Happy Holidays! ☃️ 🎊

Being the end of the year there is a giant End of Year post hiding in this email like a bomb. So I will keep this little preamble fairly short.

December had me preparing a lot for PfP✨London, an event I am doing in the UK in February. In the middle of the month I had the first of 3 surgeries for a dental implant, which had a lot of associated stress in the run-up but saw me recovered completely within 48 hours. (“Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.”)

After that it was all about the school play, Xmas parties and visits, a giant sleepover, and spending the holidays here in our own house for the first time ever.

Hello there! 👋

This morning the grass was white with frost for the first time this year. The sky was a clear pale blue. November has been pretty dark and rainy and I have been inside more than I like. When I could I did take a couple of walks in the forest. Wisdom is everywhere if you look for it.

I went hard all month, launched my new project and have been scrambling to find speakers, sponsors, and participants for my next event in London early next year. On this continent I have been doing many online calls and local community building. “Whirlwind” is a metaphor that never seems to leave my lips.

Walks in the forest help to calm things down and let the mind settle. Incessant rain agitates the mind just like a pool of water. So one has to go deeper, where the raindrops can’t reach. For me this has been connecting with old friends in Kelowna, Colorado, and Korea for “beers” online. I also joined Clear Mountain Monastery’s very active online community where I am finding some excellent resources. It is through them that I discovered Bhante Joe Atulo, a (very) Canadian monk living in Sri Lanka who has amazing (and horrifying!) stories of wandering in the jungle. Listen to his story of walking World’s End. 😅

Hello there! 👋

(Shipping this a little early since we will be busy tonight for Halloween.)

This month saw the anniversary of putting in the offer (and it getting accepted!) on our house. We didn’t get the keys until January, and didn’t move in until March, but it still feels like a significant date — the tilling and watering of the soil before we really put down roots in this community.

To wit, I have no idea how many kids we are going to get tonight for trick-or-treating, so that is exciting. 🧙‍♀️🧛‍♀️🧟‍♂️

Hello there! 👋

Mettā to you 🙏🧘

After the flurry of kids Back-to-School and me wrapping up a work contract, I drove 3 hours into the BC wilderness to spend 7 whole days at a silent retreat, completely disconnected from the Internet. What a way to reset and prepare for the autumn.

In my normal day-to-day I am consuming so much information from across many different fields and feeds that I often do not get time to digest. This retreat really gave me the space to think about what is important and which direction to head next. It reminded me that in the flood of contradictory misinformation and disinformation, to look for the points of light that signal virtue and wisdom. Looking for those points, and ignoring the rest, not only prevents mindless and depressing doomscrolling, it leads to positive action. Now I just need to remember this lesson every time I pick up my phone.

Hello there! 👋

How is your summer treating you? We did a lot of travel as a family (link from the blog down below) in August but this month was also one of events.

Although part of the organizing committee, I could not attend DWeb Camp Cascadia (a few parting pics) since I was in Quebec. I did go to the retrospective meeting afterwards which had way more people than expected show up, all asking the same question: "You are doing this again next year, right?!" I suppose we better.

I spent a week in New York organizing and running Protocols for Publishers on behalf of Unternet. We had an amazing collection of publishers (Washington Post, Semafor, ProPublica, and more) in the room and I really look forward to convening more of this community both online and at future in person events (London next?). Check some of the media coverage here.

Bonjour! 👋

Comment ça va? I am writing you from the capital of la belle province: Quebec City.

We have been vacationing in Quebec for the last week. (I have had wayyy too much poutine… and miss rice 🍚). Today we walked all over the city and I took a quick 360 vid from the St Lawrence for you, catching the Châlet Frontenac as the sun went down. I am so beat, so have no profound insights for you this month. This is going to be a short newsletter.

This month marked 1 year of returning to Canada after about 5 fractured years in Japan. The kids started at new schools for the long term. We bought a house. I have been integrating into various communities in Vancouver (but not enough in Surrey… more on that in September I hope!) But it has been a good year of nesting. Very happy to be back.

Bon Matin! 👋

I am in a particular Quebecois ⚜️ mood today since just this past weekend I saw off my older daughter to Quebec City for a 5 week language learning course. It is her first big trip away from the family for an extended time. I was more nervous than her, but I think she will have a blast. We will be going to Quebec to meet up with her and take a little tour of la belle province at the end of July.

What can I tell you about June? We had birthday parties, graduation ceremonies, my brother and his family came and stayed with us for a lacrosse tournament, and my mom made her first trip to the coast in many years to see our new house! Summer came (30ºC) and then went, and just today came back again. I am very happy to sit on my back patio under the blue sky in the cool evening, reading or conversing with my wife.

One year ago we were scrambling to prep for the move to Canada. I had to pack 22 boxes and have them shipped, and my wife’s Permanent Resident Travel Permit was issued in the Philippines, revoked, and then re-issued again after many stressful calls to Canadian emergency consular services over the Canada Day long weekend.

Hello there! 👋

Living in the suburbs, and working from home, it has dawned on me how isolating it can be. Not yet integrated into the local community, I don’t have neighbourhood friends to hang out with or go to the pub to. I spend a lot of time alone in my office or walking/running around the local nature trails. In the evenings I get a few minutes of face time with my girls. But since they are teenagers, they quickly retreat to their rooms to Tiktok and their own online friends.

