Happy Mother's Day! As if we needed a reason to celebrate our mothers — there is nothing like a mother's love throughout your life. I'm excited to spend the day with my wife, children, my own mother, and run through the sprinkler in the scorching hot sun while cheering on the Winnipeg Jets.

As if by design, the weather moved from crummy early spring to summer conditions over the span of the last 10 days. And to take advantage, we got out onto the golf course more than a few times — "we" being friends and colleagues, but also my daughters and I.

Golf is one of those activities you can do with your children for the rest of your life. How many healthy 80+ year olds play golf? Lots. It's a lifelong activity, and one I want to get better at.

I've played a lot of baseball in my life and helped startup a local senior baseball team in 2015. My summers have been packed with that baseball ever since — each game usually becomes a five-hour venture, not to mention the pre-game discussions are lineups, game-day operations, and more. It's been all-consuming.

I'm not playing baseball this year, though. I've said it quietly all winter and most of my teammates (I think) think I'm going to eventually give in and show up. But I almost certainly won't. I've achieved everything in my life on the baseball field that I'm ever going to achieve (or, at least, that I'm willing to work hard enough to achieve).

I'm going to miss the amazing conversations with all the young men on the team who are starting out their lives, starting their families, and starting their careers. Over the last few years, I've somewhat evolved into one of the older guys on the team, and that puts you into a fun position to provide a tiny amount of guidance to the younger teammates. It's a true honour to be in that position and I'll miss it greatly.

Instead, I'm going to fill my time playing golf with my little girls. They both have these tiny sets of kids golf clubs now and they carry them on their backs as we walk to the golf cart. They hit the last 50 yards of each hole, putt the ball into the hole, drink a Gatorade, and giggle all the way around the first 4 holes on the course. It's one of the most enjoyable pleasures I've ever experienced in my life.

If I do it right, my girls will grow up living right beside the golf course, loving the game of golf, and enjoying the time they get to spend with their dad a few evenings each week. I can't think of a better luxury in life that I can experience well into my 70s or 80s.

Finding Your Zone of Genius

I really enjoyed this piece from Justin Jackson. In it, he speaks about discovering areas of life that provide him the most creative energy — where his "efforts feel natural and like he's moving with the flow." I especially appreciate how Jackson points us towards certain processes that may enable us to find our own "zone of genius".

One hiccup, just to build out the conversation — what happens if your "zone of genius" can't be monetized? Or if you can't fit your zone of genius into your work because of your occupation itself? How do you adapt your work-life to open opportunities to lean into your zone of genius? It's one thing to discover your zone of genius, but another thing entirely to implement it as often as possible in your life.

Just questions on my end for now and worth pondering as we go through the week.

Engadget's Review of the Surface Pro 12-Inch

Perhaps the latest Surface Pro is more of a "Surface Go Max" than it is an individual in the more powerful Surface Pro 13-inch line, but it sure is nimble and cute. Microsoft has appeared to lean hard into the same design language as the iPad and the iPad Pro keyboard line here — even the new Surface Pro 12-inch keyboard jettisons the alcantara material and the flip-up Slim Pen holder design for a more Magic Keyboard Folio-like design.

Either way, this looks like a winning formula. I'm excited to see how the new design language bleeds into the more powerful Surface Pro 13-inch model.

Would this ever replace an iPad for me? I would say probably not. But it is intriguing to witness how I use the iPad. Over 90% of the apps I use on the iPad are either web apps or browser-based, or have an app built for Windows. Is the tablet experience better served by a full-blown operating system like Windows 11 — which can run actual productivity software that I need in the office — or is the tablet experience best the way I have it right now?

The Second Cup

Hector Simpson's Aqueux Wallpapers Have Been Updated

I have refreshed the Aqueux webpage almost daily for the last six months with hopes of the latest wallpaper for matching macOS Sequoia. It was worth the wait — the latest Sequoia Aqueux wallpaper is a true masterpiece.

You can also check out Simpson's newest "Phase" wallpapers, which also appear to add a brilliant touch to your Apple devices.

Lastly, come for the wallpapers and stay for the newly designed webpage — every part of Simpson's website is pristine and wonderful.

Alex Mohammadi on Threads

These stunning photos from Fenway Park combine two of my favourite summer joys into one package: Leica photography and baseball. I've always been afraid of bringing my camera into a baseball game, but I might have to be a bit more adventurous the next time I go.

How I Use Apple Reminders to Be Productive

There are a number of great tips and tricks for Apple's Reminders app in this video from Chris Lawley. No matter how hard I try, I can't get Reminders to stick for me. I don't even know what I need anymore, honestly — Things is basically a capture bucket of tasks that I can never get to and the list just builds and builds and builds until I delete a bunch of them. It's demoralizing. Things does do recurring tasks well, though (other than the fact you can't check them off ahead of time. Sigh.).

