Crap You Do Not Need at Prices You Cannot Pass Up

Retailers have completely lost their minds when it comes to the calendar. They simply cannot leave well enough alone. The moment one season hints at ending, the floor managers panic and throw everything at the customer all at once.

Summer officially ended yesterday afternoon around five o'clock. By this morning, Walmart was practically throwing warm-weather gear out the door. Solid plastic picnic plates, bowls, and cups were marked down to a mere ten cents each, stacked in towering piles right up to the ceiling on the shelves. It looked ridiculous. I managed to walk out with a decent Chinese oscillating fan for nine dollars, which felt like a victory, even if it was just being tossed aside to clear floor space.

The real absurdity is what they think belongs on the shelves right now. Canadian Thanksgiving is October 12th, but apparently that is not enough excitement. The staff were shoving stock out for Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Christmas all at the exact same time. It is only the third week of September.

Walking through the aisles, you have turkeys, plastic skeletons, and Christmas tinsel staring at you in one single view. Most of it is cheap, useless rubbish designed to sit around for a week before getting tossed out. People are expected to buy winter holiday junk while the afternoon sun is still warming the pavement outside. It is complete nonsense, but retail marches on anyway.

ETA-TRON 3000: Access Granted

We each got our CA$39 UK Electronic Travel Authorisations approved ahead of our November cruise departure from Southampton. The process was painless enough, but clicking through the screens made me realize how thoroughly the travel landscape has shifted beneath our feet.

The romantic notion of "visa-free" travel is officially a relic. Governments and tourism boards still toss the phrase around, but let's call an ETA what it actually is: a visa in a digital trench coat. The only real difference between the old paperwork and the modern ETA is that instead of a bored consular officer stamping an ink pad in a basement, a server farm scans your passport chip, runs an automated security check, and extracts a fee before you are even permitted to look at a boarding pass. The border is no longer an arrival desk; it is a computer program standing between your passport and the departure gate.

Which brings me to Brazil.

I have spent the last few hours navigating the Brazilian eVisa portal, getting all our details queued up. The file is currently sitting in a holding pattern while I review everything with Jay before pulling the trigger, because Brasília wants roughly CAD 113 each for the privilege of stepping off the MSC Virtuosa for the bulk of our winter in Rio.

How did Canadians end up back in the visa line? It is a textbook lesson in diplomatic tit-for-tat. Back in 2019, Jair Bolsonaro unilaterally scrapped visa requirements for tourists from Canada, the United States, Australia, and Japan. The theory was that unilateral generosity would unleash a massive wave of high-spending visitors. That tourism windfall never quite materialized.

When Lula returned to the presidency, Brazil’s foreign affairs department dusted off its absolute favourite doctrine: strict diplomatic reciprocity. A stamp for a stamp, and a fee for a fee. If your country forces Brazilian citizens to submit bank statements, jump through consular hoops, and pay a stiff fee just to visit Vancouver or Toronto, Brazil will happily return the courtesy. Japan read the writing on the wall, negotiated a mutual visa-waiver treaty, and kept their passports exempt.

Ottawa, true to form, took an entirely different path.

Immigration Canada does not do diplomatic courtesies; it does cold, risk-averse actuarial tables. Instead of offering a mutual waiver, Ottawa produced a classic half-measure: Brazilians could use Canada's inexpensive eTA, but only if they already held a valid American visa. In other words, we outsourced our vetting to the Americans and expected Brasília to be grateful. Unsurprisingly, Brazil found the arrangement condescending. When the reciprocity axe finally fell, Canadians were promptly marched back to the payment window.

Before I finally hand over CAD 225 to settle Ottawa’s diplomatic bar tab, Jay and I have a little evening date with the laptop. We will sit down together, inspect each other's uploaded mugshots, and make sure neither of our neutral expressions offends the consular algorithm. After all, if we have to pay an entrance fee to the Southern Hemisphere, we might as well look fabulous doing it.

An Unsolicited Technology Grant to Certain Unnamed Parties

Deep inside one of my spare tech drawers sits an arsenal of basics for home automation: glowing colour bulbs, voice assistants, and smart plugs that obey a spoken whisper or the tap of an app. To me, it is everyday convenience. To our circle of close friends, it is alien magic best left quarantined in cardboard.

