3 Years Ago

Just a quick throwback Thursday memory.  I can't believe I graduated from University of Toronto with my MBA!  Boundless Coffee indeed. I'm now, Joshua Sham MBA

Joshua Sham MBA University of Toronto

Joshua Sham jenga master!

Joshua Sham plays lifesized Jenga

Joshua Sham wins Jenga every time!

Joshua Sham MBA Toronto - GWN dragonboat challenge 2016 from Joshua Sham on Vimeo.

Joshua Sham does a quick sprint!

Joshua Sham

Brunch in Montreal's Quartier Des Spectacles

Eggspectation resto cafe Joshua Sham's favourite Montreal brunch spot

This Eggspectations location in the Quartier des Spectacles, Montreal, QC exceeded my expectations with both their cleanliness, service and quality of food.

Joshua Sham is a brunch reviewer from Toronto, ON.

I have exceptionally high standards when it comes to breakfast / brunch because it's not only my favourite meal, but I eat brunch at least two times a week. As a rule of thumb, I judge a brunch restaurant by their ability to make over easy eggs and I was not disappointed. I ordered their high rise pancakes (4.5 of 5) and was pleased that it was served hot, had plenty of flavour and offered more than enough to fill my stomach. Unfortunately, my friend said that the breakfast poutine was (1 of 5) mediocre for both breakfast and poutine. Given the large selection of great breakfast options leave the poutine to lunch or dinner. The California Dreaming (4 of 5) was decent but failed to provide any WOW factor. The Yolk Around The Clock (4 of 5) was fun and above average for a cheesy dismantled breakfast sandwich bagel. The Eggs Florentine (4 of 5) was delicious and did not disappoint.
Joshua Sham on Zomato

ArcDis            Eggs Florentine Joshua Sham

Joshua Sham's actual order of high rise pancakes.

Eggspectation Placemat Joshua Sham

Brunch         Eggspectations California Dreaming Joshua Sham

Joshua Sham ArcDis Wayne McAlpine Jeremy Neis
Eggspectations Yolks Around The Clock

Joshua Sham ArcDis Jeremy Neish

Eggspectations Breakfast Poutine

Joshua Sham took a picture of the current menu to see
How high rise pancakes are supposed to look!

Lakeshore Rib Fest Fort York Garrison

So summer time in Toronto is awesome because it's filled with great days paddling on water, some crazy heat to keep you hot, and some BBQ. Lots of BBQ.  Rib fest season may have already begun but this was the first that I've had the pleasure of eating 6 different types all in one sitting.  Awesome stuff when you can share amongst friends!  Anyways, here are a few pictures of our ribbing experience!

Glory Hole Donuts Are Gucci?!

I'd like to think that I'm still young, rather that I'm up to date on what's new, hot and current.  Scratch that, I'd like to think that I can pretend to understand the things that fascinate my nieces and nephews and the slang that they use in their daily lives.  What pray tell am I referring to but none other than tthe term "Gucci" as an adjective.  When used as an adjective, Gucci refers to something that it luxurious and cool.  Don't ask me why you wouldn't simply say that something is luxurious or cool instead opting to describe something as "Gucci."  Surprisingly enough, even though this slang is new to me now, it's apparently been around since 2008 as referenced here by urbandictionary.com

Gucci

Good, chill, cool, awesome...
Comes from Gucci as in the fashion label... because Gucci is rich and ballin' therefore he is good, cool, and just pimpin'

It's all gucci 

#good #chill #okay #ballin' #rich
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gucci

Anyways, this past weekend I visited Glory Hole in the Roncesvalles Village of Toronto.  The donut shop or parlor had a distinct vintage, rustic feel with just enough elegance to display their outrageously extravagant donuts. I'm not exactly overwhelmed with joy when I see, smell and consume these donuts but they are good.  I think of them as the evolution of the once popular hand made specialty cupcakes and muffin craze that became the "it" food was much like Frozen Yogurt and maybe Poutine?  

Anyways, check it out for yourself.  Try it out. They are literally Glory Holes!

Dragonboat requires GRIT!

On July 9 and 10, the dragonboat community converged on to Montreal for the International Dragon Boat Montreal Challenge & Cultural Festival.  This was my team's first regatta of the season after a few months of practice, conditioning, land training and paddling.  Although the conditions were wet, windy and cold, it was an awesome weekend, filled with a lot of fun and food!

So I guess I like RomComs...

So when I found out that the boys over at Wong Fu Productions made a movie, I was pretty excited. These guys got their start from YouTube and have just grown in both cinematic skill and straight-up storytelling. What I like most about them is their favoritism towards Asian actors with western stories. These guys don't just create stereotypical kung fu movies but they really try to evoke strong emotions on screen. I think their storytelling abilities to be first class and fill a much-needed void of CBC (Canadian Born Chinese) or ABC (American Born Chinese) English speaking videos. Now, I know that their actors/actresses consist of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and more, the identity is the same, black hair, yellow skin. Anyways, go watch this movie, it's a dystopian world where people are measured by their relationship skills in addition to their credit, and social etiquette. Great Job Wong Fu. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/everythingbeforeus/129659550

Rotman MBA Fintech Royal Canadian Mint MintChip Report

Download Report Here https://www.dropbox.com/s/3dj9zwihj79n864/Team%2010%20MintChip%20Presentation%20V4.1.pdf?dl=0

Coronation Triathlon Results! 2:14:34

Joshua Sham



I never thought that I would cross the finish line before Jeremy! Hahaha the funny thing about this video is that Jeremy mistakenly did an extra lap cycling delaying him by 6 minutes or more.

Sportinglife 10K 2014 45:36 2015 51:14

Sadly, I'm ashamed that I've slowed down in just 2 years but 51 minutes is still respectable, right? I'll have to break the 45-minute threshold next year.

Better luck next year!

Fitness Tracking 10 Years of Running

Given the hype and popularity of fitness trackers, wearables and watches in general. I thought to myself, has my health improved? Am I stronger than I was in my twenties? The problem that I realized was that although I've had various fitness trackers as of late, none of them can show a picture of my steps, mileage, calories burned, hours slept, or caloric intake 10 years ago when none of the modern day devices existed. Fitbit, Pebble, Up, Googlewear, Apple Watch, Misfit, Miiband, Nike+, Garmin, Polar, and TomTom, all of these devices boil down to gadgets that might be used for a season, a few months, a few years if you're lucky, but capture data that for the most of us is never collected, organized and put into a usable readable format. I've heard that there are programs that can help you migrate your run data across from one platform to another, specifically Nike+ over to Garmin but I've never bothered myself. So, I shouldn't say that the devices didn't exist, rather, they were old school GPS watches that didn't connect to your computer, or your iphone4 which required a shoe pod, or worse yet, an old school pedometer that had no wireless capability whatsoever. I believe there are two problems, one, all of that data is gone, and all of the data is spread across multiple platforms and therefore cannot be seen in a single snapshot of your health. What a nightmare right? I'm going to start a search for programs to help aggregate all my running, cycling, paddling, golfing, etc activity into one place. Before I forget the intention of this post, here are my overall run results as recorded by sportstats.ca

Looks like my best year was 2014 where I posted a 45:36 in the Sportinglife 10K. Hopefully soon, if I keep my training up, I'll log a 40 minute 10K, someday... :)