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Canada Costco: Cheap Pills AND Hotdog Combos!

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!

Mississippi legal challenge: beginning 1 September, we will need to geoblock Mississippi IPs

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.

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Art Gallery (S)Troll, part 2. Tea at the Village Idiot.

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. 🤣

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Strolling, and Trolling, Through the Art Gallery of Ontario

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.

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Getting Settled In In Canada

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? 🤣

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Landed in Canada... Where Apparently I Can "Just Say 'No'" to ATM Robbery

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?!

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Leaky Pipe Flange, Toilet Time-Out

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.

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Heading Off to Canada. Found Family.

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.

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Busy, Busy. Hot Times. Pool Life.

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.

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Plumbing Leak in the Ceiling

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!

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Hiking Rancheria Falls

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.

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Southwest Credit Card Keeps Flying

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.

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Retrospective: Hawk Joining me on a Business Trip

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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4 Trips Down, 1 To Go - Then 4 More in September!

I've been busy this month. That's not just a feeling; it's by the numbers. One of those numbers is 5— as in 5 trips this month.

I've got 5 this month because I wanted to. Back in July I fretted that I wasn't traveling or doing things as much as I'd like. One reason for that was lack of planning. It's kind of too late when Saturday 10am comes around and I'm thinking, "Gosh, I don't have much to do today." So I looked at my schedule for August and filled in the weekends with plans. I wound up with 5 trips planned in August. Subsequently one of those trips got pushed out, but we put another its place.

I've now completed 4 of those trips. Chicago last week was #3, and Phoenix on Sunday-Monday was #4. That leaves just one more for the month of August... and it's a long one. On Friday evening we're flying to Toronto, Canada. We'll be there through a week from Sunday.

Once September rolls around... things will not settle down. 🤣 That's because I've planned a lot of trips for September, too. I've got a pair of business trips, 2 nights each, the second and third weeks of the month. In addition to those I've planned two long-weekend leisure trips. That's a total of 4 trips in September... and I may well plan a 5th one in the next week or two!

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More Pics from Chicago

Chicago Trip Log #10
Almost a week later

A few days ago I posted some pics from Chicago. Those were only about half the photos I wanted to share. I'm posting the rest here. Yes, these are from a trip that's now almost a week ago. "Almost a week later" isn't bad.... I've still got a few picture blogs in my backlog from visiting the Oregon Cascades a month and a half ago! Plus some even older stuff in the backlog that I'm ashamed to mention how old it is.

The Aqua Building in Chicago (Aug 2025)

This is the Aqua Tower just north of Millennium Park in Chicago. I stayed at the Radisson Blu hotel, which is on floors 1-18. I had a really nice corner room on the 10th floor. As you can see from the photo, though, the building has a lot more than 18 floors. Floors 19 to, I think, 80 are a condo. Yes, it's a tall building— that's why it's ridiculous that every Uber/Lyft driver my friends and I called had trouble finding it.

Wednesday evening most of the sales team left, and my sales engineering team went out for dinner. My boss chose a restaurant within easy walking distance. And the weather Wednesday was beautiful! Especially around 5:30pm, once it had cooled down a tad. As we started walking a few of my colleagues shouted, "Hey, there's the Bean!"

'The Bean' at Millennium Park in Chicago (Aug 2025)

'The Bean' at Millennium Park in Chicago (Aug 2025)

They're talking about a metal sculpture known as The Bean in Millennium Park. We detoured slightly to take photos in front of it.

Posing at 'The Bean' in Chicago's Millennium Park (Aug 2025)

Posing at 'The Bean' in Chicago's Millennium Park (Aug 2025)

Here's a selfie I snapped with the buildings along Michigan Avenue reflected in the metalwork.

Downtown Chicago near Millennium Park (Aug 2025)

After dinner the Chicago weather was still beautiful, just less sunny. 🤣 We might've gone out carousing, but I think all of my colleagues were as tired as I was. We walked back to the hotel where most of us gathered for a nightcap at the bar in the lobby, then went up to our rooms. I was back in my room by 10pm. It had been a couple of long days already— with one more to go!

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planes trains and automobiles

Home from Phoenix, Home from the Airport

Phoenix travelog #4
Back home · Mon, 18 Aug 2025, 8pm

Our flight home from Phoenix on Monday left 45 minutes late due to numerous aircraft swaps. Partly to make up for it our route home from the airport was swift. That was a mood lifter because waits at the destination airport always seem 10x longer than they actually take, whether it's for checked luggage to arrive on the conveyor or for a hailed driver to appear. Well, we drove & parked out own car, so there was no waiting. There was barely even any walking....

