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Canada travelog #11
Dundas, ON · Mon, 25 Aug 2025. 1:30pm.

My frustration about paying $22.50 for only partial views of Webster Falls (until I cheated and went around the fence) was mollified somewhat by being able to use the same parking pass to park at the trailhead for Tew Falls a mile or two away. Webster Falls and Tew Falls both tumble over the same geological feature, the Niagara Escarpment, in Dundas. The escarpment is the edge of a plateau that run for tens of miles, maybe hundreds of miles. Yes, it's what a much larger falls with the same name tumbles over.

Anyway, we got to the parking lot for Tew Falls and... it started raining. We sat in the car for a few minutes figuring out what we'd want to do: wait it out, get lunch and come back, or just bail completely. "Wait it out" was the default choice and turned out to be the right one anyway as the rain cleared after about 10 minutes.

Tew Falls in Dundas, ON (Aug 2025)

It was an easy 1/2 mile walk around the rim over to a viewing spot for Tew falls. The trail continued farther, to Tew Peak, but we weren't interested in that. A "peak" here is less than a few hundred feet high. But, hey, Tew Falls is an amazing falls, and it's free— after paying $22.50 for Webster Falls. 🤣

Tew Falls in Dundas, ON (Aug 2025)

Seeing the sun come out at Tew Falls pissed me off even more about that $22.50 to see Webster Falls in the drizzling rain. But you know what? We could go back to Webster Falls! It's only a few miles away, our parking's paid for (all day! all the Hamilton Conservation Area parks!), and it's a short trail anyway. Soooo... back to the car, back to Webster, back around the fence like a scofflaw risking his own life!

canyonwalker

Canada travelog #10
Dundas, ON · Mon, 25 Aug 2025. 1pm.

Our first hiking stop today, after various snacking stops such as getting a box of Timbits, is Webster Falls. It's in the bucolic small town of Dundas outside of Hamilton.

We'd picked out a route that travels up from below to the bottom of the falls, but it turns out it's closed. Not only is it closed, the entry is full of all kids of "GTFO". Like, there's locked gate across the trail, there's no-parking signs all around the gate, "Maximum enforcement area" signs below the no-parking signs, and poison ivy all over the gate. Yes, seriously, it's like the town hired an evil druid NPC to cast a spell on the gate. So we went around to the top of the falls, where there's an official entrance.

Ah, here's the other half of why the entrance below is closed off and cursed. Here there's room for a gatehouse to collect money. Build a gravel parking lot, put a couple of electronic gate arms on it, then plop down a tool shed and put a teenager with a credit card reader in it (no cash accepted). $22.50 for the two of us to enter. For a trail that's not even 1/2 mile long. Oh, but it's good at all the parks around Hamilton for today, the teenager assured us.

Webster Falls in Dundas, ON (Aug 2025)

We decided to get our $22.50 worth we'd hike to all the viewpoints for Webster Falls. They're not very far. The trail still works out to soemething like $25/km per person. And for that we only get partial views of the falls (see photo above) at some of these vista points.

For a partial falls view, it's pretty nice. I'll bet the full falls is amazing. Will we get to see that next? We walked around the other side, and...

Webster Falls in Dundas, ON (Aug 2025)

...Nope!

Oh, this vista definitely reveals more of the falls. It just doesn't reveal all of the falls.

One more to go and... also nope. The third viewpoint shows less of the falls than the first two. It's a straight-on view of the falls.... but there's, like, 20 feet of forest between the edge of canyon and the fenced off trail. It's such a disappointment I didn't even bother to take a picture.

Ah, but I mentioned a fence. It's fenced off. You know what you can do with fences? You can go around them. Or over them. Or even under them.

Today I decided that going around this fence was easiest. Not that they made it easy. I had to do some balancing and hold onto the fencepost to get around the end of it. But I got around the fence. And once around the fence I could backtrack, on the opposite side of the fence, to where an old and steep but clearly visible path led down to a perch at the rim of the canyon. Would that perch offer a better view of the falls?

Webster Falls in Dundas, ON (Aug 2025)

BOOM! Much better view. Hawk even kept watch for me in case a park ranger came along to bust me for going around the fence. Though I think the only "ranger" in the park was the bored teenager at the gate playing on his phone in between bilking visitors for $22.50 apiece.

There was only one problem. It was starting to rain.

Goddammit. In the time it took me to get down to this perfect picture-taking spot the sun had gone away, the clouds had come in, and it was starting to sprinkle.

I waited 10 minutes or so to see if the sky would clear, or at least if the dark clouds would shift away. Neither seemed to be happening. Thus since we had plans to visit multiple other falls today I packed it in on Webster Falls. I picked my way back up the steep path, followed the fence to its end near the edge of the canyon and swung around the last fence post, and walked the short distance back to the car.

Up next: Getting our $22.50 worth of parking with a two-fer at Tew Falls!

rimrunner

A few Mondays ago I woke up way too early in the Longmire Stewardship Campground at Mount Rainier, in order to meet the lead researcher for a pika counting project. The object of this research was in fact to test a protocol that could be taught to non-specialists. If it worked, volunteer citizen scientists could be deployed to pika habitats, in order to gain a clearer count of the actual numbers of this species. As a tracker who does not have an academic scientific background, I’m in somewhat of a gray area where specialization is concerned.

I do know what pikas look like, though: imagine a rabbit with mouse ears, and you’re pretty close. The first time I saw them, I was on a hike with a friend near Artist Point, near Mount Baker in the North Cascades. We were on a section of trail that ran along a talus slope, with the wide bowl of a high valley spread out below us. As we moved along the trail, a raptor soared across the valley, swooping low over the valley floor.

Cue a chorus of alarm calls, erupting from all over the talus slope: the characteristic, high-pitched “Eee!” of pikas. Before long we saw them, perching on rocks to give their alarms, then scurrying into the shelter of the rocks. Pikas are a species specialized in terms of habitat: the rocks provide shelter and passage out of sight and reach of predators, and they forage in the vegetation that grows around the talus’s edges. At the right time of day you can observe them hurrying back and forth with harvested greens bunching in their mouths, carrying the forage to their haypile larders. Pikas don’t hibernate; they store up food for the winter, when forage is scarce. Perhaps paradoxically, they also don’t function well at higher temperatures, which is why they’re endangered.

