Matt Refghi

In a recent blog post, I shed a bit of light on some difficulties I faced in my personal life:

“2015 hit me like a semi. My life changed drastically, and I quickly found myself in a world where I could not find that feeling of peace that I had learned to use as my compass. Changes happened too quickly, without enough thought and comfort, and, as a result, my stress skyrocketed.”

2015 was indeed a very rough year, but back in 2014, I had major conflicts with my family, my girlfriend, and even my mentor. As the year came to a close, I had no choice but to laugh at how unbelievably dark things had become. If asked to total up the problems I faced, I’d use one word: hate. Not hate like hate crimes, or anything super serious like that, I mean more like the kind of hate people encounter on the Internet. No matter what happens on the Internet, no matter how positive, you can be sure that there will be “haters” commenting along with it. 

Hater (Haters) is a term which refers to a person or group who expresses hatred in public forums, especially those found on the World Wide Web such as YouTube.

But, without them, let’s face it…. the Internet just wouldn’t be the Internet. The general advice is to ignore them, and to continue doing what you’re doing – content creators are told to get a thick skin, to not let the negativity hit home. That particular logic even has its own unofficial slogan: “haters gonna hate,” one of my favorites. Put simply, you’re never going to be able to please everyone, so don’t let people’s hate/opposition get in your way. Just do what you do.

This is all fine and good, but when you have members of your family “hating” on you for choices you’ve made in your own personal life, the story becomes significantly more complicated. In my case, it began when I entered a particular relationship in 2014. Even though the relationship was my business, I faced what I can only describe as an extreme amount of opposition from my family. It was to the point where intentional actions were taken to disrupt the relationship between me and my girlfriend. This created a lot of stress, and added a lot of unnecessary turbulence at an early stage of the relationship, and eventually, contributed to its demise. (Looking back, the relationship wasn’t a good fit – it would not have lasted anyway, but in no way did that give ANYONE the right to disrupt my life from the outside.)

A few months after, I clashed with another family member. I won’t get into specifics, for the sake of anonymity, but suffice it to say that it all started with a very innocent e-mail, with zero ill-will behind it. I sent this e-mail after checking the wording with multiple friends (four, not kidding), just because I felt the e-mail might be perceived incorrectly, particularly knowing the individual in question and their psychology. My goal was to communicate this innocent thing, while wording it exceptionally well so that the person hopefully wouldn’t react poorly due to misunderstanding. Despite all this consideration and care, the person, in the end, flipped out (to put it somewhat bluntly), and sent me multiple e-mails, accusing me of a variety of things: actively seeking to doing harm, having a mental illness, being cold, heartless, you name it. I’m simplifying it, though. The things said in these e-mails were absolutely, 100% written with the intent of doing maximum harm, with zero consideration that the person on the receiving end was a blood relative. I could never imagine myself sending something like that to stranger… let alone a blood relative.

In both of these cases, I had approached my family with the utmost care and consideration. I knew things were somewhat sensitive, and I specifically took steps to make a positive outcome more likely. But yet, despite my efforts, my consideration, there I was, demonized, deemed a horrible person… a very bad man. 

After these events, I had no choice but to cut contact with the family members in question, as the exchanges had gotten too poisonous. I also ended up having to part ways my mentor, as mentioned my blog post titled The Suit Bag, which further added to my sense of having been shunned, alienated. Looking to discuss everything that had happened, I found myself a therapist through the CLSC, which turned out to be one of the most valuable experiences in my life. I’d always been a fan of therapy, always open to self-reflect and hear an objective opinion, but I never felt I had enough to discuss, until 2014 came along. Ultimately, the therapist agreed that I needed to temporarily cut contact from my family – boundaries had been seriously violated, and too much residual emotional turbulence was present. We agreed to slowly re-establish a non-poisonous relationships with key family members over time, and, today, I can say that the plan was absolutely brilliant. Without it, restoring friendly relations would not have been possible so soon.

But while I was still in the thick of it, reflecting on the nasty e-mails I had received, and the opposition I faced, I couldn’t help but find a little humor in my being deemed a “bad man,” a devil of sorts. My care and consideration had manifested itself clearly and generously – for that innocent e-mail, for example, I had recruited 4 different people, 2 male, 2 female, to ensure that I wasn’t saying anything that could be misinterpreted. This was going WAY overboard in terms of caution, almost to the point of lunacy. That’s how careful I was… yet… it earned me the most brutal series of e-mails I had ever received in my life. To move forward, I naturally turned to my old coping mechanism, my ability to find humor in even the darkest of times.

I also had the idea of going a little further with it…. I thought: let’s try to use some of the negativity to make other people laugh as well. After all, it’s what I’ve been doing on my blog all along – turning negative life experiences into amusing stories. I liked the idea of grabbing the negativity, repackaging it, and making people laugh. There was a certain justice to it, in my mind. And the beauty was, no one needed to know that I was doing that – just me knowing that I had used hate to make people laugh, was justice enough. So with that concept born in my mind, I went on living my life, and knew that eventually, I’d get an idea that would work with that.

The first idea I had was while browsing items in a grocery store. I spotted a bottle of Nutella, a product I specifically avoid because it’s so tasty that it pretty much guarantees over-consumption. In other words, it’s kind of an “evil” product due to its amazing tastiness (for me, anyway). So on this particular day, when I saw the bottle, I laughed, and thought if the devil existed, it would make total sense for him to create Nutella, and watch the world succumb to an inevitable state of obesity, accelerated by its tastiness. Again, I laughed: before me was proof that the devil existed. Knowing other people found Nutella just as tasty, I got home, and decided to turn that idea into a public service announcement graphic, for kicks. Keep in mind, the idea originally had nothing to do with the events of 2014. But something happened while I was actually creating it. 

At face value, it’s fairly clear that the focus of the shot is the Nutella bottle, given the emphasis by circle. It also makes sense when most people think about Nutella, and how absolutely delicious it is, compared to other foods. But here’s the thing… in the graphic, what if I wasn’t talking about the Nutella? Notice how my website appears pretty clearly, and that it bears my name? Perhaps I’m warning people that I’m the devil, and that they should know that I exist.

Now, obviously, I knew that I wasn’t the devil. But given the turbulence encountered during the year, I knew that there were an increasing number of people out there that really thought I was, despite my own efforts. Playfully, I added that subtle suggestion – my way of converting some of that concentrated negativity into something that could potentially make other people laugh. And I loved what that symbolized, getting something useful out of unnecessary harshness.

Here’s another example, the cover to a fictitious book:

Money, Please: How the Key to Female Attraction Was In Your Wallet This Whole Time. Read the blog post.

It was born innocently enough: someone texted me “money please,” and that got me thinking.

It was the sheer simplicity of the text, “money please,” that spoke to me. To me, those two words perfectly summed up what some unfortunate, bitter men might think of women: that they’re only after money, in life. Though I absolutely didn’t agree with that view of women, and their desires, I did find humor in the fact that those two words, together, were so brilliantly suited to be matched with that stereotype/mindset. So I kept it in mind, and knew that eventually, I’d want to make use of that idea in some way, for humor.

