That’s how the city is treating this storm. Honestly, it’s not that bad.

I forget what I typed yesterday and I’m too lazy to go back and read it again so I’ll reiterate the whole thing.

I came to work Friday morning just as the snow was starting, I open the building at 6 am on weekdays. We have a clinic for dialysis patients here that opens at 7 and their staff start arriving before 630. This building doesn’t close for anything so I came to work.

Well, the clinic closed – or more accurately, didn’t open at all. They aren’t the only tenant here and I have a responsibility to them all so I stayed until I was sure no one was coming and tried to leave at 9 am. That proved to be impossible on foot and I couldn’t get a taxi so I spent the night.

No problem with me, I was fully expecting to go home Saturday morning though. I was waiting for the plows to clear enough snow for me to get to the road without being up to my waist and higher in snow and before they could the phone rings and I’m told the clinic wants to open in half an hour. The person who works Saturday is very smartly not answering their phone so I get a really good offer to stay and accept.

This was fine with me too, fully expecting to go home Sunday morning. The city won’t lift the state of emergency though so the Sunday guy can’t come in and I can’t get a taxi home. I have no idea if anyone tried to call him or anything, I just know he isn’t here. 😁

I had enough of wearing the same clothes since Friday and I was getting a little tired of bacon and eggs. I had to get out of here for at least a couple of hours so I walked home. I fully expected to be up to my knees in snow everywhere but nope, nothing like that at all. I took a few pictures as I went, see for yourselves.

This is Topsail Rd right in front of the building.

I don’t know the name of this street. It’s a side street to no where though, the kind of street that doesn’t get plowed for days.

Canada Drive. It could do with a bit of widening but it’s drivable.

Columbus Drive.

And finally, Blackmarsh Road. The only plow I saw was going along here and it was scraping the two feet of snow along the edge that’s already done.

Got home, had a wash and much needed shave, put on some clean clothes and had a bite to eat then it was time to come back to work. Not wanting to walk again and knowing how clear the roads were I broke out my folding bike.

Here I am riding up Mundy Pond Road. The only parts I found impassable were the places where some jerk had thrown his snow into the street. Sadly there were more than a few of them. Some people suck.

I love this little bike. With better gearing I feel like it could take me anywhere through anything. From Japan to the end of the world in Newfoundland.

I have to be honest though, they need to end the state of emergency now, it’s not that bad out. At least end it partially, let the taxis and a few buses out so people who need to can get around. If it’s a state of emergency today then it will be tomorrow and beyond too because the places I saw that still need widening aren’t going to be done for days and all the major roads are fine. Most people won’t be going anywhere anyway, very few people that I saw had their driveways done. I feel that anyone who can get out should be allowed to. That’s my not so humble opinion. 😁

The saga of the Great Snow Storm of 2020 continues…

I can’t complain about the storm too much, it breaks up the monotony. 😁

I set about making a pair of snowshoes after my last post. First I had bacon and eggs (the real reason I’m not complaining – I have good food here) and then went looking for something to make the frame.

These dust mop heads are nice and stiff but flexible enough for me to bend to shape plus we don’t use them so I don’t feel guilty about cutting them up.

Duct tape truly is a gift from the gods. You can do anything with duct tape. I had no illusions about walking home in these, it’s almost an hour walk on a nice day, they wouldn’t hold together that long. I just wanted to be able to get out front far enough to see the road and have an idea on whether or not I could get home today.

They worked! The snow out back was thankfully really soft so I was able to push the door open. The shoes only sank about 6 inches, hard to walk in though because I was trying not to stretch the tape too much. I maybe should have tied them on with string but didn’t have anything suitable so I taped them on.

Made it around the side to the front but had to stop at the corner, there’s just way too much snow. If my snow shoes failed walking over that I’d be stuck in chest deep snow. The snow was not so deep further into the parking lot to the left but the wind was much stronger, too strong to be walking in face first. How strong?

That’s the wind right now. It’s says it’s from the north but out front it’s right in your face from the west.

So I here I sit again waiting. As I was coming around back to the back door the plow showed up in the back parking lot, I guess that means the roads are clear for him to get here. I’ll give him a couple of hours to clear out the front and try to get to the road again. If the wind is from the west I can walk home, it’ll be at my back. Even from the north would be doable.

Those sailboat in the tropics pictures are looking better every second…

Well, not never, but maybe not today either.

That’s the front door.

The snow is well over my head, impossible to say for how far.

I might be able to force open the back door but where will I go and how will I get there? No way the roads are clear, probably no cabs running and even if I got home will there be a pile of snow blocking the door to my house?

Might have to MacGuyver a set of snow shoes…

Is it any wonder that I want to spend a couple of years cruising the tropics in a sailboat? I’ve been stuck at work now for 12 hours, I’ve been here longer than that but I was allowed to leave 12 hours ago.

That’s the front of the building. No way I can open the doors with all that out there, the snow is almost as deep as I am tall. It goes out at least 20 feet before it starts to get shallower, I can’t really see well enough to see how far it really goes and what’s beyond it.

Ugh.

I’m trapped at work due to a blizzard.

That’s the view out the back door now. Can you blame me for wanting this instead?

Don’t lie, you want it too.

Look at that. Just look.

I’ve been reading a lot about sailing and watching videos trying to learn what’s involved to see if it’s right for me and in doing so I’m constantly confronted by images like that. I won’t lie and say they aren’t heavily influencing my decision process.