When I first heard about Pokémon I thought that Pikachu was a pika. I mean, it’s right there in the name. But the character’s design was inspired by squirrels and mice, not pikas, and the name is a combination of two Japanese words.

Pikas also aren’t rodents. Neither are rabbits, to whom they are closely related; pikas really do look like rabbits that someone stuck mouse ears on. A fairly readily perceptible distinguishing characteristic is their front teeth. Rodent teeth have high iron content, giving them a yellowish or orange appearance. While lagomorphs also have prominent front incisors, they lack this hue. They also have a somewhat different way of moving, though since pikas mostly inhabit rocky slopes, finding their actual tracks is fairly difficult.

Spotting pikas themselves, though, is pretty easy, if there are any to be found in your particular location. Youtube has plenty of videos of pikas moving about and making their distinctive vocalizations. Many of these were made at Mount Rainier, even. So if this research protocol I’m helping to test proves out, visitors to the park might have an opportunity to observe these beings for themselves, but advance research into the species and its conservation.

Current Mood: nerdy

canyonwalker

Canada travelog #9
Mississauga · Mon, 25 Aug 2025. 10:15am.

Well, it didn't take long after "shifting gears" on our Canada trip to shift back into Park. As we left the hotel just after 10 this morning I was hungry and wanted to stop for a snack. Fortunately just 2 blocks away was a Tim Horton's. ...No, this wasn't the Tim Horton's we ate breakfast at Saturday morning. That was a Timmy's/Wendy's combo that was about 4 blocks away. This was a Timmy's in an Exxon station.

Timbits - a box of 10 (actually 12) donut holes from Tim Horton's (Aug 2025)

Timbits - a box of 10 (actually 12) donut holes from Tim Horton's (Aug 2025)

If you've never been to Canada, you've got to understand something about Tim Horton's. You know how, in the US, there's that advertising slogan for Dunkin' Donuts "America runs on Dunnkin'"? Well, imagine if that were actually true and not a marketing exaggeration. They'd be seemingly on every street corner, right? Well, that's basically what Tim Horton's is in Canada. Canada literally runs on Tim Horton's. I found at least 3 within 1/2 mile of my hotel.

I decided today to give Timbits a try. They're donut holes that you can buy 1 at a time... or in boxes of 10 or 20. I bought a box of 10. Mmm, these are good! And with this box of 10 I should have enough to make it last until tomorrow.

rimrunner

Weekend before last I attended my first WorldCon in ten years. It was fulfilling and exhausting in about equal measure, with some notes of grace and frustration.

Probably like most cons, but since I go to very few—this was only my third WorldCon ever—my experience in this respect is limited. I chose to go to this one because it was held in Seattle, and I live here. While I haven’t been to hometown cons much (SakuraCon, Norwescon, and Emerald City Comic Con are all held here), this one seemed like an opportunity to give them another try. As a recovering Shy Person I often had a hard time interacting with people much at conventions if I didn’t already know them, and since I never went to many I didn’t know very many of the people who tend to go to conventions.

The Internet’s made a big difference in this respect. While I’ve been online for a long time (over 30 years), the growth of online spaces for both fannish conversations and professional networking has been really helpful. I also intentionally went to events where I would have to talk to people, like designated networking events, table talks, and the like. (I spent most of the hour with Ellen Datlow trying and failing to come up with something brilliant to ask her, but at least I was there!) I managed to collect quite a few business cards (the digital alternatives that exist now are nice, but I’ve gotta say, there’s really nothing like a physical object that I can look at later, and that will remind me that I meant to through the physical fact of its presence) and contact details for people I might connect with further. I ran into friends I hadn’t seen in years (and also failed to run into friends and colleagues I’d hoped to encounter—WorldCon isn’t that big, but it’s big enough) and may have made a few new ones. I got to hear Ada Palmer read from yet to be published work, and a city planner from Walla Walla explain why bureaucracy will continue to be important in the future—even if it turns out that nobody really knows what future jobs will look like.

I was reminded yet again of my guideline for convention panels, which is to select on the basis of who’s on them, and only secondarily on the topic.

I also pretty much skipped the parties. This had more to do with having become an early-morning person with a new kitten at home than anything else, though I did take my husband to the Weird Al Yankovic concert at White River Amphitheater on Friday night. (We left during the encore. If you’re familiar with this venue, you know why.) So perhaps I could’ve been a little more social. Then again, given the COVID spike we’re having here right now, maybe it’s just as well that I wasn’t.

I also skipped the Hugos, because I was exhausted by the start time and figured I could watch them on stream at home. When I got home I went to bed instead, and only heard how the ceremony went the next day when I had coffee with a friend who’d been nominated and won. People who were actually there and have a far better sense of how awards ceremonies go have pretty much said what needs to be said on that score; myself, I only wish that the awards could be done right consistently.

I know that fan-run cons are struggling; the commercially ones are much larger, at least appear to be more professional, and can attract guests from across a wider range of media. There seem to be a lot of potential problems with the way WorldCon runs specifically, as much as I like the idea of its moving around and being hosted by different people and a different locale every year. Whether there’s still a place for that and whether the myriad challenges of programming, accessibility, and administering the awards can be addressed to any kind of consistent level of success…I honestly don’t know. There’s something to be said for something community run, though. I hope WorldCon figures it out.

Current Mood: contemplative

canyonwalker

Canada travelog #8
Mississauga, ON · Mon, 25 Aug 2025. 9am.

Today Hawk and I are shifting gears in Canada. We're done at this point with the family reunion. That finished yesterday. Her long-lost relatives are back to their regular lives— not that they'd really ever left their routines— and her parents, brother, and aunt and uncle who joined us out here have all returned home.

