Noah Kochanowicz

2026-09-03T23:23:32Z

I’m going to do a post when I get home as a recap of my trip/how-to guide for walking from Toronto to Montreal.

It’s honestly bittersweet to have achieved this goal. I’m proud but I’ve been ~~running~~ walking towards this goal since April and it’s been in the back of my mind for much longer. I need to find a new challenge.

For now, I picked up a Rubik’s cube in Montreal and am learning how to solve that. So far, after a full day I’ve gotten it solved once.

By far, the most unsatisfying thing about this is you have no idea, by that picture, whether I even scrambled it first.

Amateur Anthropologist: Deux

2026-09-01T10:28:59Z

This is a shorter one, here on my last day of walking. I like to wave to people in the country.

Mer and I went PEI a bit ago and we had a Jeep rental car. Jeeps have the “Jeep Wave” where you give a small wave to other people who are also driving Jeep Wranglers. What a thrill!

As I’ve been walking on the side of the highway, I’ve made it a point to wave to people, especially those who give me plenty of room.

Here’s who were most likely wave or nod back:

Jeep drivers, no surprise
Motorcyclists
People in there 30-40s in outdoorsy cars (like Subarus)
Big rig drivers
Bike packers, note regular cyclists were hit or miss

Least likely to wave back:

People over 60, men in this age range were also the least likely to say hi back to me on trails. There was about a 10% chance of people with silver hair (and I don’t mean this as a euphemism for old people old people, I literally mean people with silver hair) just staring at me as their car slowly started drifting towards me.
Raised or modified trucks. This group loved to hug the white line and never slow down near me.
Cyclists and runners in the afternoon

All other demographics had about a 20% likelihood of waving back.

Alright, off to Montreal!

Comments Enabled

2026-08-29T19:02:12Z

I’ve received unconfirmed reports that people are actually reading my blog now. Given I was the only reader of my blog, never felt the need to turn on comments (nor did I look into it) but they’re on now!

To make this worthy of being a full post, here’s a picture of the chicken McNuggets I’ve been noshing on at the beach.

Amateur Anthropologist

2026-08-29T16:39:52Z

I’ve eaten at Tim’s a lot these past two weeks for breakfast. It’s not my first choice, unfortunately it often winds up being my only option in a lot of the places I find myself in. Smaller, local places either don’t open early enough or there literally isn’t one on my route around breakfast time. It also allows me a consistent (but very mid) breakfast, a spot to charge my phone and a pre-walk washroom break.

Thankfully I’ve been able to have a lot of great, non-chain lunches and dinners.

With that out of the way (oh, also, fuck JK Rowling) I’ve been able to make some observations.

Every Tim’s has a gaggle of older men who just kind grunt at each other when one makes a quip about a current event (often political). They gather really early. I’m usually at Tim’s by 6am, the gaggle is fully formed by this point. I’ve witnessed the formation of the gaggle precisely once and it was majestic.

It starts with two people sitting at separate tables. Then one person joins one of the two tables. These two people are close to each other (neighbours, cousins, old friends etc.)

The odd man out will join the group by making a comment on something they’re talking about and eventually join to form the gaggle. Most gaggles are 4-6 men. This gaggle is usually in its final form before 6, which is why it was such a rare occurrence for me to witness it.

Regulars at Tim’s also follow a pretty common pattern. You won’t see all of these types at every Tim’s, but you can pretty easily collect them all.

The gruff man who orders a coffee “just a black coffee”, when asked what he wants in it “milk” or “cream” if they’re fancier. This person always pays in coins, always precise.
The person (in the gaggle) who complains about being tracked (or something to this effect) but collects Tim’s Rewards points
The loveable regular who is known by name and people leave their stations to personally greet
The couple (or gaggle member) who will talk about how good the coffee is at this specific Tim’s location or compare it to McDonald’s
The regular and employee who some kind of daily, sexually charged (but harmless) banter

This is a non-exhaustive list. A similar thing could be written about local pubs, but it’d be less interesting.

Bandits in the night

2026-08-27T15:35:52Z

I’ve spent a lot of my training energy with our dog on tricks that are pretty useless but make for good party tricks. One recent one is “secret”. I hold my hand up to my ear and have her put her snout in my hand, with her nose pretty much touching my ear.

