When I turn 46, I say "No more nonsense": 10 days of Gulag existence mostly in pictures

Tanned traveler takes transit to Hotel Gulag

Sunrise over Hotel Gulag

that white stuff! That wouldn't be SNOW???

the white stuff AGAIN?

It must be Christmas !

cold

3rd world living: HIGH cell rates for LOUSY service. Oh Canada !

at 7:30 pm THIS happens:

The power in lower North Vancouver is OUT.

WTF? There was NO WIND !

My room is DARK & getting COLDER by the minute.

I knew I shouldn't have come back to the THIRD WORLD !!!

The power comes back on at 3 am. I have to pee but temperatures in my room have dropped so far that I don't dare to get out from under the covers for 20 minutes.

Later in the day, I am curled up under my blankets with the heat on maximum. I am shivering and my feet are ice cold.

I even look up the symptoms of Dengue Fever & Malaria (the incubation periods match my travel schedule) but I'm missing most of the symptoms.

It's a relief to read that Florida and the Island of Hawaii also had recent Dengue Fever outbreaks.

Then I read an article about that good Samaritan Arab or Persian kid who tried to save an unknown man being attacked. And it really does seem like in THIS FUCKED-UP SOCIETY NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

December 28. George would have been 36 today.

Apple throttled its old iPhone models. NO, they did NOT do that to create purchase demand for the newer models. Ha.Yeah right. Fake News. Finally found it.

My Motorola is three years old. And I've been twiddling my thumbs more frequently recently waiting for it to do something. Isn't capitalism GREAT?

What isn't GREAT is the annoyingly SLOW internet in these parts here. Can't wait to get back to Vietnam !

WHO EXACTLY is it that forbids oil imports to North Korea? Who exactly is it that is thus responsible for North Korean fishing boats running out of fuel mid-ocean and reaching Japan with corpses of fishermen aboard? Who exactly is it that is thus responsible for the PEOPLE of North Korea NOT having any heating fuel in the middle of winter. Nice going, Donald ! You're only forgetting one minor detail:

Canada is increasing the severity of its paranoid monitoring of its citizens and as a result a foreign bank sees itself unable to do business with me for the sole reason that I am a resident of Canada.

A Chicken Curry at Denny's. UGLY but edible

Frantic ATM Action before my foreign account gets deactivated at midnight on Dec. 31

40000 people have been out of power in the Fraser Valley for TWO NIGHTS now. The other 60,000 only had to endure one night in the cold and dark.
1st World ????

The rain and snow have come to an end; I can see some pink clouds that evoke VERY faint memories of a Viet sunrise.

But it doesn't quite FEEL the same......

Siberia anyone?

I finally found the USB cable for the Canon Ixus and retrieved this picture of April 2016 ;-)
6 stitches in 2 layers under that bandage, LOL

I make it halfway through Blade Runner 2049 on Dec. 30

Pretty but bone-chilling ;-(

The weather forecast predicted SUN

It's already foggy on New Year's Eve, so the haze around the crane light the next morning doesn't necessarily have to be the fine particulate pollution from the fireworks.