The Unblogged: Honeymoon trip Fall 2020

Few people read this blog. For me, it is a convenient way to keep a diary/photo album and I find it helps centre my thoughts. Although I enjoy it, there are times when it does not come easily and events that are important to me do not get recorded. Over the next few weeks, I plan to fill in some of those gaps. Luckily I have all my pictures from the last 20 years available on iCloud Photos. 

I got married in the Summer of 2020. That event did get a blog post, you can go back and see the details if you are interested. Remember this was during the COVID epidemic. I was acting Head of Department at that time and so was not teaching and my wife was not back at work yet (she is a dental hygienist, retiring soon now) . We were able to get away that Fall to go on a short Honeymoon. We decided to visit Niagara Falls and Toronto. Because of the pandemic, there were few crowds and accommodation costs were low. We rented a car in Toronto and the first stop was the Falls.

We had a great view of the Falls from our hotel room, a suite with a fireplace. The revolving restaurant in Niagara was open and I love these: food and a changing view!

Then it was back to Toronto. On the way, we visited a drive through animal reserve with an aggressive ostrich. The encounter was captured on video.

The CN tower revolving restaurant was not open unfortunately but I think we went up to the viewing platform (I have been before and since). Toronto Islands made an enjoyable park experience. 

Lots of interesting architecture in the city. 

The last few days we were there the city put some lockdown measures into effect. Restaurants were closed except for patios and luckily the weather was great those days.

 

The last day was spent at a beach park with some iconic fast food. 

We loaded up with Bulgarian food for the trip home. Since then, we found that they will deliver to Vancouver. 

Barcelona trip

I am just back from a Barcelona work trip. I went to work with Tim Myers on models of column filtration, used to clean drinking water and other applications. Tim is a strong Applied Mathematician, with many successful Industry projects. He's fun to work with, and it was fun to be in Barcelona in the sun while it was raining here in Vancouver. Also, it's persimmon season there now. Spanish persimmons are the world's most perfect fruit, and they do not  travel well. 

I also do not travel well these days, will not make those long trips so often in the future. The project was a good one, and working with Tim is quite enjoyable. 

I stayed in a studio residence room which had a nice courtyard 

But it was not quite as nice as where I usually stayed which has this view:

When not working I found a couple of ways to stay out of trouble:

That is a very nice gin, by the way (Nordes), quite an unusual set of botanicals. I brought a bottle home to share with the local gin crew if they don't wait too long to come over. 

YouTube Music Playlists

I amuse myself putting together playlists on streaming sites. I have settled on YouTube Music as my streamer of choice. The collection there seems stable and there are some fan added tracks that have been fun to see (and some useful combinations of tracks that should be played together). You can see all the playlists I have made at 

https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCkShB8VOc47-9YxIbDYfyRA?si=Rn1rxyUi-1RF3SKS

Some recent ones: Vancouver Spring 2025 (mostly soundtracks old and new), Veronica (some of my wife's favourites), Many Hours of Long Songs, Brian's Funeral CD (for my own funeral, some fun tracks, I hope everyone will be drunk by the time it is played), Rain, and Gaming Songs. 

The long playlist, "Background Music for All Occasions", seems to have some popularity. I have been adding to it steadily. 

Exciting East Lansing 2025

You can look back in the blog history and see that I have visited "exciting" East Lansing many times. I collaborate with Keith Promislow in the Math Department of Michigan State University.  This year we continued to work on models that describe how interfaces in materials and biological systems move in time to equilibrium states that minimize a prescribed energy. Keith is the driver of the project, interested in the applications but mostly now in the analytic theory of the models. I develop computer simulations of the model, to investigate new phenomena or to confirm the analytic results. I have worked with Keith for many years (since 1998) and really enjoy the collaboration. 

The MSU campus is quite beautiful:

I have an enjoyable routine for my visits. Besides the research work, I host a weekly gin and tonic night at my long stay hotel with Keith and his wife Ronay and any other visitors that are around.

I had a rental car this trip and did some shopping at COSTCO. I had to try their house brand gin, that comes in a 1.75 litre bottle. My son tells me that tonic is hip. The Engine gin was something Keith brought back from Italy for me to try. What a good buddy! 

To keep myself out of trouble I always bring a hobby with me. This time it was embroidery. I decorated hats to celebrate G&T nights. 

The only new thing that was exciting was that a local Trader Joe's had opened up. I have to say that Trader Joe's is not as exciting as I remember it. I first went to one in LA years ago and it had all kinds of eclectic items that looked like they had fallen off the back of a truck. This modern one just had more or less regular groceries. 

I will end with a couple of extra things unrelated to this trip. My irises came up in the garden before I left. For some reason, my wife really does not like them. 

Before I left for East Lansing I had a short work trip to Penticton (at the south end of Okanagan Lake). I am our department's representative on the BC committee of all Math and Statistics departments, and our annual meeting was there. This was the view from my hotel room:

The weather has been great here since my return, here is a nice view from the steps up to my studio:

East Van Culture Crawl 2024

 Last month, I participated in the East Van Culture Crawl. It is a four day event where studio artists open up their space to the public. 

I debuted the sale of my paper mache creations, under the banner of "Three Circles Pottery and Paper".

I did sell a few things, came close to breaking even on the registration cost (if I am careful about what costs I count). I got a commission from a good friend of mine, John, for two more rainbow poppy vases and I think they turned out well. He bought the first one I made at the event. 

I put together a playlist for the event, available at YouTube Music. It was well received by the other artists in the studio, not sure if it made the visitors more comfortable. 

If you want more of my YouTube Music playlists (they are awesome) I am @brianwetton4068 on that platform. You can also see more of my craft adventures here. 

Whistler Weekend November 2024

Veronica booked us for a couple of days at Whistler, a mountain resort town near Vancouver. There is skiing in the Winter and Hiking, Golf, and Cycling in the Summer, but we are in between seasons. The weather cooperated this morning and we went on a walk around Alta Lake. This was a nice chance to get away from everything, I really enjoyed the break from the routine. First stretch of the walk was around the golf course.

Then it was around Alta Lake

Some beautiful vacation homes to see along the way.

I had minor envy, but I never did make the financial moves to end up affording something in that price range. I do have a three story, rustic place in the forest in a more dangerous part of town (in the Black Forest, in the game, Valheim):