It’s a pretty easy one to do, you just start by putting a treat in the hand and eventually you take the treat out of the hand and give it to her after the “secret is told”.

As such, I’ve become very accustomed to the sound of sniffing directly in my ear.

On Tuesday night, I found myself in Brockville, at St. Lawrence Park. A really lovely municipal park that offers camping and a great view of the St Lawrence river.

My campsite for the evening

The tent I have is very small, which means I have to leave a fair bit of stuff in the vestibule

Photo from a different night but you get the idea

A few hours into my sleep that night I heard an intense sniffing sound. I first thought I was dreaming of Mabou. But it was far too real, far too loud. I turned my head and spotted a raccoon within petting distance, just on the other side of the mesh of my tent. It took every fibre of my being to not pet the raccoon.

For reasons that probably relate to exhaustion, I left a closed ziploc bag of dried mangoes in the vestibule.

I tried shooing it away with my voice (and again, I want to underscore, despite desperately wanting to, I did not pet the raccoon) but it didn’t move away. Finally I turned on my flashlight on it and it reached its paw to grab the mangoes and scurried away.

Later in the night I would get up to find that the ziploc proved too much for the trash panda.

I went back to sleep, finding comfort in the rest of my food being tucked away elsewhere. A few hours later there were two raccoons intensely sniffing on either side of the vestibule.

There was nothing for them this time. But still I see my old friend popping its head in the vestibule. I shine the flash light on him and this little shit takes my sunglasses.

I scrambled to bring my Tilley hat into the tent, afraid now that the raccoon was going to try to complete the look.

I found the sunglasses in the morning, covered in slugs. I was able to shake them off but it was covered in some kind of residue and didn’t have time to clean it off.

The next morning I popped by a Circle K to grab some aviators. Was able to wash off my other sunglasses thoroughly in my hotel on Wednesday night.

When people are surprised to learn that I don’t like camping, might I remind them I’ve never had mangoes stolen from me at a hotel.

Passing the kilometres

2026-08-25T17:08:50Z

I aim to walk at least 5 kilometres a day without my earbuds in to allow myself to be alone with my thoughts and just listen to nature.

But being alone with my thoughts is a terrifying experience so here’s what I’ve enjoyed listening to save myself from that. It’s mostly podcasts, I can really lock in with a good podcast going.

Podcasts

”The Chosen One” - Search Engine

Goes into detail about whose genitals are selected to be the lead image on their corresponding Wikipedia page. Lots of other great episodes from Search Engine.

The Big Five

A CBC call in podcast where the hosts and guest compete to figure out the “big five” things of a given category selected by a random person who called in. Pick any episode, they’re all great easy listens.

“NSL” - Darknet Diaries

Good true crime (for nerds) show. This episode was about National Security Letters which the FBI uses to silence people/stomp on constitutional rights using a vague excuse of terrorism.

Music

Just a lot of Jack Johnson

also

slimdan

Featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast. Some good bops.

The blisters were too much

2026-08-23T12:32:29Z

On Thursday, I had one of my longest planned walks between Belleville and Napanee going through Mohawk territory

The last 5km, after leaving Deseronto were real rough. I had four blisters on my toes and I was pushing through it. Starting and stopping is usually the worst part. Once I get moving I generally don’t notice it and can get back to a good pace after about five minutes.

Friday I woke up and it was just too much. I had another 30kms planned to get to Kingston. I tried to push through but just couldn’t feel confident that I’d be able to do that for six hours. Walking through the middle of nowhere. No options to bail halfway through.

There’s a bus that runs direct from Napanee to Kingston. I pulled open the page, went to book and then closed it. No this is fine, I have to keep moving. I’m walking to Montreal not bussing.

I kept moving on a trail about a kilometre from my Airbnb and came to the same pain conclusion. I sat on a big rock and wanted to cry. This felt like giving up. I haven’t done a challenging thing since I immigrated to Canada. To see a challenging thing through to the end is just something I don’t do anymore.

I booked the ticket and walked a bit further to get breakfast near the bus stop. I lost the battle but I can still win the war, so to speak. I’m determined to not make this another hobby or interest that succumbs to my ADHD induced disinterest.

