My father, Anthony Brittain Robinson, died last month

He was 97 years old, and in good mental and physical condition until the last few days he spent in the hospital after collapsing at his retirement home. There is an obituary for him on a web site hosted by the funeral home that handled his cremation:

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/burnaby-bc/anthony-robinson-11985574 

My parents separated when I was four years old and later divorced. My mother went back to her maiden name and took me with her, which is why I am now a Wetton although I was born a Robinson. My father stayed a committed parent and took me for every holiday from then on. I got to see the province as I came to visit at the places his career as a professional forester took him. There are a lot of things to admire about my Dad. He had a successful career and really cared about the people that worked for him. He designed and built a cabin on Babine Lake (that is still standing). He was a real gentleman and I have had many kind words about him from his friends and the staff at his retirement home. My wife and I got to know the old man version of him well when he lived with us through COVID. He will be missed. 

These are pictures I took of him at his home in Kamloops just before he moved down to Vancouver. They were publicity shots for his books, still available (I think) on Amazon. 

Bulgaria Trip Summer 2024

My wife emigrated from Bulgaria in the 90's and still has connections and a family home (shared with her sister) there. I visited for the first time two years ago and we had another long trip this Summer. The first stop was Albena, a resort area on the Black Sea. We stayed at an all inclusive hotel, my first time at this type of vacation venue. It was all eating, drinking, sleeping, sitting in the sun, and a bit of sea swimming. The all-inclusive experience was fun to do once, but once is probably enough for me. 

Albena was originally a resort area only for Western tourists when Bulgaria was a communist country. This was the first time my wife had been there, so new for both of us.

We then had a few days in her home town, Perushtitsa, near Plovdiv, on the slopes of the Rodopa Mountains. It is an interesting town, with easy access to hiking trails. One leads to the Three Generations Monument, a nice hike I did a few times on this trip. It has a view of the town and beyond. 

The town has a population of about 5.000, down from 8,000 in the peak of its prosperity in the late 80's. There are a number of neglected and half built houses. This one I remember from two years ago on the way up to the monument and does not seem to have been worked on in the intervening years. There are still some influences from the communist era, like this mural on City Hall. 

The last leg of the trip took us up to a local mountain resort, Varhovrah. More hiking for views and to a nearby village, Churin. 

Many of the mountain villages were built near water springs. One of the highlights of the trip was getting to meet my wife's sister and her husband. We had some good times together. 

I tried out a low volume and weight solution to portable computing (iPad, stand, and wireless keyboard) that worked well for e-mail. As the final note, I can say that there is a perfectly acceptable, low cost local gin. 

Art Studio Space

It had become apparent that my paper mache and other craft hobbies were filling up the apartment, with product but also with supplies and tools. The obvious answer was to get some art studio space, which I moved into today. I have seen a few of these shared spaces through children and friends, so I knew what I was getting into. I have an open square space in the middle of the second floor of an old warehouse in East Vancouver, on Powell Street. It is right by the train tracks. 

I am one of ten people in the space. I met three of them today and they seem like they will be a good crowd. I guess they are mostly there to work on their art/craft but I am hoping to get input on my designs.

Kilns are not allowed (not the right power or ventilation plus the fire risk), but I may do some pottery there and take it elsewhere to be fired. Right now, it is set up for paper mache work. Some of my latest creations (made before I moved in) are shown below. I am hoping to sell some of this stuff at some point, thinking now of Christmas ornaments for a seasonal craft sale. These stars are a nice canvas for decoration ideas. 

YouTube Music Playlists

After vinyl and CDs, I went to iTunes for a digital collection of my music. I converted my CD collection and added it to that platform. There are some albums that stand out as good listening (see my earlier post for examples) but also many excellent songs on albums that are not good as a whole. I spent some time and energy compiling playlists with some attention to the order of the tracks. I have reproduced some of these in YouTube Music. So far, there are 

• Undanceable Electronic Music
• Brian's Christmas
• I (not me personally) was on drugs when I wrote this song
• Background Music for All Occasions 
• Brian's 2CD choice of Yes
• MSU Summer 2023

If you search for "Brian Wetton" I should come up, or I am @brianwetton4068. Look for "Brian's Funeral CD" and "Gaming Songs" in the future. 

