Month: May 2022

It’s been several years now since my ability to remember passwords has been outstripped by the number of websites and apps that require me to have passwords. Since I don’t use the same password for every single site and app, I’m required to remember a ton of unique passwords.

It’s gotten to the point that for some sites and apps, I require a reset of the password every single time I need access. In those cases, it’s very tedious, especially when they require you to come up with a new password that you’ve never used before.

I was expecting to jump to similar hoops when I tried to sign into my Hyatt account. Instead, I was offered two different methods to sign in: with a traditional password (which I had forgotten) or a one-time link sent to an e-mail address. I chose the one-time link because I obviously use e-mail so frequently, I would not forget my e-mail password.

With the one-time link, I was able to sign into the Hyatt web site, without having to reset my password. I thought this was a genius way of allowing access to sites without needing to remember a specific password every single time. All you need is access to your email.

In a way, this is very similar to password managers I suppose where a single password gets you access to all your accounts, except that you don’t need to sign up or download a password manager.

I hope more sites and apps adopt this access strategy because it’s very convenient.

I have to go to bed very early tonight because I’m taking a family member to a medical appointment tomorrow morning.

I have no words of wisdom tonight but I’ll be back tomorrow with coupon clipping strategies.

This web site was down for a non-trivial amount of time on Sunday evening, which prevented me from writing anything. I’m not sure what happened. At first I thought it was only limited to my WordPress installation but my whole site was inaccessible, even the non-WordPress sections.

I’ve learned when this happens, it usually takes a few hours before everything is fixed. It was getting late, so I decided it wasn’t worth waiting until 6am to write something. Though, the downtime did make me think that I should back up my blog more often. I think I’ll go do that now.

A few days ago I was at McDonald’s and got a combo meal. Instead of getting an unhealthy soda for my drink, I opted for a small bottle of milk. I took that home and used it for the milk that I put in my coffee. Boom, thousands of dollars saved just like that.

I am enjoying David Letterman’s YouTube channel so much. The above interview is one that I haven’t seen where Dave interviews Mark Hamill. When this interviewed aired on Monday, June 20, 1983 I was just a child and there was no way I could have stayed up until Dave’s airtime of 12:30am. I’m not even sure I knew what Dave’s show was back then. Well, it’s a good thing I can watch these interviews now.

In all of my years of working, I have never been sent on a business trip by my employer. As a software engineer, there isn’t really a business justification to send me anywhere. This is especially true in these current times where remote work has been proven to be possible.

This is about to change, however, as my employer has decided to send everyone on the small team I am on to Los Angeles in mid-July. While my team has people who work all over North America and even Asia, the largest cluster of people reside in the greater Los Angeles area. This makes it the most logical destination for everyone to go to. The purpose of the trip is for us to meet face-to-face for the first time. Other than just one person, I have never been in the presence of my immediate co-workers before.

No real work will be done on this trip as we will be partaking in mostly fun and team-building exercises. The higher-ups have scheduled us for two days down in Los Angeles, a Thursday and Friday. This means that we can also choose to stay for Saturday and Sunday, if we want to do stuff in LA on our own before heading back home.

I recognize that we are still in a pandemic, so I assume that we will take appropriate measures when necessary. The one good thing is that from what I’ve seen of the data, COVID case counts tend to dip to lower levels during the summer months.

It should be an interesting trip.

As many of you know, I visited San Diego at the beginning of April for a vacation. I arrived at YVR with just under two hours before my scheduled departure time (which was an early afternoon flight on a Saturday).

The lineup for security was almost non-existent and it probably took me about five minutes to clear security. The lineup to get through US customs and border pre-clearance was slightly longer but I’d guess that took about ten minutes in total. After that, I was free to wait at my gate for boarding. I had a plethora of time, well over an hour, to kill.

A month later, it seems like travel from YVR has turned into a major hassle. The issue lies with massive line-ups to get through security screening. There are reports that people arriving two hours before their flights are missing them because they can’t get through security fast enough. Apparently the number of staff at the security checkpoints hasn’t decreased, it is the volume of passengers that has increased.

It seems odd that YVR was able to handle the volume of spring break travelers but not passenger volume in late April and early May. What happens in the actual summer months when travel gets traditionally even busier?

I’m not planning on flying out of YVR anytime soon, so I’ll be watching what happens from afar.