Crow and mole

A European starling was making raucous comments at a crow.  The crow appeared to be pecking at something on the ground.  I figured that the crow had attacked a starling chick.  As I got closer I could see that it wasn't a chick.  It was a mole.  (I don't know why the starling was upset by a crow attacking a mole.)  As I got even closer, the crow decided that discretion was the better part of not having its meal taken away by a larger predator, picked up the mole, and flew off.

The Vancouver Sun and their amazing brain-dead customer support staff

Now, I know that newspapers are having a tough time of it in the information age.  And I will concede that, theoretically, it is important to have a free press in a democratic society, and that journalism is (again, theoretically) fulfilling an important function in society.

I'm not so sure that the Vancouver Sun (or the Province, for that matter) lives up to that lofty standard.  Part of the reason from my dissatisfaction is not their fault: Gloria used to read the paper, and I'd just read the funnies.  We'd discuss the news.  I read sources online.  We watched the TV news.  (Two versions.)  And discussed it.  I don't, anymore.

I didn't cancel the paper when Gloria died: we generally paid six months at a time.  But Friday was the end of the six months, and I figured six months is a good enough "trial period."  I read the paper every morning, but I hardly read anything in the paper.  Bad things are happening in the invasion of Ukraine.  Well, bad things have been happening for the past hundred days.  I don't need to pay $500 per year to be told that day after day, with no particularly insightful analysis of the situation, or fresh information about it.

I didn't want the carrier to be dinged for delivering extra papers that haven't been paid for (and aren't going to be) so I started, about a week ago, to try and call and tell them I wasn't continuing beyond the paid period.  Having had wretched customer service from the Sun in the past, I was not sanguine of success.

The first thing I learned is that they don't answer the phones, at all, outside of specified hours.

The second thing I learned is that there is no option to cancel outside of specified hours.

The third thing I learned is that they are allowed to call *you* outside of those hours and leave cryptic messages urging you to re-up.

The fourth thing I learned is that they are extremely short-staffed even during those specified hours.  There is a callback option: it is, of course, useless.

I finally got through to an actual person.  Who wanted to know why I wanted to cancel.

Me: Because your customer service is so terrible.

CSA: But why do you want to cancel?

Me: I'm paying $500 a year, and can never get service when I need it.

CSA: But why do you want to cancel?

Me: Because I can never get through your automated-phone-system-from-hell.

CSA: But why do you want to cancel?

Me: Because even when I get through to an actual person, they seem congenitally unable to understand simple English, and cannot deal with the simplest issue.

CSA: But why do you want to cancel?

So, I'm still getting the paper (even though I'm not paying for it), and still getting calls from customer service leaving cryptic messages on my answering machine.  I figure that's on them.

Situational awareness

He's a nice guy.  He's gentle, and he doesn't challenge what you say.  As a matter of fact, he doesn't really react to what you say.  His conversation is meandering, somewhat random, not controversial, and really doesn't seem to relate to anything that you contribute.

He doesn't seem to be aware of what you say.  Or any of the implications of what you say.  It's not challenging to talk to him, but it isn't really terribly fulfilling either.

In security we talk about situational awareness.  Particularly in terms of physical security or the military, this means being aware of your surroundings and, specifically, any dangers that may be in the environment.  It can be important.

A lot of people just aren't very situationally aware.  Not necessarily even of danger, just in terms of what people are saying, and what what they are saying might mean.  Sometimes situational awareness has to do with observing what's around you, sometimes it has to do with listening to the implications of what people say, and sometimes the way they say it. 

For example, she was giving us details and mentioned a transfer of money.  The way that she mentioned the transfer of money it indicated that this was an e-transfer.  An e-transfer meant that we had, or she had, an email address which could be followed up.  It was an important piece of information.  But only if you are aware of its importance.  And the way she talked about transferring the money.

People can be situational aware of one thing, and not of another.  You tend to be aware of things that you understand or have worked with.  But with things that you don't understand, or haven't studied, you may not be aware of the implications that are implied by their existence.  Gloria was always very aware of social interactions and particularly tensions between individuals in a group.  I never have been.  I have my own aspects of situation awareness, but interpersonal tensions definitely is not one of them.

Grief fraud

Consider the case of Robert Slade.  His wife, Gloria, has died recently, and while the circumstances are not mysterious, there are still questions to be answered.  Gloria was not in great health, but none of her medical conditions were in any way life-threatening.  Up until she died.

Now, someone has contacted EARLUG, which Rob attends regularly, albeit virtually.  The EARLUG people provided this person with Rob's contact information.  Rob has now received multiple phone calls from someone who claims to have insider knowledge of Gloria's death.

This person identifies himself as being the purchasing manager for the ICU at Lions Gate Hospital.  He says that he was on extended family leave, and therefore unable to speak until now.  He has only just become aware of some of the circumstances of Gloria's death.  Such as the fact that hospital administrators on the day on which Rob was unable to visit Gloria, withdrew all nursing care from Gloria for that time period.

All of this seems very strange.

As we approach, you notice a sign up ahead.  It reads "You are entering the Fraudster Zone."

Okay, it's not me.  But the circumstances of Gloria's death (and my associated grief) are so similar that I can use them to protect the identity of the actual family that is the victim of an attempted fraud.  (I did not expect, when I went to Bible Study, to spend three hours on the edges of what probably will turn out to be the beginning stages of a fraud investigation.)

The situations are alike enough that I fully understand what the family is going through.  I also, by way of being one of the professionally paranoid, understand the social engineering techniques that the fraudster is using to try and attack the family. 

As I say, the circumstances are fairly similar. The family has had a death.  The death is not particularly mysterious, and there is, in fact, no evidence of foul play.  However, the family has not been given full information, and is unhappy with the conduct of the case. 

They have now been contacted, via a rather circuitous route, by someone who claims to know exactly what happened to their family member surrounding the circumstances of the death. 

As with Gloria, not all the circumstances of the death are known.  In Gloria's case no autopsy was performed.  I understand that cytology and oncology reports have been done, but I have seen neither.  I could, therefore, suspect that something untoward might have been happening or being covered up.  I don't.  But not all the questions have been answered, and I fully understand the family's desire to know the circumstances of their loved ones death, I share that desire to know.

