bing bang bop

So at work, for perhaps 25 consecutive weeks, or more, up until the end of 2025, every Friday, from 17h to 18h I would chat through Teams with another WFH coworker who lives in BC, one of the few anglos on my team, just to be friendly. This past Friday I did not initiate, and I got nothing from this coworker. 

Things are working out that maybe I won't need to work for too much longer. I do hope so as this job I currently have is offering me too little in terms of social interaction.

a little bit of this, a little bit of bat

At my job we have an intranet that has a social side; so I have been writing posts there every weekday; well, TBH, I have a weeks ahead queue of posts and as I come up with more ideas I write further into the future. On Tuesdays I have come into the habit of writing a Tuesday-Chooseday post where I list four pairs of like items or similar ideas and ask people to respond to indicate their preference. An example could be: prefer to awaken and start the day early or sleep in; prefer to swim in a natural body of water or a swimming pool; prefer INXS or Men at Work, or, prefer eating green grapes or red grapes.

Given my excessive writing there I have been remiss at posting here.

Having moved back to my parent's house to keep my dad company as my mom has been moved to a long term care home I now have a house to which I can come up with ideas that I could possibly implement - some examples of which I couldn't have done at all in my previous apartment.

One idea I had was to attempt to grow Giant Redwood Sequoia trees from seed and then guerilla plant them once they are saplings in a variety of places. These trees can live as long as 3000 years, so of course well past my remaining lifespan. I would monitor them and be curious to see how they progress over the remaining years of my life in their clandestine locations. I did tons of research about how to go about doing this and if it was appropriate for my climate zone (it is).

My latest idea, inspired by a few YouTubers I follow (Colin Furze and Tornado Dave and from a few years ago ModernSelfReliance) is to build a small (7'x7') underground bunker in the backyard in a surreptitious way, well, as secret as I would be able to receive a delivery of construction materials. With Chat GPTs help I have accumulated a lot of information; including about the W4x13 H steel beams that will be the roof of the bunker being supported by 4" 0.21" square steel tubular posts. Structural plywood (3/4") will be used for the walls attached to the exterior of the steel framing, FlexSeal or equivalent will be painting on the exterior of the plywood, then a radiant reflective barrier will be applied, and then finally 2" rigid foam insulation boards so as to keep the heat in that I explain below.

There would be floor cross beams that are planed down in such a way to create a path that any water inside the bunker could follow to a drain pit dug 3' deeper than the bunker for the purpose of allowing any excess water to flow into the surrounding ground. Atop the floor beams are floor boards and then 2" rigid foam insulation boards that conform to that flow channel; the insulation to help prevent cold from seeping from beneath the bunker into the floor. Atop the 2" rigid foam boards a circuit of 1/2 PEX that is buried in a thin layer of slope screed so as to continue the water slope to the pit. Atop the screed will be 3" square stone paving stones, the small size to allow for conformity to the water drain slope.

Connected to the 1/2 PEX sinewy circuit is a underfloor electric heating system that I really benefitted from ChatGPT to help me understand what was needed and what specific components would work well. From pipe end A that exits the floor will first be a T junction that has a valve on the T and a garden hose adapter, the purpose of this is to increase the pressure of water inside the system as initial setup. After that T junction is a 93W recirculating pump that can be powered down to 40W which produces about 5 gallons per minute (5GPM). After the pump is a pressure regulator reducer which can smooth out the pressure in the system and also drop the flow rate; for my purpose, to drop it to 0.5GPM. Next are a few sensors to measure the pressure, flowrate and temperature of the water in the system. Next is a 1440w mini tank heater - my initial plan had a tankless heater but the smallest tankless heater I found used 3000W which was too much for the power supply (a single household extension wire with a power bar at the end) so I will get a 4 gallon mini tank heater that with the 0.5GPM low flow rate ought to allow water to spend enough time in the heater to raise it in temperature. After the mini tank heater is a 2 gallon mini expansion tank - this is used to protect the life of the system and to accept any increase in pressure due to increase in temperature. Following the mini expansion tank is the highest point of the system where there will be a T junction with a valve and with a garden hose opening. To prime the system I will boil 15L of water and then add 2L of room temperature water and using a funnel pour that water through this opening at the top of the system. By being at the top it will fill all of the PEX circuit, the mini tank heater and all other nooks and crannies until it finally bubbles out the top. Once this prime load of hot water is added I will add an automatic air release valve. And then finally the PEX returns into the floor, nice and heated.

