blog.erwintang.com

Late on Saturday night or early on Sunday morning, the greater Vancouver area had a snowstorm that brought several centimetres of snow. We were kind of lucky to have the snow fall on the weekend as there were less people on the road and it gave municipalities almost a full day of snow clearing before the Monday morning and evening commutes.

Monday did not bring trouble-free commuting unfortunately, there were some delays for transit and YVR airport was chaotic. It was still miles better than the last snowstorm though. The bridges in the area weren’t closed and I didn’t see vehicles lining up to get home at 3am still.

On Monday evening, after most people had gone home from work, another snowstorm arrived and dumped a huge amount snow all over. I live in a low elevation but even then, it looked like we got 12-14 inches of snow. It was much worse at higher elevations. Roads were either passable to downright dangerous depending on municipality and if you were driving on the highway.

When I woke up on Tuesday morning, I barely saw any vehicles on the road. Amazingly, it stayed like that for the entire day and into the evening. Normally, I start to see rush hour traffic start to back up around 3pm. At 4pm, I struggled to even see more than a handful of cars in any direction. It seemed like everyone just stayed at home on Tuesday. This is a lot of snow for Vancouver and no one is used to this much snow in this city.

What also sucks is that the temperatures are frighteningly cold for Vancouver as well. Cold for Vancouver is normally a degree or two below freezing. As I write this, it is -11 degrees Celsius. This is way outside the normal range of cold for this city. Just to put this in perspective, Montreal and Toronto are currently warmer than Vancouver. Anchorage, Alaska is just as cold as Vancouver, despite being several hundreds of kilometres closer to the north pole.

It’s too cold and there is too much snow on the ground. It’s making it difficult to get anywhere, no matter what form of transportation you’re using, from walking to flying. It all sucks.

As if it wasn’t bad enough, the forecast calls for another 10 to 20 cm of snow to fall from Thursday to Saturday, with freezing rain following the snow. I get the feeling many Christmas plans will be put into doubt but this new storm, possibly even mine.

As someone who readily admits to not liking board games, I am that guy in this video. I’m not even ashamed of it.

During my lunch break, I went across the street to the dollar store and bought a $6 pair of pliers so I could remove the nut holding my busted toilet bowl handle in place. Once that was done, it was easy to remove the whole handle assembly. With that out of the way, it was another minute of fiddling to get the new handle assembly in place.

I had a choice to get a white handle or a chrome one. I went with the chrome one because it matched what I had before and I also like shiny things. I probably should have replaced it much sooner. For a long time, the handle felt “mushy” when I went to flush, like I could press down on the handle quite a distance and nothing would happen. Only in the last 10% of the travel would it feel like the flush was starting.

The new handle feels “crisp” and responsive. The flush happens almost as soon as you move it, like it’s on a hair trigger. It feels good.

I invite all my readers to come urinate and/or defecate in my toilet bowl and feel the excellence yourself.

On late Friday evening, the toilet bowl handle mechanism in my bathroom broke. This meant that if I wanted to flush my toilet, I had to take the top off the tank and then manually pull the lever. Needless to say, this is a huge hassle if you wanna flush the toilet.

A combination of being lazy and having to get ready for my niece’s birthday party on Saturday meant that I couldn’t get a replacement part on that day. On Sunday, I had much more free time, so I managed to get the part in the afternoon, even though it snowed heavily in the morning.

I thought I had lots of time to do the repair, so I left it until after dinner time. It was at that point I realized that I didn’t have a wrench big enough to remove the existing but broken mechanism. At this point, I wasn’t about to go outside again in the cold and snow to look for a new wrench.

I’m about to go bed and I just urinated. I’m still having to take the top off the tank and pull the lever to flush. I better get that new wrench tomorrow.

I’m taking some extra time off for the holidays, so I officially have one week left of work before the break. My last day of work for 2022 is next Wednesday and I’m predicting a lot of people will be checked out next week. A lot of meetings have been cancelled for next week, so it seems like it will be a laid back three days.

I scheduled a lump sum payment towards my mortgage today. Next Friday, $10,000 will come out of my bank account to pay down my outstanding balance. I’m on a variable rate mortgage and stupidly, I didn’t lock into a fixed rate mortgage several months ago when it made sense. In the last year or so, the Bank of Canada has raised the prime interest rate steadily. It’s at the point now where doesn’t make sense to keep my money in a savings account because the interest rate on my mortgage far outstrips what I get in said savings account.

I haven’t made a lump sum payment in many years because it made more sense to keep my money elsewhere, where it could make more money for me. With the higher interest rates now, paying down debt has a higher priority. Even if the prime rate stays the same, I am likely going to make another lump sum payment in 2023, probably before the summer.

In a year or two, we might be getting into the territory where I think about paying off my entire mortgage if I liquidate a few investments. I hope I can be so lucky.

I have been told that the above video needs to be watched with closed captioning on if you do not speak Finnish.

There is a Facebook group for people who live in my building and two recent posts were from people asking if other had seen their FedEx packages that had been delivered to their door. FedEx had sent them pictures of the package in front of their door but when the resident checked, both packages were gone.

I found one of the packages in one of the stairwells. The box had been opened and the contents were gone. It was clear that both their packages were stolen. This isn’t the first time packages have been stolen in my building and it won’t be the last. What is interesting is that these packages were taken from directly in front of a resident’s door. First, it’s alarming that whoever is taking these packages has access to certain floors. Every floor is supposed to be secure and can only be accessed via fob in the elevator. The only exception are the crossover floors which can be access via the stairwells. One of the packages was not located on a crossover floor, so how they got access is a mystery. Second, this thief appears to have realized that the mailroom has cameras and is much busier than say a typical residential floor is. There unfortunately no cameras in the residential hallway floors like there are in the common areas.

This is just a reminder that it is much safer and secure to have your packages sent to a drop-off point. Depending on who you are buying from or what shipping company they use, this can be a Canada Post outlet, UPS Store, or some authorized shipping outlet. These places require an ID, which thieves won’t have. Personally, there isn’t really any excuse for me. Amazon packages can be sent to a Canada Post outlet, which is just downstairs for me. I also have a UPS Store located just five minutes away by foot.

I know it’s tempting to have it conveniently delivered to your door or the mailroom downstairs but unless you can pick up your package immediately, it tempts fate.

I had a McDonald’s quarter pounder burger for dinner last night. Yes, I know, that’s not a great choice for dinner. I didn’t get any fries nor did I get a sugary drink though to be clear, I just got the burger.

I have never been a big fan of the quarter pounder burger product from McDonald’s. It’s just so bland compared to their other offerings and burgers from other competitors are easily more appealing than the quarter pounder. A Big Mac, a Teen Burger from A&W, or a Whopper from BK are all superior choices compared to a quarter pounder.

I think the only reason I chose the 1/4 lb burger last evening was that I hadn’t had one in years. After consuming one last night, my opinion has not changed, it remains a very pedestrian and average product at McDonald’s. I think it’ll be many, many years before I’m tempted to try one again.

It’s now less than three weeks until Christmas and I can’t wait for the holiday break to arrive. This year, we get a full week off, plus a day for New Year’s. It’s not a whole lot of time off but I don’t want to use any extra vacation time. I’m relying on a lot of other people taking extra time off so that the days before and after the break are easy, quiet, and allow me to get lots of work done. If I have to work, at least it can be really productive days.