The Incredible Shrinking Number of Itineraries

Day 145 - Surprise! Effective immediately, Taiwan's International Airport has been shut for foreigners taking transit. This means our current departure on the 31st has been cancelled. Hong Kong did the same. It's not possible to get home through Bangkok now either.

Our means to get to Canada really are dwindling. Although the Taiwan airport is supposed to be closed for just one week, it's hard to know if the restrictions will be extended. I think we'll look at going back to Canada early through Japan. As I know any details, I'll post them below.

7:55 AM - Have reservations for flights on ANA to Narita and then Air Canada directly to Vancouver

11:40 AM - My phone has the boarding passes for ANA out of KUL at 8:00 AM tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. We have a stopover of fewer than three hours at Narita International Airport in Japan. Then, we will board a full Air Canada flight directly to Vancouver. We should get in at 11:10 AM on the same day.

5:00 PM - We're mostly packed. Later, we'll nap tonight. I hope during the travel restrictions we can locate a Grab rideshare to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at around 4:30 AM tomorrow!

Virtual Vegetables

Day 144 - Remember when I used to silently smirk at those who bought groceries online? I thought it was simply a bid to save time. Honestly, if one didn't have time to pick out own's own tomato, then one's priority simply needed to be modified.

Now that self-isolation will be required when we get back to Canada, I've changed my tune. We started learning what's on offer online from here, in Malaysia!

We Didn't Rush Back to Canada

Day 143 - I bookmarked the COVID-19 data infographic map from John Hopkins University when we were still in Sri Lanka in January. Over the last couple of months, of course, it has been sad to watch the numbers increase and shift geographically. Of course, we have also used the information to help determine that we needn't rush back to Canada. It will assuredly be just as safe to stay where we are until our planned departure. I'm sure we will know the situation more clearly when things settle down a bit by the end of the month.

Malaysia had very few reported cases when we arrived. However, the Ministry of Health here started testing early on. The numbers were still only in the double digits until quite recently. Luckily, we know the reason for the sudden increase too. Travel restrictions weren't in place nor large groups banned, at the end of February. A huge, multi-day religious observance was held at the famous Sri Petaling mosque. It was attended by 16,000 people, including 1,500 foreigners. A few weeks later, nearly two-thirds of the COVID-19 cases were directly related to the event. Many of those who returned to other countries also carried the virus. The government here was quick to act and is still trying to ensure that each attendee is tested. This made the numbers rise here around the middle of the month.

On the other hand, Canada seems to have been taken a bit by surprise. Of course, the medical system in Canada is much better placed than its neighbour to the south to deal with large scale public health warnings. Hospitals are not for profit, everybody's covered, and speedy decisions can be made for entire regions. Still, this virus has had many entrance points in North America. As there was little testing initially, I think we will see the numbers explode exponentially. This will prompt changes in rules and restrictions. Whereas, I predict that we'll see a linear increase in cases occur during our remaining nine days in Kuala Lumpur.

The two countries have a similar number of citizens. Just last night, the total number of infections and deaths in Canada increased over those in Malaysia. I'm sure we will continue to see an increasing gap.

It's So Quiet

Day 142 - It's Saturday. However, our only outing took us to one of the close department stores in the area behind our building. We got a few food items and I bought two cans of my favourite prickly heat powder. It's Snake Brand and made in Thailand. I always bring back enough to get me through a BC summer. (Actually, I must overuse this product.) Oh, I also picked up several pocket colognes. We bought one in Bangladesh and it's amazing how many squirts are inside one of the small thin plastic containers. They're ideal for a shirt pocket. We saw them used as a product placement in a Hindi movie. It's a neat idea for places with sweaty climates.

Watchin' Paint Clothes Dry

Day 141 - Days are a bit more predictable now that there's hardly a thing going on around here. Today we got up at 7:45 am, flipped on the TV news, took our blood pressure, and made coffee (for me) & tea (for Jay). Part of my breakfast in Kuala Lumpur always involves having three slices of banana bread rather than toast. It comes in long thin loaves and is popular in the supermarkets. Yada, Yada. The rest of the morning rituals continued.



I do a load of wash each day because whenever returning from outside we wash what we were wearing. So hanging things on the portable rack on the balcony is another KL routine. After, we went to the large supermarket which is just across the road this morning. There are no empty shelves around here even though I keep seeing COVID-19 related shortages in other countries in the media.

Jay always creates a yummy meal for lunch. We eat as we do everywhere, with a little rice surrounded by curries, vegetables, and chicken or fish. All the spices he uses are, of course, available in Malaysia. We are only a few degrees above the equator in an area that helped kickstart trade in spices during the 15th century.

