The Take Down
Issue #008, A pink gown, an Austin tease, and a nephew who is now drinking cocktails
Hi, it’s Caroline.
This week, I put on a long gown in soft, layered shades of pink, with sweeping tulle and ballo
on sleeves, drank champagne with my girlfriends, and watched the National Ballet of Canada perform something so beautiful I forgot, briefly, that I had a single email to answer.
I’m going to come back to that. But first, the week.
The video this week: 6 Small Stocks Most Investors Are Missing, with Jordan Zinberg
This week’s Ticker Take sits down with Jordan Zinberg to break down six small-cap stocks that most investors aren’t paying attention to, the kind of names that fly under the radar but quietly do a lot of heavy lifting in a portfolio.
If you’re tired of hearing about the same ten stocks on every finance feed, this is the episode for you.
As always, this is not financial advice. Just a smart conversation with someone who’s done the homework. Watch it here.
AI Under the Hood, twice over
It was a double-drop week on the AI Under the Hood side, because the AI news cycle would not let me pick just one.
Episode one: Anthropic files to go public. The maker of Claude is now officially marching toward an IPO, and the implications across the AI sector, finance, and the broader public markets are significant. I broke down what’s in the filing, what it tells us about Anthropic’s trajectory, and why this one matters. Watch it here.
Episode two: Nvidia comes for your laptop. Nvidia unveiled the RTX Spark, a new chip built specifically for PC laptops, which is a notable expansion beyond the data centre into the device on your lap. This is Nvidia making sure they’re not just the AI infrastructure story, but the AI device story too. Watch it here.
Two episodes, one week, both moving fast. Subscribe to my Instagram, TikTok, or the Ticker Take YouTube channel to catch AI Under the Hood every week. The AI story is not slowing down.
Tuesday: an evening of Reverie at the Four Seasons Centre
Now, back to Tuesday.
The National Ballet of Canada‘s annual Mad Hot Ballet gala this year had a theme I genuinely loved: Reverie. An evening of reverie, in fact, held at the Four Seasons Centre, with the ballet itself as the headline event of the night.
I wore a long gown in soft, layered shades of pink, with sweeping tulle and beautiful balloon sleeves, and, reader, I felt like a dream. There is something about putting on a long gown that you cannot replicate in athleisure, no matter how nice the athleisure. My posture changed. My energy changed. My entire vocabulary, frankly, became slightly more dramatic, which is what gowns will do to you.
I went with girlfriends. We laughed. We drank champagne. We ate cotton candy!
We talked about our kids, our partners, our work, and the small everyday things that women friendships hold so well. Then we went in and watched the ballet, which was, predictably and gloriously, transcendent. Live ballet has a way of making the rest of the world quiet down for an hour, and I left feeling refilled in a way that is genuinely hard to put into words.
A pink gown, champagne, girlfriends, and ballet. Not a bad Tuesday.
The rest of the week
Monday: kickboxing, writing, and Cali’s evening baseball game. A solid Monday. The bleacher seat is officially my second office.
Wednesday: kickboxing, then work, work, work, work. Editing, filming, writing, the AI Under the Hood production. The kind of day where you don’t really look up until dinner.
Wednesday also: a vaccine adventure. Cali had a missed vaccine to catch up on, and what followed was a small lesson in how the Canadian public health system actually works (or doesn’t). Turns out: Toronto Public Health doesn’t track your kids’ vaccines automatically, your doctor doesn’t either, and somehow it falls to you — the parent — to track everything and report any new vaccines back to Public Health yourself. A genuinely flawed system that nobody warns you about until you’re in it. I have a lot more to say on this and I will say it in a future piece. Stay tuned.
Thursday: thumbnails, uploads, edits, calls, calls, calls. And one BIG call about something upcoming that I am super excited about. Cannot say more yet. Soon.
Thursday also: video drop + Jon at the Bell Upfronts. Our YouTube video went live, and Jon was at the Bell Upfronts, which was a great room and a great showing.
Friday: kickboxing, a PA Day, and SO MANY CALLS. The kind of Friday that delivers everything at once. PA Day with my youngest at home meant the day had a slightly different shape than usual, which is its own small joy.