Schuyler & Crossway Team Up on Special ESV Bibles

Tim Wildsmith has become the de facto Bible reviewer on the planet right now, it seems. So much so that he's getting collaborative Bibles between Schuyler and Crossway ahead of their release. This Heirloom Thinline collaboration is my next Bible purchase. I just can't decide between Desert Camel or Sandstone.

Happy Mother's Day Sunday. I hope you have an excellent week ahead.

Good morning! May the 4th be with you! The worst of the Canadian tax season is over, and for the first time ever, that has been followed by one of the most beautiful weekends ever (weather-wise) in southern Manitoba. Our family has spent the last four days outdoors, soaking in the sun and the newfound free-time. I completely forgot what it was like to be home by 5:00PM.

Which leads into other discourse, to be sure. There's no "Snap, you're done!" when working through annual seasons of heavy work. There is only an off-ramp from the work — a long, slow off-ramp that begins with major pangs of anxiety and stress and culminates in a to-do list that never truly gets finished. This slow off-ramp for me always begins with getting sick. And it takes a few weeks to really come to grips with having free-time once again. In the end, if I can get my email list and to-do list down to a list of non-impactful tasks, then I've achieved what I need to achieve before the next annual heavy workload.

Work is worship. This is an important lesson in life. But we are directed to rest, as well. I'm very excited for the rest in the next few months. More so than ever before.

Paste

Paste has been one of those apps that I had to return to a few different times to get a hang of it. Initially, the app provided the same utility to me as clipboard syncing between Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and nothing more. Why pay for something that’s already built into each of the operating systems?

But I’ve recently returned to Paste (again) and have found it to be invaluable.

First, Paste is reliable and fast — hit Cmd + C on your Mac, hear the little clicking Paste notifier in the background, and you’ll have access to that copied element on your iPhone instantly. Paste has not failed once syncing between Mac and iPhone, whereas macOS’s clipboard syncing has been intermittent at best.

Second is Paste’s design — I quite like the big drawer that slips in from the bottom of the screen and provides huge buttons for all your latest clippings. It’s fast, intuitive, and feels like part of macOS.

Third are Paste’s collections — I grow annoyed of having email templates in my email app, letter templates in Notion or Word, and messaging templates in Notes. Paste does a great job of cleaning this all up and provides one specific spot for storing all your templates. And because everything syncs across all your devices, you can access those templates on each device — this seems like an obvious thing, but when working between macOS and Windows in Parallels and working with others in the office on different computers, having these templates handy inside Paste has been extra helpful.

It may be hard for some to commit to paying for a better clipboard manager. But Paste’s reliability on its own may make it worth the money, let alone its other handy features. Paste has become one of my favourite utilities on my devices in the last few months.

More About the Shroud of Turin

Over the last few months, more research has been published on the origins of the Shroud of Turin. The research has effectively dated the shroud to the early 30s A.D. and to a specific location around Jerusalem which has a native linen or flax fiber. But it’s the 3-dimensional photogenic image fused into the fabric which continues to baffle everyone:

This is a light scientist, and Paul Dazo states it took 34,000 trillion watts of energy. But it wasn't just the amount of energy; it was the speed. Think about when the Bible says we'll see Jesus in the twinkling of an eye. The Ania laboratory said this 34,000 trillion watts of energy traveled in a quarter of a billionth of a second to leave the image on the shroud. Otherwise, it would have scorched the image and destroyed it. And the image is just two or three microns thin. It disappears if you go closer than 8 feet to the shroud. And so this is what has baffled scientists. Scientists have confirmed it is not a work of art. It's not man-made.

Yeah, this thing is the real deal.

Mind-blowing.

The Second Cup

Nicholas Gould Photography

Nicholas Gould’s colour work is beautiful. For me, it’s the way he works with green. There’s something about the tint and vibrancy in his greens that just work. You can get his presets here.

Alfread

Automatically archiving articles after one month that you’ve saved later but haven’t read? This sounds about as daring as it gets for readers.

A Designer’s Dual Apple Studio Display Workspace in Canada

There’s a lot going on in this setup. But my commentary focuses on the dual Studio Displays. It’s easy to take for granted how much space two Studio Displays take up. These are big displays and you need a pretty serious desk to harness them. And things change if you want to use them ergonomically — i.e. with one of the displays in front of you and the other off to the side so you aren’t constantly cranking your neck left or right.

Inside a $23,500,000 New York Townhouse in The West Village

I’m more of an elegant or serene aesthetic guy myself, so this style is right up my alley. But the kicker for me — how much would it suck to have your dining area up one floor from your kitchen? I imagine those who have the cash to purchase this home could likely hire someone to cook for them, and then perhaps they don’t need to worry about transporting dinner up the stairs to eat at the table. Or perhaps the dinner table is just a prop and you eat at the island in the kitchen. Either way, this design element always gets me.

Happy Sunday. I hope you have an excellent week ahead.