That was the foundation of the idea, but what triggered me to get it done, was something else: I realized that the whole concept would make it possible for me to have quotes on the front page of the book, and that those quotes could oppose me, given that the humor behind my idea was based on me acting ridiculous to begin with. In other words, I could re-use the hate that was directed towards me in the year, and wield it, yet again, to support the humor that I was going for in my post. It made sense to me that certain readers of the fictitious “Money, Please” would be against the premise of the book, and I liked the idea of putting those quotes right on the front, as if I was so ridiculous, as a fictitious author, that I didn’t realize they were against my book.

Ultimately, I included two main quotes:

“You will live and die a very lonely life.” – Amy

This quote represents a fictitious female reader that (rightfully) disapproves of the ridiculous premise presented by my book. It makes it clear that I realize that I’m being silly, in case that wasn’t obvious enough… and it also makes me seem so stupid that I’d include negative quotes on my own book cover. Now, in reality, this was a verbatim quote from one of the hateful e-mails I received. A nasty thing to say, but in this context, very appropriate.

“Oh, Matt.” *shakes head* – Yasmine

This next quote is something that was said to me via chat, at one point, and when I replied to understand what she meant, I never heard back. While it doesn’t qualify as hate, I found it pretty silly that something so cryptic would be left unclarified like that, especially since I hadn’t spoken to the person in months. So I included it on the book as a hat tip to the how silly modern communication can be, these days – something Aziz Ansari touched upon in his Modern Romance tour. 

So, in the end, when I recycle these negative things, it’s almost like I’m getting a certain therapeutic value from doing so, even if people aren’t aware of them. In fact, there were numerous cases where I felt a lot better about a negative events that occurred in my life right after I wrote about them on my blog. It’s kind of a great way to organize your thoughts, and in my case, I usually also use the opportunity to inject a little humor, the element that allowed me to get to where I am today.

Now, at the end of the day, I look back on the difficulties of the year 2014 as yet another significant learning opportunity, where I had some really tough obstacles plopped in my path, and I was forced to find a way to get through them. I sympathize with my family, my mentor, and even my ex-girlfriend – they each had their own life circumstances that lead them to behave in the ways that they did back then, which contributed to the craziness of my 2014 – but it surely affected them as well, in their own ways. I must also express a sincere thanks to my therapist, who was there to talk when I felt most alone, without me having to put that burden on my friends.

Photo credit

First photo by Geoff Stearns

Second photo by Nicolas Raymond

Photo of woman in the Money, Please book cover by TaxCredits.net)

As you may know from some of my prior blog posts, I sometimes push myself to extremes when it comes to which foods I eat, how I approach weight loss, and how I approach exercise. Somehow, extremes seems to work better with my brain, rather than slowly progressing towards an ideal change. So, I was intrigued when I randomly encountered a video on YouTube featuring Penn Jillette, one half of the magician duo Penn & Teller. In the video, Penn describes how he lost 100 pounds… while still being able to eat whatever he wants. Now, don’t get me wrong – I fully understand how much the Internet is plagued by gimmicky weight loss headlines, but take it from me… there’s an interesting message embedded here.

If you just read the title, or just watch a fraction of it, you might very well conclude that he’s insane and move on. And frankly, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. His approach is a bit nuts, but in due time, you start to see that there’s more to it than the face value. Penn starts his story off with a disclaimer, communicated with an amusing amount of bluntness:

“If you take medical advice from a Las Vegas magician, you are an idiot who deserves to die.”

Ooook then. So if you understand that and move on, he describes how he kicked off his weight loss effort by eating only potatoes for 14 days. Yes, potatoes. Whole potatoes. No adding salt, no altering the potatoes in any way. No specific meal times, either – he approached it with simplicity: if he was hungry, he ate a potato. As a guy that likes extremes, I respected his lunacy.

After the 14 days, he expanded slowly into other foods. He explained, for example, that an ear of corn tasted like candy to him, after his potato consumption spree. It was as if his potato diet had rebooted his taste buds. Whereas, in the past, he’d be overwhelmed with the taste of butter, salt, and wouldn’t quite taste the corn. This, I could relate to completely. As a former vegetarian of 8 years, I learned to appreciate the subtleties of non-meat consumption. Veggie hot dogs, for example, were never particularly tasty when you were used to eating delicious, actual meat sausages. But when you never had meat… your sense of taste adapted, and the veggie hot dogs began to taste fairly good.

I’ve had other experiences that illustrated this, also: switching from regular V8, to its low-sodium variant, and from 2% milk, to skim milk. In both cases, immediately after switching, I couldn’t believe how much weaker the flavors were. But, sure enough, as I kept at it, I got used to it, and before long, the super-exaggerated sodium content of the original V8 was no longer appealing to me. And 2% milk suffered a similar fate – its flavor became too intense – skim had become my normal. It’s not that the new foods themselves were lacking in flavor – it’s that my taste took some time to adjust to the subtleties.

This is echoed quite brilliantly in Penn’s conclusion, where he states the following:

“After this whole, incredibly restrictive diet, and all of this willpower, and all of this climbing a dietary Everest, as I sit here right now on the Big Think, I now eat whatever I want. But, what I want has changed profoundly.“

Penn used a potato mono-diet as his Everest, and once he reached the summit, he began allowing other foods to enter his diet. He describes his post-14-day diet with two words: whole plants. No animal products, processed grains, added sugar, salt. However, every two weeks, he allows himself to consume food just like a regular person. But something interesting happened – since the potato frenzy, and his subsequent whole plants diet, he finds he doesn’t crave animal products, or junk food like he used to. So, even though he indulges occasionally, he tends to select healthier options almost as an instinct, driven by his newfound tastes.

This all, naturally, reminds me of my weight loss adventures, and brings me back to a time where my own taste buds were appreciative of simpler foods. It is in this spirit that I purged my home of meat products once more, and jumped right back into near-vegetarianism. I say near because I’m in the process of depleting certain products, rather than giving them all away, such as the low-sodium Lipton Chicken Noodle soup that I enjoy. Yes, it contains “dehydrated mechanically separated cooked chicken” ?_?, but, I figure it’s better than flat-out taking a bite out of chicken flesh.

I must emphasize, in closing, that there’s nothing inherently wrong with moderated meat consumption. I’m merely switching back to a diet that seemed to work better for me, habit and fitness-wise. And for this, I must thank Penn. His video reminded me of the role that taste plays in a diet, and in particular, its malleability.

Photo credit

First photo by Nick Saltmarsh.

Second photo by velo_city.

It all started with Prison Break Race… from that point on, I was hooked on the obstacle course lifestyle. It didn’t take long for me to try a few more: Mud Hero, 5K Foam Fest, Polar Hero. The first promised a gratuitous amount of mud, the next threw foam into the mix, and the last was fearlessly scheduled during the winter. Each was interesting, and may even be featured in future posts.

When selecting races, I was always driven to go for the most unique first. So when I heard of Color Me Rad, a 5k race where you get blasted with colorful dyes while running, I was definitely intrigued. I knew I’d have to try it at least once, so I signed up immediately. It’s important to mention that unlike the races I did in the past, this one did not have physical obstacles – only dye.

