I had the pleasure of picking up a friend at YYZ's terminal 3 today, such a refreshing change from the spacious and beautiful terminal 1! Honestly, how is that cramped and shoddy mess still a part of an airport that's seen growth by 15,000,000 passengers per year since 2010?.
Tonight I took The Girl out for a walk along the boardwalk so I could vote in the advanced polls - it was a beautiful night for a stroll with a six year old.
I'm back on my three-season bike, and the new wheels make an enormous difference! Spending four months almost exclusively on the TTC was quite a drag: I tend to pick up infections, and I certainly don't get an exercise.
I was just sitting at my desk at home when I heard a great wrenching sound - one of the old hardwoods along the property lines between our places and the next had snapped in twain halfway up, with the crown crashing down where there are usually several cars behind a small apartment building.
This Christmas, I replaced the bracelet on my Seiko SARB033 with a nice leather strap - I think it looks much better, and haven't taken the watch off since.
Yesterday I said that all was peaceful in the last work week of the year; I forgot some of the things that have to happen for year's end revenue-recognition purposes.
I managed to come down with another of my headaches, today - bad enough that I wound up in the usual escalating round of analgesics and migraine-specific drugs.
I met with some colleagues I hadn't seen in six months - they greeted me with, "You're really turning grey!"
It was a grey day, I got rained on en route, and I'd started my day with a new prescription for antibiotics for 2017 Headcold #7.
It's Thanksgiving in Canada, and our little family certainly has a lot for which to be thankful:
No floods
No massive earthquakes
No insane clown presidents
And that's enough for 2017.
The intake form for The Boy's "Individual Learning plan" includes some talk about his post-secondary education - he's 9! Mari and I debated about what to put there, and eventually settled on, "We have no idea about how Ken's education career with the TDSB might work out, or how that might work with his post-secondary education.
My fundraising for the 25km safe streets bicycle ride in Toronto is $75 along, so far - thank you donaters! It now turns out that there's a free bag of roasted coffee in it for anyone who'll donate (ask me for details).
So there are leaves blowing in the streets, and I wore a hoodie while cycling to work; it's Autumn! We went right from a long rainy "late Spring" as one friend put it, to Autumn.
Today I had the pleasure of riding up the length of the new cycle lane on Woodbine Avenue - a great ride! Formerly a no-go zone on a bike due to the heavy, stop-and-go traffic, it's now easy with a wide lane between the curb and parked cars that are kept apart from the cyclist by a buffer that prevents dooring.
Just how much money does Trump owe these Russian gangsters? All of it, I presume?
I can't recall the last time a foreign government's loopiness was this distracting.
It seems my drug benefits plan has expired - who knew my migraine drugs would cost $240! I found out the hard way by coming down with a migraine mid-morning while at the office while away from home.
How better to describe the Victoria Day weekend to Americans than by its nickname, "May 2-4"? I was on a call with the board I've recently left, which is for a US-based professional association.
I don't understand how I keep getting sinus infections - Spring has been here for a while! Post-nasal drip has me coughing all night, I sound like I've been dead and raised by some necromancer.
New research suggests that we adopt a face that reflects our name - I wonder if I've got a Michael face and if so, what does it mean? Here's a link to the research.
On The Girl's third try, she skipped a stone on the lake about 7-8 times - by herself! Just like her brother, she only needed me to show her how about three times.
They say it's quality, not quantity, but I can't count the former and I have all these posts! Three thousand, three hundred, thirty-five posts to be precisely pointless.
The toll from using cheap tires has started: I'd only just had a cycle shop fix my screw-up with my chain (I missed a small guide on one of the derailleur wheels) when I had my first flat in nearly two years.
Missed a day due to illness yesterday; today I discover that my bike tire needs replacing; the bike shop that claimed to have the tires and tubes I wanted had neither; then the watch repair guys break my watch; then I put the new tubes in my new tires, and put those on my bike and noticed that one of the spring arms had broken on my rear brake.
Naturally, Mel Gibson's doubling down on his widely criticized move to bring back the anti-Semetic "The Passion of the Christ" BS from the middle ages.
Our electricity bill came to $173 for two months, up $10 because I once left the iron on for 4 hours? I can easily recall when I'd pay about $20 a month for electricity.
It is really annoying to get such a substantial tax return every year; why can't the government remember from year to year that it's over-taxing us by hundreds of dollars a month!
