Knocking on the door of 40. I spent this week moving into my own new place after a decade of toxicity, so this one resonates with me as well.

I’m an architect. It’s nice having the project I’m actively working on always active on one screen, with design sketches, marked up revisions, email with comments from client, renderer etc. active on the other. Sure it only saves a second not having to tab back and forth, but if you’re doing it non stop all day it makes a big difference. Also just less effort.

Nice view! Curious, what kind of insulation you’re adding? To the interior it exterior?

Snowboarder. It’s just my favourite thing to do going on 15 years now. It’s influenced where I chose to live, the friends I’ve made, sparked a passion for outdoors that lead to also being a backpacker, climber, mountain biker, and realize my whole thing is really just having fun flowing through nature.

Photographer. All that time in nature puts me in pretty places so I wanted to take landscapes. That’s still my favourite genre, but I also go for random photo walks, am my social groups go to wedding photographer, document my own kid and family, collect and shoot old school film cameras, develop my own film even. I’m that random weird friend always walking around with a camera.

Fine, Israel’s leader/government, as elected by its population, is on record. Does that make it better?

1% of the population is a lot of people. That’s tens of thousands of lives cut short. Kids who’ll never grow up, families torn apart, etc. Should that not elicit emotion? There’s plenty of videos of children and unarmed people trying to surrender or otherwise being shot. Seems like anyone and everyone to me.

Fun fact! Hysteria was originally thought to be a condition that only applied to women, hence the Greek root “hyster” for womb, as if that were the source of irrational emotion.

That’s a very good point, I’m sure most Israelis are lovely wonderful people despite the government and atrocities being committed. I bet most Palestinians are equally wonderful. Maybe we should be against indiscriminately killing them?

You mean the organization that Israel influenced the creation of through decades of mistreatment and mishandling of the situation? The same one Israel is on record saying it’s a good thing as it allows Israel to treat Palestine as a hostile state? Basically exactly what they’re doing now, killing anyone and everyone and just shrugging and saying “because hamas”?

Damn there’s a throwback. Annnnd I feel old now hah.

I want to agree, and still do for some of their items, but personally have found a lot of their products have gone downhill in the last few years. Quality control is all over on the gloves nowadays, sent two pairs back with weird stitching and a single pencil point tapered finger on liners. I originally liked the vigor midlayer fleece stuff as a budget R1 but it’s pilled and worn super fast and just isn’t that warm anymore.

Their alpine merino base layer stuff is pretty awesome though, and found the ascent shell touring jacket nice and breathable for backcountry stuff. For the most part I’ll just spend a bit extra and go for Patagonia moving forward, which of also consider a BIFL brand.

Got my grandpa’s Minolta XE7 in the bag on my way to visit my daughter for the holidays. Not my oldest camera, but he’s not around anymore so there’s some nice sentiment capturing family moments with his camera. Security hand checked the film, no questions asked, so that’s nice. Couple rolls of HP5 to push for inside, and some Gold 200 if we get some sunny weather.

Photography, mostly landscapes. Something satisfying about capturing the essence of a beautiful view and being able to share it with others who couldn’t be there to savour the moment. Sometimes a fancy digital camera, sometimes old timey film cameras my grandpa got me into. I’m also into backpacking, climbing, splitboarding, and otherwise just spending time in the mountains so there’s no shortage of views to capture.

I always find climbing and running to be such complimentary activities. Strength and cardio both covered between the two of them, and at their core all you really need is a pair of shoes for each.