Once a week I will go to Z-Space to socialize in person, which is always a blast. I love that community, but it is currently a 70 minute commute to get there. There’s an old mate living on the other side of the Port Mann bridge who goes on coffee walks with me about once a month which I value. But most of my socializing is online: virtual coffees, online TTRPG, that kinda thing.

At the opposite extreme, this month I had the most amazing in-person meeting, reconnecting with someone I hadn’t seen since 2004. I was hanging off an embassy fence in Tehran, taking photos of the crowd of 40,000 “anti-America protestors”.† He recognized the Canadian flag stitched on my bag and called out to me in fluent English. It turned out that he grew up in Vancouver.

Hello there! 👋

Cherry blossom season has hit Greater Vancouver and I have gotten my camera out for the first time in a while. So many different kinds of flowers have been blooming, it is wonderful! Kelowna does not get this many flowers. I only remember how it kinda transitions from a dark, wet brown to a light, dry brown. Basically two tone seasons.

With spring, festival season has begun. In fact, just a little while ago I just got back from the Spring Fair at my younger daughter’s school. Her dance team performed for the crowd while my older daughter put out a craft booth in the fair market to sell some of her work and make some cash (to buy anime merch probably…).

The good spring weather has seen us visiting nearby communities and participating in different activities (including archery). There are some trip reports and photo albums linked below.

👋 Hello there!

With one last push — a week in Japan, driving a moving truck over two mountain passes, and four days at a conference in Seattle — I finally moved into our new house, ending a 5 year long journey.

We had been planning on moving during Spring Break and I had mostly taken the month off to do the move and spend some time with the kids. But I still had some excellent opportunities that I just had to take up. (I am always up for a good opportunity to meet new people and learn new things!)

Now there is a feeling of finality. Back in 2020 we left our house in Kelowna — the longest I have ever lived in one place, 8 years — to become somewhat nomadic. Twelve moves later we are now settled. The epilogue of the last few months in Surrey is turning to Chapter 1. What will this new story bring?

Hello there! 👋

Sitting in YVR right now, about to board a plane to Tokyo. I am flying over there for a week of client work. Can’t believe it has been less than a year away and I am already returning to Japan 😅. I will post some pictures on Flickr, no doubt.

In the meantime, February has been about juggling a super busy professional calendar with renovations on the new house. I am very excited to finally move in next month. It was February of 2020 that we left the house in Kelowna in which we lived for 8 years. That house is the one my kids cherish as their “childhood home.” Since then we have lived in 6 cities, moving multiple times even within those cities. If you count the temporary places we stayed (not hotels but places where we payed rent), this final move will be our twelfth (12) in the past 5 years. Really looking forward to some stability… to standing on the lawn in front of a house that I own, holding a garden hose, in shorts and black socks with sandals, and completing the long transformation into my own father.

But for all that talk of stability, March is still a whirlwind of activity: a week in Japan, one day of rest then a few days in Kelowna to get the last of our stuff from my brother’s crawlspace (and also to play the last session of Curse of Strahd in person), moving into the new house, and then immediately afterwards I will be in Seattle for the ATmosphere Conference where I look forward to meeting a bunch of the devs from the atproto ecosystem. If you are interested in open social networks, this is one conf you don’t want to miss!

Hello there! 👋

Hope you enjoyed Lunar New Year! I have been eating 年糕 Nian Gao (Chinese New Year Cake) for days, and not stopping! I have much to celebrate. My oldest daughter survived pneumonia, missing two weeks of school… and we bought a house! There is a short commemorative post below, as well as one about finding community. We have been here for 6 months and I think we are settling in nicely.

Gonna keep this one short. 2025 is coming fast (on many fronts!), there has been some bad news amongst the good, but in general I am feeling very positive about this one. I wish you many happy returns!

/ck

Hello there! 👋

Happy Holidays! I hope you are having a restful one.

This is our first winter break back in Canada. This area is a bit more Xmassy compared to Osaka, and we did the whole present thing properly. Despite not having any snow, it has been the most Xmas feeling for the past few years.

Other than visiting family and checking out some local sites including a movie set for holiday films and an exotic pet rescue center, I’ve been using the holiday time to catch up on some blogging backlog. Plus I have my annual roundup. All is linked below, so I won’t keep you. Tons of words there if you want them.

Hello there! 👋

It is -1ºC here in the Okanagan. I woke this morning to light coating of snow all over everything. I am here just for a few days visiting friends and family. ‘Tis the season I suppose.

