I’m working on some very non-exciting code and my happiness level is low. It’s not challenging but it needs to get done. I got interrupted by a twenty something man offering me a piece of a cookie. He is being shadowed by a handler, however she is keeping her distance and just keeping an eye on him.

In our limited interaction he’s like everyone else – if anything even more polite than most. I keep my eye on him for a bit longer and I notice that he may have a learning disability or something similar. There is something else about him: he is very happy to be distributing cookies and sweeping the store. He does it with joy and pride.

He lifted my spirits by his approach to work. It reminded me that I am doing what I love and that I am lucky to get paid for it, and that I should probably quit my bitching

Today is day 4 of living at Kim’s place without running water. We’ve been thrown back into the 1900’s by a water main break last Tuesday. One of the neighbours came to warn us of the impending water shutoff, but by the time they got to our place all we could hear was hissing of the taps.

First day wasn’t too bad, apart from the water truck not being there as promised. It showed up on the second day, and it’s two and a half blocks away. We get our water in a cooler on wheels, and my arm feels like it’s going to fall off every time I go.

Lack of running water made us way more conscious of how much water we actually use on daily basis. We can get with our daily lives with a lot less when we try.

The biggest nuisance is going to the bathroom for #2. We’ve been “saving it” until we go to a movie or a store, just so we didn’t use the precious water.

Postscript:

We were out of water for 5 days and then it was restored. Just to be shut off the next day for 14 hours as neighbours pipe burst. Fortunately, it has been working just fine since.

During the water outage, we continued our lives, and even had a large turkey dinner with Kim’s cousin. But I was really glad that the water came back.

What does one do with leftover vacation when an opportunity presents itself to go away for a week?

Go away to Hawai’i!

After a short drive to Calgary, short hop to Vancouver and a boring satellite-tv-less ride to Honolulu, we arrived at our hotel for the night around 10pm. Quick trip to the gas station and we scored two mega cans of pre-mixed bud, clamato, salt and lime. Not a bad score at 11pm Each wrapped in its morality white protective bag. Ah, when the liquor disappears by being placed in a paper bag…

Next morning’s flight to Kona was enjoyable. We got tiny pre-packaged 10% real-juice punch mid-flight, and before we knew, we were at Kona airport. We disembarked on the tarmac, and walked into a farmers market converted into an airport. Everything was under the roof, but not many structures had surrounding walls. Benefits of not having winter to contend with, I guess. After hauling our bags to the rental shuttle and 5 minute ride to the car, we were on our merry way.

Driving the coastal road we found a WallyWorld and a grocery store, and kept going to the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park for our tenting site.

Our campsite was without running water, but it did have a very nice vault toilet. Tent pads were really well made and the scenery was hardened iron-laden pahoehoe lava with trees and hardy shrubs poking out. In the next couple of nights, we learnt that nights are extremely windy. The tent creaked and groaned and tried to keep us awake for couple of hours every night.

At first it was succeeding, but we grew accustomed to it eventually. Remainder of the first day was spent walking around the Kilauea crater and taking some snapshots of the new vent. We took a look at the steam bluffs and tried to go around on the Crater Rim Drive, but it was closed due to elevated levels of sulphur dioxide(SO₂).

We never got to smell it (it smells like a freshly struck match) and we never got to drive around the crater; Park Rangers had most of the road blocked off from the public.

Second day we got up early and went to Volcano farmers market. They had the biggest avocados I’ve ever seen! They were as big as papayas are in the grocery store – and it turns out those are not the biggest varieties either. There are even bigger ones. We looked at the local bananas (which were awfully green) and picked up some very good bread and pineapple-jalapeño humus.

We drove through Hilo, got a little bit lost and then quickly found on the Saddle road, on our way to the Mauna Kea (Snowy Mountain) to visit the observatories. Saddle road is a joy to drive from Hilo. It is windy, challenging, smooth and very well marked. It made me glee with joy as we were slowly making our way up and up.

At one point, the road switched to a gravel road because of road construction but our Caliber took that in stride. We kept driving and driving, enjoying the scenery and I completely managed to miss a sign towards the visitor’s centre. Half an hour later, after driving through a military training range and mini-Scotland’s replica, with other coast in sight we clued in that we went too far.

