I am seeing colours here that I haven’t seen in any other place where I have lived, and I have lived in a lot of different places. Every morning and evening, the skies are so soft and pale that it looks as though Mother Nature threw water and Titanium White paint over her entire canvas. […]
A few days ago I noticed two ducks in the marina and I wondered what type of duck they were. Accordingly, I spent some time Googling “grey duck” and coming up empty. Yesterday, I decided to take some pictures and do a reverse image search. In the photos they look more brown than grey, so […]
I had assumed that the security panel at the front gate could be linked to my phone so that I could buzz people in. When I asked my landlord about it, he confessed to not knowing how it worked and then chatted with another resident who happened to be nearby about outdated names on the […]
When I moved in here on 10th, I thought I was being clever in arranging for the cable company to hook me up with TV and internet on the same day. I wasn’t clever enough, however, to realize that the technician would need access to the condo complex’s mechanical room. That requires a key that […]
White wine has helped to soften the rough edges of moving from Edmonton, Alberta to Nanaimo, British Columbia. It was one heck of a two-day journey. Actually to be fair, the scenery was magnificent, and the vehicles (a U-Haul truck and my aging car) performed brilliantly. The trouble we had was entirely down to Rogers […]
For the second time in a week, I am thankful for the kindness of strangers. A few days ago, I wrote about the good person at Jiffy Lube who checked the oil in my car, the fluid levels, and the tire pressures and who assured me that I didn’t need his services. In addition, he […]
We thought Roe v Wade was fixed in stone, but we were wrong. Clearly, it was only pencilled in. Today, though, I discovered something that does seem to be eternally fixed, and I doubt that even the US Supreme Court can change it. The Google logo and search bar are deliberately placed just slightly above […]
Any time that anyone mistreats, cheats, or defrauds one of my children, my momma bear claws come out. This week, Amazon turned me into a bear. My eldest son recently finished writing a novel. The work took over two years to complete and was created in the middle of the night on weekdays and during […]
This week I have been trying, multiple times, to change the address and phone number on my Bank of America account. You’d think that would be fairly straightforward, wouldn’t you? First I tried to make the changes online, but could not enter any edited data. So, I tried the chat line. The chat person was […]
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow was published in 2008 and, although it discusses computer technology that is now dated, it still has relevance today. It is a book intended for young adults and has teenaged characters who find ways to challenge and disrupt their dystopian world. Marcus is a tech-savvy seventeen-year-old who has figured out […]
I don’t usually promote products or services on this website, but today I am making an exception. After a recommendation from Judy at New England Garden and Thread a few weeks ago, I ordered a set of Yaktrax, and this week they have been the only reason I have been able to get out of […]
If you use Facebook at all, you will have seen some random questions occasionally. You have also, probably, answered a few of them. I once answered the question about how far I live from my birthplace, and the one about how many grandparents I can name. Mostly, though, I have resisted the temptation. These questions […]
Yesterday someone with my garage remote was accused of stealing packages from the mailroom in my condo building in San Jose. To say I was shocked and horrified is to understate my feelings when I got the email from the property management company. The email was quite terse and, I thought, unnecessarily accusatory. Here is […]
Recently I have been getting very frustrated with my phone and computer technology. They keep upgrading and making matters worse. I know you know what I mean. After every upgrade some key programs or settings get changed and it takes forever to figure out what happened. To add to my frustrations, I switched out my […]
Last week, I was idly looking for useful things to do when I opened the cupboard doors in my TV stand to see what I could clear out. (I’m experiencing a combination of Covid isolation and a late-life decluttering urge.) Inside the TV stand were some DVD’s that had been out of sight and out […]
I stopped using Facebook in March 2018 when I learned that Cambridge Analytica had hijacked information about all of our Facebook friends. I might never have reactivated my Facebook account if Covid-19 had not put us in quarantine. I missed being in touch with family and friends and so I reconnected in December 2020. My […]
Imagine for a moment that you are a seasoned solo traveller. You have been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, and you have pretty much figured out travel by road, air, and sometimes train. You also have a good handle on computer and cell phone technology so you can do […]
Yesterday I started out on a little adventure. I took a trip to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. “How lovely!” I hear you thinking. Well, it may be lovely eventually, but yesterday was a bit of an ordeal. My first flight took me from Edmonton to Vancouver, and then an hour after I landed there I […]
K and I enjoyed a nice walk in this new-to-me park today. As we approached the park we passed a golf driving range, a nordic skiing area, and a snowboarding park. Because of the season, the winter sport areas were not in use, but when we arrived at the parking lot for the Strathcona Science […]
Snowbird of Paradise 