Tim Chan's Blog

What It’s Like to Go Viral

Last week, I posted a short video of me completing a unique and challenging puzzle not expecting it to become so popular. In one week, across all the social media platforms I posted on (Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook), the video got 13 million views. “Going viral” is having a piece of content get a lot of views within a short timeframe. My video certainly did that. It is also the dream of many people who post to social media. As I write this now, things are calming down but it still isn’t exact...

Olive’s Top 5 Reads of 2024

I read a number of really good books in 2024. In total, I completed 53 books, I’m still in the middle of one, and I dropped a couple novels partway through because I just wasn’t enjoying fiction. Choosing my top 5 for this year was a challenge, but I have picked 5 and I will list my runners-up at the end because some are definitely worth mentioning.

Listed in order of when I read them, here are my top 5 reads from 2024 with honourable mentions at the end. I have linked the titles to the A...

Olive’s Top 5 Reads of 2023

2023 was a decent year for reading for me. I made more space in my life for doing puzzles but still managed to read a total of 52 books. Quite a few were books I read at bedtime with my kids, including the Chronicles of Narnia series, the Hobbit, and the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy (which I consider an accomplishment in itself!). It was actually not too hard for me to choose my favourites for this year. In case you missed last year’s list, you can find my list from 2022 here.

Listed i...

Tim’s Top 10 Books, Shows, and Podcasts of 2022

It’s taken me a while to get this post finished (I’ll blame COVID, which negated about two weeks of productivity in January). In the past I’ve just shared my top 5 books of the year, but this year I thought I’d also share a few of my favourite TV shows and podcasts.

BOOKSThe Advice Trap by Michael Bungay Strainer

The book starts with this quote by Naguib Mahfouz, “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” That summari...

Olive’s Top 5 Reads of 2022

Here we are at the end of 2022. It’s been a good reading year for me – finished 52 books and found many gems along the way. It’s a difficult task to boil it down to 5 top reads, but I will try! (In case you missed it, here’s my list from 2021). I’ll also include a list of honourable mentions at the bottom of this post. I’ve linked the books to Amazon here, purely for convenience of reference. If you’re able to support your local bookstore or get these from your local library, please do so.

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Blue Day Conversation Guide

Early on in our marriage, we realized that most of our everyday conversations were superficial in nature but we didn’t often get around to talking about the deeper things that mattered most to us. We decided to address this by booking off a day to discuss these topics. After all, businesses and organizations have annual planning retreats, why couldn’t we? That’s how Blue Days were invented. Over the 13 years we have been doing Blue Days, many people have asked us what we talk about. We put this ...

Tim’s Top 5 Reads from 2021

It’s become an annual tradition for Olive and I to share our top 5 reads of the year (here’s her top 5 reads from 2021). Here are my five favourite books that I read last year, three of which are memoirs, as well as a few honourable mentions.

[Note: Amazon affiliate links ahead]

Favourite Memoirs [image error]

A Burning in My Bones by Winn Collier

This is the authorized biography of Eugene Peterson, best known for writing The Message. I was surprised by the struggles and uncertainty that ...

Olive’s Top 5 Reads in 2021

It was down to the wire. With two nights remaining until 2021 was over, I parked myself on the couch after the kids went to bed and got to work. I had a deadline to meet. I wanted to be able to say that I finished 40 books in the year that I turned 40. And I did it. (Yay!) Of the 40 books I read, some of them were older books that I’d had on my to-read list for years, others were re-reads of books I had loved and wanted to read again. 14 of them were audiobooks that I borrowed through our librar...

What We Are Learning in Our 0th Year of Marriage

This is a guest post written by Andrew Lee, who just got married this past year. I (Tim) met Andrew in Zoom because he reached out after reading our blog. We instantly connected and it’s been fun giving him feedback on his writing. Andrew is an Asian American based in the San Francisco area, a developer at Dayspring Partners, and graduated with a computer science major from Stanford.

Marriage is a gift. Marriage is also difficult and full of never-ending challenges. But always, marriage ...

Reflections on Turning 40

Originally, I had hoped to host a phenomenally epic 40th birthday party and invite tons of friends and family to celebrate. If you’re reading this blog post, you would have likely been invited. As an extrovert, I get energized by being with people. For my birthday last year we hosted a chicken-wing tasting party and I invited our entire church to come. When I turned 30 we had a 30-hour birthday party and friends and family dropped by whenever they wanted over the course of two days.

U...