When your loved one dies, you want to understand.  You want to understand all the circumstances, particularly if the death is sudden.  Sometimes you want to know who to blame.  Sometimes you simply want to understand the progress of the death and whether your loved one was in pain or discomfort during the period leading up to the actual demise.  You want to know.  And if someone comes along claiming to have knowledge, and the ability to explain to you the circumstances of the death, you are really inclined to take them up on it.

This family is not completely happy with the investigation of their loved ones death.  I am not completely happy with the information I have been provided from the hospital as to Gloria's death.  However, in neither case is there any evidence of any wrongdoing (other than the continued operation of a cell phone belonging to the victim, which is probably simply the result of a completely unrelated, and opportunistic, purloining).  This still means that you wish to know. And therefore, you are in a position of vulnerability for anyone who claims that they have knowledge that they could give you.

I am not sure what the fraudster in this case wishes to accomplish.  It may simply be some kind of financial reward for providing the information.  It may be some other more complicated plan.  It doesn't really matter: the social engineering involved is pretty similar.

The informant, in this case, claims to be in a position of some authority.  The person also claims to have a reasonable excuse for absence from the scene, in order to explain why they have not contacted the family up until now.  They also claim that the authorities are involved, at some level, in a conspiracy in regard to the death.  This of course is very common in many frauds to prevent the victim from going to the authorities for either assistance, clarification, or to report a fraud.

The fraudster engaged in some rather interesting provision of contact information.  Two phone numbers were provided.  One number was to be used for telephone calls.  The other was to be used for WhatsApp conversations.  The inclusion of WhatsApp is interesting.  Subsequent to Gloria's death, I reassigned the number on Gloria's phone and found that WhatsApp continued to receive messages from original groups set up prior to Gloria's death and using her original phone number, but also received messages to the same groups from the same people when the new number was used.  WhatsApp has some intriguing addressing going on.

In addition we did some searching on the phone numbers provided.  One number seems to have been registered in the Cayman Islands.  And, of course, we all know how much fraud there is associated with the Cayman Islands.  The other number popped up some rather interesting results, indicating a connection to Russian criminals.  In any case, the fraudster was pretty clearly identified as such by the use of these numbers.  In addition, the fraudster's story of both his own position in relation to personnel associated with the death, and the conspiracy that was supposedly associated with the death, are fairly clearly, and demonstrably, untrue.  However, they are not completely improbable and, for someone who was not a professional paranoid, no one would think to check that these situations were questionable.

I do not know how the fraudster obtained information about the family.  I do have some suspicions, given some of the mistakes that the fraudster made in identifying the family.  The fraudster initially contacted someone in a place where the family had been, but no longer resided.  When the fraudster then contacted the family directly, the fraudster did claim to be local to the area.  (This seems to be an attempt to appear trustworthy due to proximity.)  Although not too terribly local.  No really detailed information was provided.  In any case the phone numbers provided definitely did not match the supposed location of the fraudster.

I do not know how much information above the actual death the fraudster had, although I'm sure that information was not difficult to come by.  (Probably a basic newspaper obituary would provide most details.)  However, I am reasonably certain that the family did, unwittingly, provide information to the fraudster on specific details of the death, and their unhappiness with the investigation.  The fraudster of course, used this further information to refine their social engineering approach to the family.  (I hope that I wouldn't be gullible enough to betray information to a fraudster, but, being a bereaved widower and therefore having questionable judgment in any case, as well as being sleep deprived, and therefore having my judgment denigrated even further. It is likely that I might provide such information. It certainly would not be beyond the bounds of possibility.)

As I said, I was involved only peripherally.  Hopefully I provided some advice in the situation, and hopefully helped the family to come to a decision.  In the end, the decision seems to have been to turn to the police, and not engage the fraudster anymore.  I believe this to be the correct decision.  But I understand the difficulty in coming to that decision.

CanSecWest

Last week I attended, and spoke at, CanSecWest.

On the one hand, it was an absolute blast speaking to a room that was, well, not completely full, but at least had some people in it!  CanSecWest is always thought-provoking, although sometimes in ways that were not intended by the presenters.

On the other hand, as a speaker, it had moments of sheer terror.  "Flying by the seat of their pants" gives the organizers *WAY* too much credit for advance planning.  Dragos likes to try new things.  He obviously felt that he had invented the "fully hybrid" model of having both on-site and online participants, and to try and integrate the two, and it was like taking a balloon away from a kid to have to tell him, "no, we did that thirty seven years ago."  (The technology was a little different back then.)

When something goes wrong, Dragos' reaction is not to fix what is wrong, but to throw yet *another* new and untried technology at it.  So, as a speaker, you are never sure what is going to happen.  The first day started late, and got later as time went on.  Since I was speaking late in the day, this did not bode well for my being able to finish on time and meet (as pre-arranged) Number One GrandDaughter after she got off work.  Two minutes before I was due to speak, as I was setting up in the alternate room, I was told, no, I was speaking in the main room, and would (which they had previously told me I wouldn't) also be speaking to the online audience.

Because of recent developments, I had to add some slides that referenced Gloria.  I had done a longer version at BSidesVancouver, and had practiced it subsequently, so I thought I wouldn't have a problem.  However, possibly due to the emotional hit from encountering the newest church, I almost lost it.  Twice.  But I did get through.

In the end, without any warning, they also cut my time from two hours to an hour and a half, so that meant I did have time to get to the rendezvous with my granddaughter.

As I say, the conference tends to prompt a lot of ideas.  So, any time the presentations weren't too stellar (and they had a *lot* of boring talks on Thursday), I would head off and walk up and down the halls of the conference area, using their wifi to dictate notes, thoughts, paragraphs, and whole sections of papers and ideas to myself.  I've got about thirty email messages that I still have to re-read, edit, collate, expand, develop, or research.  (Probably next week, because this week has turned out to be suddenly and surprisingly busy as well.)  I could do this without bothering people, because there weren't any other conferences going, so there weren't a lot of people around.  I suspect I might have walked a few miles that way ...

Faith

Faith from the Garden of Patience?

Patience from the Garden of Faith?

(Is there a difference?)

As you get older, sometimes you mellow out.  You realize that many of the things that you thought were important, aren't that important.  You take things easier.  You don't sweat the small stuff, and you realize, more and more, that it's all small stuff.  So, you're more mellow about delays and interruptions.  You're more patient.