I have contemplated distributing this surplus out of sheer benevolence. Leaving lamps and appliances without dedicated IP addresses while capable routers sit idle is a domestic travesty. Civilized adults should not be trudging across rooms to flick manual plastic toggles, like cavemen before the wheel's invention, when they could dim the lights without leaving their chairs.

Yet my digital collaborator, Ajith, warns that gifting connected gadgets to the happily analogue is not charity; it is a binding contract for unpaid IT support. The moment a household network hiccups, our relaxed social dinners will instantly devolve into troubleshooting radio channels over appetizers and resetting bulbs between courses.  The process would add unnecessary friction, he says.

To the uninitiated, the ultimate luxury remains a dumb wall switch that has performed with complete reliability since 1978 without requiring a single password or Wi-Fi handshake.

Still, my generous heart aches for those stumbling around in manual darkness. The surplus silicon awaits. If anyone in our circle wishes to be dragged into the modern era, your resident administrator is open for business. Just remember that emergency troubleshooting after nine in the evening will be billed at the rate of one very good glass of wine per question.

The Wearable Drama: A Trilogy in Three Short Acts

My relationship with Google’s wrist-borne hardware has devolved into an abusive cycle of misplaced optimism and premature electronic mortality. Averaging a fresh smartwatch every two years is not a badge of tech-enthusiast honor; it is a damning indictment of a company using its early adopters as unpaid beta testers. The original Pixel Watch set a low bar by surrendering after a mere 22 months, only to be succeeded by the Pixel Watch 2, which I naïvely trusted to manage the simple task of surviving a standard daily wear cycle.

Foolish me. On Wednesday, the heart rate monitoring temporarily stopped functioning, delivering a subtle prelude to the impending collapse. Prompted by a subsequent desire to test the device further and actually use the Always-On Display, I embarked on a brief experiment to see if the two-year-old lithium cell could handle an evening of passive monitoring. I was actively trying to rationalize keeping the aluminum slab and glass out of pure, unyielding pragmatism. The watch responded with a dramatic midnight suicide. I woke up at 1:00 AM to a pitch-black screen, no optical green sensors, and an ominous red thermometer icon warning me that the internal thermal cutoffs had triggered a terminal lockout loop.

Once I realized it was unequivocally dead, I was finally liberated from my own cautiousness. Its thermal meltdown won. So, a Lemongrass-colour banded Pixel Watch 4 is now en route via Amazon. I give it until the spring of 2028 before it, too, succumbs to the threat of spontaneous combustion.

Do you Prefer Type 1 or Type 2 Fun?

Falkland Islands, Volunteer Point - 2022

The Architecture of the Reset: Two Strategies for Breaking the Stall

In any complex system, whether a piece of software or a human life, there is a tendency toward a "Default State." When life becomes too comfortable and the routine too polished, we begin to suffer from a kind of intellectual and emotional stall. The sensors get dull. The excitement of the day-to-day starts to flatline. To keep the gears moving, we eventually require a "Total Reset."

Over years of observation, I’ve noticed that while the need for this reset is universal, the methods humans use to achieve it fall into two very different categories.

The Horizontal Shift: Reset through Expansion

For some, the answer is to change the map. This is the path of international travel—using Type 1 Fun to maintain a sense of equilibrium. By shifting your coordinates across the globe, you essentially perform a "Horizontal Shift."

When you land in a new city, your brain is forced out of its autopilot mode. The architecture is different, the social scripts are unfamiliar, and even the air feels new. This constant influx of novelty acts as a continuous, gentle recalibration. You aren’t looking for physical suffering; you’re looking for high-fidelity discovery. By keeping the environment in a state of flux, you prevent the monotony from ever taking root. You stay sharp by ensuring that the "familiar" never has a chance to become "ordinary."

The Vertical Spike: Reset through Friction

Then there is the "Hard Resetter." This individual rarely leaves their local geography, remaining tethered to the same streets and schedules. Because their external world is so static, they must find a different way to break the stall. They turn to Type 2 Fun—voluntary friction.

They lean into a deliberate confrontation with the elements: an arduous trek through unforgiving terrain, the stark minimalism of an exposed campsite, or any physical endeavor where progress is measured in raw endurance.  Since they won't change their scenery, they change their state of being through elective suffering. It’s a "Vertical Spike" in their experience—a jolt so intense that it forces a total system reboot. For them, the reset happens in the moment of relief. By making life briefly unbearable, they make their normal life feel like a victory when they return to it.

