Table Of Contents
Let’s see if I can write this one quickly (clearly it’s not going to include the Tahiti trip report). Except for Tahiti, I had two trips: one to retrieve my car (and referee the Coupe Gadbois) and one to Regina (to referee the Saskatchewan Open). And then I had 3 courses, so between 9 and 10.5 hours of lecture per week. Mondays, with 4.5 hours of lecture, are always rough, but at least then that’s roughly half of my weekly teaching. Wednesdays have 4.5 hours of lecture three times a term. (Week 7 is midterm week, with no lectures, so we have 3-4 lectures throughout the term to make up for these, also allowing classes to potentially finish earlier).
COVID
No personal experience with COVID this month. Have been using the nasal spray, though not masking in lecture. Then again, when 6 students come, and the CO2 is around 600, the risk is pretty minimal.
The nasal spray I use, FLO Travel Nasal Spray, doesn’t seem to be available in Canada, but I should have a supply for the next while (and am supplementing it with additional supply brought from NZ by MP). It’s iota-carrageenan. There is a product with the same active ingredient listed on some sites in Canada, but always out of stock. On a similar note, this could potentially work better if it passes the relevant studies. Which we really would like governments to fund, and agencies to approve.
OK, so I don’t believe that infectious diseases inevitably mutate to become milder. Talk to anyone who had polio about that. But also there is the fact that while COVID infections aren’t that much lower than before, the hospitalization rate is indeed lower. Here’s something from the BBC about it.
Indeed,
Chin-Hong says the vast majority of people will either be asymptomatic or experience a cold so mild that some might well mistake it for a seasonal allergy, such as a pollen complaint.
was pretty consistent with my experience in December. And the article points out that Long COVID is still a thing (though also dropping yet still substantial per a NEJM article). We still don’t really understand it.
Vaccine development continues.
Professional
The main professional thing in January was teaching three courses (which continue for another two months). We also submitted our TOPLAS revision mid-month. I had (in-person) meetings with my grad students and we’re making progress towards some submissions, though not soon. Also kept up my Professional Engineers Ontario licensing with their continuing education online courses (not the worst, but also far from the best).
Grad students/mentees/collaborators
Yep, now meeting grad students in person, with meetings on 8 days. Also some SIGPLAN-M mentees. Calls with collaborators at the beginning of January to finalize TOPLAS.
Collegiality/Service
I joined a FAUW governance reform working group; we have meetings for that every two weeks. I got another TOSEM submission to review. I told them that I’d do it during reading week. There are some things that are piling up that I really ought to get to, though the other things are non-job-related.
It’s not quite collegiality or service, but I also contributed profQUOTES and profTHOUGHTS to mathNEWS 157-2. I should post that to this blog as well.
I did a Walks as a Service with a 4th year student and went to a Sustainable Transportation event on campus. I also went to the Engineering Faculty and Staff Award dinner, though there weren’t any awards for me.
Trips
French Polynesia, Montreal, Regina. One of these places was warmer than the others!
French Polynesia
Trip report if time permits, but I have a lot of other demands on my time as well. It was a nice trip! Much warmer than Canada in January.
Also some birds.
Montreal, January 17–19
I’d left my car in Montreal, and it is sometimes useful to have a car to leave Waterloo, so I wanted to pick it up. Turns out the Coupe Gadbois judo tournament was scheduled for this weekend, which was two weeks after coming back to Canada. I got an Aeroplan redemption for Toronto-Montreal (strangely, premium economy was actually cheaper than economy) for 4pm. To catch that flight, I ended class 20 minutes early at 14:00, took the taxi to YYZ, received a text about boarding starting at 15:14, arrived at 15:22, and was at the gate at 15:29, after a quick trip into the Air Canada Café to pick up a wrap. The German guy next to me on the plane was looking at climbing pictures on his phone, but didn’t seem keen to talk. On the other end, I arrived at YUL at 17:28, took the bus, and got to the referee clinic a few minutes late (though I dialed into it too). I was hoping they would talk about their impressions of the new rules, but they didn’t.
Not much to say about the tournament. It’s nice to referee in Québec, though there is also turnover from pre-2020. Two full days of refereeing, starting at 8 and ending at 17:45 each day. Had some poutine on Friday and dinner at my parents’ house on Saturday, though the parents weren’t that talkative with me either. They were talking to each other at 5am though. When I was trying to sleep.