Then again, as you age, sometimes you realize that you haven't got much time left.  The things you want to get done, or get started, or pass along; important things; aren't going to get done, or started, or passed along, if you don't get a move on, and right *NOW*.  Any delay may mean that this thing *won't* get done, because you may not be around to do it, if it can't be done immediately.  You're less patient.

I was Gloria's caregiver for at least seven years.  (Security was almost becoming just a hobby.)  So, when she died, I lost my job as well as my best friend.  (And my home.)  However, almost immediately, a work colleague (I have mentioned, haven't I, that it's turned out to be my work colleagues who have been more helpful than most of my supposed close friends?) said that this was an opportunity to "reinvent" myself.  Of course, my immediate reaction was that I didn't *want* the opportunity, thanks, but I also knew what he meant.  I could sit around and mope about my loss, or I could get on with it.  Whatever "it" was.  I've always been in favour of getting on with it.  (But we can go into that another time.)

So, I've got new projects.  There's the grief guys.  But then, that's on pause.

There's the idea of societal misbehaviour (I've got to find a better term for that: it seems so innocuous) and pandemic grief

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2022/03/societal-grief-and-misbehaviour.html

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2022/04/societal-misbehaviour-and-pandemic.html

and another work colleague suggested two new papers that are new developments or outgrowths from that concept.  And then, at a conference, someone who who attended my presentation saw it in a completely different way than I did, and wants me to mount a very ambitious project that I didn't think had much chance of going forward.  (But a colleague suggested that this might be the right time, so ...)  But where am I going to get the time to do all of these projects?  And the resources?

As I mentioned, when you lose someone, you lose a lot of "relationship" as well.  You lose friends.  You lose social contact.  You lose social circles.  So, I'm trying to rebuild mine.  So far without a whole lot of notable success.

I've made two attempts to find a new church.  So far *that* hasn't worked out too well.  Neither of them, while there are fine people in them, haven't been a home.  A third has shown some promise, but some downsides as well.  We'll see, but, for now, I can't see that I've been successful at that, either.

Why am I gardening?  (No, stick with me; this isn't changing the topic; I'll tie all this together eventually.)  As my baby brother says, Mom taught us to hate gardening.  And it seems to be emotionally dangerous.  And yet I need to do it.  And I don't understand that need.  (The grief counsellors all say I don't *need* to understand it, but then they are all intuitive, and I'm a guy, and I'm instrumental, and I'm cognitive, and I need to understand.)  (Which is also going to tie in.)  I've had some minor successes.  But more failures.  (Although, as I say, even though it's hard to understand why I'm gardening, it's easy to figure out why I'm doing five gardens ...)

And then I had a couple of *REAL* gardening failures!

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2022/04/squirrels.html

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2022/04/death-to-squirrels.html

(And another.)

And another garden failure.

But maybe the reason that I so desperately need to garden (and that's not the only indication of an emotional need in regard to gardening), is that God is teaching me patience.  I *can* be patient.  With things I understand.  But God seems to be teaching me to be more patient with things I don't understand (which is very hard for me).  I don't know why I need to learn patience.  After all, I don't have much more time to be patient *with*.  (And I wouldn't think I would need to be particularly patient in eternity: that seems kind of a contradiction in terms.)  But I guess I have to trust.  And have faith.

At this new church, it's liturgical, which isn't exactly new to me, but it's different than most of the churches I've attended.  But the first time I attended, a lot of the liturgy really hit close to home.  Including the "confession" (of guilt, not faith).  That first Sunday it spoke of not having enough faith in God, and doubting.  So, maybe my impatience is doubt, and a failure of faith.  And, given what I have seen in terms of long term developments in my life, which initially seemed to be failures, I should trust God more in terms of things I do not currently understand.  I don't need to understand.  I just need to have faith that all things work together for good ...  (But we'll cover that another time ...)

The broad beans are doing pretty well in one garden, and at least showing in three more, which, since they were Gloria's favourite, seems a kind of grace.  And some of the stuff that I thought had completely failed is actually starting to sprout and grow.  (I'm still covering new shoots with clear Tim Horton's cups that I "harvest" on my garbage walks, but I'm even learning how to transplant tomatoes grown from seed.)  So maybe the gardens are working to prove to me that just because it doesn't look like it's working out at first, doesn't mean God can't make it work in the end ...

Of course, that still doesn't make it any easier to figure out *which* of these projects I am supposed to be patient and persistent about ...

(Or, maybe I'm reading *way* too much into some random events, and going off the theological deep end ...)

Radishes

I have been harvesting my radishes.  Selectively.  I'm trying to harvest the largest radishes first.  I've noticed that I can't really tell, from the foliage, what size of radish is underneath it.  Some of the radishes have great huge swathes of leaves, but produce a very ordinary size radish.  Others, with much smaller numbers and sizes of leaves, produce very large radishes.  I find this very interesting.  I don't really know what it means.

Review of Wendy's at Scott and 94th

I must admit that I really only even approached the place because I was testing out wifi.  (The wifi signal strength is low enough that you can't even detect it from outside.  Once inside, I didn't even bother to try to log on, so I have no idea how the wifi service is.)

As I approached, I saw a very large poster stating "Free Coffee" with the word "NEW" is slightly smaller letters running sideways beside the "Free Coffee."  Is this a new policy in the chain?  Is the coffee now always free?  Are they giving away free coffee to promote a new coffee blend?  So I went in.

There were only two people ahead of me in the line.  However, since it took fully seventeen minutes to deal with those two orders, I had ample time to observe what is possibly the second worst run fast food joint I have ever seen.  (And that's saying something.)

First off, it's got both a lobby and a "drive-thru."  The drive-thru obviously gets first priority.  However, that doesn't fully explain the slow service, since I didn't see that many cars whizzing through the drive-thru.

There were at least a half dozen staff in the kitchen area.  Most seemed to be concentrated in one area, making and wrapping food items.  They were so closely packed in that area, that they often seemed to be in each others way.  Sometimes the front counter cashier was called to provide drinks for the orders that were being prepared.  That meant that she had to fight her way through the pack who were packing food, get the drinks, and then fight her way back to the area where the food orders were being assembled.  All of that time, of course, the front counter was unmanned, and no orders were being taken.

