Gryphonic

If you follow me on Mastodon, you may have seen some posts regarding a saga that I’ve been having with my condominium’s HVAC system.

To quickly summarize those:

1. With as hot as this summer’s been, with stretches of days into 30ºC and above, my air conditioner had been struggling to keep my condo cool.
2. Looking back at my smart thermostat’s data, there’d been a slow decline in performance since last year
3. A technician that came into look to diagnose the issue couldn’t do anything about it due to not being able to remove the compressor unit, because of a pipe (we suspect it’s a drainpipe) in the way. They said that it should be possible to access the unit from outside, but that would need help from my condo building’s property management.
4. I’d since been on to my condo building’s property management company to get further assistance, explaining the problem over a number of phone calls, emails, etc.

Fast forward to today. I’ve just had technicians around from another HVAC company, who allegedly can deal with external access. What they found today was pretty much nothing new, and that they said that external access is probably the best way to go about fixing this issue. However, it’s not a cheap or easy thing to do. Because my condo is on the 4th floor and there is no access to the external vent area from the balcony, the company would need to get some kind of lift system to get up there.

One thing they suggested was that the problem could be due to dirt and grime buildup on the secondary coil, which should be accessible from behind that vent. There should be regular maintenance performed to ensure that those are clean, but in my time living here (since March 2018) I do not recall that’s ever been done. So a convenient option would be for the property management company (of which we’ll be switching to a new one come December 1st) schedule a time sometime in April to go and clean these for all the suites in the building, which means that a lift has to be rented just once, and works out cheaper in the long run as its for all suites not just one. Also, while they have the lift, an HVAC tech can check my unit out to see what’s up with it, whether the refrigerant levels are good, etc. Then things should be in a good position for summer.

Another thing that the techs suggested was the our building sue the building’s developer for how these HVAC units were put in… because it’s just insane how they were installed.

Not only is the drainpipe (black pipe) obstructing the HVAC unit, but there are vent pipes for the hot water heater in the way as well. To really get at the HVAC system, everything in there would have to be disconnected, which means liaising with the gas company as well. The way that everything is in there makes it near unserviceable, which is why the technicians were saying that it may be grounds for legal action.

Anyway, these technicians are going to email the current property management company their report. I have also given an update directly to the property management company myself, and I’ve sent an email to our condo corporation’s board apprising them of what’s been going on as well, so that they’re aware and things don’t get lost in the management company handover.

I know that nothing is going to get fixed on this now until early Spring next year, and I’m going to make sure that the issue doesn’t get forgotten so it does get addressed.

I needed something to test the ActivityPub plugin that I just added to my site, so I figured that I’d also do a quick write-up of thoughts post-FE.

I started staffing the convention as Business Director after FE 2018, though only had two in-person events under my belt (FE 2019 and FE 2022 – FE 2020 was cancelled in the 11th hour, and FE 2021 didn’t happen due to COVID-19 too) before I stepped down. So this was my first year as a regular attendee since the first time I’d attended the convention, back at FE 2017 – when I still lived back in the Vancouver area (and hadn’t even been contemplating a move out to Toronto then)

Personally I felt this year was a little disappointing for me due to a number of factors.

First, a couple of good friends who had planned to come out had (for good and personal reasons) backed out. This meant that my ‘hangout group’ was now quite a bit smaller than I’d planned, and I had been hoping to do more since I was no longer staffing.

Second, for personal reasons of my own, I just wasn’t feeling particular enthusiastic about going to the convention in the weeks leading up. Barely a hint of excitement, very little planning of what to do, and so on.

Lastly was the at-event experience. This year in particular I felt that it was very difficult to actually find other people to talk to and hang out with. I’m putting this down to a general lack of hang out space in the hotel and convention centre. The mezzanine (convention) level of the hotel has a long hallway with south (lake) facing windows which – when the hotel is not holding an event – has a number of comfortable seats. Starting from FE 2022, almost half of these seats got re-deployed into ‘Quiet Rooms’, to provide a refuge for people who might be feeling somewhat overwhelmed to retreat to. Then, there was no ‘Zoo’ (lounge) area where people could congregate and just hang out. This also went away in FE 2022 due to making the Dealer’s Room larger to give more opportunity for social distancing, letting that area expand from 2/3 of the Metro Ballroom to all of it. There were tables in the Gaming Room as well as a small handful in the Dealer’s Room, but it kind of felt ‘wrong’ to use those as chill/hang out spots. As for the hotel lobby, there were no real seating areas down there, other than the bar – of which you really had to be eating/drinking to make use of.

