My book, Built Environment Compendium Vol.1 is now available for free.

⛄️ I know I keep harping on the weather but next week is looking rough.

Walking out of the airport, we were greeted with an innocuous comment from one of the members of staff at Pearson Airport, ‘Welcome home everyone.’

One of the things that I have not done successfully in my personal site, and a clear oversight on my part, is the fact that I rarely discuss how I feel in my current, and importantly chosen, place to call home. As someone who has lived and worked in Greece, UK, Qatar, UAE, Denmark and now Canada, this is a failing on my part.

With that being said, the best time to start a forest is 30 years ago, the next best time is now. Here are the things that I really appreciate about living in Canada:

1. The quality of people is some of the very best that I have met anywhere in the world. Many are my kind of people.
2. The Toronto Public Library system is world class. You have a 100 library network that will deliver books wherever you are. It has access to Libby, to Hoopla, it’s like having a free Amazon subscription.
3. Air Quality (except in the summer time, during forest fires)
4. Tap Water Quality. Living in the Middle East means constantly drinking water from plastic bottles. Some delivered to the house regularly that you are paying for.
5. Relatively calm driving experience.
6. All four seasons.
7. Amazing craft beer selection

Slowly but surely this place is growing on me and making me happy in lots of different ways. I want to keep adding to this list as I find them, because its very easy to forget.

⛄ First snow day of the year. Schools are out, it’s been snowing all night and won’t stop for a few more hours.

The quiet of falling snow.
Parkas.
Snow boots.
Hearty soups.
Sledding.
Full body weekend dinners.
Cuddles to stay warm.
The delight of slightly longer days.
Snow fights with the kids.
Hibernation movies.
Roasted chestnuts.
The crunch under your feet of fresh snow.

Canada is taking Minnesota. It’s settled. Love everything about this. ‘Am I the only one seeing this?’.

Finch West LRT. Spent a considerable number of hours these last few years on this one. Plenty of anguish but glad Ryan made me make the pilgrimage to this line.

I’ve been reading Luis Mendo’s Mundo Mendo, Book One, which I have been really loving. At its very core, it’s a visual blog given form. He is of course an incredibly talented artist but the reflections and writing is in the style of a personal site, given form as a tiny little book that I get to carry with me in my jacket pocket.

This has lead me to putting the phone away on my commute to and from work and really just immerse myself in this ‘eccentric’ Spanish artist living in Japan.

This has got me thinking that a similar format for my short stories might be a really good fit. 50 words per A6 page, add some art or photos or sketches or whatever. It’s a new format for people wanting to disconnect from their phones.

I just sat there with Zane to do a simple art session. I said I was going to draw a face and he was going to draw a blob face. We just ran from there and kept going.

Inspiration exists, it just needs to find you working.

Thankfully I think I’m over the jet lag. First couple of days were rough - when I loose sleep I get mega impatient and just tend to loose my temper quickly. Had 48 hours there I am not proud of. Onwards and upwards.

Every year I look to the 12 months ahead and make some insanely loft plan of the creative output that I want to achieve. Every year I make some progress, but it does always fall short of those plans. This year I think my plan is to have a set number of things that I want to achieve. I don’t need to achieve any of these, as they are hobbies, but they make me happy and publishing them at least makes it easier for me to focus on things I thought were pretty important for me.

Learning

• Last year I started working getting through the entire Proko Perspective course.
• I do want to find a novel writing course. I have ideas and a voice, but I don’t think I am stringing my words in the best way possible. I know I can do better.

Projects

1. Colours - Chapter #3. I am nearly done writing this chapter. It’s been a much larger chapter than I originally imagined, but it’s nice to have this one done.
2. Honest - Chapter #1. I want to start another short story. This one is actually a family story so looking forward to bringing it to life in any way.
3. A Simple Guide to the Construction Industry - Part 2. It’s strange that I am diving into part 2 without having published Part 1 yet, but that’s ok. This book practically writes itself for me and I can’t wait to share it as I think it will benefit a ton of people.
4. Moon Racket! - I don’t want to spend to much time thinking about scripts and stories for these characters. I don’t mind spending a little bit of time just having fun with these characters and drawing them in weird and wonderful ways.
5. Illustrations - I think drawing on a regular basis is good for me and something for myself and Zane to bond over. The first three projects will need some illustrations (or at least I want to provide a visual for each of them).

