Banking is Changing

Lots of people and groups are working feverishly in moving the concepts of money into the Internet age. Yesterday, HSBC Canada started allowing the use of Interac for personal payments by email. Also, Apple is trying to create a new juggernaut of financial services via their iPhones. Business models like Western Union can be seen quaking in their boots.

More importantly, in my view, is the fact Bitcoin is moving from speculation to being a worthwhile financial tool. I know too much about the subject to rationally discuss it in a short blog post. Let me say, for over a year and a half I have glimpsed a bit of the future. People who argue against it are generally uninformed, but again this is my opinion about any view that differs from my own. Let's just say that in five years I won't regret studying about this subject early on.

No Free Lunch

There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but the Starlight Casino served us a free buffet dinner tonight. As Jay's birthday was in September, we got an invitation card in the post. Ah, the advantages of having Encore cards, even though we've never spent a penny of our own cash in those slots! Three cheers for promotion. Oh, and Jay got a free bright red piece of carry-on luggage with the casino's logo emblazoned on it.

Give Me Speed, Over Pretty Pictures

I have always thought that I was pretty good in finding cheap flights. We have flown out of SeaTac to save hundreds. I've used Kayak and booked international flights through Flight Hub. I cannot remember the last time I spoke with a travel agent. We've never had a problem, I might add.

I had never really put Google to work for me for these chores though. I was just playing with Google Flight Search and discovered I will be returning to it when going actual fare scouting. I like how it avoids showing itineraries with ridiculously long stopovers. I like how easy it is to flip through alternative days and see the instantaneous effect on prices. Once upon a time there were only a few choices when trying to book airlines and hotels. Now there are almost too many options!

Soul-Searching

Grocery shopping is a Saturday event at present. I was contemplating how we can schedule life differently when we have no time clocks to punch. It will be fun to watch new routines evolve in November.


We have a knife in the bed of the truck. It is used to check the cassava before driving home. It is one item of produce which cannot be verified without seeing the inside. The Superstore is great at rebating or replacing bad quality ones but it's convenient to do so before driving home. Today, we had one that wasn't up to snuff. While Jay went back in for another I sat on the tailgate of the old Ranger. Then, across from me in the parking lot, I noticed the car in the photo below.

The truck has been dependable transportation since 1996. During the intervening years, even with long trips, the odometer has only gone 94,500 miles. I hope to be able to get to the one hundred thousand by the summer of 2016. That would be an auspicious year to get another vehicle. I have only bought two new vehicles in my life. Maybe my next one will the made in Korea. I really like the 2014 KIA Soul. I've been interested with them since they were first produced. I suppose I could go test drive one even though I don't have short-term purchasing plans. I'd like to see what the electric version is like to drive.

Not a Tunnel

Although I haven't really been in a tunnel, I've definitely noticed a light up ahead. I see a cause for imminent celebration.

As a reminder to myself, I added a Facebook status update at 8 o'clock this morning which plainly stated,

"T Minus 11."
I was walking across the BCIT Burnaby campus at the time.

It meant that I'd be treading this patch of ground as a PTS instructor only eleven more times. My class meets on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays and will finish up on October 22nd. So, should you come across a single number on a future Facebook update or in my Twitter feed, it may well stand for the number of remaining classes I have before retirement.

It felt even more real today as after class, I went to HR to have my pension application verified. It ain't gonna be much, but it'll supplement our other, vast financial holdings. (cough cough)

Army and Navy Department Store

This is not really a blog entry today. I have started a one-man Twitter campaign to get The Army and Navy Department Stores to pay attention to the sorry state of the Front Street side of our New Westminster location. This does not enhance downtown New West in any manner. Public shaming has its place.

Personal Quote #82

"Whenever I make an online payment, such as to a credit card account, I often round up the figure so that my bank balance will become an even number ending with zero cents. Is this weird?"

Dennis Sylvester Hurd (1959- )

Obsolescence

Today, Jay was going through some junk. He found some resume information on a 720K floppy disc. I thought that was funny. Then, he discovered an old game of Moon Bugs on one that was just 360K. I don't have a way of accessing that information anymore.

The Odds Favour the House

I'm not much of a betting man. By that I mean I get very little enjoyment from any type of gambling. Casinos are fun environments but I doubt I've wagered a total of $50 in my entire life. Of course, none of us can avoid playing the odds.

All types of insurance are bets. In the case of auto insurance, I'm literally betting that I will have an accident which will result in a claim. On the other hand, the insurance company is gambling that I won't. We all live knowing these basic rules. Incidentally, this situation sounds rather positive for I am certainly rooting for that big organization to be right!

Yet, now am having to make decisions involving the odds of own mortality. I am betting that I will stick around another 40 years; whereas, my pension fund would just as soon see me dead tomorrow.