So to prime the system I put the hot water in through that top T junction opening until it is full; then, I attach a household garden hose with house pressure to the T junction at the bottom, before the pump and then open the water pressure to push more water into the system aiming for a system pressure of 13PSI at initial load. Once I reach that pressure I close the valve at that bottom T junction, disconnect the garden hose, so now the hydronic floor heating system is primed and pressurized.

I asked about the ideal temperature for the water to raise the bunker temperature to 25c and then what was the required temperature to maintain it. ChatGPT recommended 50c as a temperature to use to raise the bunker's room temperature and then to lower the mini heater's heating temperature gradually to see what the lowest value can be that still maintains the desired temperature. I would attach a thermostat that has a relay to control the pump, so once the thermostat reaches a desired temperature the pump would stop and the water inside the mini tank heater would be still and would warm up. At initialization I would use an air thermometer to see what the temperature is of the bunker air and I would set the thermostat to reach a temperature that 2c warmer than that to test it out and see how it works and see if there any leaks or adjustments that need to be made. Subsequent to that I would increase the thermostat temperature one or two degrees every other day or so until I have it reach my goal temperature.

The PEX running through the screed will conduct the heat through the screed to the stone tiles making the floor warm with enough BTU to warm the entire bunker. My goal is to be comfortable in shorts and T-shirt down there at any time of year. I will have an outdoor sofa, a nice TV, sound bar and DVD player so I can watch movies down there, I could also read or write while down there.

For ventilation I will have a long 4" tube whose bottom enters the bottom of the bunker on a wall that faces the already present garage with the top of that tube entering the garage. At the garage side of this ventilation tube will be a vent fan on a timer to blow garage air into the bunker for 12 of every 24 hours. The garage air is fine as it is an uninsulated out building with the garage door open frequently for fast voluminous exchanges of air, and with an EV being stored in it there are no toxic ICE car fumes to enter my bunker. As an exit vent I will have a 2" exit tube at the shaft entrance that ends up beneath a deck where it will have a U shape and mosquito net and chicken wire covering the enclosure. Having a 2" exit with a 4" vent fan blowing air in will create the positive air pressure that will help evacuate the bunker of radon.

There are even more in-the-weeds ideas and details to this plan that I have come up with, but for now I suppose this is enough.

brands that unite to dispel

There is an internal social media site at my work that I was sort of minimally involved with in terms of reading and reacting to certain posts. Last week I received an email from Corporate that I (among ~60 others globally) have been selected to become Super Users of our internal social media site. They are wanting to promote it and to engage more of the 20,000+ employees there are in my company.

We (the Super Users group) have a Teams channel and had a first introduction session with the Corporate people driving this last week and have three more meetings spread out over the next three months. By having joined this group I am beginning to get to know some employees who are very distant from me. I have been posting a post on my own Storyline one per day, and have a notepad where I have prepared in advance what I will post per day for the next two weeks. As I get more ideas I keep adding to that list into the future.

What I like about this as compared to FB (which I had years ago dabbled in only briefly) is that there are no ads or anything that is not company or employee based being posted and in my feed.

since when

It has been too long since I last posted.

What can I say has happened since then?

Using that iNaturalist app I've identified six additional different species of wildlife.

On Friday I watched my daughter perform in her school's production of Joseph and his colourful dream coat, or whatever that is named. She had a chorus role where her past church choir experience really showed through as we could clearly hear her, and immediately after intermission she played the Pharoah who solo sang the song at that part of the play, in the style (and attire and fake hair) of Elvis.

I've been watching the NHL playoffs focusing mostly on the Toronto and Edmonton games, the latter compelling me to go to sleep ever so slightly later than I am used to.

My work has gone down from 40 hours per week to 35 where it will stay until next personal tax season, the second week of January.

Now that my work has lightened up, I'll see if my posting frequency can improve. I can definitely feel I am missing out on exercising the part of the brain I use for writing nonsense.

bring out all that isn't

I am blessed to not really having suffered any moderate to high levels of anxiety at any time in my last 18,210 days. The same can't be said of my socks, who have to deal with my hallux nails pushing against and through them.

The dialect that a West Indian immigrant within Canada uses to speak to customers calling from the mid-west US is not the kind of thing you'd take with you on a beach vacation. I should know.

A Beach vacation? I am thinking of either Youghall Beach or Cobourg Beach.

