Divorce Distractions

I separated from my wife, Lealle, last August. The divorce is imminent. There was no hope of reconciliation -- I had been trying to work things out between us for ten years already.

Even though I had support from friends, and a wonderful new romance started unexpectedly, it was still a difficult time and I have sought distraction. I could have buried myself in work, but, well, that is not me. I turned to less productive diversions.

Computer Games 

Three games have dominated the last twelve months for me are listed below. I can recommend all of them. 

• Clash Royale: This is a phone and tablet game, a mix of real time strategy and tower defence. The games are very short (2-5 minutes) and the gameplay is quite engaging. There is some real strategy involved and a metagame. It is a freemium game. You can play quite enjoyably without paying any money, but of course I have spent some on this game and the ones below. 
• Hearthstone: A Blizzard phone app as well as desktop version. I played this a couple of years ago and came back to it this Spring. Turn based play, so more relaxing. It also has some strategy involved in play and in deck construction (you collect cards and put them into a deck that has some synergistic elements). There are a variety of playing modes. Like Clash Royale, you move up and down in rankings to equilibrate to winning about half the time, no matter your skill level. 
• Path of Exile: An older, independent game much like Diablo 2 but with some innovative gaming elements and a huge skill tree that really makes a difference. It is a well put together game with a good community. They just had a major update which I am checking out. 

TV Shows (mostly Netflix)

I'll mark shows I actually recommend with a [*]

I am watching Game of Thrones with buddies, so that's not a distraction but a real social event. I am also watching 3% [*], a Brazilian show, near future societal science fiction, with my girlfriend. We are only halfway through the only season but it is quite good so far. She also got me on to Big Bang Theory, which is good light entertainment. 

• Daredevil: A superhero show, season 2. I thought it suffered compared to the first season. It seemed a bit repetitive. I think he should date that nurse. 
• Luke Cage: Another superhero show in the same universe as Daredevil. Interesting for the African American cultural references but otherwise not worth watching. Apparently they are together now in a team show called "Defenders". Someone I trust said that this was good. 
• Supergirl: The only thing I can say is that it was better than The Arrow. Hey, I was bored in East Lansing. 
• Dark Matter[*]: Season 2 came out this year. Actually, I think this one is pretty good. It is reminiscent of Firefly and Farscape. Everyone on board the ship is quite attractive. 
• Travellers[*]: Science fiction show with time travel to the past to prevent future dystopia. Some disbelief is required on the science, but the mechanism of time travel is interesting and has consequences. First season was well written and acted. 
• Sense8: Wonderful show with great writing and a deep message. I can't bear to watch the second season since I heard it was cancelled. Sigh...
• iZombie: A recommendation from my daughter. It made it to three seasons, not deep but actually pretty interesting. Acting and writing are variable, but some high points. 
• Helsing: I watched to the end of the first season. Not bad for yet another vampire/zombie show.
• Ash versus Evil Undead[*]: You can watch the movie, Army of Darkness, that it follows from, but it can stand alone. Campy, supernatural goodness. Ash voices many things that men feel inside but are too smart to actually say out loud. 
• The Shannara Chronicles: Based off a terrible book series and produced by MTV, I expected to watch the pilot episode and mock. It turned out to be not too bad, however, and I watched to the end of the first season. This was another show I watched in East Lansing, only available on Netflix US.  My main criticism is that all fantasy characters should have British accents. I found the American accents of some of the elvish characters especially jarring. 

Lansing Airport, NYC subway, and Graffiti

So there is no graffiti here at the Lansing airport. But, there is a business centre with free internet and coffee, comfortable chairs and desks. The free internet is allowing me to post this blog and listen to a progressive rock playlist on 8tracks (by Canibal_NoFM, pretty good so far). The airport is really pleasant. There was no line up and six security people just for me at the screening. The only trouble is you can basically only fly to Detroit and Chicago (oh -- I looked it up and DC and Minneapolis are also destinations). I usually fly through Detroit and take the bus to exciting East Lansing, where I visit a colleague at Michigan State University every year for several weeks. The connections were just better to Lansing this year. One of the only other two times I have been here before, my flight (in the tiny propeller plane) was delayed overnight due to thunderstorms. Today looks clear - keep your fingers crossed.

