It's Been a Great Run of Good Weather

This photo was at taken from our balcony at 7:08 this morning.

 

The days have been extraordinarily clear and sunny lately.  I appreciate the nice weather as October can get pretty dreary some years.  

Last year, we didn't leave for the winter until the second week of November and I was more than ready to go somewhere I could see the sun!  This year, we will be in Sri Lanka on November 1st.  It takes a while to travel to the other side of the earth and we actually leave Vancouver two days before that!

So it is a pleasure having such a run of great weather.  This morning there was an interesting cloud but it continued on its way eastward.  The sky today has been predominantly sunny.  Yet, tonight's low may be 5°C so it definitely is time to start packing. 

$C\; so\; it\; is\; time\; to\; start\; packing.$

Please Don't Ask Us for More Money

Jay and I believe in donating to charities. There are a lot of amazing causes.  For decades, we've made a single, large, annual contribution to a variety of projects, foundations, and programs. However, nowadays, we are concerned about avoiding annoying spam and postal campaigns, especially since we now are Canadian snowbirds. Over the past twelve years we've done a great job of weeding out all junk mail and keeping our mail box clear.

 

We wanted to donate to our local hospital this year. Specifically, we wanted to direct that our funds are earmarked for the cardiac department, the place where Jay had such excellent care during a quadruple bypass back in 2017. However, the online site didn't allow for any specific instructions. We took the SkyTrain only one stop today to Sapperton, a neighbhourhood of New Westminster, BC.  It was such a nice day to be outside. 

We ensured our request by directly visiting the Royal Columbian Foundation office. We were assured we wouldn't receive mail asking for contributions at a later date. Jay and I make a decision each autumn and would be awash in requests from different organizations without such due diligence.

Thanksgiving 2025

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada.  We drove towards Richmond at about 3:10 and arrived just a few minutes before our invite timing at Ed and Shinji's.  We were able to do the turkey meal with the folks who've provided a great experience for decades!

Tim and Jiwan arrived right away.  As is usually the case, the hors d'oeuvres filled us up.  Yet, we somehow found enough room to tuck away all the turkey and fixings a bit later.

 

Oh, my it was a great evening and marks the finale of our duck meetings for 2025.  So, this was the opportunity to allow the ducks to winter in Vancouver's West End.  We get back in mid-March and will look forward to heading to Tim and Jiwan's for a meal, perhaps around Easter (or whenever we're all in town).

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.

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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.