Happy house anniversary again

Every January 30th is a small celebration for us. It’s the day in 2016, that we moved into our current house. Our Toronto home that we never imagined we would find. Its the day that we reflect on how much we have enjoyed it and how much our family has grown. You remember the new furniture. You remember figuring out how things worked. You remember planning where everything was going to go.

Every January 30th, I do take a few moments to remember a lot of these things. What always jumps out to me is how lucky we were to get the house in the first place. So many things went our way to make it happen. The right place. The right time. It could have gone so different.

Even just a year later, I don’t know if we could have been able to do it. With the housing market and just how expensive things became, we scored.

A Pascal Siakim appreciation post

Well it happened. Like I mentioned yesterday, it felt like the time was coming. The Toronto Raptors finally pulled the trigger on a Pascal Siakim deal. He’s off to the Indiana Pacers for a less than thrilling haul of stuff. The 2019 championship team is gone. It’s really hard to believe.

So before I start to welcome Bruce Brown Jr. (if he isn’t traded again) and start to wonder who these first round picks can become, I want to focus on Pascal.

One of the truly wonderful stories, not only for the Raptors, but for basketball.

So long to the NBA champion Toronto Raptors

Despite my wife saying it’s been in a the news for weeks and weeks, it seems the trading of Pascal Siakim is finally here. It could be today or this week is my feeling.

When it actually does happen, that will be the end of the 2019 title team. All the players will be gone. The coach is gone. I guess the only pieces left are the executive team that built it all. Oh and We The North.

It’s hard to believe that in less than 5 years, it will all be gone and to be honest, the team has declined quite a bit since.

Now, things have looked a little better as of late with the trade for IQ and RJ, but still, look at what the team was in 2019. It was a perfect team. I think it gets overlooked at just how complete a team it was.

Toronto has large squirrels

Where I sit each day at my computer, overlooks our backyard. I can see trains, the newly built condo behind us, a lot of trees and finally – squirrels. So many squirrels. Our backyard is like the Dundas Square (soon to be renamed) of squirrels.

But what I find myself noticing more and more, is not the amount of squirrels, but the size of these damn beasts.

Finally some snow in Toronto

For those who were wanting a white Christmas, it finally came in Toronto, many days after the holiday. That’s fine by me. Snow isn’t as fun as it used to be. My only real want for the white powder is that it means the seasons are still what they are supposed to be. It means the world is doing what it’s supposed to. No snow kind of says that the climate is truly changing.

Ottawa for example has had one of the mildest winters so far and it’s an ongoing story if the Rideau Canal will freeze enough this year for skating.

The Raptors have changed Quickley

Good morning, the sun is shining and the entire mood has changed when it comes to the Toronto Raptors. It was only a few days ago where the rug was pulled out, not only in saying goodbye to OG, but that loss to the lowly Detroit Pistons. What a difference the changing of the calendar has brought.

The entire vibe has changed. There is juice in the building. The Raptors are back? All because of a trade that has balanced the roster and given the team what looks like a new identity.

The new year ahead

Welcome to 2024 everyone. It’s day 2 and I have aleady fallen behind on something I wanted to try out. That would be to try and write at least 500 words every day. Not focusing on clicks, or topics that will get clicks, or creating conversation or engagement. Just writing for the fun of writing. Like I did many years ago. Funny enough, writing for just fun pushed me into a career where it was about engagement, clicks and trying to stratigize what Google wanted to see. I think that is what kind of killed the buzz.

It really was about a daily journal to cut down on phone calls as I did not really like phone calls with family and friends. Posting about what I was up to was much easier. It was also before it was a thing to share everything on social media. Just like the boomerang of writing, to not writing, to writing again, social media is starting to go away from oversharing (at least that’s what I think). Sure there are endless amounts of influencers on Tik Tok and Instagram showing off their literal boring days and what they are cooking, but if you look at Facebook for example, your parents, aunts, highschool friends etc. are not sharing much anymore. Or at least what it was like several years ago.