To try to keep some balance I go out of my way to look at images and videos like this:

The reality is though, unless you’re stupid or crazy you’ll spend far more of your time like this:

Than like this:

And I have to be honest, those storm pictures don’t scare me. A fiberglass sailboat is much like those orange encapsulated solid lifeboats, the big exception being the mast. They are pretty tough, unless you pitch pole or a hatch tears open at the wrong time your boat should survive just about anything.

I think I want to do this. I can’t say for sure yet, I’m going to have to try to get on as inexperienced crew with someone for a short voyage first before I can say for sure.

But I mean, look at that. Just look.

Working to have money to travel sucks. I’d much rather be out there somewhere seeing new things instead of these walls every day. It does offer the opportunity to daydream about where I could go and how I could get there however.

When I rode from Toronto to St John’s 10 years ago my head got full of ideas but once I started working again they all fell away. It’s so easy to just live your life existing day to day. It’s a horrible way to live but requires so little effort we all do it but complain about it constantly. My trip to Japan has reawoken many of those ideas including one of the crazier ones.

When I first arrived in Newfoundland more than a few people heard me say I wanted to build a sailboat and sail around the world. I don’t want to build one anymore, that’s logistically a mess, but I would like to buy one.

I’ve been looking into it and it’s possible to buy a used boat for as little as a few thousand dollars and with another few thousand invested in fixing it up set off to wherever you want to go. YouTube is full of videos from people who saved for a few years and are now a year or two into an epic adventure.

My mother hates this idea, she would worry her head off, and rightly so, I don’t know anything about sailing. That’s not totally true, I understand how it works, tacking into the wind, using the sail to generate lift, stuff like that, but I don’t know how the rigging works to achieve any of that. I might know the names of about a dozen parts of a sailboat lol.

There are other options to buying a boat however, I could join with someone else as inexperienced crew. I looked into it, there are people all over the world looking for people to sail with them, you need to pay your own expenses but those are generally not much. Sailing is cheap, or at least it can be, depending on how you do it.

I could join with someone for a few months, see if I like it and if I can do it. Who knows, maybe I’m prone to horrible seasickness and don’t know it yet. Great way to learn how to sail and have a little fun. Perhaps if I did like it I could then look into getting my own boat.

I was looking at this one couple who knew nothing about sailing. They sold everything they owned and bought a boat in Florida and set off into the Caribbean. Spent about a year doing a big, slow loop and by then felt skilled enough to cross the Atlantic. They’re in Europe now going to make their way to the Mediterranean and beyond.

I think I’d like spending a year or two like that, assuming I could do it without throwing my guts up constantly. I could even bring my folding bike for shore excursions.

I’ll probably never do it but it’s an idea to mull over and writing it down makes it more real. Plus that gives me an excuse to put something in my blog since there’s nothing really happening in my day to day life lol.

While I think I could save $8000 in 14 months doing so would really suck, I’d have no spending money at all. Maybe I can get another country off my list instead. Iceland.

Japan next September, Iceland for 2 weeks maybe the following July or August then 3 months in SE Asia a year and a half after that. Maybe…

I’m more than a little disappointed I didn’t make it to those countries as planned on my last trip. That doesn’t mean I regret trading Japan for them, I would do it all the same way if I had it to do over again, but it does mean I still want to go there.

I’d hate to go to that region just for a week or two and travel around by bus and train seeing just what other tourists do rushing around and missing more than I’d see. That means a long term bicycle tour.

I think I can do it, if work will give me the time off. It’s approximately 3000kms from Hanoi to Bangkok via Ho Chi Min City and Phnom Penh. To do it comfortably without rushing and taking days off from pedaling to explore I’m thinking 3 months. SE Asia is cheaper than Japan, hotel rooms would be about $30 or less per night and food could be easily kept under $30 a day, half that really. Camp every now and then or stay in a hostel and $6000 should easily cover my spending money. Add another $2000 for airfare and I think I can do it. Not in a year but in a year and a bit I can set aside that much of I really buckle down.

I’m thinking at this point Japan next year, last week of September to first week of October, then the year after December, January and February in SE Asia. If work will give me 3 months off again… If not I can always quit and get a new job.

I’m not going to focus much on this yet, anything could happen in the next two years, but this is my tentative plan.

Into the future…

Been a while since I’ve posted but it’s also been a while since I’ve done anything interesting. I go to work, I go home, I go back to work. Rinse and repeat.

It’s not for nothing though, I’m saving money to go back to Japan. I’m actually slightly ahead of my goal for the amount I’ve saved although some of that is to replace my camera.

Still learning Japanese but really slowly. It’s a very difficult language and my mind wanders in ways it didn’t used to. I find it really hard to focus on memorizing vocabulary, I’ll learn a bunch of words and two days later I can’t recall any of them. I’ve been having more success learning the English meanings of kanji. I can read at the level of a 6 year old! Lol

The only words I seem to remember are the ones I have a context for. Mostly food related words since I’m eating so much Japanese food. Probably 90% of my diet is now Japanese recipes I make myself. Why? I like the taste and I’ve been losing weight since I went to Japan and I’d like that to continue. Found a local source of octopus so now I need to get a takoyaki pan. There are actually two local restaurants that sell takoyaki but if I can make my own why not?

That’s about it, I just wanted to make a short post to say I’m not dead and still have the same plans I had when I last posted. 11 months to go until I return.