Personal The RSS feed for Personal.

I may share more personal thoughts at times. These are the posts where I will open up a little.

  • I need to start organizing a reunion for the university alumni (class of 1990), and the first challenge that arises is: how can we communicate with each other if I don’t want to use a Meta service (WhatsApp, Messenger) and I want to reach as many people as possible without everyone having to become ‘friends’ on Facebook? ☹️

    Forty years ago, before the Internet, we used the phone to talk to each other, a service often owned by a single nationwide company. We were okay with that, even if, in some jurisdictions, people talked about a monopoly. Now, it’s very different. What makes this less acceptable to me today? 🤔

    For now, we will use Messenger because some people don’t have iPhones and can’t use FaceTime. 🙄

  • When I Retire...

    One of my nieces’ friends works in IT and recently contacted me for advice about his career in this field. This isn’t the first time I’ve received this kind of request. Over the past year, two other colleagues have also asked me for similar career advice. I have to admit, I really enjoy it. I like listening to the concerns of the younger generation and, to the best of my knowledge, advising them to help them flourish even more. Continue reading →

  • This weekend, I wanted to work on my next YouTube video, but I fell into this “photo-sharing website for my close family and friends” rabbit hole. It took most of the day to refine that I completely forgot about my video. 🤦🏻‍♂️

  • Ten days into 2026, I have achieved much more than I anticipated. If I maintain this pace, I will complete my list of wild ideas soon. It’s not just about checking items off the list, but also about learning a lot along the way. It’s very fulfilling.

  • I can confidently say I’ve learned at least one significant new concept every day over the past two to three weeks. It is not only satisfying but also quite stimulating. This will keep me from aging, that’s for sure.

  • Let's Start 2026!

    This is my first post of the year on Micro.blog. Despite the overall global, political, and economic challenges that don’t seem very promising, I am personally looking forward to 2026. Travel-wise, I have four planned: Egypt, Mexico, France & Thailand. This could also be a productive year for photography. I’m looking forward to those trips as we celebrate our 20-year relationship, my wife and I. 😊 Tech-wise, it’s the year of the iPhone upgrade. Continue reading →

  • What a wonderful weekend in Montreal. The weather is ideal—just the kind that makes fall my favorite season.

  • I have a one-day holiday vacation on Thursday, right in the middle of the week, and I still have no plans. 🤨 Weather should be perfect, though. 🍁🍂🚲👀

  • As a blogger and someone curious about many topics, I often feel I miss opportunities to become an expert in certain fields. Generative AI is one example. It gained public attention in the fall of 2022. At that time, when generative AI started to gather attention in the public, I should have recognized this important moment. I should have taken the chance to gather knowledge and organize it like a true researcher. I’m very analytical in general. I ask good questions. I have the tools and the motivation to do this work. Now, it feels overwhelming to catch up.

  • I’m spending a lot of time online and on my computer each week for my blogs, probably around 10 to 25 hours. I wonder how skilled I could become if I dedicated those hours to learning a new field like psychology or music.

  • Some are doing vibe coding but me, I’m having a good vibe because of the view. 😬😜

  • It’s been a while but recent news and trends about AI-based bots trying to ruin the life of psychologically vulnerable people triggered an update to my /nope page.

  • I often repeat this thought in my head when I’m in challenging times: “everything around me has been done by people not smarter than me.”. It’s inspired by Steve Jobs’ words from an interview he did in the early 1990s, where he was reflecting on how empowering it is to realize that the world is built by people just like us — and that we can reshape it too.

  • It’s one of those Monday that will take a hard time to get started. 😅 I had such a great weekend. Let’s get this done.

  • What, You Have a Blog? Really?

    I overheard people at the office talking about their weekend activities. I wasn’t in the conversation, but I’m always prepared for those. I never talk about my writing hobby or the many websites I maintain. Most people would find this strange. They’d say things like, “What, you have a blog? Really?” Yes, that’s right. I prefer to skip all that and talk about a walk in the park, in the forest, and maybe about photography. Continue reading →

  • Close to a personal turning point… I find this to be both exciting and unsettling. I’ll probably share more very soon. 🤞🏻

  • Since coming back from vacation, my morning routine is simple and is always the same: wake up, make coffee, open up the Mac, read Micro.blog timeline, update the current issue of The Ephemeral Scrapbook, do some photo-processing work, tweak my secret work-in-progress-soon-to-be-revealed website with Elements, and read some news before having breakfast.

  • Five Years Ago - Confinement

    Five years ago. COVID was hitting hard after two months of confinement. Distant memories already. Hard to believe. I still wear emotional injuries from that time. It wasn’t easy, and nothing really returned to normal since then. With current geopolitical events, things seems different and somewhat worse to some degree. Difficult times, indeed. Continue reading →

  • I’m excited about the next two days as I will be traveling by train from Montreal to Quebec City. I enjoy train travel between those two cities because it’s relaxing, the scenery is usually beautiful, and the weather should be nice. I appreciate the opportunity to embrace modern technology; I’ll be able to work remotely from my laptop, with my iPhone’s 5G connection to stay productive while on the move.

  • My Current Incomplete and Troubled Bucket List

    While revisiting my writing projects pipeline, I found this unfinished blog post. It’s a bucket list. It was inspired by Manton Reece’s Revisiting 43 Things blog post. Recent comments in italic. Rent a country house for the whole summer, outside Canada — I would have been in the US, but this plan is on hold, because of Trump’s America. Get my house renovated — Completed! Do another trip with my two sons — TBD. Continue reading →