We could have gone home, too, already. I thought about that last night as we were relaxing in our hotel's hot tub. We stretched out this trip to be much longer because we figured arriving on Saturday morning via a Friday night red-eye from the west coast, then leaving 36 hours later on Sunday evening, would be too much travel relative to our time on the ground. But last night I felt that if we had decided to catch that 7:30pm-ish flight back to SFO it would've been fine. It would've been a good little weekend trip. Being able to sleep on the red-eye because we flew first class helped a lot with that.

But we didn't go home. We're here for the rest of the week. And our plan for the rest of the week is to go waterfalling. As in, visiting waterfalls. The area just west of here, around Hamilton, ON, has a ton of waterfalls. There's Niagara Falls, of course, and that's on our list. But there's also a geologic feature called the Niagara Escarpment over which dozens of streams in different places fall. We've got a few hikes on our list for today. After we finish breakfast and check out (we're staying closer to Hamilton for the rest of the week) we'll head out to visit them.

canyonwalker

Canada travelog #6
Toronto, ON · Sun, 24 Aug 2025. 11:30am.

"My mom wants to stop by a Costco before she leaves Canada," Hawk mentioned at sometime during the past 24 hours. That's all I needed to hear. Since then I've been trying to organize exactly when our Costco trip will be! 🤣

It's not that I'm some die-hard Costco shopper. It's not even that there's a particular thing I'm looking to buy at Costco— unlike for MIL, who wants to stock up on two of her over-the-counter (OTC) medicines there because they're apparently way cheaper in Canada than the US. Yes, the meme from years ago about US senior citizens buying their pills in Canada because they're cheaper is real. And while the current US presidential administration tells you, correctly, that the price disparity exists because of corporate greed, that same current US presidential administration is also all about deregulation. Deregulation because "government regulation is crippling American businesses". Well, it's literally government regulation that checks corporate greed in other countries and makes medicines cheaper virtually everywhere else in the world other than the US. 🙄

Anyway, I was talking about why I wanted to go to Costco. Two things. One, I'm just curious about seeing Costco in other countries. Two, I really wanted a slice of pizza this morning after an unfulfilling breakfast. 🤣

Costco food court in Canada (Aug 2025)

While Hawk and her mom split off to find and buy armloads of eye drops of something like that, I hit up the food court. Well, I tried to hit up the food court. My first attempt was 🙅 Access Denied 🙅... because I tried paying with a Visa card.

While Costco in the US takes only Visa, Costco in Canada takes only MasterCard! It turns out they do accept the US co-branded Costco Visa, but I didn't have that card on me. And when I went back out to the car to grab another credit card I wasn't sure about that so I grabbed a MasterCard just to make sure.

Another difference is the $1.50 hot dog combo. Yeah, sharp-eyed Costco loyalists will have noticed that already in the photo above. It's the same as the US, but also different. The long vaunted $1.50 hotdog and soda combo is actually cheaper in Canada.... It's cheaper because $1.50 here is 1.50 CAD, which at current exchange rates is $1.08 in USD. Canadians get cheaper pills and hotdog combos!

denise posting in

dw_news

I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.

Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.

Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.

Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)

Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)

Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)

All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.

We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)

If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.

On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.

Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.

canyonwalker

Canada travelog #5
Toronto, ON · Sat, 23 Aug 2025. 4pm.

Did you think I had my sarcasm on during my previous blog about (s)trolling through an art gallery? Oh, those were just the first few rounds. To quote Captain America, I can do this all day.

I did feel a little bad, though, that I was pissing on something our host was sincerely interested in. But my sarcasm was fueled in part by my resentment at what I considered his poor judgment in hosting. Long-lost relatives have traveled thousands of miles, at considerable cost to themselves, to see family thought dead for 3 generations, and his idea of a family reunion activity is, "Let's visit an art gallery together"? Especially a modern art gallery? ...Modern art being essentially a reverse intelligence test to figure out who's sharp enough to say, "No, this is mostly bullshit."

Well, while most of the rest of the group was acting like appropriate cowed peasants in the vaunted MoDeRn ArT GaLLeRy, my brother-in-law and I continued carrying on about how the emperor was still wearing no clothes. I've got to give our host credit, though. While Marty I and continued to snark about something he clearly loved, he continued to gently, and without offense, serenade us with notes about what we were seeing. I had to respect his patience. If this guy was tedious, he was at least professor emeritus of tedium. 🤣

I did kind of let him have it with both barrels in one of the exhibits. I think it was his favorite artist.

My thoughts on a (s)troll through the Art Gallery of Ontario (Aug 2025)

My thoughts on a (s)troll through the Art Gallery of Ontario (Aug 2025)

After a few hours of strolling— and trolling— at the Art Gallery of Ontario some in our party were ready for a meal. I wasn't hungry as I'd eaten right before getting to the museum. That's a pro tip I learned as a kid while being dragged to bullshit museums. Always eat first. But I was ready for a drink. This art gallery, to its credit, had a fully stocked bar at the front!

The gallery bar, unfortunately, was closed for the afternoon when we got to the front. That puzzled me a bit.... The bar was open at lunch. It was closed at 4pm. Ergo: gallery goers are day drinkers?

Perhaps the art teacher heard me half-joking about how I was ready for 2 fingers of Scotch. We ended up going across the street to the Village Idiot.

The Village Idiot pub in Toronto (Aug 2025)

The Village Idiot pub in Toronto (Aug 2025)

The Village Idiot is a pub. 🤣 And I think the actual reason we landed there was not because anyone cared about me saying viewing modern art makes me turn to drink— though that would be apropos as from what I've seen most modern artists have drinking or other drug problems— but because the Village Idiot also serves food and is the closest non-ethnic restaurant to the museum.

Knocking back first one, then two, 20s of imported beer while sharing a plate of wings with my mother-in-law and her long-lost cousin-in-law, Ruth, was a nice cap to the afternoon. BTW, it's comical to me that MIL and Ruth are related only by marriage, not blood, because they look like they could be sisters.

