Finding a Studio

I've tried a lot of fitness classes over the years and I've only found a couple things that I've enjoyed. My current one is Spinning. Yoga and Boxing are also up there but with asterisks.

Through trial and error I've figured out what makes me not want to do a fitness class:

  • Difficult to access -- if it takes me more than 30 minutes to get there and it's not on the way to something else (like work) then I will stop going
  • Evening classes -- I lose my motivation after about 11am
  • Any partner work -- this is where most boxing classes lose me
  • Not having a clear spot -- this is where yoga classes can sometimes lose me
  • Anything where I constantly feel in the way -- again, certain boxing

Spin I enjoy because it checks all the boxes. The studio I go to has two locations that are very transit accessible. You have your bike assigned before the class begins. And the only partner work to speak of is cheersing water bottles at the end.

The problem with Spin is it's only cardio. So I need to find something to build up the rest of me (in addition to spin!). Over the next few months I'm going to take every trial I can find that's reasonably close to me and seems like it might be enjoyable. Here's what I've found so far and will update this post after every trial is up.

I'm going to change my goal from 100 spin classes to 100 classes in general and include these classes in them.

Chains

F45

In progress

Barry's

Up next

Orange Theory

Soon

Local options

Soul Fuel

Soon

Recess Fit Club

Soon

Virtual Subscriptions

There's a tendency for me to want to try to find the new perfect thing to replace a whole host of things. I've now understood for a while that "nothing" is a very good replacement. Much much harder said than done. For instance, do I need a full fledged file management and syncing system? Or is just having a good photo backup service and using the very basic file storage in Fastmail good enough?

While my dad was still alive, he would time and time again caution us about "re-occurring revenue". This was back when you still owned your music, having a cell phone wasn't a given and most homes had cable. We actually "cut the cord" well before Netflix was a thing, just watching over-the-air programs.

I hate to say it, but my dad was right. Everything that comes out automatically becomes the price of what we need to live. I think that I haven't been spending too much one month on coffee -- and maybe that's true -- but it doesn't really matter because my floor has been set by the decisions I committed to months before.

Where I want to draw the line is on "virtual subscriptions" or things that don't result in anything tangible. Apple Music is intangible as I'm not getting sent a CD that I can hold nor own anything on there. Transit pass is tangible because it's physically moving me.

In an ideal world, I would have no virtual subscriptions.

My recurring payments of of this writing

This is literally everything that comes out of my personal or joint account on a regular basis

  • Kagi
  • Fastmail
  • Apple One
    • iCloud
    • Apple TV
    • Apple Fitness (Rarely use)
    • Apple Music
    • Apple News (I don't use this)
    • Apple Arcade (I don't use this)
  • Communauto
  • Carshare
  • TTC Monthly Pass
  • Koodo (dumb phone)
  • Fizz (iPhone)
  • SpinCo (gym)
  • Various donations
  • Set App
  • The Globe and Mail
  • NYTimes Games
  • Bear Blogging
  • Posthaven
  • Bikeshare
  • Transit App
  • Google Drive
  • Renters insurance
  • Pet insurance
  • VPN
  • Ente
  • The Verge
  • Betches Media
  • NPR+

That's a long list

I've been working on this post for a while because every now and then I'd remember something else. It's all so... automatic, it's a feature and the issue. Personally, I don't struggle with forgetting to cancel things I don't want. I audit this list fairly often but I do struggle with feeling like I need all of it.

But not everything on that list is the same. Let's break it down

The Basics

  • Hydro
  • Transit
  • Renters Insurance
  • Pet Insurance
  • Cell phone main line (Koodo)

Work expenses I get an expense fund through work, these are things I use for work and personal. If I didn't need them for work I probably wouldn't subscribe to these things at all.

  • Kagi
  • Setapp
    • I'm actually getting rid of this one and instead purchasing lifetime memberships to the few apps I do use
  • The Verge
    • Keeping up on tech news
  • NPR+
    • Again, news
  • The Globe and Mail
    • Once again, news

Non-essential, tangible

  • Gym (SpinCo)
  • Fizz (iPhone)
  • Donations
  • Bikeshare
  • Communauto
  • Carshare

What's going soon

  • Posthaven
    • To be replaced by Bear, need to migrate things
  • Google Drive
    • Started using Linux and this is easier to use as a holding place while I migrate between Mac and Linux. Plus there was a first year promo. Gone after this year.
  • VPN
    • Got it for a bit, thought about trying my hand at sailing the high seas but decided against it, gone in Feb
  • Transit App
    • Great app! But I'm using my iPhone less
  • Bear Blogging
    • I'm not actually getting rid of Bear, just going to buy the lifetime membership
  • NYTimes Games
    • Not renewing
  • TTC Monthly Pass
    • Cheaper to just pay as I go
  • Apple One
    • Getting rid of everything except for a smaller iCloud Drive tier
    • Most storage will move to Ente for photos, trying Fastmail for the few documents I need to keep backed up

Virtual Things Left

  • Fastmail
  • Ente
  • Betches
    • My guilty pleasure, U Up? Podcast, ad-free


2026 Goals

2025 is almost over and I've once again decided to turn my attention to the constant quest to be more intentional.

