Author: kousha

I have recently moved from Halifax to Vancouver. I had a few options to go there:

1. Flight
2. Driving!

I simply chose the second option for some obvious reasons: First, I had a car. Selling and buying another one there was expensive. Sending my car by a truck was also expensive, equal to my road trip cost. To me, seeing almost all the cities in Canada was a goal regardless of my relocation. So, if even it was more expensive, I was going to choose the road trip! A quick calculation: Fuel + Hotels = Car Shipping Cost. Show me a single person who would choose the flight over an exciting Canada-wide road trip.

I just sold all my furniture, packed my expensive items on the back of my mini-van (Chevy Orlando). We have been two drivers: My brother and I. We hit the road, and in this post, I am going to provide only some important info on the trip.

The best route

We wanted to stay in Canada borders. So, we chose Trans-Canada. Trans-Canada is mostly a great route, however in some parts it’s poor (the term “poor” refers to developed countries standards, not that “poor”). I assume, it’s faster to go through US border and using their highways in some parts of the route. However, you no longer have drove Canada-wide in accurate definition.

Warning 1: There are two major routes from Montreal to Thunder bay (and obviously vice-versa). Google Maps is not suggesting the better route at the time of writing this post. Choose the Montreal-Ottawa-Sudbery-Thunderbay one.  It’s a better road (based on my friends comment), more cities in the route, and it’s more beautiful.

Warning 2: The worst road quality was in Manitoba. Not sure what’s wrong with their provincial budget spent on the roads.

The rest of route is straight forward.

The most beautiful parts

In my personal preference, the following sections of road were the most beautiful. If you see the following roads, the rest can be ignored if you don’t have time:

1. Sault Ste. Marie to Nipigon
2. Calgary to Vancouver

Please consider the fact that Nova Scotia was my home for two years. I am used to it’s nature and I have not considered it as special in my personal point of view. Highlighted in the image below:

Cost and Time

Our car was seriously heavy. We had many belonging in the car. So, the fuel efficiency was not great:

Total fuel: 500 litres / Fuel cost goes cheaper in eastern Canada, and more expensive in the west. Average in the central. However, there is no surprise in the fuel cost in different provinces.

Daily drive: Depends on the part of route. The fastest part is Halifax-Montreal. A good highway. 1400km in a single day. The rest of route: 1000km/day.

Hotels: Depends on the season and personal preferences. Our criteria: 6.5+ Booking.com Rating, Two separate beds. We spent 90$/night on average on accommodation.

Duration: It took 6 days. We could make it in 5, however not suggested for safety concerns. We followed the speed limits all the time, had quick rests on refuel, quick lunch time everyday. We spent more time in hotel when we were tired.

 

To conclude, it worth the time. You would end up seeing all the Canadian cities and wonderful sceneries. We are good in road trips, however for us the first 3 days were a bit though. However, after day three, you get used to the car seats and driving! When we arrived on day 6, we two were talking now we are capable of continuing for another week or even going back the same road! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions on this. I am available over my email. O Canada!

To make long story short, I should say phone calls are pushy, and inappropriate in most cases.

Giving a chance for thinking

People are different. Some people are completely fine to say “No” to some requests, while there are some people who can not simply provide their real answer immediately. Phone calls are a real-time contact channel, so if you are going to ask for something, ask non-urgent questions, or ask for any confirmation, phone calls should be the last option unless you are intended to bother the other person. Hearing problems, language and cultural differences, issues with stress, thinking in real-time, and many other factors should be considered.

By sending an email or choosing any other type of non-real-time contact channel, you are giving the choice to the other person to think about it, understand it and reply to it with full confidence. You can not determine a question how important is for the other person. In fact, the other person need some time to know the question is or is not important.

Pushy COMMUNICATION

Phone calls are technically problematic when we think what communication means. Phone calls are not made to be used in most cases those we are thinking they are normal usages. In fact, in the past they were completely fine, however when emails and texts are currently accessible for everyone, in all places, the situation has changed a lot.

It is not acceptable to heating up your home by burning woods in an apartment, when it has a central heating system without any side-effect for others. So, when you can send an email that brings convenience for both parties, why you should make a pushy call?

Phone calls are pushy. You decide to make the call just because it is a perfect time for you, while you have absolutely no idea about the situation of the call receiver. The other person can not simply reject your call for thousands of reasons. So, he has to answer the call while he is not feeling good about it.

 

Distraction

We are working hard and our tasks are going to be more complex day by day. A ringing phone is a nightmare for many people who are trying to focus on their task. Unfortunately, we are unable to shutdown our phones due to some important and unpredictable calls those are coming from some specific people or the bank. So, the only hope is that people decide to stop making non-urgent calls.

 

To clarify, businesses are not running by robots. People are answering your calls, they are human. Let’s send email instead of making calls whenever it’s possible.

It’s 2016. Stop calls.

Are you looking for a reason to say JavaScript is a sweet language? Just this single line means love:

parseInt("100helloWorld");

The output? 100 as an Integer. JavaScript would parse the string character by character until it reaches to something which can not be considered as a number.

Most people know what RGB is, and maybe they know how #HEX colors are made up. By the way, for whom those have not payed attention yet, it would be interesting to know how #HEX colors are.

RGB is based on three decimal numbers between 0 and 255 for each color: Red, Green, Blue; and the #HEX color? Simply convert these decimal(base 10) RGB colors to hexadecimal(base 16) and put them in order #RGB.

Black? 0, 0, 0 and the #hex color: #000000
Green? 0, 255, 0 and the #hex color: #00FF00 (255d = FF hexadecimal)

Are You a Programmer?

function decimalToHex(theNumber) {
 var hex = theNumber.toString(16);
 return hex.length == 1 ? "0" + hex : hex;
}

function rgbToHex(r, g, b) {
 return "#" + decimalToHex(r) + decimalToHex(g) +
 decimalToHex(b);
}

Is it that much tough to be productive?

There are a bunch of people around me who cannot be considered as “Productive” by any mean. They tend to be, but they cannot or they really don’t want.

Personally, I am too nervous about the smallest things, particularly in personal behavior. I believe it is very simple to become a loser because of multiple tiny factors in the way we are facing with moods and small events.

To make it clear, a significant difference between people who are productive and the time wasters, is the way they get along with the feeling of tiredness and boring moments.

Who are losers? If you are that kind of people who prefer to minimize the task for a moment and go for checking the social media, watching an episode of “Big Bang Theory” or running a game on your cellphone, you are going to lose.

Who is the productive? Faced with a boring task and you cannot tolerate it? Leave the desk, get a coffee, or go for a five minute walk and come back. Take a shower, a quick exercise or a bit of food? Hell Yes! Just do something that can really change your mood. Obviously checking Facebook or a 60-minute movie is not the answer. Laying down for 2 hours is not the answer, and the result is guaranteed from the first moment. You also know that you would not be refreshed after this kind of break, so why you are going for it in the first place?

Productive people will become tired, sad, and angry of their tasks at some points, like everyone else. However, the reaction in these situations will clarify the difference between productive people and losers.

Becoming a loser does not require a disaster or a ship sinking. It happens smooth and slowly. If you quite and lie down when you reach to a boring task, you have to change! The smallest, easiest and absolutely important difference roots from your reaction to these critical moments.

To conclude, if you feel uneasy about the ongoing job, just go for a coffee! or an ice-cream. Just do anything which can REALLY change your mood. Wasting time is not an option and you are not going to feel better as long as you waste the time.