recently - apr ’26 ☇
When I ended last month saying things were moving , I didn’t expect bushes and avoiding bears. But that’s what you get when you’re on a quest to walk it all and can’t help testing dead ends.
Climbed a dirt path off Bessborough Dr and before I knew, it vanished. GPS wasn’t P’ing. Then I saw the fresh-ish paw prints and went, “Absolutely not.”
I raced around, shuffling dirt and snapping through loose branches1 until I popped out near the Capitol Hill viewpoint. Wild that this sits ten minutes from where I’d just been freaking out.
The neighbourhood kept pulling me back. Found this oddly-placed ‘Dragon Pagoda’ that someone’s grandfather put up 26 years ago to mark the golden dragon year. So cool!
Aside: this was here the whole time?
My reddit post got a bunch of replies and curious comments. This one in particular:
Stuff like this is why I want people walking their neighbourhood properly. There’s magic outside if you look. What else is sitting on your block right now waiting to be noticed?
Those rambles left me feeling sharper. Playing codenames at a friend’s place that Easter Sunday, someone pointed out my ‘out-of-field’2 hints. I took it as a compliment on my lateral thinking, though she might’ve meant “you suck at this” (we were losing, lol). Regardless, juices resurrected3.
Pumped the techno-juices into Jules, the heat gauge app I built. Added a feed, and turns out people like checking each other out4!
Also pumped the litero-juices into blog posts on: that time someone leaked all Ghana’s voter data, a Witch Hat Atelier chapter I’d been sitting with, and last month’s recently (the most-replied-to yet). Wrote that last one at Grounds for Coffee on Commercial St, half the time spent unsticking glaze off my fingers. Someone said the post felt more alive. C’est vrai, had more time to edit.
Came up for air after publishing, then took the skytrain to Coquitlam5 to meet a friend I hadn’t seen in over two years. We caught up for hours, me excited about her new job, she uneasy about me quitting mine—at least until I told her about my New York interviews. That perked her up. Said she felt it was going to happen (second friend saying this btw).
On the way back, she kept teasing that I’d be moving to New York. I brushed it off until we passed a sidewalk with construction scaffolding. The writing was literally on the wall. She smirked. I couldn’t argue back.
And what do you know, I went home that night to an email: I’d made it to the last round and the startup was flying me out the next week for on-site interviews. Grab your bags, we’re going to New York!
I clutched my bag and the seat headrest for dear life, screaming, “eiiiiii”. Almost called out my driver,
but everyone on Van Wyck was cutting the same way—yellow cab thing, I guess.
The mountain-biking adrenaline demon in me secretly enjoyed it so I stayed the
whole rollercoaster ride (welcome to the United States of
Smash
America)
The welcome was loud—car horns, people heading to work, and Jay Z in my ears. I arrived at 8am, and later met up with a friend for bibimbap in K-Town, then roamed neighbourhoods like the kuborlors6 we were.
The next morning, NY hit me with a heat I hadn’t considered. Not the hot-people kind (though it had more per square metre, sorry Vancouver), but the drench-you-in-10-mins kind. Had to duck into a Starbucks for AC, then over to the office. The interview was three rounds with six interviewers, one of them my referrer. In between I said hi to as many others as I could, roleplaying as if I’m one of them already.
Hopped to Madison Square Park after, dodging a scooter on the way in. Then caught the L train with a colleague who took me through Brooklyn’s Williamsburg—livable and expensive, like Vancouver’s West End.
That day I crammed as many hangs as I could fit—apparently just another Thursday for booked-and-busy NYers7. Ended it at 1am with a childhood friend, ice cream and Invincible—felt like us being kids again.
Last hang of the trip was with an old colleague from my time at Goldman. He walked me through his fin-ops startup (automating compliance workflows). Laptop next to him the entire brunch, linkedinmaxxing between bites, replying to customers. Cut things short when I realised I was running late, left him to it—certain we’d make good friends next time.
The hustle to JFK…sheesh—was in the Uber rehearsing airport steps for a place I barely knew, refreshing reddit for TSA line updates. Made it with 10 mins to spare.