What this has really meant for me is to waste less time and do things I love doing and spend as much time with people in my life. In previous years, incredibly, I didn't actually spell this out. It was more of get dumbphone and my life will be perfect.

I've had to grapple with what exactly it is that I like doing. I like to learn and I like to be in good shape. If I am to effectively live intentionally then I should have no issue to accomplish the below.

Outcomes

Read 23 Books

This is roughly 30 minutes per day of reading at the pace I normally read.

Post 52 Times

Added rule of posting at least once per month. That's roughly one post per week. It doesn't have to be about anything in particular, a one sentence post is perfectly fine.

Finish Two Notebooks

I keep buying notebooks to use them and then I just don't use them. Two notebooks should be easy to complete between todos and regular life stuff.

100 Spin Classes

Recently got into spinning, I like it, it makes sense. 100 classes is fewer than 2 per week. I like to workout in the morning so getting to a spin class means I spent my night well and went to bed early enough for me to get to a class before work. Honestly, this should be 200 for the year but I know my motivation ebbs and flows.

Areas of Focus

Dumb phone first

This year I signed up for a second phone line. My iPhone has that SIM card and my dumb phone has my main line. The goal here, unlike previous years, isn't to get rid of my iPhone. Some things are too impractical to replace or not even possible (concert tickets shockingly being one of them).

But 90% of my life only requires I be reached in emergencies by text or call. WhatsApp can wait till I'm at my computer (which is often) and if I need my iPhone, I bring it along, nothing special.

No virtual subscriptions

This is the hard one and my personal Everest. I don't mind a subscription (like a phone bill or gym membership) what I do mind is a subscription to something that just enables me to do something in the virtual world. Think music streaming, photo back ups, cloud storage, app subscriptions.

I've flirted with the idea of a NAS for a while but maybe an external hard drive is sufficient. This is all a post in its own. I don't know how achievable it is but I always want to try. Switching to Bear is part of this goal, Bear supports buying a lifetime membership which I'm more keen on. I also know I won't be getting rid of my FastMail subscription, it's too good of a product.

iPadOS 26 is almost perfect

I recently picked up an iPad after not having one for a few years. I definitely don’t need it but I find them very fun. iPadOS 26 pushed me over the edge to get it and am currently rocking the current beta.

The features they added with window tiling and just overall making it more computer-y is very welcome. I probably won’t replace my MacBook Air when the time comes because an iPad with a keyboard can do whatever I was doing on the laptop. But there’s new window management is actually too computer-y, especially when trying to use it as a tablet.

The current version of iOS does a really nice job of easily allowing you to have 2 things on the screen and resize those two apps, slide over can also get you a third thing in a pinch. The new version of iPadOS does not allow you to just drop in two things on the screen and get to work. Settings gives you three options:
  • Full screen apps
  • Windowed apps
  • Stage manager
Let’s start with that last one. Is anyone actually using stage manager? With windowed apps I can’t really see a point in them. Windowed apps is the new feature, it’s great, works like a computer wonderful. Full screen apps I expected to act like how iPadOS has acted in previous versions but it’s not. It’s how iPadOS was like ten years ago. Literally one screen, one app, no multitasking at all.



In a perfect world, for me, that multi tasking screen would contain two options. Windowed apps and “simple multitasking”. 95% of the time, I just want one or two apps on the screen. I don’t want to have to mess around with moving windows around on the screen to be in the right place. iPadOS had this nailed down. The power of iPadOS 26 is that I always have the ability to turn this little tablet into a computer when I need it to be. Or for other power users that it’s the default but they have the ability to dumb down their “computer” into a tablet when they want to go into vacation mode.

It is incredible, every iPadOS version seems like it’s closer to replacing your laptop. This year it actually seems to be the case for the vast majority of people. I just worry that they’re also getting rid of the fun tablet in the process.

No rules

I can write absolutely anything here. And it’ll appear. Coming from the world of computers, this is the most wonderful idea. There is basically nothing I can do with just my brain and the keyboard attached to my iPad that will make this website crash and burn. 

Maybe my point won’t get across, maybe my English will be a bit garbled or covered in typos. But nonetheless, when I hit publish there is nothing (technologically speaking) bad that can happen. That’s so freeing.