So I felt that I was wandering the hotel and convention centre just looking for people to talk with, and when I didn’t find anyone I knew I’d just end up retreating back to my room. Then in the evenings, I’d wander down and the lobby area (except the bar) would have a handful of people, the same in that long south-facing hallway on the mezzanine level, and it seemed that everyone else was in the main stage area for the dance. I can only assume that if you weren’t a fan of excessively loud music and/or dancing, you were hiding in your own or someone else’s hotel room.

That even made going out in costume difficult, because other than the a handful of costumers on the bridge from the hotel to the convention centre, there just seemed to be rather few people out. I went down in Tseatah mk.IV one afternoon and was only out for 30 minutes because there was so few people out and about.

For a convention that had over 3,300 people, it sure didn’t feel like that many people were there.

Hopefully I’ll have a better time this summer at AnthroCon, as at least then the weather will be such that people can socialize outside the hotel and convention centre.

This comes perhaps a little later than some people will have posted their reviews of 2018. My reason for the late posting – today (January 17) is also the anniversary of arriving in Toronto.

January

The start of January was spent by packing up the old place in Maple Ridge, and working on getting it ready for a change in ownership. The sale was in process, but I had to get some work repairing the garage ceiling done first. It was also early on in January when I moved Otter and Cylia over to be looked after by Sydney Roo and his brother. Had a farewell dinner with some folks, and then on Jan 12 I left BC and went down to Seattle. There, another farewell dinner with some more people, and then left on the Big Drive on Jan 13. The drive was long, but fortunately uneventful, and I arrived in Toronto on Jan 17. Stayed with Babs for a little bit while I looked for a place to buy, and found somewhere maybe a week later. Then moved to an AirBnB for a few weeks until the purchase of a condo was completed. I started working on Jan 29th.

February

Moved into the new condo on Feb 15th. Got all my stuff on the 17th. The cats arrived from BC (by air) on the 18th. My little family was complete again.

March

Attended my 2nd Furnal Equinox. The previous year when I attended I had no idea that this one I would be living here for.

April 

Broke the 1000 follower ceiling in Twitter … yay. This would come to be of benefit a couple of months later at AnthroCon, as it would get me a free taco at the place across from the Westin.

There was the attack by a guy in a van in North York – two subway stops north from where I work. A number of people killed as they were run down.

Smirked as the Maple Leafs got knocked out in the first round of the playoffs. Though I don’t live there any more, the San Jose Sharks are still my team.

May

Otter made it to be 18 years old!

Did a couple of fursuit outings – a walk in a park, and also an event on Victoria Day on Toronto’s Centre Island.

Went out to the Doors Open Toronto event, and got to see Bay Lower subway station, the old Toronto City Hall and the new Toronto City Hall.

June 

Went down to attend the Niagara Falls Comic Con, bringing Drogon out there. Mistakingly ate at an Outback Steakhouse there, unaware of the massive tourist markup they charge. It wasn’t even that good of a meal either!

Cylia’s had her 9th birthday!

Visited Ottawa for the first time, and wandered the Parliament Hill grounds in the evening and a bit of downtown. The next day, went out to a Renaissance Faire near there. Originally had intended to costume, but it wasn’t great for that since it was on a government owned property, and governments are No Fun.

Went to the theatre to see Phantom of the Opera! While I remembered the music, I was surprised at how much of the story itself I had forgotten.

Visited the Raptor Sanctuary at Mountsberg, a place which I hadn’t been to since March 2008.

July

Aeto came over to visit right before July 1 (technically he arrived June 30). We went down to Niagara Falls on July 1 (roads were so busy!) and then got back with what we thought was enough time to see the fireworks back in Toronto. Except traffic was a mess and transit couldn’t get us to where the fireworks were when it started. Saw some of them from a number of blocks away, but left somewhat early to avoid traffic. Drove down to Anthrocon – the first one that either of us had been to in years – on July 4. Debuted my new Khajiit costume, Athra, and had perhaps the best con I’d had in ages.

At the end of July, I tripped over a weirdly placed curb and suffered a bad foot injury. While I’m mostly recovered, the effects still linger. I doubt that I’ll be back to the state that I was before, though.