That was fun. NY is a lot—people to meet, a plausible guild, good friends, a definite sense of possibility. This would be a cool move.
“So where from this ambivalence?”
It crept up on the plane ride back, after the Manhattan hubbub fell away and I was stuck with 6 hours of airplane noise. Career-wise this move made sense, but the doubts came in waves: fear of losing the life I’d built in Vancouver? Regret over not getting to explore Oboade Labs more intently? What if I did NY first and Oboade later?
Then I remembered a scene from The Darwin Incident : the humanzee, watching Lucy fret about imagined futures, goes like, “why not just wait until you actually have to decide?”. Alright then. I’d accept where the wind was blowing.
Ouch! Was it the DB schema question I bumbled for 40 min, despite having solved the same problem for Gogomi? Too honest about looking for a guild? Hard to say. I’d wanted the offer so I could play Disney princess, wondering whether to stay or go8.
I underestimated the shock (jet-lag didn’t help9). Underneath it all, my self-imposed sabbatical deadline’s closing in with little clarity, and only something calling I couldn’t name.
Over the month I’d had a few catch-ups and everyone seemed to be quitting or leaving something10.
The convos got me reflecting on my sabbatical, feeling grateful for the room this stretch gave me to till the land, hear myself, even sulk. Scrolling my gallery, I found two similar photos, one from the start of the sabbatical, one this month.
A friend’s comment cut close: that I wasn’t giving my all to my projects with all the ‘free time’ I had. Partly true (I do have more time), partly missing the point of the break. The implication that I was wasting it stung, and stuck.
Since I quit, people keep asking what’s next, what’s next. They want certainty. Even the kind version, “Kevin’s cooking something great”11, assumes something socially legible. But the status game’s too small and too individual to fit. I want certainty too, just…not yet12.
Then I read Witch Hat Atelier vol. 5 and saw myself in Richeh’s trap: “if I conform I lose myself, if I shield myself I can’t help when it’s needed”. Two losses, pick one. Then she stumbles into something that shows her she didn’t have to choose: “the things that make you who you are never disappear” .
I’d been doing the same with Oboade Labs—splitting the formless thing it is now against the imagined-future thing that would justify me leaving a cushy tech job, a 1-3 numbers + letter + three letters thing. But that’s a failure of imagination. Maybe the mystery seed13 is already the thing. Like, get in the car and let’s go! chale chale, who cares.
The frame I’m taking from birding: in the bush, you barely see them, but you hear them for sure. At Burnaby Lake once, Merlin caught more than a dozen. I only saw a crow and a song sparrow. So: blurry vision, listen instead. Focus on what’s in front. Follow whatever perks your ears14.
Back on that plane home, another thought kept popping up: “I haven’t tried?” Joining the hot startup would’ve meant at least two years of full investment, no time for the sides. With that off the table, what was left wasn’t a default. It was the thing I’d been keeping in reserve so I never had to find out. So I’m giving Oboade Labs everything until the savings run out15. In practice:
- turned down a founding-engineer offer I’d been sitting on at an AI immigration startup
- picked Gogomi back up; a runner using it to do every street in Vancouver had sent feedback, shipped the fix (he’s at 50% now btw!). The walks also show up as heat in Jules
- went to an Infer meetup, scouting for guild energy (a March intention)16.
Tourism challenge is back again. Celine and I headed to that popular suspension bridge at Capilano. As custom, we missed the bus, and wandered the pier waiting for the next one.
Capilano Park was calming—crisp air, lots of greens and browns, my element. Walked the bridge like a civet on power lines. Across the bridge, we sat at a small shed in front of a still pond. Looking at all that grandness, my ruminating about the deadline closing in suddenly felt small (h/t Nietzsche).
Told my friend about how I was feeling renewed walking through the place, and she was like “yeah, you have strong wood”. Cheesy Taylor Swift energy aside, she was referring to my Chinese astrological reading (BaZi) which hints I feel most myself in forests. C’est vrai.
Ending the month without easy answers, but committed to staying with this as some larger hand pulls me forward.
I’m so excited to announce starting my role as ‘Chief of Technical Stuff’
at Oboade Labs!
