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I’m in the middle of a four-day weekend and on Thursday, I decided to do something new. I’ve been wanting to ride the Eagle Coaster on Cypress Mountain for while, so I finally got off my ass and did it. The Eagle Coaster is nearly 2km long and you drop almost 300m from start to finish.

I’ve been to Cypress Mountain a few times, mostly as a kid but this was the first time I’d driven there myself. I left around 12:30pm and at that time, traffic was very light. Even then, it took me over an hour to drive there, with most of it highway driving. I live super far from Cypress Mountain. I’m basically at the south end of the greater Vancouver area and the mountain is way up north.

The drive up there was uneventful. The coaster ride itself was fun but for something that lasts less than three minutes, paying $35 for a single ride down was hard to swallow. There’s a joke in there somewhere. I definitely think there’s some tourist pricing involved.

Anyways, once I was done with the ride it was about 2:30pm and I hadn’t had lunch yet. It was a beautiful sunny day and there was a patio with a spectacular view of the mountains that served Mexican food. How great would it be to have a burrito and just enjoy the weather and the view? On the other hand, I was cognizant that to get home, I would be driving in the same direction of everyone else in the afternoon rush hour. Also, I needed to cross a bridge for my commute home. My philosophy is that if a bridge is involved in a commute, you’re screwed.

I quickly checked Google Maps and it told me that if I left now, it would take me an hour and twenty-six minutes to get home. The route was dark red kilometres before the bridge and for several kilometres after the bridge as well. Traffic was heavy and congested. There were several icons on the route, which I just assumed were indicating a crash of some sort. It had to be, for traffic to be this bad as early as 2:30pm.

I made the poor decision to drive home immediately because I thought it would just get worse once rush hour actually began. The sooner I got in my car, the sooner I would get home was my thinking.

It was sixteen kilometre drive just to get back onto the highway from the top of the mountain and this drive was traffic free. Once I got back onto the highway though, I drove barely five minutes before I hit traffic. About seven kilometres from the bridge, traffic slowed to a crawl, like less than 20 km/h. It was bumper to bumper traffic, with most of the time, everyone just inching forward a few feet at a time. I kept expecting to see a wreck or emergency vehicles somewhere along the way, which would explain why the traffic was so bad.

I didn’t time how long it took to drive the seven kilometres to get to the bridge but it must have been at least thirty minutes or more. Once I got on the bridge, I realized there weren’t any accidents that was causing any of this. All of this gridlock was just from straight-up massive volumes of vehicles all on the road at the same time, going the same way. It was bonkers.

It was still bumper to bumper traffic even after the bridge, for about three or four kilometres after. Once the highway opened up to four lanes, traffic finally abated enough that I was able to speed up beyond 50 km/h for the first time since I left the mountain and merged onto the highway. The rest of my drive home was uneventful finally. All told, it took me about an hour and forty-five minutes to get home. Nearly double the time it took to get to the mountain.

I wasn’t sure if that drive was just anomaly or if this was a daily occurrence. So today, at around 2:30pm, I checked Google Maps again. I plugged in the route from Cypress Mountain to my home and the estimate was again, almost identical to what it was the day before. I checked the route and there were no accidents, just a ridiculous amount of traffic volume.

A long time ago, when I was a much younger man, near the turn of the century, I worked in North Vancouver, where the commute home was similar to the route I drove yesterday. I would drive home every day around 5:30pm or so, which I would say is in the rush hour and I didn’t experience anything like I did yesterday. Traffic is much worse now.

I know a lot of people who live on the North Shore, they love the proximity to nature and the mountains but that bridge exacts a toll. Not a monetary one but one that you pay with your patience and sanity. I’ve always had the opinion that having to cross a bridge for any commute just adds headaches and stress to your life. Some people drive this commute every day. How do they do it?

I’ve always had an appreciation for the fact that I get to work from home but that drive the other day, just reinforced that.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a new section in my YouTube feed when I loaded it up on my browser. Labelled “Playables”, I realized these were games but somehow hosted on the YouTube site. Looking through the initial list of games, it seemed like some of them were repurposed mobile games. Indeed, I immediately saw an Angry Birds game, along with Cut the Rope.