Now with obstacle races, typically, there’s so much mud and water involved that it is generally advised to leave your phone in your car. I’ve always done that, and I figured Color Me Rad would be no exception; however, I was wrong. Color Me Rad surprised me by including an extremely convenient protective case for phones. For once, I could actually bring my phone with me, and take photos of the experience. Great thinking on their part.

Prior to the actual race, since I wore contact lenses, I pondered how I would protect my eyes from all the dye that would be thrown at me. To do this, I went to the dollar store and bought a really cheap diving mask. I took the most colorful one they had, bright neon green, and, since it wasn’t the best quality, I went ahead and cut out the part that was under the nose, so I could continue to breathe despite wearing it.

Come race day, my mask worked… for the most part. I ran with it up on my head, and when I approached a color “gate” (a specific point in the race where their staff throws/shoots dye), I pulled it down to guard my face. Now, generally, you’re told that their staff is specifically instructed to NOT target a person’s face. This makes sense; however, my experience was a little different. At the first gate, no less, one particular staff member specifically targeted my face, laughing in an almost maniacal way. If I was wearing a GoPro, replaying the footage in slow motion would have been priceless if only for the guy’s facial expression and momentary lunacy. After the encounter, I reflected and figured I was likely being targeted because I had some form of facial protection, unlike the majority. Not all staff members succumbed to momentary lunacy, however – the majority behaved reasonably.

Regardless, by the end of the race, despite being equipped, I was completely covered in dye. The mask did a fairly good job, but it didn’t stop the dye from finding its way to my eyes – it only reduced the amount that made it through. Granted, I was at least partially to blame. At another color gate, near the end, I decided to walk slowly to increase the time their staff had to shower me with dye. A bit overconfident, you might say – but the dye, in and of itself, was no big deal. What was a big deal, unfortunately, was having to take a big breath during this slow march through the gate. In doing so, the timing was such that I inhaled right as a huge yellow dye cloud slammed against my face, giving me a big dose of yellow, and a heavy coughing fit to match.

Still, despite these inconveniences, it was an interesting experience – and if I were to do it again, I’d probably go even crazier with the facial protection. I’d engineer something more functionally reliable, while also making sure it looks exceptionally ridiculous for everyone else’s benefit. Without any face protection, I’m not sure I’d do it, though. Even when I ran through the gates, due to the timing of the throws, sometimes, the powders still messed with my breathing – which is kind of the last thing you want messed with.

The resulting dye, below:

Alright, so here’s a quick problem I just encountered. To record video game footage for my Let’s Play videos, I typically use a nifty little program called Fraps. Natively, Fraps generates video files in the AVI format. Normally, working with these types of files is extremely simple. I drag them into Adobe Premiere, it processes briefly, and bam, they’re ready to be manipulated. But today, for some reason, I got a new dialog after that processing step. The dialog reads “File Import Failure”, and it contains the following error message:

Pretty scary, especially when the recording in question is 58 minutes long, and you don’t quite feel like re-recording it.

Solution

I took to google, as I always do, and I found a particularly useful thread on the Adobe forums. There were a lot of ideas raised, but ultimately, I managed to solve my problem by performing two of them. Here’s what I did:

Step 1: I reinstalled Fraps. To do this, I went on their site, and accessed the “Members Areas” to download the full version (free version should work equally well). Reinstalling was suggested by Sarah Northway in the Adobe thread. Thanks, Sarah!

I had this problem and just had to install Fraps again – it automatically installed the codec I needed then Premiere could once again read the AVI files.

Step 2: I installed FFDShow. I left the default install options, nothing modified. Installing FFDShow was suggested by “hiddenp18268515” in the same thread. Thanks!

If re-installing FRAPS doesn’t work for you, try installing FFDShow. This solved the problem on my machine – Premiere CC 2015 is once again reading Fraps AVI files.

Step 3: I shut down Adobe Premiere, and re-opened it. 

That’s it! After that, when I tried importing the same AVI, everything worked as expected. This was a way better solution than re-encoding the file into another format like MP4, which was another idea suggested in that thread. (Don’t get me wrong, it was a really clever idea that likely would have worked, I just wasn’t interested in waiting around for the file to re-encode, let alone adopting that step into my video editing workflow moving forward.)

Another thing: I’m not sure if both steps above needed to be performed. Had I done the shut down, re-open step immediately after Step 1, I might have discovered that it had already solved the problem. But, in any case, this is what worked for me, so I’m happy to share it in case it helps someone else.

Okay, so here’s an interesting issue. Newer versions of PowerPoint have this really simple method for adding YouTube videos to presentations. All you have to do is switch to the “Insert” tab in the ribbon, click “Video,” and then click “Online Video.”

Doing that will make the following dialog appear:

From there, all you have to do is search for a YouTube video. Only public ones can be found, you can’t reference unlisted videos as far as I can tell. So let’s say you selected a video for your presentation, and pressed Insert:

Good. The video appears in your PowerPoint presentation, and it can be played whenever you switch to the “Slide Show” view.

However, if you decide you’re ready to present, and you activate PowerPoint’s presenter view, you will encounter an interesting problem when you get to the video, and try to click play. Either nothing will happen, or your left-click attempt will be interpreted as “next page,” moving PowerPoint to the next slide. This, is no good – what’s the use of having a video in your presentation if you can’t actually make it play for your audience while you’re presenting?

It’s perplexing that such a bug (in my opinion) exists in PowerPoint. When I originally encountered the issue, I took to a Google with a passion… surely, I would find a solution to the problem.

Unfortunately, my googling left me more discouraged than anything. I saw some signs of people have the same issue, but couldn’t find an article dealing specifically with the problem I had encountered.

Solution

Thankfully, after playing around with PowerPoint, I found a way around the issue. It’s not perfect, but it does allow the person presenting to trigger the YouTube video without switching back into normal view, then into slide show.

1. In the presenter view, look for the “Display Settings” menu at the top.
2. Left-click that, and select “Duplicate Slide Show”.

Basically, this makes it so what you see is exactly what the audience sees. For some reason, in this mode, PowerPoint will allow you play YouTube videos.

It’s frustrating to have to leave the presenter view, but at least your audience will be able to experience the presentation exactly as it was meant. Hopefully this will help some of you; however, if you find a better solution, please don’t hesitate to share it below.

For the majority of my adult life, I’ve been overweight, and at certain times, obese. For many years (though particularly prior to 2011), my discomfort regarding my weight kept me from experiencing life to the fullest. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin, so I was much more likely to spend time alone, rather than be social… at least in the real world. (You don’t excel at software development without being at least a little bit introverted.) I went out like normal humans, but probably at a lesser frequency that you might expect. I spent more time typing things into glowing machines, and would often enjoy gaming as a hobby – it had social elements, but it was kind of taboo, where non-gamers were concerned.

In any case, I tried to solve my weight problem multiple times through dieting, but all attempts, ultimately, would fail in the long run… with the exception of one. Today, my intention is to share my trials and tribulations with you, and hopefully give you some insight into the struggle that I’ve had to cope with for many years. I understand, at the same time, that there are others that have way worse problems, and to them, I sincerely wish the best. This is a story of how I went from weighing my all-time high of 260 pounds, to my goal weight of 210 pounds. Before I get into the details, please keep in mind that I’m not a medical professional or anything like that, so my experiences should not be seen as any form of expert advice. All I know is which approaches worked for me, and which didn’t work for me. But first, I must set the stage a little bit.

