Category: Uncategorized

It’s the Labour Day long weekend and I am super glad to have the Monday off. This does signal the unofficial start of the fall season though and I always find this time to be very unpleasant. First, the weather (as I have mentioned many times) turns to crap almost immediately. Second, although the days have been progressively getting shorter since late June, it becomes really noticeable in September when you get home and have perhaps an hour or so before the sun sets. Soon we’ll be upon that dastardly time of year where the sun sets and you’re still at work! Lastly, as people return to school and their regular work schedules, the traffic on the roads and the number of people using public transit becomes quite congested. The one bus I take to work becomes packed with students in the morning and will be until the school year ends in May or so.

Alas, I still have Monday to relax so there’s that.

Earlier in the week I wrote about waiting to get diarrhea again because of some grapes. I did not get sick again thankfully. I ate the rest of the grapes without incident. Not sure what happened with the first bunch. You can all rest easy now.

It’s the Labour Day long weekend coming up and I didn’t even realize it until someone told me on Monday. A lot of people at work have taken the Friday off or already have left on vacation. While I haven’t, it does make for a more relaxing workplace as there are less people in the studio. It’s quieter and there’s just less stuff going on. It’s almost similar to when you have to go in on Christmas Eve.

While there is ample opportunity for me to slack off on the Friday before the long weekend, I am actually quite motivated to finish up some stuff before the start of the next week. I really don’t want my current task to drag into Tuesday morning. I’d like to start the next week with something fresh and new.

As for the long weekend itself, as I didn’t even realize it was coming, it may not be a surprise that I didn’t really plan for anything. I think I have lunch with a friend organized but beyond that, I think I have sleep penciled in. I’m not sure what else after that.

To all the parents out there, good luck with sending your kids back to school!

The greater Vancouver area was in a bit of a heat wave last week but as my recent post predicted, the rains came fast and heavy today. Interestingly, it was also the end of August and the beginning of September. It seems like the weather knows the month has changed over and it is eager to show us fall is upon us again. Such clockwork precision is almost Swiss-like!

As the weather forecast shows, the wet and gray skies will be with us for the rest of the week, through the entire long weekend and into the next week.

When I said the long, wet, and dreary Vancouver fall would be upon us soon, it arrived a lot sooner than I expected!

The burger in this case is from Burger King if that matters to you.

Earlier this month, reports came out that new studies showed that there is no scientific proof that flossing your teeth has any medical benefit. When I read that, I had a very smug reaction to the new findings. My reaction was such not because I think I can just forget flossing forever now, but because I’m now looking forward to my next visit to the dentist.

Before I continue, let’s back it up and let me give you history of my dental hygiene with regards to flossing. I’ve had meticulous dental care my entire life. My father took me to the dentist from the earliest time possible as a child. I’ve had six month check-ups like clockwork all my life. I was told from probably my first visit on that I should floss. I was shown how to floss countless times. As you might imagine, I never flossed as a child. Honestly, how many eight year olds do you know floss every single day? I felt lucky that I even brushed my teeth twice a day.

Once I was an adult, I flirted with regular flossing many, many times. After being admonished after a check-up at the dentist, I’d half-heartedly floss maybe a day, two days, perhaps even a week before giving it up. It just seemed like such a damn hassle when there were so many other things I could be doing. About six or seven years ago though, I started flossing after a visit to the dentist and I kept on doing it. To this day, I’m not sure what happened or what the switch was. Perhaps I found the right floss that made it easier. Technically, I don’t even use floss, I use dental tape as I find it removes more debris. Whatever it was, I’ve been flossing daily for many years now. I admit that on some days, I’m much more thorough than others but I never fail to at least floss all the major spots where most of the food is trapped.

I remember my first visit to the dentist after continuously flossing daily. I was totally expecting the dentist and the hygienist to notice the big difference in plaque build-up. Instead, they asked me if I flossed regularly. I said of course and when they heard that, I could see that were trying to figure out if I was lying or if I was just terrible at flossing. I admit, I was insulted by their reaction. I know how to floss. I’ve seen them floss my teeth countless times.

Initially, I thought this might be just an isolated incident but when I returned for another check-up six months later, I got a different hygienist and she asked me the same thing and gave me the same insulting reaction. Over the years, this has happened over and over again with different dentists and hygienists. They all seem incredulous when they tell them I floss daily. It wouldn’t so bad but they always find a way to tinge they reaction in a condescending manner. Like the one time, a hygienist made hold a mirror and watch while she flossed my teeth. Holy crap lady, you mean the floss goes between your teeth? I’ve been just stuffing it into my mouth and chewing it for thirty seconds and spitting it out. What a revelation!

I probably need to go to the dentist next month and I can’t wait to mention the report above. They can take all their condescending and insulting attitudes and shove it into those tiny spaces in between their teeth where plaque builds up but science says flossing won’t really help remove it.

Yesterday I bought some grapes and took them home. In the evening, I took a bunch and placed them in a bowl and carefully washed them (at least I thought I did). Some people just eat fruit without washing it but I think that’s dumb. Anyways, I drained the bowl of water and put the grapes back in the fridge for about twenty minutes so that they would be nice and cool again.