There is a lot of connecting going on this month, whether with old friends and family or new friends in Vancouver and Seattle (see link below). And with the Trump election and Co-President Elon we have seen a huge exodus from Old Twitter to Bluesky. I have been re-connecting with friends I haven’t seen for the two years I was off Twitter! Bluesky is lots of fun. I have been collecting some tools on my Linkat (which is built on AT Proto, the protocol that Bluesky runs on). You can find me 🦋 @chadkoh.com

All this connecting and building relationships is very welcome for someone like me who has just moved to a new city. Considering the tattered social fabric of North American society, it is sorely needed. I am very happy to be engaged in a lot of community building, and will continue to do so as we move into a more repressive political climate. People are looking for meaningful connection but sometimes are scared to say, so I am trying to remember to reach out to those around me. Connect with someone new! And introduce me! Let’s build up those networks of solidarity. 💪

Hello there! 👋

The leaves are changing, it is still quite warm, we experienced another atmospheric river, and then went through a nail-biting election where climate-deniers almost won! We’ve had elections in Japan, elections in BC, and of course a whopper of an election next week. How’s your electsomnia doing?

I got back from Germany on the 10th (see blog below). It was a lovely first experience in “Middle Europe”. Previously I had only been to the edges: Lisbon and Istanbul. Germany was a pretty easy travel experience — I didn’t get sick once! It is easy to get around, they have poutine, and of course Germans speak very good English. I spent most of my time meeting people, mostly non-Germans residents, asking them about how Berlin has changed over the past few years. Soon I will write about my findings.

Since getting back though, I have had some Very Good Things happen that I have to keep under wraps for now. Suffice it to say, I have made excellent progress on this next chapter. It’s going to be busy few months but I am super happy and content with life right now.

Guten Tag from Mannheim 🇩🇪 Germany! 👋

I’ve been in country for a couple of days visiting friends and exploring before heading up to Berlin for Causal Islands. If you check my Flickr I have been posting a lot of selfies in front of old and elaborate things. (As an old and simple thing, the contrast is stark! 😜)

Usually I send these missives out on the last day of the month, but I am sending this one a little early since back in Canada tomorrow is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a day of reflection that I will participate in on this side of the Atlantic. 🟧 🪶

This is a double-issue of the newsletter since I was too busy to send one in August. Visitors came to the coast and we spent nearly two weeks in the Okanagan with friends and family. There was the Powell Street Festival and the Armstrong Fair and a visit to Vancouver Aquarium. We had school supplies and a car to buy! Then, as we got into September, and the kids started at their new schools (and Japanese school!), things started to settle down. The move to Canada is almost complete — the 18 boxes we sent on the ship are to arrive next week!

Hello from Canada! 🇨🇦 👋

We made it here safely — all together. Last time I wrote about my wife’s visa plot twist: Immigration Canada was not satisfied with the print quality of the visa document (the text didn’t line up straight) and so cancelled the visa requesting we fly to Manila to get a new one. A few phone calls and some chewed nails and they re-activated the visa, and we were safely able to travel, crossing three borders and nobody giving the crooked visa the side eye once! It was all stress but no problem, and had we done what they said, we would have had to spend at least $5000 on rebooked flights and hotel rooms while waiting for a reprint. Dodged a bullet there.

Anywho, we landed in Canada, ate poutine, moved our stuff into the new condo, and went ice skating. As you do 🇨🇦 🦫 🫎

Of course, just as I recovered from the jet lag and the move, I immediately spent 9 consecutive days commuting to downtown Vancouver to participate in the Internet Engineering Task Force Meeting. That was very enlightening and I still have a lot of follow up and reporting to do.

Hello there! 👋

We are in the final days. In a little over a week I will be heading back over the Pacific Ocean to the Greater Vancouver Area, while far below on a ship 18 boxes full of everything will be following along.

In the past when we left Japan we could always leave some stuff at my parents-in-law’s. But with no one left here, we have to take everything. (Believe me, we got rid of a lot more than what ended up in these boxes!). It is my first “root-and-branch” international move, the biggest ever.

Hello there! 👋

Last time I emailed you I was up at an old gold-mining village at the top of a mountain in northern Taiwan. This month I have finally started to put some words together about our trip to the beautiful isle of Formosa. Links below.

May saw me shifting gears into house-moving mode as we are just a month and a bit out of transitioning back to Canada full-time. So much planning, so much scrambling. May is a lovely month in Osaka, not yet muggy with perfect blue skies. Gonna miss this.

I look forward to meeting up with friends, old and new, as I re-integrate into the community in Canada. I will be at IETF120 in July and working with the local DWeb community to organize on some events surrounding that. Then in the fall I plan to be at Causal Islands Berlin. Looking forward to meeting everyone!

Hello there! 👋

I am writing you from a small, former gold-mining village in the mountains at the northern tip of Taiwan. We have been here for a few days, touching down in Kaohsiung in the far south, traveling north to Tainan and then Taipei, and now here in Jiufen. Now a tourist destination, the town of Jiufen is a series of switchbacks and houses clinging to the mountainside, overlooking the foothills and the sea. There is a famous teahouse which served as one of the inspirations for the bath-house in the Ghibli film Spirited Away. We had a very relaxing tea experience, reminiscent of the Japanese tea ceremony, in a different tea-house with a wrap-around balcony that hangs out over the valley. Gentle music played as we watched the wind push tufts of clouds upward and over the verdant mountain ridge above us.

I haven’t had much time to do my month-end reflection and write a proper newsletter. A lot happened in April — I will have to catch you up at the end of May. But let me take a moment and just talk a little about photography.