My career officially began when I graduated from college and was hired by a local software development company. The job was originally meant as an unpaid internship, but I was fortunate enough to be offered employment immediately afterwards, and ended up taking it. The first 2 years at this new job were absolutely fantastic… and how could they not be? I was, after all, a developer at heart – and here I was doing development with small but focused group of talented people with whom I could improve my craft. So I took to it like a sponge to water, and enjoyed the job significantly. Weight-wise, I was around 225 pounds, which is overweight – but not devastating or surprising given my height of 6’3″, and my sedentary lifestyle.

It was around year 3 when I realized that I wasn’t enjoying my job as much as I had in the past. In my youth, I reasoned that perhaps I was getting used the work life and its associated predictability – the same type of work schedule every day. Wielding this logic, I tried to just keep my head down and keep to my tasks and productivity. Around that time, however, I injured my foot, and was instructed to work from home for what totalled to be something like 3 months. Due to the doctor ordering that I move less, I missed out on a lot of exercise, and quickly grew to my fattest state: 260 pounds. To this day, that remains the record in terms of weight gain, in my life. After my foot healed, my weight lowered a bit, but it would usually hover around the 250 area. During the time of my injury, I developed bad eating habits – and therefore, weight was gained through overeating, first and foremost.

I can’t say I had zero breakthroughs in the weight loss department during this time, however. For one, I came to realize that the fear of death was a fairly effective motivator in the weight loss arena. I learned this because at a certain point, at my heaviest, I agreed to participate in a big Paintball event that a friend was organizing. (Paintball is a very demanding sport, physically, if you’re not used to running around all day. I’ve written a post about my experiences in the past.) Some might take a relaxing approach to it, but I was always the type to run to and from cover continuously, it was anything but casual. Because of my experience with how physically demanding it was, and the knowledge that I was much heavier than when I last played, I came to a certain conclusion. If I ran for a whole day after sitting at a computer for the majority of my life, at the weight of 260 pounds, my heart might very well explode. To this day, I believe that my logic was mostly rational. Perhaps a little extreme, but my concerns came from experience – I knew how hard I pushed myself physically when on the field, and I didn’t want to stop doing that. So, in the month preceding the event, I kid you not… I lost a total of 15 pounds – about 3.75 pounds a week. I did this by simply eating an abundance of vegetables, while never eating bread, pasta, or meat. Death, my friends, is an excellent motivator. However, my approach was pretty aggressive, to the point where it was likely unhealthy. Soon enough, however, after having survived Paintball, my diet slowly went right back to what it was before. I didn’t have the right habits, nor the mentality to keep it all under control.

Years 4 and 5 were very depressing years, for me. I still continued to learn and grow at my job, but I had this increasing feeling that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I had decreased interest in the craft, difficulty focusing, and to make sure it didn’t cause any problems at work, I would put in additional hours to compensate. Though committed to the job, the additional work would then lead to more depression, as I would have less free time, and more time in something that no longer really interested me. Once my contract came to an end, I found myself reflecting on the experience.

It was through this reflection process that I eventually came to terms with what I had been feeling all along – that it was time to move on. What struck me was the feeling of peace that I had towards the whole situation. Throughout my time at the company, there were moments where I considered leaving, but each of those moments were born out of anger, and frustration – not so much at the employer, but at my overall career situation. Yet, when it was all over, I was filled with a sense of peace – to the point where I had no doubt that the conclusion would be “the right thing” for both parties. That feeling of peace was so pronounced that it stuck with me to this day – to the point where I consider it a compass of sorts. Here’s how I see it: when I feel that peaceful about a decision, then it was undoubtedly the right decision for me to make.

Though I came to terms with the situation and found a peaceful balance within myself, I also thought back to the issues that had occurred within the physical realm. For example, I remembered how I never really took a full vacation, over the years, and realized that it was probably a big part of the issue. The lack of a vacation was due to a workaholic-type lifestyle, whereby I would continue to work on weekends and week nights for my own personal projects, rather than just enjoy my time off. And, thus, I had little time to just have fun. I felt like that certainly amplified the problems that I had over the years, and I knew I could have approached it better.

So… what did I do when I realized this, no longer employed? I flew to Atlanta, Georgia, and stayed there for not one, but TWO months – a mega vacation of sorts. This proved to be a period of rebirth, as I joined my sister in a quest to go to the gym every day, while hiking every now and then. As a result, fitness went from being a way to lose weight to a lifestyle – no matter what, every single day, my sister and I went to the gym (in an almost machine-like fashion… sound familiar?). While there, I also managed to get some significant hiking achievements: I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail, and I climbed to the highest point in Georgia – Brasstown Bald, via Arquaquah Trail – 4 hours up, 4 hours down. I already felt like I was worlds apart from the guy who used to sit in front of computers and code.

In addition to the hikes and general gym access, I noticed that my consumption of food took on a certain comfortable predictability. My breakfast usually consisted of a protein shake and a bowl of a cereal, and my lunch was usually either two veggie dogs, or two veggie burgers. I even enforced a certain rule that I felt would help me control my consumption: I decided I could only eat bread or pasta once a day – meaning that if I had one, I couldn’t have the other. So if I had veggie dogs or burgers, I wouldn’t have pasta or bread at night – instead, I’d have rice, or something light like that. However, if I skipped the bread during lunch, then I could have it at night – so I had some flexibility. (I had tried to eliminate pasta and bread in the past, but quickly found that I felt far too weak without them. I was likely poorly managing my intake, not eating enough calories and/or protein.) My weird bread/pasta limit seemed to work best, for me. (Again, in case it isn’t abundantly clear by this point, I am not a nutritionist. This worked for me, but I didn’t break down the science of why it worked.)

By the time I left Atlanta, I had lost 20 pounds – bringing my weight to 230 pounds. I attributed this to my newfound eating habits, and my devotion to the gym life, which I kept up the whole time I was in Atlanta. My return to Montreal concerned me, to a degree, as I knew I would be less inclined to go to the gym by myself. My sister was a huge motivational factor behind why I got fit – we were both obsessed with maintaining the habit of going every day – not one could be missed. My concerns were mostly right – I didn’t continue the gym habits once I got back home; however, I did hang onto the dietary rules that I established while over there. The result was that my weight remained roughly the same – it would just fluctuate between 230 and 235 based on how well I followed my own rules.

Fast forward a few months, and I started working as a consultant for another organization. Unlike my past programming life, the role I played in that organization was much closer to what I was looking for – something that used my writing abilities, and my interest in web publishing. I had officially moved away from a development path, and it felt great. (It should be noted, however, that the programming life was not necessarily bad – it’s just something that I wanted to do, did, and then felt like I needed to move on. I have much respect for my past employer and the time that I spent growing as part of their team.)

After a while of offering my consulting services to this new organization, I found myself looking at an old weight loss app that I had on my phone – Lose It. It was still set for the weight goal of 225, a goal I established many years before, and also the lowest weight I remember being as an adult. In an effort to finally achieve that goal, I decided I’d started logging everything I ate. Every. single. thing. Since I told the app I wanted to lose two pounds a week (the maximum it allows), it provided me with a calorie count that I had to respect every day. As long as I did that, I knew that I was doing everything I could do to get my weight under control. In addition to logging what I ate, I also logged the exercise that I did – even the time I spent walking to and from work.