August

Intended to go to CanFurence, but because of the injury just a week before, ended up missing it. Also because of trying to recover from the injury, I really didn’t do much this month. For a large part of it, I was working from home as I really couldn’t comfortably make it into the office.

September

Technically this started in August, but I went to the Toronto Fan Expo. Once again, I took Drogon there, and also Athra. Still liking that lots of people actually recognize him for being a Khajiit.

While I never made it to the Gilroy Garlic Festival while I was living in the San Jose Bay Area, I made it out to the Toronto Garlic Festival this year.

Right at the beginning of their season, I ‘challenged’ the Blue Jays that if they won the World Series I’d stop mocking them. They didn’t even make the playoffs. The mocking will continue.

Went out to the Michigan Renaissance Faire. This was the first Faire I’d been to which had permanent buildings. Wow. This blew even the California Faires (which were my current high bar) out of the water. Again, brought Athra out, and he was quite the hit.

October

My parents came out around the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday, prior to them going down to Florida. Again, went down to Niagara Falls (3rd time this year), and managed to find other things to do as well to keep them occupied.

Went to the Hamilton Comic Con. Met Caroll Spinney (who used to play Sesame Street’s Big Bird), and brought Athra out again.

While playing Pokémon Go out in a park one Sunday afternoon, I saw my first real blue jay. Eh. Not at all as impressive as Steller’s Jays!

I decided to bring in Phijardni to work for Hallowe’en, and won ‘scariest’ at the work Hallowe’en contest.

November

Went to Furnal Solstice, which is Furnal Equinox’s winter holiday party. Brought out Tatonga for that one, since he does his best to fake being a reindeer occasionally.

Then towards the end of the month, things started to decline.  Stuff happened that caused my mental health and happiness level to start rapidly going down. Then the day I was going to leave for MFF, my workplace decided to terminate the employment of one person in my team, and a few people in the neighbouring team to me. I knew that I was okay, but these thoughts stuck with me while I was heading to the convention.

December

Continuing on from the end of November, things just got worse. Lots of little things that kept going wrong just compounded, and I ended up having the worst convention experience I’ve had for years. By Saturday afternoon, I was almost ready to try and get an early flight home. While it’s not the fault of the convention, I think that I will not be back to MFF for some time.

Right in the middle of December is my birthday – 45 years old now. To celebrate it, went out with a couple of people to see Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo show. After that, walked over to a BBQ place and had good food.

This year, I was heading back to the UK for Christmas. I had the Friday before I left off work, and that was fortunate, because while I was going to take Otter to the vet for boarding, he appeared rather unwell during the day. I took him down earlier in the day instead. He was dehydrated, and there were a few tests that we were going to get done. He was in the best place to be for the next week, at least.

The time in the UK was decent, and I managed to avoid political arguments while there. Went and did the Crystal Maze Live Experience in London with my brother, which was a lot of fun. On Christmas Day, met my nephew for the first time, as well as my aunt’s new dog. Thursday, went and saw the Disney stage show of Aladdin, which was okay except for that they made Iago to be a human henchman to Jafar instead of a parrot – so that nagged at me the whole show.

But the year closed out on a bad note. Once I got back home, Otter was not in good shape at all when I picked him up from the vet. He was now barely able to walk, couldn’t make it into the litter box, and was hardly eating. On New Year’s Eve, I took him back down to the vets for the last time and said good bye to a friend that I’d had for almost 18 years. 🙁

 

Looking ahead to 2019

When this journal is posted, I’ll have been in Toronto for a whole year. It’s had highs and lows. It’s starting low now because of the loss of Otter, but I’m hoping for it to get better. The plans for this year include:

• Furnal Equinox in March, where I’m staffing it as Business Director
• Heading to Florida in April for my Dad’s 80th birthday
• AnthroCon in July
• Fan Expo in August
• DragonCon – my first time going to that one – in September
• More Renaissance Faires – I want to go back to the one in Michigan, as well as others in that state. Also, want to try and get to the NY Faire. Depending if someone (not me) gets a particular Khajiit costume, I may try to make it down to the NC Faire too.

Before I went back to the UK for Christmas, Otter – my eldery diabetic cat – did not have a good day on the Friday before I left. Since I was going to board him at the vet anyway, I took him down earlier to get him checked out. The vet was going to do some blood tests.