May-June 2024 Exciting East Lansing Work Trip

I have stayed in East Lansing many times since 2011 (you can search East Lansing on the blog and see the many pages that come up -- I just did for nostalgia). I visit Professor Keith Promislow at Michigan State University. I met Keith in 1998 when he was working in Vancouver at Simon Fraser University. We worked together for about a decade on a collaboration with Ballard Power Systems (a local fuel cell company). Somewhere near the end of that project, he moved to Michigan State. I like Keith and I like working with him, and at some point when my kids were old enough, I thought we could keep collaboration going if we spent more time together and I started visiting him for a month or so every Summer. The tradition continued this Summer, and I went to work with him on a couple of projects: an analytic and computational technique to model 2D geometric gradient flows (related to materials science) and a computational capturing simulation for sea ice formation. We geeked out at the blackboard. 

Usually I fly to Detroit and take the bus to East Lansing, but this time I flew to Toronto, rented a car and drove down (about 5 hours). My experience making a land crossing to the US is quite different to the process at an airport. At Vancouver airport when flying to the US, you go through customs in Vancouver before you board. I say I am a Professor travelling to a conference or going to MSU to collaborate and they wave me through. At a land crossing, I get all kinds of questions. They ask whether I am getting paid in the US (honest answer "no"). They ask what I am working on and I say "Applied Math". The follow up is "so you are only applying to work on the project" and I continue to try and explain. Keith says they may just be pretending to be confused in case I underestimate them and let slip something I should not. At the crossing to Michigan, I can honestly say it could have gone either way with the guard I talked to. Keith's recommendation was to say "I am going to collaborate on a book" because everyone can understand what writing a book is like. I will try that next time. 

I did the car rental and drive from Toronto to have a car in Michigan for a change but also it gave me a chance to stop in Toronto and visit my son and his partner there. My son is in a PhD program and UofT in Public Health. 

So in East Lansing I had a car and also rented a bike as usual. The car is the same model as the one we own in Vancouver, but a newer model with Car Play that shows google map directions on the screen. This is a feature I really liked, but not quite enough reason to buy a new car. 

Keith turned 60 this year, and I timed the visit to be there for the celebration. I made this for him (an H index is a measure of research success). 

I also timed the visit to catch the last hour of the East Lansing Art Festival. I found the fantastic tie-dye vendor for the first time in several years and resupplied. 

I discovered that my wife does not like looking at me wearing tie-dye shirts. I told her she should think of how happy I am wearing them, but I am not sure that sold it. I kept myself out of trouble in the evenings making paper mache bowls. I gave one away in East Lansing and the rest to my son and a friend in Toronto. 

Thursdays I hosted dinner at my long stay hotel. This is a fun crew, one of the reasons I still like going there after all these years.

 

The two best British Columbia gins

The province of British Columbia in Canada where I live has restrictions on alcohol sales. There are a few independent liquor stores, but most sales are done from government owned stores. Taxes are high, which seems reasonable to me, but selection is limited, which I find frustrating. Even independent stores can only sell what the BC liquor board decides to bring in. In part a response to this, a number of local breweries and distilleries have started up in the last two decades. There are a couple that make really nice gin. I am a fan of strong botanicals (more is more!) and so my picks for the best two gins are Liberty Distillery Old Tom Endeavour Gin and Seaside Gin from Sheringham Distillery. They are different enough in flavour that I cannot rank them head on. 

If you like a less botanical, more London Dry style, then the local Victoria or Empress Gin or Phrog Gin are worth a try. Leaving British Columbia, some other gins that I have really liked are:

• No. 209 from San Francisco (my previous favourite but I have not had it in a while). 
• Uncle Val's Botanical Gin
• Saffron Gin (mainly for the colour)
• Hendrick's (readily available almost everywhere) 
• Red Cedar Spirits Gin (blue label, licorice flavour) 

Paper Mache Product Advertising

There is a type of paper mache work I have gotten into that feels very similar to pottery. I use molds (some of which I designed and 3D printed) or make them from cardboard like pottery slab work. Decoration is done by paint or tissue paper and I also add beads and wire. I started getting into this on work trips away from UBC staying for longer periods in hotel suites where pottery was not an option. I enjoy this hobby but the apartment is filling up with "product". I am showing off some pieces here to use as a link to send to some potential local vendors. 

I had an idea of making sets of three with variations on a design theme like the bowls below.

There are vases (with paper mache flowers) and bedside jewelry holders. 

I have made a bunch of different boxes. This one was intended as a funerary urn. 

I was a graduate student in New York (many years ago) and had a chance to see some of the last graffiti subway trains. I admired the artistic vision. Here is my go at a graffiti alphabet and some catchy phrases.