Both of those beaches are accessible to me by train. During idle time at my job that is definitely slowing down now that we are almost at the very end of personal tax season I have been researching vacations that are available to me exclusively by train. These include:

• A trip to Churchill Manitoba
• A trip to Saskatoon and Regina
• A trip to Campbellton and Bathurst
• A trip to Amherst and Halifax
• A trip to Windsor to then go see a Detroit Lions NFL game
• A trip to Niagara Falls

I guess that's about all for today.

image

On Wednesday, April 5, just before 3pm, while I was on a call with a customer, my power went out.

That morning I had awoken early to deliver a stool sample to the Pierrefonds CLSC and fortunately for my trip there and back, arriving home before 9am, the freezing rain hadn't yet started.

It began in earnest at around 10am and continued into the evening pretty much without a pause. At peak, across the province, there were 1.1M households and businesses without electricity.

For the remaining daylight on Wednesday when I had no power I started reading a book, Catseye by Andre Norton. At around the time the sun was setting I went into the city and ate a meal at Subway and came home to a dark and 17c apartment.

Thursday, the power did not come back, I finished that book and read to completion The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg. Again, went into the city and this time ate a big meal at Mr. Steer; that was the only food I ate that day.

Friday, the power did not come back, I finished the book, started and finished reading Judgement on Janus by Andre Norton, and again went into the city to eat a mid afternoon Subway meal; sitting in the food court where it was warm for a few hours, to come home to my 15c powerless apartment.

Throughout this time the downtown part of the city never lost power because all of the power cables are underground there, so no ice-laden tree branches (or trees) could fall on them.

I messaged my boss Friday evening, that as I was scheduled to work on Saturday, I would find a way to do it, even if electricity hadn't come back yet.

Saturday morning I awoke and my apartment was at 12c, I took a very cold quick shower then went to my mother-in-law's house (who had recovered power the day previous) and with a bit of trial and error got my work laptop to connect to their Wifi.

I had a tab open on my work laptop of the Hydro Quebec site showing the outage map (as seen in the image at the top of this post) where I had zoomed in to where my apartment was. By about 11:15AM I noticed that my apartment complex was no longer oranged off as being without electricty, so I took the next bus home.

My apartment was at 14c when I got there, and it took until the next day, with the help of the afternoon sun shining in to my apartment, to warm it back up to the normal 21c or 22c. So dressed in layers I continued to work through until 5pm when my shift was over.

I emptied both my fridge and freezer of almost everything as it had all likely gone bad and I didn't want to risk anything. My most sad loss was the 7 beyond beef packages of simili-ground beef that were frozen and that I had bought over time at a 3$ discount from regular price. Today I went to the grocery store and found they were still 3$ off, so I bought three which are now in the freezer again.

Over Friday and Saturday I also read Collision Course by Robert Silverberg. I quite enjoyed this one. I started writing a synopsis of it, but it got too long; I wouldn't want to rewrite the whole book, so you can read about it here.

bring in the lawn ornaments, it is getting windy

With more tumultuous weather happening in 'red' states, hopefully this sways at least a few people who are somewhat less hardened to now understand that anthropomorphic Climate Change is a real thing.

With Donald Trump indicted in the first of three or four cases against him he is to present himself to court on Tuesday this week. This first case is the pay-off Stormy Daniels case; the remaining ones include illegal election influence in Georgia, inciting a riot on that Jan 6 and the hiding or denying about confidential documents held in his Florida home. Media reports that NYC, where his first court case is, is ready for any and all MAGA people that come with violence in mind to support Trump.

I've read a few different articles about Joe Biden's regretful approval of what is known as the Willow project, the opening of land in the Alaskan Arctic circle for oil drilling and production. This Willow announcement came two weeks after the release of the latest IPCC report where Antonio Gutteres said unequivocally that all current fossil fuel business needs to wind down and all plans for new ones need to be canceled.

In more local news the Quebec government released its annual budget and to my disappointment there was only the shoring up of public transit; there was no meaningful announcement of measures to change the funding method, or plans for expansion. With more and more cars becoming electric, especially here in Quebec, the gas surtax that helps fund public transit is diminishing. As a transit user I do wish more was done.

In less local news the Canadian government also released its annual budget. Among new social and cost of living investments (dental care, improved GST rebates, etc.) there is a big push to invest in a very targeted manner into 'green technologies' that are homegrown here in Canada. This I am in support of, but what I felt was missing was any mention of addressing the housing crisis. We are receiving hundreds of thousands of new Canadians every year through immigration, and who can blame these people for choosing Canada? Where will they live? What is upsetting about the housing crisis is that the majority of people are housed and so for them this is not a primary concern. It is the minority of newcomers and the destitute, the marginal people who are suffering the most. Given this majority's relative indifference to the problem, there isn't the political will to do enough about it.

