Foiled

Well, this was nearly a uselessly spent day.

I rose at 4 a.m. this morning, thinking that I would have one of my five-mile+ walks that would include some grocery shopping when a mile from reaching home again. But then I started pondering Tuesday's expiration of my passport, and the need to acquire two photos to submit with the renewal application tomorrow (which is NOT a statutory holiday as I had been believing ─ that is a week away).

I decided that I ought to concentrate on achieving the acquisition of the passport photos.

Then somehow I happened across the claim that Shoppers Drug Mart includes a passport photo service, and there happens to be an outlet four blocks from here. The only other photo service I knew of is a mile away ─ Surrey Place (Central City).

That shopping centre is also the nearest location of where I need to submit my passport renewal application.

Well, if I could get my two photos locally, then all I need concern myself with is applying for the new passport early tomorrow ─ it opens at 8:30 a.m.

So I decided to just get back to bed ─ by then it was well past 6 a.m.

I did at least get some exercise out in the backyard tool shed, first weighing in at no more than 186 pounds clothed precisely as I would be out in the shed.

I managed six sets of pull-ups and chin-ups with the same number of repetitions that I had achieved the previous two early a.m.s ─ that is, four and then three pull-ups in the first two sets; three and then two chin-ups in the next two sets; and finally, two repetitions in the two sets of pull-ups between two bars which are the finish of those exercises.

I do not have an actual chin-up bar to work with, so these are more difficult than what I can manage when I exercise at an elementary school playground. The only reason I performed as many repetitions as I did is because I knew I had managed those totals yesterday, and I was desperate not to fail to meet those numbers.

Anyway, I returned to bed, as said; and my morning officially began around 9:30 a.m. when I correctly believed that I could hear my younger brother watching T.V.

Towards 10 a.m. after I had joined him, he invited me to put our Android TV Box to work. Right around this time, my wife ─ who did not go out last evening as I had suggested she was likely to do ─ took her leave. She had gotten up before I had and had even showered and dressed to go out ─ she was likely taking some fare she had prepared and was going to pay a visit to the Thai Buddhist temple in Burnaby.

As I type these words past 8 p.m., she has yet to return. She most likely has gotten involved with friends thereafter.

The only video of significance that my brother and I watched was 52 minutes, and had been uploaded to Rumble's Broken Truth channel on July 10: The Death of Medicine.

When covid struck, he pulled together for his country to volunteer on the frontlines of New York City. When the vaccine mandates came, he resisted and was terminated from his teaching position.
In this interview with Dr. Richard Amerling, we discuss the death of modern medicine, the failures of public health and everything in between.

My brother apparently had early plans and left for the day around 11:45 a.m., if not a little before.

I had myself a meal comprised of prior cooking by my wife, and then I sought a nap.

I did manage to nail down my two passport renewal references, and have their contact details. But I was unable to brave the hot and sunny day until very late in the afternoon ─ I had absolutely no appetite to be confronting the world on that walk to and back from Shoppers Drug Mart.

Guess what? They can't even remember when they last took any passport photos, and have no idea why their local website still advertises the feature.

So I have no passport photos.

And even though the Service Canada office where I must submit my renewal application tomorrow supposedly opens at 8:30 a.m. ... the passport photo business in the same shopping centre does not open until 10 a.m. In other words, there is no bloody use in trying to get to the Service Canada office early!

I have now learned that a couple or so blocks farther on, a London Drugs outlet that opens at 9 a.m. does perform a photo service, and I have phoned and confirmed that they would be able to serve me right at opening.

So that will be my morning destination. Consequently, I will not need to rise particularly early tomorrow.

Now to fill out that passport renewal application and then get it printed out. And then a little T.V.

Last evening I rather enjoyed an episode of Prodigal Son ─ it was season one's episode 11 ("Alone Time").

Enough blogging for today.