January reading pile.

This site now is entering its 23rd year online. It’s wild to me that I’ve been able to make this habit stick. Micro.blog has played a crucial role in allowing me the space to do this.

My only regret is the fact that it took me a while to understand who I was ultimately writing for - primarily my future self, secondarily everyone reading this. In my early days, I was doing the opposite and it doesn’t make for great reading.

Thin Desires Are Eating Your Life

A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it. A thin desire is one that doesn’t.

Fantastic concept for framing ‘desires’. It’s funny timing, but Notes on Being a Man just went through this same concept. Scott Galloway uses a different name for it (Slowpa). I like this better - via Kottke

I like Ben’s 2026 checklist. So here is mine:

• Wake up at 6am.
• Do my 5 Tibetans.
• Have my Greek yogurt and raisins/fruit in the morning.
• Salad or soup for lunch.
• Whatever I want for dinner. No fruit juices (except very, very occasionally).
• Read book/comic every day, even if it’s a few pages.
• Write 50 words a day. The project doesn’t matter, it’s the practice and habit which I love.
• Reflect on the day that just went by in my 5 year Hobonichi.
• Spend an hour with the kids, drawing or a creative project together.
• Go to bed at 10:30pm.

Ones that I am going to steal from Ben are:

• Communicate with a friend, even if it’s just a one-line text.
• Tell the people I love, that I love them.

Travelling with a family of four I’ve learnt a few important things that I need to have sorted ahead of the next trip:

1. Overear phones for the little ones. Even though there are free ones, they likely won’t fit in their earholes. I do need a replacement for my own - but that is a 2026 purchase (probably another Sony set).
2. 4G mini router. eSIMs are great and for countries with good telecommunications maybe that’s all you need. For all the other places you need something that will connect several devices under a single plan. There are a few other options that don’t even require a SIM, but these do seem a little more hit and miss.
3. Laundry bags (a large one for the kids and two smaller ones for Yasmine and myself). Got two of these from Amazon and they worked great. One for us and one for the kids
4. A sling bag of some description is a necessity. The bag you travel with will not be the one you use on a regular basis. I had a great Timbuk2 backpack but it’s too big as a daily driver.
5. Crocs. Showering and just getting around your new surroundings is an essential item.
6. Charger with multiple outputs. We have a metric ton of devices. iPads, iPhones, Nintendos, earphones - all need to be charged. Get one of these and solve the problem across multiple devices. Bring a smaller version with a few outputs and shorter cables for carrying around.
7. Aeropress for making coffee. This is a must for me. Quick to clean and all you need is a bag of beans (always good to try something local), hot water and milk. I’ve also purchased a mini digital scale that works perfectly and is tiny. I might look to invest in the travel version because it comes with the cup as well.
8. Take some laundry detergent with us. If we’re going to an apartment/airbnb it’s likely we might need to put in a wash (or two). Finding the right one that won’t give us a problem with sensitive skins.
9. I definitely need a neck pillow. We got a couple for the kids and they were able to get some sleep for a few hours without us being scared for them. A cool feature is that they fold in on themselves into a small pillow. Will see if there is an adult version with a similar feature for being super easy to carry.
10. Tote bag for the flight. We always end up getting something at the airport. If it’s not sweets for the office, it’s a few bottles of water for the flight.
11. A small screwdriver set (from Hoto) because there were a few times when I needed to screw something and didn’t have an alternative (think toys, glasses, etc).

A whirlwind of a trip. If I don’t get these thoughts somewhere, they will be lost:

• Lebanon is about family first and food second. Usually combined in family food events.
• The pleasant weather in the winter is a massive bonus and when it rains in Lebanon is pours like no other - probably a function of the water coming up from the Mediterranean and then hitting the mounts straight away.
• It can also be a sad place, with plenty of poverty, stupidity, exploitation and despair on full view. The children begging on streetlights were especially hard to see, with my two boys in the back seat.
• The traffic system is an absolute nightmare. It’s either non existent or irrelevant. The sheer density of the space makes it very difficult for things to function even slightly. It all just falls apart and it’s gridlock. At night, when I was driving a lot, you can sample the city in a different way. What would take you 30min normally takes you 5min.
• This then means that the air pollution is stifling. We ventured out for a walk once. We never repeated it again as we all felt the impact on our lungs in a big way, wishing for Canadian air.
• Travelling with kids (although a minor part of the journey), I’ve also learnt that we need to take a few specific things with us that makes our life a little bit. Overhead earphones and neck pillows are an absolute must.
• There is a ton of creativity within the Lebanese people, who refuse to let things stand fully as they are, but equally, there are some much more deep routed fundamental issues that can never be fixed through this type of organisation.

