2023 & 2024

It's been a while since I've written a full post of an update to the internet on what I've been up to and my thoughts around what has happened to me over the last 2 years.

In 2023, I embarked on a journey to travel, write software and research computer science similiar to how I did at Southampton University in 2003. Recover from being thrown out of my home, kids taken away from me and being dumped by the technology industry with work and partners. Also having to deal with a lot of children hood truma, learning that I was an orphan but landed in a lovely family, the Sandhus.
That journey seemed to continue all the way through to 2024. During which I couldn't find any support to do the work that I had designed in 2023. Work I hope to now do in 2025.

This is going to be I think, the largest post I've ever made.

2023 #

During 2023, I took 2 trips. One to mexico city where I used the time to explore the city myself day and night. Always wanted to see old aztec, so used the time away from my kids to trek out to Teotihuacan, which was amazing to see. Such an amazing structure with a lot of unique positioning of the rooms and areas for what I believe was moon cycles used for healing or other forms of energy for the people. I left fascinated about the people and how they would use such amazing large structures back in time.

The second trip I made was a month long trip to Puerto Escondido, MX in November, it was great. I used the time to work and train my body.
I won't go into too much about the trip as there would be too much to write down. One thing I'll share is the best place to eat in the area I found was Ala Burger, it was one man, a grill and his wife cooking and delivering the food. I ate there all the time. The other places to eat in the area were very fancy, overpriced and seemed to have the wrong crowd in.

It had a lovely market that allowed me to get fresh fruit and ingredients. It had the best fresh orange juice that I chugged down after my morning routing of wave chi and hot sand walking. Was a great way to add to my methods of large weight loss and body conditioning. That market had a lovely tapioca desert pot that was super cheap but really high quailty, something I always had in my fridge.

I had a lovely friend that met up with me at sunsets and a corona which was great to end the days. I didn't get to surf but will do when I go next time.

The best place to drink and hang out was a place that had literally a skate park in it. Had lots of fun during my time there and felt it really did good for me to end 2023.

I made a trip to London, UK as I wanted to explore some of the museums and sites for research.

It was a very odd trip, it seemed that everyone was blank, and during christmas season, there was no joy anywhere. Just dead, which was odd.

Honestly it felt like a different country from what I rememembered.

The best thing I did there was a trip to the British Musuem. Every time I go, I always seem to spend time analyzing the aztec/greek gods and their statues, always wondering if they were all white men and women. But what do I know. I headed down to the anthropology library at the bottom of the museum, it's amazing. When I was down there, they had someone looking at fossils from probably 200m years ago. It literally feels like you're in the basement. There I found some lovely rare gems. Books on astronomy, musicology (researching for healing cancer) and topics that aren't even being discussed in our society. This research has led to me what I'm working on today for my body and mind.

I had it on my bucketlist to go to the place where Alan Turing made history. Bletchy park. A great man that was casted out by his society around him, something that I don't believe our poeple could do. I wanted to soak him up, by visiting his office, one where he worked in, to do what I believe was the most important work of 1900-2000 for computer science. Today his turing test is still the base principal in thinking of AI and other techniques that have not been developed to build machines, not intelligent computers that would try to mimic humans. Why would a man from the 1950s decide to make a test to ensure computers can never be humans. To me it's obvious, he was a very intelligent man and gay. And one that I would love to learn more on, just as a man and not his work that today seems to have been butchered.

One friend allowed me to stay at his lovely home in Whistler for a month when I was finding it difficult to find a home. Where I had a great time being able to re-connect with music. That family I do respect and hope in the future they allow to attend their parties, of which I have not been to one. Whistler itself is very un-sociable, I went out multiple nights and no one wanted to talk to me. So I stuck the forests and lake swims. There was a really good new york style pizza joint, but every day they didn't recognise me. No regular customer attitude at all here in Vancouver, BC, area. This behaviour I noticed all over my travels in Canada in 2023 and 2024.

I returned to Vancouver during christmas to spend time with my children and I found they didn't want to spend time with me. Finding out during 2024 that my children didn't want to spend time with me was the hardest thing I've had to deal with. Also a number of incidents that messed me up. I thought 2023 was my worst year of my life. But really 2024 was.

