Month: April 2024

At 9am on Saturday, I was in a dentist chair, which is usually not a place I am nor is it a place I wanted to be. About a month ago, I had two fillings done in two teeth that were next to each other. A week later, those teeth began hurting when I’d bite down to chew food. The pain would gradually increase until I had to chew on the other side of my mouth. Eventually, the pain would subside but still not go away completely.

Then the pain would return, cause me to not use those teeth again, and subside again. I figured I probably needed to go back to the dentist and see what the hell was happening. Now waking up earlier that I usually do on a weekday to go to the dentist on the weekend isn’t my idea of fun, so I was probably a bit grumpy on my way to the appointment. A small consolation is the dentist office is downstairs, so I walk about five minutes to get there.

Once I got there, I explained to the dentist my situation. He almost immediately thought he knew what the issue was. He believed that the two fillings were rubbing against each other, causing pressure on each tooth when I was biting down on food. The solution was to grind down the fillings slightly to get a bit more space in between them. Since he was only going to remove a small portion of the fillings, no freezing was required.

He did a bit of drilling and then checked my bite with that paper that they make you bite down on. He did this a few times and drilled a bit more and checked my bite until he was satisfied with it. He asked if my bite felt fine but honestly, I couldn’t tell because the pain only came if I was chewing on hard foods and it never was a problem when I was biting down on nothing. I sorta just left it in his hands and hoped he’d done enough.

I was out of the chair and released into the wild at about 9:18am, which is an indication of how fast things went. Since it was this early and I was now wide awake, I went and got a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. Once I got home, I was surprised that I could chew and bite down on either side of my mouth without any issue. The dentist had fixed the issue and correctly diagnosed the problem. He also decided not to charge me for anything, so that was a bonus.

I spent all weekend eating normally again which I was thankful for. This was the first time I’ve had to get a filling adjusted after the procedure. I wonder how common this is.

You haven’t seen me write about ants in my home because for the last few months, I haven’t seen any. Well, that changed this evening. I was in the bathroom and I saw a line of eight or ten of them, crawling along a ledge. I know this route that they were on. They’re not really going anywhere, they travel along this ledge, get to a certain wall and they just turn back around again.

There were enough of them that it means that I’ll need to make new observations to figure out where they’re coming from. I might also lay down some new bait for them. I’m not sure why they’re back. I know there are some unknown points of ingress but they didn’t seem to use them until very recently. Was it a shift in weather? It’s been still kinda of cold for April. Who knows. I need to continue the work once again.

So I’ve had my exercise bike for about two weeks now and I’m quite enjoying it. One of the cliches about buying exercise equipment is that you stop using it and it just gathers dust in some part of your home. I know it’s only been two weeks and not two months, but so far I’ve been doing some riding about four times a week now.

No one wants to use a piece of exercise equipment if it’s a hassle or unnecessarily uncomfortable, that just adds friction to the whole experience. For the most part, getting on the bike is easy. It takes like thirty seconds to set it up in front of my TV. Once I figured out how to make the seat not feel like a block of steel, it meant that I could be on the bike for prolonged periods of time without hurting my ass.

I did about thirty minutes on the bike today and I got a good sweat going. Someone told me they used to go to spin classes where they go for nearly an hour. I think I need to work up to that. I usually just put on a long-form YouTube video on my TV and watch it while I bike. It’s quite the good combo and time flies. The bike has a shelf for a phone or tablet, so I’m able to check my messages or use the phone as a timer.

We’ll see how much I’ll be on the bike once the summer arrives and the heat comes with it. I have a nice big box fan that I can point towards me, hopefully that will help.

Last week, I ordered a stainless steel water bottle from Amazon. When it arrived the next day, it came in a cardboard box. The bottle was also inside some plastic film. When I took the bottle out, I unscrewed the top and I took a look inside.

What I saw, is what you can see in the picture above. I have purchased a few water bottles before and none of them, plastic or metal, ever came into my possession already with some liquid in it. This was an unpleasant surprise to me.

I think most people expect when they purchase a container that they are going to eat or drink from, it does not arrive in a “wet” state. As far as I could tell, the liquid was odourless. Other than that, I couldn’t tell what it was. Now could it have been just some harmless water? Yes, it very well could have been. If so, that begs the question, why is there water already in my supposedly new water bottle.

Was this water bottle previously used and then returned to Amazon? Yeah, that might have happened and if that did, that’s gross. Or was some warm air trapped in the bottle and when it got moved into a colder environment (like a plane or truck), the moist, warm air caused condensation to form inside the bottle? This is also possibility. The bottle is not insulated, so this could have happened. If that was the case, then just a quick rinse would have been sufficient.

In the end, I decided to return the bottle because no one really knows why the bottle was wet on the inside. Amazon also has a very easy and hassle-free return policy, so it made that decision easier.

I’m gonna hold out for a dry water bottle.

I ordered a metal water bottle from Amazon this week. When it arrived, I removed it from its packaging and then opened up the top to inspect the inside. I was surprised to see drops of clear liquid on the top when I unscrewed it. Then I peered into the bottle itself. What I saw is picture above.