Speaking of Ruth, as she knocked back one of those tall boys of beer— I was a bit buzzed after two and I'm nearly three times her size—she tried to apologize for the art teacher "boring" us with his lessons. I smiled and shared how I'm impressed the borer took no visible offense to my responses. 🤣

canyonwalker

Canada travelog #4
Toronto, ON · Sat, 23 Aug 2025. 4pm.

This afternoon we met the first of Hawk's long-lost relatives in Canada to visit an art gallery. It turns out they were never "long lost" in the sense of having been stranded on a deserted island. It's more like her great-grandfather, when he emigrated from Latvia to the United States in the late 1800s or early 1900s, lost contact with his entire family. He told his descendants, when they asked about their relatives in the Old World, "They're all dead." 😳💀🤦 It's not clear why he told his children and grandchildren this. They believed him, though, as between the Russians and the Nazis it was totally plausible all their relatives in Latvia had been murdered by 1945.

Anyway, the art gallery. I thought touring a local art gallery together was a weird way to say, "Hey, our family has been split for 4 generations, let's get back together," but I decided I would try not to challenge things too much. Modern art has a way of inviting challenge, though. And by the time I was even near the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) I found it impossible to bite my acerbic tongue.

"We're next to the sculpture of an elephant," my inlaws texted me.

Officially this sculpture is called "Two Forms" by Henry Moore in Grange Park, Toronto (Aug 2025)

Officially this sculpture is called "Two Forms" by Henry Moore in Grange Park, Toronto (Aug 2025)

"This looks like a modern-art elephant," I texted back, including a picture of the above.

That sculpture, BTW, is titled "Large Two Forms". It's in Toronto's Grange Park next to the AGO.

My inlaws sent their address by naming the streets there were standing at the corner of instead of just saying "The elephant." When we met up I saw this elephant:

Sculpture of an elephant designed to look like it's made from... yes, leather chairs. Art Gallery of Ontario. (Aug 2025)

Sculpture of an elephant designed to look like it's made from... yes, leather chairs. Art Gallery of Ontario. (Aug 2025)

"So, somebody saw a pile of discarded leather chairs and cushions at a junkyard and thought, 'These look like an elephant!''" I asked.

Yes, they look like an elephant, my inlaws assured me.

"My elephant looks better," I challenged them. "Plus, I reject your orthodoxy that all elephants have four legs that reach from the ground all the way up to their bodies."

Modern art. 🧐🤪🤣

While Hawk's parents couldn't bring themselves to see things my way, her brother appreciated my view.

"Artists are, by-and-large, people with untreated mental illness or deep personality flaws who find wealthy patrons to fund their ideas... but not psychiatric help," I quipped.

"Shh!" Marty scolded. "You're saying the quiet part out loud!"

Marty then invited me to join him in analyzing a fire hose in one of the gallery rooms as if it were art.

"The loops of hose hung together show order in the face of chaos," I mused. "Though the negative space above the hoses is unbalanced by a tight border with the frame on the other three sides. The technique here is weak."

Do you think I'm being too hard on modern art? Well, consider this centerpiece in the room as we rounded the corner from the fire hose:

I think this artist went camping and was equally inspired by a picnic table and a wild elk and so sculpted both together. Art Gallery of Ontario. (Aug 2025)

I think this artist went camping and was equally inspired by a picnic table and a wild elk and so sculpted both together. Art Gallery of Ontario. (Aug 2025)

"It's as if the artist went camping and was equally inspired by both a picnic table and an elk, and decided to sculpt a combination of the two!" I said breathlessly.

"Either that, or this is a prop from a rejected scene in the 1982 movie The Thing."

Do you think those snarky ideas are too outlandish? Try this real explanation (paraphrased) from a placard in the room:

The piece is entitled Can't We All Just Get Along and evokes the pervasive racism in the United States exposed in the 1982 Rodney King riot in Los Angeles.

Now, tell me. If those three explanations, my two plus the one about Rodney King, were offered up in TV game show where a contestant is told 3 stories about an item, two of which are lies and only one of which is the truth, how likely would you pick Option C as the truth?

Also, maybe Canadian artists concerned about racism could confront their own country's racist history instead of banging their pots about the US. Our current toddler-president and his supporters notwithstanding, there are plenty in the US who understand and criticize the shameful parts of our history. It's a level of honest introspection I have seen in literally no other country I've visited.

mmcirvin

We had occasion to be in Rochester over the weekend so we decided to check out Rochester's charming, quirky small lakeside amusement park, Seabreeze. This is a former trolley park like Canobie Lake Park--even older and smaller, but with a better waterpark. We got rained on for the first several minutes we were there, but the weather cleared up rapidly and it was great for the rest of the day, partly sunny, not too hot.

The day seemed to begin inauspiciously between the rain and our struggles with the locker rental system, which, to our surprise, was cash-only (many parks these days have moved away from even accepting cash in the park). I looked at a park map and was dismayed to find that the only ATMs were all the way at the other end of the park... then realized that Seabreeze is so small that "all the way at the other end" was about a minute's walk. Busch Gardens, this isn't. So this was easily sorted.

The prime attraction for me at this park is one of the oldest operating roller coasters in the world (its precise priority is hard to keep track of, because of the varying operating status of its rivals): the 1920 Harry Baker/John A. Miller woodie, Jack Rabbit. Here's Coaster Thrills' POV:

Watch on YouTube

This is a surprisingly good ride, very smooth these days though not super forceful, comparable in size and experience to Canobie's Yankee Cannonball. But it's got a more interesting layout than Yankee Cannonball: an out-and-back that crosses under itself on the return leg, then turns into a helix that enters a long tunnel, which contains a hidden drop in the dark. Ending with a hidden drop is basically the same trick pulled by the last ride I rode before this, Busch Gardens Williamsburg's famous hypercoaster Apollo's Chariot! But it's hidden in a different way. In plain sight, really, given that you can see the dip in the tunnel if you're looking in the right direction earlier in the ride. The layout makes creative use of the hilly terrain in the area.

