Second Quarter – 2025

What have I been up to? I’m glad I asked.

Outings

On April 17th I saw Elder at Théatre Fairmount, for the tenth anniversary of Lore. It was the first album of theirs I’d ever heard—a friend described it as “an hour-long power riff”—and they immediately became one of my favourite bands. I’ve seen them twice before (ask me about 76 sausages), but I was worried they’d never be back, after their last run in 2023 was plagued with tech issues (not their own). Anyway, they were back in full form, notably at a new venue. Just an absolutely perfectly tuned band. What a show.

Born upon the cusp of revelation

On May 25th, my partner and I saw Hokusai’s Great Wave at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. It looks like this:

🌊

(I didn’t get a good enough picture)

We also passed by the Alan Glass exhibit while we were there, which was spellbinding and multidisciplinary. Real inspirational stuff.

Then, on June 21st, while my dad was in town (more on that below), we visited Pointe-à-Callière for their newest exhibit on Knights. While it was mostly focused on the pagentry era (being mostly, iirc, from one private collection), there were some pretty sick fits.

Artist's rendition

All those outings, and others, are/as always in my tickets archive.

Learnings

Starting in late March, and extending to the very beginning of June, I took part in Firekeepers, a series of off-island bushcraft courses. It’s not strictly survival training, more about understanding & building some confidence/competence working in the outdoors. That was a lot of fun, with a good group of folks, and it culminated with a weekend campout at Arundel (I believe that’s pronounced “a-RUN-dle,” though one of our peers, recently in Canada, pronounced it “ah-ruhn-DELLE,” like some hidden refuge of the Sylvan Elves).

I’d never organised a wilderness outing like this myself, so just figuring out the logistics of it—food, shelter, toilet, transport, fire—was a learning experience. I slept in a tight, one-person tent by a river, in complete darkness. It was nice, with a mosquitoes-shaped asterisk.

I assure you there was a roll of TP in there as well

My neck of the woods

In other learnable news, I deleted my Duolingo account. If you don’t know why, or disagree that genAI is an ethical, environmental, and social catastrophe, that must be nice.

parental advisory explicit lyrics

Cycling

It was a slower start to the biking season than I’d hoped… I’d only gone on two outings by the time June rolled around! Most of that was due to rain—I’m definitely, literally a fairweather cyclist—or the Firekeepers outings mentioned above, but now that I’ve reclaimed my weekends, I’m back on the road and enjoying myself.

I’ve got accounts on Strava and Komoot; more of my friends are on the former, but it’s been getting pretty AI-y and selling out, so I’m hoping to invest more time in the latter. I dunno, maybe find me on either!

Buckyball

Overlook

bnnuy

Also, during one of my Bixi commutes home from work, I had the great honour of finding myself behind someone with a Costanza calf:

Everyone's doing something; we'll do nothing.

Healthing

I also got my COVID booster shot #10! Feels nice to break into double-digits.

💉💪

Brain-wise, I’ve been dealing with a lot of Apathy and Self-Esteem(lessness). Maybe more on that some other time, preferably with a therapist.

Viewings, readings, & playthings

Laurence Anyways and The People’s Joker were standouts, film-wise. They both happened to be queued up in my list of double features, and hey, Trans Rights. Beautiful, creative, heartbreaking, generous.

I finally finished reading 1Q84. Did I enjoy it? Well, I was compelled to find out how it would end. The prose moment-to-moment kind of rubbed me like a bad translation, and it felt unnecessarily bloated.

I finally finished playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Did I enjoy it? Well, I was compelled to find out how it would end. I still think it’s bloated & unnecessary, but it’s got the Nintendo juice, what can I say? 130 hours played.

Eating

I had an incredible porchetta rapini sandwich from Bossa in Verdun.

Look at this thing

I met up with some friends for a very shouty, very meaty, very carb-filled evening at l’Auberge du dragon rouge.

Zounds

And (as mentioned above), my dad came to town so we could visit the Mondial de la bière togther. He and his oldest buddy had been attending pretty much yearly, since they came across it cycling through the Old Port in the mid-‘90s, though he’d missed it since my family left Montréal in 2015. Anyway, he came back for the weekend, and even brought some vintage tasting glasses, by our reckoning from 2004. It was a perfect day for sitting outside with a couple of samplers.

Cheers

Working

We still haven’t announced our current project at work, but I think that might change Soon™!

I’m hoping to write more notes here, about some of the new things I’m learning as I transition to more of a support/infra/devops role. I’d also like to revisit how we can promote an internal culture of sharing our operations more openly: in the past we’ve had a Tumblr, and a blog (on Tumblr), and a Medium; and nowadays we have a newsletter (do sign up); though I feel like we could always be even more reflective and transparent in our processes.

Honourable mentions

I swear my quarterlies won’t always end in a Miscellaneous section about cherries, but I had the platonic ideal of Cherries.

How d'ya like them cherries?

I also saw an olive tree! In Montréal! I’m hesitant to eat a berry.

Olive you glad to see me?

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That was April to June 2025! Comment however you see fit.

♥🖖