Category: Uncategorized

I fell asleep on my couch again this evening while my TV. It’s just so easy to do that now. My new couch is longer so there’s no obstacle to stretching out my stubby legs. It felt so good that I debated just sleeping on my couch for the whole night. I eventually got up because I have an early Zoom call tomorrow. Speaking of which, I gotta sleep for real now. Goodnight.

Prior to the pandemic, when I traveled to the United States of America, I switched SIM cards and used a plan through Roam Mobility. It was affordable and convenient, allowing me to have voice, text, and data access while traveling. As with many businesses, Roam Mobility went out of business as travel diminished because of the pandemic. As such, I had to find another way to continue to use my smartphone while in the USA.

Roaming with my Canadian plan was not feasible. It would have cost me possibly hundreds of dollars depending on how much data I used for the week I was away. Some solutions required me to have a US billing address, which I did not have, since all my credit cards have my Canadian address.

I solved my problem by having to wait until I was in San Diego and actually visiting a T-Mobile store. A sales associate greeted me and asked me what I required. I told then I wanted a 10Gb pre-paid plan. I wasn’t sure if they were going to be able to give me that since I was not a resident of the USA. As soon as I mentioned the pre-paid plan, the associate grabbed a new SIM card for me and I quickly went to work, swapping my existing SIM card with this new one. The associate then handed me an iPad where I had to enter in my name and nothing else essentially. For payment, I just had to tap my credit card. After the payment went through, the associate helped ensure the plan was working. They also explained that if I didn’t top up my account, it wouldn’t automatically charge me again, so I didn’t need to cancel anything. The only downside is that after three months of non-use, my SIM card would be unusable, so I’d have to get another one if wanted to go this route again.

All told, I was in the store for probably less than ten minutes and walked out with a smartphone plan that enabled me to enjoy my vacation without having to be constantly searching for wi-fi. In some cases, had I not done this, getting a ride through Uber would have been impossible, so it was worth it.

No one enjoys their first day back to work after a vacation to a sunny destination but it almost seemed like work wanted to punish me today. I didn’t check my email or Slack messages while I was gone, so I was very surprised this morning when I saw that I was scheduled to conduct three separate one-hour interviews with engineers who had applied for a position. I also had a last-minute Zoom meeting with an engineer to discuss a crash.

Suffice to say, it was an exhausting day even normally but then factor in that it was a Monday and I’d be in travel mode for a week, I was totally spent by the time my last interview was done at 5pm.

I fell asleep on the ouch after dinner. I think I deserved that.

I have returned from my trip to San Diego and I had some unexpected excitement during my vacation. Last Thursday I was in my hotel room, on the bed, around 9:30pm, watching TV. The bed began to shake and then the walls began to as well. I could hear the walls of the room creaking and making noise. The movement was ramping up in intensity and just as there was some serious panic beginning to creep into me, everything stopped.

I immediately thought this was an earthquake and it turns out, it definitely was. A magnitude 4.6 earthquake centered off the coast of Mexico shook my hotel room on the 23rd floor. If the shaking had continued, I was just about to hop off the bed to seek a safer position from which to ride it out.

I believe this has been the third earthquake that I’ve been awake for and also felt. The other two I experienced back in British Columbia, so this was the first earthquake I’ve felt in another country.

It was very exciting and I am glad it was not more powerful than that.

I apologize for being missing in action. I am currently in San Diego for my first real vacation since the pandemic started. I am doing well and I am glad to be here.

I’ll post more once I return home.

I went to pick up my Mom, my aunt, and my grandmother from the airport. My Mom went to visit my aunt and grandmother, and they both came back with my Mom. This is the second time I’ve picked up my Mom from the airport during the pandemic.

The first time I did the pickup, it was the fall of 2020. No vaccines were available back then and everyone was taking the pandemic very seriously. The airport was nearly deserted on a weekday evening. Everyone who was there was masked up.

Tonight was a very different story. The airport was crowded, like it was back to pre-pandemic levels. Even though regulations still require people to wear masks in the terminal, there were lots of people who weren’t. Of all places, where people are coming from all over the country and the world, mixing in crowded spaces in an indoor environment, this is where they decide to go maskless? Is that difficult to be masked for ten minutes to wait for their luggage? After that, they can go outside and take it off.

I suppose if people want to take chances, it is their right. It just seems like a weird hill to die on.

This evening I sat on my couch and watched TV. This seems like a simple thing that many people take for granted but after losing my couch in late summer and then having to wait months for a replacement, this was a real treat.

I started off watching while sitting but as time went on and my energy waned, I eventually assumed a much more horizontal position. I grabbed a blanket and rested my head on a cushion. It was a pleasant time. I hope to do it again soon.

Just about every time that John Mulaney hosts Saturday Night Live, he insists on having a large musical number on the show. The above video showcases three such skits. Les Mis in a diner!

I was able to poop and wash my hands all day today. The water, for whatever reason, was available the entire day. Hot or cold, it was all there.

I’m not sure if they were able to make the repairs without turning the water off or if some sorta of problem prevented the repairs from taking place. Will this mystery ever get solved?

Rather unexpectedly, the water is being shut off in my building tomorrow from 9am to 5pm due to a leak in the hot water boiler. In the beforetimes, such an event would have impacted me less as I would not been home for most of the time the water was unavailable.

We live in a different world now, so I will be home for the entirety of the day. Since I wake up after 9am usually, no water means no tooth brushing, face washing, showering, dish washing, cooking with water, drinking water on demand, and most importantly, no toilet flushing. My hot water dispenser basically assures me of having drinking water through the day, so I just need to handle the rest of the water needs. I won’t need to shower since I showered before bedtime. I probably won’t need water to make any of my daytime meals tomorrow. Just to be safe, I will fill a large container with cold water before I head to bed.

The no toilet flushing thing is probably the most inconvenient thing to navigate. I suppose I can just do all my business for the whole day without flushing but that’s not ideal. You can also manually refill the toilet tank but that’s a lot of water to keep on hand per flush. Also, without water, it’s gonna make hand washing a bit tougher. Gross. I guess I will use that container of water to wash my poo hands through out the day.

Pray for me.