We turned around, and after 20 minutes we found the access road. The drive to the visitors centre was impressive. It was a 7% average gradient, and car started to struggle a bit with the climbs. As we were getting closer and closer, I started developing a headache and a bit of nausea. We didn’t know it yet, but we were feeling the effects of altitude sickness. We had our lunch at 9000ft above sea level and waited for the guided tour to start. It was a self-drive, 4 wheel drive required guided tour.

Our little Dodge was having issues going up and the rental agency restricted us from going further up¹, so we hitched a ride with a couple from San Francisco to the top. We bribed them with a package of Wasabi & Teriyaki macadamia nuts. They wanted to stay until sunset, which suited us perfectly! They were kind enough to take us in the back seat of their Jeep. Once we started climbing, it was perfectly clear why we needed a 4×4 for this trip. The grade bumped up to average 10% and washboard gravel road. The road got windier, and steeper and Jeep did need the low gear.

10-15 minutes later, we were at the top. At the top, we were taken into the visitors area at the Keck 1 telescope. One lady got quite ill and required additional oxygen. We were all somewhat dizzy, but after 45 minutes it all went away. It’s pretty amazing how quickly body gets used to adverse conditions.

At this point we were well over 13,000ft and the air was noticeably thin. Attempting to walk up an incline at a normal pace was getting me winded in 20 paces. We knew going up that the temperature was going to drop. I never expected it to drop as much as it did. At the top it was very windy and the windchill was driving the cold through our jackets. After donning all of our remaining clothes, we found some solace and warmth.

Since the sunset was three hours away, we decided to "scale" the peak of Mauna Kea. It is right beside the observatories and it has a little shrine built up from volcanic rocks. We took the non-snowy route there which involved a little bit more climbing.

It was like walking on marshmallows. It’s not that the rocks are soft, but they’re very light due to all the gas bubbles inside them.

Due to the high elevation, what should have been a 10 minute walk up a 30-40m incline on loose rock, turned into a 45 minute hike. We would go up 10 meters, stop and catch our breath. Halfway up, Kim had a nap in the weak sun and it was really nice. We were shielded from the cold, and for those 15-20 minutes we were warm!

We watched Steve and Ann-Marie hike the ridge against the clouds and I managed to get a couple of National Geographic type photos. We followed their lead about 20 minutes later getting back to the peak and the observatories just in time for the sunset.

I’ve had my share of wonderful sunsets on tropical beaches. They tend to be nice, but the originality of them diminishes with every evening. Seeing a sunset at the top of Mauna Kea, in the company of airplanes, ancient gods and my love, above the sea of clouds is unforgettable. We stood and watched the sun hide behind the cloud and colours of the rainbow filled the sky. As the light dimmed, we piled into the car, quickly went down the windy road and by the time we got to the visitors centre, the night’s sky had blossomed into the most amazing display of stars.

I’ve gotten close to seeing a sky that full of stars. It was at Kyle and Erron’s cabin near Sundry – but this was a whole new level. You could actually see the Milky Way (our home galaxy) stretching from one side to the other. The Saturn was clearly visible, with three of its moons and the rings were casting a shadow on the planet. It looked surreal – like someone had made a cutout and placed it at the lens of the telescope.

¹ We later found out that Thrifty allows you to go up in their 4×4’s to to top

They asked for the name at the end – just my first name. I said “Jim”. They thanked me and finished the initial call. After the call, I promptly added the original number to the known telemarketers list.

Fast forward a week later. I receive a call from 8230. They ask for Jim Now I know that I am dealing with a telemarketer, but I say that he’s not in since I was in a middle of working. They say thank you and hang up.

Fast forward to today. Another call from the 8230 number for Jim. This time I am ready for them: Once they ask for Jim I calmly reply “I’m sorry, he passed away.” They hang up without a word.

Is that too cruel?

For me, at best of times, writing is akin to mowing the lawn in the back behind and around the trees, where you spend more time watching the blades so you don’t clip some lawn ornament or edging. In worst case, it’s like getting a root canal done by an Egyptian re-enactment embalmer – not pleasant but someone is going home slightly lobotomized.

My goal was to stick with it as much as I could to work on my writing skills and to let my creative juices flow. It has helped with the programmers block I had – big chunks of application have been refactored and are working correctly.

