Month: August 2024

Three years ago I left behind the life of telling people to turn it off, then turn it back on

August 27, 2021 was a pleasant summer day. I was on vacation–the last day of vacation, actually. I had started my stay-at-home vacation1No, I will not use the term “staycation” two weeks earlier, with my last day in the office being August 13. And yes, it was Friday the 13th (read the Wikipedia article to find out there is no consensus on how, exactly, Friday the 13th came to be considered unlucky), but there was no bad luck that day, just another 7.5 hours of working remotely, which I had been doing (with occasional trips to the office about once per week) for over 17 months as the first few waves of the pandemic swept across the world. Well, maybe there was some bad luck for the entire sum of humanity at that point, come to think of it.

August 27 was also my last day working at Langara College. I chose to leave before the busy fall semester would begin–which was also when the school would re-open to on-campus classes. Getting out before the busiest time of year seemed wise, wiser still since we were still in the middle of a full-blown pandemic and I remembered very clearly how crowded the halls of the college were.

When I look back on the time I spent there–a few months short of nine years–I have no ill will. I worked tech support. It was exactly what you’d think, maybe worse in some small ways. I started and ended in the same place, never advancing, though that was partly on me (I turned down a chance to move to a different team) and partly on management (in fact, when I returned from a three-month leave of absence in April 2021, the manager told me there was quite literally nothing for me, but they could help train me in other things that interested me. It was kind of bizarre, in retrospect (and it did play a not-insignificant part in my decision to leave). While I never advanced, I did assume more responsibilities and was probably well-positioned to take over the management position directly above me, had it opened up (it did not while I was there, though I did serve in a temporary capacity in the role from time to time).

The pandemic was a boon in a few ways, which I’ve mentioned here before:

  • Commute time when from a combined 2 hours and 24 minutes to 0 minutes.
  • This allowed me to get more sleep and more exercise. A literal win-win!
  • Not being around co-workers also meant I didn’t get sick. During that 17 months working remotely, I never caught a cold, the flu or even the sniffles. And I got in better shape, ate more sensibly, and lost weight.

But work-wise, the pandemic was not good. The co-op program, in which I oversaw two to four co-op students each semester, something I’d been doing for about two years, was shut down until January 2021. I reverted to being a regular tech and after just a few months, I was already burnt out. The co-op program resumed at the same time I went on my leave of absence (a coincidence) and was handed off to someone else. When I returned, it was made clear to me that I would not be overseeing the co-ops anymore, but never explained as such. This was really the main reason I chose to leave, the meeting with the manager was just confirmation that the decision was the right one.

That meeting happened in early April. I knew I wanted to quit, but I didn’t have a plan. I pondered and by June a plan had formed, so I then moved to when to leave. I was helping oversee the implementation of a new knowledge base and ticket system, which would critically go live while my manager was on his vacation, so I knew I needed to stay for that and to make sure everything was not on fire when he returned.

An unfortunate side effect of this is that he returned only two days before my effective last day, because I’d booked my annual vacation for the last two weeks of my employment. I still remember in Slack, he was catching up on email on August 11, and he typed something like “Oh” when he got to my letter of resignation (I thought I still had a copy of it, but can’t seem to find it. It was short, euphemistic and to the point). I couldn’t give him the full notice he deserved because he was on vacation and kids, never take your work on vacation and do not bug co-workers when they are on vacation, unless someone is going to die in the next hour otherwise.

He wished me well and gave me a gift card for free eats–which I used! I mean, I used it the next year. I’m never very quick at redeeming things.

I had an exit interview on that last day, the 27th. I was mostly guarded. I felt no need to rock the proverbial boat and really, it was mostly me–it had become clear that I was not happy where I was and management had assured me that nothing about where I was would change–so leaving was really just the logical thing to do.

And now, three years later, how do I feel about it?