Jack Rabbit may have been the first coaster ever to have upstop wheels, the devices under the track that keep the coaster from flying off with negative g-force. It was one of the earliest, at the very least--designer John A. Miller had patented them the previous year.

Even the station is an amazingly old-school experience, with no air gates at all on the entrance queues, and long wooden manual brake levers. These last are somewhat for show: over the 2020 shutdown (during which, a fellow fan was excited to tell me, they held some employee rides just so they could say it was still "continuously operating" since 100 years earlier), they upgraded the control system to a modern computer-operated one, so those brake levers are functionally just switches that are redundant with buttons on the control panel. But the ride ops do use them (and then walk right across the track to operate said control panel).

Next to Jack Rabbit is Seabreeze's peculiar log flume, recorded here by Jay Ducharne:

Watch on YouTube

This thing was apparently a 1980s replacement for a 1950s vintage flume called Over the Falls that, among other things, had a stinky-water problem. They retained Over the Falls' unusual drop, which is of ordinary size but is profiled more like a coaster drop, with a maximum steepness of 55 degrees, which actually makes it kind of scary. I'm pretty sure it's the steepest ride drop that I've ridden with no restraint system whatsoever (not counting body waterslides). Since much of the ride is below ground level, the lift is also taller than the drop to increase the anticipatory freakiness. Unlike some flumes, they don't even bother maintaining the illusion that your log is floating in water on this drop--it's just riding down a dry chute on its road wheels.

My wife and kid had been at the water park while I was on these rides, and I went over there and checked out their fine lazy river (I caught them just coming off of it) and the surprisingly powerful wave pool. Then we got together and saw a bit of an impressive circus show on the midway, with a juggler and a high-wire act. My kid wanted to ride Jack Rabbit with me but first, we worked up to it by trying Seabreeze's most unusual ride, Bobsleds (Coaster Thrills' video here):

Watch on YouTube

This thing was first built in 1954 in substantially different form and is sometimes semi-seriously described as a hybrid conversion. I'm not sure it was technically a woodie prior to its makeover in 1961, but apparently someone from Seabreeze experienced Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsleds and decided to upgrade it to make it taller, and apply both the bobsled theme and the new technology of tubular steel rail. The result is a kind of wild little ride that small kids can go on. It's charming and quirky, and the one thing to watch out for is that if you're an adult, the lap bars may hit you in the belly instead of on the lap, so don't staple yourself (you also have a seat belt). It also has a few little mini-hills before the lift, a feature I associate with intense RMC hybrids.

We then rode Jack Rabbit together and got another ride on Bobsleds. My kid approved of both rides. She's becoming a wooden-coaster fan--she doesn't go for the big steel, but these rides are a great thing to be into.

canyonwalker

Canada travelog #3
Mississauga, ON · Sat, 23 Aug 2025. 11am.

We're finally in our hotel room near Toronto airport. I say finally because while we landed at 6:45am on a red-eye while having got some sleep last night we were kind of tired and wondered if a short nap would help. Plus, at a minimum, we wanted to shower and change clothes.

Normally hotels where I have elite status are generous about letting us check in to our room early. The Hilton Garden Inn was sold out last night, though, so at 7:30 this morning they had nothing available. "Ask again after 10," they suggested.

Hilton Garden Inn Mississauga West (Aug 2025)

Hilton Garden Inn Mississauga West (Aug 2025)

We waited in the lobby for Hawk's brother, Marty, to come down and join us for breakfast. We took a peek at the hotel's breakfast offering and decided it was too much ($20 each) for too little (scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and dry bread). Instead we hopped in the car and went looking for better eats nearby.

"You know, there's a Tim Horton's if you'd kept going straight," Marty said as I turned right at the traffic light near the hotel.

"There's a Tim Horton's 2 blocks in this direction, too," I noted. "Plus one half a mile behind us if I'd gone the other direction." Welcome to Canada!

The Timmy's we landed at was not just a Tim Horton's but a combination Wendy's/Timmy's. That worked out really well because I found way more non-sugary stuff I wanted at Wendy's. Plus enough sugary stuff (french toast sticks) that I didn't even need a donut from Tim's.

Marty went off to meet his parents, who are staying at a different hotel about a mile up the road, while Hawk and I checked back at the hotel on room availability. Not yet! But this time they promised to call us when it's ready. We relaxed on sofas in the big lobby until the call came.

The view from our room at a hotel in Mississauga near Toronto Airport (Aug 2025)

The view from our room at a hotel in Mississauga near Toronto Airport (Aug 2025)

Upon entering our room on the 4th floor Hawk and I said, nearly in unison, "Wow, what a nice view of that building's roof!" 😅 Yeah, it's not a great view from here. Fortunately we didn't pick this place for the view. Oh, by the way, that skyline in the distance is not Toronto, it's Mississauga. Who knew that Mississauga was so big? Who, outside of Canada, even knew it existed? 🤣

canyonwalker

Canada travelog #2
Mississauga, ON · Sat, 23 Aug 2025. 8am.

We landed at YYZ airport (yes, that's really the IATA code for Toronto's airport) this morning at 6:43am local time. Our flight from San Francisco was just over 4.5 hours from takeoff to landing. And on this red-eye I managed to sleep pretty much the whole time. I was already nodding off before we were wheels-up at SFO and, except for being awoken by announcements on approach and falling back asleep, I basically didn't wake up until we were taxiing at YYZ. Those first class seats we sprung for sure helped.

Once off the aircraft and and in the terminal, it was the standard old airport shuttle, international style, I became familiar with years ago. Hike up ramps and escalators to a long, empty corridor. Trek seemingly a mile in that corridor, because the flight always lands at the far end from passport control. Wait in line for passport control— except with modernization in digital entry there's barely a line anymore. But the lack of wait there just means there's more wait now at baggage claim. Remember, those bags have to travel a mile from the aircraft, too! 🤣 Then collect your bags, pass the basically rubber-stamp customs check, and exit into the arrivals hall.

