Category: Uncategorized

Like clockwork, my property assessment arrived in the mail today. Last year, my property dropped in assessed value by $15,000. This year, it increased by $2,000. That’s fine by me. I don’t need it to be sky-high since I’m not looking to sell anytime soon. Hopefully, my property taxes will only increase by a slight amount as well. As always, you can look up the value of properties within British Columbia with this handy tool.

The community of ” target=”_blank”>Chilliwack is located about 100 km east of Vancouver. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Chilliwack but I may have driven through it when I was a child (I wasn’t doing the driving though). I’ve never received a good impression of the place. Someone once told me that it was the heroin capital of British Columbia.

The above video is from several security cameras located on a residential property located in Chilliwack. I’m hesitant to judge an entire community based on some security footage but there are some crazy things that happen in that footage. The sheer number of traffic violations that occur on that corner is amazing. I’m not talking about minor things either. Like who reverses through an intersection? The most disturbing thing though is the large number of sketchy people who just walk up to the property, looking to steal whatever isn’t bolted down. There the classic “sketchy guy on a bike”, who returns numerous times to scout out the home. Also, what’s with the people who casually walk up to the car and test the door handle to see if it’s unlocked? They’re probably wanting to steal stuff from inside the car, rather than the car itself I think.

I also get the impression that the homeowner is question isn’t a saint himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved the sale of illegal pharmaceuticals. Is that why he needs the cameras and might be inviting all these people of ill repute? Perhaps. If you keep watching the video, there is some levity provided by a family of raccoons.

Christmas is over for another year but Will Ferrell brought us this gem earlier this month.

Just before midnight I was sitting at my computer when I noticed my apartment started to shake. In the first second I wasn’t too worried because it’s quite normal to feel the occasional slight vibration if my upstairs neighbour drops something on his hardwood floor. It was in the next second that I knew this was different. The shaking got worse and the chair I was sitting in began to rattle back and forth. I’d never felt anything like that before. Then there was a loud creaking and groaning that seemed to come from my ceiling as my whole apartment seemed to be moving all at once. It was at this point I stood up and wondered what the hell was going on.

The shaking stopped after just a few seconds thankfully but I was bewildered at what had just happened. Was I the only one that felt that? I began hearing people yelling outside and then I realized that other people had felt it too. It dawned on me that I had just felt a mild earthquake. As most people do these days, there was an immediate rush to social media to see if anyone had shared the same experience. I quickly discovered this was felt across the entire greater Vancouver area.

After the excitement died down, I remembered that I prepared my emergency kit during the summer. If the circumstances called for it, I have water, food, candles, a heat source, light, and first-aid all available to me. Then I remembered that I’m still short on a water purification device and a portable radio. I’ll probably want to pick these up soon.

I went to work today as management requested the software engineers come into work on Monday. They expected QA to find a significant amount of bugs over the weekend but that was not the case. At this point of the project, bugs are prioritized into categories. The most important bugs are the ones that have to be fixed before the game ships. Another category is for bugs that can be fixed with the first downloadable update, reserved for after the game is released. I had one bug that was in the first category but then got reclassified and put into the latter category. That meant management was no longer standing at my desk, waiting for the bug to be fixed. You don’t want any of those bugs because it’s stressful. The release of the game will be held up until you fix that bug.

With the pressure somewhat off, I decided to roll into work around noon. Pretty much the entire software engineer team was already at work but I did not feel bad. At least I showed up. They served us lunch and I spent the whole day tracking down the root cause of the only bug I have left to fix (for now). It took about six hours for me to finally discover what the problem was. I probably could have done it quicker but I did watch a lot of cat videos along the way. I had to leave before I could implement my fix but I know what needs to be done.

Barring me being called in this week for a new bug that pops up, I’ll go back to work next Monday and finish up my current bug.

I finally saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens today. I felt a palatable sense of relief when walking out of the theatre as I could once again go back on the Internet without the fear having the movie spoiled for me. Relief isn’t usually a feeling one has after watching a film but after having avoided all trailers, promotional images, and for the last two weeks, all social media, it just felt so nice not having to tiptoe your way across the Internet.

Of course, I’ll have to do this all over again for Rogue One and Episode VIII but I welcome the challenge once again.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and technically it’s a work day for me. From a practical standpoint though, there will be very little work done by anyone is who at the studio. Most people are going to roll in late and leave early. I’ve told some people that they should go to lunch and not come back until January.

I worked pretty late this evening so I’m going to sleep in a bit, run an errand, go to work, have lunch, and then probably leave. Many of my fellow co-workers are already on their holidays so no one is going to mind if I take off a bit early.

Let the holidays begin!

When I woke up this morning I knew something was off. My alarm had woken me, which doesn’t seem weird but it felt like it had roused me from a very deep sleep, deeper than usual. Then I noticed that while I was awake, I was in a daze of sorts. I’ve woken up tired before and I know how that feels. This was different. I felt like I was moving in slow motion.

I had taken a sleeping pill the night before (like I’ve done many times) but I began to wonder if I had lost track of how many I’d ingested. I only need one but maybe I had forgotten I had already taken one? This was a strong possibility because nothing else seemed to make sense.

In any case, it took me a while to get through my morning routine. I managed to wash various parts of my body, get dressed, and eat some breakfast. I was still dazed though and here’s how off I was. When I got in the elevator to go down to the Skytrain platform there was another person already in the elevator car. I went to press the button for the platform floor but I was so out of it, I didn’t notice the button didn’t actually light up. Not sure why that was. I stupidly then stepped back while the elevator was going down, still not noticing it wasn’t going to where I needed to go. When the doors opened, I noticed this wasn’t the floor I was expecting and we had gone down to the floor where my fellow elevator rider was going to. I instantly realized I’d screwed up the simple act of pushing an elevator button. I felt so stupid. Anyways, the other person got out and I just went back up to where I needed to go.

Luckily, I didn’t make any other boneheaded mistakes on my way to work. I felt much better after getting my first cup of green tea and the rest of the day was uneventful. I hope this doesn’t happen tomorrow!

I avoided having to work this weekend which was good because I was very tired and still recovering from my cold. The two days of rest allowed to me to feel much better. I think I am about 95% back to normal.

I only need to work until mid-day Thursday which is a relief. Of course, I’ll be on-call for the duration of the holidays. I just hope QA doesn’t find any nasty bugs that need my attention. For the other people at the studio who aren’t facing a deadline, many of them have already taken off for the holidays. A co-worker said that the parking lots at work have been sparsely populated and that you could get a decent spot even as late as 11am.

Anyways, I can’t wait for Thursday to arrive!