At that Tim’s, I had my coffee and took whatever paper material I could find to start reworking my plan.

I know my limits better now than when I started. I put together a new plan which allows me to walk a bit less each day, aided by a few local bus routes to give my feet a break.

My rest day is over now in Kingston. Getting to spend that with my wife meant so much. We happened to be here for the 10th anniversary of the last Tragically Hip concert. It was an amazing break. Quality time well spent.

I’m getting to Montreal the hardest way possible. But now I’m doing it with a new plan, renewed energy and a new pair of boots.

From the tent

2026-08-19T01:12:44Z

I’m lying here in this little world I’ve built. Everything around me carried on my back for over 100km now. I’d love for some more room to spread out, but it’s all the space I actually need.

It keeps me free of the bugs, gives me privacy from the other campers. Later tonight I hope it will keep me sheltered from the rain.

I’ve long felt a certain safeness in small spaces. Opposite of claustrophobia, though I wouldn’t describe all small spaces as safe. How you can feel like you have just enough in just enough space. Nothing more and nothing less. Like an astronaut packing their necessities. No rockets required.

I feel that now. This part of camping I don’t mind.

Update on Camping

2026-08-18T17:20:55Z

Look at how beautiful this is!

Still not a fan of camping. Back hurts and a bad sleep. Thankfully only 20km of walking today. That will put me a stone’s throw from Belleville!

I need to get a new pillow and sleeping mat. The cheap ones I picked up a few years ago really aren’t cutting it.

The blisters are also getting to me today. Just spent a good hour in a nice park in Brighton trying to get those fixed. That park had public washrooms, picnic benches, lots of shade AND a water bottle refill station.

Honestly, today hasn’t been great. It’s felt the loneliest, hottest and the biggest struggle, despite it being such a short walk today.

Yesterday was a really great day. I had briefly befriended a garbage man. Two different cyclists who were bikepacking and a pair of runners cheered me on. I had miss calculated my route and originally thought I’d be passing through a town in the middle to get water. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. Thankfully I found a public beach on Lake Ontario and got to use my water filter for the first time and take a dip while I waited for the Aqua Tabs to do their thing.

Had a nice break at a nature reserve too

Shout out to “The Royal Crown” pub I stopped at in Colborne. Excellent food and cold Steam Whistle on tap. The bartender, upon hearing about my trek, offered to fill up my water bottles.

This is going to be a short one

2026-08-17T22:09:25Z

When I get to longer breaks on this walk I’ve been reading. I have a bunch of books downloaded.

I should probably be reading something very profound on this long walk. Like Thoreau or stuff written by a monk. But I’m reading Carley Fortune’s “Meet me by the lake”

and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

GTMTHW: Day 2

2026-08-16T09:31:35Z

Day 2 of Getting To Montreal The Hard Way kicks off with my new morning routine of taping up my feet has been great for blister protection

My water filter kit still sits in its bag unused. I have a feeling this kit won’t stay with me past Kingston. I brought this based on thruhiking recommendations. It gets added to the list because thruhikers on the PCT, AT, etc. don’t have water taps available at the end of the night.

No issues refilling for me! But we’ll see. I want to use it at least once so I can feel like a real backpacker! Even on a day like today where I won’t encounter any water taps (or maybe even water sources) until I get to my destination, I can still carry enough water to get me through the day.

Off to Port Hope. Here’s a video from a pit stop yesterday.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/BwdMifHTnWdzbzUU7

Off to Montreal

2026-08-15T16:16:19Z

First leg kicked off with a walk from the CN Tower through Biidaasige Park with Mer. Took a pit stop to have a coffee with my friend Adam. Now I’m en route to Bowmanville to walk my second leg of the day to Newcastle.

Yesterday I discovered this heat map feature on Strava which shows all of your recorded activities on a single map. So it very neatly shows the complete route I pre-walked going in.

See the pink line going along the lake

I’m feeling good. Today is an easier day, around 15km of total walking. I’m nervous but ready to get going and feel as ready as I’ll ever be.