It was absolutely the right thing to do. I still keep in touch with a few co-workers. I heard some nice things about me after I left, which made me feel good. I hear occasional gossip. I am not surprised that three years later, the service desk where I worked for so long is now be staffed by people I don’t know. The turnover is always highest there, because tech support never gets the treatment it deserves–not at Langara and, really, not anywhere else, either.

I don’t miss the commute, and I don’t miss the work at all. Like, not even a tiny little bit. I feel I was pretty good at what I did–I got positive feedback, people were always pleasant to me, and I genuinely enjoy helping others, but there has never been a time when I thought, “I miss doing that stuff.”

Well, a slight correction: I really liked working with the co-ops. The energy, the vibe, it was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed being a teacher or mentor of sorts, kind of like the dad desperately trying to be hip to the kids, and sometimes even pulling it off. A number of the co-ops went on to use me as a job reference, which is another one of those things that made me feel good.

In summary, the strongest feeling I have is actually no feeling at all. When I reflect on those years, from 2012 to 2021, I don’t have any kind of emotional response. It’s just a time in my life where I did work, got my fill, then left. I feel, for the amount of time I was there, that there should be more, but there isn’t. I guess that makes me a little sad, but it is what it is.

I end with two photos, the first the view from my cubicle, the second the campus at sunrise.

I have the same goat head mask.
Red sky in morning, tech support take warning (applies to every day).

Random quote: Stanley Kubrick on life

I came across this quote again today again, and it still resonates.

The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism – and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But, if he’s reasonably strong – and lucky – he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s elan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make them – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

— Stanley Kubrick

Walk 124: Extra run time

Brunette River: Showers imminent.

I am writing this a day late because I remembered that I hadn’t posted just as I was heading for bed, and bed won.

But! I normally run Mondays and still felt iffy on doing a full run again with The Knee. So I settled on a brisk walk-run to the turtle nesting area at Burnaby Lake and back.

The weather was gloomy, but mild–20C, with occasional light showers. It did not feel cold at all.

I walked to the lake, then detoured to the fountain, then immediately detoured again because apparently drinking water immediately kicked in my “Gotta go!” reflex. By this point I was well past the 4K mark, so I walked up the trail a bit to make it an even 5K before turning around and heading back.

Then, perhaps invigorated by the water (in my body and falling on me) when I hit the 6K mark on the river trail, I began to ran and ran two full km, each at the same pace of 5:39/km. I kept running through Lower Hume Park to finish out at 9 km total.

My right knee survived. The way I would describe the affected bits is a little tightness, not pain or achiness. So I think I’ll be OK (ho ho).

I’ll try a real run™ again on Wednesday. The weather is back to more summer-like now, but it should be cooler in the morning.

Stats:

Walk 124
Average pace: 8:09/km
Location: Brunette River trail/Burnaby Lake
Distance: 9:02 km
Time: 1:13:26
Weather: Clouds and light showers
Temp: 20°C
Humidity: 76%
Wind: light
BPM: 124
Weight: 166.8 pounds
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255
Total distance to date: 907 km

Flesh-coloured microphones bother me

You’ve seen them, usually when people are on stage in some kind of televised conference setting, sitting in comfy-looking chairs and chatting with each other while wearing wee boom mics that have flesh-coloured pieces of foam on the tips instead of the usual black. Like this one below, which I grabbed from a current Ars Technica article:

To me, it just makes it look like the person has a large skin growth either on or hovering weirdly just above their face. It’s unsettling. To me.

That is all.

Birding, August 25, 2024: Burning and the eye-level owl

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Centennial Beach (Delta), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Mostly sunny, 17-21°C

The Outing

A rare day of Sunday birding, in which traffic seemed a lot busier than expected. Maybe people just wanted to get out in the sun after a few days of not-so-sunny weather.

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

A sea of yellow and green extending to the distant shoreline.

We quickly determined that jackets would not be needed as we arrived at Reifel and doffed them, dooming ourselves to get sunburn later in the day. But we had birds to shoot!