2024 #

I decided to put my research and own work aside to show my children that I'm a hard working father. Applied to 40 jobs+. Asked my investors for advice on companies to work with, all of which didn't reply with anything.

I stayed at a place literally next door to my daughters high school but their mother refused constantly for me to visit them. I used the time to sit in a very cold basement to work through my research on video/image compression. I had enough of arguing with my wife on the matter, so left them alone as they requested. If they'd be happier with their mother I respect it. I routinely requested weekend access, stayed in an apartment that had a separate bedroom and she refused to let them stay with me. The last trip I've had with them was a lovely pool day but since then I've been absent dealing a whole host of new trauma that started in September when I've been searching for the best vancouver neighbourhood to live in and continue to find work.

The furthest I got with getting employment was some interviews early in the year and want to share them. Ten tree in the hope to help them further save the trees, I aced the interview with TypeScript/Javascript but got rejected. I had plenty of experience to get the job, after leading Shopify's whole Javascript front end team, the largest TypeScript codebase in the world. Guess they found a better man. I had a similiar experience with Asana and the reason they told me that I didn't get the job was that I didn't answer a question when asked about how the CEO made a decision in a topical discussion, of which I had replied that this type of information is private. Was a little taken back on why they wouldn't understand this for a large business wide rivate discussion.

I reached out to my well respected investors of a startup they funded for me in 2023 and they had nothing to give me. One specific investor is angel investing in over 40 companies, another is the most respected CTO of the country and then another sold his company to Adobe. Not one gave me any proper friend advice on how to bounce back. None of them. This was my learning of getting investors that were actual people I had worked with and helped in the past. One I made the most respected VP of Eng for React/React Native but then that is what he decided to give me in return.

For the first half of 2024, I stayed in Port Moody, rented a lovely apartment that looked over the water. But found it very un-welcoming, no one at the bar or brew row were really interested to talk to me. Not even the topics of work I was doing or anything. I took my trips into the city as I used to when I first arrived in 2011 and found no joy, social atmosphere or anything in the coffee shops that I had regularly attended. Such as Revolver, which I feel now I will never get coffee from.

After having what I felt was a disappointing loss of opportunity at the start of the year, I decided to head to somewhere in the Summer to finish a prototype I'm working on for a video streaming service.

I found a lovely RV in the Okanagan, of which I found myself working through my work in the day, and watching the horses and animals they had on their farm. One specific horse there bowed to me, which was so nice to see. And they came out in a V formation. One day I saw a bird tornado, not sure how else to describe it, the birds were flying in a circle. Another day I witnessed a cloud formation appear instantly for a bolt of lightning, was crazy. There was a girl out in the rain and she didn't want to get inside, so I got up on the RV and rigged a quick something to act as an attenna to be bolted instead of her in the field. Fortunately nothing happened to her. I befriended a cat, named her peaches that didn't want to leave my RV and a dog there that after feeding and giving water, didn't want to leave me. I leartn a lot during this time and felt it was an end to a chapter, ready to return to Vancouver and get going with new work and get closer to my children again.

The first place I stayed at when returning from the RV was a basement in White Rock. Which was crap. I was attacked by an RCMP officer! For doing nothing! An incident that really broke me. I was walking outside in the neighbourhood of White Rock in Vancouver, I was asked to take things out of my pocket on his hood of his car, and then he just started to attack me with no reason, explanation or anything. With weapons, a batton and something attached to his foot. Leaving me with staples in my head for a 4 inch opening and 3 inch opening on my knee. Nice scar today but something that has placed me in fear of Vancouver, it's not safe.

Airbnb was great to use for the places to stay. It seems though that all the hosts in Vancouver are un-welcoming to man like me. One was very rude and evicted me for false reasons, no matter how many times I tried to be kind and caring. One stay in North Vancouver, I made banana bread for the host in North Vancouver, after arriving to the neighbourhood when a neighbour walked past saying "This is a lovely neighbourhood", and was made very welcome when I first arrived. Then 2 days later, she was very very mean to me, accusing me of being loud at night when talking out audio log notes downstairs which is completely ok for a guest to do at a place they rent out. She gave me permission to smoke outside in the garden but then the next day changed her mind, stating that I'm smoking in the property and aggresively messaged me multiple times making me. This I found appalling after being in a poor condition after my incident with the police officer. Truly appalled that North Vancouver residents are this evil to evict a man from a booked reservation. I didn't complain or fight it, I just walked away to another lovely home that I live in now, Burnaby. I love this area of Vancouver, there are a lot of immigrants and they seem to be really happy with what they have.