Coming to Main Street/Danforth station today felt like a real trip. This station has been the starting point for a bulk of my walks these past two weeks. The goal of walking to Montreal always on my mind but now it’s really happening. Once I get off this train I’m going east and not heading back home till I set my feet in La Belle Province.

Allons-y.

Toronto to Montreal, The Hard Way

2026-08-10T02:02:22Z

I wrote about my sabbatical plan here 4 months ago: https://nowuh.com/landing-on-a-sabbatical-plan

Since then I've been busy preparing and getting married. This Saturday, 6 days away as of me typing this, I will set off on my walk to Montreal. I've gone through different gear (hello new backpack and boots) including things I bought for this trip that I now realize I won't use and learned a lot about how to keep my feet mostly free of blisters.

If all goes according to plan, I should be walking into Montreal on September 1st.

In planning this I've gone through a ton of refinement. I did many practice walks with and without my backpack. I learned that I am able to go on a hike right after camping. I learned that 55km is my absolute max I can walk in one day but I'll sacrifice the next day. I also learned that the route from Toronto to Montreal really isn't made for people to walk it.

One concession I've made is that busses are okay to use. When possible, I'll take a city bus to cross a town. This will come up in Port Hope to Coburg and crossing Kingston. Because the lodging options are a bit difficult, I did have to prebook everything to make sure I'm not leaving myself stranded. There may come a day I need to skip a hiking day just for my physical safety and for the Toronto-Kingston leg, I can mostly rely on the Maple Bus to do that. I'd like to avoid that bailout option if possible.

In total, I should be walking around 513km with around 40km being aided by bus. This is both to provide myself a bit of a break and because hotel/camping options aren't always available in the cadence I need. Another way I could have avoided this is to add a couple days to my trip, but I know I'll need time to recover within my sabbatical before returning to work.

Another weird thing I'm doing with this is I'm not technically starting in Toronto. I'll actually be walking from the town of Bowmanville to Montreal. To condition myself from this trip, I've been walking the portion of Toronto to Bowmanville in several chunks.

When hiking a long journey like this it's important to ramp yourself up. So those 5-10km hikes should help with the conditioning. On August 15th, the only thing that should be left is CN Tower to Danforth GO. So I plan to walk that segment, jump on the GO train, then GO bus and then continue walking until I hit Newcastle to end day 1.

Uploading Screenshot 2026-08-09 at 10.01.03 PM.png… 34%

This coming week, I'll wrap the last two middle segments I have left (Guildwood to Rouge and Rouge to Pickering) and then start doing more 15-20km walks to continue ramping things up.

Wow I’m married

2026-08-06T12:44:15Z

I found it remarkably true what people say about this being the happiest day of your life. I'm filled with so much love and happiness towards Mer and the life we've built so far, and for the life we're going to continue to build together. I'm still replaying memories of that day in my head.

What I didn't find was that it went by in a flash. In some ways it went by at the speed of any other day. But this had moments that were excruciatingly slow (like waiting for our first look around 3pm) and other moments that you could blink and miss. The legal signing ceremony was one of those moments. I think we both just looked at that time as a formality when we were planning it out. But it was really magical. My mom, who has trouble speaking, gave some moving words before we signed. All of our immediate family was in the room with us, sharing in this moment before the festivities. The champagne at the end was a nice touch to deal with the nerves that had been building up throughout the morning.

I spent that morning with my brother Adam and one of my groomsmen, Cody, sampling a flight of ridiculously fancy coffee. It was a nice distraction from my nerves about messing up my vows. A great way to caffeinate after a very sleepless night.

Mer and I headed out on a mini moon right after. A perfect length of time in a tranquil spot filled with good food, highland cows, a neat train and the love of my life. It's an amazing place that everyone should visit, but I'll go ahead and gatekeep it for now.

Revisiting virtual subscriptions

2026-05-06T15:26:01Z

At the start of the year, I posted this about everything that's coming out of my account every month as a subscription. I wanted to check back in on this now that it's been almost five months.

Note: I'm using voice-to-text software to write this, specifically Wispr Flow, because I recently broke my finger and it's very difficult to type with the cast on.