Last of these photos sadly. This is Lebanese spaghetti - usually comes with pine nuts which my mother forgot this time. Instantly took me and my brother back to our home in Athens.

Goodbye Lebanon. That went by pretty damn fast.

Kibeh Bil Labban. Haven’t had this in nearly a decade..who knows, maybe more?

2025 iA Recap. Lovely recap of the year for iA. I’ve been on the fence about their notebook (because the price is insane) and haven’t dived into Presenter yet, but iA Writer is easily one of my favourite apps and that blue line always makes me smile.

🇱🇧 Kibeh and Tarator. I could eat these at every meal.

Booked our ride to the airport - while it’s been amazing seeming everyone I am starting to get itchy for my own route and creature comforts. Any time you leave for an extended period of time, you get to a point that it’s time to go back. Today I felt that.

The dish fully cooked. Warak Inab.

My absolute favourite dish in the entire world. A triumph of any cuisine.

It’s been a rough few days with Zane and his coughing, which at night gets worse and turns to vomiting what he ate in the evening. Four days on little sleep means we are pretty agitated.

My mood is messed up and the holiday has just turned a little sour for me. It’s been great seeing family and also enjoying good food but the price we’ve had to pay is (at the moment) to high. We have four more days to go here and back on a plane. In some ways it’s moved very quickly and in others it’s moved slowly.

Here are the books I finished reading in 2025.

This year was less than last year but it was very targeted. Some wonderful books in there but Unreasonable Hospitality was my favourite book with Daytripper as my favourite graphic novel (although there was some stiff competition).

Can’t wait to see what 2026 brings.

🎄 Merry Christmas everyone!

Notes on Being a Man. Somehow I wasn’t aware that Scott Galloway just released a new book.

The tagline is what hits hard (emphasis mine): ‘How to address the masculinity crisis, build mental strength and raise good sons.’

A pretty elegant Christmas tree.

Spent some time with my dad. It’s been a lifetime since we had that kind of interaction. He had to check up on his eyes, so I braved walking the Hamra.

It was fun afterwards had a little breakfast and he had his first ‘Latte’. He’s always liked milky coffee, just is used to making it using Arabic coffee and milk or a straight up frothy cappuccino.

🇱🇧 Didn’t take a photo because it was gone in seconds, but had our first chicken and lahmeh shawarma. Kids loved it as well - although not sure if they loved it more than souvlakis.

🇱🇧 Lebanon does a lot of things really well - food, culture, small family owned businesses and family.

It also does a lot of things really badly - air quality, noise, utilities (water/electricity/internet) and traffic.

🇱🇧 Chicken Masala pizza. The kinda thing you will only find here - at my brother-in-law’s sourdough bakery.

🇱🇧 A new variation on Manaeesh that I’ve never tried before. Grish Ebn Albalad.

🇱🇧 Mediterranean skies.

🇱🇧 Fasoulia.

🇱🇧 Kunafeh.

We went bowling today for the first time. They made me play with a handicap (using the smallest bowling ball) after my two strikes.

🇱🇧 Mougrabieh.

Jet lagged. Waking up regularly around 4am means I’ve been operating on some weird ass amounts of sleep at the moment. Still the quiet before the start of the day has always been one of my favourite things in the world.

🇱🇧 Pomegranate, rose water, clementines and lemons.

🇱🇧 Even the veggies taste more vibrant.

🇱🇧 Manoushi.

Travelling for nearly 24 hours with a family of four was brutal. Nothing was particularly difficult (except the delay getting out of Toronto) but in the aggregate all the different things add up.