All the more so when the money meant that medical bills were being put off.
Crowds of cyclists are already out, some two months earlier than they would have 5 years ago – thanks to infrastructure! This is what happens when you set aside some lanes and allow people to make some choices.
So it's come to this; I've bought some bifocal safety goggles, so I can see what I'm doing when I'm working with my hands on my (increasingly rare) crafts work.
I was nearly home when I came upon some small bats gliding over the street – at the level of my helmet! I do love seeing bats about, it means that mosquitoes are dying, and they are beautiful in flight.
When Ken was in the shower, Emma turned off the bathroom light and loudly exclaimed, "No, Daddy!" Only three years and two months old, and already causing problems for everybody.
Pinched between the ruined tracks and an oversized truck parked on the right, I took a bad bounce off of an uneven concrete rim next to the tracks and went down.
Today's adventure began Jon with asking, "Does that look like a hand to you?"
We were helping him move into his nice new digs a stone's throw from the water's edge here in the Beaches.
I told The Boy that we didn't have "music class" at his age; naturally, he asked, "Is it because at that age, they hadn't invented flutes and instruments?"
Some days I do indeed feel that old.
Both kids had a fever this weekend; if you haven't dealt with a delirious six year old, you haven't lived! Whiny-chan was particularly whiny, too, as I'm sure I was at 2 1/2 with a 39C fever.
Thanks to my mum's expertise, Mari and I have been "bumped out of our wine bracket" and now drink Meritage wines, which are blends that take the various excesses out of the different single-grape type drinks.
With the new contra-flow cycle lanes, the city is learning that cycling is a solution; no one tell the Mayors! I belong to a group that proposed and won such a lane on Dixon avenue in the Beaches Triangle.
I had an interesting opportunity to learn from some talented Toronto drivers today; I assume it's a full moon? My first opportunity came with a chance to speak with a woman today while driving in Scarborough, asking if she could explain a stunt she'd just pulled.
Our friend Michael has made our son a Yoda head for a LEGO minifig on his company's 3D printer; it looked amazing! He and I met on the street car, as I'd inadvertently left my bike locked up outside the office (mercifully, it was still there).
I grew up in Calgary, so I don't mind winter; but enough of this 3°C and rain! It's no good for cycling, it's no good for getting around and taking care of things, and it's certainly no good for getting the kids out of the house.
Mari had a scare at home tonight, someone (young, black, not in a uniform, no sign of a donation clip-board etc) at the door as evening set it, handling a plush toy made for kids.
When you're an adult student doing a masters dissertation, it seems that having interested responses from authors you're citing can come with the territory.
Say what you will about the constant snow and cold, we've got a pretty good tobaggen track in our backyard right now, with a nice jump and two exciting curves.
At a Chinese New Year's party this past weekend I met someone who, like my mother's family, has connections to the MacKenzies of "Middle River" in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
We all brought our parkas and boots and even a sled, but the snow's all melted and it's even moderately sunny - I'm not complaining, but I am overdressed.
On this, the last business day of the year, we got some very good news on a project I've been working on since February: a whopping refund from the Canadian Revenue Agency.
Which of the following are now gone or going:
a) Honest Ed's (to make way for condos)
b) World's Biggest Bookstore (to make way for condos)
c) Sam the Record Man (becoming part of Ryerson)
d) Royal Alexandra Theater (to make way for condos)
e) Princess of Wales Theater (to make way for condos)
f) all of the above!
That's right, it's 'f'.
Today someone with a mobile device in his lap decided he'd had enough of waiting at the red light and made an abrupt left turn through the intersection, despite the fact that three lanes of one-way traffic were closing in from the right.
We went to see a paediatric neurologist today about an early diagnoses from the paediatric emergency doctors that Emma has a serious, progressive disorder.
Ken likes raking, which is good because we wound up packing away over fifty of those large yard & garden bags of the things at the cottage this weekend.
Today I learned from my physiotherapist that a long-standing discomfort I've been putting up with is not a side effect of a surgery I had six months ago, but of a lifetime of slothful lazy about in front of computers.
I didn't get around to fixing my brakes on the weekend, so I switched around the damaged brake arm from the front with one at the rear of the bike (leaving the pads backwards) and set off.
It's the season for yellowjacket hornets, and even though we all know not to swat the damn things (this causes the hit insect to release fight pheromones, which attracts angry allies), I accidentally knocked one of the things while trying to wave it away.