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
iCloud
Communauto
Carshare
Koodo (dumb phone)
Fizz (iPhone)
SpinCo (gym)
Various donations
The Globe and Mail
NYTimes
Posthaven
Bikeshare
Transit App
Google Drive
Renters insurance
Pet insurance
VPN
Ente
The Verge
Betches Media
NPR+
Gym close to my office
Gym close to my house
Deezer
Monarch
YouTube Lite (x2)
One video streaming service
Sportsnet
Nebula
All Trails
The Guardian

What's changed

Added

Gym close to my office

I thought having a gym close to my office would have been convenient. I have found out that I prefer going to the gym closer to my house. It's more convenient on the weekends and in the evenings. Usually, this office gym is pretty busy around the same time I would find it convenient to go. Unfortunately, I'm locked into a year commitment on this, but we'll be cancelling it at the end of the year.

Gym close to my house
Deezer

This is a bit of a left field one and feels like it's very antithetical to my goals but I explain more in the conclusion

Monarch

I actually had this one before. I just forgot to add it on the last list

YouTube Lite (x2)

Buying two YouTube Lite subscriptions for my partner and me was cheaper than buying a YouTube Family subscription.
We both have been watching more YouTube over the past couple months and reached a breaking point with the ads, and we broke down on this.

One video streaming service

Used to be Crave, now it's Netflix. This is mostly used by my fiancé, although whenever a new season of Love is Blind comes out, I do jump in on it.

Sportsnet

It's baseball season, and the Raptors made a run in the playoffs, so we added this. Mostly used by myself.

Nebula

Like Monarch, this was already something we were subscribed to. I forgot to add it to the list last time.

All Trails

This one is for my sabbatical. We'll get rid of it after the first year.

NY Times Games -> NY Times

Covered by work

The Guardian

Also covered by work

Removed

Apple One

We've gone down to just having iCloud.

Set App
TTC Monthly Pass

Switched to pay-as-you-go

Bear

I had originally intended to get rid of Posthaven instead of getting rid of Bear, but I found Bear to still be a little too limited, especially since I don't support creating blog posts via email, which is the main way I like to post my blog.

Transit App

Planned Changes

Ente

This is a tough one because I really love Ente. I think it's such a great platform. It's really thoughtfully designed, the tools work really well, and I've emailed the CEO and gotten immediate feedback. The trouble is the cost. It's a very expensive product, and it does a lot more than I actually need it to. I don't want to be supporting a big tech company, and it's hard to justify when Google Drive has the ability to share and collaborate on documents, which is, on a day-to-day basis, a bigger thing that is needed for our household.

The Ente Locker is a cool feature, but we mostly get that through 1Password, which I get for free through work. I would pay for 1Password on its own just because of how much we use it. The tricky thing with a lot of this stuff is the collaboration between my partner and me. This would be a different thing if it was just myself. I would probably be using an open-source document service, and I really wouldn't need anything beyond what's on my computer or my iPad.

Since it's not just me, I need to find something that works well for both of us. In an ideal world, we would be seeing something like these smaller, privacy-minded, independent platforms like Kagi and Fastmail, Mailbox and Ente, all of them collaborating. They are aware of each other and that they share common user bases. What's missing is the ability to have one subscription and strong integrations between these so I could mix and match between services and offer my partner a simple solution to collaboration. That's what's missing here, and with a lot of these privacy-focused tools.

Conclusion

This is very much a one step forward, five steps back kind of post. I was hoping that after four months I would have removed a lot of the subscriptions for my life, specifically the virtual ones, but I actually increased them.

Sportsnet will eventually be cancelled after the end of the Jays season, but that's still going to be most of the year. I just have to accept that I really enjoy baseball, and that's not going away any time soon.
YouTube: I have mixed feelings about adding it, but we do use it a lot, and I really don't like ads.
Deezer was a surprise to me, to see a music subscription streaming service being added to this list. It's hard to deny how convenient it is to be able to quickly listen to music and get a feel for an artist or a song, especially if I'm evaluating going to concerts during NXNE or Departure. There just really isn't an alternative to streaming here.

I've kept my Plex set up at home, so I still am able to stream music from that. That's been nice, and I go back and forth between the two, but Deezer I found to be fine. It kind of reminds me a bit of how Spotify used to be five or ten years ago, when they first came out: pretty simple interface, pretty easy to use, and they have a lot of good AI policies. I determined them to be the lesser of all the evils.

