RAIN DRIVE

The warm and dry October in Vancouver seems like a distant memory now as torrential rains have filled most of this week. A deluge of rain has laid waste to any remaining wildfires and forced people to dress seasonally appropriate now.

I had to drive in this monsoon-like rain on Tuesday evening and I admit I initially was not mentally prepared. I exited the parkade and the rain was coming down in sheets. I briefly forgot how to turn on my wipers. Then the windows began to fog up slightly and I had to think for a second how to engage the front and rear defrosters. It all came back to me but it’d been probably a good five months since I had to turn some of that stuff on.

When I got to my destination, I had to park outdoors and the rain washed away a good amount of dirt that had accumulated on my car due to the lack of rain. I should probably still bring it in for a good wash soon.

DAYS OFF

Today was day one of several days off I have and I didn’t play anything today other than go and get a massage at a local spa. The massage was great and left me feeling quite relaxed. When I returned home, I knew I had to clean my apartment but doing chores right after a massage is a terrible way not understanding how massages work. Instead, I drank lots of water and lied down on my couch while watching TV. Whatever relaxing state I was in, I just tried to let that go for as long as possible. I wound up falling asleep on my couch, letting my relaxed body get some rest. I cleaned my apartment a few hours later.

REAL OCTOBER

On Friday, it rained for the first time in probably a month and a half, the first rain of October for sure. With the rain came a drop in temperature. It’s currently two to three degrees colder now in my apartment compared to last week. It now feels like a regular Vancouver October. My windows at home aren’t as wide open anymore and I’m lounging in a hoodie now instead of just a t-shirt.

It’s suppose to rain all next week and the highs will barely break double digits. I think people will need to put away the summer clothing for real now. We had a good run though. This year, people were able to comfortably wear shorts for almost five continuous months. That’s amazing for a city that normally has four distinct seasons.

I bet it snows next month!

BALCONY WORK

As you might remember from this post, as an owner of the apartment that I live in, I was given a $6,000 bill as part of the cost to repair the building exterior so it won’t rot from the inside out due to water ingress. This is a tough pill to swallow given that everything costs more lately due to high inflation. I wonder how other owners have found ways to scrape together the money.

If it wasn’t bad enough that we have to pay all this money, I just found out how much of a pain in the ass the actual repairs will be. Work is now beginning and we’ve been told we have to clear all of our balconies of anything. I never use my balcony but I have two wooden chairs, a wooden table, a cheap white card table chair, a telescope, and errand trash can out there. All of that will eventually need to come inside when work begins on my balcony. I have no room for that stuff. What worse is that my balcony gets filthy, somehow dirt is drawn to my building. So there’s dirt and dust all over those items and I’m supposed to bring them in my apartment for who knows how long. I am tempted to junk all of that crap so I don’t have to deal with it since I never use my balcony at all. I might keep the telescope though.

The news gets worse though. Work is supposed to occur between the hours of 7:30am-4pm. We’ve been warned it will be potentially noisy and disruptive as workers do work on my balcony, right near my bed. It has been suggested we close our windows but my place gets immediately stuffy when there’s no ventilation. I can’t believe I paid $6,000 for the privilege of having all this inconvenience.

IT REMEMBERS

A couple weeks ago, I decided to let a password manager remember a large majority of the passwords I use online. I made a few exceptions, mostly for sites involving finance and money, those I still manually type in my info.

I must admit, it’s a lot more convenient and totally worth the security risk. For those sites that I visit less than once a month and where I reset my password every single time I go there, it’s a lot less hassle.

I just hope the password manager that I use won’t get hacked someday.

MOVEMENT

With a looming recession, apparently some tech companies have started to lay off some of their employees. So far, I haven’t heard much of the same happening in the video game industry. The one thing I did read on Twitter was that Microsoft laid off an entire team was working on “games tech” but was not part of their studios organization, so not a conventional game dev team. That’s not to say layoffs won’t be coming for game developers either. With inflation high and people paying more for everything, gamers might have to make some difficult choices with what to do with their money. I have no doubt that some studios will see revenue fall.

What’s interesting is that I am still seeing people leaving their current role for new opportunities elsewhere. Just thinking about the number of goodbye e-mails I’ve read, I think four people at my studio are going to leave this month alone. At least for games, studios are still hiring and people are definitely willing to change jobs. I’m not sure how long this will last though. 2023 might be a lean year but it’s difficult to say how lean.

SCORCHER

Today was the hottest October 16th in the greater Vancouver area since records began in 1937. At just above 20 degrees Celsius at the airport, that meant it was likely two or three degrees warmer inland in the suburbs.

The warm temperatures and the lack of rain has meant that wildfires continue to burn in this province, leaving the city covered in a haze that traditionally has long gone by this time of year. Most of the province is now under the most severe drought classification, level 5. The province defines that as, “At Level 5, conditions are exceptionally dry and adverse impacts to socio-economic or ecosystem values are almost certain. All efforts should be made to conserve water and protect critical environmental flows.” That cannot be good for this province.

If there is some good news, the forecast calls for rain next weekend, as early as Friday possibly. It’s crazy to think that the first precipitation for October could come nearly three weeks into the month. That’s just not how weather in Vancouver should be.

EXCITING

For most of the summer, I have been writing code for a big feature for the game I work on. I am essentially the only engineer working on this feature, so by default, I am leading the engineering effort on this. It’s sorta like when you’re the only one cooking in your kitchen, you are head chef by default.

This is a huge feature and probably the biggest thing I’ve worked on since 2017. I will admit that I basically did nothing at work for almost all of 2020, so it’s not difficult to top that year if we’re talking about productivity.

Anyways, it’s not 100% confirmed at this point but this new feature should be released at the end beginning of November. At that point, I will have more to show.