Sometimes parking at the airport is the most convenient AND cheapest! (Aug 2025)

Sometimes parking at the airport is the most convenient AND cheapest! (Aug 2025)

As we came down the escalator from the gate area to baggage claim we could see our car parked outside. We were in the second row!

Partly this primo location is from choosing to drive & park in this particular lot. The cost has increased over the past few years but it's still a tad cheaper than a roundtrip Uber/Lyft ride from home. (Plus there's the schedule certainty of not wondering how long it will take for the driver to come or how many times a driver cancels & has to be reassigned.) When I parked here two weeks ago it was a 5 minute walk each way to/from the terminal. The reason we're parked so close today is because we're using Hawk's disability placard.

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Good Meetings, Airport Rendezvous, Now We Wait

Phoenix travelog #3
PHX Airport· Mon, 18 Aug 2025, 4pm

It's been a busy day in Phoenix. Not only did I meet with a major customer for almost 2 hours but I've handled a few hours of internal meetings on the phone, participated in a bunch of Slack threads, and had breakfast with my wife. She flew out here with me and stayed with me at the hotel. Plus, now we've met up at the airport after my in-person meetings and we've eat lunch together, too.

Now comes the un-fun part of business travel. Or really any airplane travel.

Aaaand it's delayed (Feb 2018)

We wait. We wait because our flight is delayed. Currently it's showing a delay of 40 minutes. Oh, but we aren't just sitting here, waiting. No; Southwest has moved our gate three times. (They've moved the gate because they're swapped us to different aircraft several times.) Poor Hawk has had to walk about a mile across different concourses at Sky Harbor airport. Well, maybe not poor.... For one, she appreciates the exercise, and two, she got a lift on a golf cart for the last journey.

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Easy Evening, Busy Morning in Phoenix

Phoenix travelog #2
Hilton Hotel · Mon, 18 Aug 2025, 8:15am

We were late getting to Phoenix last night. I'd say "Of course" since we were flying Southwest Airline, but this time falling behind schedule mostly wasn't their fault. A passenger who was really too ill to travel got sick and collapsed in the jet bridge. It took about 15 minutes for staff to help back out into the terminal and clean up behind her. I'm glad for everyone's sake that happened before she actually boarded the aircraft and certainly before we pushed back from the gate.

We experienced some mundane delays in Phoenix, as well, getting from the airport to the hotel. The upshot of all the delays was we didn't get to our room until after 8:30pm. And there were still two things we wanted to do— eat dinner at the hotel restaurant and swim in the hotel pool— both of which closed at 10.

Balcony view at the Hilton Phoenix Airport hotel (Aug 2025)

Balcony view at the Hilton Phoenix Airport hotel (Aug 2025)

As inviting as the pool area looked in the evening— though the temperature was still in the mid- to upper 90s— we decided we cared more about dinner than the pool. And furthermore, we decided we'd prefer to eat dinner leisurely rather than wolf it down and rush out to the pool. Thus we simply retired to our room after 9:30 to stretch out and call it a night. So much for pool life— though we did start the day with a soak in the hot tub at home this morning.

Up in the room we had plenty of room to stretch out. We were upgraded to a junior suite. Yay, elite status! But it was more room than we needed. And the larger room didn't contain extra furniture, just more... open space.

A junior suite at the Hilton Phoenix Airport hotel (Aug 2025)

A junior suite at the Hilton Phoenix Airport hotel (Aug 2025)

This morning I was up early, my alarm set to 6:15am. That's because I had remote meetings starting at 7am ahead of in-person meetings later in the morning. So much for taking it easy.

I thought maybe instead of a morning swim in the pool I might at least open the balcony and enjoy the fresh air and pool view. ...Ugh, no. At 6:20am it was already 85° outside!

Now it's after 8 and Hawk and I are eating breakfast downstairs at the restaurant. After we finish here I'll hop in a car to meet colleagues at another hotel for final briefing/sync before we– my colleagues and I— head over to the customer together. Hawk will stay here at the hotel to enjoy the pool and maybe call a car to go out rock shopping. She and I will meet up at the airport around 1pm to eat lunch together and then fly home later in the afternoon.

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Pics from Chicago

Chicago Trip Log #9
A few days later

I didn't include many photos in my blogs about traveling to Chicago last week. That's because readying photos for sharing takes time, and I didn't much have time between meetings all day and team dinners in the evenings. I had to rush just to keep my blog backlog from falling a few days behind. In face now I'm already interleaving this with my next trip, to Phoenix. But here I'll share a few pics.

On approach to Chicago's Midway airport (Aug 2025)

On approach to Chicago's Midway airport (Aug 2025)

As we flew in to Chicago on Monday evening around 6pm I got a great view of downtown out the right side of the aircraft. Yes, we were coming from the west, and in this photo the plane is headed east.... That's because our approach path had us fly past the city initially, continue out over Lake Michigan, make a U-turn over the lake, and come back from the east. We landed at Midway Airport.