With respect to my job, there are four weeks left to the personal tax season, and so the crazy busy period has a light at the end of the tunnel. As of April 1st I am getting paid 3% more in terms of annual salary, so that is good, though not matching what inflation is doing these days. I also received a bonus based on the company's 2022 performance. I only received 2/3rds of what I'd otherwise have received as I only started with the company in May 2022 and so wasn't there the full year. On March 28 my manager sent a message asking people, in order of seniority, to put in for their summer vacations so as to not have everyone off at the same time. I have already booked a trip to the Saguenay in July and bought day event tickets to the National Bank Open in August; hopefully nothing prevents these two vacations from happening.

bring out, hold up

Tuesdays through March and April my work shift has become 11h-20h as part of my tech support team's schedule to provide service until 20h on weekdays during this peak season of personal tax season.

The Hema-Quebec site in Kirkland has removed their evening donation times through lack of staff, so in February my evening scheduled appointments had been cancelled, so for March and April I've booked them for Tuesday mornings, of which this morning was the first one.

In chatting with the nurses, yes, they are short on staff and one of them mentioned that though we're a few months from summer vacations, once that happens the number of appointments the remaining staff will be able to manage will be even less.

My own ability to go on Tuesday mornings will end in May as we'll return back to a non-peak work schedule; so if evening appointments are not resumed, the only way for me to continue with plasma donations would be to take time off work. I suppose when the time comes, I can see about negotiating with my manager; I got home before 10h today after my donation, so I could start at 10h every other Tuesday and see about making that time up else when.

In other news when my newfound family doc suggested, due to somewhat high blood pressure readings in her office, that I get a home monitoring machine, I did so. With two readings very soon after waking in the morning, and two readings no less than two hours after eating at night, it seems my BP is good:

I called the doctor's office and asked if I can send the image above, or just give them the overall average, and the admin assistant there gave me an email address to send it.

Last night I got a call from the admin assistant to book a phone session with the doc to go over this sheet I sent them, it is a week from tomorrow in the evening. I am not certain what she will have to say about this apart from it looks good.

be boo baw

Yes, I experienced yet another SLI event during my walk this afternoon/evening.

The Grammys are on tonight, I will watch at least part of it. I am always on the look out for a breath taking performance. The one that comes to mind was Pink's Glitter in the Air that opened up this show back 2010. I still get goosebumps when I watch it on yTube.

In other news, a sock went after a doughnut and found itself wringed out.

At work, finally, the schedule has been updated to give each of us specific times of day that we are to be responding solely to emails, or, responding solely to phone calls. I had been doing phone calls only over the last two weeks, as we enter into our busiest time of year, and would get call after call while I see most of my team mates are on email only, not knowing if they are actually working or absconding. For each of us it has been scheduled to be roughly half of the day on one and then the other half on the other.

If I was a pie plate, I wouldn't know how many fractions I'd be beholding to for the contents of said pie plate as the person about to divide it considers. If I was the person considering how to divide the contents of said pie plate, undoubtedly I would use sevenths as the fraction. Certainly the pie content of said pie plate would be easier to divide into sevenths as compared to a dodecahedron plate.

I have been in touch (by email) with the city council person who represents my district to discuss the impending transit oriented development (TOD) with my city as the REM eventually comes into service. The city council meetings are recorded, so I watched the one that took place in January and felt compelled to respond to it to someone and felt that my local councilor was the one with whom to do so. I am of the mind that the greatest number of residential units possible in a mixed use development abutted to the REM station would be ideal, especially if at least some of them are 'affordable' and perhaps at least one building is fully rental units while all of the rest of the development would likely be condos. Having excessively high density within easy walking distance of the REM station could make it that many of the new residents can be carless, which is a boon for both the local environment, and local traffic concerns.

Other residents are pulling their NIMBY card and are concerned for the future 'lifestyle' of our town; that adding so many new residents all at once could severely change how the town is. I am of the opinion that it is very well known there is a housing crisis across this country, and anything we can do to ease that, ought to be done. Also, high density living brings the city more residential tax income without requiring nearly as much infrastructure as compared to sprawl development. This savings on infrastructure and increase in municipal tax income could help to improve services.