I called the next day as soon as I got to the UK for the results, and there wasn’t too much that was pointing towards anything in particular. A slight reduction in the vitamin B12 levels, and dehydration (of which the dehydration we knew Friday).

The plan for Sunday was to do a blood glucose curve – taking readings every 12 hours to see how things looked. He was all over the place, apparently. That tracked with my own observations before, where he really wasn’t very stable in his levels.

Nothing else until Saturday, yesterday, when I got back to Toronto and picked him up. Basically, his diabetes is being hard to manage, and it’s giving him all kinds of problems now. Weight loss is a big part of it. Since May 2017, he’d lost almost 0.8 kg of weight.

He was 3.9kg then, and 3.1kg now. Having picked him up since I got home, I now really notice how much body mass he’s lost. It’s alarming. But now he’s having a much harder time moving. Before, his back legs weren’t being as strong, but now… he can barely walk.

Today, he’s been having an incredibly tougher time just trying to go about his daily needs. He’s pretty much stayed in one spot near the food and water all day. As for the litter box, he’s not had the energy to get into it a few times now.

I just ran out to get a shallow litter pan for him, and when I got back found that he’d emptied his bladder just outside the box, but after that had managed to get in, and was having trouble getting out. When I put down the new pan, he just lay in it until I helped him out.

Otter was born on May 20, 2000. He’s 18 years, 7 months and 10 days old. But it’s now starting to look like he won’t make his 19th birthday – not even close. He’s pretty miserable right now, I can tell. It’s breaking my heart to see him like this.

I always thought that The Decision would be either a few months away, or that one morning I would wake up, or come back to work, and find him gone. Those last two, I think would destroy me, as I was not around when Otter’s brother, Boone, passed. Was on work travel.

I can see his quality of life has deteriorated. He’s a stubborn little fighter – always has been – but I’m doubting that he’s going to be able to come back from this now. He’s existing, but it’s tough to see a ‘spark’ of even contentment in him right now.

I think that even Cylia knows that something is not right. She’s been a little more vocal and fussy around him than usual. He may not care for her in the slightest, but she always has shown signs of doing so for him.
But now I think that The Decision is starting to approach quicker than I imagined. I’ll see how he is throught the night and into the morning.

I’ve seen that a few other people have made such Decisions in the past week. During my time in the UK, in the back of my mind I was dreading having to join them… but it’s possible that soon I may have to. 🙁

 

Edit: At 1:57pm on December 31, 2018, Otter left this world to go be with his brother, Boone. It was a hard decision, but I think the right one for him,

Back on Saturday July 28, I was looking forward to CanFurence that was coming up the following weekend, as well as being ready for another social event on the Sunday (July 29). Little did I know that the entire rest of my summer was going to be screwed up that day.

I was out getting some groceries, getting a new set of keys cut for the condo so that the person who I would have coming to check in on Cylia would be able to get access, and then going to find some other costume stuff for the new lynx I had debuted back at AnthroCon.

It was at that point that I came around a corner after parking my car, and tripped over a curb/lip sticking up in the middle of the sidewalk.

I went sailing over that curb, landed badly, scuffing up my right forearm, left palm, left knee, but most severely; landed back on my left foot. After a few minutes I was able to pick myself up, but I could barely put weight down on the foot. I aborted my costume clothing search and headed home. I was able to hobble on the foot enough to get back to my condo. But once there, I started feeling shivery, teeth chattering; signs of getting shock from this ordeal. After mulling it with some online folks for a while, I decided to head to the nearest hospital, making use of Uber to get me there.

I was processed and actually seen very quickly, getting an X-ray of my foot. However, despite following the instructions of a nurse, the ER people ‘lost’ me for an hour, as I had been directed to wait in a specific room (which is where I was), and they expected me in another general waiting room. Nothing was broken, and it was considered to be a bad sprain. I was given a pair of crutches, an anti-inflammatory shot, and sent out on my way… heading back home again using Uber.

The next week I was able to work from home, since I really could not walk well at all. The following week I went in a couple of days, but it proved hard enough that I worked from home for another week. I’ve since been improving and getting physiotherapy for it the past three weeks (including today), and I’m feeling reasonably well enough to do costuming at FanExpothis weekend.

I’ve still got some pain in the foot, and it’s going to take a few more weeks until it’s back to near 100%.