Why have I stopped writing? Partially because I ran out of good stories to tell. Work got busier. Chores caught up with me. And I didn’t really want to stick around staring at the keyboard like I’m doing right now.

Hopefully there will be more to write – many big changes are on the horizon and I’m stalling stepping over the precipice.

First day was watching 4.5 hours of video. There were 5 episodes of instruction, that would correspond to a confined water dive. But we watched them all in sequence in one shot. It was hot and muggy, but it was a tropical location. The afternoon of day one was learning how to setup our tanks and gear, verify that everything is working properly and we learnt some underwater skills.

We learnt how to clear a regulator, how to retrieve it if it gets knocked out of our mouth, how to signal that you’re out of air and you need to use someone else’s secondary regulator. We also were instructed how to clear a partially and fully flooded mask, and how to breathe without a mask underwater. That last one is really cool when you’re in 10 meters of water You breathe in through your mouth, and exhale through your nose.

All of this was done in a very deliberate and repetitive manner. Before the lesson we were told what we were going to do, and the instructor went through the full description what was going to happen, doing the hand signals all the way. Then we got into the water, where he repeated the instructions again. Then he would demonstrate the action first, and ask you to repeat it. For every skill we needed to learn. For three people. It was being drilled into us.

That ended our first day

The parts of the kitchen that she scrubbed looked great. Baking soda and cleaner did a miracle. The tile and grout looked close to brand new! Later in the day, it turns out that a little bit of baking soda was left over and our feet were starting to pick it up.

Tonight, we went to Dark Empire and purchased an H20 Mop. I’m sure I don’t have to introduce the product to the insomniacs reading this. To everyone else, this is a steam “mop”. It generates steam, ejecting it downward and then uses a microfiber cloth to soak up all the condensate and dirt.

It is now 11:30pm, I’m downstairs typing up my daily blog, and I can hear the faint hiss of steam emanating from it. There are quite a few “Ooos” and “Ahhhs” coming from upstairs as well. It sounds like it’s taking a lot of the stains off the tiles.

Kim just came downstairs with the “mop” cloth and it is quite dirty. We keep a pretty clean house, but this is dirt that has so far avoided the mops.

H2O Mop gets 2 thumbs up from Kim.

• One onion finely chopped
• One garlic clove – crushed or minced
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• 200g of Red Lentils
• 1 tablespoon of ground cardamom
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1L of beef stock
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• salt & fresh ground pepper
• couple handfuls of croutons

Start off with 2 tablespoons of oil in the pot, all the onion and garlic. Sautee until softened or translucent. Add all of red lentils, and stir to coat them in oil.

Add allspice, cardamom and lemon zest, followed by the beef stock. I just used 2 Oxo beef cubes and 1L of water, and it worked just fine. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it all simmer for 20-30 minutes. At this point red lentils will be much more beige and mostly falling apart. Take a stick blender, and pulse it into a rough paste. Don’t make it all uniform because it will lose its charm. Recipe book said to let it cool then re-heat, but I laughed in the face of scalding danger and worked with the still boiling hot soup.

After this, add the lemon juice and remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. I drizzled the oil in the bowls themselves but added the lemon to the whole pot.

Serve with croutons, or get some good pita bread and serve it cut up in wedges and tiny cubes. Wedges on the side, little squares on top.

Bon appétit!

Oh, this serves 3-4. It should server 4, but it’s too good

Today, we painted the upstairs hallway. Colour is “Sidewalk Grey” from Benjamin Moore. We bought one can of Aura paint. It was ~$70 for a gallon. Now that is quite expensive but in our opinion well worth it. The paint covers like crazy. I’ve used CIL, Behr and Benjamin Moore other paints, but this one is way better.

For one, it doesn’t smell bad. Actually it has very little smell at all. It is dry in an hour (sometimes even less) and super easy to apply. It goes on the walls like butter. Not that I’ve put butter on the walls before, but I think it would spread just as well It covered all the different previous test paints we had in just one coat. It goes on freshly patched spots without looking any different that the adjacent, already painted wall. So no need for primer.

Anyhow – I recommend it whole heartedly.

It was never about the money – it was about you keeping your word and asking for help if you needed it. I’m sending you the proof in the mail tomorrow morning.

I’m sorry that I had to bring it up. I just wanted to trust your word and now I can again. Thank you.