I have a lot more to say about this.

Sensationally moderate

On Thursday this past week I went to my regular blood donation place to do a plasma donation. I go roughly every two weeks and am getting to know the nurses and staff there. It takes time because they have their own varied schedules and so I don't always see the same people on my Thursday evening visits with them. My next scheduled donation is on December 22 and I plan on buying some chocolates to bring as a Christmas gift to the nurses and other staff there.

On Friday evening I went to book group; I hadn't gone in a few months. The book we read was 'At the Water's Edge' by Sara Gruen. I quite enjoyed reading the book, but with respect to discussion it did not generate much. In past book groups I had prepared questions that I thought of while reading and I forgot to do this for this book. I will try harder on the next book. It was nice to see all of my book group friends again, though there were three or four missing. Also, the only other guy in the group wasn't there, so I was the lone male.

On Saturday morning I met with Luke whom I met in our Discord Kurzgesagt group, I had to awaken early to catch the 6h56 211 bus to get to the Peel base of Mount Royal for 8am. I had published this event in the group but only Luke replied. We had a nice walk/talk, though it was about -10c and windy. He works in IT support at the MUHC and has an a-hole of a manager so his intention in 2023 is to look for another job. As we were leaving the mountain on our way back to the metro he asked me to join him for breakfast, and then offered again and that he would pay. I was torn as I had over eaten the previous night and wasn't at all hungry, but could see that this would be helpful to him. I still ended up refusing and perhaps this wasn't the best decision.

A few weeks ago, perhaps last month, my manager sent out a poll to ask which night would work for us to get together and that ended up being Saturday night (last night). Unfortunately not all of my team (10 of us) were available, however, seven us did show up. To get there was a long commute:

I took an earlier than was absolutely necessary 211 bus because I was going to unfamiliar places. I knew at Bonaventure station where the South Shore bus terminal was as I had passed it many times, but I had never ventured into it. It turns out there is a south and north bus terminal and the 45 bus I was to take was in the north one. The 45 bus is a terminal to terminal, going from Bonaventure to Panama and had departures every 10 minutes. I skipped one because the 132 bus I was to take was only departing Panama terminal some 35 minutes later. Fortunately at the Panama terminal there was a heated indoor area to wait. Also fortunately, if ever we were to do this again the REM will be open with an REM stop more or less adjacent to that restaurant.

I am already usually socially awkward outside of one-on-one interactions, but this event had the bonus of a language/cultural barrier, with four of us Francophone Quebecois, two of us Francophone Algerians and then me, the lone Anglo. As much as I had a difficult time with this, I wouldn't skip a subsequent equally difficult work event because our manager was one of the attendees and so through conversation I got to learn some things about our department and the future of it.

I found out that most likely sometime next year, we will be closing down our incoming phone line; our customers are already being advised that email communication will get higher priority and eventually the phone line will be close altogether, to match my employer's global support policy. We as tech support can always call a customer if the problem/question they have is complex; but the reverse will no longer be true. I am pretty pleased about this.

About having met my coworkers in person for the first time, I have determined that it is both a blessing and a curse that this job is 100% WFH. It is a blessing that I do not need to be put in that awkward cultural difference situation every hour of every day of every week by having to go to work, but a curse that by not doing that I don't have the opportunity to learn and get better at these situations.

The last thing about meeting my coworkers in person that I'll mention is that our team is made up all of men except for one pretty, charming, young (~26yo) woman who was present at this event. I feel safe to say, as it is doubtful she or anyone from my work would ever come to this blog, or this post, that having her present provided eye candy which made what otherwise was a somewhat dreadful experience slightly more palatable.

On the walk from the restaurant to the 90 bus that took me and only one other passenger from the Chevrier parking station into the city I caught my first view of the Orion constellation. I was happy to see it but did not try to photograph it as it was cold and windy and I know that for this kind of photo I would need a tripod to hold the mobile device steady.

Today is Sunday and I went to church this morning, as I do every Sunday morning. The best part of this experience for me is that for the half hour before mass begins, I am a greeter at the entrance of the church with another volunteer, and the two of us have become friends getting this weekly reliable interaction. The rest of the day for me is to be a lazy oaf and watch NFL.

Tomorrow is off of work for me, I'm taking my last vacation day of 2022. I've got an appointment at 11AM with Maria at Montreal Nuru Massage. I've been meeting with her once a month, missing one or two months, for a year now, so even though this is a transactional relationship, it has been nice for us to get to know each other. Following that I'm going to see the movie 'Devotion'.