I gave Qobuz a try as well, but it was just not good. Really hard to use, always playing through the wrong speakers, really clunky app for playing music. Just wasn't worth it, but I did like that you could buy music through Qobuz and have it integrated into your library.

First hike with gear

2026-04-13T13:00:38Z

34KMs in the books. Still need to work on how to properly adjust my bag shoulders were really feeling it at the end. Had to pop into a Shoppers near the end to get some blister patches. I’m feeling good that after consistently practicing like this I can reach Montreal :)

Last night after recovering from the hike I went through and reorganized my pack. Currently I’m at 19lbs without food or water. I have a few more bits of gear I need to add that are going to bump that number up. Even with food I should be able to stay under the 20% of my body weight rule of thumb. That said, there’s a few more adjustments I can make to get even smaller.

Landing on a sabbatical plan

2026-04-04T13:06:01Z

Next month will be my five year anniversary at my my current company, Wealthsimple. We already get 20 days of PTO but at five years you become eligible for a sabbatical of an additional 20 days (so roughly a month in calendar days. They have to be taken all at once and can't be combined with another period of leave.

This is a pretty cool opportunity. Normally to get this much time off you have to be in between jobs. If that time is not by choice, then it's a stressful time where you're looking for work. If it's time taken by choice, you're likely coming down from the stress of the last role or you're mind is thinking about what you need to do to prepare for the next role. This is not that. I'll return to the job I'm doing now and I'll be getting paid while on the leave -- nice!

The next time I'll have chance, either the next sabbatical or time in between jobs, I will likely have kids and won't be able to be such a free spirit.

Since the start of the year I've been toying with several different ideas

A worldwide tour of cool transit systems
A Euro-centric tour of cool transit systems
A big UK train trip
An Asian transit trip
A China transit trip
The east coast trail in Newfoundland

But I settled on one of my favourite activities, just leaving the house and going for a walk. But, like, a really long walk. I've nixed the transit ideas because it's actually something that doesn't require a ton of PTO (at least not an entire month) and doesn't require me to be in a specific physical shape. I'm in relatively good shape now and my legs work. Who's to say what happens between now and retirement.

My tentative route looks like this:

A combination of the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail and the Trans-Canada Trail. The exact route isn't shown, it's more of an approximation.

Yesterday I headed out on a long walk within Toronto, going from my house to the airport. Google Maps has the most direct route at 23.1 KM. My meandering route took me 26.3 KM (segment 3) over about 5 hours. It was a good test. My legs were getting quite tired about 15k in and the last 2k were quite the push. It was made harder by the super pedestrian-hostile environment that is the Toronto Airport. If I can get myself up to 35k/day then doing the whole trip in about 2 weeks should be no issue. Ideally I could pull off some 40k days. Granted, my test route required me to carry very little gear and was an ideal 20-24 degrees with no rain.

Managing owned music

2026-03-22T22:12:05Z

My music owning experience in life has been a story of jumping from one monolith to another. It started with iTunes. Buy from the store or rip a CD, all in iTunes and then synced to device. Then it was Spotify and a variety of other streaming services.

Now you have every single analogue/anti-algorithm/minimalist yelling, buy an iPod! Own your own music. And to be clear, I am absolutely one of those people. But wow, it's a rough experience to switch. Once you have all of the music it should be easy, in theory. I have a few thousand songs on my hard drive.

The metadata and file organization are all very weird depending on where you got the music from and how you imported it. So you're going to spend quite a bit of time managing that. Getting the music is pretty annoying too.

The last bastion of one-stop-shop is iTunes. You can indeed buy music there. The cloud locker service -- iTunes match -- still exists for $30/yr. But the default Apple Music app has gotten bloated and it's very pushy to get you to subscribe to streaming. I haven't tried to install Apple Music on linux but there's no support by default which isn't a great sign.

Bandcamp is fantastic, but the library of options is really limited. Qobuz has an iTunes sized library but the interface is absolute garbage and doesn't let you stream the music you own from their site.

I think this would all be fine but we're missing a killer *just music listening* app. Rhythmbox for Linux feels promising but it's not very feature complete and the external device syncing has been rough in my experience.

