Month: June 2021

Posted on

Work-Life-Balance

I’ve had a busy week.

While this blog tends to be a great outlet for me to find some balance between my time at my desk and my time in real world, sometimes that balance tips too far to one side and I find myself sitting on a Friday evening with not much to write about because I haven’t done much worth writing about over the past week.

Today is kinda like that.

Balancing Screen Time

With dozens of readers coming to this blog every day you may be wondering why I still need to work.

But seriously.

I have a great job with lots of flexibility for time off and to live a life where I can sleep in my own bed every night. I’m grateful for that.

That said … said job is ninety-five percent spent in front of a screen.

So you blog in your free time? You ask. On a screen?

I enjoy having a place where I can be myself and do something similar that I do for others, but do that thing for myself. But yes, not every day do I find myself savoring the idea of another few minutes in front of another screen.

How does one balance?

Balance comes from a having a plan, or so I find. Balance is the result of having something to do that pulls you away from the easy thing to do … too easy, like flipping open your phone and scrolling, or flicking the remote and queuing up the next streaming show.

Balance comes from doing the things that you need to do in proportion to the things you want to do. Not everyone has that luxury, of course, but it is something that we all seek and for many a thing that we will spend much of our lives working for, looking for, striving for.

I’m here on a Friday afternoon after completing a very long list of things I needed to do.

Meetings. Reports. Emails. Managing.

I’m hoping my weekend holds an equitable list of things I want to do.

Wandering. Cooking. Running. Creating.

That’s my work-life balance.

Posted on

Smoked Chops

When I was younger our summers always meant smoked pork chops.

I didn’t appreciate it much at the time, but my father had access to bulk buy cases of delicious, thick chops direct from the local processing facility. He did this once per year, ensuring that in our chest freezer lived a cardboard box containing about forty of these special treats, setting our family up for seven or eight really great summer meals.

Then I moved away, went to University, lived my life, started a family, and…

It turns out that these specific smoked meats are not as common in the local grocery store as my easy access to these delectable slabs of not-quite-pork chops seemed to be in my youth.

It also turns out that my wife had a similar experience growing up. Her family also caught the summer vibes of a slab of smoked pork. Her youth was also one of barbecued pink meats and camp meals made from this exclusive, elusive delicacy.

The ties that bind us, eh?

What’s up with smoked pork chops anyways, you ask?

Well, imagine a regular pork chop, but infused with a subtle smoky flavour resembling bacon, edging towards the succulent tenderness of a slice of ham, and all grilled over the hot flame of a barbecue or to a tasty crisp finish in a cast iron pan. Moist. Aromatic. A piece of meat nudged towards the perfection one imagines from a great barbecue, but heated and ready to be eated in less than fifteen minutes.

For some reason we were lamenting our inability to find these chops locally in recent a family conversation. Then last week it was my wife’s birthday. Not thinking anyone remembered that first convo, well, it turned out I was wrong… in a good way. Her folks showed up and (jokey gift kind of people that they are) cracked open a cooler full of smoked chops.

It turns out that if nostalgia could set off the smoke detector as it cooks in a thin layer of hot oil, my nostalgia would be shaped like a pork chop.

It was as good as I remembered. And I appreciate it now.

Posted on

The Value to Comment

Readers may have noticed that I don’t make commenting available here.

This is a conscious choice on my part to limit the conversations about these things that I write about to more open and public platforms and in doing so keep this blog something more personal and deliberately curated.

I tend to lean towards the idea that comments have a strong role in social media but not an obligatory one.

I only bring it up because yesterday the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, announced that they would be turning off Facebook comments for one month on their news posts if for no other reason than to give their reporters a break from the never-ending barrage of attacks that fill those comments.

(If you thought Canadians were polite, look no further than Facebook for evidence to the contrary, I guess.)

It makes me wonder if there is a better way to create interaction with people in a public space like this blog than simply having a text box for someone to type their thoughts into. Why? Because as I post each of these articles each and every day, yes, I do care that someone is reading them, I do care that someone has thoughts about them, and I do wish there was a better way to interact with my readers than the comment firehose that comes with creating a community around a topic I love to write about.

On a side note, I do not use Facebook. I have my reasons. In fact, I deleted my account a couple years ago and have no interest in diving back in.

I do use many other social platforms, however, and enjoy the conversations I have there.

I enjoy them so much that often I’ve been tempted, holding my finger over the toggle switch on some posts, to turn on the comments here just to see what happens.

I know what happens, of course. I’ve seen it for years.

Spam, mostly. Then a large collection of negative comments. All that peppered with a barely visible seasoning of enjoyable feedback.

Comments are not just about the positive love-giving vibes, but it helps. Comments are not exclusively for validation, but people who validate are often less likely to write something than those who are just out to quash ideas. Comments are meant to be about exchanging ideas, but too often boil down to anger and disagreement.

So… I don’t turn them on. Even though they would have some value to me, I would rather lose that value and continue to write, curate, and share in my own little bubble, than to have a few happy comments at the price of wading through the garbage that would certainly crush my spirit.

I get why those reporters need a break, and I’d rather not need one too.

So. Thanks for reading… even if you can’t drop a note back.

Posted on

New York Deli

After my weekend foray into a batch of sourdough made with locally sourced rye flour, I got to thinking (and actually mentioned) a fabulous rye-bread pastrami sandwich that I shared with my wife back in 2016 in a world famous deli in the lower east side of Manhattan.

As promised, I dug through my old photos and discovered this mouth-watering gem.

for whatever one photo is worth:

In 2016 I won the lottery.

Sadly it wasn’t a cash prize. Instead, my name got picked from a big pool of runners who had submitted their entries to run as international participants in the annual New York City Marathon.

On a sunny Sunday morning in early November (literally hours before that infamous national US election) I ran forty-two point two kilometers through five boroughs of New York, starting in Staten Island, through Brooklyn, into Queens, over to Manhattan, and then a quick sweep through the Bronx before heading back to Manhattan to cross the line in the middle of Central Park.

My wife cheered me in and helped me hobble back to the hotel where I crashed over a bowl of carbs and a bottle of water.

The next day I was sore, tired, and hungry.

We walked, spent some time riding the subway, and checked out some museums at a much more leisurely pace than I’d done the day prior.

By lunch, we’d made our way to the lower east side, and towards one of my bucket list lunch spots: Katz’s Delicatessen.

As you walk in the door they hand you an orange paper ticket that tracks your order. I ordered at a packed, shoulder-to-shoulder counter nearly the length of the building, and the guy sliced my lunch there in front of me handing me a small sample to taste before I brought it all back to a table.

We shared a sandwich with each other, pushed through some fries and a pile of dill pickles, and chugged a cold beer to boot. We shared the table with a quartet of other marathoners who we chatted with and cheered before heading on our way stuffed and satisfied.

It was a memorable trip by all accounts. Not only did I run a marathon, but we saw a show on Broadway, met up with friends at the fountain in Columbus Circle, high-fived a famous actress at a nut cart in Central Park, attended a live taping of the Late Show, and stumbled upon multiple epic bridges, towers, landmarks and sights on foot… all before fleeing the country on the morning of their election.

Yet somehow among all of that, one tasty pastrami sandwich held it’s own in my memory.