In the moment, when you are 12 hours into your journey and all you want to do is have a meal, shower and sleep you say things like, ‘I don’t ever want to do this again’. But once the dust has settled and you’ve regained a little bit of your composure, you begin to reflect, ‘that wasn’t sooo bad, right?’

This site will turn into a bit of a food blog over the coming few weeks. Warak Inab Bil Zeit.

🛫 Awesome. Plane delayed by 2 hours and everyone is getting tetchy.

Great. Plane has been delayed by an hour….for some auxiliary motor? From the captain:

It’s the little motor that helps the bigger motor to starts…

Yasmine’s face dropped and she was like, ‘did I need to know this? No I did not.’

It’s been a really long time since I boarded a plane. It’s been nearly 6 years since we visited Lebanon.

• The ‘world’ didn’t know what covid was.
• I was heading to Denmark.
• Lebanon was in a state of chaos (but a completely different kind).
• My kids were closer to babies.
• Wearing cold gear was a novelty.
• My parents were younger. Seemingly much younger and at the start of their retirement years.

Let the holiday season begin.

Wake up to everything white.

Packing has begun. I always start with my backpack. Necessary documentation (for a family of four), notebooks/stationary, reading material, electronics. One thing I am really looking forward to is some crazy ass blogging in the coming month.

Procreate Dreams 2 looks like a pretty massive update. I never got the first version (an oversight more than anything else), but this just shows how the team at Savage Interactive shipped something, listened and updated it to make it better.

I don’t tend to take care of my shoes very often. The whole process takes me back when I was a kid and my dad would clean all his shoes on a Sunday. I loved the buffing process. Still do. The transformation is always like a magic trick.

My favourite song at the moment, …Baby one more time by Tenacious D - wait what?! Even the little addition ‘hit me baby but not so hard)’ is excellent.

First time I see the two new lines on the subway map. Of course, I spent a decent amount of my life working on line 6 these last few years.

For the children, there is only one rule to the game, throw Onyx off the tree. For Onyx, the rule is also simple to understand but more difficult to execute, throw everyone else before they get to him first. The sheer size of the tree is accentuated during this game as the children run along the branches, they are suddenly more aware of their own size, it distracts some, who loose their footing and fall to the ground, playing themselves out of the game.

Came downstairs and Ryan is nattering away on his keyboards…but that sound was familiar. Of course, leave it to Ryan to hunt for the TTC theme song (the chime when a train arrives into a station) and learn it.

The wind is howling violently out there tonight. The weather is definitely locking at the moment. We had a good run this fall which lasted a little longer than expected.

While it feels like a high stakes game, it’s more about dominance against defiance. Onyx tends to keep to himself, however when confronted he refuses to cower away, even to his own detriment. The rest of the children swarm around him, but he’s wise to their advances. As quick as thought, Onyx leaps onto the tree and quickly scampers up. He allows himself a smile. The chase is on.

Time stretches further.
The colour of the leaves on the trees has almost completely drained away. The children are not quite adults, though their bodies have filled out and certainly look the part, their minds have still not developed to the same level. The games have become more elaborate and seemingly a little more cruel. They are chasing Onyx, who has found some success when the hunt is in the tree itself.

Shocked, Onyx can only utter one word, ‘Why?’. The other children cannot hear him, nor do not want to. They are seeing red in a way that children can, devoid of any self control. The shove takes Onyx by surprise; he looses his balance and falls to the ground. The angry children around him begin kicking the ground at him, sand starts flying everywhere and gets into his eyes. While the pain in his eyes stings, the feeling of isolation hurts a lot more.

🍸 Last year I went with a Black Russian as my holiday build up drink of choice. I’m back to the classic White Russian but made from Ontario ingredients this time.

🛞❄️ Winter tires went on today. Ready for the brutality that will be heading our way. So far into November it has been fine, nothing to complain about really.

13 days. That’s how long it took me to find my missing glove. I’m not going to lie there were several times in these last few days that I’ve come this close to throwing that lone glove as it stared at it me every time I entered the house. Thanks to Yasmine it actually survived.

I’ve not been able to write as much on account of the fact that I have yet another exam. This time it’s for my engineering license here in Canada, Law and Ethics. Everyone, regardless of education or experience needs to take this exam, which I can get behind. Very colloquial, very country specific. Once it’s done I can get back to something a little bit more creative.