The result was interesting: exercise became something that could allow me to eat more tasty food, rather than something I had to do to lose more weight. After all, I could eat absolutely anything I wanted – all I needed to do was log it, and ensure that the total food consumed per day would not push me above my calorie budget. Naturally, I learned that certain foods were simply “not worth it” from a calorie point of view, and would instead focus on tasty but reasonable foods that I could fit into my daily life. Not only that – I also saw the calorie limit imposed by the application as more of a target to hit, rather than a limiting factor. The way I saw it, eating the number of calories it asked was ensuring that I wouldn’t lose weight faster than 2 pounds a week. This meant that I saw the limit as something I needed to reach, rather than something I needed to evade. I’m convinced that this positive outlook was helpful in maintaining my weight loss progress, and it also helped create a controlled decline. The unfortunate reality of being obese is that one’s skin stretches to accommodate the added fat. When I began losing weight, I wanted to do what I could to help my skin to return to its original tightness. To me, controlling the rate of weight loss seemed like a perfectly logical way to do so. I exercised also – but the main effort was in making sure that I had a that controlled drop, rather than a sudden one.

Nutritionally speaking, the approach I took was quite simple: calories were the main metric that I used in determining what I should and shouldn’t eat. I also kept an eye on the protein, sodium, cholesterol, and carbohydrates, and chose my foods to be best aligned for health. Protein needs to be high given my height and build, sodium and cholesterol values had to be limited, and carbs – well, I had an unfortunate issue with carbs. If I consumed too much sugar too fast, I’d get migraines – so I was careful not to overdo it – but aside from that, I didn’t really do much planning, nutrition-wise. I just limited consumption along with the app, and tried to stay reasonable.

It wasn’t long before I saw results from this app-based approach. I would weigh myself every day, and log it in the application – this allowed me to see my progress. I quickly learned that the weights would vary slightly every day, but that the average was the key. Sure enough, as long as I met my daily calorie budget, my average weight readings would gradually drop. To the point, actually, where I had reached 223 pounds – achieving the goal that I had sought for so many years. Eventually, though, I reached the limits of my app-based consumption, and I had to think of another way to lose the weight.

Exercise, the logical next step. I remembered what made me successful back in Atlanta – a strict schedule that had to be followed every single day. I came up with the idea of a 30 day challenge – whereby I defined a set of rules that I would follow, where fitness was the focus. Basically, what those 30 day challenges meant was that I returned to having a strict regime of exercise every day. When this particular endeavor was combined with my intake control, the results were astounding – after two months, I lowered my weight down to 210.

I was absolutely thrilled, as you might imagine, considering the weight issues I struggled with, up until that point. After I completed the 30-day challenges, my weight eventually found its way back to 225, and it would bounce around there every month or so. I learned to be comfortable with that weight. Yes, according to the BMI charts, I was still considered overweight, but at least I wasn’t labelled obese anymore. And, quite frankly, I still enjoyed plenty of good food, and still felt pretty fit despite my so-called overweight status. I could even misbehave for a day every now and then, calorie-wise, as long as I was careful to compensate in the days that followed. And that system worked, and worked well.

Then, the year 2015 hit me like a semi. My life changed drastically, and I quickly found myself in a world where I could not find that feeling of peace that I had learned to use as my compass. Changes happened too quickly, without enough thought and comfort, and, as a result, my stress skyrocketed. My weight rose to 238, and would go up and down a few pounds every week or so. (If you look at my blog archives, the year 2015 has only two posts. Extremely abnormal for me.)

2016, thankfully, restored a huge amount of stability. I’m happy to say that I’m starting to feel that feeling of peace again. I still have a ways to go before I feel 100% back to normal, though, and my weight tells the same story: 238 pounds. Not catastrophic, not great, but totally forgivable considering how drastically my life changed recently. I’m pretty confident than when I feel fully at peace again (or more so), I will find myself in the right mental state to achieve that weight of 225, that sweet spot.

So, to anybody out there that has been dealing with weight issues: I hope my story at least provides a certain form of insight. I can’t guarantee that my unique interpretation of the events will be useful to anyone, but I like the idea that it’s described and out in the open, for general consumption and consideration. Hopefully my story helps someone, even if in a really tiny way.

And again, everyone, when in doubt, check with professionals. I’m just a dude that did things one way, and had good results. My success could very well have come at the cost of something else, which I didn’t necessarily understand or see. Best of luck!

Photo credit

Black and white photo by Sander van der Wel.

Poutine photo by Peter Dutton.

In 2014, I was minding my own business on Facebook, when all of a sudden, I saw an ad for something called Prison Break Race. A 5K obstacle course, sort of akin to the popular Spartan Race series, except, this one had a unique premise. You and many other “prisoners” manage to escape confinement, and have to run through a 5km (3.1 mile) obstacle course, while avoiding guards that are actively trying to catch you. No, this wasn’t just a for-fun backstory – there were actual people that would be trying to catch you. As soon as I heard that, I was sold. Within minutes, I paid for my own right to be chased by prison guards, a unique life experience. I had never signed up for an obstacle race before, but this one got my attention.

There were roughly 30 obstacles to overcome, and we were warned in advance that if we failed a particular obstacle, we’d have to do 20 burpees before we could move on. Knowing very well what I had gotten myself into, I made sure to run 5km fairly regularly leading up to the race, and practised those burpees. The obstacles were of various types – one involved us diving into a lake to swim under barrels, another had us crawling under barbed wire in the mud, another had us jumping over flaming embers, and another involved us leaping from a second-story structure into a 9-foot deep mud pool. Yep. Mud was going to be a big part of the whole adventure.

Ultimately, the race was challenging, but fun, and the parts I enjoyed the most were the 4-6 instances where we encountered large groups of prison guards. Basically, the prison guard element was a flag football kinda challenge. At the start of the race, each runner received three flags, which would hang behind them, from a belt. And, when a prisoner tried to get past the guards, they would do everything in their power to steal them. If, by the end of the race, you lost all your flags – you’d be considered caught. Put simply, you’d have some mud-based punishment to endure, in consequence – but you were still allowed to finish the race.

We prisoners soon realized that we’d be better off as a large group, to increase the chances of getting through the guards unscathed. So, often, when arriving at a field of guards, we’d wait for more runners to accumulate. And, when we were enough, we’d run forth, battle cries aplenty, dodging as much as we could. We did everything we could to avoid losing our flags. Unfortunately, after the fourth field of guards, I’d personally lost them all (two were actually stolen within the same field of guards). As per the rules, I had been “caught”… but my race wasn’t yet over. In fact, I realized I had an opportunity ahead of me – I could help my fellow prisoners… with deception.