At the end of our nap, I heard a ding from my phone and saw on my Mi Band it was from EVA Air. It was an email that simply said that our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Taiwan had been cancelled. It didn't say anything about our onward flight. I called our local KL EVA Air office, and after waiting to get through, we made slight changes.

Rather than April 2nd, we've moved up the date by a few days. We have the same flight number and timings but will leave here and get to Vancouver on March 31st. That is unless things change again! LOL

A Sign of the Times

Day 140 - Is today only Thursday? It seems as though this week has already been rather long.

We have all we need in this apartment and access to three supermarkets within a 5-minute walk. The hotel part of this building is on a number of its upper floors. It has closed and any remaining guests were moved to the few hotels which are remaining open during the travel restrictions. Our floor has just privately-owned serviced apartments. We enter and exit the building through the empty lobby now. The security guards remain on duty.

It's easy to keep up on news, COVID-19 or otherwise, nowadays. As we are free to decide when we want to go back to British Columbia, we keep reading, listening, and watching the information available to us. As it stands, we are to leave in exactly two weeks from today. Those are the plans we made when we bought air tickets last year.

Today, we called EVA Air to see if they had any news to pass along. The representative didn't have a lot to say other than our flights are still scheduled to fly and our seats were saved. She implied, however, that nothing so far in the future is a sure thing. The flights to Vancouver from Taiwan are codeshared with Singapore and Thai Airways. Perhaps that helps to ensure their continued operation. Of course, new restrictions or cancellations could crop up at any time.

We've decided to continue staying in KL on a day-by-day basis. We compare how easy life is for us here to how difficult it would be to return home after nearly twenty weeks and try to maintain a 14-day self-quarantine. Bear in mind our apartment has been shut for four and a half months and our refrigerator is unplugged. It would take a few days to get the internet and TV up and running if we get in early. BC is also in the middle of an emergency situation, so life would not be normal there either.





So, for now, at least, we're trying to relax and hang around in the sunny, 34°C weather in a downtown with many empty streets.

Only Essential Services

Day 139 - We could tell that today was the beginning of an unusual situation even while in bed this morning. The city was quiet. Sometimes, we use that adjective to mean things weren't busy. However, I am using it literally. There was a noticeable absence of noise.

As we're on the 18th floor we don't hear a lot of street traffic, yet we noticed less general background noise. Several families of birds live in the trees and bushes ten floors below us near the building's swimming pool. Their songs were much more pronounced during that special period right before dawn when early birds enjoy stirring.



We are social distancing ourselves due to circumstances as much as by choice. When we went out today, we found only a few supermarkets open. Most restaurants were closed except those providing takeaway. Every other store was shuttered. I've never seen the area so empty.

It was a bit eerie as though we had this end of town nearly to ourselves. I was reminded of one movie from 1971 in my collection. In 'Omega Man', Charleton Heston plays a survivor of a global pandemic, in fact. The city of Los Angeles never looked as empty as in that pre-CGI film. Today, the area around Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur was pretty desolate too. I have to admit that I sort of enjoyed the unusual circumstances. Ask me again after two weeks though.

COVID-19 and Our Travel Plans

Day 138 - Last night, Malaysia put out travel restrictions. Foreigners are not allowed to enter the country and Malaysians are not to leave. It was quite a drastic measure for there are lots of daily, land-border connections to Singapore and Thailand. The airports are open and locals can return and foreigners leave by air, but I'm sure the restrictions will eventually affect the number of available flights. Airlines tend to not want to continue to service routes that don't make money. The restrictions go into effect for two weeks from tonight.

EVA Air through Taiwan is a strong player and appears to be carrying on without a lot of cancellations, other than to Mainland China. Our originally-scheduled flights with them are on April 2nd. This turns out to be several days after the present government ban is to be lifted. We've talked about whether we should try to reschedule to leave early. I expect chaos in Canada too as the whole country has restricted international flights to specific airports, Vancouver being one of them. Frankly, life there doesn't sound easy right now.




At present, Jay and I think it is wise just to keep to our original plans. We are happy with our apartment, food, and Internet connection and the weather is great. Hey, we're also flexible and can adapt quickly to new circumstances should they arise. Our situation is better than so many others around the world. In fact, the worst thing up til now is we had to buy white bread at the supermarket today. You see, we generally only buy whole grains but they were sold out.

Old People Talk about Their Prescriptions

Day 137 - What a lovely blue sky today in Malaysia! It was pretty warm but less humid than of late.