There were a fair number of people here, many of them with telephoto lenses that build muscles. We started out and observed the water level at the London slough was higher than previous, but there was a wood duck there to pose for us. As it turned out, it was the only wood duck we saw at Reifel, the rest presumably hiding with the shovellers, pintails and other “non-migratory” species that seem to disappear in the off-season, anyway.

Goose drama and general goose misbehaviour seems to be on the rise. Maybe after the kids have grown, they just plain lose all parental instinct and revert to their feral, demonic ways. Basically, a lot of hoking, some hissing and lots of that freaky neck stuff and chasing other geese.

Barn swallows are still hanging out, but it could be that they have kids that are newly on the wing and have to wait a bit longer before they have the strength to migrate to their winter home. We haven’t seen tree swallows in some weeks.

Also on the rise, in a much more delightful way: chickadees! They were all over the place, reclaiming their empire and daring us to capture them in the few moments they paused. One of the central trails also saw us encountering warblers, including some yellow-rumped ones. To the surprise of everyone, I got a few decent shots.

In one of the main ponds we spotted a rarely-seen red-necked pharalope. The only bummer is that it was not very close. Shorebirds were in relative abundance in several ponds, though.

Along the East Dyke trail we came up to a massive group of people all looking off to the east. Nic observed that they couldn’t be looking at an owl because they were all gazing ahead at eye-level.

They were looking at an owl.

It was a great horned owl, sitting with its back mostly to us, at eye-level, but a safe distance away from the trail. We didn’t get great shots, but we did get very owly shots and some of its face when it turned its head a bit. I haven’t done the math, but based on how often we’ve seen owls here, it feels like there’s maybe a 10% chance of seeing one, so this was a rare opportunity. It was also impossible to miss, thanks to the giant throng of people looking at it.

We also saw the crane family, twice. The first time was on the other side of a pond, kind of far away. Boo. The next time was as we were leaving, near the parking lot. Much better. The two babbies now have youth-sized bodies and adult-sized legs, so they look jacked up and dorky, just like an awkward teen should. It was a nice cap to the visit.

And we were still not yet burnt.

Centennial Beach

The tide was high at Boundary Bay.

That changed at Centennial Beach. I actually thought about putting on sunblock, but decided to be stupid and got signed on my arms and neck, just like nature had planned. On the other hand, this meant it was sunny and we had good light to shoot in!

For a change of pace, the tide was in, so we had no vast mud flats to shoot. We checked the pond, but it is still an exclusive mallard club for now.

An obliging cowbird posed for us on one of the beach trails, though, and there were a fair number of shorebirds, too, ranging from one very agile killdeer, to yellowlegs, sandpipers and more.

Away from the beach, goldfinches kept themselves busy tormenting Nic, as is their duty. We saw no bunnies and no raptors, though, which was mildly disappointing.

With our flesh singed (Centennial Beach has essentially no cover, even in the treed areas), it was time to head to our last stop.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

Looking northwest from the pier at Piper Spit.

The big question here would be: Have any of the winter migrants returned? And the answer was yes, two of them, both of which were coots. The weird water hens are back.

Wood ducks were out in large numbers here, and several of the males were sporting their full, magnificent mullets again. Several male mallards were close to having their shiny green domes back, too. And we got an extra treat by having a female (or possibly immature) yellow-headed blackbird capering about the pier area, giving us numerous chances to get good shots.

Out further with the coots was a pied-billed grebe, which we don’t see often and that I don’t recall seeing at all before at Burnaby Lake.

Other than the two coots, no other winter migrants were in view, but it’s still early.

Overall, this an outing with unexpected pleasures: better weather than forecast, rare birds, and the first arrivals of the winter migration.

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American goldfinch
  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Barn swallow
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • House finch (probably?)
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Yellow-headed blackbird
  • Yellow-rumped warbler

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot (the return!)
  • Canada goose
  • Great blue heron
  • Greater yellowlegs
  • Least sandpiper
  • Long-billed dowitcher
  • Killdeer
  • Mallard
  • Pied-billed grebe
  • Red-necked pharalope
  • Sandhill crane
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Ring-billed gull
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle
  • Great horned owl

Non-birds:

  • Western painted turtle
  • Assorted pollinators
  • Fewer dragonflies and butterflies

A Linux thought and a Linux complication

UPDATE, August 26, 2024: The solution to the drive issue was to run a scan on the C: drive, which fixed errors and allowed Linux Mint (and presumably Ubuntu) to once again access the drives.