There was no plane to catch on Sunday since I was taking my car back. I left the Centre Pierre-Charbonneau at 5:40 and arrived in Waterloo at 1AM with a stop at the IGA to get some snacks and then at one of the A&Ws in Kingston to get a burger for supper. The power steering was broken but I managed. Easier on the highway without a lot of turns.
At least it’s not too bad to get in at 1am if teaching the next day is at 1pm. Sitting in the car for 7 hours is not the most comfortable for my back.
Regina(ish), January 24–26
Five days later it was time to go to the Sask Open in Regina (new airport YQR!) There is this Landline service contracted by Air Canada to “fly” you from Kitchener airport YKF to YYZ. For now, they are adding YKF-YYZ segments to your flights for free, as long as your trip is all on Air Canada. So I thought I’d give that service a try.
There are two flights a day to Regina. One is at 12:25, and the other is at 21:10. I didn’t feel like cancelling class to take the 12:25, so it was 21:10. I thought I would like get to YYZ early and so I requested the 15:35 bus rather than the 17:35 bus. That would give me 4 hours at YYZ. There is supposedly a 30 minute check-in deadline at YKF, but they didn’t seem too hung up on that, and there was someone with some sort of problem ahead of me in line that took a while to resolve. I’m not sure I really even needed to physically check in; I had an online boarding pass. I did want the paper Air Canada YKF boarding pass for fun though.
There are a couple of ways to get to YKF. You could conceivably walk or bike. I’ve thought about that, even in winter, but I definitely wouldn’t do it at night. There is GRT city bus service, but it takes a while (an hour if you’re lucky). Looking through the pictures, there is also GRT flexbus service (at limited times), so I’ll try that next time. There’s also taxis. I drove my car, with the broken power steering, and parked it for $20/day ($60 total).
The bus seems to get at least half a dozen passengers. I’m not sure if it really is more convenient than driving to YYZ. My drive to YKF is just 20 minutes, which is much better than driving on the 401, which is broken at random times; taking the bus protects you from traffic-caused misconnections. It’s not that much cheaper in total, though that depends on the choices that you make for parking or taxi. It’s slower; the bus took an hour but then you have to get to YKF earlier and then you have the connection. They do enforce a minimum connection time at YYZ.
- Gallery: Getting to Regina and in Regina, January 24–25
- Gallery: Leaving Regina and snow on the Prairies, January 26
During my 4.5-hour connection at YYZ, I spent some time in the Air Canada Café, then went to the lounge, and then back to the Café. Probably I eat more than I should in the lounge.
It looks like Air Canada swaps the service to YQR between mainline and Rouge pretty often. Unfortunately our flight to YQR was on a Rouge plane. Even 13A was quite cramped and I didn’t have much room to operate my computer and write trip reports.
Got a lift from one of the Regina-based referees to my airbnb in Regina. Regina is small: the airport is just a 6 minute drive away from the centre, and I walked 10 minutes to the tournament site in the morning. It was below -10C, which maybe you can see in the pictures.
Usually there is a pretty carb-y breakfast at tournaments, so, inspired by Québec referee Maxime, I sometimes just get fast food. In this case it was Burger King. There really wasn’t anything else available within a reasonable distance open early enough. Turns out we started later than planned due to kata, so I could have actually had proper breakfast. Oh well. The tournament then ran to 19:00 on Saturday. There was definitely a lot of judo to referee; it’ll be the last tournament for me under the old rules.
Sunday started a lot earlier and we finished at 14:55, at which point I got another ride to the airport and sat in the lounge for 15 minutes before boarding. There was a bit of a line for security despite there being not that many flights departing YQR, but NEXUS got me to the head of the line.
Literally the only things I saw in Regina were the city skyline, the airport, the Burger King, the airbnb, and the place they took us to dinner, Leicester Family Restaurant (which was fine).
Travel Planning
I’d planned the Montreal and Regina trips before January. There was a bit of Japan planning left, as well as checking what I plan to bring there. I also added a YKF segment to the Japan return. The outbound would cost $190 because of the Japan Airlines segment. Not worth it. Flixbus is $30.