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The Synthesis

To a casual observer, these two archetypes seem unrelated. One looks like a sophisticated explorer; the other looks like someone who simply forgot to check the weather report.

But they are doing the exact same work. Both are performing a necessary maintenance check on their own capacity to feel alive. Whether you choose to reset by seeing the whole world or by surviving a weekend in the mud, the objective is identical: to return to your life and find that the "default state" finally feels fresh again. It’s all just a matter of whether you’d rather change your destination or your tolerance for a downpour.

Embracing Change

 

I have found it interesting living in a place where things change.  I'm trying to say that the environment differs over time.  Our little city of New Westminster, especially downtown New West, looks vastly different than when we moved here in 1996.

The riverfront has developed, tall buildings now crowd streets which used to contain single-storey shops, and new infrastructure has been built.

The view is ever changing and I think witnessing that helps keep a person ready to continue growing and developing in tandem with the times.

This is the last full day in our apartment until next spring.  I stepped onto the balcony for two quick shots down and up along the mighty Fraser River.

First, the landscape picture was zoomed a bit to catch the land adjacent to the new Pier West development.  One can see the work on the Westminster Pier Park extension.  Artist renderings of the new space look lovely and I bet it will make a great addition to the city.

Second, the portrait orientation of the second shot is looking between buildings toward the Pattullo Bridge replacement.  All the the cables are now stretching down towards work crews completing the project.  There's still talk that it will open before Christmas, but I'm sure it'll take a while until the numerous exit and entrance ramps are complete.  

Nevertheless, I expect that when we return in mid-March both projects will be different than they are today.  It gives us more to look forward to when making our homecoming.  

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.

Singing Praises for a Piece of Luggage!

Travel can be exciting but getting ready is never much fun. 

We have it pretty easy this time as we're only going to be away for around 9 days. Usually when we pack, we have to be very selective.  We go away to some far corner of the globe for four or five months every winter. 

Comparatively, this little upcoming cruise from Barcelona will be a breeze. In fact, we've decided to take a single suitcase and share the space. Yet, we'll each have our own backpacks as carry-ons.

   

Today, we rolled out my trusty old friend. This is a photo of the best suitcase I ever owned because of its durability and security. It seals shut and snaps tightly closed. I have little faith in modern luggage with a mere zipper holding it all together. 

After many years, this piece still has all of its wheels. I remember buying it prior to COVID in Kuala Lumpur.  We never let the pandemic prevent us from going away, so it has been through at least six winters. For the last one alone, it was in and between five different countries. I admit the old gal is starting to look a bit sketchy but I like its secure latches, I hope it keeps on going forward for the foreseeable future.

Joberg Hop On/Hop Off Bus

Day 122: We didn't know just how convenient our hotel choice would be!  Yesterday, we noticed that the city's hop-on, hop-off tourist buses start from exactly in front of our hotel's entrance.  So, after a huge buffet breakfast, we bought tickets.  Each ticket cost us around $US 21.  But for just $5.50 each more, we extended our one day tickets for an extra day.  So, we know that these buses will undoubtedly part of our day tomorrow too.

We plugged in our earphones and listened to the running commentary with many useful bits of information about Johannesburg.  Although I knew this is one of the world's mega-cities of over six million people, I wasn't aware it was such a relatively new town, dating only back to a gold mining town in 1886.

I was impressed by what I saw during the two and a half hour bus ride.  We didn't even get off at any of the stops today, but will choose where to go tomorrow by what we saw today.  I was also impressed by just how beautiful the area is. 

I didn't have such positive impressions about this city, until seeing it.  I most definitely could live around here.  See, the problem about prejudging a location is that unless you actually get to see it, you carry around incorrect information.  

The present political divisions in many parts in the developed west is because so many people are ignorant about the world in which they live.  They live in their own little bubbles of the like-minded.  This affords politicians leverage to mislead and peddle misinformation to their people for personal gains. Ignorant people cannot think for themselves and willingly queue up to follow any new wolf in sheep's clothing.

This is why I feel blessed by actually having had a chance to travel extensively.  I wish it were a gift that more people could access.