The 3rd Week of September?

Post by Dennis Sylvester Hurd.

Super Large but Equally Confusing

We shop for groceries on Saturday mornings. Our regular Great Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam is undergoing extensive renovations. Every week we are finding we need to negotiate changed aisles to locate what we want. So, today, we decided to visit another branch. We drove across the Pattullo Bridge and went to the one on 104th Avenue in Surrey. It is strange how the format of the same brand of supermarket can be so varied. Of course, I expect the placement of items to vary. Today though, we noticed that the products carried are also very different from place to place.

It might be my age, but I found the experience disconcerting. Being out of my comfort zone while shopping was not enjoyable nor appreciated. I'm wondering if we should try the one in Burnaby's Metrotown next week? I guess we are sort of spoilt for choice.

Take Out Your Quill Pens ... ?

These envelopes were about to be dropped off at Canada Post. These contain assignments written my students in class today. Each individual had to bring a newspaper to class. After choosing an advertisement, they had to write to a company for additional, routine information. Many had never written an inquiry to a business on paper. A few had never addressed an envelope!

I've blogged about doing this in the past with other groups. It seems to get harder and harder to find ads which contain reference to a postal address. One is much more likely to spot the Facebook page, website, email address, or phone number nowadays. As this group is my final class before official retirement, it took on special significance. I imagine that in another decade, it will probably be impossible to even imagine an assignment such as today's.

Gloom But No Doom

I'm okay with it. It was dark and misty all day today, but I'm okay with it.


I found the weather a little relaxing without the overwhelming blue sky of late. We have had a fantastic September weather-wise. This little blip was a nice reminder of what we have to look forward to. Sometimes we get the feeling around here our sun runs away from October through May.

The thing that makes this day more bearable is eager forecasters going on record to say we'll have a sunny weekend and a bit of summer returning after that! Oh, and it started a conversation about a break, or perhaps even an extended stay, in Puerto Vallarta this winter.

Game of Thrones

As we've been kicking around New Westminster for years, we knew of it. The house is on the other side of Royal Avenue up over on Eighth Street. It was falling apart when we first arrived and received massive amounts of tender-loving-care to get it returned to its former glory.

The Galbraith can now be rented for small functions. Owing to its original owners, it contains much excellent, Victorian-era woodwork. The rooms are decorated with furniture and objects from the time it was built, over 120 years ago. We have always lived less than a mile away but had never been inside. We attended a function there last night.

It is nearly the polar opposite to our housing. It was handcrafted, made for a single family, and ornate. I have to admit it made me feel a little more refined and Victorian just being inside.

Personal Quote #81

"Getting all one's ducks in a row isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds."

Dennis Sylvester Hurd (1959- )

The Webcam of VISIONCRITICAL

I have an app on my Android devices which lets me add a number of webcam sites. They are displayed all on one screen similar to the video wall of a security department. Clicking on the small image will bring it up full-screen. Currently, this camera is my favourite. The downtown Vancouver waterfront is at the end of the SkyTrain line which runs by this building Can you see a cruise ship in the image? They'll soon be leaving the Alaskan cruise route for warmer waters.


Of course what you see will depend on the time you're viewing this blog entry. Therefore, I will include a shot saved at the date and time of this posting.


Over the next few weeks the weather is bound to get a little greyer and a little more rainy. At a certain point, probably in October, one of the webcams from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico will take over as being my most favourite.

Big Things in Little New West

We moved here in 1996. When we chose to buy property in downtown New Westminster, the year was 1998. It was much more of a gamble in those days as things were a bit derelict. It would not have been difficult to find oneself face to face with a drug dealer around the SkyTrain stations. We knew the area had potential though. It's location in the centre of the Lower Mainland is most definitely a positive point. The whole area seemed about ready for some welcomed growth. It has been steadily arriving, piece by piece.

We bought property and the place became fabulous. Well, this certainly did not occur overnight. We do see the increasing condominium towers as a positive. There's also a growing inclusiveness felt here. The changes around the New Westminster SkyTrain Station have been somewhat staggering. For just the last two years, the Westminster Pier Park has re-connected the city to a big chunk of its riverfront. Cranes have not been an uncommon sight in the past decade.



Today, I have decided to show two examples of my bustling downtown. The complex puzzle of liveability continues to be put together. First, the Fourth-Street pedestrian walkway to the Pier Park showed noticeable progress overnight. A section of metal now sits over the rail tracks from the downtown parkade. That meant Front Street was closed off due to the heavy equipment. Further along Columbia, traffic was diverted around the brand-new Anvil Centre, the city's civic centre. Today was the grand opening for public viewing. What a nice place for a boutique convention centre! I was impressed with the theatre space and inspiring architectural design of the building.

My little city is growing smartly. It is a hell of a lot nicer today than when we first called New Westminster, BC home.