When I reached the fifth field of guards, I waited for runners to accumulate, and told them my plan. I told them that I would act like I still had flags to lose (by desperately trying to dodge them, while keeping my back pointed away) and when I would have enough guards chasing me, I would give the prisoners a sign, allowing them to run through. This, believe it or not, worked exceptionally well. I quickly had two guards trying to grab me, and in my attempt to escape, I had lured them away from the other prisoners. When the time was right, I yelled out, and signalled that it was time to run through. By that point, one guard reached around me, and yelled to his colleagues, frustrated: “He’s got no flag!” But at that point, it was too late. Many of my brothers and sisters escaped.

The prisoners I helped escape thanked me afterwards, and all seemed to have a good laugh at the scenario. And that, honestly, was the key – altogether, Prison Break Race was a downright fun experience. And it promoted the fitness life that I adored, with short but intense challenges. I was officially hooked that day, and have since completed numerous other obstacle courses. However, to this day, no race was as fun as the time I paid to have prison guards chase me. I highly recommend it.

Photo credit

First photo by Ryan Litwiller

In 2013, I met a girl – we’ll call her Elizabeth. We initially connected on an online dating site, and after messaging back and forth, we decided to meet in the real world. Our first date consisted of us walking around the old port, chatting, and eating at a restaurant in Chinatown. She was a frequent traveller, one that would fly from city to city, and stay a few months in each location, exploring the world, all on her own. She spoke of crazy adventures overseas – tales of freedom, exploration, adrenaline. Meanwhile, my stories revolved largely around carefully typing things on a keyboard, quietly tweaking computer programs, websites, written works. As the night progressed, this contrast between worlds made it difficult for us to relate. Her stories were great – for example, one involved her racing down the side of a mountain on a bicycle, with lamas roaming around in the nearby slopes (if I remember correctly). In a way, she reminded me of what I had wanted to achieve when I was younger, but hadn’t – travel, exploration.

Overall, we didn’t really hit it off. To this day, I feel our different lifestyles had a lot to do with it. There were a few awkward moments throughout the night, but one was particularly amusing, and yet, completely accidental. We were walking downtown, and at a certain point, I asked her if she wanted to grab a bite to eat. She looked at me and said, with a laugh, “Where, McDonald’s?”, and pointed ahead of us. Sure enough, there stood a McDonald’s – a common “joke” restaurant for bad first dates. I didn’t realize there was one nearby, but the comedic timing of the moment was impeccable.

Anyway, as the end of the night neared, it was clear that we weren’t a good match – or at least, we weren’t at that point in time. We parted ways, and I left with a kind of weight on my shoulders. As I walked home, I found myself comparing my own achievements to hers, and after doing so, my spirits dropped. I was regretting that I hadn’t followed my aspirations, while I was younger. It was the type of moment where I questioned my own worth – I had a hard time accepting that my conquests, while hugely different, were conquests nonetheless. I was clearly in a self-conscious state of mind, which made me more doubtful than I should have been.

In the days that followed, I thought of Elizabeth and her conquests, every now and then. I remembered her mentioning, among many things, that she loved to walk, and would roam for hours whenever she arrived at a new city. I was inspired by this habit of hers, and eventually decided to try it out for myself in my very own home town – what if I was visiting Montreal for the first time? I took the metro downtown, and wandered the city streets, with no particular goal in mind, other than to explore. I discovered stores, enjoyed the green areas, and, eventually, I found myself at Mount Royal‘s lookout.

After a few days of doing this, I had an idea. I wanted to commit to the process of exploring the city, but in way that wasn’t at all casual. I wanted to push myself. Looking back, on a certain level, I can admit that I was looking to prove, to myself, that I had value, worth, and that even without accomplishing those youthful dreams, I was someone I could be proud of. This is how my first 30-day challenge was born. 

Now, when I mention the idea of a 30-day challenge, you may immediately make the connection to Matt Cutts, one of the main guys at Google. Matt had previously done a TED talk specifically on 30-day challenges.

At the time, I wasn’t aware of Matt’s adventures, but it’s entirely possible that I saw the video before, and forgot, simply. But, whatever happened, I found myself craving the same thing Matt had recommended – trying something new for 30 days. I just… took it a little bit to an extreme. I ended up doing two somewhat complex 30-day challenges, back-to-back, with no break in between.

My first challenge was as follows: I had to reach the Mount Royal lookout every single day, and take a photo of the city from there. 30 consecutive days, with absolutely no tolerance for missing days. If I missed one, the challenge would be considered a failure and I’d have to restart. And, I also decided that I would need to accumulate 5km (3.1 miles) of walking while going to and from the metro and the lookout. This would allow me to explore Montreal, discovering new stores, art, the like. Furthermore, to challenge myself a little bit more, I decided I would also exit at semi-random metro stations, and would then navigate to the lookout without consulting any maps, or my phone… no directions. I had to rely on my memory of the streets, and, of course, Montreal’s not-so-challenging geography (when in doubt, head up the mountain).

I also had this really strong belief that it was a bad idea to tell people what I was working on before I was done, especially given that I was really enthusiastic about my initiative. I had multiple memories of moments where I shared my enthusiasm in the past, and was faced with pessimism in return, which sometimes took a lot away from my motivation. So, I didn’t tell anyone what I was up to until I was 25% through the challenge. I could have said nothing until the end, but I figured 25% was a good compromise. (Plus, I work as a social media guy, after all, I kinda like sharing what I’m up to.) And so on day 8 (26.67%) of my first challenge, I let my Facebook friends in on my little bit of madness.

Annnnnnd, 30 days later, I successfully finished. I completed the objectives every single day, regardless of the weather, regardless of how I felt – I just did it. The resulting photos were awesome – in my opinion, they showcased the natural beauty of Montreal, and offered an interesting perspective. I think this had a lot to do with me reproducing the same angle every day, and the fact that I wouldn’t always head out at the same time. The full set of 30 photos can be seen below.

Album: 30 Day Challenge #001 – Mount Royal

View the album (30 photos).

I also have extra shots, which I’ve made available in separate Flickr album.

My second 30-day challenge started immediately after the first. (In fact, on the last few days of the first, I finished testing out what I’d do for my second 30 day challenge – meaning I pretty much did two challenges per day for the last ~2 days.) As per my procedure, on day 8, I announced what I was doing on Facebook:

“30-day challenge #2 is one where I have to bike at least 20km a day for 30 consecutive days. As part of my rules, I have to complete one lap of the Gilles Villeneuve circuit every day (Parc Jean Drapeau) – but after that’s done, I’m free to do my usual exploration. Oh, and like last time, I have to take at least one photo per day, and make it available online. However, these photos can be of anything, not just the Montreal skyline.”

It was a different adventure, but, like the first, I also completed it successfully.

Album: 30 Day Challenge #002 – Parc Jean Drapeau

View the album (30 photos).

Unlike my first challenge, I also wrote a title and description along with each photo. I recommend viewing the album on Flickr. When I completed this second challenge, I took to Facebook with this message:

“I’m happy to announce that I’ve successfully completed my second 30-day challenge. As part of it, I biked 20km (12.4 miles) a day for 30 consecutive days (that’s 600km, or 372.8 miles!). (In fact, due to spare kilometres every now and then, the total distance travelled is beyond 700km/434 miles.) The result? I’m pretty damn happy, but also really looking forward to resting.”

