Month: December 2021

EconomicsFamilyHobbiesLife ExperienceTechnology

Out of Stock

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

This pandemic year of 2021 has been notable for many things but two immediately come to mind:

  • Higher prices – on just about everything.
  • Shortages – well maybe not toilet paper so much, but definitely electronics components and computer parts.

Murphy’s Law being what it is, I was forced into some unwanted computer replacements in 2021. I had planned to build a new Windows desktop system -someday. However, my hand was forced when my nine-year-old Acer system could not get Windows 10 security updates any longer.

Building a new system isn’t that difficult – if you can get the parts. And for more than a year now, it has been impossible to get a decent graphics card at a sensible price. Memory and processors were also rather pricey and scarce.

At the end of the day, the best solution was to go with another prebuilt computer. I was able to get a reasonable deal on a Dell XPS desktop. It isn’t a bleeding edge screaming game machine, but it is plenty powerful enough for our uses. It has one of the last (and the best) Intel old-school Skylake CPUs, and an older design but still useful Nvidia graphics card. It runs cool and quiet, either on office tasks / web surfing or my small collection of train simulator games.

I thought all would be well but a week or so ago my inkjet printer started giving me grief. This particular printer – an HP Envy photo model – was a fine performer until it wasn’t. One day it started up with a Blue Screen of Death and an error code. Research online gave only one solution – restart the printer from scratch. After about 20 failed attempts to reset the inkjet, I concluded it was a hardware failure of some type – toast.

All I wanted to do was replace it with a similar model – HP is best for me, since it always works with both Windows and Linux. But Staples, Best Buy, Canada Computers, Newegg – all were out of stock. I even looked at competitor brands like Brother – nada. Finally I located one at Amazon. No deals, even on Boxing Day.

Well, the new one arrived today and I have got it installed and working with Windows 11. It won’t be a problem with Linux, hopefully.

They say things should be better for the supply of electronics and computer hardware in mid-2022, but sometimes you just can’t wait that long. I hope I’ll be OK for a while, but you never can tell.

EconomicsFamilyLife ExperienceTechnologyTravel

Carousel of Time

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

Today’s winter solstice marks my 17th anniversary of retirement. I have now been retired nearly half as long as my working career.

The universe has changed for industrial food scientists in Canada. I worked in 6 different sites during my career, and 5 of them have now closed. The remaining one was sold to a different company and much of its native infrastructure has been torn down. I have no idea whether my old department at Unilever still exists. Certainly the manner and methods of the work have changed. During COVID, it would be impossible to use the old laboratory model where scientists collaborated in person.

On a personal note, I have suffered a bit from the ravages of time. My vigor and balance have waned; I had a bout of Bell’s palsy last year and recently I developed double vision. That’s slowly improving but I expect it will be several months before I can drive again. I have always been a grumpy old man so nothing’s changed on that score.

I have my senior moments but so far my mind seems OK. I recently went through a complicated computer setup for Maria’s friend with little or no hiccups. I continue to give advice on IT to other seniors in the ‘hood although housecalls are much reduced because of the pandemic.

Not much travel is on our future agenda. It’s close to 3 years since our last cruise. We have some credits with Royal Caribbean but who knows if it’ll be safe enough to use them next year. We are now triple vaxxed so that may give us some confidence, although Omicron scares me. We’ll see.

The shortest day of the year used to be a depressing thing for me – heading into winter. Now with COVID, it seems that winter is neverending. But each anniversary of retirement and each year of living close to the grandkids, and living in this nice little showpiece of a town – well, that is a reason for some optimism.

FamilyLife ExperienceTechnologyTravel

Cliff

Posted on by Ray MacDonald
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It was my first day of work at General Foods Research. I was in my entry interview with my new boss, Gary Henderson.

“We know you have a solid background in Chemistry but it would help you to know more about Food Science. We are going to put you in a laboratory with Cliff Dunlop. He has a Masters in Food Science from UBC and there will likely be a synergy between you.”

So I was off to the lab, anticipating my newfound collaboration with a “real” food scientist. When I got there to meet Cliff, the first thing I noticed about him was that he was covered from head to toe in chocolate syrup. His lab coat saved him, but he looked like The Great Speckled Bird.

Turns out he was mixing chocolate syrup in a metal beaker using a paddle mixer. The mixer had a variable speed control. Cliff turned up the speed but nothing was happening. After maxing out the control, he noticed that it wasn’t switched on. So he flipped the switch. Immediately the mixer started at warp speed and blew chocolate syrup all over the lab. My first assignment as a collaborator was to help him clean up.

From our first encounter, we had fun. Cliff approached each technical problem with a combination of theoretical acumen and practical good sense. He solved some tough problems and had a few impossible projects – the laws of thermodynamics stopped him more than once. He always had a wry sense of humor and loved practical jokes. His favorite TV show was “All in the Family.”

Being a left coaster, Cliff and his family decamped from Cobourg in the early 70s to return to Vancouver. I missed him, but Maria and I had a chance to visit the Dunlops in Richmond BC in 1973. We got the best tour ever of the Lower Mainland, not to mention learning about Black Russians.

Cliff went on to a career with a bakery ingredients supplier, an actual large bakery, and ended up working as a Production Manager with T J Lipton in the early 90s. So after a good 20 years, we ended up working in the same company again.

In his later years, Cliff had an excellent blog commenting on Food Science issues. He never lost his edge.

His health suffered as he grew older. He had kidney problems that required a couple of transplants. He had to take anti-rejection drugs so his immunity was low.

In November, Cliff and Willie went on holiday to Hawaii. He contracted COVID, and because he was immunocompromised he didn’t have much chance to fight it. He passed away on Dec 5, 2021.

I have lost a great friend, and the world has lost a great man. RIP.

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