So the graffiti is on MSU campus, in a pedestrian underpass by the river.

I know some people find graffiti like that upsetting and threatening. I find it really creative and beautiful. This example reminded me of the graffiti'd subway cars I saw in NYC when I was a student there 88-91. At that time they were upgrading the subway system and removing graffiti. However much I like graffiti, I get that, since many people regard it as anarchistic, it encourages vandalism and criminal behaviour. I had been there a year and was used to the professional, clean subway cars and then one day one of the last old trains covered with graffiti showed up. I was blown away. I don't have a picture of the one I saw, but below is one I found online from around that time. 

Note the World Trade Centre in the background. That dates the NYC skyline...

Pottery from the UBC club studio

I have a few pottery pictures saved up from the last couple of months. I have really been enjoying having pottery studio access in the Summer. I am still on the tea light holder phase. I guess I will keep going until everyone I know has three of them. The ones below right were given to the Promislow family in East Lansing, Michigan. I work with Keith Promislow at Michigan State and visit him for a month every year (a shorter trip - three weeks - this time). Also below are two of my "little bowl attached to a bigger bowl" for olive pits, or dip for chips or vegetables. They need some work...

I have also been making some spoon heads that I attach to wooden handles. They also need some work... Two salt shakers, the one on the right turned out quite well I think.

     

Britannia Canada Day Celebration

I volunteer at Britannia Community Centre, which is in my old Commercial Drive (Grandview) neighbourhood. They have a different model at Britannia, with the community centre, elementary and high schools, and Library all sharing the same space and some resources. I have heard that it makes for some administrative headaches to organize things across the different partners, but when it works it can really bring together the community in a way that the separate groups cannot.

Because I have a fairly demanding day job, I sign up mainly to help with weekend special events. One of the ones I have done three (maybe four?) years in a row now is to help out at the Canada Day event they organize. I help run the button making booth, with Helen Spaxman, a long time friend that I first met as my pottery instructor at an evening class at Britannia. The button maker is a large sized one (3"). Button making is one of the activities that is provided at the celebration, along with live music, a bouncy castle, face painting, speeches by politicians, and many other things. It is usually held in Victoria Park but because it was a high profile year (Canada's 150th year) it was held this year in the more prominent Grandview Park.

Helen brings pastel crayons, pencils, stencils for maple leaves, and wooden skewers for Sgraffito if you want to add extra layers of design. Adults as well as kids get into it, and I really enjoy it myself. I get to make a few buttons as demos as well as use the button maker to make ones for other people. There were supplies for a few magnets and I got to make a few of those this year. My creations are below, magnets in the top row and pin buttons below. There are people with amazing art talent - I saw some really good ones this year.

Gin Friends: If it is London Dry Gin, does it matter how cheap it is?

I have an e-mail list for people I meet that like gin. I send out messages a few times a year about new gin I have tried and occasionally organize events. Last weekend we got together to answer the question in the title by a blind taste test. By London Dry I meant predominant juniper flavour (so not heavy botanicals like Hendricks) and not sweet. The contestants were:

1. A home brew gin with juniper and other botanicals added to cheap vodka.
2. Boomsma 
3. Boodles
4. New Amsterdam
5. 5 O'Clock Gin (at $7 US the cheapest entry) 
6. Beefeater 

The entries are shown below. Look at those beauties! The women are quite attractive, too. 

    

We did not get a complete consensus of opinion, but the general view was that the cheap 5 O'Clock Gin was the worst. I thought it had a slight chemical taste that was quite unpleasant, but since I poured the blind samples my opinion was not truly impartial. The general favourite was Boomsma, with Boodles and Beefeater close seconds. New Amsterdam was actually quite sweet so not really a dry gin that could be compared to the others and the same with the home brew which was more strongly botanical. Unfortunately we didn't get any higher end gin to compare (Victoria Gin and Phrog are local and in the right class). We will have to revisit this question, although unfortunately we can say that if you buy cheap gin it won't taste as good. However, the difference is not strong when you put it in a G&T. 

We had food and they enjoyed my view.