They left me in a decision room bleeding for 3 hours before even tending to my wound or even giving me any water. I was appalled and shocked at the treatment of a hospital to treat me after being attacked innnocently from an RCMP officer.

After recovering on this, I was afraid to even go back to the hospital for care. After they used staples in my head rather than stitches which they did do on the injury on my leg, which was a 3 inch open wound. One that the police officer made with something attached to his foot when he kicked me.

What is also shocking about the whole incident is that they walked away with my headphones and torch that I took out of my pocket, and stole them. They were not returned. They did though return another rack sack that I didn't own at the hospital and I said to them in front of the staff at the hospital that this is not my bag, and didn't want to ask him where my other possessions were out of fear they'd hurt me even more.

What I was most upset with all of this was that when I reached out to close friends, they didn't help me. Being attacked violently, they didn't care. me to go the hospital to remove the bolts that the ER docter put in my head instead of stiches. But that was ok, i wanted to get out of the hospital as fast as I could before they did anything else to me. So left with my T-shirt only and no police record, they didn't even take my name. The nerve of the police officer, returned to ask me how many stitches I had in my head as though it was an acheivement for him. Not even a sorry or an explanation on why they attacked me. Only to tell me that my car had been taken to a tow company that I now had to pay to pick up.

I'm sharing all this transparently to get it off my chest, as today in 2025, I'm moving on. Just now ignoring the RCMP.

What I'll also share which is crazy, is that I reported my items stolen through the official RCMP website that my items were stolen by a police officer but knew very well that they wouldn't reply. And they hadn't. I still have the criminal case number but know they won't do anything.
A couple of days after the incident I was feeling up to see the real world an went for a starbucks and was very scared to see at the same trip, the first one since being beaten up, there were 2 RCMP police cars at the exact Starbucks I put into my Apple maps to go to. It was no coincidence, so I returned home not wanting to go any coffee shop anymore. To recover I stayed in homes watching movies, self medicating for the pain and healing myself without any help. Of which Uber Eats was very helpful until my Visa and other forms of payment stopped working. Of which I don't care, these financial systems seem to be very brittle.

One last thing to mention with my stay at White Rock was the fact that my Apple HomePod started to work. Very bizzare from a computer scientist. It seemed that there was an Wifi SSID called "Kalv" somewhere in the neighbourhood, the music started to just play and stream on the homepod. One that only plays music that is connected to Apple Music over the internet. I checked with a laptop to see if the WIFI ssid was visible but not all. So I quickly turned off the home pod and threw it my car not wanting to know anymore.

A quick update on the car I've been driving around. My Honda CRV, don't buy this car. The safety systems don't work. I haven't had a chance to talk to the garage about it yet. But on christmas eve, I drove to a specific spot to look at the mountains and for some reason my rear driver side tyre was deflated and it made the car move to the side of the road and made me hit a pole. The airbag did not deploy and my head hit the steering wheel making me pass out on the side of the car. No one, checked on me, a crashed car on the side of the road, and about 15 cars passed and not one stopped to check. I was appalled at the people in Pitt Meadows. When my conconssion resided, I got back in the car, made the able to drive back home to survive Christmas this year. It's ok, the car itself is crap to me now, I used this car a lot, driving 50,000km or so.

This car has had so many issues, specifically the second key always being stolen. I had the first disappear from the first residence I stayed near Port Moody, it was a safe room that I booked. But fine, I went and got another replacement but then that key disappered too. The other odd ghost style things with this car, is that things would disappear from it but I must've overlooked things. It couldn't be that somehow has my car and could get items from the car as they please. This is now a company I do not trust.

A really really odd 2024. But hey, it's just a year, an now there is 2025.