This is a bit of ramble, but I guess I'm surprised at how difficult the process of "I give you money, I put music on my device" is. It feels like we're full circle back to the reason the iPod was invented in 2001.

The Toronto Library has 7 copies of this

2026-03-18T18:58:55Z

Franc Moody @ Danforth Music Hall

2026-02-26T15:01:51Z

I went to see Franc Moody at the Danforth Music Hall on Tuesday. I bought the tickets only knowing one song:

But I thought it was such a bop and I don't mind going to shows knowing little or nothing.

The show was good, not great, the first half I was pretty surprised by how low energy it was for an electronic heavy band. It really picked up in the second half and drove it home at the end with a keytar and cowbell coming out. The band chemistry picked up at the point, with everyone starting to interact with each other. For most of the show it seemed like everyone was enjoying what they were doing on stage, but separately.

Two big shoutouts, the drummer raided a thrift shop in Toronto and managed to find an old and pretty sick Labbat's/Bluejays collab shirt. The bassist/synth absolutely carried the team though. You can find she's pretty consistent with this in videos of other shows bouncing around the stage.

Two things really hurt this show.

The venue choice was not it. The Danforth is hands-down the best venue in the city. But I don't think it's the best setup for electronic acts, especially if your set is kind of bland. History or Rebel would have been better choices.

Second, the flow of music was not great. There was a lot of dead air between songs and the audience interaction was pretty meh. I don't need musicians to be excellent story tellers or comedians, but you can fill that air with music that flows from song to song or interesting interludes. Those interludes are great moments for the band to interact with each other or the audience.

On a personal note, I had some reflection on how I refer to the different ratings categories while at this show. "Spectacle" and "Stage Presence" are the two most important categories (to me) for what makes a concert a concert. But the naming is off. What I really want to convey is "What makes this concert worth seeing over staying at home and listening to the CD" and "Does this show feel like something bespoke that is unique to just this tour and/or just this performance", respectively.

So "Spectacle" is becoming "In person only factor", "Stage Presence" is becoming "One night only factor". I'll probably change it a dozen times before I find the best way to word those.

The Ratings

https://nowuh.com/concert-ratings

Venue: 1.5/5
Audience: 4/5
Band: 4/5
Vocals: 2/5
In person only: 1.5/5
One night only: 1.5/5
Song choice: 2/5

Overall: 2.35/5

My Email is My Blog (Updated)

2026-02-25T00:17:29Z

Updated: My email is no longer my blog, but I've linked to a copy. Turns out I really like posting to my blog via an email.

For several years I've been using Fastmail for my email and calendar. I love it! But the entire time there's been a "sites" feature to host a static website that I've toyed with but never really used.

What I've really wanted to use it for all of these years is to host my blog. There wasn't an out of the box way to do it so I settled on paying for Posthaven most of the time and more recently moved over to Bear.

Going back to my more recent post of wanting to move away from subscriptions, this one became a surprisingly difficult one to shake.

Fastmail could be so easy, a blog is just static content. But if I throw in a bunch of markdown files, it just winds up looking like this..

That's a problem right?

Well, if you look at it as a directory listing, it is. But really, that's just a database. A bit funky, but it's clean and simple and pretty easy for Javascript to parse.

You can still go to https://experimental-blog.noahkoch.com/blog/ to see that same directory listing. But on this page you're reading it's a bit of a magic trick. The URL has secret info in it (query params, for my nerds out there) that's instructing the browser where to fetch the contents and metadata (post title, date) from.

It's a fun little trick and means I have a blog hosting platform via a service I was already paying for. Yet another subscription cut out!

That being said, I really recommend Bear Blog, it's one guy and he's building a great thing. If I wanted to go back to a hosted blog, that's where I'd go.

Matt Andersen @ Massey Hall

2026-02-24T16:01:40Z

Matt Andersen must be 300 years old. That's the only way to explain how one man's voice can sound like it had several lifetimes of experience.

Massey Hall was both the best and worst place to host this country-blues singer when my Fiancée and I went to see him this past Friday. On one hand, there's few places in Toronto that have the acoustics to do his music justice. Backed up by an incredibly talented band, every one of his slower songs just made you feel like you were a little baby being swaddled in a blanket of passion.