Summer Won't Quit

Nobody was complaining about the sunshine at Pier Park this afternoon.

Daily for over Eleven Years!

There's a whole lot of personal information contained in my eJournal and images. In fact, I forgot to mention that over the Labour Day long weekend my little endeavour hit a new milestone of continuous, daily entries.

I find that I use this space to keep track of what I do, occasionally say what I feel, or chronicle the minutia of existence. It is also a nice place to throw things which I might want to refer to later. Of course, a lot of life occurred before this blog started; in my particular case, 44 complete years!

Some personal history ends up creeping into this expanding, online document. For instance, the photograph is the place where we lived in 1991. It was taken from an outside corridor by the door of our apartment building near Juffair, Bahrain. It was fairly close to the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. That was our third and final address on the island country as we moved on to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates in the fall of 1991.


The other day Jay was going through paperwork and discovered a bunch of yellowing bank statements. They offered an interesting glimpse into the mailing addresses used between January of 1989 and June of 1996. I am going to add them here simply as a reminder of postal addresses we have had.

Road 2625, Block 326
Building 505, Flat 21
Gudeibiya, BAHRAIN

Al-Hamala Beach Village
25D, PO Box 11465
Manama, BAHRAIN

Flat 25, Building 70
Juffair Avenue, Block 341
Manama, BAHRAIN

Al-Khifaf Apartments #316B
PO Box 2622
Dubai, UAE

Ahmed Al-Tayer Bldg.
Flat No: 106
PO Box 6852
Dubai, UAE

Sun and Sand in September

All right, it's time for a tribute to the continued great weather. It seems as though things are going to stay picture perfect right through the weekend.

I hadn't been to the new "beach" part of the Westminster Pier Park. I know it is pretty close, but until the 4th Street pedestrian walkway is complete, getting there is a bit of a hike. I must admit I had my doubts and reservations when I heard about the new plans for the timber wharf section. I still maintain that it's more of a sandbox than a beach. After all, one needs to be able to wade into the water at a real beach. Still, the hammocks and umbrellas are nice. I rested in a hammock listening to songs thorough headphones while watching boats travelling up and down the Fraser. I even noticed folks coming to the sand as a destination spot for picnics and sunbathing. I will admit I was wrong with my strong initial scepticism.

This public area makes me proud of my little city of New Westminster.

Just Give Me a Little Space

I should be mentioning the continuing perfect weather we're having, especially as I just saw that Calgary had some rather early snow! There is not a cloud to be seen. Of course as my class was, again, in NE 1 320, we didn't not notice the lack of clouds. Alas, we are in a windowless room on Mondays and Wednesdays!

The sky is blue. Yet, I want to add several images to remember what I picked up on the way home today. Who would have ever thought that I'd need much local disc space. More and more of our data ends up stored somewhere on the Internet. Nobody really cares where one's email site stores the messages nor where Facebook keeps one's family pictures. As long as it is there when we switch on the computer, all is fine.


It is my little Minix NEO X8-H which prompted me to update my local storage. I may stream a lot of content via Netflix, but I am also ditching copies of movies on DVDs and moving to mp4 files. An entire movie kept in a minimally-acceptable resolution eats up between one and two gigabytes. If I get hold of an HD television program, an hour can be anywhere between 600 and 900 MB. Suddenly, my old storage space started looking a little sparse.

This little mobile Seagate requires only the USB for power. I can leave it plugged into my Android streaming device. If I'm going to bother to watch something, I may as well keep the copy. Two terabytes of space should keep me going for a while. All this storage for less than $90. The continued technical progress of physical data storage never ceases to amaze me.

Yellow-Eyed Beans?

I can remember when I first started using software to track every single expenditure. I had sort of believed that I'd been using my personal funds as votes in the marketplace. For some reason, I thought that I spread my money around widely. It was a little shocking, at first, to realize that over an average month most all my cash ended up going to the same few businesses.

In general, most people have few receipts from new establishments. Maybe this is why I think the Bulk Barn is worthy of a whole blog entry today. We returned to Queensborough Landing this morning expressly to revisit the new food store. My jaw didn't drop quite as far open as when we first stepped inside. I still loved seeing all those bins full of every conceivable type of nut, candy, bean, rice, snack food, baking ingredient, pasta, and spice. This outlet is pretty new although I guess the chain stretches across Canada.

Finally! I have a new vendor to add to my aged copy of MS Money.

Inventive Canadian Tastes

I snapped this photo in the supermarket. I thought that bacon-poutine flavoured potato chips sounded quite Canadian.


I probably should have waited until I walked around to the other side of the display. Lay's Canada realizes that people up here like bold flavours. Have you ever had a staple dill-pickle variety of chips? In fact, the propensity for bold and unusual tastes has led the chip producer to use it in a yearly marketing contest.