As the post suggests, by that time, I had realized that I was a bit nuts for doing 60 consecutive days of exercise, without allowing my body to take a day off (particularly in the second 30 day challenge). That’s why my third 30 day challenge started a few days after, and get this… it had no mandatory fitness component. Its main focus was on me purging my apartment of useless belongings, donating as much as possible, and trashing where there was no other solution. It was a psychologically sound idea, but, due to a lack of a fitness component, I quickly found myself getting bored of it. It wasn’t long until I abandoned the idea altogether. I did take three photos during that time, however, and only one was particularly noteworthy:

So, after 60 consecutive days of fitness challenges, I finally allowed myself to rest. There were days where I hadn’t felt particularly well, but I still pushed forward and continued my obsessive pursuit, in an almost machine-like fashion. Looking back, the challenges were amazing experiences – they kept me physically fit, and allowed me to accumulate a beautiful collection of photos to share afterwards. And, they reminded me that I did, indeed, have value – something I had lost sight of after that night, with Elizabeth. Of course, had I thought more clearly that night, I would have known my value, without embarking on a crazy 60 day journey… but then again, where’s the fun in that?

Photo credit

First photo by farmboyted.

Second photo by Thomas Hawk.

Third photo by Caribb.

All other photos by Matt Refghi.

Over the years, my work has led me to spend more and more time at the Palais des Congrès de Montreal – specifically, at the job fairs that are usually hosted there. Attending these fairs usually means I have to speak for an entire day to an almost endless sea of people. Though eventually exhausting, this is something I absolutely love to do. It’s kind of like those for-fun sci-fi convention interviews I used to film, except it’s practically non-stop, and it’s about introducing people to services that may be useful to them, as opposed to making them laugh. The key to my enjoyment, I think, is that I genuinely love the services I represent.

So anyway, back in June 2015, I was scheduled to attend two back-to-back fairs at the Palais des Congrès de Montreal. The first was a well-known, big fair, and the other was a smaller fair that was being organized by an organization in Montreal. The smaller fair was free, since it was the first time they were doing it, and they mentioned having a complementary service to help transfer booths from the big fair to the smaller fair, in another part of the Palais. This, was an interesting option.

Usually, I am always present to the take apart the booth, but this time around, I knew I’d have to leave early due to another event I had scheduled, conflicting with the big fair. A colleague would be alone for the last hour, to both dismantle and move the booth. While fully possible to accomplish, it was still a bit challenging to do alone. Because of this complication, we gratefully agreed to the smaller fair’s offer to assist in the transition – it got us out of a bind. (To this day, I consider this a great strategic move on the part of the organizers – they timed it so it’s right after the big fair, which is convenient to begin with, but then they top that convenience by eliminating the challenge of re-locating exhibitor’s setups. Smart.)

With that in place, let’s fast forward to the last day of the big fair – a woman walked over to our booth, and introduced herself. We’ll call her Susan. Susan was a representative from the smaller fair, and wanted to meet me specifically, since I’d be an exhibitor the next day, manning the booth solo. She double-checked that we did in fact want the free service to transfer our stuff, which I confirmed, and asked her, to be certain, “when I arrive at the Palais, what do I do? Simply ask the staff I encounter where to go, and they’ll let me know?”. She replied saying it’s as simple as going to the main floor, and everything will be obvious and clear. Good. Hours later, I left the big fair, and my co-worker stayed to hand over the booth to the guys from the smaller fair. By the end of the night, I had received confirmation from my co-worker that the gear had been handed over to the reps from the smaller fair.

The next morning, I timed my departure from home so that I’d have enough time to stop by my client’s workplace to pick up some needed materials, while also leaving enough time for me to set up the booth, since I figured it would need to be put together again. After picking up the required materials, I hopped on the metro, and headed towards the Palais. I was wearing a black suit with a white shirt, and was carrying a heavy laptop bag that hung over one of my shoulders, and a backpack, also pretty heavy, on my back. I also had a bottle of water, one I planned to use at the fair.

So I travelled, via metro, to the Palais des Congrès as planned, with enough time to set up the booth and to prepare things before visitors arrived. As discussed the previous day with Susan, I walked up to Palais staff and asked about the fair I was planning to attend. To my surprise, the staff member looked puzzled, and said that as far as he knew, there was no such fair taking place there. He pointed me to an info booth on a higher floor, letting me know that the woman there would know if anything like that existed.

Concerned, I called my client to confirm that I had the right location. Everyone agreed that the Palais was the right location, from the documentation they’d received, but they were also equally concerned given the staff reactions. My colleagues told me to hang on, that they’d call the organization that was hosting it directly, so we’d know for sure. After hanging up, I sought out the info booth lady that I was referred to, and before long, we were both googling, trying to find more info about the fair online. While we were doing so, I got a call from my coworkers. They confirmed what I was beginning to suspect via googling, that the location was the organization’s actual address, not the Palais as we all misunderstood. The info desk lady had also been reaching the same conclusion.

In a flash, I stepped outside, hailed a taxi, threw my stuff in the backseat, sat down, and told the driver the address I wanted to get to. Roughly 30 seconds after he started moving, I told him that by the way, I’d have to pay with credit card, or debit. The driver informed me that cards probably wouldn’t work, as he was having problems with his card reader, and likely wouldn’t be able to process it. He mentioned something about having battery issues, and then said I wouldn’t have to worry about it, since it’s roughly 10$.

I looked in my wallet, concerned, as I knew that I didn’t have much cash on me. As I did so, I audibly told the driver what I had in there. Five dollars, two dollars, one American dollar (not sure why, but okay), some change. Seeing that I didn’t have ten dollars, I told the driver that he might want to stop the cab and let me out, given my lack of cash. Despite my insistence, he told me not to worry about it, we’d figure something out. I assumed in the moment he would try to make his card reader work in the off chance it did, or something… wasn’t sure. ?_?.

Next thing I knew, we reached the destination, and the fare totalled a measly 12$. Normally, a fairly simple amount – in this case, too much. I asked the driver if he wanted to at least try the card reader in case the battery worked all of a sudden (he had doubt before), but he denied, and said not to bother, it wouldn’t work. I reminded him then and there that I didn’t have 12$, and offered to pay him whatever I found in my wallet – which, as you read before, was roughly 8$ including a random American dollar. (Why on this day, no where near a vacation, did I have an American dollar in my wallet? Who knew.)

As I handed him the money, it occurred to me: I needed a receipt. After all, my presence at the smaller fair was for my client – the taxi ride was theirs to reimburse. It occurred to me, however, that it would be a tad bit awkward to ask for a receipt when I didn’t even pay the guy enough for the fare. He was already being a nice guy, and what would he actually put, anyway? A partial payment? It was odd, so I didn’t even bother.

I gathered my things, stepped out of the cab, and as it drove away, there stood the organization – through the glass of the building, my destination, at long last. I glanced at my watch, and noticed I had 20 mins to spare, despite the chaos of the morning.

Then, I realized something. I didn’t have my laptop bag with me… I had forgotten it in the cab. My head snapped towards the taxi, but just as it did, he passed one green light, and was heading for another set of lights. I realized this would be my only chance… I didn’t even have a receipt by which to identify the taxi that had dropped me off. So I started to run like a lunatic down the street, as if my life depended on it, in a black and white suit. The cab, meanwhile, made it to the other set of lights, which were red. It was clear he wanted to turn right, and if he did that, given the distance, I knew I would lose him. I ran faster, my backpack bouncing against my back, water bottle in my left hand.