To terminate this post, I've been watching a show on Disney+ called Limitless with Chris Hemsworth. One of the recent episodes I watched was all about fasting and that reminded me that I have done this in the past with moderate success. Doing this is all in the hopes that processes such as autophagy and ketosis take place within me, with the idea that these processes help to provide me a healthier longer life. So, after the Pulled Pork Poutine I had at 3 Brasseurs last night, I've decided to fast for some indeterminate amount of time. Chris (and a longevity doctor with him) did four days on the episode I watched. I'm not certain I'll go for four days, but at least 24 hours and probably more.

Labour or Labor

Yesterday was Labour Day weekend here in Canada while also being Labor Day weekend in the United States. I did nothing special to take advantage of the long weekend.

I have been watching very closely and very much the US Open where I saw Frances Tiafoe beat Rafael Nadal yesterday. Today and tomorrow are the quarter finals. Of the matches today, the one I want most to see is between Coco Gauff and Caroline Garcia. The former an up and coming American who is young (18yo) and looks to be a top performer in the future, the latter a French woman who is playing exceptionally well over the last few months.

I read 'The Zero Stone' by Andre Norton over the weekend. I quite enjoyed it. A science fiction novel, though it was written in 1968; it still is readable in today's age. Now I am about two sevenths of the way through 'Terror' by Frederic Pohl and so far so good. I may have mentioned this before - I go to visit with my parents every other week and when at their house I have been taking books. The idea is to help them declutter their house for their eventual leaving of the house. As a result I have a stack of books that I am going through. Well before the internet and mobile devices, my father would buy a science fiction book to read on his train ride to/from work and once done, buy another. So far I have read 51 of these books, have 53 in a stack here that I have not yet read and I believe I have less then half of what was all of the books I'll be getting.

My work schedule for the month of September has been published; as it is a support job where specific coverage is needed at specific times, my team has to adhere to the schedule to which we are assigned. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I work 9h-17h. On Wednesday 9h30-17h30 and on Friday 10h-18h. Given this late start on Fridays I am thinking of making a weekly visit to the Swiss Vienna Pastry shop to see about getting perhaps a few croissants or other breads and or treats to enjoy that morning and over the weekend. The shop opens at 9h and I easily have the time to walk there and back to be home in time for my start at 10h.

I have attended quite a number of sporting events so far in 2022 but at the moment have exactly zero future sporting events scheduled. For the remainder of 2022 I may go to one Canadiens game and I will definitely go to the ISU event here at the end of October.

when all else melts

At Alorica we could only chat on Teams.

At WK, we create a group call in Teams and we speak in person; cameras off. There are about seven of us and the number of incoming calls at the moment is quite low, so if a call comes in, the next queued agent leaves our group call and takes the incoming call while the rest of us carry on. That person eventually rejoins.

All of my compatriots are natural French speakers who also happen to speak English well enough to service our customers. I, on the other hand, am a natural English speaker who happens to speak French well enough to service our customers. So while I understand all of the conversation that happens, I only contribute a small percent of the time if I find I really have something to chime in with. I am not skilled enough in speaking French to be a story-teller in that language. It doesn't help that in groups this large, even in English I am a reticent story-teller.

sprake the flort bloj

So 12 hours after getting off CTTE I get sick.

Next day I test at home negative for C19 but have trouble sleeping as my nose was so congested that I couldn't breathe properly. Fortunately the job I have is 100% WFH so I don't miss any work by having to stay home. Unfortunately it is my first week and I cannot afford to not be at work. At the end of the week I decide to test again as I haven't really gotten much better and I end up testing positively.

Decide after my first week on new job that I'm not going to do much in the first weekend. Still not feeling altogether well, decided I'll lift the two inner kitchen window panes out in order to put the screen in to allow for a more full opening as the weather is getting warmer. The panes are difficult to get out due to their location (behind the sink/kitchen counter) and their size. I position myself carefully to get the first pane out and it comes out with reasonable ease. I am in less good a position to pull the second one out and in one quick motion pull the right Iliocostalis Lumborum or right Internal Oblique (or both) muscles in such a way as to mostly debilitate me and put me in minor state of shock where I could only be horizontal as otherwise I'd get light-headed and feel nauseated. 

After most of the day had passed I was able to move around a little bit and managed to put some ice on the part of my back that I had pulled. The next day wasn't any better and by today it still isn't fully healed, but it has definitely improved.

