I’m aiming to build a new electricity and gas retailer here, but this isn’t my first rodeo. In fact, I’ve built and sold a company like this twice before! But this is the first time I’m doing it solo. Previously, I focused on the business processes and backend management and let my partners guide the marketing and sales efforts; this time, I get to manage it all.

As part of our new Backend agreement (signed earlier this month), I have certain, regular “performance thresholds” I need to hit. This is new, and I expect it will have a focusing function. Overall, I need to find a way to maintain bringing on just over one site per day for the next several years. This will likely be the primary Key Performance Indicator (KPI) I mention in these update. My initial target is to hit 120 sites by the end of June.

I am building a boutique energy retailer to provide a human touch to our electricity and natural gas bills, and to make sure that that money get reinvested back into our community. This matters because many of the established players are huge multinationals, with call centers on one continent and their head office in yet another, both far from Alberta.

But it doesn’t have to be like that: the money from our bills can grow our communities and our energy retailer can be human scale too.

Strathcona Power: Deep roots, New Power.

Locally, I run a Pi-Hole to provide ad blocking on the local network¹ but I also run a Docker server to which I want to forward various subdomains (which are then routed to containers using Træfik). I had this set up, but my upgrade from v5 to v6 of Pi-Hole blew this away (as I needed a new SD card for the Raspberry Pi it was running on) (see also the v6 release notes).

My server running Docker seems forever to be low on space. So I finally got annoyed at it enough to figure out what was going on and try and fix it.

After over a dozen years, I’m releasing an update to WmDOT (to v15). This update brings lots of bug fixers¹, improved ship selection², and introduces basic streetcar operations³ (although off by default). I’m also releasing an update to my related MetaLibrary (to v11) at the same time.

Spurred by another superficial review of Paris’ push for bicycle lanes¹, I decided to write out why I think so many of these takes are overly superficial, and thus fail to provide useful lessons when applied to other cities.

First, by way of background, I feel like I have rather unique vantage point of being trained in Transportation Planning (in Civil Engineering), paired with having lived and studied in all three of France, Canada, and the United States. On one hand, my schooling was in Utah, one of the few places in the US where they are still building urban freeways²; on the other, I spent three years in France (including 8 months in metro Paris) relying almost exclusively on public transit. In a word, I’ve lived and commuted in both.

From an art show this weekend:

Montain has no worries, yet the snow cap gives it white hair.
Water has no sadness, yet the wind made it wrinkle.

https://blog.minchin.ca/images/2025/PXL_20250906_231522789.jpg #poetry

Perhaps in an era when everything is found on your blog via (Google) Search anyway, the disconnected nature of a digital garden doesn't loose as much against polished (and complete) blog posts as first glance would suggest.

I recently returned from a trip to France I thought I could write some observations on the contrast between French¹ and Canadian² urban forms.

This is the collection of my thoughts about the proposed/in-progress Alberta Passenger Rail Master Plan.