Downtown Chicago seen on approach to landing at Midway airport (Aug 2025)

Downtown Chicago seen on approach to landing at Midway airport (Aug 2025)

Here's another pic of Chicago's downtown. I snapped several pics through the window of the plane. I'm including here the two best.

Once on the ground I hailed a ride with Lyft to get to my hotel downtown, the Radisson Blu. The driver had to make several U-turns trying to get there. Those weren't prescribed by Air Traffic Control, though. They were just a consequence of the driver's ineptitude and inability to follow both spoken and pictorial directions coming from his nav app.

I didn't expect much from the hotel we were staying at. We were on a central booking with a discounted group rate. In situations like this the hotel usually puts us in fairly basic rooms with a limited count of upgrades allocated just to the leaders. I got a room on a low-ish floor, which wasn't surprising. But what surprising was opening the door to my room wedged in the corner away from the elevators to find out I had an actual corner room.

Pano of the view from my wrap-around balcony at the Radisson Blu Chicago (Aug 2025)

Pano of the view from my wrap-around balcony at the Radisson Blu Chicago (Aug 2025)

And it wasn't just a corner room but a corner room with a wraparound balcony outside. The photo above is a pano showing a nearly 180° view. A glance up and down the two sides of the building outside showed that few rooms had balconies at all, let alone ones where guests could walk around a corner.

Oh, and the weather was stupendous. I'd be, like, "Whatever" with a nice balcony in cruddy weather. But this was beautiful weather. Though on Monday it was actually too warm to want to leave the door open for fresh air. Later in the week it was cooler but still humid.

One of our stuffed animals perches on the balcony in Chicago (Aug 2025)

One of our stuffed animals perches on the balcony in Chicago (Aug 2025)

While I didn't have much time to sit outside and enjoy the balcony— plus there literally weren't chairs on the balcony— I did find some time to snap a few amusing pictures with a stuffed animal I'd brought on the trip. In the pic above and below that's "Baldy", one of toys I take as a memento when Hawk can't travel with me.

One of our stuffed animals perches on the balcony in Chicago (Aug 2025)

Yeah, hawks and eagles aren't the same. We're well aware of that. But Baldy, here, is one of our travel birds. A lot of the toys we have are too nice for us to want to stuff them in suitcases and subject them to the tribulations of planes, trains, and automobiles. We decided Baldy should accompany me on this trip because she could fly out and grab sushi from that huge seafood buffet 1/2 mile over on the left.

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Back to the Airport 64 Hours Later; Hawk Joins Me on a Business Trip

Phoenix travelog #1
SJC Airport · Sun, 17 Aug 2025, 3pm

Less than 72 hours after landing at SJC airport returning from a business trip to Chicago — 64 hours, to be exact— I'm back at SJC. Today, Sunday afternoon, I'm flying out to Phoenix. For business. And Hawk is coming with me!

The deal is I've got a high level meeting with a customer in Phoenix Monday morning. Initially I booked this trip as a same-day, "rubber band" trip, flying out to Phoenix in the morning and returning in the afternoon. But then I reconsidered my plan of flying in in the morning. The Monday 6:45am flight would arrive at least 90 minutes before meeting, plenty of time to get there if everything runs on schedule, there's always a chance of delays. It's a small chance ex-SJC as the airport doesn't get the flight schedule crippling morning fog that SFO 40 miles north frequently gets, but not a zero chance. And even if I arrive on-time there may not be enough time to accommodate a last-minute briefing meeting with colleagues. Plus, getting up before 4:30am for a 6:45 flight is not fun.

On the other hand, choosing to fly out tonight has its drawbacks. The main one is that I'd be giving up part of my weekend to work. Another is that I'd be away from my family for a night. But that's where a nifty feature of my elite status with Southwest airlines comes in. My Companion Pass allows Hawk to travel with me on any Southwest flight I fly for a nominal fee. And while we're together in Phoenix tonight we can enjoy the hotel's pool and hot tub together.

When I started earning the Companion Pass years ago (it needs requalification every year; I've earned it several times) I looked forward to exercising the benefit of having Hawk occasionally come with me on business trips. The problem, of course, was having the time to do so. When Hawk was working she generally couldn't just take vacation days to come with me. Especially when I'd have to be working those days, not joining her on vacation. Now factor in her current state of unemployment. Mostly it sucks; the job market has been terrible. But unemployment can be turned into funemployment. 🤣 She has time to join me on trips like this!

Update: We got to Phoenix late and tired. Our plan to go swimming in the evening fizzled.