When I finally got to the counter, and was acknowledged, I asked about the "free coffee" poster.  She had no idea about it, and had to go and ask a supervisor.  From what I could overhear, the coffee is free this week.  (I don't know if that's this week just ending, although I assume if it had been going on all week long, the staff would have been more aware of it.  But maybe Wendy's is just trying to keep its patrons in ignorance of the promotion.)  So I asked for a coffee, with cream and sugar.  This occasioned quite a production.  First off, the counterperson had to check with the supervisor as to whether sugar was measured with the spoon.  Then a cream container was examined with horror.  Apparently it was empty, and the counterperson, open having made the supervisor aware of this fact, was directed to a fridge under the area where the food assembly was taking place.  Having looked in the fridge, there was more discussion with the supervisor, who then came and told me that they had no cream, but they had milk.  I said milk was OK.  After a few minutes more, I had a cup of coffee.  (It was OK.  Nothing special.)

TransLink, again

OK, we've been waiting for the 301 for 40 minutes. Just checked the next bus text service, and the next isn't for another 20 minutes, which means a) it will have been an hour, and b) it'll be extra fare time again.

But the really galling thing is that the next bus is *4* minutes after that! How much sense does that make?

Jeans calculus

So, another attempt at new jeans.  I have been to Talize again, and, using the gift card credit that they gave me, and paying an extra $4, I have got yet another pair of jeans.  This time I avoided lined pants.  The jeans that I got are, actually, the same brand and style as the jeans that I have been wearing.  The two pair that I have cost me $1 each because they were the end of the line.  So I don't know where these relatively new looking jeans of the same variety come from.

I am going to wash them before I wear them.  However, this time, on recommendation from Number One Daughter, I am going to wash them *before* I have them hemmed. 

It's interesting to note how much they are.  I paid $16 for the others.  Now I've paid an additional $4.  Then there was the $25 for the *original* hemming.  So in total, it's come to between 40 and $50.  The jeans actually looked to be in pretty good shape, if they survive the washing.  They look relatively new.  So if this works out I'll have a new pair of jeans for slightly less than the cost of retail.  But then, I have to pay for the *actual* hemming of these ones, so ...

People unclear on the concept (masks division)

So, this guy has two masks, obviously for greater safety.

One was narrowly folded, so that just his nose was covered.

The other, folded more broadly, covered the whole area between his chin and his throat.

Both leaving his mouth completely uncovered ...

[Sigh ...]

E-Service Canada

Service Canada has some actual, physical, offices.

Service Canada offices are pretty packed right now.  Mostly with people trying to do passport renewals.  The fact that they couldn't guess this and make some provision for passport renewals that doesn't block the rest of us from getting at the rest of Canada's services is annoying.  Service Canada does have some ways around this.  You can go to the website where you can find lots of information.  Probably everything except what you actually want to know.  The service Canada website will not, for example, tell you how to deal with those situations where the government of Canada has made a mistake.  At that point you have to talk to a person.  An actual person.  And the service Canada people are very helpful.  If you can get a hold of them.

A friend of mine called Service Canada and was presented with the choice to sit on the phone.  When he selected that choice (to stay on hold) the system informed him that his wait time was 19 hours and 20 minutes (apparently 500 and something people were in line ahead of him).  Since the Service Canada offices are only open for eight hours obviously he was not going to get to talk to anybody.

So there's the callback system.  Now, to get the call back system you don't call them.  The callback system isn't allowed as an option when you call Service Canada.  No, what you have to do is go to the Website.  On the Website if you swear and aver that your problem falls into certain categories then you can get somebody to call you back.

The system says it will call you back within two business days.  I selected this option on the website and gave them my home phone number.  A week and a half later they called while I was out.  And then the next day they called again while I was out, and informed me that this was the second attempt, so they were giving up.  So I set up a callback again.  This time I gave them my cell phone number.

And they called back some days later.  Of course, they don't say that they're calling from the government.  They call from a "private number," with caller ID blocked, like any self-respecting spammer or fraudster.  (You'd think they could at least fake the Caller-ID, like any self-respecting scammer or fraudster, so that it shows the Service Canada number.  Even I, and I'm not a phone phreak, know at least four different ways to do this.  But no.)  So of course I didn't realize it was the government until I found the two voice messages saying that they had called twice and now they were giving up.  So I set up a callback again, and, again, gave them my cell phone number.

This time they called back within two weeks.  They called back as I was just pulling out of the parking lot of my storage locker having opened the storage locker where my dead wife's quilting and embroidery stuff is packed in boxes.  (I had had to go and look at all of this stuff to prepare for getting rid of it.)

So now service Canada wants to talk about my issue, more than a month after I first tried to contact them.  I'm not at home; I don't have the two contradictory letters that they sent me that I want to resolve.  I give them a general gist of what the letters entail but of course I can't give them details (like how do I explain  and fill out the details of my wife's life who is now dead).  And why am I filling out these details, anyway?

So I tried my best, and the government service Canada person tried her best, but ultimately this is a very unsatisfying connection.

Pine mushrooms?

There has been a HUGE crop of one particular type of mushroom on the (large) patio area.  Because of one characteristic as they are dying, it tickled in the back of my mind that these are edible.  There is a new book on "Mushrooms of British Columbia" out.  Of the FOUR library systems I have access to, I have, today, FINALLY, been able to reserve ONE (1) that I might get access to reasonably soon.

Unfortunately, either today or yesterday was the day that the landscapers decided that they don't like the mushrooms, mowed the lawn, and rooted out all the large specimens.  Fortunately, I was able to gather some smaller ones that they missed.  I've now planted them in my patio area, under other bushes.

So, finally I *did* get "Mushrooms of British Columbia," and it's a *wonderful* book, and I may have to get a copy.  (Any bookstores in Delta?  Yeah, I know, "Amazon."  Philistines.)  And, on my first run through, it seems that what I have been seeing in the lawn and garden, and what the landscapers mowed down, were pine mushrooms.  Selling for $95 per kilogram.  I figure the landscapers mowed down or rooted up at least two grand worth ...

So, I may have pine mushrooms, and a nice little cash crop, in my patio garden.  Or, they might be amanitas.  In which case I'll feed them to the squirrels ...

(After a bit more research, they don't seem to be pine mushrooms, but Shaggy Mane, aka White Inky Cap.  Apparently still a very choice mushroom.)