As you clearly see, the inside of the bottle contained a small amount of clear liquid all along the surface. Now I’ve purchased a few water bottles over the years. Some came from Amazon and some did not. None of them, up until this point, ever had pre-existing liquid in them at the time of possession.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to want to have a water bottle delivered to me that is clean and dry on the inside. Could this be condensation from some moist air that was trapped inside of the bottle? Yes, that is possible, but I can’t guarantee that. I don’t know what that liquid is. Maybe someone bought this bottle, used it to drink water from it, and then returned it. That’s also a possibility.

I suppose someone people would have shrugged at the sight of this, washed it thoroughly and just used it. If those people want to do that, that’s fine. I paid money for a new water bottle and I’d like one that at the very least, has the appearance of a new water bottle.

You know, I’d understand if I had bought this from a thrift store or a garage sale, but this was supposed to be new and never used. I asked a friend if the bottle arrived in this condition would they use it and they said no.

Anyways, I’m returning the bottle and I’m quite thankful that Amazon offers a convenient and free method of doing this.

With the start of the new year, some benefits at work got topped up again. One of these is the global fitness benefit which reimburses you if buy things that help you exercise. I used this benefit last year to buy my walking treadmill.

This year, I decided to buy an exercise bike. There’s enough room in my apartment for one, without me having to move around any furniture or restrict my movement. Now I used to think exercise bikes cost at least $500 and if you’re looking at a fancy bike like a Peleton, those are around $1000+. I got mine for just over $300 and that’s with tax and shipping included. It’s not the fanciest bike available but it’s not a poorly made bike either.

The bike was made in China obviously to be that cheap but it’s got three separate adjustments for the handlebar height, seat height and seat distance from the handlebars. It’s even got a very simple computer that can track things like speed, distance, time elapsed, and even your heart rate. It took me about twenty minutes to assemble but the steps were all very intuitive and easy to do.

So far, I’m starting simple, so I ride the bike three times a week. Each time, I average about twenty-five minutes on the bike. I usually start off with a quick pace for a few minutes and then I dial up the resistance to simulate a hill climb to really get things going. I do this as long as my legs can endure it, then I remove all the resistance and then do a normal sprint for a few more minutes.

I can work up quite a sweat and I feel great after the ride. The original bike seat was too small and a bit too stiff, so the first few rides made my ass hurt, to the point where it was very uncomfortable. Amazon came through with a seat cover that has thicker padding, so now rides are much easier on my butt.

The bike is also super quiet, there’s virtually no noise coming from it no matter how fast you pedal. I remember riding some exercise bike as a kid and it was probably designed in the 70s or 80s and it made such a racket when you pedalled at any speed. Whatever technology got developed in the meantime has made these machines so much quieter and apartment friendly now.

There’s no excuse for my cardio to be bad now.

On the weekend I scheduled an oil change for my car since it was due for one. I have a friend that owns a few Midas locations around town, so I go to the closest one for oil changes.

I was expecting it to cost about $100, which was how much it was last time. They also do a quick inspection of my car, mostly simple things like checking my battery, tire pressure, and brakes. I had gone to get some lunch when they texted me their inspection report. It turns out that one of my rear tires had two screws embedded in it and the pressure in that tire was down to 9 psi, when it should be around 32 or so. I didn’t even realize this and admittedly, it’d been months since I checked the tire pressure on each tire. The report also mentioned that my cabin air filter needed replacement, which wasn’t a big deal. They also said my battery probably would need replacement in the fall or winter. I already knew about this as the last time I had a quick inspection, they already mentioned my battery probably had a year or so left before it needed to go. The big surprise though was the busted tire.

I finished up my lunch and hurried back to the shop. I asked if the tire could be repaired but they said the two screws were really close together and because of that, a patch or repair would probably start to leak. I would need to replace the tire and because you can’t really replace just one tire on the same axle, I’d need two new tires. They checked their stock and the most similar tire to the one I had was located at another one of their shops hundreds of kilometres away. I’d have to wait for that tire to get shipped here. In the meantime, I’d either have to drive on this busted tire or use the spare. That wasn’t really appealing to me because I didn’t want to come back and driving on the spare or the bad tire made me nervous.

I asked if they had anything in stock that was compatible with my car and they did have two tires that were slightly more expensive. I kinda did the math in my head and the cost of convenience, time, safety, and peace of mind was worth the extra cost, if that meant everything could be taken care of in a single visit.

In the end, what I expected to be a $100 visit turned out to be a $800 bill for my car. It’s unexpected things like this which demonstrate how car ownership can be a costly endeavour. It also reminded me that I need to check my tires more frequently like I used to.

In this recent post, I wrote about the upcoming fire alarm inspection for my apartment. Well, the inspection is tomorrow and my place needs a bit of cleaning before I feel comfortable letting someone see it.

Since they don’t need to come into my bedroom to do the inspection, I’m tempted to just throw everything into my bedroom and call it done. Of course, you can’t do that for everything. You can’t throw a dirty floor elsewhere, you gotta vacuum it.

This will be a good excuse for me to partially clean my apartment though. Silver linings and all.