Sure there are some rules that I take for granted. For instance, that “a” comes after “r” in “granted” or that my brain is able to process what “granted” means in this context and can pronounce it in my head. The ability to remember my login to my blog, or know what application to type on my iPad or remembering the login to said iPad. Sure sure sure. All of these are technically inhibiting me. But once I clear those hurdles, it’s just simple text. There’s nothing to debug.

No matter how bad bland or boring my writing is up to this point, all of these text before it is still there. It’s really magic.

The Joy of Fiction



I read one of those Silicon Valley self-help/motivational books once that said something to the effect of you should try to create more than you consume. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason I still have an active blog. I wanted to have a low resistance way of making stuff where I could just throw things out into the ether.

Every year it does feel like I have more things that make it possible for me to consume. And more of my time is dedicated to consuming things. Just feeling like this blob in space that needs to constantly be fed. Notice I didn’t attribute what book it was that I read, because I truly have no idea. I’ve read dozens of those books over the years.

I’ve always felt like reading should be a goal. Read more. But after several of these books, the information just tends to blend together more and more. Every podcast I listen to is just background noise information. Going in one ear and out the other. Writing this blog post, that idea actually is kind of comforting. If I royally screw something up here, it won’t matter because this post would just be one of the hundreds of things that reader would have consumed today. Sad, but comforting, sort of like no one noticing you dancing at a concert. Freeing that you can do whatever you want but lonely in that you are ultimately not being noticed.

But that’s why I’m here writing. Not because I have anything novel to say but quite the opposite. I have information in my head that’s just there, swirling around. And here I can give it a job. Using this time to write allows me time to not consume. I’m giving my brain a moment to process and to relax as opposed to shoving another YouTube essay into it.

After this post I plan to read. I’m sitting here still recovering from a surgery. In between naps I drink water, write and read. It’s not a bad life. But this consumption will be fiction. 

I used to feel like non-fiction reading was in someway superior. But as established previously, it’s just more information on top of the pile of information I already have in my head. It took me a long time to get into fiction reading, dialogue was always hard for me to follow. But creating the imaginative worlds forces your brain to work. It has to conceive of what the characters sound like, what they look like, what the house smells like. All the senses are engaged when you read fiction.

Soberish

At some point in March 2020, shortly after it was clear that life as we knew it was on pause indefinitely, I wanted to stock up my fridge and bar with the essentials: gin & beer. To limit my exposure, I wanted to get enough so I wouldn’t need to go to the LCBO for at least another month. I grabbed the largest backpack I had and set out on foot.

I came home with at least two bottles of gin and enough beer that I immediately needed to foam roll my back. The beer that was supposed to last me one month made it to the end of the week. The gin that was supposed to get me through the end of times was down to about half a bottle. At this point, it was clear the pandemic would last far longer than two weeks, and this was becoming unsustainable.

Seeing my empty fridge and the bin full of empties, I grabbed every bottle of alcohol on my bar and started dumping them down the drain. Unknowingly, I was about to join the millions of other people my age who were exploring the world of sober curiosity.

I don’t believe I had a problem with drinking and I still don’t believe I do. I was drinking because I was bored. But I did feel like I was getting close to losing control and I was tired of feeling like shit. Thanks to things like Bubly and Aha and even my poor, neglected SodaStream, I was able to get by without any issues right away. That is until I wanted a Negroni. I was absolutely craving that bitter sting of a Negroni. 1 part gin, 1 part vermouth, 1 part Campari, 1 part euphoria.

I tried a lot of non-alcoholic substitutes. Only to realize they’re all pretty bad. It reminds me of when I first went vegan and tried to get meat substitutes; some are okay, but others are truly horrible.

I’m back now to a fully stocked bar, I’m back to going out from time to time. When I do drink, it’s rare for me to have more than a few drinks. Most of my friends aren’t going crazy and a few have stopped drinking completely. I have no desire to be sober, but my urge to be able to have a bitter drink to sip that’s not alcoholic only grows stronger and stronger. If anything, I want to become accidentally sober. I want to drink less in the same way I don’t eat a lot of meat today because there are so many amazing vegetarian and vegan dishes.

So far I’ve found some good things:

Tonic Water

Much of the Gin & Tonic flavour comes from the tonic, ergo…

Barbet

This is a very floral kind of drink that scratches the juniper-sized itch gin would normally provide. It’s a bit of an acquired taste and quite unlike anything else I’ve ever had. It’s a great example of a non-alcoholic drink that’s not trying to replicate anything in the alcoholic world, it’s just its own thing.

Gingerbug

A not-kombucha-but-kind-of-like-kombucha Ginger beer. It’s a little sweet like Barbet with a nice sting from the ginger.

Bad things I’ve tried:

Seedlip

This is typically the first thing recommended to people on a non-alcoholic kick. I’ve tried several different flavours, it’s just really not my jam

Most non-alcoholic beers

I’ve tried so so many. Most can get the flavour down well, but they finish very poorly.