I took the bowl out and ate the grapes. They were sweet and delicious and I was really glad I bought them. About an hour and a half later, I felt some rumblings down there. It was a good thing I was at home at the time because I had your classic case of diarrhea. It wasn’t urgent though. It was almost as if my digestive system was saying, “Hey, you might be noticing everything isn’t exactly ok down here but there’s no rush, so you won’t be feeling cramps or gas or any of that funny stuff you see in movies. You’ll probably want to take care of it sooner or later but there’s no need to drop whatever you’re doing right now.”

Sure enough, I was able to watch about fifteen minutes of YouTube videos in relative comfort before I decided I probably should take care of things before they escalated. I will say that what occurred in the bathroom had almost no correlation to how urgent it felt beforehand. It was one of those “under promise and over deliver” situations, if you will. I was almost shocked at what transpired in there. I won’t go into the details but it was one of those situations where you feel like you need to shower immediately right afterwards. Wow.

Now they say, they being smart people, that it takes hours before something makes you ill so that if you eat something and you start to have problems, it was probably something you ate earlier in the day. I don’t think my body works like. My digestive system is very sensitive and if I eat something dodgy, it can take less than thirty minutes for the fireworks to happen. I’m positive my diarrhea episode on Saturday was because of the grapes.

Interestingly, this experience did not sour me on those grapes. I washed another bunch this evening and ate some more. It’s been almost two hours now since that happened and I don’t detect anything out of the ordinary. I think it maybe safe for me to go to bed now. Wish me luck!

It’s been very warm in the local Vancouver area during this week. Now when I say warm, the daytime highs are about 30 degrees and even higher inland away from the water. It’s a late summer heat wave for the city. I will admit that as I write this, I am only partially clothed.

While the warm and sunny weather is nice, I am preparing myself for the inevitable lightning fast switch that Vancouver experiences from summer to near-eternal rain and grey skies. Two months ago, it was still nice but a mere thirty days from now the temperatures will drop and the skies will open up. We’re just six weeks from Thanksgiving, which means that the coats will be back out in less than a month.

If I had more vacation days, I might entertain a quick jaunt down to San Diego in November.

Yesterday on my way home I came upon an accident scene at the intersection where I catch my bus. I must have arrived a mere minutes after it happened. There were about four cars pulled off to the side of the road, along with a motorcycle. Six or seven people were on the sidewalk, standing around, several on the phone. A gentleman with motorcycle gear on was seated on grass next to the sidewalk. He looked okay but dazed somewhat. He was conscious and talking but people were talking to him and seemed concern about his potential injuries. I’m no accident reconstruction expert so I couldn’t even guess what had happened. There was no outward major damage to any of the cars that I could see, nor any large pieces of debris on the road. I’m guessing the motorcyclist must have made contact with the ground somehow, either through direct contact from a car or he was forced to make a maneuver that forced him to lose control.

Within minutes I could hear sirens. The fire department was on scene first. They pulled up in this big truck. One fireman got the cones out and blocked off the lane that the cars and bikes were in. The other firemen started talking to the witnesses and participants of the accident. A few were checking on the motorcyclist. He began motioning to his foot. The police then showed up with two vehicles. At this point, there were a lot of flashing lights from the fire truck and the two squad cars. Traffic at this point still had two lanes to use but was slowed considerably through the intersection. A few drivers were caught gawking as the light turned green but they just stayed put. A good honk from behind got them moving.

The last first-responders to show up was the ambulance. The EMTs got out and started talking to the motorcycle dude. They must have deemed it not that serious as they didn’t get out the stretcher or even got him to sit in the ambulance. He remained on the grass the entire time I was there. At this point, the intersection was a major light show, with the emergency lights from the fire truck, two cop cars, and the ambulance all going off. My bus arrived a few minutes later so I had to go home.

If that wasn’t enough, on my way to work this morning, I was crossing the street in the exact same intersection. When I got to other side, where the cars and motorcycle were yesterday, I saw two vehicles stopped in the curb lane. Both drivers were out on the sidewalk, talking on their cell phones. The first vehicle in front was a city works truck, some sort of utility vehicle. The vehicle in the back was a minivan. The minivan had major front end damage and it was clear it had rear-ended the city truck. There were pieces of the minivan all over the road and I think I even saw bits of it stuck to the back of the truck. Luckily, none of the drivers seemed injured. It sucks for the driver of the minivan because nearly 100% of the time, insurance companies will assign all the blame for the one doing the rear-ending.

My commute home today was uneventful though! I didn’t see any accidents this evening!

As luck would have it, my home Internet connection crapped out before I could write my blog post tonight. I restarted my modem five times already and nothing seems to work.

I’m stuck with my cell phone data connection which sucks since it’s slow. Worse yet, I’m typing this on my cell phone. Writing anything long form on a tiny virtual keyboard is quite inefficient.

As an exercise, let’s think back to a time before the blesses Internet. You only had network television, books, and your stupid imagination to amuse yourself. What a terrible time that was. I hope my Internet is fixed by tomorrow morning.