Curious, I tried a slew of these games to see how fun they could be. After about 30 minutes of playing, I had a few observations. First, I did confirm that many of these games were mobile games in some fashion in another life. Despite being played in a browser, without a separate download, many of the games had a playing area that was taller than it was wider, the aspect ratio for a phone, instead of a monitor. Also, many of the controls you could tell involved swiping or tapping the screen. In a browser, this got converted into mouse dragging and clicking. For some games, I discovered it sometimes didn’t register my clicks or drags, which made for a poor experience.

Second, it was clear YouTube did some work on each game to make it work on their platform. For example, all games have the ability to store high scores and/or progress on a game. This may seem minor in terms of a feature, but it can actually drive a person to play a game again because it can remember which levels you’ve finished and you can just pick up where you left off.

Third, it became clear to me some of these games are genuinely entertaining for what they are. Sometimes, I have five minutes to play something while I wait for my code to compile or if a meeting is starting soon, and I can’t play a full-screen game. These games fit that bill. Now, if you’re thinking mobile games on a phone are exactly what fits this need, you’d be correct. For some reason though, I never got into mobile games. These browser games, however, just are easy to play and they being on the computer, make it appealing to me. By the way, these YouTube Playables can also be played in the YouTube app on the phone, if that’s more your style.

Anyways, two of my favourite games from the current list are Freekick Football and 8 Ball Billiards Classic.

About five years ago, someone told me a former co-worker of mine had moved to my neighbourhood, about four blocks away. If this was a friend, I would have confirmed this with the person in question directly but this was more of an acquaintance, so I didn’t need to confirm that badly. Plus, I figured with him living so close, we’d surely run into each other at the local shops or other locations.

Well, five years went by and I didn’t see him once. I began to wonder if that information I was told was wrong or if he’d moved away without me knowing. How close can you live to another person without those two people never seeing each other?

About three weeks ago, I was out on my daily walk to the waterfront park when lo and behold, I saw my former co-worker at the park. We exchanged pleasantries and I explained to him that I knew he had moved close by years ago, yet I had never seen him around locally until now. I half expected him to reveal to me that he’d been living as a hermit up until that week but he did no such thing. We said our goodbyes and I wondered when the next time I might run him into, since it took five years to even see each other once.

About two weeks later, I was having chat with a friend at my local market. He had come to have lunch with me and afterwards he was enjoying an iced coffee outside. We were chatting at a patio table when surprise, my former co-worker sauntered on by. Another sighting in less than a month?!?! Perhaps this was going to be a common occurrence now.

We joked that we were going to see each other everywhere now. It’s been another two weeks so far and I haven’t seen him again. When will the next sighting be?

Yesterday was the first day I didn’t need to use my A/C in about two weeks. Thank the maker this heat wave we’ve been experiencing has finally broken. I’m also thankful that the heat wave didn’t go away because of rainy weather, it just got cooler and the sun stayed. So it’s still sunny, just not as hot.

I don’t want to even imagine what my electrical bill is gonna look like for this cycle. I bet the A/C used so much juice.

I went to the park like I intended to yesterday and I did not poop my pants during that time. I am grateful that my bowels stayed under my control.

It’s another hot and sunny day here and after work I’m considering walking to one of the larger parks in my municipality to get some shade and be around some nature.

I am wary of this however because this is the same park where I’ve had some close calls regarding pooping my pants/shorts. At least three times, either on the way to the park, at the park, or on the way home, my gastrointestinal system has decided it needed to quickly evacuate my bowels. This had led to some dramatic and stressful walks home. I’ve made it home before disaster strikes every time so far but there have been some really close calls where I was thinking that public defecation was imminent.

I am not sure why this park is such a triggering factor. The park is about a 15-20 minute walk away. Does that have anything to do with it? There is the concept of a runner’s or jogger’s diarrhea, where the running motion cause the body to want to poop. I’m not running to this park though. I also walk to other places and that hasn’t caused me to want to poop badly as much as the park does.

I’ve also tried to consider what I eat or drink while I’m getting there or in the park. Sometimes I won’t eat or drink anything because I don’t want to trigger something but I believe one time it happened anyways. Sometimes, I’ll drink a lot of water and nothing happens.