Once in the arrivals hall I decided to take a moment to try my luck with an ATM. I say "try my luck" because I'm still salty about getting raked by a cooked exchange rate at an airport ATM in Italy. Wise to that experience, I spotted where this Canadian ATM tried to do the same thing, asking me to confirm a bogus exchange rate. I said NO, expecting to cancel the transaction. But then a funny thing happened. I got cash.

In polite Canada I could just say 'No' to getting robbed by the ATM (Aug 2025)

In polite Canada I could just say 'No' to getting robbed by the ATM (Aug 2025)

"WTF! I said NO to cancel and they charged me anyway?" I fumed. I resolved to check my bank balance later to see how badly they raked me. Recall when this happened in Italy, there was a whopping 15% vig in addition to the €4.50 flat fee service charge. Here there was also a C$4.50 flat fee, but at least my credit union refunds such charges.

When we had some quiet time a bit later in the morning (after picking up our rental car, driving to the hotel where my brother-in-law is staying, and waiting for him to shower, dress, and meet us in the lobby to go out for breakfast together) I found another surprise. I looked up my bank balance details and saw that the transaction had gone through at the fair exchange rate.

WTF? In polite Canada you can just say "NO" to highway robbery by a bank ATM and... not get robbed?!

canyonwalker

A few days ago I wrote about discovering a bulge in the ceiling paint that indicated a leak inside the walls. It was right below the toilet in one of our upstairs bathrooms, so we figured the leak was on the drain pipe. On Thursday afternoon a plumber came out to take a look.

Cut a hole in the ceiling to locate the leaking pipe (Aug 2025)

Cut a hole in the ceiling to locate the leaking pipe (Aug 2025)

The plumber cut away a section of the ceiling in our pantry. The hole is about 18"x24". Sure enough, the leak was coming from the toilet drain pipe. The plumber triple-checked it by asking us to flush the toilet while he observed the pipe. New water leaked out of it.

I was kind of happy the problem was just the toilet. This drain is easy to reach compared to the sink drain or shower drain in the bathroom. It'll be an easier/cheaper repair with less wall/ceiling/floor to rip out and replace.

More specifically than just "leaky pipe" the problem here is that the flange on the drain pipe isn't level. That means that the toilet's drain doesn't seal firmly on it. The plumber will put a new flange on the pipe and then re-seat the toilet on it. Of course, that all takes parts and labor that will have to be scheduled— and will have to be planned for after we return from our 9-day trip to Canada.

Meanwhile our dining room is a bit of a wreck....

Emptying the pantry to cut open the ceiling meant moving everything to the dining room table (Aug 2025)

Emptying the pantry to cut open the ceiling meant moving everything to the dining room table (Aug 2025)

We had to clear out the pantry, including disassembling the shelving, for the plumbing work. The contents of the pantry are now all over the dining room, covering the table.

And the toilet atop the bad pipe flange?

This toilet's in time out! (Aug 2025)

That toilet's on time-out.

canyonwalker

Canada travelog #1
SFO Airport · Fri, 22 Aug 2025. 10pm.

Tonight Hawk and I are headed off to Toronto, Canada. This weekend there's a family reunion in her mother's family... of relatives nobody even knew they had until a few years ago! Her aunt found them through genetic matching via services like 23andMe and Ancestry.com.

Unlike the typical story published in the news media about found family discovered through DNA matching, where someone discovers new relatives because their mother, father, or grandparent slept around, the backstory here is very heartwarming. An ancestor who was thought killed by Nazis in Poland or Germany in WWII actually survived. They got out with zero time to spare, just "Get on this train/boat NOW" with the clothes on their backs, and escaped. They made it first to South Africa— actually first they probably transited other countries, but we don't know that part of the story yet— and later to Canada. Because of the horrors of WWII both sides of the family lost contact with each other and presumed the other dead. Decades later modern science helped their descendants piece the jigsaw puzzle of the family tree back together

When we were planning this trip— which ironically was while we were on another United Airlines flight— we figured as long as we were traveling to Canada for a few days we should stay longer. The area west of Toronto is full of waterfalls. We're taking this opportunity to visit it. We're making a 9 day trip out of it.

So, we're headed to Toronto on a red-eye tonight. Yeah, red-eyes aren't our favorite, but it's the basic tradeoff of flying west to east in North America. You either spend all day in transit, or all night. We opted for all night. Though it will be a short night because the time zones work against us. At least we're traveling in first class. We found inexpensive tickets when we planned this trip back in May.

canyonwalker

If there's one word that describes this week it's "Busy, busy!" Okay, that kinda two words... but also just one. 😅

It has been a busy-buy week starting with heading to Phoenix on Sunday for an important business meeting on Monday. It wasn't just "travel to Phoenix, attend one meeting, then go home" though. The flip side of remote work is that the modern business traveler is expected to stay plugged in all day, including attending remote meetings, even when traveling for a high profile meeting. Thus I was busy all day with meetings, including taking them from my hotel room in the morning and an airport food court seating area in the afternoon.

Tuesday the busy-busy at work continued with a face-to-face meeting with a client near home and then lots more remote meetings. Basically I was running flat out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I had hoped that Friday would be my take-it-easy day, but instead I ended up with 5.5 hours of work.

Amid all that busy-ness this week we had a few days of hot weather here in Silicon Valley. Wednesday and Thursday were the hottest, with highs near 90 in Sunnyvale. Yeah, that's not hot compared to some parts of the country in August, and it's not even a real heat wave by local standards. Often we get a week or two of highs near 100 each summer. With a cooler-than-average weather pattern still holding after 4 months, though, I don't think we'll see that this year. But 90° was plenty warm for us to want to cool off in the pool in the afternoon!

Sitting in the shade on a hot day (I'm behind the camera) after swimming in the pool and soaking in the hot tub (Aug 2025)

Sitting in the shade on a hot day (I'm behind the camera) after swimming in the pool and soaking in the hot tub (Aug 2025)

Hawk and I celebrated the hot weather by enjoying some #PoolLife both Wednesday and Thursday. Yes, I did say above I was working flat-out all week. The thing is, I was basically fried by 2 or 3pm those days and needed a break. I carved out 90 minute or so each day... and returned to work afterwards. Enjoying the pool in the warm weather is a small luxury that makes the week feel nicer. And with a busy-busy week like this I definitely needed to seek small luxuries.

canyonwalker

Tuesday evening I noticed something suspicious high up in our kitchen pantry. There was a bulge in the paint where the ceiling meets the wall. The bulge was about 6 inches diameter.

