Monthly Archives: May 2025

Small gains

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I’ve been trying to put on some weight. Five pounds to be exact. I’m actually at my long term goal weight, but I want to be this weight 10 years from now… and at age 57 I recognize that it’s going to be hard to both gain and maintain healthy weight in the next decade.

So, a few months back I decided that I’d shoot for another 5 pounds of muscle by the end of this year. And for these past few months I’ve moved from floating just between 5-6 pounds from my goal weight to floating between 4-5 pounds from my goal weight. Not a significant change.

However, I need to remember my journey here. I have spent almost 6 and a half years working on my current fitness journey. I’ve seen incremental changes through that journey. I dropped over 27 pounds of unwanted weight and have then added 12 good pounds. I’ve had less back pain (other than a herniated disk in my neck, unrelated to my training or my usual lower back pain). My back still aches daily, but my days of actual pain have diminished considerably. And I’m at least as strong as I was in my 20’s and stronger (and more flexible) in most areas.

And no, I have not really seen any gains in the last few months, but that’s ok. I feel them coming. I know I’m on the verge of another small jump. The only problem is the gains now are too small to see. But they are here. I just bench pressed my personal best since I was in teacher’s college back in ‘97-‘98, and I’ve been pushing my leg workouts more than I ever have in the past.

Small gains are being made. More gains are around the corner. And if I stay focused on doing my best instead of worrying about my current progress, I’m sure I’ll hit, and maybe even surpass, my goal by the end of the year.

Robot dogs on wheels

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We seem to have a fascination with robots being more and more like humans. We are training them to imitate the way we walk, pick things up, and even gesture. But I think the thing most people aren’t realizing is how much better than humans robots will be (very soon).

The light bulb went on for me a few months back when a saw a video of a humanoid robot lying on the floor. It bent it’s knees completely backwards, placing it’s feet on either side of it’s hips and lifted itself to standing from close to it’s center of gravity. Then it walked backwards a few steps before rotating it’s body 180º to the direction it was walking. 

I was again reminded of this recently when I saw a robotic dog going over rugged terrain, and when it reached level ground, instead of running it just started to roll on wheels. The wheels were locked into position when the terrain was rougher, and it made more sense to be a dog-like quadruped to maximize mobility. 

There is no reason for a robot to have a knee with the same limited mobility as our knees. A hand might have more functionality with 3 fingers and a thumb, or 4 fingers and 2 opposable thumbs on either side of the fingers. Furthermore, this ‘updated’ hand can have the dexterity to pick something up using either side of it’s hand. It would be like if the hand had two palms, simply articulating finger digits to go the opposite way when it is practical. Beyond fully dexterous hands, we can start to use our imagination: heads that rotate to any direction, a third arm, the ability to run on all-fours, incredible jumping ability, moving faster, being stronger, and viewing everything with 360º cameras that have the ability to magnify an object far beyond human eyesight capabilities. All the while processing more information than we can hold in our brains at once. 

Robot dogs on wheels are just the first step in creating robots that don’t just replicate the mobility and agility of living things, but actually far exceed any currently abilities that we can think of. Limitations to these robots of the near future are only going to be a result of our lack of imagination… human imaginations, because we can’t even know what an AI will think of in 20-30 years. We don’t need to worry about human-like robots, but we really do need to worry about robots that will be capable of things we currently think are impossible… And I think we’ll start to see these in the very near future. The question is, will they help humanity or will they be used in nefarious ways? Are we going to see gun wielding robot dogs or robots performing precision surgery and saving lives? I think both, but hopefully we’ll see more of these amazing robots helping humanity be more human.  

The next stage…

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Today marks a new era in my life. I’m going to my daughter’s friend’s wedding. This is the first one I’m attending from the next generation. While I don’t foresee my daughters getting married too soon, I recognize that after a long dry spell of not attending any weddings, this is something that will likely happen a bit more frequently in the coming years.

I’m reminded of my Firsts and Lasts post. This is a small first, it’s not my daughter getting married, but it’s a new era, a new stage in my life which I get to celebrate. And while I’ll have to wait a bit longer for one of my daughters to walk down the aisle, I see that this is the start of something new for my wife and I.

The Right Focus

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When I wrote, ‘Google proof vs AI proof‘, I concluded, “We aren’t going to AI proof schoolwork.”