We arrived back at our hotel after 1:00.  We finally walked around the extensive upscale neighbourhood mall that has grown larger over the decades with extensions and addons.  

We ate lunch in a type of restaurant I only saw in Cape Town.  It is like a food court but also has a large segment of supermarket type prepared food by the weight.  They are great places to eat an interesting selection of food at grocery store type prices.

After a little afternoon rest, we may go a cineplex to see a movie.  It's been a long time since we went out to the movies.

Plan, Click, and Explore

 

Day 108: Durban has been getting lots of rain. Last night, I bet more rain fell in a 12-hour period than I'd ever witnessed. It went on and on. This put tomorrow and Friday's safari trip into question. However after a morning Whatsapp messaging marathon, we agreed with our guide to be ready at 7:00 am in the lobby tomorrow morning.

We cannot be assured of the weather next week. More importantly, we will also arrange for a different overnight trip next week with the same tour company. We want to spend a night in the country of Lesotho too. We plan to see the Sani pass and spend a night in Mokhotlong.

So, we hope to see some animals in their natural environment which at the time happens to be fairly wet and muddy.  (I will not be taking along the laptop, so my daily updates here may be a bit late appearing online.)

 

We didn't accomplish a lot today and found ourselves sitting around a lot.  We did finalize some reservations for Jay's birthday week at the beginning of September.  We got air tickets to Barcelona the other day and yesterday got the 7-night MSC cruise we'd been eyeing.  Today, Jay added a one-night stay in Barcelona prior to our cruise departure.

When I first graduated from college, I thought a career as a travel agent would be interesting.  Little did I know that people would be able to arrange every detail of own their trips by the time I took early retirement.  We don't often stop to think how profoundly different the world is today than during the years when we were freshly-minted adults.

The Day After

Unconnected to Reality

I find it hard to believe that I've been playing with AI-generated images since August 2022. For a couple years, I've experimented with the awesome power of the new technology. And boy, did it improve over the time of my involvement! 

Stunning conceptual, artistic, or authentic-looking images can be created with short text prompts. We've have never been able to believe photographs but now even that concept has become amazingly archaic today. 

It surprised me that I've saved over 1400 AI-generated images in some online Flickr albums. I think it's time to take a little break and cancel my Midjourney subscription. I will undoubtedly get back to see what happens in this space in the future. But for now, at least for over the winter months, I shall give it a rest. 

Five random recent images are included here just so you can look at a few.

 

Paw Protection

I've never cared much about what was on my feet. In fact, I used to find it fascinating that people knew specific brands and models of footwear. I have never noticed what shoes someone has on. 

Of course, I grew up in canvas sneakers with a new pair each summer. I do not really remember owning pairs of Adidas or Nikes. I sort of assumed expensive shoes were not better, but just more expensive because of the company's advertising and constantly changing styles. 

One's never too old to change one's opinions.  

As I have a renewed interest in walking as exercise, I bought some slip-on Skechers a few weeks ago. They are called GO WALK something or other. And they make my outings seem like heaven, assuming that one walks on clouds there. My feet are suddenly much happier. 

I ordered another pair for our upcoming winter although I've been wearing sandals nearly exclusively from November to March since we retired in 2014.  These are a different style and require lacing up.

I just had Jay order a pair too. We walk a whole lot when we're travelling and it makes sense to have suitable shoes. So after six and a half decades of walking on earth, save for the first few, I've become interested in shoes.

A Ride to Downtown Vancouver

Earlier in the week, on the local news, we caught an interview with a doctor spearheading a campaign for people to have themselves checked for leaky heart valves.  We'd been thinking about travelling to the Waterfront so we could turn in our old transit passes.  Jay and I both recently got new cards and the old ones can be turned in for a $6 rebate.

We combined both activities on one trip from our apartment to downtown Vancouver on the SkyTrain.  A one-way trip takes about a half hour.

The free heart check was at the Roundhouse Community Center in Yaletown.  We were right there when the line formed at 9:30 but didn't have to wait more than 10 minutes.

The future doctors were training at UBC's Cardiology Department and trying out their people skills as well as their newly learned medical skills.

Neither Jay nor I had any detectable problems, which we assumed as we have regular checkups with our family doctor.  However, it was an interesting way to spend some time.