The complication: In both Linux Mint and Ubuntu, my two main Windows drives (both NTFS) are producing errors and can’t be mounted (accessed). Digging around, there are a number of possible reasons. The easiest to test was that Windows was hibernating and preventing the Linux systems from accessing them (I am simplifying here because I’m the guy buying Linux for Dummies in 1999). I shut down (rather than restart) the PC and rebooted into Mint.

This brought back the secondary Windows SSD, but the primary (C:) drive still produced the same error. My research revealed a few other things to try, which I will do the next time I boot into Windows (I’m typing in Ubuntu at the moment).

But this weird inconvenience (it hadn’t happened until just the other day and I have no idea what triggered it) made me realize the best way to run Linux is (in order from best to least, uh best):

  1. On a completely separate machine
  2. In a virtual machine (VM) — if you’re just noodling around
  3. On separate drives
  4. On a partitioned drive

I am using option #3, which, until this glitch, has worked reasonably well. I’ll still tinker with things as they are, but I am now convinced the best way is to just run Linux on a completely separate PC, which I currently don’t have. I have parts, and could cobble together something, but it would not be great. The better solution would be to convert the current PC 100% to Linux after getting a new PC for Windows 12 Ad Edition or whatever. There is no timeline for such a thing, however (my PC dates back to 2019 and still runs everything I need without issue).

But for now, I continue to tinker and hammer down the lumps that keep popping up in the Linux carpet.

A weird combo of nostalgia, inevitability and mild exasperation: Windows 11 deprecates the Control Panel (updated)

UPDATE, August 26, 2024: Microsoft has changed the wording of the note that resulted in the Ars Technica article. The update is in the same article link below, but for the link-averse, here's the before/after:

BEFORE: "The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience."

NOW: "Many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience."

The story on Ars Technica: Microsoft formally deprecates the 39-year-old Windows Control Panel

It’s explained in the story that the time between announcing official deprecation of the Control Panel (now) and it actually being removed from Windows could span years. The current Settings app has a few things to recommend it:

  • Generally it looks nicer and more modern
  • It features breadcrumb navigation
  • The search (which you will probably need) works reasonably well in my experience

But it also falls short:

  • Many Control Panel settings are absent, especially ones for more advanced options
  • The categories are, I think, not as straightforward
  • System seems to be a dumping ground for “Where do we put this setting?”
  • It’s a single window, so you can’t have two of them open at the same time
  • The home page is filled with information pseudo-ads for Microsoft services, such as OneDrive, Microsoft 365 and more

The comments on the article are a mix of nostalgia and the expected nerd rage against the generally considered-to-be inferior Settings app. This comment resonated with me:

The reason it resonates is that I feel that same nostalgia when I see that mid-90s Windows GUI. I feel that GUI, with higher-resolution elements and a few tweaks, would look fine today and in some ways, even better than what we have with Windows 11 (also see my post on Windows GUI: Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (Ranked)). The post also hits on an issue that has been happening since the Settings app was introduced in 2012 with Windows 8: A constant visual clash between Settings and Control Panel. Also, it’s been 12 years! Why is Microsoft still not finished moving over everything in the Control Panel to Settings1This is the mild exasperation referenced in the title? ~nerd rage intensifies~

Anyway, I actually rarely use Control Panel these days, as Windows mostly just works (and I use PowerToys, which probably helps), but the article did prompt me to pin Control Panel to the Start menu, just in case. Then I went in and looked through some of the options, pretending it was suddenly 1999 again and computers were cool. They were still tools, but they were also just kind of neat. To nerds, at least.