Review of The Buffet at Starlight Casino

The Buffet at the Starlight Casino has reopened. There are some teething pains.  There was a lineup when I went in shortly after opening time.  There weren't too many people in line, but it took an inordinate amount of time to clear that number of guests into the restaurant.  I know that there are teething pains with any reopening, and I know that there are special consideration for a restaurant in a casino, but still, it seems an odd thing not to have addressed in advance.

The casino does give discounts to their Elite guests.  I'm not sure whether this means guests who have lost a lot of money, or guests who have paid for the elite privilege.  There were some people who obviously felt that they deserved Elite status, and didn't get it.  There were also people who didn't understand the directions given by the hostess.  (To be fair to them, her directions weren't every clear.)

One thing that I found rather surprising was how many tables in the seating space are reserved.  Reserved for whom is not clear.

Of the seating that *is* available, the booths around the outside of the restaurant were heavily favored for occupancy.  I suppose if you're going to be in a casino everything that you do is just a little bit "under the table."

There are signs around the casino that say you should understand how the games that you are playing operate.  The same could be said of the buffet.  For example the omelette station, which makes omelettes to order, isn't the usual kind that one finds in a brunch buffet.  You do not, for example, tell the chef what you want, and then wait for your omelette.  No, you write down what you would like on an omelette on a slip of paper which is in a little holder at your table.  You then give this paper to one of the serving staff.  (Why you have so many serving staff around a buffet is another mystery.)  The serving staff take your omelette order, give it to the chef, and sometimes later your omelette is delivered to your table. That is, if you put the correct table number on your slip.

As you enter the restaurant you would expect that the beginning of the buffet is where you would start to load your plate.  The beginning of this buffet is the dessert section.  The desserts consist of various cakes, a tray of cream puffs, a few slices of fruit, and a number of tubs of either Jell-O, rice pudding, or taro pudding.

This is followed by the section of the buffet where you can pick up plates and cutlery.  How you were supposed to collect your dessert I don't know.  Well actually I do know: you go back for it later.

Then there is the salad section.  Salads is followed by soups.  After the soups there are what might be considered main courses.  There are mostly Asian dishes in this category.  This section is then followed by breakfast foods, which include pancakes, hash brown potatoes, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, and beef stew.

It's more than just the payment to get into the restaurant that needs a little work.  The pump for syrup for the pancakes which is situated immediately after is pretty much non-functional.  If you pump it hard and slowly you might get a teaspoon of syrup out of the dispenser.

Overall this buffet is barely a cut above what you would find for breakfast in any standard motel that serves more than a continental breakfast.  The range is not extensive and the quality is not fantastic.  Honestly you can get pretty much equivalent quality of food and variety from uncle Willy's.

The quality is not bad and the price isn't excessive given that it is an all-you-can-eat buffet.  Quite possibly the quality and range of the foods are significantly increased for the regular buffet.  The brunch buffet is only on Sunday and only from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM.

Translink

I've been trying to use transit more.  I always did use it to go downtown, but now I am trying even harder to avoid using the car.

I have a Compass card.  It seems to work just fine.  It's reasonably convenient, although I still have to figure out where to have it to ensure it's available when I need it.

But one thing still bugs me.  The 90 minute time limit on trips.

The thing is, I've got a lot of trips between North Van and Delta.  A lot of them involve the 301, Canada Line, and 240.  Going north doesn't seem to be a problem.  But an awful lot of the time, going south, I have to pay a second fare by the time I get off the Canada Line and get onto the 301.  (It's still cheaper than taking the car, but it's annoying all the same.)

The *really* galling thing is, it's really close to that 90 minute time limit when I get off the Canada Line.  And, if the 301 was there, I'd probably make it.  But very often the 301 *isn't* there at the stop.  And, by the time it finally shows up, you guessed it!  Second fare time!  (A couple of days ago I raced to the 301 stop, only to see the back end of the previous 301 disappearing around the corner as it left.  And, of course, it was quite a while before the next 301 showed up, and ...)

(To make things even worse, yesterday it wasn't even the fact that the bus was late that caused the second charge.  The bus *did* pull in, with a minute or so to spare.  If we had been allowed to board at that point, it would have been covered under the original charge.  But no!  We had to change drivers!  And the new driver had to check the bus over, and make sure there were no dead bodies [I suppose] on board before he would let us on!  By which time, of course, the 90 minutes had expired, and, second fare ...)

Review of Gboard

 First of all, I have to say that this project has to do with getting some work done while I'm out on a walk. Therefore I need something that doesn't require a data connection.  With the price of data plans in Canada, I need to restrict my use of data.  One of my phones does have a data plan, but it's quite minimal, and the other has no data plan at all.  So I can only do data when in a Wi-Fi area or hotspot, which is generally not when I'm out walking.

In any case, this is a review of Gboard from Google.  But, as usual, I'm hacking the system, and trying to make it do things it was probably never intended for.  (I've been recommended to use the Otter program by a friend, but that program, I am quite sure, does require the use of data.  I hope to get around to testing it soon.)  However, the girls recommended that I do dictation on my phone.  I didn't think I had dictation capability on my phone.  But I found that one of the phones had Gboard installed on it. (I was rather surprised at this because most of the time the phones are fairly identical.)  I tried Gboard, and found that there was a control for switching on dictation, and lo and behold I could do dictation!

My first test was in an area that had wifi.  However as I tried with the other phone (that didn't have a data plan) and walked away from the house, I did find that the dictation suddenly stopped.  And so Gboard does require a data connection and cannot be used completely on its own.  Like Siri, Alexa, and all the others of that ilk, it has to pass the verbal stream to a back end processor for extraction of the text.

I did try a test using wifi hotspots on one of my walks.  This worked out well in an urban area, where there are a lot of hot spots, but probably doesn't work quite so well walking over the Alex Fraser Bridge or along the greenway trails down to Mud Bay.

It is reasonably accurate in many cases, but it does get easily confused.  Sometimes it is easy to see how it decided on something.  If you don't know the specifics of the local "Deltassist" office, it is easy to understand why Gboard thought it might be "Delta cyst."  (Then again, it obviously figured out that I was in Delta, since it capitalized it.  So why doesn't it know about the office?  Although in another case is decided on "Delt assist."  Does Google think I'm a frat boy?)  I never did figure out why it decided on "recluse" instead of "reclose."  (Interestingly, Google lists Gboard as Gboard, but GBoard transcribes Gboard as "gboard.")  But in cases where you repeat material, say three or four times to make emphasis, Gboard will eliminate the multiple references.  In other cases it just simply gets confused and refuses to take down any dictation and text of anything.  Sometimes Gboard will, reasonably accurately, take down a phrase, and then suddenly decide that you didn't mean that, and delete the material it has just transcribed.  Most annoying of all is when it does this for three or four whole sentences, or even an entire paragraph, and then delete the whole thing, and you have to start again from scratch!