Click the link above to take a look at those of 2014. Do you think cinnamon bun or mac and cheese would be tastier?

Ultrapractical

The weather was awesome today. The cloudless skies and temperatures in the mid 20's centigrade have continued.

Jay works on Sundays, so I did a fair bit of walking as something to do during such nice sunshine. This picture is of the uptown mall at just about 10 o'clock, the time it opened. Prior to being there, I used the HSBC ATM, and after I checked out London Drugs.


I have to work tomorrow morning. It's a little special though. Jay has a big birthday tomorrow. His beliefs and practices are always dangerously functional. He is the type of person who'd not want money spent on things he'd not enjoy. A dinner out would be about the worse gift I could offer. Even spending $1.25 on a card would be seen as a waste of money as he would appreciate the thought, but not paying for useless coloured paper. So, in my infinite wisdom, on a later walk around downtown, I stopped in the Safeway to buy these:


Happy Birthday! They are something he likes and we generally don't buy this brand of fresh juice. Oh, and the better gift is the idea he need only get up early to go into work for just six more Sundays.

Burger Bounty

Months can go buy without a pin. Then suddenly, I might find myself pinning a few dozen photos to one of my boards. Lately, I've been enjoying looking at a selection of hamburgers and other sandwiches, although they're not actually a part of my regular diet.

Follow Dennis Sylvester Hurd's board Food Porn: Between Bread on Pinterest.

Activity for a Fine Sunny Day

It was a delightful day with a strong remaining taste of summer. My second day of class went well even though we were stranded in an NE 1 classroom without a single window. Alas, it was a morning under florescent tubes!

I did manage to drink in the cloudless sky from the time I walked towards the truck at 12:45 pm until, well, right now!


The days are getting noticeably a little shorter, but it's early here yet. I added an old-time-y filter to a picture just taken of my balcony chairs. We have no porch, you see. I look forward to using the seats more from late next month and I feel absolutely no shame in admitting I'm looking forward to a copious amount of sitting around. Maybe, in fact, I should look into a bona fide rocking chair for out there.

We were discussing when Jay will turn in a retirement notice. Getting ready for a new stage of life might as well occur simultaneously.

Take a Trip Back in Time

Some movies improve with age.


In this case I'm talking about a favourite which includes: a sign showing $0.99 breakfasts, a shiny AMC Pacer, and streets of downtown LA is 1976. Car Wash (1976) is one of the titles I included in an entry of three of my personal cult classics last October. Few movies capture an era so well as this day in the life feature. I never actually met examples of these characters but it is spot on in showcasing how different the world was when I was in high school.

I am getting rid of movies I stored on DVD. I had to rip this from a CD into an MP4 file. It's now available whenever I flip on the Minix NEO.

A Good Day

Most of my days are enjoyable. Today seemed like proof of that point.

First, my new group of students seems motivated and eager. I felt well-prepared and even managed to grab a two-month parking permit before class. The roads were fairly clear both getting to BCIT and returning home. With standard elementary and high school teachers on strike in the province, fewer vehicles are fighting during the morning commute. I am now looking forward to the next seven weeks.

Later in the afternoon, the weather reminded me of summer today. Yesterday was quite wet. The fine weather of the last four months was nearly instantly forgotten as the rain fell. Luckily, I was able to get reacquainted with sun nearly as quickly this afternoon. I went for a short walk. The breeze seemed warm. This picture was taken from the downtown New Westminster parkade. This is the elevator for the pedestrian walkway to Westminster Pier Park. The completion of this project will greatly increase the number of times I visit it.

P inter Problem

Did you ever feel as though you jinxed something?

I mentioned to Jay less than an hour ago that it'd be more convenient to have a wifi-enabled printer. I explained we wouldnt have to haul it out and plug it in each time we wanted to print a document. It must be added that we have need to print no more than once or twice a month.

Well, just now, I wanted to print out the attendance register for my class which starts tomorrow morning. Right now, down the length of the paper, just in from the margin, is a straight blank line. It looks as though no toner is hitting just a small area. Unfortunately, that is right along where the student numbers should be on the final copy.

Argh. I wasn't really looking for an excuse to replace the trusty old Brother I've had for years. Next time, I'll try to keep my mouth shut about things that would be nice to purchase.

Everything is a Matter of Priorities

Today was a relaxing day. Labour Day was a practice run for life later this year. I can take an inordinate amount of pleasure in the tiniest things of life; such as picking up vegetables at our closest Langley Farm Market or stopping for flyer deals at London Drugs. In the big scheme of things, the little things ARE life.


I don't own a snowmobile or ATV. I still have the truck I bought in 1996 as my sole vehicle. We don't eat out at fancy restaurants. Yet, I am in the position to retire at 55 on November 1st.