His happiness, as small and simple as it is, was short lived. Another group of kids arrives shortly after the first group. This group is not here to admire. This group is here to control. With a single glance at Onyx’s creation they have a primal and visceral reaction. It begins with Onyx being pushed out of the way, before they proceede to collectively trampling his sand structure. Only once they are all satisfied that no element of it remained do they turn their attention to its creator.

Today is one of those mega windy days. Totally takes me back to our time in Denmark when it was windy, rainy and grey. Ryan decided he really wanted to ride his bike. After maybe 2 minutes and a big gust of wind, he made an about turn and headed straight back home 🤣.

A small gaggle of curious kids approaches him to see what he’s built. The keep their distance but you can see a few fascinated by the way Onyx is manipulating and working with the sand and water in front of him. There is audible delight as he gently blows life into his creation, giving it a shimmering black gloss. Onyx is not used to an audience but this one time he allows himself to smile.

🎄 It happened, the very first, ‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year…’ was heard in a store today. The hotel I was at for the Healthcare Infrastructure conference put up their Christmas decorations yesterday. Feels a little early for me, but what do I know.

As he has become accustomed to this Onyx has chosen a spot further away from the rest of the children. He maintains some proximity to see what the other children are doing. It’s a mistake he will learn from. For the moment, Onyx focuses on the build in front of him. From the sand he is creating an intricate tower with sweeping curves and interconnected bridges.

The children are older now.

Their games have become a little bit more sophisticated. They are playing in the sandbox at the foot of the tree. Some kids and grabbing the sand, giving it their colour and releasing it in the air, forming a colourful cloud of sand for an instance before falling lifelessly back on the ground. Others are building intricate structures and giving them life through colour.

The colours manifested in different ways, some visible, some hidden. The most striking way was in the children’s eyes. For most of their infant lives, the children had smokey grey eyes. It was only when the children finally came of age and the colour of their eyes shone through. This also handily solved the question of their name.

As time stretches forward, the colour of leaves on the tree begin to fade. The leaves never fall off but they turn a brilliant white. It’s a subtle transition that mutes the vibrancy of the remaining leaves. Like energy, the colour cannot be destroyed or lost, it simply finds a new home. The children have become the new colour bearers.

Onyx’s experience of the game was not one of delight, it was one of exclusion and isolation. He quickly realised that the other children worked with each other to engineer him out of the way. Onyx couldn’t contain his frustrations and always found himself crying and alone, with nobody around to comforted him. It happened so often this would become his very first memory.

So annoyed. Left my brand new gloves in the back seat with the kids yesterday…now one pair is missing. Should know better. The back seat is the black hole of stuff. Things go there, but they may never return.

I always enjoy November, partly because I am usually writing some fiction. Writing 50-60 word chunks seems easy for me and there is momentum. Sure the final product might not be exceptionally polished but having written anything is better than not writing at all.

Maybe I get to keep things moving at the same pace once this chapter of Colours is finished. I have so many other things that I am waiting on writing.

First snowfall of the season. It’s a warning sign to get those snow tires installed.

Curiously, Onyx noticed that try as he might, the orbs did not react to him the same way they reacted to the other children. When he held an orb it didn’t change colour; rather it sat there lifelessly staring back at him. Clearly the orbs are broken, he thought to himself. That is the only possible explanation.

One of the challenges with having an awesome library system (world class in fact) is the fact that sometimes I can borrow a mountain of books and never get through most of them. I go through different flows at the moment but I want to get one book and really get into that book, then the next.

Tickets booked to Lebanon. This is the second attempt this year. I have no idea what the criminals south of the border are up - but the vile stench from Tel Aviv wafts everywhere in the Middle East. Nowhere is safe. I just want to see my parents and family.

As with most simple games, children tend to get better at the game the more they play. First they learnt how to make the orbs glow their colour for longer. Eventually they learned how to keep the colour in the orb after they had passed it onto the next child. Seeing their colour in the orb started off as a feeling of delight, this soon turned into something more primal, existential.

As the orbs were passed around Onyx found himself being excluded from the game. At first it was subtle, the other children would pass the orb to Onyx and then quickly take it away. This quickly shifted to more direct actions, as they would skip his turn entirely. This eventually turned to pushing and shoving Onyx out of the way.