But that small trip and fall pretty much torpedoed the whole plans I had for late July and all of August. It’s not like I even saved that much from not going to CanFurence, as I’ve also had to shell out money for new shoes (hiking shoes, which don’t bend as much near the toes, which helps that part of the foot heal still), and a pair of ‘hiking poles’ so I can use one of them as a stick for support as I’m walking around. At least with using the stick/pole, I’m getting a seat every time on the subway!

After all of this is healed, I’m still going to have a big scar on my forearm as a reminder of this. 😛

It’s now been about 2 1/2 months since I made the move across the country from Vancouver to Toronto.

So, how are things faring for me so far?

I think that the answer has to be … ‘not too bad’ to ‘pretty good’.

On the work side, the company that I’m working for here is considerably more mature than the previous one I was working for in Vancouver – and the company is not as old either.

Certainly, the impression that I get immediately from this place is that they do care about their employees a lot more. It’s not so much big things, but little things here and there.

For example, there are subsidized breakfasts and lunches brought in each day. Now, I know that I’m a picky eater, but there are still some things brought in occasionally that I find pretty good (some lemon salmon with roasted potatoes, for example). Sometimes, the lunch is completely free as a random ’employee appreciation’.

On the employee culture side of things, there is a ‘shoutout’ board where anyone can give ‘kudos’ to anyone else for a particular example of any of the company’s core values. I’ve managed to get one of these. While it really is nothing apart from ‘public kudos’, there is a definite ‘feel good’ factor about being recognized for something.

Then there are bigger things the company does too. Right now, I’m writing this during the lunch break of the ‘Fiscal Year 2019 Kick Off’ event. This is nothing like the sales kick off that my previous company did the week of the Christmas party. That one was heavily sales focused, and if you weren’t part of sales, then you were pretty much left out in the cold. Here, everyone is involved. Everyone, not just some people, is brought from whatever remote offices they are in to Toronto, and everyone is attending the big All-Hands session today and the break-out sessions tomorrow. This also isn’t held in the company offices – they would be too small for this – so we’re at a theatre that’s part of one of the University of Toronto colleges.

There was swag we get too for attending. Apart from a stylish (okay, not really) re-usable shopping bag (always useful), we got some luggage tags, a hoody, and a GoPro (clone) camera! Obviously, the camera is the big win here.

The presentations given by the C-level people have a definite professionalism to them, and we even had former RIM/Blackberry CEO Jim Balsillie give a presentation. Sadly, he read it from paper instead of knowing it, so it was not much of an engaging speech. The Q&A part was more interesting.

I cannot imagine the previous company spending that kind of money on something like this.

On the actual work side of things, I think that I’m getting to grips with things well. I’d been on the job for 2 months, and already had done some online training on the software by now, so the weeklong training session I was in last week was a lot of “hey, I know this now”. My team lead is also happy with how I’ve been managing to come along, and told me so too.

So, that’s work. How about personal life?

A big reason why I was fine to make such a big move out from Vancouver to here was that I really didn’t feel that I was firing on all cylinders socially. Sure, there were a few core people that I got together with for stuff. But when it came to the larger social scene, I felt that I was very much on the fringes.

Since I’ve been here, I have been doing my best to get involved with some of the social events. Fortunately, Furnal Equinox didn’t happen too long after I got here, and I managed to prove to myself that I can have fun at a local convention after all. I’ve also been to some of the regular dinner social meets, as well as a fursuit bowling event. I would have gone to a few more, except I’d been fighting off a cold and cough the last few weeks.

One really good thing is that I’m really well situated for transit. I can actually go downtown after work and stay til late, and get back home easily by transit. I just could not do that where I lived before. Things are a lot more flexible and open to me now!

Sure, the weather is definitely different. The snow did suck when I didn’t have my own place with a garage, but now since I take transit to work, it’s no longer an issue. As for the cold, it’s not been that much of an issue (since I don’t need to be outside waiting for anything for long), but I am ready for it to start being warmer now.

And when it gets warmer, then I can go start exploring around the area more. Then there are some other events during the warmer times I want to get to – like some Renaissance Faire type things, some of which might be close, and others that I may have to drive a few hours to get to (such as the one near Ottawa and another in Michigan).

But, the outlook for more interesting stuff to do around here is good, and perhaps better – for me – than Vancouver.

Overall, I think that I am giving this move here a decent positive grade right now.

Let’s see what the next few months bring.