Remembering Derek Miller

Almost three weeks ago I was having coffee with Bill and he was telling me about his plans for later that day. Bill was going to visit Derek, presumably for the last time. Derek, a mutual friend of ours, was suffering from colon cancer and was in the final stages. (warning, the link for Derek might not load right away. His website is getting a LOT of traffic right now and you might have to try again later.)

Anyway, at that time I asked Bill to pass on my regards to Derek, as I knew that I already had my final, albeit brief visit with Derek, back at his living wake. While the wake was a raucous success, Derek was struggling with an epic case of laryngitis that left him virtually voiceless, and with literally hundreds of his friends and family in attendance, he had time for a quick hug and about 3 minutes of conversation. It was his night, he was in rare form and it was all I needed. Then he was on to the next friend, chatting quickly, embracing and riding a euphoric wave well into the night.

Derek passed away last night, at home, as was his plan. We all knew this was coming, there were no surprises, yet coming into work today and finding out still felt like a punch to the gut. Derek made the best out of a terrible situation and managed to die with dignity and grace - even while openly blogging about the diapers and other gruesome details about his disease. His decision to blog about his cancer came from an honest place and resounded with thousands of followers worldwide. The final post was written in advance and posted on his behalf, but the words are all his. I encourage you to check it out - it's linked above.

I knew Derek K. Miller while he was alive, and I will remember him long after his passing.

Why three years?

Whenever I think about how long I have been blogging, my instinctual answer is always 'about three years now.' It's kind of sad because well, it's just so far off from the truth. Perhaps this is just a little insight into how skewed my perceptions are though. (For the record, I've been at this since 2005, making it just about double my estimate.)

To say I'm losing interest in this would be an understatement. In the past, I have written in spurts, but lately it just seems difficult to muster anything worth recording. I say this even as the nation prepares for an election and during hockey playoff season - two events that usually would have sparked me to say something in years gone by. I'm not apologizing for the lack of activity here, just noting it for what it is.

One thing that the blog does highlight is my lack of consistency. I recently had to write down a checklist to remind myself of certain things I really needed to do or check on every morning before I left for work. Checking that list lasted me about a week or two and then I just stopped reading it - I figured I had it down and knew it. A week after that, I started forgetting some of the things that were on the list, which is how my wife knew I had stopped checking it.

I thought it would be a good idea to track what food I eat by using my smartphone to take pictures of it and post it to tumblr. I lasted a few days of diligently recording the items I ate and then started to miss some things - the energy bar or banana on my bike ride, that extra cup of coffee. A few days after that I was forgetting to take out the phone for main meals. It is important to note here that the decision to record my meals was MY idea.

So what does that mean for my blog? I think it means that without some consistent effort from me, it just might wither and die. It's certainly not a big job to post regularly and when I do I find it helps me to focus my thoughts, at least it does force me to think about what to write moreso than a random tweet or facebook update would (not that I ever update facebook anymore - ha!)

Perhaps I should see if defocused.blogspot.com is taken. Yup, by someone in Finland, and they haven't posted since 2006. I guess it could be worse.

No Credit!

Well I didn't go for my morning bike ride this morning. I was up several times last night to walk Louise, who was suffering with pretty bad abdominal pain and couldn't settle down, so I was pretty tired and opted to get an extra hour of sleep instead.

Today is going to be a busy one for me - my friend Dallas invited me to watch the Vancouver Canucks play against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. It's not often that I get the chance to go see an NHL game, so of course I jumped at the chance. What makes it even better is that Vancouver is playing well right now. Even with defenceman Ballard out with a strained knee I remain hopeful that they can win against Anaheim.

Oh yeah - I had to call VISA yesterday to inquire about some suspicious looking charges on my statement. At first I thought they were related to my cell phone but as it turned out they were completely fraudulent and not related at all. I happened to have recently installed a banking application on my iPhone and this lets me easily log in and examine things like my banking statements and transaction history. It's amazing to me how many things like duplicate charges, etc. go through unchecked, especially since that is one thing that is pretty easy to flag for further inspection. It seems we aren't quite there yet though which is why I was the first to discover two identical charges of about $230 each against my credit card. This was something that immediately stood out to me and I decided to look into it.

As a side note, if the perpetrator had only posted the one charge, I would most likely ignored it completely, assuming it was a valid charge for something else. It was only because they posted the charge twice on the same day. Sometimes I'm aided by the stupidity (and greed) of others, I guess.

Anyhow, after a series of calls both to VISA and to my cell phone provider I start to gather the needed information to determine these charges were in fact false. Both companies were very adept at handling this and one representative at VISA, an energetic man named Adam had a very clear understanding of these situations in general and was able to give me helpful tips on what exactly to look for to determine if I was dealing with a fraud case or not. His tips helped to speed this process to resolution.

