping I have allocated zero time to email or work. For the first time in years I even missed my Friday 6pm blog deadline, to instead hang with the fam and go to bed on time. This week-long disconnect has brought new awareness to how ridiculous our ‘always available’ lives have become, including the endless interru

Hazel and her friend Lana had resounding success selling their homemade ‘slime’ at the Vegreville summer market. From perfecting the slime recipe and designing the brand to interacting with customers, pitching the product and balancing the float, the event was packed with fun and learning. Like two seasoned entrepreneurs they converted raw materials of glue, borax, water and food colouring, into dozens of slime filled containers ready to amaze and entertain children and teens

Fifty aircraft flew from around Alberta last weekend for the Vegreville Flying Club’s annual ‘fly-in breakfast’. The weather was perfect for flying, allowing hundreds of people to enjoy an outstanding meal and a plethora of aircraft. It takes hundreds of hours, hard working volunteers, and motivated leaders to make events like this possible. Whether a sports tournament, a fundraiser, or a breakfast, bringing people together to connect and celebrate requires coordination, pla

Olive was awarded the most improved player on both her volleyball and basketball teams this season. Different coaches, different sports, yet the same award, highlighted one of her most valuable traits, ‘coachability’. For multiple seasons I’ve listened to Olive explain techniques and tricks that her many great coaches have shared for her to improve different aspects of performance. A common theme has been watching Olive fervently try to implement these suggestions, trusting

Watching Olive head off on a 6 am run filled me with pride. It was her first day of her thirteenth year, and the first time she was joining Karina on a morning run. For the past six month’s, Olive has worked out each morning before school, her discipline and maturity out-pacing most adults. The secret to her success relates directly to one of James Clear’s principles: Instead of focusing on the outcome, adopt the identity first. ‘Olive is a person who exercises daily.’ An

Hazel ran in her school’s final track meet today. The fastest grade four, five and six athletes got to compete for ribbons at the high school track. The goal for these young athletes was to give them a taste of what track and field is like at the high school level, where not all participants get ribbons. Before competing in her race Hazel was visibly upset, nervous to race in front of a hundred cheering fans. Fear of failure, fear of judgment, fear of sickness (400 meters).

This week I attended an AI conference where thousands of participants were simultaneously listening to multiple speakers within the same room. The secret; everyone was provided headphones that were colour-matched to each stage, thus allowing you to select the presenter of your choice, with the click of a button. This was a unique experience for many reasons. There were basically zero distractions, side conversations or distracting noises. In fact if you took off the headphone

A short Instagram clip that Hazel and I recently created for the grade five class lesson on flight just passed 107,000 views, with 3,300 likes. During this ten second clip we dove our Cessna at exactly the same time as we dropped a pen. As our plane matched the decent rate of the pen, we created the illusion of the pen floating in mid-air. Very cool. Karina sharing this clip on her Instagram taught us all a lot about the reach of social media, and how a simple, amateur recor

I recently found out from a client regarding the plans for their estate upon passing, and I was quite surprised. A family friend of the testator, close but somewhat disconnected, was in line to receive over 2 million worth of farmland. The interesting thing about the situation was that it was unbeknownst to the beneficiary, who had been somewhat unplugged from their relationship over the past few years. Like many aging people without children, the discussion about estate plan

Last weekend, April 24 brought such a blizzard to our farm that Hazel had to dig Wizard out of her dog house. A true test of Murphy’s law in action as I had conveniently changed our winter tires back to summer, only one day earlier. Despite the temporary hardships and poor road conditions, with May only one week away, the cold was obviously going to be short-lived. Sure enough seven days later on my aerial ‘farm-tour’ I observed the fields once again free of snow, and a nine

Warm weather over the weekend gave us the opportunity to break out our two wheeled-vehicles after a long winter. Six months of sitting brings out the worst in batteries and carburetors, making spring a season of tinkering, cleaning, and charging. That long period of hibernation makes everything a challenge to start. With a few hours of labour, I was able to get a scooter and a couple of motorcycles operational, and watching Olive and Hazel zooming around the farm made the eff