Today, I've not much to recount. I did ask at a pharmacy and picked up a few prescription medicines. I am pretty much completely covered by BC Pharmacare at home. It is just for a three-month supply though. When coming on this vacation, I needed to buy five months of medication. So, I paid a little extra out of pocket. It's really not of a concern as I use only older medicines that have gone generic. For example, my hydrochlorothiazide costs just pennies. It is super cheap in Canada but each prescription has a $10 dispensing fee. Today, I picked up three months' worth of tablets for a total of just CA $5.35. It doesn't expire for two years and was made by a Canadian company. It's good to have an extra, buffer supply.

From My Desk in KL

Day 136 - This is sort of a blog about blogging. We have busied ourselves today trying to keep up on information about COVID-19 and the ramifications for our travel home. It was warm today but we did spend a lot of time inside.

I looked at a few old entries here at my eJournal and images. I noticed that really old blog entries from this site load pictures differently. Rather than pointing to my old, active domain server, it seems as though Google has them cached. For example, here's a screen capture from January 2006. (One can easily view any month since September 2003, by scrolling to the bottom of any normal browser page and selecting an archive month from the dropdown box.)



I wrote to the blogger community forums to ask for a bit of help and information. Here's the conversation:

---

Hi Dennis S. Hurd,

Your question has been posted to the Blogger Community.

Most questions receive a reply within 24 hours. We'll send you an email notification when this happens.

https://dennissylvesterhurd.blogspot.com/2006/02/did-you-hear-one-about.html

This is an example post with an image never hosted by Google. I originally used to run on my own server when that was an option. The image still points to a personal domain.

1) Is this a real proxy and if so is the image permanently cached by Google?
2) Will Google maintain this image if I abandon the personal domain it used to load from?
I have been meaning to move old images off the personal domain site as for years and years I've been embedding from Flickr. Now it'd be tough as copying just provides 'unnamed' as the jpg name.

I'm hoping that when I shut down my old domain, the images will stay available. I've only missed a few days of blogging since 2003 and wish to maintain the years between 2004 and 2008 hasslefree.

---

Your question received a new reply:

Gold Product Expert
Nigel ( @stwNigel )

Hi Dennis S. Hurd ,

Good observation.

Yes. Blogger does cache the images linked in Blogger blogs.

You can test it live by adding image from external domain to the HTML or Image gadget on Blogger. You will see the rendered image will be served from googleusercontent.com.

It is unlikely that Google will store the image permanently especially since they do not provide a way to manage images hosted from googleusercontent.com. So it is very possible that they will automatically refresh the cache at some point and URLs of image loaded from googleusercontent may change over time.
So I suggest you yo backup the images in the personal domain.

Best,
Nigel

---

Original Poster - Dennis S. Hurd

Thank you for taking the time to answer my message.

I had sort of hoped to hear that these images would remain indefinitely as they form a crucial part of my blog. I would feel bad knowing a half-decade of posts might suddenly start loading without images.

I have backup copies of the very old images but having to re-edit each and every reference inside each post would prove too arduous even for someone with a lot of time on their hands. My naming convention used to be mmddyy.jpg which was not smart as it makes grouping them in any logical order hard too.

Freshly copying a month at a time used to be easy as I could save the images presented when viewing the blog by simply 'copying' from the screen. Now, of course, they come back with names 'unnamed (1) jpg etc.

Sigh. If you ever learn more about the way content such as this will be handled, I'd love to be informed.

Again, thanks.

Freezing Temperatures at Home Tonight

Day 135 - I really should make use of this building's swimming pool. We are now witnessing warmer temperatures by a few degrees in Kuala Lumpur. This definitely means more laundry as every time one comes back inside, clothes are immediately peeled off and thrown into the washer. The extra detergent is a small price to pay for such weather. I've always appreciated the heat.

This is what's in store for us this week. I report temperatures exclusively in centigrade nowadays, as does most of the world. However, for the sake of seeing higher numbers, I captured the following image showing the Fahrenheit scale. When I have a point to make, I really want it to appear dramatic!

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Day 134 - On a day when news broadcasts are depressing, with bad news about the COVID-19 outbreak, tanking markets around the world, and travel and event cancellations and restrictions, I couldn't imagine a computer game so relaxing!

I am still on a three-month trial of Microsoft's Xbox Games Pass for the PC. I downloaded this title although I've yet to finish 'Old Man's Journey' or start any of the other five or so games. Ori's images and music are beautifully stunning. My cheap, Chinese controller seemed to work automatically with this game too.

I Want Computers to Remain Difficult

Day 133 - I remember running versions 2 and 3 of MS Windows. At version 3.1 the OS finally hit its stride. So yeah, it's been a while and I'm kind of old. Before that, I knew how to get stuff done in DOS. I was initially interested in personal computers because they weren't run-of-the-mill. I wanted to learn about them as they were technical, modern, and a little nerdy.

