I had a pretty shitty second half (and a bit) of 2022. And there was some other more minor stuff. (Two colds in 5 weeks! While I was recovering from my broken finger. Shit like that. ) This morning, I thought I lost my new prescription sunglasses, which I had to purchase due to one …
Category: Personal
Riley Goes to Colorado Day 5: Tuesday May 31, 2022
I didn’t “sleep in” as much as I wanted to on our last day. I think I generally have trouble when I know I have a flight to catch, even if that flight is in, like, half a day.
Riley Goes to Colorado Day 4: Monday May 30, 2022 – Denver
We “slept in” for the only time this trip. I used quotes because it wasn’t very late. I blame the time change.
Riley Goes to Colorado Day 3: Sunday May 29, 2022 – Fort Collins to Denver
We got up and realized that we might have trouble watching the race, as the place we were staying didn’t have cable. Fortunately, it did have Roku, something I have never used before. And fortunately, there was ESPN. However, if you watch F1, you know there was some rain and there was a bit of …
Riley Goes to Colorado Day 2: Saturday May 28, 2022 – Estes Park to Fort Collins
We woke up earlier than we would have liked, having forgotten to book a new entry at Rocky Mountain National Park. I checked and saw there was still time at 1PM only. One of the hikes we looked at was not in RMNP but had quite a strenuous rise over a short distance. I was …
Riley Goes to Colorado Day 1: Friday May 27, 2022 – Denver to Estes Park
Pre-pandemic, we used to travel to the States fairly often, both overnight in the summer to see minor league baseball games, and longer trips, usually in spring or fall, to cities we’d never visited. Our first of these trips in over two years was to Denver, Colorado, and environs. We went for 4 nights.
A Toronto Maple Leaf Has Won a Major NHL Award
Auston Matthews has won the Rocket Richard Trophy. It is the first time since the trophy’s creation that a Leaf has won the Richard Trophy. It is the first time since 1947 that a Maple Leaf has led the NHL in goal scoring. That is 74 years. Nearly a three quarters of a century. Matthews …
Zip.ca: In Remembrance
I don’t have any idea if I was one of the first Zip.ca customers, but I was certainly an early one. The company was founded in 2004 and I was renting movies from them the autumn of that same year, which happened to be when I started my Master’s degree. If you’re unfamiliar with Zip.ca, …
Invitation to submit your book to Netflix
As you may know, I am a published author. Three books to date, still working on that fourth. Every so often, somebody contacts me with the goal of getting me to pay them to do some useless service. This is an old scam which appeals to every author’s vanity. But I’ve seen it enough times …
Journal of the Plague Year: Blood on Their Hands
If you had asked someone in Autumn 2019 which country would be best equipped to handle a pandemic, they might have answered “The United States”. They have the most resources of any country in the world. Of course, given who is in power, they might have expressed doubt. But ask the question in Autumn 2015, …
Diary of the Pandemic Year: Nobody Follows the Rules
“Nobody is following the rules!” That is what literally everyone is saying. So many people are saying it that some of the people who are saying it must also not be following rules. As Jenn put it, each of us thinks we are following the rules better than everyone else. And we want everyone else …
Diary of the Pandemic Year: It’s Oh So Quiet
Time has lost all meaning. Weekdays feel like weekends and weekends feel like weekdays. The only thing that lets me figure it out is consciously thinking about it. I have a weekday work schedule, which helps too. But I still have to think to myself “This is a weekday” in order to start it. So …
Journal of the Pandemic Year: Day 50
Time has lost all meaning. Sometimes it slows to a crawl. Other times it moves so quickly I can’t believe it.
Diary of the Pandemic Year: Day 42
The Americans want to reopen things. But of all countries, the US is worst hit in terms of total numbers: they will hit 1,000,000 confirmed cases sometime week and they will likely hit 50,000 dead by the day after tomorrow (April 24).
A Journal of the Pandemic Year: Day 37
Continued from Day 36 I think one reason I don’t have much to say about our pandemic is because I have been putting my faith in the experts, to a much greater degree than I normally do. From the beginning, my girlfriend was paying far more attention than I was and was more informed. And …
A Journal of the Pandemic Year: Day 36
The WHO declared coronavirus a pandemic on March 11th. On March 12th my province extended the upcoming March Break for an additional week. On March 14th, my country recommended against international travel. On March 17th, my province declared a State of Emergency. (The day before, my girlfriend’s office instructed them to work from home.) On …
Born On Second
I was born on second but I don’t think I got a double. I have had an extraordinarily privileged and lucky life. It is my hope, by exposing my privilege, I help others like me see how lucky they’ve been.
Riley Goes to North Carolina Day 4: Charlotte Monday March 2, 2020
We had a lazy morning this morning, because we didn’t really have any fixed plans this day. Eventually we packed, checked out, got the hotel to store our luggage and walked back to near the stadium.
Riley Goes to North Carolina Day 3: Asheville to Charlotte Sunday March 1, 2020
We had to get up early because the car was due back 48 hours from when we rented it, which meant we had to drive from Asheville to Charlotte before noon.
Riley Goes to North Carolina Day 2: Asheville Saturday February 29, 2020
We had big plans for this morning. Or rather, I should say, I had big plans. To go hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I had looked up a bunch of “winter” hikes, which would be accessible at any time of the year. The night before our shuttle driver recommended heading up to Mount Mitchell …
Riley Goes to North Carolina Day 1: Charlotte to Asheville, February 28, 2020
We went to Asheville, North Carolina this weekend. A lot of people, both in Toronto and in North Carolina, have asked me why. My answer is usually “beer”.
Why I Went From Libertarian to Left Wing
In High School, I was a fascist.
On Trying to Publish My Fourth Book
I published my first book in 2011. I worked for five years on it and made a lot of stupid decisions, particularly with regard to the publisher. But in the next couple years I pumped out two other books, on some kind of crazy roll. All three were basically self-published, though my first book was …
Riley Goes to Vietnam
So I’ve been in Vietnam (and Cambodia) for the past three weeks. It was my first trip to that part of the world and basically my first time in Asia if you don’t count Asia Minor.
Riley Returns From Vietnam Day 21: Friday October 11, 2019 The Longest Day
In my mind, I had it that our flight was in the early afternoon. But it was in the morning. So we had to wake up early in Hanoi for the first time since we got to this hotel. It was a good thing because a large, inevitably noisy, Chinese family had joined us on …
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 20: Hanoi Thursday October 10, 2019
In addition to the buffet this morning I had some pho. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the best. My general experience with the Vietnamese food at these buffets is that it isn’t as good as on the street, but I was still very glad it was an option.
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 19: Hanoi Wednesday October 9, 2019
For some reason I wrote that breakfast wasn’t as good today. I think it must have been the non-buffet part of it. This might have been the day I ordered French Toast, which wasn’t good. (Also, no maple syrup or peanut butter. Sad face emoji.)
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 18: Hanoi Tuesday October 8, 2019
The hotel we were staying at in Hanoi was very, very nice, though perhaps not quite as nice as its “sister” hotel that we stayed at before the Ha Long cruise. But the one weird thing about it was that our room had no windows. Technically there was a window, but it was to an …
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 17: Ha Long Bay Monday October 7, 2019
The breakfast announcement had us up early again. The breakfast buffet was the one time the meals repeated.
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 16: Ha Long Bay Sunday October 16, 2019
I think this is as good a time as ever to mention that the A/C in hotels in Vietnam is totally insane. Each room has its own, just like here, only the temperature on the A/C appears to have no relation to the temperature in the room. (This was particularly true in the first hotel …