On this initial test I was primarily using Gboard to dictate messages into WhatsApp.  I was mostly doing quick texts into WhatsApp, or, at least, not very lengthy dictations.  Interestingly, on the Samsung Notes app, saying the command "new paragraph" generates a paragraph.  Sometimes.  (About half the time.)  Sometimes you just get the text "new paragraph" in the text.  (Pretty much always, in WhatsApp.)

Gboard doesn't seem to be able to handle more than about a minute at a time. Therefore short dictations into apps does seem to be its forte.

I did want to try dictating a longer piece, but didn't necessarily want to take time out from my walk to find a hotspot and sit and dictate for a while.  What I did was use the voice recorder to record, in several chunks, a piece of about ten minutes long.  This was an article on the choice of virtual platform for conferences.  The article dictation I then played from one phone to the other. This allowed me to test how long Google was actually able to listen and record dictation.

The effective length of any dictation did seem to last only about a minute.  I do not know if this is an actual limitation on the program, or if it is simply an issue of buffering.  The dictation did stop in many places.

There do seem to be some phrases that Gboard has a problem with.  Gboard will convert the phrase "most of the time the phones are pretty identical", but then immediately deletes it.  Every time.  Also the phrase "one of the phones had gboard installed on it."  I don't know if I'm just getting paranoid, but Gboard seems to refuse to take down any text that is a reference to Google or its products in less than glowing terms.  With the voice recorded piece I would play and replay the section that was problematic, and Google would still not take down the text of the dictation.  Gboard has problems with any phrase containing the word "buffering" which is *EXTREMELY* interesting.  Sometimes Gboard simply stops transcribing your work.  In any case there can be large chunks of the text that Google misses.  (Gboard is definitely *NOT* recommended for the visually impaired: you *must* check what it takes down.)

Background noise *can* be an issue.  I dictated the piece about virtual platforms for conferences while I was walking by a major intersection on Nordel Way.  Even so, Gboard was able to transcribe that section fairly well.  In a later test, transcribing a voice recording at home while filling a tub, traffic noise was not problem, but water filling a bathtub was.  However, another test, voice recorded while walking along the approaches to the Alex Fraser Bridge, was impossible to transcribe, so, at some point, traffic noise can be a problem.

Dinged?

So, I posted what I thought was a bit of a joke (albeit maybe a dark one) about being pathetically lonely following bereavement.

https://twitter.com/rslade/status/1522345541522235392

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2022/05/ding.html

https://www.facebook.com/rslade/posts/10160304212242853?notif_id=1651913627430909

And posted it various places, including Facebook.

Facebook has decided that either I am trying to raise money, or that I need to raise money.  (Facebook, being obsessed with money?  I think I'll have a heart attack and die from *NOT* being surprised.)  Facebook has somehow flagged my post with a suggestion that I ask my "community" for "support," that is, money.  They even include a link to a page that will help you create "a fundraiser on Facebook in a few quick steps."  (The page opens with a grid of 15 options for different categories of fundraisers, including "Other.")

I mean, I understand that you have zero privacy on Facebook.  I understand that Facebook considers everything you post there to be Facebook's property.  I understand that they have programs that automatically read, categorize, and harvest everything you post.  But, somehow, this seems more than vaguely creepy.  I assume that Facebook is, somehow, going to monetize (for themselves) any funding that anyone does raise using Facebook.  (I don't know those business models, but I assume that, at the very least, any money they raise for *anyone* helps them sell themselves as a fundraising vehicle to major charities.)  But flagging (I assume) the word "bereaved" and then tying it to a pitch to raise money just seems a bit beyond the pale.  Facebook is trying to capitalize on my (and others') grief.

Sunflowers

Something there is in Delta that does not love a sunflower.

Or loves it too much, perchance?

I have planted sunflowers in the patio garden.  I have planted sunflowers in the pot garden.  I have planted sunflowers in L's community garden.  I have planted sunflowers in the church raised beds garden.

I have seen shoots.  Briefly.

I'm pretty sure something is picking and eating them.  "Eating" because, unlike the corn, there is nothing left behind.  "Picking" because I don't even find stalks left behind.

I planted at least thirty sunflower seeds in the church garden.  I'm pretty sure I saw one shoot there, once.  (Actually, some time after I first wrote this, I *did* find some more sunflower shoots, so I guess they were just *really* delayed.  I've covered them.  I should keep checking, to see if others are coming up even later ...)

I've germinated sunflowers inside, hoping to get them to a big enough size that whatever was attacking them wouldn't.  They get to six inches (15 cm) pretty quickly, and are pretty weak and spindly, so I planted the roots quite deep.  And still something ate them.

So, now, I've started to cover them.  With clear plastic containers out of the recycling bins.  Berry containers.  Salad containers.  Bottles with the tops cut off.

I've seen evidence that something is trying to get at the plants and has pushed the containers around, but so far they haven't eaten anything that I've covered.

My money's on the squirrels.

And I hope the little %x&&@#$ starve ...

Daily paper?

The bill for the Vancouver Sun came yesterday.

I haven't decided what to do about it, but my strong inclination, right now, is to drop it.

Gloria read the paper.  Every day.  I read the news from online sources.  Then we'd discuss the news, and add bits other other hadn't heard, or that other sources hadn't covered particular details of.  We'd also watch both Global's news, and The National.  (Both recorded, of course, so that we could stop and discuss bits of them.)

I started out recording both Global's news, and The National.  I've stopped recording The National.  I'm still recording Global's news, but only because I want to watch "Satellite Debris" on Friday, and, *very* occasionally, the weather.  (To see how it might affect planning for my walks, or the garden.)

I read the paper every morning.  Or, at least, I skim the headlines.  I occasionally read something, but very seldom find anything I'm interested enough to read.  I read the comics.  But I can't recall the last time I found something there that was interesting enough to keep, or even recall.