Fast forward 35-years and hardware and software have changed a great deal. However, Win 10 is still a little nerdy. As proof, it has taken me a few weeks to get my new Acer machine set up in ways that satisfy me. Being able to start from scratch has been fun. I had to remove the partitions from the SSD and figure out how to assign D:\ to the 1 TB hard drive.

Yet, I always change things up just to keep learning new concepts. For example, I happily switched over to the new Chromium version of MS Edge as my browser when it was released in January. Doing this has modified how I will use the new 24" all-in-one. Changing one's habits is what keeps one young at heart! More importantly, solving problems is what keeps one's brain young.


The threat of rain is keeping me at my keyboard this afternoon.
Honestly, I enjoy the technical challenges presented by setting up and operating a PC. I possess an easy-going personality; however, organizing one of these devices lets me tap into my anal retentiveness. Many people might not even notice some of the things I simply have to change. I am amazed by the total lack of digital organization demonstrated by most people.

Things are nearly impossible to get perfect though. I'm at 99%. Getting the last percent will take more exploration and the need to apply patience and logic. Right now, this PC has one update which cannot be applied. I am also having Edge sync problems with my favourites here but not our smaller, travel laptop.

Urban Photography

Day 132 - I realized that we will be heading back to Canada three weeks from tomorrow. Of course, that's dependant upon airplanes still being able to fly on April 2nd. Air schedules are somewhat in turmoil due to the COVID-19 health situation. I do have to take the time to appreciate where we are now though.













The weather is considerably warmer here now. It was 35°C (95°F) and the high humidity made it seem even hotter. We still enjoy leaving the airconditioned comfort to go outside. Today, we didn't go far but walked near Little India and the revitalized area near Masjid India. As you might have guessed by the photos, I carried the big camera rather than just relying on my phone for snaps.

There's always more of everything on my Flickr stream.

Near Little India in Kuala Lumpur

Day 131 - He was in front of a small shop. I decided he started it years ago. Now his kids have taken over the responsibility of the family business. He still shows up daily for a lack of anything better to do. He's markedly less keen on life since his beloved wife of 48 years recently passed away from cancer.

I often make up stories for my portrait shots.

Deleting Digital Debris

Day 130 - It is not even spring yet, but I fell into some sort of clearing and cleaning fit. Today, I decided to organize my archived computer files.

I got a Gmail account when it was available by invitation only. That was on May 23, 2004. At the time, I also started using Google drive as a means to back up old files rather than storing on a CDROM. Several years ago, I was shocked to see email going back that far. Many things in life are best left to what a human brain can remember. So, I moved to a more secure, less invasive option for email and got rid of every single Gmail message! Even when emptied of mail, files on my drive total still stood at just shy of 11 GB.

My goal was to say goodbye to files which I'd probably never, ever view again. One of the first folders I removed had over 3 GB of files. There were Word and Excel files but also video clips and sound recordings from my 17 years of teaching at BC Institute of Technology. I surely created a lot of materials! I retired more than five and half years ago, but that all that junk felt as though it was weighing me down. Select. Gulp. Remove.

After I saw how easy it was, I decided I should clear the Google Drive completely. Having 15 GB of free cloud space used to feel remarkable. I am still in possession of computer backup files going back to my very IBM-compatible in 1985. Although many of the file formats are now defunct, I just couldn't bring myself to say adiós to all of that! However, I couldn't justify keeping it under Google's control. I simply downloaded the mess and at present, it's being copied to a USB flash drive.

Deleting the whole kit and kaboodle from my drive was tedious. A quick way to get rid of all files is not available. Google never really believes that anyone would want to delete personal information! Anyway, it now stands completely empty. I was able to clean up much of what I'd collected and still retain my original Google account.

Of course, while copying and pasting, I discovered many files that were interesting. Here is an original digital photo that was taken from my high school 25th reunion back in 2002. I had a new digital camera at the event but I must explain that I found this in a folder marked as photos take from Bret Wirta. It cleaned up well. Cheers, gals.

Capturing an Image of the Neighbourhood

Day 129 - I've lived in many, many different neighbourhoods during my life. We lived in numerous places during a mutual decade of work in the Middle East. Also, since retiring at the end of 2014, Jay and I have lived in locations other than in our community of New Westminster, BC in Canada.