Friday night: nephew’s 19th birthday party at my sister’s. My nephew turned NINETEEN. Cocktails were served. Cocktails were had. He is, officially, a person who can legally drink, which is a sentence I cannot believe I am typing. Cali skipped her softball game to be there, which tells you exactly how much she loves her cousins. Cali also fit in her school music awards banquet that day too, because she is somehow doing it all.
Saturday afternoon: a grade 8 grad dress crisis, and a one-hour ninja mission. Quick backstory: we had ordered a dress for my youngest’s Grade 8 graduation weeks ago. It never arrived. The customer service “response” was a robotic email offering a refund, no shipping update, no apology, and absolutely no urgency, which is exactly what you want to read when your 13-year-old’s biggest milestone of the year is approaching at speed.
Which is how Saturday turned into an emergency dress-shopping sprint with exactly one hour of buffer between dropping Cali off for her play and being back in our seats to watch her perform it. Reader, we ninja-shopped. In and out, decisive, ruthless. We came home with two beautiful backup dresses, both of which the graduate-in-question genuinely loves. Crisis averted, motherhood unlocked a new level, and we made it to the play with time to spare.
Saturday evening: Cali’s Young People’s Theatre performance. We got to watch her perform her monologue. There are few things more proud-mom-collapsing than watching your kid hold a stage by themselves. She was so good.
Saturday night: dinner at an Italian spot we’d never tried. We capped the day with a dinner at an Italian restaurant we’d never been to before. I had the branzino, Jon had the short ribs.
A couple of notable moments:
The man at the table next to us recognized Jon, and on his way out gave him a small touch on the back and said “have a good night.” (Jon’s recognition radius continues to expand. I love seeing it happen in the wild.)
Meanwhile, on the other side of us, sitting right beside our girls, was a couple in the middle of what appeared to be a very bad night. She was crying. He was tense. They left before their mains arrived.
The girls, for their part, had the kind of pizza you cut with scissors and chocolate cake for dessert. Both were, by their reports, excellent.
Sunday: prepping for Austin. Bags out. Itinerary checked. The travel anticipation officially kicking in. Austin, here we come. More on that in the next issue.
Jon’s AM vs. Caroline’s PM
Jon this week: filming, writing, the Bell Upfronts, a big call, his weekly columns and shoots, prepping for Austin. The man does not stop.
Me this week: kickboxing, a ballet gala, a PA Day with my youngest, AI Under the Hood produced twice, thumbnails, edits, calls, calls, calls, family time, Cali’s monologue, and the slow build of an Austin trip taking shape. The 11 PM brain was very much in attendance, but the gala helped.
The Wins This Week
Mad Hot Ballet at the Four Seasons Centre. A pink gown, champagne, girlfriends, and the ballet. A genuinely dreamy night.
New video live: 6 Small Stocks Most Investors Are Missing with Jordan Zinberg. Watch it.
New AI Under the Hood: Anthropic files to go public. Watch it.
New AI Under the Hood: Nvidia’s RTX Spark for your laptop. Watch it.
A big call I cannot tell you about yet. Soon.
A successful ninja dress mission. Two backup dresses in one hour. Mother of the year inquiries are now open.door
Jon at the Bell Upfronts.
Cali’s monologue at Young People’s Theatre. Proud-mom moment number 1,000 and counting.
Cali’s music awards banquet. A great day for her.
My nephew’s 19th birthday. Still processing the math.
A PA Day with my youngest. A small joy in the middle of a packed week.
Austin is officially in motion.
The Losses This Week
The Canadian vaccine reporting system: A topic for another day, but: not great.
Sleep: Still pending. Still tracked.
My ability to comprehend that my nephew is 19: Failing.
The takeaway
This week reminded me how much the life part of this life matters. The ballet, the gown, the champagne, the laughter with friends, the monologue from my daughter, the cocktail in the hand of my nephew, who I swear was eight just last week.
The work was there. The big call happened. The videos dropped. The thumbnails got made. But the parts I’ll remember are the parts that don’t fit on a content calendar. The dressing up. The hugging girlfriends. Watching Cali become someone with her own voice on her own stage.
If you only take one thing from this issue: put on the gown. Take the night. Watch the ballet. Hug the friend. Let your daughter blow you away.
Next week: Austin. New city, new energy, new everything. Buckle up.
Thanks for being here. See you next week.
Caroline
P.S. Subscribe to Jon’s Substack if you haven’t; you’ll get both sides of our brain.