On the other hand... when songs like Free Man were played, you just wanted to rip out the seats so you could dance.

Two things I appreciated out of this performance. Mariel Buckley, his very talented and funny opener, was invited back on to the at the end of the show to do a duet of Bob Dylan's I Shall Be Released. I really appreciate when artists do this. It makes the show feel like something more put together and cohesive rather than a way to stretch time. It's a surprisingly rare thing.

Second, he didn't leave the stage before the encore. It's something I'm noticing more artists and bands do. The encore has become a pointless tradition. There's no surprise to it anymore, let's stop pretending, let the music play.

You can give Matt Andersen a listen on a recording. But truly it is nothing compared to seeing him live. I don't say that lightly. I enjoyed Pink Martini at Massey Hall but I wouldn't say you couldn't get an idea of what they're like from their recorded music.

I don't know if it's because he needs a better recording setup or if he just can't be captured well on an MP3.

The Rating

https://nowuh.com/concert-ratings

Venue: 3.5/5
Audience: 2/5
Band: 4.5/5
Vocals: 4.5/5
Spectacle: 1/5
Stage presence: 4/5
Song choice: 4/5

Overall: 3.35/5

1984 + Brave New World

2026-02-01T17:00:00Z

Our phones are Soma

Swallowing half an hour before closing time, that second dose of soma had raised a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and their minds.

A nod to subscriptions today

'Look at him working away in the lunch hour,' said Parsons, nudging Winston. 'Keenness, eh? What's that you've got there, old boy? Something a bit too brainy for me, I expect. Smith, old boy, I'll tell you why I'm chasing you. It's that sub you forgot to give me.'

'Which sub is that?' said Winston, automatically feeling for money. About a quarter of one's salary had to be earmarked for voluntary subscriptions, which were so numerous that it was difficult to keep track of them.

Communication is hard without big tech

2026-01-31T17:00:00Z

The Verge’s Installer recently asked their readers to provide some details and feedback about their favourite devices and services from non Google/Amazon/Apple providers. I accidentally made a blog post in the email, attaching that below.

----

Hey! Heard your callout for people dropping services from the big guys. (Top list at the bottom)

I’m emailing you from my Fastmail account that I started using back in 2018, that was my first attempt to de-google and later extend to de-apple. Every new years I try to live “more intentionally” so it’s largely a focus on getting rid of my smartphone but it also extends to thinking about how I’m using my data, what I’m subscribing to, etc.

It’s been really hard. Where I’m at today is I have a small iCloud subscription for my fiancée and I; we cap our streaming services at one at a time. I use Ente for photo and video backups. For my personal documents, I don’t have a lot, so I just use the small amount of file storage I get through Fastmail.

I listen to music I own, I’m 31 so some of that is from the pre-Spotify days. The rest I’ve collected through Bandcamp or the library. Books and TV I largely get through the library.

The hard part is not with ditching the devices and services. That largely one or two clicks away. It’s with communicating with others. We’re planning a wedding right now and Google Drive is the best place to collaborate on shared documents. Even thought I’m very comfortable with technology, I don’t want to mess with a home lab or NAS. Our shared calendar is through iCloud. I don’t mind moving it but it’d be a pain for my fiancée. WhatsApp needs a primary device like an iPhone or Android and that’s where my fiancée communicates the most as she has friends and family overseas. Even my rec leagues communicate through WhatsApp.

I’ve generally accepted that I can’t fully move away from Apple or Google but I do what I can and try to do a bit more every year.

My top list:

Hoopla & Libby from the library
Fastmail - probably the most reliable service on the web right now
Ente
“nothing” - not the brand, but sometimes you get something in your life that you try to look for an alternative and realize nothing is a good replacement. I found that to be my case with an Apple Watch, I didn’t really need to be tracking every data point.
Pocketable notebooks

Finding a Studio

2026-01-24T17:00:00Z

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

2026-01-04T17:00:00Z

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

2025-12-29T17:00:00Z

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

2025-07-21T21:46:21Z

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

2025-07-21T16:05:29Z

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

2025-07-21T15:24:46Z

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.