We lived a total of ten months on Aguacate in old town Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and on the east bank in Luxor, Egypt. We stayed in the middle of the Penang island in Malaysia and also not far from the river in Siem Reap, Cambodia for five months. Last year, we had two months near Double Six Beach in Bali, Indonesia as well as three here near Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Jay and I just spent three months in Minuwangoda, Sri Lanka and we're now back in KL. I have loved each neighbourhood and I felt at home in all of these places. Home is where you hang your hat.

However, I have very few photos of typical neighbourhood scenes from my past. I am aware that, going forward, photos of the ordinary scenes become special with the passage of time. Today, I walked to our nearest drug store. I picked up some medicine for Jay's upset stomach. After I left and crossed the street, I returned just to take a photo. One more picture of this neighbourhood now exists for me.

One of the Certainties

Day 128 - Right off the bat this morning, one accomplishment was I filed our Canadian tax returns. Honestly, it is getting easier and easier. In Canada, I never did our taxes without software. In the late 90s, I remember buying boxed versions to print out the forms. I'd then, drop them off at a tax center in Surrey, BC. I started e-filing as soon as that became an option in the early 2000s. Even then, doing taxes was a struggle as one needed to collect all the forms which arrived by post and type in the data. Even as late as 2015, during our first winter of retirement, I recall arranging for an earlier flight because we had to get back before our tax-filing deadline. Canadians must do so by April 30th.

This year I downloaded my software at the end of January. This was the first time I let TurboTax® suck in all our data directly from the Canada Revenue Agency's website. There were only a few things to add such as our charitable donations. Also each year, I decide if we'd benefit from pension-splitting and a few other options. I reviewed all the numbers even though I didn't have to. We are poor folk, so our taxes are easy.





The weather in Kuala Lumpur is muggy now. We had a huge thunderstorm at around 1:00 this afternoon. Jay took it slow today as he's not feeling well. It is not flu-like but rather probably something he ate. I went out at dusk just to see the Night Market stalls. Every Saturday, on the street behind us, vendors selling food, clothing, and sundry items set up. Crowds come to walk, munch, and gawk. The area near the Masjid India is still going through some street redevelopment. I consider this our part of Kuala Lumpur and I'm glad to see the progress.

Photoshop Elements

Day 127 - Every single image that a camera captures can be improved. Depending on the intended purpose, it may require a little touchup or some major manipulation. I've been using Snapseed on my phone and tablet for a few years now.

Last night, I decided I may enjoy getting back to image editing on a PC. The HD screen of our new Acer is huge and it will allow for more detailed corrections. So, I ordered Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements online. Even though I've been retired for more than five years, I am still entitled to their discount for students and teachers. Some teachers can never seem to stop giving advice, whether welcomed or not. At least that's what I see when I look in my mirror.

I thought had no new image files with which to play. Then, I remembered I snapped a couple of pictures on a walk this afternoon. I didn't bring my camera so I had to use my phone. Jay and I got a little exercise by a hike through the neighbourhood. We are fairly close to the original downtown area of Kuala Lumpur. Several streets away, some old buildings date back a hundred years. Most are pretty well maintained but there are a few in various stages of dilapidation.



I hadn't intended to use these photos in my blog today, but they are a nice example of how I'm going to focus on being subtle. There are so many bells and whistles in this 2020 version, I could get easily carried away. There are nearly too many options! I even found an 'open-a-closed-eye' tool for those group photos when someone blinks at the wrong moment. I will literally never be able to trust a photograph again.

From Sir Graham to the Old Man

Day 126 - Concepts don't necessarily change but technology surely does. I am really happy with my new Acer All-in-One PC. Buying a new one has sort of reinvigorated my relationship with computers.



It was exciting being on the 'cutting edge' in 1985 with an 8088 IBM PC clone. I was working in Saudi Arabia at the time and access to bootlegged games was just about all that one could find to run on it. Meeting Sir Graham on a 360K floppy disk was when I fell for graphic adventure games. However, I have hardly looked at a computer game in the intervening 35 years.

As my brand new computer has a 24" HD screen, I decided to try the new 'Xbox app for Windows 10 PCs'. Microsoft offered me three months of connectivity and access to over 100 games via Xbox Live for CAD $1.12. Sure, they wanted to see if they could hook me. That was probably a good idea to entice an avowed non-gamer. Okay, it's working ...

Old Man's Journey is a delightful, relaxing puzzle game. In plays almost like King's Quest I. However, a lot has taken place in the development of computer graphics and sound in the years between these titles. Every so often, one finds clues as to the reason for the old man's quest. These are presented in the form of memories. I'm only around halfway through the game, but I've already surmised he in on his way to visit his estranged daughter. (Gosh, I hope that wasn't too much of a spoiler.) Pardon me, while I put on headphones and help get the protagonist to his goal.