While we were successful in Google proofing assignments by creating questions that were not easily answerable using a Google search, we simply can’t make research based questions that will stump a Large Language Model artificial intelligence.

I’ve also previously said that ‘You can’t police it‘. In that post I stated,

“The first instinct with combating new technology is to ban and/or police it: No cell phones in class, leave them in your lockers; You can’t use Wikipedia as a source; Block Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok on the school wifi. These are all gut reactions to new technologies that frame the problem as policeable… Teachers are not teachers, they aren’t teaching, when they are being police.“

It comes down to a simple premise:

Focus on what we ‘should do’ with AI, not what we ‘shouldn’t do’.

Outside the classroom AI is getting used everywhere by almost everyone. From programming and creating scripts to reduce workload, to writing email responses, to planning vacations, to note taking in meetings, to creating recipes. So the question isn’t whether we should use AI in schools but what we should use it for?

The simple line that I see starts with the question I would ask about using an encyclopedia, a calculator, or a phone in the classroom, “How can I use this tool to foster or enhance thinking, rather than have the tool do the thinking for the student?‘

Because like I said back in 2010,

“A tool is just a tool! I can use a hammer to build a house and I can use the same hammer on a human skull. It’s not the tool, but how you use it that matters.”

Ultimately our focus needs to be on what we can and should use any tool for, and AI isn’t an exception.

The trouble with troubleshooting

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Being in a leadership position, I’ve come to realize that a large part of the job is about troubleshooting. Most people don’t want to ask for help, they’d rather deal with issues themselves. But when they can’t, that’s when the trouble comes your way. Sometimes it’s an easy fix, other times you don’t even know where to start. Sometimes it’s conflict resolution, other times it’s technical, and still other times it’s something you haven’t ever dealt with before.

The trouble with troubleshooting is that it’s almost always a new issue, nuanced, and not easily solved with prior knowledge. What I’ve learned along the way about troubleshooting comes down to two things:

  1. Ask more questions before seeking answers.
  2. Seek expertise and help, don’t try to troubleshoot alone.

Simple but very productive advice. It’s hard to solve the problem when you lack information, and you don’t always know what you need to know. Asking for clarification, collecting more data, and truly understanding the problem will save a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth where the problem doesn’t get solved.

Once you have significant information, then it’s easier to know who to ask for help. This is the part of the process that I’ve gotten better at with age. I used to think I had to be the one that did all the troubleshooting, that this was my job. I realize now that when I have enough information, I also often have what I need to recognize who to go to for help… not just someone to pass the problem onto, but someone who has the expertise or resources to fix the issue faster than I can alone.

It seems simple, but so often I’ve found myself knee deep in a troubleshooting scenario where a little more information would have helped speed things up. Or, realizing after the fact that what took me an hour could have taken 5 minutes if I just stopped and thought about who had the knowledge that could have helped me. The real trouble with troubleshooting is all about knowledge… how much do I need to know, and who knows more than me and can help?

Day of meetings

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Being an online school principal means that my position in my district is quite unique. As it turns out, my day-to-day experience has more in common with the other online principals from other districts than it has in common with other principals in my district. And so it’s always great to connect with these distant colleagues who face similar challenges and experiences as me.

Today is a day of meetings with these colleagues. We start the day together, then meet with the Ministry, then continue our meetings. Once done for the day, I have a dinner meeting with the Executive of our online principal’s organization.

While I’m not a fan of being in meetings all day, it’s wonderful to connect with these amazing educators that have similar yet unique jobs across the province. We often meet online as well, and some of our colleagues will be joining us online today, but the chance to connect, to have side conversations about our programs, and to be in the same room with each other, is really wonderful.

I am excited about the day in a way that is counter to how I usually feel about a day of meetings… I’m actually looking forward to it!

A Moment in Time

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In a way, we are all time travellers. None of us experience time in the same way. We can be engaged in the same activity but for one of us time flies by and for another time seems to slow down. Have you ever been in the company of someone having way more or less fun than you? Do you think your perspectives of time were the same?

What’s the difference between time well spent and time poorly wasted? What is the experience of time for someone bored versus someone excited? What’s the experience of time for someone with a severe tooth ache waiting for a root canal versus someone terrifyingly waiting in line for a scary roller coaster ride?

