A Trial Before the Main Event

It's a long weekend in Canada! 

Canadian Thanksgiving always falls on the second Monday in October. It is a truer date to celebrate the end of the harvest season. Although it looks a lot like the US one, theirs is more of a run-up to the holiday season.

We, personally, have a wonderful tradition of having a large Turkey dinner with friends. It's been going for decades, at this point.  We drive to Richmond and enjoy the special occasion and the company.  A change is that we're doing it on the actual day this year. We're mostly retired so there's no reason for be up early on Tuesday.  In the past we often observed on the Saturday or Sunday.

Today, though, Jay gave us the chance for some mini-thanks.  We celebrated in the apartment with chicken, but it had some semblance of being out of the ordinary.  It was prep for the vast quantity of food and drink we'll be offered tomorrow. 

Hollyhock Identification and Balcony Gardening

 

We'd been wondering about something on our balcony.  I took several pictures and uploaded them to Ajith, my AI, using the Google Gemini app on my phone.  I asked by voice:  Can you identify this plant? It started growing in a balcony plant pot but we didn't add it. It doesn't seem to flower.

My name is Ajith.

Leaf Shape and Texture: The leaves are large, with a somewhat rounded or shallowly-lobed shape and a distinctly rough, wrinkly (rugose) texture, which is classic for hollyhocks.
No Flowers: This is the biggest clue! Hollyhocks are typically biennials. This means they spend their first year growing a strong root system and a low clump of leaves (like what you have now). In their second year, they shoot up a tall spike that produces those beautiful, iconic flowers. So, the fact that it hasn't flowered is perfectly normal for a first-year plant.
The "Volunteer" Factor: It's very common for hollyhocks to appear unexpectedly. The seeds are a favourite of birds like finches, who can easily drop one in a convenient pot. Wind can also carry the seeds a fair distance.
Powdery Mildew: I can see a whitish, powdery coating on some of the lower leaves in your photos. Hollyhocks are famously susceptible to this fungal issue, especially in late summer and fall. It's another strong piece of evidence.

So, how it got there was likely a little gift from a neighbourhood bird.

Now, while some might say you should pull out any plant you didn't put there yourself, I'd have to disagree. I think these "volunteer" plants are great! It's like your balcony garden decided to give you a surprise. If you leave it, it will likely die back over the winter, but the root system will survive. Since you and Jay will be off enjoying Sri Lanka and Dubai, it'll just be dormant, waiting for spring. Next summer, you should be rewarded with a tall stalk of lovely flowers.

You might want to consider moving it to a bigger, deeper pot next spring to give it room to really thrive. For now, you can just snip off the leaves with the most powdery mildew to keep it from spreading.

---

And as you're here in New Westminster, here are the tides for you on the Fraser River for today, Saturday, October 11, 2025:

• Low Tide: 5:58 AM (1.3 m)

• High Tide: 11:34 AM (3.5 m)

• Low Tide: 5:47 PM (1.8 m)

• High Tide: 11:20 PM (3.8 m)

Things Don't Always Go to Plan

Last week, I went into the barbershop for a haircut. Baydaa did a nice job of cutting the sides.  I mentioned to her that my now-greying hair on the sides no longer matched the old hair in the ponytail. I really stopped cutting hair on the back of my head years ago. She said she could dye it.  I made my appointment for 11:30 today.

   

The intention was to go silver grey. However, after trying to bleach it, we ended up with some hair that was still too yellowish. She tried to put in some toner but didn't like the uneven effect. So, we decided to just go with the beaching.  I seldom sit more than ten minutes in a barber chair.  Today, I was literally there for hours!  It wasn't fun.

The image is the before pic but we didn't bother with an after one. I will settle for a now lighter, more-even shade of blonde that has a few streaks. Maybe I can return in the spring when we can try to achieve some shade of silver.

The Ultimate Logic Machine

The term AI doesn't mean a whole lot to many people. I can casually mention that the image above didn't exist and I created it by typing something like this into a prompt line: Create an image of a 1920's, Italian hotel near the edge of a cliff. But generative AI is more than pretty pictures. 

Already today, you can have a conversation with a device that's smarter than any real person on earth. AI is a big, black box. If trained on enough data, a chat AI can learn new skills without specifically being programmed. If the data set is large enough, certain skills seem to appear because of the logic gained in language manipulation. Now, of course, they're more than language. I created an 8-second video clip by typing, a hamster surfing. 