For some reason I got the old row-boat down to the water, put The Boy into it, and dragged him half-way across Sturgeon Bay, rowing into a steady headwind the whole way.
We were outnumbered at a get-together this evening with Elias's family and Manami's family ('round here we identify families by the first name of the first born, for whatever reason—I suppose it was probably a protocol invented by our own first born).
As I was heading out the door today, my five year old son warned me, "don't get fatter!" He pointed at my thighs and told me they were getting too big.
It's funny, I'm in the midst of studying things like accountability and efficiency, and dropped two and half days of work right in the midst of several projects & initiatives because one of my kids got sick.
For the record, I would like to recommend to our medical system that there's a difference between adults with broken legs and children undergoing life-threatening mystery diseases on the one side, and pill-seeking scheming regulars.
On several occasions since Ken's birth, we've eaten nice meals (cough cough, "without kids") because Ken was fairly good with sleeping through the late afternoon-evening if we got lucky.
This CIA study is taking me to some interesting places as a more organized version of the here-and-there studies of business concepts that I've been engaged in over the past few years.
So it turns out that something like 40cm of that cord that got caught in my rear gear assembly last night in the rain storm was still inside the mechanism, trapped between the gears and the wheel.
So it turns out that it's possible that a meteorite impact occurred here in North America 13,000 years ago, when the place was still largely covered in ice.
Now we've got scandal at the federal level—senators charging the taxpayer outrageously, then interfering with investigations, and getting the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff to pick up the bill.
Ken and I watched an interesting video on the great extinction event that brought the Permian (and the entire paleozoic, life's first run on Earth) to an end.
Over the past two years, I've noticed west-bound morning commuter cyclists on Queen Street deke off of Queen at Lockwood Road, which is only a block long.
I've found a couple of master degree programs that I can do online in a year using my expected CIA certification to get a waiver on the first two years work in the degree.
After the cold weather had long since settled in this past Autumn, my boss told me that his family had a spare bike (a loaner long forgotten by a now-defunct bike shop) and that I could have it.
I pulled out the suede coat that my mother resurrected for me recently with some repairs, and lo and behold, there was a spatter of white birdshit that must have hit me when I was cycling this week, from the looks of things.
Three good things that happened today:
We verified that a technical solution costing us only $12 a month will allow us to cut out the vast majority of the sources of security hack attempts against our web services, today.
Three wins for the TTC in their efforts to make me late for work today:
As so frequently happens, there were no street cars in sight on Queen Street, which diverted me onto the bus up to the subway line, which led to another subway line and then back onto the street car downtown: an inefficient route plagued with connection delays and other problems.
One of my coworkers came stomping into the office today just as I'd returned to my desk with a wry smile on my face—it looks like we'll be undergoing a new round of struggles with our building management in getting our kitchen sink onclogged yet again.
On Sunday conditions were perfect for snowmen, we made a bunch of big ones, rolling up the ever-so-slightly wet snow so easily that it left bare patches of green grass.
So it turns out that when we were in Takachiho last week, we might well have been served "Japanese giant hornet" (as food that is, not as a means of assassination).
There is a grass-roots movement building among Canada's first nations people that is purposefully excluding the aboriginal communities' own political leadership as a matter of strategy in order to focus on achieving results, and to take matters into their own hands.
I took my old bike out for a spin this morning, covering about fifteen kilometers from Mari's parents place to the sea then back inland, through a tunnel that cuts through a big rock in the middle of the valley, and then traipsing my way back.
This morning I was picked up by my father-in-law at 06:45 for a trip up a mountain-side to see an effect for which the Japanese use the word 'unkai', meaning a 'sea of clouds'.
What's going on, Japan? I'm gone for two years and return to find that your convencience stores have started nuking the staple "o-nigiri" rice balls? Call me a relic, call me what you will, but I believe that rice balls are a dish best served cold.
Every year-end that I've visited Mari's parents' place in Nichinan, I've climbed a steep paved road up the side of the western wall of the valley in which the property is situated.
It is amazing what you can do with the web development software libraries that are just sitting around today; in about two literal minutes, I added a "WYSIWYG" editor to the tools that I use to make this website.
One of the hidden benefits of having lived on a foreign coast of the Pacific for five years: I'd forgotten how much freezing rain stings when you're cycling in it.