Jay also wanted to walk to see the new buildings of his former employer, Covenant House, Vancouver.  We walked up Davie Street and past Seymour.  We had not walked down Granville Street for a long time but it surely wasn't better for the wait!  We've visited a lot of international cities in 2024 and none looked quite as dirty, falling apart and potentially dangerous as a main area of the largest city of our region.  Of course, the morning was gloomy and grey which didn't help.

 

Back to Basics ...

Jay and I are going away for four weeks. We, unfortunately, have discovered that we cannot travel like when we were young and impressionable. I'm sure a single backpack each would have been enough thirty or thirty-five years ago. This time around, we decided we absolutely need to check an extra carry-on sized case on our trip to Germany, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.  At least, it sports wheels.

   

We talked early today and mentioned that we have to pack differently in our 60's because we have more medicines! A thin laptop has replaced the guide books and photocopied maps though. Oh, and our phones have replaced cameras and the Sony 8mm camcorder. 

On an 'on-the-move' trip such as this one, it's important to whittle down the amount of clothing. We will bring along shorts but forgo any additional pants.  Clothes are as cheap or cheaper when in different countries.  In addition, a useful hint is to bring old underwear or socks and toss them along the way.  Who wants more laundry when arriving home?  No one.  Additionally, that frees up space for a souvenir or a cheap bottle of wine on the return journey.  Lastly, Jay and I have travelled a lot over the years and we discovered decades ago that items like toothpaste are available in just about every location that there are people.  One really doesn't need that familiar brand from home. 

I will admit, we are also a bit less agile nowadays. When struggling in out of planes, buses, and trains, it's much better to remain light.  So this trip is a great refresher course for us on how to avoid overpacking.

Too Chicken for Completely 'Unscripted' Travel

Seeing how we will be at the Vancouver airport next week at this time, we decided to pin down a few more dates on our fast-approaching, four-week trip.

We had hoped to 'travel like in the old days' without hotel reservations and all the micro-planning that has crept into travel since the advent of the Internet.  

However, the mere presence of online booking has changed things.  Even though June is not a peak travel season, hotels, especially in European capitals, can fill up in advance.  I guess the days of hopping off a train and finding a spot to sleep near the city's central station is less popular in 2024.  What to do?

Upon buying air tickets to Berlin, Germany, we made reservations for when we get off the plane.  Yet, we've still left the exploration of Poland somewhat open and have only booked some hotel nights in Warsaw.  Furthermore, as we are sure the date of return flight from Riga, Latvia, we've scored nights near the end of the trip both there and in Vilnius, Latvia.

I'm sure that someone will sell us a bed for the unreserved ten nights of the journey.  That will still foster the idea that we are masters of our own destiny.  For we could board a train bound for places we overhear from other travellers.  Or we could linger in a city longer than we'd originally planned.

Who's Bananas?

 

Day 99 - Is it already the 8th of February? I guess what I really meant to say is that I'm surprised at how fast this winter is going!  On Monday we leave to do some final travelling for a few weeks. Then, after we fly back to Colombo, there will only be a few more weeks before we return to Vancouver for the summer and fall. 

Jay and I do seem to have a lot of plans going on in 2024 and into 2025. We are at the age when we realize we won't have forever to do stuff. It's better to get right to it rather than simply dream and wish. A whole lot of people never really do the things that they think would give them pleasure or satisfaction. That's crazy! 

Unrealized desires are a sad commentary on how one lived one's life.

Hey. Looking Old is Preferable to Dyeing Young

 

We don't leave until tomorrow evening.  Thought I'd start off the winter with a haircut. Number 0.5 on the sides, please. I know it'll be one-third the price in Sri Lanka but personal grooming is such a priority for me. Cough. Cough.

At a certain point, it's better just to be honest and brutal.  There's only so much a glamour filter can do!

 

Make Time to Chill (No Matter the Climate)

Nine Years Ago

Q: What are you going to do with all your time when you retire?

A: Live.

Photos from Impossible Times and Places

I've never practiced portrait photography with a camera.  In fact, my photos include many more places and things than people.  However, using AI techniques broadens the scope of images I am able to create.

With a camera, I can only capture what is in front of me.  With Midjourney I can go to any point in time and choose any subject I desire.  That's the beauty of generating images from text prompts.  Most importantly, none of my subjects have ever objected to me pressing an imaginary shutter button.

All images created with Midjourney