Blogging: On the other hand…

When I think about moving from WordPress to something perhaps simpler and easier to manage, it also occurs to me that since October 2023 I’ve not exactly struggled to post, but my output of roughly 2 posts per day has dipped to something like 1.1 posts per day. Maybe I don’t have enough to say anymore to warrant switching to another (paid) service.

Or maybe I’m just in a creative funk.

Or maybe I’m lazier than I used to be.

So many possibilities.

I will continue to ponder.

Meanwhile, here is a smart-looking cat1Yes, I’ve used this one before. Like I said, I’m lazy. I mean, I’m recycling and saving e-trees or something.:

Walks 122 and 123: Here comes the rain again

Brunette River, pre-run: Gray ‘n gloomy.

Although to be fair, it was a fairly light drizzle. But we’ve had enough precipitation that the FIRE DANGER signs are now gone (for now, possibly until next summer).

Today is normally a run day, but I was not feeling very enthused about going out, partly because of the showery weather, and partly because I didn’t want to risk hurting the right knee, which is mostly feeling okay after a few days of rest.

In the end, I compromised by doing a brisk pair of walks, to the lake and back. There was pretty much no real running, save for a few brief moments here and there, but I maintained a pretty good pace on the way back.

The first walk was dry, but it began to rain very lightly on the way back. As it was still 19C, it didn’t feel cold or anything. It was nice to not have to slather all my exposed skin with sunblock before heading out.

As expected, it was fairly quiet due to the weather, though I did encounter a few other joggers and dog walkers (with leashed dogs, woo).

I might try a run tomorrow (Saturday) or may just wait till my next usual run day on Monday. I shall ponder.

I will not be running, however, on Sunday (the 25th):

“You can totally still stroll on the trail, just be ready to share it with 400 other people all at once.”
Walk 122 and 123
Average pace: 9:26 and 8:51/km
Location: Brunette River trail/Burnaby Lake
Distance: 4.01 km/4.03 km
Time: 37:51/35:36
Weather: Clouds and light showers
Temp: 19°C
Humidity: 80%
Wind: light
BPM: 113/114
Weight: 166.1 pounds
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255
Total distance to date: 897.98 km

Blogging and thinking about blogging (includes blogging)

I saw a link on Mastodon1aka the one social media platform I still use that led me to write.as, which is one of the blogging solutions I pondered when I was thinking a lot about moving away from WordPress. Then some things happened:

  • I got distracted (this happens a lot)
  • The easier route of just tolerating WordPress and doing nothing settled in and took root
  • Not to mention, I know WordPress quite well after using it for almost 20 (!) years, so there’s muscle memory and all that encouraging me to stay put

But as someone who hopefully isn’t just an AI scraping my blog for weirds and probably untrue things to add to the AI Slurry of Knowledge (SOK), you may have noticed I’ve also been engaged in something I call The Culling for the last few years. I can’t recall if I’ve ever fully explained what it is, but it’s pretty simple.

The Culling, explained

  1. Big corporations are generally bad
  2. Big tech corporations seem to be extra bad, in that, “You think YOU’RE bad? Hold my beer. Hold all of my beers” way.
  3. Growing increasingly disenchanted, while also experience things like subscription fatigue, I have begun The Culling. The Culling is meant to move me away from services and software offered by Big Tech™ and to use either free (possibly even FOSS) or paid options from smaller companies that still see their customers as humans and want to treat them fairly, a radical notion on the current interweb.

WordPress has made some dumb (IMO) moves regarding AI and are generally heading in a direction I don’t like. Also, the platform is bloated, creaking and there’s way more here than I need to just write inane things and post pictures on a daily basis to an audience of one to five people, of whom I count myself. Thus began the search for a replacement, which would also be part of The Culling.

And then lazy, too easy to do nothing, etc.

But now I’m looking again. I feel I’ve somehow managed to tap into one of those moments where I am invigorated for [x] period of time, and I am seizing it to move forward in several areas, one of which is this here blogging thing.

I will report back soon or soon-like.