I’m gonna tempt fate again. I know one day my luck will run out and I’ll have poop running down my leg.

It was 27 degrees in my apartment by 11am today and that’s the supposed to be the cool time of the day for me. I had to turn on my A/C before noon because it was becoming too uncomfortable to work.

I left the A/C on until I needed to go downstairs to pick up some groceries and some lunch. Normally when I go out for my daily walk or grocery run, I make sure I wander down to the local waterfront park to get some fresh air. Today, I skipped that part because I didn’t want to be in the direct sun with the temps near 30.

When I got downstairs, it was hot even in the shade and I could only imagine how terrible it was to be in the direct sun. The A/C in Safeway remains incredible. Whatever system they have in there is probably rated to cool a store twice that size.

When I got home, I turned the A/C on and left it on for the rest of the afternoon and pretty much all evening. In my living room and kitchen area, which is not cooled, it got up to 30 degrees in the late afternoon. That’s just darn too hot. It’s no wonder I spent all day and evening in my cooler bedroom. I bet I used a lot of electricity today to keep cool. My next utility bill is gonna be expensive.

The heatwave is supposed to break tonight. The high tomorrow is supposed to be 23, which is much more reasonable than the high of 30 today. I’m hoping it’ll be cool enough for me to not have to use my A/C for the next few days.

I’m also hoping all my local seniors found a way to stay cool today. The provincial government began giving away free A/C units months ago to eligible seniors to ensure people had ways to to cool their home, regardless of income.

The weather waited until the first week of July to give the greater Vancouver area its first heat wave. Because of a slight issue, I couldn’t get my A/C working in my apartment until today. The heatwave started Friday and by Saturday, it got up to 28 degrees Celsius in my apartment.

I went to my parents’ place for dinner this evening and when I arrived back home, it was 29 degrees inside. I finally got my A/C sorted out and it’s now 23 in my bedroom. The six degrees drop in temperature makes a huge difference.

The heat wave is supposed to last until Thursday, at which time, the highs will drop to low 20s. Until then, the highs will be near or above 30. It’s gonna be a hot start to the week.

Last week I realized the last time that my phone, a Google Pixel 4a, received an update was August of 2023. Google stopped supporting my phone a while ago. It will forever be stuck on Android version 13. For reference, the latest version is 14, with 15 set for release in the fall.

Despite not having any more updates, my phone still runs great. The Pixel 4a is the best phone I’ve ever owned in terms of value for phone, performance, and features. While I won’t get any more OS updates, I continue to get app updates because apps will most likely support phones with version 13 for many years to come.

The lack of OS updates though potentially means I might be subject to security issues but I’m willing to roll the dice on that. I’m not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone just because I want the latest version of Android. My phone still does everything I want it to and does it in a relatively speedy manner. Even the battery appears to be in good shape as well.

I’m going to use this phone for as long as I can and I don’t think it’s out of the question to get half a decade of service out of it. I think about people who get a new phone every single year and I just think that’s a complete waste of both money and electronics. There’s no way a phone can be obsolete or slow after a single year. And where do these phones go? In a best case scenario, they’re sold to another person at a massive discount but at worst, it just winds up in a landfill.

Anyways, carry on my trusty Pixel 4a.

Everything costs so much more now, from food to clothing to housing, it all is so expensive. Financially, it’s so rare to catch a break these days but I recently had two minor, minuscule financial windfalls.

The first relates to the special assessment I had to pay off last year. Some of you may recall that all the balconies in my building required extensive repairs last year, which was funded by special assessment. My portion of the bill was a whopping $6,000. All for a balcony that I spend perhaps ten minutes on per year. Anyways, the repair work was finally completed and the final bill came in under budget. As such, I was refunded $267. Now $267 back on a $6,000 bill isn’t great but it’s still better than not getting a refund (or the final bill coming in over budget), so I’ll take it.

The second piece of good news is that I also received a refund on my car insurance this year. ICBC is giving me back about $110. Again, this is better than not getting a refund at all, so I’m not complaining.

I’m not expecting any refunds next month, so I’ll just savour these for the time being.