We'd failed to attend family functions both at Thanksgiving and Christmas, so today we split the difference and dropped in to see Scott & Sue, who hosted both of the missed events.
Since Electrolux won't support our vacuum cleaner (we brought a Japanese-bought model to Canada), I've decided to take it apart and see what I could do.
I've been back in Canada for two years as of next week, minus the time I ducked back to Japan for a month to get my family (our official arrival date was eventually January 4 or so of 2011).
As I was cycling to work today I passed one of your taxis, which was stopped at the curb in the right lane on Queen Street east in the Leslieville area.
I've decided that once I'm done with this CIA program I'll knock of the certifications do the MBA program with Heriot-Watt in the UK (distance learning).
It turns out that in addition to the other shortcomings of the Java environment, there's essentially no security at all on the way it controls certificate authorities.
I've nearly painted Kenny's bike, but have hit a snag - the spray can is empty!
Not sure why I didn't foresee that one, I'd already used a fair bit of paint making a toy for him some years ago, and an old spray can of paint tends not to age well.
People are so busy these days that making plans is becoming a matter of "What about the third weekend in June?"
Young and single, middle aged with kids, it doesn't seem to matter.
The car rental agency I deal with insists that there's nothing for me this Friday except a Fiat 500 - dang!
I've never sat in one but I'm pretty sure I won't come close to getting my 6'5" frame into the thing.
My cousin Kate the actress and her fiancé invited us to a party to celebrate four things:
1) his birthday
2) her birthday
3) the new year
4) their engagement
Amazing, Mari found a card suited the occasion.
Kenny's not an early riser, and even the prospect of seeing Santa (or at least new presents) wasn't enough to get him up before nine!
But after that, it was an orgy of gift opening.
I'd forgotten what it's like, living in this city in the Winter - it gets dark so soon!
The other day I had lunch with one of Toronto's millions of foreigners.
Today's driver actually said, "This is my streetcar!"
A fellow had entered the streetcar by the back door - a move that's acceptable by policy that is posted at every entrance to every street car on the Queen Street line.
I was fretting that our electricity bill is rarely south of $50 for a month; then Mari reminded me that in Tokyo we paid $100 a month!
Happily, it turns out that we can write off a portion of that bill, as we're using about 20% of our apartment for office space.
When we lived in Tokyo, we never made a Jack O' Lantern for Kenny; who would, when pumpkins cost $50!
But we've made one this year (woohoo, $3 Niagara pumpkins!), a smiling fellow with a single buck tooth and happy eyes.
It turns out that we've been waiting for a passport that's been with the local post office for a week!
We sent our passport back to the visa office in Tokyo on September 26.
I took Kenny to Fairview Mall to see the Lego store, but the store wasn't yet open—a 32 kilometer "D'oh!"
Thanks a lot, Lego website, for listing the store as open among your paltry three stores in Canada.
We visited "Ste Marie among the Huron" today, a remake of the failed French colony that was built 1200 kilometers from Quebec City near the south shore of Lake Huron.
This evening (Toronto time) I've had another update from the Canadian embassy in Japan, as follows:
"On March 12th, the Prime Minister of Japan declared a nuclear emergency following a problem with the cooling system power supply at nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plants.
This morning I received a warning of a terrible earthquake in Japan, as follows:
Dear Canadian citizen,
As you may have heard on the news already, a powerful 8.
I've been back in the city for a month now, thought I'd take stock:
I've been compared to Jeff Goldbloom twice (the latest in a long string of likenesses).
Toronto's streets are so different from Tokyo's!
Broken pavement, street cars*, large and brilliant graffiti, aggressive panhandlers, street hot dog vendors, and of course confrontation.
Could I be losing my Canadian accent after a combined total of five years abroad?
Kenny and I were watching a video about elephants playing in the snow.
The whole family went out in the rain at around 10:00 this morning in an effort to do various errands before some guests would arrive in the afternoon.
Once upon a time, when the 'net was young and no-one but techies fiddled about with domain registration, there was but one Internet registrar that everyone had to deal with.
At a celebration today for the demise of our Japanese course, I was asked to make a speech! No one told our class we'd be doing this, I suppose it was a matter of throwing us in the deep end.
I decided to send one of my Minolta XD bodies off to the US for repairs after being told by one local repair shop they wanted more than $200, and being told by another that my particular camera would be impossible to repair in Japan.