So, is it worth $500 a year, for that?  I do use the paper to wrap my compost kitchen scraps in, to walk down to the garbage room, but I can get more than enough from the free local rag.  (In case I need more, there are always several copies left over at the end of the week when the new ones come.)

Like I say, I haven't completely made up my mind, but my inclination is to drop it ...

Reactions ...

So I first sent "Ding" to K&L.  *I* thought it was a joke.  On me.  A dark one, maybe, but I figured it was humorous that *I* was so pathetic as to be waiting, for someone, I didn't even know who, who *might* be going out the door I was going out of.  And who didn't, eventually, show up, but went somewhere else.

So, I thought it was a good joke, and posted it to Twitter.  And to the blog.

(Well, I *knew* nobody would read it on the blog.  Only four people read the blog.  I'm fairly sure I know who two of them are.  I have *no* idea who the other two are ...)

So, I was unprepared for the reaction.  I didn't think anyone *would* react.  At best, I thought it might merit a ":-)"

So, thank you for the hugs.  I appreciate them, and your concern.

Mother's Day

Grief, and the triggers, are weird.

Mother's Day (or Mothers Day, for the plural non-possessive, or Mothering Sunday, if you want to avoid the whole grammar thing altogether) was very difficult for me this year.  Why should Mother's Day be more difficult than Gloria's birthday?  As I say dates and days and anniversaries are not particularly important to me.

But Mother's Day was very hard for me this year.  I had to leave the church service.  It's difficult when you're crying and you don't want to disturb the other people who are rejoicing.  Its even more difficult when you're crying and everybody else who is rejoicing doesn't notice.

Why should it be Mother's Day be so hard this year? Why should Jann Arden's "Good Mother" be playing over and over again in my head?  Gloria *was* a good mother, of course.  Gloria loved her girls.  Gloria enjoyed Mother's Day, and she enjoyed it when the girls were able to come by, however briefly.  But Mother's Day, other than that, was not particularly important to us.

Why should it be Mother's Day?  Why wouldn't it have been Gloria's birthday?  I'm not grieving for my own mother who died earlier this year, so why should I be particularly grieving Gloria today? 

It was a weepy day.  I sent messages to the girls.  The grief group has been exchanging messages, and they have found it difficult today.  But I was having a weepy day before any of that happened.  And then why should I why should I get weepy in church?

Church should have been good.  After all, six shoots of corn have come up!  And, in addition, six of the sunflowers that I thought that I thought were lost forever have sprouted as well!  (I covered them all with plastic cups to try and keep the squirrels from doing them in.)  So with this victory in hand, why should I be crying in church?

When I had to leave my main church, I walked to my emergency backup church.  Even though the minister there was doing a sermon that was much more directly to do with Mother's Day, I was OK.  Thinking back on it, what seemed to set me off in my main church was all the mothers and daughters.  My emergency backup church gets all the kids out for Sunday school before the service starts, so nothing set me off, there.  Not even all the flowers for the mothers.

(I am old enough to remember when the flowers were colour coded.  You had a red flower if your mother was alive, and a white one if you mother was dead.  I saw one mother leave the service with her two girls, one carrying a white flower, and one a red.  Bit of a mixed message, there ...)

Grief alumni tea

The North Shore hospice has a tea, on a weekly basis, for those who have been through a grief group, or individual grief counseling.  I think this is a great idea.  Bereaved people need social contact.  They REALLY need social contact. 

It would be good for those who have been through grief counseling to meet together.  Even if they haven't been in a grief group, meeting other bereaved persons will help.  It will help to know that there are others who feel the same way.

I've seen this over and over again in grief groups.  Someone who has been having a rough time, will finally open up and admit it.  When they do, others will chime in about feeling the same way. The person who opened up will heave a vast sigh of relief to know that other people feel the same way, and that they are not crazy.

It's good to talk to other bereaved.  The grief counselors definitely mean well, and some of them are terrific professionals.  But many of them have their own opinions about what grief should be, or should look like, or how it should feel.  Having conversations with people who really are bereaved, and who do understand what it feels like, can sometimes be an awful lot better than having a grief counselor telling you, essentially, "no, you are not doing it right."

Those who are in the grief industry are generally kind, gentle, and sensitive.  Unfortunately, grief very definitely is not.  The bereaved are having trouble sleeping.  Their judgment is not at its best.  The bereaved are angry.  They are REALLY angry.  The bereaved are desperately lonely and definitely do not want to tell a grief counselor that he, she, or it has no idea what he, she, or it is talking about.  That's not the way to win friends and influence people, and the bereaved, being very lonely, definitely want to win friends and influence people.  So, in a sense they are not being honest.  Not honest about their anger, not honest about their pain, not honest about whether or not some newage psychobabble is helpful or not.

Of course there are dangers.  There is the danger of the anger.  There is the danger of the loneliness, and the danger of forming inappropriate attachments.  That is why it would be a very good idea for this kind of a group to be limited to those who have already had some grief counseling.  They would be alumni.  Alumni of all institutions have teas.  This could be the grief alumni tea.

Which got me thinking about tea.  I used to drink a lot of it.  I can't really drink it right now, except for orange pekoe, and then with a spoonful of sugar in it.  Otherwise it hurts my stomach. 

Which makes ordering it in stores difficult.  Ask for tea and they ask you what kind.  When you ask what they have, they start rhyming off all kinds of herbal teas, and Earl Grey, and if you're lucky somewhere in there the word pekoe or breakfast floats by.  (If it's a breakfast tea, it may be English Breakfast, or Irish Breakfast.  English Breakfast is lighter and weaker, and Irish Breakfast is stronger and darker.  Irish Breakfast is for those who want a dash of caffeine and some milk and sugar for nutrition before going off to work, and English Breakfast is for the refined palette that doesn't want any reality intruding on the morning.)  That is the indication that you can actually get tea at that place.

I used to be pretty good at determining what type of tea people served.  At a house where I lived while going to university, we had a bit of a game after dinner.  We had about 20 different kinds of tea and the person who made dinner would choose one, tear off the label, and put the pot on the table.  Then we'd all have a go at determining what it was. 

When that got too easy, the person who was making dinner would pick two different *kinds* of tea.  Even at that game we got pretty good.  (Except for one American student.  He was never really any good at it.  One time there was a mix of Lapsang Soochong and Darjeeling.  He thought it was a breakfast tea.)

