The Sunday Edition — 07.27.25

Sunday, Jul 27, 2025

Happy Sunday everyone! Our family spent last weekend at the lake, breathing in some fresh air and taking in some nature. We’re not yet at the phase of life where these weekends away are truly relaxing and revitalizing — our girls are full of life, eager to get out and explore, and need constant supervision — but we’re starting to see a future where relaxation is an option.

As a little experiment, we’re taking the whole family to Toronto this coming weekend to visit some friends, go to a baseball game, visit the aquarium, and more. Most importantly, we’re curious how the entire family handles traveling on an airplane. We’re curious to discover the issues, the bottlenecks, and the tips and the tricks. We are bound to move slower and do fewer things than we’re used to doing in a weekend trip, but we’re sure to do a lot of learning as well. We’ve never flown as a family before! It’s going to be quite the experience.

This short stint of family travel has provided a thought in my head as a father: lifestyle creep. We’ve hardly travelled as a family thus far, opting to keep our trips shorter and in environments we’ve visited before or are more comfortable in. This aligns a great deal with how we grew up — my wife’s family and mine would never have had the financial means to take the entire family on an airplane for a long weekend. It’s fun to provide new opportunities for our children that we would have never had as kids, but it’s scary, too. Are we spoiling them? Are the expectations going to be that we have to go on an airplane every time? Are we as parents going to slip into a new level of lifestyle that requires endless slaving to afford, all because we didn’t keep things simple when the kids were young?

It may be easy to read this and think there’s an easy answer, especially if you don’t have children, or if you can more than easily afford every airplane trip for a family of five. I think many folks who find themselves in that ever-expensive lifestyle creep are in a financial denial — they can’t afford the lifestyle, they don’t care that they can’t afford it, and they deny not being able to afford it. Experiences are by far the most expensive purchases.

But the pressure is real. You want to provide a wonderful childhood for your children. But how do you balance it? How much is enough? How much is too little? How much can I afford, both now and in the future? What standards should I set? What should be the expectation? How do I teach my children that joy doesn’t come from travel and experiences, but rather from the Lord?

Being a father is tough.


My last reflection of the week:

I had a close friend lose their father recently. This isn’t something folks my age go through too often. Being a good friend likely isn’t something too many people at this stage have lots of experience in. When asking some folks what their advice would be in this spot, the answer was consistently “Just be there for your friend”.

How does that answer translate into action? What does “Just be there” mean?

The conclusion I came to was to be honest about the awkwardness and the inexperience. I found reasonable success in stating “I don’t know what to say or how to say it”, or “I’m not very good with words in this situation” and spit out what you’re thinking in the moment. This seemed to get the point across and seemed to show some humanity.

I’m still not experienced in this regard. But if someone asked me how they should act when trying to be there for a friend, I’d say “Be honestly inexperienced” and hedge your bets on getting it wrong.

On using Apple products

Manuel Moreale on the recent trend to denounce Apple:

Could I switch away from Apple? Sure, I could ditch my iPhone and buy another phone, and I could ditch my Mac and buy a laptop with Linux, I guess. But the only thing I’d be accomplishing is to make life easier for myself, and I’d also stop using software developed by those developers I care about. And also, nobody would care. Because nobody should. Tools are tools; they either do the job you need them to do or they don’t. And the sad reality of this world we live in is that most big companies out there are awful. If you spend some time digging, you’ll find despicable things done by probably 99% of CEOs of big companies.

I find myself largely agreeing with Manuel’s sentiments. No matter where you look, you will find dirt. Even our own lives, if viewed through the lens of a journalist, would be riddled with deplorable actions worthy of denouncement. Living your life attempting to avoid every little thing is more trouble than it’s worth.

But, Ricardo Mori provided a great ”rebuttal” titled “The cost of selfishness” that’s worthy of reading in light of Moreale’s piece. It’s well-written and thought-provoking.

In the end, I believe people take these things way too seriously. Too many people extrapolate from a simple product purchase to a person’s overall moral compass. It’s completely unfair to condemn someone and judge them based on something as minuscule as a technology choice.

On the flip side, we live in a world where you get to pick what you want to purchase. So pick! And enjoy your pick. If there are consequences that go with that pick, then great.

The Second Cup

Super — Custom Websites with Notion

I'm considering a new blog for a specific category of writing I want to undertake, and Notion's publishing option feels like a fun experiment. Super is an extra cost but provides a number of great design templates. I'm intrigued.

Quip — AI Clipboard Manager

I use Paste right now for clipboard purposes. But the premise of an AI feature in the clipboard manager is also curious. I might have to take a look.

Can I Break 50 With Adam Sandler?

I watched Happy Gilmore 2 this weekend. It was neither here nor there, but I had a number of pretty good laughs. Scottie Scheffler stole the show for me — he's quickly becoming my favourite athlete in the world. The above is a link to a follow-up video on Bryson DeChambeau's Youtube channel.

Some Early Tests and Notes on ChatGPT Agent

I really like the example ideas Federico puts forward for using ChatGPT Agent. The potential uses for an AI feature like this feels endless. How long until legal and accounting associates are completely put out of work with features like this?


Happy Sunday. I hope you had a great day and a wonderful week ahead.