In the mean time, starting yesterday, and perhaps the night before, two new symptoms have come up; my lips have swelled and my eyes have developed conjunctivitis symptoms. I did a bit of digging and found that rare, but possibly MIS-A is what I could potentially have. Only the most serious of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in adults is discussed in the on-line articles, describing the more serious inflammation of parts of the heart among other internal organs and only in the most severe of C19 patients.

Beyond those two new symptoms I still have a lingering cough that comes up at random times. Fortunately, when I go to sleep I can breathe shallow in a controlled manner that significantly reduces any cough that might want to surface. If these two new symptoms do not start to reduce on their own in the next day or two I may see about consulting a physician if this is at all possible.

hey ho, the up is down

First day at new job, have some videos to watch to learn about the software I will be supporting; it is a little dry so I'm taking a break. The company is providing to me a laptop which I have been told will arrive tomorrow.

oops, left the couch on the floor

So, I haven't posted in a little while. That's okay.

Today is a PTO day at Alorica, yesterday was my last day working there. So I am basically unemployed until I start the new job May 9.

One thing that only occurred to me much later was that with Alorica I had travel insurance as part of my insurance with the company that I was to have been relying upon for my CTTE, but I believe Alorica will make known to my insurance provider that I am no longer an employee and so that coverage will be rescinded just ahead of the vacation. At the new job it was explained to me that benefits, such as this, begin on day one of employment which is the Monday immediately following the Saturday I return home from CTTE. All sorts of advice given indicate that having travel insurance is very important. I will go without.

With my new job I have been given 10 days of vacation for 2022 and then 15 days per year after that with of course the possibility of earning more if I stay with the company long enough.

So, what do I do with 10 days of vacation given also that I am on probation for six months which takes me to November 9th before probation is over. I have a few different ideas.

Sport Attendance - take one or two days connected to a weekend to go to TO and attend some Blue Jays games. Also, take one or two days to attend early round day and evening matches at the National Bank Open. Maybe a day or two attached to a weekend to attend an NFL game somewhere in the North East early in the NFL season so it isn't too cold. If I can pick a city in the US that has a MLB game on Saturday and an NFL game on Sunday maybe I'd do both. 

Hiking trips - take a Monday and Tuesday off, a few separate times, to leave Sunday using some form of public transport to get to a hiking area that also has accommodations. Spend Monday hiking, spend Tuesday to get back home. This may be a little trickier to do without a car but at the very least I know there is Mt Tremblant that is accessible by bus and is right up against the mountain.

One big vacation - I can take a bus to Boston, spend a night in an AirBNB or hotel, the next day board a cruise ship that stops along the east coast, into Canada and terminates at Quebec City where I can take a train home. The bus, hotel and train are all very reasonable; the cruise as a solo traveler is quite expensive. So while this idea is really appealing I do not think my financial situation would really allow it.

One small vacation - I can take a train to Halifax and spend 3 or 4 days there and then take the train back. I can just spend some time in the city; see what there is to see, walk around, try different restaurants, see if there any tours I can sign up for, though if I went in September, after tourist season is mostly over, I may be limited in that respect. If I did this I'd just take a few additional days here and there to have stay at home 3-day weekends.

I suppose that is all I have to say today.

when celebrationists count to couch

I've accepted a job offer for a WFH position with Wolters Kluwer; I start May 9th.

This job meets all of the major and minor criteria that I had set. 

I will earn double what I am currently earning at Alorica but 5/7ths of what I was earning at Explorance; this is fine and meets my needs.

The job is a more civilized support position with a 35 hour work week that is Mon-Fri generally between 8h30 and 18h. Some Saturdays of overtime will be required at a few peak periods during the year and that is easily tolerable.

That it is WFH means I have no commute or associated work out of home expenses; though it was explained to me that perhaps once a year, possibly more than once a year, our office would get together, most specifically for the annual Christmas party, and possibly for other reasons at other times. The WK satellite office from which I will be working is in Sherbrooke which fortunately is easy to get to by inter-city bus.

It is a bilingual position which, thanks to Alorica, I had more confidence in applying to. During the hiring manager interview it was explained that perhaps 35% of calls/emails/chats will be in French while 65% will be in English. I am quite happy with this ratio. At Alorica it is 80%/20% favouring French.

Also, it was explained that about half are procedural (how to use the software) and the other half are technical (the software isn't working as expected) and that is also a ratio I really like.