But yeah - tonight, hockey game. Tomorrow, take delivery of a new stove. I figure there will be a sleep debt to be repaid this weekend.

Still biking daily

After about a week even I had to admit that blogging about each day's ride was monotonous, boring and overall, pointless. Compounding to that was the fact that I generally ride the same route each day, so I didn't even have that extra variety to talk about.

I am still biking though. Every day, rain or shine. After all, I live in Vancouver. I'm not faced with horrifically cold temperatures like the rest of my family is right now. I don't have to shovel a path to ride on. I have most of the gear needed to keep me comfortable for the duration of my ride. I feel lucky to be able to do this daily.

Even better, now the sun is starting to be up when I'm on my ride. It's still mostly dark, but now I can see the glow through the clouds in the east and by the time I return home I am able to turn off my lights.

A little story about Telus Mobility

So today I get an email from Telus Mobility. I think this is odd, since I do not have a telus cell phone, but maybe it has something to do with our home bundle, which we did recently update. No, it turns out that wasn't the case at all, so I ended up calling Telus Mobility to straighten out the matter. I figured it would be a quick call.

Turns out it was a quick way to elevate my blood pressure. Once we sorted out that I was not in fact the same person they had on file (address didn't match) I figured it would be over. But no, the helpful gentleman on the other end of the phone then suggested that I call Google instead, as clearly this was an email problem because me and the other fellow obviously had the same email address. I was stunned. I had to slow down my speaking a bit, not because I thought he was stupid (at this point I kind of did think that) but because I wanted to control what I was saying. I explained again that this was not an email problem and that the only thing wrong with my email account was that Telus Mobility was spamming me with their email. I further explained that it would be in their interest to contact the other person with my name to get the correct email address as the one they had on file was wrong.

The representative then informed me that he could not contact the account holder.

"Doesn't he have a cell phone with you guys?" I asked.

Anyway, I hope it's been sorted out. Good luck with contacting your customer, Telus Mobility. I'm thinking you might need it.

Losing the sun for a few days won't be my idea of a good time

Temp: -1 deg

Precip: overcast

I saw that the temperature was below zero today and may have over reacted a little bit. I put on all of my winter gear. Consequently, I was too warm by the end of my ride. Not the worst case scenario, but I do make a note of it because I likely could have gone without one of the sweaters. For the record, I had shorts, knee warmers, thick sweat pants and my rain pants paired with a t-shirt, cycling jersey, arm warmers, sweatshirt, sweater, rain shell and coat on top. I went with double gloves and was also wearing the toque under my helmet. No scarf today.

I wear the rain garb when it is cold in part because it helps break the wind. Without it, the cold air cuts right through any sweaters I might have on. By the time I was doing my final climb back to the condo I had a couple of my layers partially unzipped to help regulate my temperature. By the end of the ride I had the peculiar sensation of being both too hot and too cold at the same time. While I didn't hate it, I can't say that it was one of my more enjoyable rides to date.

Not quite freezing, but damn close

Temp: 4 degrees
Precip: none, overcast

I went with the same gear as yesterday and concluded that today's ride was the absolute coldest I can endure with only a few layers. I was cold everywhere but was able to continue on. Next time I ride at 4 degrees I will make sure I have a pair of sweat pants on in addition to my other riding gear. Also, the single pair of gloves was barely adequate and a couple times I had to stop to blow warm air in them, or ball my hands into fists to keep my fingers from freezing.

Oddly, I am not able to get new podcasts from CBC today. Not sure what is up with that, but I set out on my ride without the usual compliment of news bulletins. Luckily I did have a half watched episode of Kevin Pollak's Chat Show, as well as a podcast from Search Engine. Those carried me through to near the end of the ride, so I was ok.

But I still missed my news from CBC.

Back to the Monday routine

Temp: 8 degrees
Precip: Overcast, intermittent showers, very little rain

I woke up feeling tired this morning, but headed out anyway. Last night I managed to wake up my wife with my snoring again and she was less than pleased, so it wasn't like I could skip out on my exercise even if I wanted to.

Of course, as usual, once I was underway things got better. What little rain I encountered early on was all but gone by the time I got to the park. I wore the same gear as yesterday and once again, I was fine. It's still very dark in some spots of Stanley but I'm able to continue on because the trail is so familiar to me. I do slow down though, in case there is a branch or some other obstacle.

My feet were dry when I got back in this morning. That felt so nice. I guess I managed to stay out of the puddles today.