Oct 8, 2025: Live from California; kids & back to school; music, tennis, dad club, and baseball.

Good morning, friends.

This Friday Flapjacks is coming to you live from Cupertino, California, home of Apple headquarters, where I am this week for a conference at work.

I haven’t done a Flapjacks for about six weeks because it’s just been super, super busy.

A lot of that is because we are in back-to-school period, and that’s been a lot different for us now that both Rafa and Mika are at a school where we have to deal with stuff like summer camps when school is out of season, which is different from, like, daycares.

So that was a transition for us.

And it turns out that going back to school is, you know, a transition for both the grown-ups and the kids.

Mika no longer has naps at school when she was napping still every day.

And so that’s been quite a change for her.

She was completely wiped out in the first week and, like, napping in the 10-minute car ride on the way back home, which was really cute but really funny.

So, yeah, we’ve just been super busy.

There’s been many nights where we’ve had, like, four to five hours of sleep, which is also partially self-inflicted because I’ve had a really interesting side project that I’m doing at work.

And that’s good news because I feel like I’m finally getting into my groove at Apple.

I finally met my manager a couple of weeks ago because he’s based in New York.

It kind of reminds me about how I didn’t meet my team for almost two years, I think, when I started at YouTube.

So that’s been really nice to just meet all the people on the project in person.

It’s a really cool project, and I’m very grateful that I’m on it.

And we’re, you know, really excited to be doing some really cool stuff, which obviously I can’t tell you anything about because it’s Apple.

So I think in the last month and a half, Sasha and I only really had a couple of nights where we’ve been able to just properly relax and connect, just lots of logistics and planning and, you know, she’s been busy with work too because she had a role change and is getting more scope at work, which is awesome news for her, but just lots of work and really hard.

So apart from work stuff, highlights of the last five, six weeks.

Speaking of the kids, they both did something called the West Fan Run, which is based in West Vancouver.

They have this special word for kids that’s like one kilometer long.

So Rafa and Mika ran their first ever race.

Mika was the smallest one there, which was super cute, and she wanted to hold my hand the whole way.

And Rafa did a great job.

We have some great pics of her smiling, which if you know her, can be hard to capture sometimes.

And so she just had like a lovely expression of joy for at least part of the race, which was captured on film.

So that was really, really nice.

So we did the West Fan Run for kids.

I went to a concert for an electronic artist named Nora Ampure.

She has a banging new track out called Space.

And that was really cool to see in person.

And it was at an amazing venue called the Malkin Bowl, which is in Stanley Park.

It’s just amazing because you’re just surrounded by trees and stuff.

And the moment you get like 200 meters from the venue, you can’t hear a thing, which is quite remarkable.

So that was really cool for both the environment and to see another artist live.

I feel like we’ve seen a lot of live music and comedies in Vancouver.

We saw Taylor Tomlinson, who’s an American comedian.

She’s hilarious.

That was really fun.

And one of the best, comedy always gets us a lot of laughs.

And it’s just such a great outlet and release for us.

So that was great.

I went for a tennis evaluation at my tennis club.

And I was hilariously rated a 4.0 as far as this tennis club is concerned.

I would like to stress very much that I’m definitely not a 4.0 player.

The US Tennis Association has a rating system for those who are not familiar with it.

I feel like I’m more like a 3.0, which is quite a big difference from 4.0, because 4.0 is like approaching playing professional tournaments and stuff, which I’m certainly not at.

But oh well, I guess I’ll be playing 4.0s at the club, which we’ll see how that goes.

And otherwise, we’ve established a little dad club in Vancouver, which is something that I was looking to try and reform after missing my awesome Andrew, Andrew, and Andrew dad club friends in San Francisco.

Yes, the requirement of dad club is that your name has to be Andrew.

And so that’s been great, just like dads getting together and talking about, you know, that life is not easy, venting a little bit, been sharing some tips on parenting and just trying to make a little community there.

So that’s been great.

And I also went to a baseball game with our very good friend Tori to celebrate her birthday.

I actually picked up my camera for that to try and get some like, do some sports photography, even though it’s not something I’m particularly good at.

But it was really nice just picking up a real camera and taking some shots.

It’s still a very different experience from taking photos with an iPhone.

So yeah, the baseball game, if you haven’t been to a baseball game up here, it’s great.

The stadium is smaller, but it’s like just nestled in this residential neighborhood.

Like if you go to a baseball stadium in the US, it’s always this, you know, huge, massive thing.

And it’s all surrounded by, it has all this infrastructure around it.

And the one in Vancouver is just like, no, there’s just houses like right around the stadium.

It’s really cute and a little park.

So it’s a very different sort of experience.

And it was really enjoyable.

The tickets are cheap.

It still feels like a really good family event.

And it’s often like booked up for a lot of summer because it’s just really popular.

But that was really fun to go.

Thanks, Tori.

Happy birthday.

Otherwise, hopefully I won’t take six weeks to do another episode.

I’ll see you guys soon.