 That’s when the light turned green. The cab I was racing after had only one car ahead of him, and it was starting to turn. I wouldn’t be able to make it, despite the extreme amount of effort I was putting into running with all my gear. I saw a woman on the street ahead of me, and yelled ahead, yes, just like in the movies, “Stop that taxi!”, as I continued my sprint. I couldn’t even tell you exactly how she did it, given how heavily I was running, but this woman, amazingly, stopped the taxi.

A few seconds later, I caught up. The driver rolled down the passenger window, and had this look on his face, a mix of complete puzzlement and confusion. I said, completely out of breath, “my bag….. I forgot…… my bag.” I then looked around through the back window in search of my lost baggage, and that’s when it hit me. There was nothing in the back seat. I was wearing the bag the entire time.

When I exited the taxi earlier, the bag was likely leaning against me in a way where I didn’t feel the weight against me, and as such, I felt like it was missing. Embarrassed, still breathing heavy, I lowered myself to his passenger window again and said, without hesitation, “I’m sorry, it’s not there. I’m an idiot. So sorry.”

As the taxi left, I stood back up, catching my breath. The woman that helped me stop the taxi approached, and said, “Man, that was intense. Just like in the movies.” I laughed, and said if she knew the whole story, it would be one hell of a tale. She smiled, and crossed the street, resuming her life, and I proceeded to walk back towards the goal, the organization’s entrance. I laughed at the morning I was having, and couldn’t help but kick myself a little bit for, you know, not noticing that the thing was securely strapped to me the entire time.

I soon found myself facing the organization’s building, and after a brief second outside to catch my breath, I entered, and was greeted by its friendly staff. I was shown that there were sandwiches, coffee, cookies, nice things like that for exhibitors to munch on. Given the chaos that led to me breaching their doors, food was the last thing on my mind – but I appreciated they had such offerings. I could feel the sweat under my white shirt, and I was thankful for my suit, as it would help mask that. I was also still sort of catching my breath from the run, but I didn’t want to delay setting up the booth. They brought me to my booth, which was in a great location, right beyond the front door. I set things up, and after the core elements were in place, I decided it was time for a washroom break.

In the washroom, I had to do the best that I could to wipe myself down, given how sweaty I had become from the run. I really didn’t want to be greeting potential clientele looking like I had been body building all morning. I cleaned up, made sure I was looking presentable all things considered, and headed back to my post.

The fair was organized so that waves of visitors would come down, at given times, and since I was at the front, that meant there would be downtime as the traffic progressed into the fair, in between waves. An hour or so later, having spoken to a few different people about my client’s services, the contrast of morning versus afternoon really struck me. Here I was, calmly discussing my client’s services with people, where, just an hour before, right on the street near the entrance, I had been running, screaming for someone to stop a taxi… to retrieve an imaginary bag. The contrast really made me laugh. I’d been chatting with the other booths in my area, and figured I might as well bring others in on the story, while we were without visitors, in between waves.

It seems I wasn’t the only one to appreciate the humor – the story was a huge hit. One particular representative said it was the best story he had heard in the last 10 years, which was pretty cool to hear. It wasn’t the most enjoyable morning for me, but I’d always been the one to try to find humor in all events, and I was happy to see others did as well. Eventually, the Director of Communications of the organization came by. One of the representatives that knew my story insisted that I should tell it one more time, for the director’s enjoyment. Yet again, it was met with a great response, and for the rest of the day, numerous derivative jokes were made, all of which were enjoyed. I was reminded multiple times, playfully, that I need to be careful to not forget my bag when I was leaving the fair.

After the fair ended, we migrated to a local lounge, where we all networked, and every now and then, jokes were made about my adventures. I made some really great connections that day for my client, they got sign-ups, and though it wasn’t originally intended – I had a really unique story to that allowed me to bond with a bunch of potential contacts. I walked out of that bar that night really content with the connections I made, the laughter that was shared, all of it.

For a while, that was it. The story stayed with those that I shared, but it wasn’t yet unleashed here – I kept it to myself. A few months ago, I went to another fair, and while setting up the booth prior to the doors being opened, I was approached by someone, very cheerfully: “This guy! This guy has the best stories!” The director. After all that time, he remembered, and still enjoyed it.

As with most software, it is generally known that keeping WordPress up-to-date is a wise idea, a best practice. With each release, the platform performs better, gets more secure, introduces new features – put simply, it gets more awesome (scientific term). But, in this quest for awesome, one must be cautious. Updating WordPress, or even its plugins, may have unintended side-effects. If you’re a hobbyist, running a small site, it’s probably not a huge deal. If you’re using WordPress for your business practices, a hiccup can prevent people from doing their jobs properly, and that’s bad for all involved.

Today, as part of my regular tasks with one of my clients, I started updating plugins. One of the ones I updated was Events Manager, which was updated from 5.6.1 to 5.6.2. Soon after the update, a co-worker noticed a side-effect. Though not critical, the update somehow conflicted with another plugin that was related. Wanting to avoid this side-effect, I immediately sought to roll back to the previous version. Before actually retrieving a backup, it occurred to me… surely, there must be a way to get the old version online. So I went to Event Manager’s page in WordPress’ plugin repository.

There’s a big button that lets me download the latest version, 5.6.2, but what about previous versions? I checked the “Changelog” section, which I knew would feature references to prior versions, but, as I seemed to recall, there was no link available.

Solution

I quickly took my search to Google, where I found an article that suggested a clever solution:

All you have to do is copy the download url to your clipboard. Then modify that url to have the version number you want.

What? Could it be that easy? In my browser, Google Chrome, I right-clicked the big orange download button, and clicked “Copy link address”:

Then, I pasted the link in a Notepad, so I could see and potentially change it. If you’re doing this right now, reading this article, the solution may differ depending what you get after pasting the link address. Simply refer to the scenario below that better reflects what you see:

A) The version number is visible in the link address.

If you can see the version number in the filename, you’re set.

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/events-manager.5.6.2.zip

All you have to do is change the version to whichever you want. In my case, I just had to change the “2” to a “1”:

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/events-manager.5.6.1.zip

Then, copy that new link into your browser, press enter, and bam, old version downloaded. Upload via FTP, and you’ve successfully time traveled (kind of).

B) The version number is NOT visible in the link address.

If the link looks something like this:

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/events-manager.zip

That means it’s pointing to the latest version, which, in my case, was 5.6.2. To download the version I wanted, I had to specify which, like this:

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/events-manager.5.6.1.zip

(Notice the “.” right before the version number, it’s important.)

After writing in the version number, all you have to do is paste the link in browser, press enter, and there you have it, the old version downloaded. Yet again, upload via FTP, and you’re set.

Considering how easy this was to do, I wonder why WordPress’s plugin site didn’t natively support us downloading whichever we wanted. I’m not sure if this is their way of discouraging rollbacks, or whether they just never took the time to add the functionality. Either way, many thanks to the author of the article!

See Also

Downloading Older Versions of WordPress Plugins