Just this morning I signed and sent the offer document so it is official. I will be a probationary employee for the first six months; from past experience this has never been a problem (to pass the probationary period) but I hope that continues to hold true for me.

A few things that I had started doing on my Alorica weekend of Tuesday-Wednesday I will now need to move back to what everyone else considers weekends; or move them to evenings.

when the raspberry coloured truck meandered

In my previous post I mentioned I hadn't heard yet about a job offer from an interview I had last Friday, I got the message this morning and I did not get the job. For the two other preliminary interviews I had yesterday, the recruiter in the first one was difficult to understand so it was a very brief meeting. In the second it went much smoother and I learned all about the job and that I would be good for it, except for the fact that there is a six week training program beginning April 18th and I have a vacation already booked for the first week of May (CTTE) and so I am not eligible for that cohort. The recruiting agent indicated she would keep me on file for next hiring/training time and if I am still looking at that time she will contact me.

I still have half a dozen leads of which one is a fixed meeting next Tuesday. 

two times two times two times two

If I manage to remember to look back here next Christmas to know how it was to have worked both Dec 25 and Jan 1, I would want to know that Dec 25 was a very quiet day with only 12 calls and Jan 1 was a very quiet morning but got busier at and after 11am ending with 25 calls.

I figure if ever the holidays fall adjacent to my Tue-Wed weekend, I'll ask for the days off.

when marketers market

I subscribed to AppleTV+ last month, or the month before, specifically so I could watch the 'Foundation' show, based on the same science fiction series written by Isaac Asimov ages ago. Given this new access I've also watched 'The Morning Show' and have quite enjoyed it.

My company is paying an additional 5$ per hour for any O/T hours done for Friday, Saturday and Sunday of this weekend; so I did two extra hours yesterday, and will do the same again today and tomorrow. 

With respect to Black Friday sales, the first thing I have to say is that I find it distasteful that here in Canada we have this artificial sales date that is attached to an American holiday. The second thing I have to say is that I bought two items specifically with BF in mind, the first was La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Eye Cream and the second was a Delta Batavia In2ition 2-in-1 Shower Head. The former was discounted by 10% while the latter was discounted by 65%.

Of those two items, the eye cream I bought online to be delivered, but for the shower head I went to CT to get it. I took the 203 bus to then get on the 215 bus and between the two had to wait perhaps only 6 minutes, so it was a rather smooth transit trip. I wandered around the store a little bit as it had been a long time since I was in a CT. I easily found the shower head and then checked my app for transiting home and the next buses would be in ~40 minutes. This was not good, but expected as it was now just before 21h and so the transit frequency drops. There is a McDo that is separate from the mall where CT is so I walked there and bought an inexpensive meal to pass some of the time. Then I walked not to the closest bus stop, but to the next one further as I knew there was a shelter there. The 209 bus came about 10 minutes later than expected and where I was to catch a 203 bus, due to that delay, I would have had to wait another 25+ minutes; so I ended up walking home from Sources / Belmont.

I installed the shower head almost right away when I got home last night; it was a bit of an ordeal to remove the plumbers tape job that had been put on from the previous shower head, but once that was all cleared off I put on some new plumbers tape, screwed the shower head in and completed the installation in short order. Right away I took a shower to check for leaks and it was a smooth, easy and successfully leak-free installation.

pocket full of animated dinosaurs

I was lucky and unlucky last night; I was doing O/T on my job and at about 18:23 I received a call from what looked to be a customer who was already upset about whatever situation they were in when the power went off in my apartment building, cutting the connection to the customer. It went off only for perhaps 10 seconds and then came on again. My modem/router takes about two minutes to cycle up in order for me to re-connect to my work, but perhaps 80% of the way through that cycle, the power went off again, and on again for 10 seconds of downtime. This pattern repeated itself perhaps six or seven times until the power eventually stayed off.

So I was lucky that the power cut made it so that I didn't have to deal with that angry customer, and I was unlucky in that I still had another half hour of O/T that I was wanting to do. There is a bonus happening at present that any O/T done over this weekend earns an extra 3$ per hour.

I had pre-scheduled a lap swim session last night at 20:30; the power had not yet come on in my neighbourhood, but using the Hydro Quebec app, I was able to see that where the pool is, power hadn't been lost, so I went and did my ~30 minutes of swimming laps.

About half an hour after I returned home from swimming, the power came back on again, so that was good.