   

We had a couple of ideas for the next event. We could compare locally made gins. I know that Endeavour Gin from Liberty Distillery on Granville Island is quite good. We could stack it up against Schramms, Wallflower (from Odd Society), Longtable, and Victoria Gin. I am sure we could find another one to get us to six again. The other idea is to address the question, "does cheap gin and fancy tonic make a better G&T than fancy gin and cheap tonic? And is fancy gin and fancy tonic just too much?". 

Loon Lake Workshop

A few weeks ago I went to Loon Lake Lodge for a workshop on "Numerical Methods for PDEs on Surfaces." It is close to but not exactly my research thing, but I got invited and it looked like fun. The Lodge is in the UBC demonstration forest just outside of Maple Ridge. I had no idea it existed but my father, a retired forester and UBC graduate from the 50's, remembered coming out here in the Summer as part of his training. It is a great place to have a small meeting. You drive to a key pad gate at the edge of the city and then it's gravel roads after that, just like you are miles into the interior. It is a beautiful spot. The lake, the lodge, and the food they made for us three times a day was fantastic. This is a great place for a small meeting. If you google "loon lake lodge" it comes up.

After talks the second day we walked around the lake. There was a hand ferry to cut across one arm of the lake instead of walking around on the road. 

   

      

I went swimming in the lake. It was cold, but I was used to Babine Lake in Northern BC so not too bad. I am not a good swimmer, just dog paddle around and enjoy the water. They made a fire that night. Really fun group of faculty and graduate students and a number of undergraduates that were attending an associated Summer School joined us one day. 

One the last afternoon we did a hike in Golden Ears Park. 

   

One of the most memorable moments was the picture below of (R to L) me, my student Steve Ruuth, his student Colin Macdonald (now my colleague at UBC), and his student Tony Wong. Four academic generations with me as the old man. They made a big deal about it, and because I am a bit shallow, I really appreciated it. It is fun to see them all doing so well.

I Need My Phone (And a Recommendation)

I was a late adopter of cell phone technology, but now I seem quite dependent on it. My old cell phone (an iPhone 5S) has glitched over the years. I had the battery replaced on one of my visits to East Lansing (where I visit a colleague at Michigan State University every year). It started glitching again a few weeks ago: it would not power up and refused to take a charge, but then start charging the next day. When I took it in to the Apple Store they told me they could not even open it up because it had a third party battery in it. Li-ion batteries can be dangerous, but I imagine the greater part of this policy is incentive for customers to buy expensive Apple parts. Anyway, I realized I had a great deal of my work and social life, and entertainment wrapped up in that little box. It could have been a wake up call to put down the technology, but instead I just bought a new phone. It is an iPhone SE, same size as the old one so it can fit in the same case I had, which is leather and quite nice.

I should say that I don't buy the phones with my own money. As a UBC faculty employee, I get a professional development allowance every year of $1,500.  It is surprising what you can and cannot do with this fund. You could pay for actual professional development: I could take a course on how to program in a modern computer language or on how to be a more motivational Director. However, most faculty members believe they can learn anything like that on their own. You can't take visitors out to lunch, although I believe that is often a legitimate expense and most faculty do not have alternate funds for this. You can't buy office furniture, although UBC will not necessarily provide upgrades even if your office chair is from 1950. Surprisingly, you can buy telecommunication equipment and pay for the monthly costs. Because I use the phone for work and my personal life, it seemed fair that I let UBC buy the phone for me and I pay the monthly bills.

These phones are all technically the property of UBC. They phrase it this way so you can't buy a phone with your PD money and then sell it to augment your salary. But the question is what you do with the old phone when you upgrade. UBC does not want a three year old glitching phone back. I decided to take it to a repair place and spend some of my own money ($44) having a new battery put in to see if that gave it new life. I took it to IRepair in International Village (second floor, you have to look around a bit to find it). It is just glass doors leading to a shallow entry way and a wall with a window cut out.

 

I rang the bell and a technically competent looking young man came out. We chatted, he took my phone and by the time I finished my lunch at the food court the battery was replaced. Seems to work fine so far. The repair guy said the old battery was the dodgiest one he had ever seen: it had no markings on it at all, not even fake ones. I will find a BC taxpayer to pass the old phone on to, or keep it as an extra to put a foreign sim card in when I travel.