Good morning! It's another Sunday and we're inching closer to the halfway mark of the 2025 year. Crazy. The old adage goes that the days are long but the years are short, and 2025 has felt like the shortest one yet.

I recently discovered a new luxury: hiring out your lawn-mowing. Man, some serious first world problems, right? I know. I admit, it's embarrassing. I'll tell you what though, the incredible amount of extra free time and extra freedom I've come across as a result of not having to worry so much about my yard has been the highlight of my month of May so far.

I have a 1/3rd acre yard, give or take, and it takes me about 1.5 hours to cut my grass (if I'm bagging the clippings, trimming, etc.). However, I also have to get rid of those clippings, which adds another 30 minutes or so to the job. All told, I can expect around a 2-hour job each time I need to cut my grass.

When I'm responsible for cutting the grass, I feel obligated to cut it twice a week. Put simply, I dedicate about 4 hours a week to keeping my lawn cut and trimmed.

There's more though — I can't leave the office to cut my grass, so I have to cut during a weekday evening after the family's extra-curriculars are done for the day, or I have to take time from the weekend. To me, those 4 hours aren't just 4 random hours. Those 4 hours are 4 of the most valuable hours I have to spend time with family, friends, or taking care of other errands around the house.

So there's this added sense of delight watching someone cut the grass while I mix chemical for the weeds, do some gardening, fix something small around the house, and giggle with my girls while they play piano or play with their Barbies. Honestly, it's some of the best money I've spent in the past year.

Google I/O 2025

I'm going to piggy back on some other writers and chat quickly about Google I/O. I didn't watch the event like I do Apple keynotes and most of Google's big announcements fly right over my head. But I'd be completely remiss to ignore Google's incredible speed in their AI department.

Gemini has become one of three essential AI tools in my current toolkit. Gemini has overtaken Google as my preferred option for googling a question or for getting a basic backdrop around a topic. Its Canvas feature is excellent and works as a great writing aid for writings like the Sunday Edition or a memo I have to write to a client.

My biggest complaint about Gemini is that the Gemini modules available to my free personal Google account far outclass the modules available to my paid Google Workspace account. I don't fully grasp why the free account gets better Gemini tools than the paid Workspace account. If I want to use Deep Research, I have to use my personal Google account. (And Deep Research is so cool — I am researching whether our office should move from Microsoft to Google permanently and Deep Research provided me a 20+ page memo after researching about 80 websites in the span of about 10 minutes of work. Amazing.)

My most used AI tool is BlueJ, an AI-agent for making quick work of Canadian tax research. I use BlueJ for far more than just tax research — it's pretty easy to copy and paste an email inquiry and have BlueJ provide an in-depth answer in minutes. I've found BlueJ to be great for adding depth to any answer — I know a lot about Canadian tax and the immediate implications of a transaction, but there are always secondary considerations at play for every transaction which BlueJ does a great job identifying.

I don't have too many complaints about BlueJ. It's actually nicely designed. It works pretty quickly (though, other AI options do seem to handle questions faster). And it does a wonderful job staying within the confines of a professional tax accountant. I'd like to be able to upload documents on occasion, which might be edited for accuracy. But overall, BlueJ is the single, most impactful tool added to our office toolset in 2025.

Lastly, I use NotebookLM for the few areas where BlueJ falls short. If I have multiple documents I need to reference about a particular topic or to answer a particular question, I'll drop all those sources into a specific notebook in NotebookLM and have NotebookLM either create connections between the sources or draft a memo in my voice to be sent off. I especially appreciate that I can now use NotebookLM on the iPad, which is my preferred device for reading, research, and simple writing.

(I'll provide an honourable mention to ChatGPT thanks to its custom GPTs. There are a few great custom options, such as the Accounting GPT, which makes short work of providing accounting and reporting rules around a specific line item. I've used the Accounting GPT to build out note disclosures for financial statements which I don't have any prior example for, or I'll ask the Accounting GPT for guidance on specific accounting criteria I don't regularly use. This custom GPT, in particular, has been fantastic for my work.)

I'm very intrigued with where Google AI moves forward and specifically how it all ends up integrating in a tool like Notion. We use Notion extensively in the office, though we are not Notion AI subscribers. Some of Notion's recent feature announcements — such as AI Meeting Notes — seem like a killer feature for our office. I'm looking for ways to move more into the Google Workspace world and have that integrate with Notion and Notion AI to have an instantly-connected office capable of serving twice as many or three times as many clients as more traditional firms. That's the goal, at least. No saying I'll be able to pull it off.

The Second Cup

Home Technologies Inc.'s Beautiful Upcoming Display

I'll believe this when I see it shipped. But for now, this is a stunning display and appears worthy of any aesthetically pleasing workspace.

A lofi journaling kit for the digital age

I've been a bit more inspired with the analog world again recently. Not sure why. But the Traveler's Notebook is in my bag as we speak and I'm thinking of a way to incorporate it into my daily workflow once again. Adding an Instax printer to the workflow could make for a lot of fun.

Igor Lypnytskyi on Threads

This is some of the best Toronto photography I've discovered on Threads and Instagram thus far. Lovely, lovely colour.

A different Leica Q3 43 review: 43 Photos with the best every day camera - part 1

This is a great review of the Q3 43. The Q3 43mm would likely be my next camera, though I am so happy with my Q2 that I doubt I'm buying a camera in the next 5 years. If I was buying though, the Q3 43mm would be high on the list.

Somehow, that's north of 1,250 words already. I'll ramble on more next week.

Happy Sunday! Hope you have a great week ahead.