Roe v Wade

Roe versus Wade will be analyzed by many pundits and editorials.

However, as the legal people say, prima facie, or on the face of it, the document overturning Roe v Wade is, itself, legally incorrect.  There is a principle in common law; and the US, federally at least, is a common law system; of precedent.  Precedent means that, once a decision has been rendered, it becomes part of the body of law and future decisions must take it into account.  Precedent is one of the means of ensuring stability and consistency in the legal system. It is an important factor in the significance of the rule of law.  It may be said to be one of the advantages of the Common Law legal system over Civil Law legal systems, since, under a Civil Law legal system, a given legislature may pass a new law, and make something that was legal a crime, or absolve someone of guilt since what they did is no longer criminal.

Roe v Wade is a Supreme Court decision.  Therefore it is a precedent.  I will leave others to debate whether there are other constitutional or mandatory human rights concepts that would require or denigrate Roe v Wade.  (Those concepts would have to be extremely strong and clear, and the five decade debate over Roe v Wade would seem to indicate that no such concept exists.)  But Roe v Wade is a legal decision.  It is a precedent.  Therefore at this point, to simply overturn it and say it was wrong, is, itself, legally wrong.

Ding!

It is difficult to understand how desperately, *pathetically* lonely bereaved people are, until you are heading out the main door, and find that you are waiting, because you hear the beeps indicating that the elevator is in operation, and you wait to see if someone else is going out the main door, just so that you can say hello to another human being.

(And then you find that the elevator was going down to the parking level anyways.)

Jeans (part 2)

In the first account I composed for you, Jeanophilus, I began to teach of all that you could do, and to save, in thrift stores.

I may also have mentioned that there was *no way* I was going to wear those jeans before I washed them.  So I washed them.

This was the result.

Now, I washed them, by themselves, in a tumble washer, the gentlest form of washing there is, besides hand-washing delicates.  And they fell apart.  I found this rather surprising, not to say startling.

I rather suspected that nobody was going to take any responsibility.  I was right.

I went back to Stitch World, who did the hemming.  (And, you will recall, charged me more for the hemming than I paid for the actual pants.)  They took no responsibility whatsoever.  None.  Zero.  Zilch.  Not a sausage.  They tried to blame me.  (For not noticing that the pants were damaged in the first place.  Which they weren't.  But, in any case, why didn't *they*,  when doing a close inspection for the hemming, notice anything untoward?)  They tried to blame my washer, or washing.  (Tumble washer, remember?)  They tried to blame Talize.  They wouldn't take any responsibility, they wouldn't repay anything, they wouldn't give a discount: nothing.

So, I went back to Talize.  Of the two, I would have expected Stitch World to take more responsibility, as a business.  Talize is a thrift store, and they are pretty cheap, and they make a big deal about being a charity, and their sales slips say all sales are final.  But they gave me my money back.  For the pants, not for the hemming.  And, not exactly my money back, but a gift card, so I have to spend it there anyway.  And they kept the pants, so I can't even go for the grunge look.

So, I'm out $26.25 for the hemming that I paid to Stitch World for ... nothing ...

Loss

It's amazing, when you lose someone, how many other things you lose that are unrelated to the loved one.  I have lost my wife, my best friend, my favourite conversationalist, and my administrative support.  But that was all Gloria.  (I also lost my home, but that was sort of incidental.)

I have lost my schedule.  Our days were pretty rigorously set by Gloria's medical and dietary needs.  A number of her medications had to be taken with meals, and a number of others had to be taken away when her stomach was empty. Therefore meal times could not vary much because that would mess with the medication schedule, and would cause other problems.

So, I no longer have set times for things on a daily basis.  I've *started* to develop some schedule to the week.  Wednesday has become "grief day."  The first grief group met on Wednesdays.  The current grief group meets on Wednesday.  A number of the appointments that I've had with brief counselors have been on Wednesday.  So it's grief day.  It's one of the anchors of the week.

Thursday is old guys coffee morning.  A number of old guys from my main church meet at one particular place, at a given time, on Thursday morning.  I've now added to that a small group Bible study at my emergency backup church, and there is just enough time to walk from the coffee place to the church.

So things are being added to my week.  For example Tuesdays, or at least every second Tuesday, is now the certified usual suspect group.  (If you are a usual suspect you know what that means, and if you aren't you have no business knowing what it means.)

However, overall there is no given structure on a daily basis. Which means that everything has to be immediate.  If something needs to be done, it needs to be done right now, because there is not a given time to which to put off a specific task.  Therefore, everything that must be done must be done right now.  Everything must be done immediately. Otherwise it doesn't get done.

I have lost reading.  I find this extremely strange. I have always read. I have always loved reading.  I have always loved the library.  I have always loved books.  Mostly fiction for recreation, but all kinds of books.  For years I reviewed technical literature.  I always had a book with me, in case I had to wait anywhere for anything.  I take books when I am traveling on transit.  I took books when I was traveling to teach.  I read voraciously.

Almost as soon as Gloria died I stopped reading altogether.  This was extremely strange.  I would have thought it was a comfort.  But no, it was a chore.

I am starting to read.  Somewhat.  A little bit at a time.  I am not reading: certainly not reading as much as I used to.  It used to take me perhaps three or four days to read a massive novel.  Now, a little guide to the Camino de Santiago, less than a centimeter thick, has been with me for two weeks.  I haven't finished it yet. It's not that I am not enjoying it.  But I'm definitely not needing to pick it up every time I sit down.

I have lost pretty much all of my friends. Not that they've turned against me or anything like that: no they just aren't around. Nobody is calling.  Nobody is talking.  It's not that I can't talk to them about Gloria.  It's that they are terrified I might talk about Gloria, or grief, or death.  They can't figure out what to say.  They can't figure out what to say to make it better.  Of course nothing will make it better.  But they can't stand that possibility and so nobody is calling.  Nobody is talking.  I have no friends.

Not listening

She's nice enough.  She's done lots of good in her life.  She's still doing good works, for all I can tell.  One thing she should definitely *not* do is grief counselling.

She does listen.  For bald facts.  Which she then has to re-interpret to fit her own world view.  Everything has to correspond to her idea of the world.  It's pretty hard to finish a story, because she is so eager to make the ending work out the way she wants it to.