Bulge in the paint = sign of a plumbing leak behind the wall! (Aug 2025)

Bulge in the paint = sign of a plumbing leak behind the wall! (Aug 2025)

When paint bulges like this it means generally one thing: there's a leak. Indeed, when I poked the bulge gently with my fingers I could tell that the drywall behind the bulge had already rotted away.

This spot is right below one of our toilets. We figured the problem is a leak in the outflow pipe. We shut off the water to that toilet (just in case) and put tape over the toilet to remind ourselves not to use it. Then we called the HOA[*] to get a plumber out and waited.

[*] We called the HOA management company because we live in a townhouse. It's a multifamily building with shared walls and shared property. There are rules that govern whether a particular problem is HOA responsibility or homeowner responsibility. Hawk is president of the HOA board so she's pretty familiar with these policies. A pipe leak inside the wall would most likely be an HOA responsibility to fix, but not 100% certain (depends on the source of the leak), so we'll start with the HOA.

The property management company called back on Wednesday morning (we deemed this not an emergency) to get details. Then they contacted a plumbing company that's done other work in our townhouse community recently. No, not the "Supergirl" plumbers. As amusing as that autocorrect was, and as much fun as I had with AI image generation, that company didn't do a great job. They were rock solid for years but slipped recently as ownership changed hands.

The plumbers made an appointment with us for "Sometime between 10am to 4pm Thursday". Yes, that was the most specific they could be, like it's still the 1970s when people are home all day. Fortunately we are home all day. But I'm home because I work from home. With a packed schedule on Thursday I was concerned what kind of interruption I'd face when a plumber started cutting away drywall, removing a toilet, wrenching on pipes, etc. Stay tuned!

canyonwalker

Kaiser Pass travelog #5
Above Huntington Lake · Sat, 9 Aug 2025, 5pm

Update: This journal entry got stuck in my backlog for a few weeks as other trips leapfrogged it. Time to get it unstuck!

We've had a day of driving up in the High Sierra, starting with the climb up from Fresno, a 4x4 trek up to nearly 10,000' in the Kaiser Pass, and a soak at Mono Hot Springs deep in the mountains. Now we're on our way back out, but in a way we've saved the best for last. Coming back down from the Kaiser Pass we've made a slight detour to Rancheria Falls.

Rancheria Falls, Sierra National Forest (Aug 2025)

Rancheria Falls, Sierra National Forest (Aug 2025)

Rancheria Falls is surprisingly large for how high up in the mountains it is— elev. 7,750' (2,362 meters). It's also surprisingly full for the date being somewhat late in the season. Though it was even fuller we first visited two years ago. And that was even later in the season by a few weeks. (The difference was a heavier rain/snow season earlier in the year.)

One thing that's also surprising is how hard the easy trail to the falls is. I call it "easy" because it's just 0.6 mile (1km) each way, with an ascent of 200' on the way in. That should be relatively easy. But at nearly 8,000' elevation, when you're not acclimated, it'll leave you panting. Fortunately the payoff is well worth the effort, with a falls you can not only admire from a distance but walk right to the foot of and dunk your head under if you do a bit of scrambling.

Watch on YouTube

One advantage of saving this hike until late in the day is that we minimized the crowds. There were a bunch of people starting the trail just in front of us and at the falls when we arrived, but as we waited a bit most of the groups cleared out. At one point we had the falls entirely to ourselves for several minutes.

Another advantage of timing late in the day is the position of the sun. When we visited in the late morning hours on our previous visit, the sun was shining over the top of the falls. That made capturing really good photos hard. Of course, hard doesn't mean impossible. I'm proud of the photos I made on our visit in 2023. Today, though, in late afternoon, it's been a lot easier. I'll share more photos after these few soon.

Oh, one last quick one for now....

Looking down the canyon from Rancheria Falls (Aug 2025)

Looking down the canyon from Rancheria Falls (Aug 2025)

In the video I mentioned that Rancheria Falls is actually quite tall with lots of cascades. When you add them all together it's actually hundreds of feet tall. That top cascade about 80' tall is the prettiest one.

canyonwalker

A little over a year ago I opened a new credit card, the Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Business Premier card. I say "new" because it's a new account, but for me it fills an old, familiar slot in my wallet. Between the business and personal variations of Chase Southwest Airline cards, and the various levels of fees and benefits, I've owned at least 7 of these cards over the years.

Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Business Premier Card

I opened this one last summer because there was an interesting sign-up bonus. (It's virtually always about the sign-up bonus!) The offer was 60k points after $3,000 spend in 3 months, plus another 60k points after $15,000 spend in 9 months. Combined with the minimum of 15,000 points earned from $15k of charges, that's at least 135,000 points— enough right there to qualify for Southwest's valuable Companion Pass. I gave an example of how that works recently when Hawk joined me on a business trip virtually for free. But rather than earn all those points in one year and get the companion pass for free I split the points earning across two years, last year and this, to combine with all my other Southwest earnings and qualify for the companion pass both years.

The Value So Far

Over the past 12 months I've earned a total of 150,000 points from this card on $26,000 spend. Valuing Rapid Rewards points at $0.02 each that's a whopping $3,000. Subtracting out the 2% opportunity cost of using this card is $520. Furthermore there's an annual fee of $99. Together these bring the net value down to a still amazing $2,381. Adding back in nearly $29 in other credits I earned for targeted spend lands it at a net value of $2,410.