Movement statistics
Walking was pretty minimal, being in Waterloo, where I mostly bike around; a bit less than in January 2023 when I was in Waterloo (excluding the Around the Mountain Circuit). Biking double compared to January 2023. “Only” eight flight segments (crossing the Pacific one and a half times), plus two “flight” segments that were actually buses YKF-YYZ-YKF.
Movement statistics:
- 🚶 Walking: 62km on 18 days
- 🚲 Biking: 163km on 20 days
- 🚗 Driving: 777km on 6 days (Tahiti, Montréal-Waterloo, Regina)
- 🚗 Taxi: 186km on 4 days (two YYZ-Waterloo trips, once to PPT, once to WLG)
- 🚌 Bus: 187km on 5 days (once from WLG, once from YUL, to/from YYZ)
- 🚇 Metro: 12km on 2 days (Montréal)
- 🚆 LRT: 14km on 2 days (Waterloo)
- ✈ Plane: 24412km on 6 days (PPT-AKL-WLG, WLG-AKL-YVR-YYZ, YYZ-YUL, YYZ-YQR, YQR-YYZ)
Walks
Only as part of the Tahiti trip.
- Up to O Belvédère in Tahiti.
- Grand Circuit at Water Gardens of Vaipahi
Pictures
If you think I didn’t process many photos in December, try January! Between teaching 3 courses and 3 trips, I really didn’t have much time. But, we’re now at the 4-day hike in January 2023, and then the next real set I have is August 2023. There is also a ski trip that I should write a trip report for, maybe.
Processed 7 sets and added 3 (and a couple more stranded pictures that I should pull off devices).
Picture logs still available. As always, pictures are clickable to go to the full gallery.
- Sets of pictures posted: 7 (December: 18)
- Total pictures posted: 415 (652)
- Total pictures in selection pool: 1357 (2542)
- Accept rate: 31% (min 18%, max 48%) (26%)
January posts
One submission to a NZ consultation about yet another bad bill, and one trip report. I really should post my mathNEWS piece.
Miscellaneous
I guess I was in Wellington for 22 hours 10 minutes in January. Mostly I was in Ontario.
Acquisitions
January felt pretty spendy, but I was mostly replacing things that were broken.
- glasses (I hate glasses)
- Pixel 8a with Otterbox Commuter Series Case
- 1Mii Bluetooth 5.3 Transmitter Receiver: didn’t quite work for my use case (earbuds) but may be otherwise useful still
- another 2 Logitech Ergo M575S trackballs
- replacement Celestron Nature 10x25 monocular after my previous one has water inside that doesn’t seem to want to leave
- yet another phone stand which seems to work well enough
There was also a lot of life maintenance.
- dentist
- bike repair 2× (all cables replacement $122, bottom bracket and bearing repacking $45, flat tire $28) = total $195
- car repair (power steering) $472
Sports
Made it to judo practice 3×. I had availability for judo in the third week of January, but did something to my back again, as I had in January 2024. It was much less severe this time though. Climbing at Grand River Rocks 4× plus a visit to the UW climbing gym, though that was really in support of the Scouts going there. Less than I’d like, but well, there’s more teaching than I’d like.
Food
Extremely small number of new restaurants in January 2025 (and also not many old restaurants either).
Tahiti
- Roulotte Anita: like everywhere else, huge and tasty portions, but also great views at sunset! The crab salad was in large part potato salad with a bit of crab.
- O Belvédère: looks good, but they were closed for a private party which got cancelled due to the rain, but they still served us drinks and gave me a free banana.
Waterloo
- Slap Burgers: yeah, it’s burgers, though indeed pretty tasty. In the plaza next to campus.
Regina
- Leicester Family Restaurant & Lounge: the donair calzone was fine; they had a menu with lots of options for a Western restaurant.
Volunteering
I actually had an in-person meeting for the Scouts Group Committee, which is actually better. OAC Board still meets virtually. We also did planning for a clinic that we held on February 6 in Toronto (and also in Ottawa in mid-March). There was also the two refereeing trips to Montréal and Regina.
Conclusion
Made it through the first month of Winter term, whew. Even managed to do some extracurricular activities, though less sports than ideal.