Ask a 90 year old where the time has gone and compare that to a school-aged child wishing they were older and more independent.

Are we spending our time well or wasting it away? Ask a person at the end of a shift, a person at the end of a holiday, and a person at the end of a life. No answer will be the same.

Are we experiencing time or are we just letting time lapse? Either way we distort time, we alter how we perceive it, we quite literally time travel. We don’t just travel through time, and we don’t just live in the present. We worry about the past, and fret about the future. We also let the past hold us back, and let fear of the future restrict us. Or inversely we let the past inspire us, and the possibilities of the future motivate us.

We are constantly time traveling, so much so that we can’t really define the present, for we are so seldom actually living in the moment. For ever single person this moment in time is a completely different experience of time.

We are all time travellers experiencing time in our own unique way.

Early mornings

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I’m in a bit of a rut. I get up early enough, but my usual morning routine has slowed down and I’m finding myself in a rush to get to work every morning. It’s a slow creep of distractions and general laziness that’s pushing my usual routine into a speed round of getting everything in.

What I’ve recognized is that I’ve let a general slowness creep into my morning routine. I’m not avoiding anything, I’m just not getting to everything in a timely fashion. I’ve let my routine falter not by neglecting any one part of it, but by letting wasted time sneak in.

This would be fine if I wasn’t already going to bed earlier to make sure I wake up well rested, or if this happened on weekends when I have more time… but on workdays I need my tight routine to stay tight so that I’m not shortening my cardio times and rushing my workout sets. I already work on only one muscle group because I’m pressed for time, the last thing I need to do is squeeze the sets smaller and faster.

It’s an interesting realization that I’m still getting everything done but neither to the best of my ability nor in a way that makes me feel good about it. I end up feeling rushed and feeling like I’m underperforming, neither of which is a good way to start my day. It’s like I’m going through the motions and yet feeling less accomplished.

I’m going to pay more attention to my efficiency and my focus in the morning. I’m going to stare at the blank screen when unsure what to write, rather than seeking inspiration through distractions. I might even move my meditation before writing when I’m drawing a blank on what to write about. I’m going to lighten my reps and go higher volume so that I get re-used to more volume of weights in the morning.

It’s not what happens, it’s what you do that makes the difference, and what I’m doing now isn’t making the right kind of difference! So it’s time to adapt and get better. Because I can move away from this slow creep of distraction and off task behaviour in the morning I know I will start my day feeling a lot better, and a lot less rushed.

The thief or the drive?

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I’m listening to Mel Robins, ‘The LET THEM Theory’. One key idea that she shares is that of compassion and how we get jealous of other’s successes rather than letting them be successful and understanding that we can seek that same success too. I’m on Chapter 10, and while she hasn’t explicitly said this adage (yet?) I keep thinking of it: ‘Comparison is the thief of joy’.

Meanwhile, her message is that comparison should drive us to be better ourselves. This is admittedly harder to do than to say. Mel says,

“Using the Let Them Theory, you’ll be able to recognize when comparison hits, and you’ll understand that it’s trying to teach you something: Jealousy is a doorway to your future that just cracks open, and it’s your job to recognize when it happens and kick the door open and walk right through it. When you let other people lead the way, you’ll realize that beneath all the fear, and excuses, and time that you’ve wasted, there’s the life you’ve wanted all along. And right now, the only thing that is holding you back from taking control of your life are the excuses…”

So the question is, do we let comparisons steal our joy and diminish our drive, or do we use compassion as a motivation to maximize our beliefs that we can be successful too, and feed the drive to be better?

Do way stay jealous or do we let others’ successes help us find our own way to success?

Purpose, meaning, and intelligent robots

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Yesterday I wrote Civilization and Evolution, and said, “We have built ‘advanced’ cages and put ourselves in zoos that are nothing like the environment we are supposed to live in.”

I’m now thinking about how AI is going to change this? When most jobs are done by robots, who are more efficient and cost effective than humans, what happens to the workforce? What happens to work? What do we do with ourselves when work isn’t the thing we do for most of our adult lives?

If intelligent robots can do most of the work that humans have been doing, then what will humans do? Where will people find their purpose? How will we construct meaning in our day? What will our new ‘even-more-advanced’ cages look like?

Will we be designing better zoos for ourselves or will we set ourselves free?