The value of this card in its first year is stunning. $2,400 is unlike any other card I've had. It all comes from the power of that Companion Pass. Southwest Airlines Companion Pass

But how do I value it? I decided to value it through the points I earn. The valuation of 2 cents per point I use is a blended rate that reflects the combination of buying individual tickets, where the redemption rate is about $.013, with adding on a companion for free on some of those flights. Basically I'm figuring that half the tickets I buy I'll add my companion on.

This is not the same as the actual value I draw from the Companion Pass. These are points; and mostly I haven't spend them yet. But I estimate that the actual value of the CP I've seen over the past 12 months, including on tickets both purchased with points redemption and with paying cash, is over $3,600.

The Value The Next 12 Months

It's useful to calculate the value of a card over its year just finished. That informs decisions about whether to apply for new accounts like this again in the future. But the question at hand right now is whether to renew this card for a second year. And for that the first-year value means very little. In subsequent years that whopping signup bonus disappears, leaving the card to fly or fail on the value of its regular benefits.

In terms of regular benefits I've been averaging about 1.15 points per dollar. That represents a blend of the 1x, 2x, and 3x points per dollar rates on different categories of spend. At a valuation of $.02 per point, that's an earnings rate of 2.3% on each dollar charged. That's barely better than the 2% cash I earn from either of my 2% cashback cards. On that basis along it wouldn't be worth renewing this card, particularly with its $99 annual fee.

Southwest Airlines

But the points aren't the only value of this card. One of its fringe benefits is that it helps me requalify for A-List/A-List Preferred status each year. That $26k spend I've charged has given me 10,000 tier qualifying points. These aren't redeemable miles but are a valuable leg up toward status.

Having this elite status, especially at the highest level, means a lot to making travel on Southwest more comfortable. For example, A-List Preferred gets me near the front of the boarding line. That's a big deal with Southwest's current pick-any-seat-you-want seating plan. When they move to assigned seating next year, A+ will get me the ability to select extra leg-room seats at time of booking. That's going to be huge to my comfort & willingness to fly Southwest versus other carriers. Thus I'm going to keep this card for one more year on the basis of needing it to cinch A-List Preferred status.

canyonwalker

Sunday/Monday this week I flew to Phoenix for an overnight business trip— and Hawk joined me. It was the first time either of us has accompanied the other on a basically pure business trip. How did it go? Here are Five Things:

1) The first time ever. Many times in the past we've taken trips that were a combination of work and leisure. For example, when a previous job had me traveling overseas on US holidays like Thanksgiving, I'd fly out there to do the work during Thanksgiving week— then have Hawk fly out to join me for a few days after for a belated few days off. This trip was a first in that it was essentially all work for me. I didn't extend a business trip by adding a leisure component to make it a bleisure (business + leisure) trip.

2) The first opportunity in 12 years. While this trip was the first time ever it's a particular opportunity I've been looking for for 12 years. 12 years is about how long I've had the Companion Pass from Southwest Airlines.

Hawk joins me flying on a business trip (Aug 2025)

Hawk joins me flying on a business trip (Aug 2025)

The Companion Pass allows my designated companion (Hawk) to join me on any flight for a nominal fee. It doesn't matter who pays for the flight, or even if it's purchased with award points. My companion can join me cheaply.

When I first earned the Companion Pass 12 years ago one of my thoughts was, "Great! Hawk could join me on business trips!" In fact I even added her to a trip I was booking a few weeks out. That trip wound up fizzling... and it would be the last opportunity for almost 12 years.

3) Why so few opportunities? Having Hawk accompany me on a business trip hasn't worked out for the past 12 years because the timing's never been right. Most of that time she's been working— at jobs that do not support remote work— so she hasn't been able to join me without using her limited vacation time. And if she were to take vacation time... well, I'd still be working. We might as well both take time off and enjoy the trip together.

4) To be clear, my company did not pay for Hawk. There's no boondoggle here. We paid for her flight ourselves, the little that it cost thanks to the Companion Pass. (And Southwest was the logical choice of airline for this trip due to their schedules, prices, and change/cancel policies.) The hotel cost was the same whether one or two of us were in the room. And we paid for Hawk's meals on our own dime.

5) And Hawk enjoyed it! This is perhaps the most important point to consider: how well did it work— for both of us. For me, it was enjoyable having Hawk with me on Sunday evening, even if our plans for swimming in the pool in the desert evening heat fell through. Despite that missed opportunity I was successful with all my meetings on Monday— the actual point of the trip. But how did she like it? I was skeptical because, for her, the trip amounted to kind of a nothingburger. Not only was Sunday evening kind of a let's-stay-inside fizzle but her plan to go rock shopping on Monday fizzled because the shops are closed on Mondays. Still, she told me she enjoyed it. She enjoyed the extra time together. And maybe next time— if there is a next time— we'll a) arrive earlier to use the pool and b) try not to have my meetings on a day when the rock shops are all closed. 🤣

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September 2023

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Page Summary

canyonwalker - Hiking Tew Falls
canyonwalker - Webster Falls
rimrunner - Counting pikas
canyonwalker - Timbits!
rimrunner - WorldCon 2025
canyonwalker - Easy Night, Easy Morning. Shifting Gears in Canada
canyonwalker - Canada Costco: Cheap Pills AND Hotdog Combos!
denise in dw_news - Mississippi legal challenge: beginning 1 September, we will need to geoblock Mississippi IPs
canyonwalker - Art Gallery (S)Troll, part 2. Tea at the Village Idiot.
canyonwalker - Strolling, and Trolling, Through the Art Gallery of Ontario
mmcirvin - A day at Seabreeze
canyonwalker - Getting Settled In In Canada
canyonwalker - Landed in Canada... Where Apparently I Can "Just Say 'No'" to ATM Robbery
canyonwalker - Leaky Pipe Flange, Toilet Time-Out
canyonwalker - Heading Off to Canada. Found Family.
canyonwalker - Busy, Busy. Hot Times. Pool Life.
canyonwalker - Plumbing Leak in the Ceiling
canyonwalker - Hiking Rancheria Falls
canyonwalker - Southwest Credit Card Keeps Flying
canyonwalker - Retrospective: Hawk Joining me on a Business Trip

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