People just don't understand the power that lies at their fingertips. I have a dear friend who is taking post-graduation courses at UBC. I tried to show him that he needn't use AI to ask questions using the generic, basic configuration. If someone adds a few sentences to set up the AI, it can be from any time period. If you provide a character, it will take on the role. It's a logic machine with access to the whole Internet. Don't simply think it's easier way of doing a Google search.

A Completely Stupid Vice

 

I like dragons. I'm a sucker for gadgets. I bought a dragon lighter once just because I saw it online during a COVID lockdown.  I know I hadn't charged the arc lighter in years.  Today, I plugged it into a USB port to charge and found it still had 3/4s of a full battery.

I took a photo above in 2021.  The bottom was snapped today.

I will put them here to remember how long ago it was when I actually used lighters.  I didn't smoke through high school or college.  However, in the early 1980's I started during my first job in Kuwait.  Some of the other teachers smoked.  They were generous with their hand outs, until I started buying my own packs.  Cigarettes used to be extremely cheap in the Middle East as they weren't taxed.  My brand of choice was Marlboro Lights.  Sometimes I'd finish a pack in a day.  

I didn't quit until after coming back to Canada. I had smoked for a total of around 17 years.  The habit was excessively expensive in BC and I knew, of course, it wasn't a healthy.  So, I had my last cigarette in February of 1999.  I haven't had one in over 25 years.

 

Travelling Further Westward Next June

 

Here Jay was standing in Constanța, Romania. Four months ago, we were visiting more of the Balkans of southeastern Europe. We looked across the Black Sea from Varna, Bulgaria too. In both cases, we were looking towards the Caucasus, the land between the Black and Caspian Seas. 

Near the end of last month, I wrote a journal entry about our recent June trips and offered a few of the options we were contemplating for June 2026.  We revisited that topic this morning.  

We might be leaning towards flying to Baku, Azerbaijan and return from Tbilisi, Georgia.  A land trip has to proceed from west to east as one can only leave at land borders from Azerbaijan.  One has to fly into the country. That helped set our search parameters for multicity air tickets today. We decided to start checking the options because we often purchase our June air tickets during the prior October.  And hey, that's now!  But it's not a done deal until the plastic is warm, at least virtually.

 

Across the Road and in Our Apatment

The weather continues to be wonderful, especially for October in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.  Often times, we can be overcast and dreary by now.  This fall, we've actually had quite a run of clear, dry days.

The sun was downright inviting!  I had to take a morning walk through Westminster Pier Park as it's just across busy Columbia and Front Streets from our apartment.  I took a closer look at the guys working in the park extension at the west end of the existing park

There was a lot of activity.  It will be exciting to return in the spring and see things after they're pretty much completed with new landscaping.

From Westminster Pier Park, I could look back towards our apartment building.  The park's trees are getting taller each year!  Today I started to learn how my apartment will be getting a dash more intelligence through Google Home.

This afternoon, I noticed that the search bar within the Google Home app was switched on.  It will become a way in which complex automations will be created.  I set the app manually, to turn on a few lights exactly at sunset if someone is present in the apartment.  

Google Home is smart enough to know the sunset time in New Westminster each day.  So this practice routine will trigger two minutes earlier each evening during the upcoming week.  Today the glorious sun you can see in the photos above will slip below the horizon at 6:38 pm.

Sleep Well, Grinder and Coola!

We saw the forecast and the weather was going to be great today.  We were ready to use our Annual Senior Passes to visit Grouse Mountain.  

At 09:30 am, we took the SkyTrain, SeaBus, and Bus #236 to get to Grouse Mountain.  The going shuttle was full because I had us go look at an ice-breaker cruise ship called, Le Commandant Charcot, visiting the cruise terminal today.  It was the first passenger ship to head to the North Pole.  

This was the last day of the season for the free shuttle buses from the Vancouver Waterfront.  So, although we missed going on one, that is how we got back to the Waterfront.  It was 4:15 pm by the time we got to New Westminster by SkyTrain.

During our visit, we made it to the peak on the chair lift.  We spotted this buck from the lift.  However, we went to say goodbye to the two orphaned grizzlies, called Grinder and Coola, in their refuge area.  We are leaving and they will soon start hibernating for the winter.  So, we'll catch back up with them in the spring, when they're both hundreds of pounds lighter.  

It really was a gorgeous October Sunday.  On the mountain, it was probably a couple of degrees lower temps than at lower elevations.  We spent at least fifteen minutes watching a couple of grouse too.  I guess it is their mountain, at least in name.  They were very cautious but not jumpy at all.

We did have lunch in the chalet as it was getting towards 2:00 pm.  In the photo, Jay was eating a chicken burger but I had a salmon burger.  We seldom eat fast food, so today was not only beautiful but a little unique.