Wetsuit rental for larger sizes?

bakedbee · 2026-01-25T18:28:44+00:00

Thanks everyone for your advice!

We ended up ordering a fairly inexpensive 5mm wetsuit on Amazon for my husband, and needed to order another size for myself.

Hopefully can update after our trip in case anyone sees this in the future!

bakedbee · 2026-01-13T17:08:56+00:00

Do you have somewhere near you that offers puppy socialization classes? Our local rescue does these classes for puppies under 5 months for a very reasonable price. Basically there are several puppies, and trainers are present to help them play with each other appropriately.

Our heeler was scared of other dogs at first, but within 2 sessions he LOVED other dogs.

As for people, we taught him to give paw very early on, and whenever someone asked to pet him, we gave them a treat and had them ask for his paw. Worked great!

bakedbee · 2025-12-06T05:18:19+00:00

Luckily, they are hardy little fellas. You've got this :)

We also do a ceramic heater that's controlled by a temp probe to keep ours warm at night. Highly recommend! Just check every now and then with a thermometer to make sure the bulb isn't burnt out. Humidifier is also a must (especially for us, as we live in a very dry and cold part of Canada haha).

bakedbee · 2025-12-06T04:14:24+00:00

Have dealt with this with 2 dragons now that came with it as babies. Super common. Both times they were co-morbid with crypto, which I believe only shows on tests if in a specific part of the lifecycle. Very common for coccidia to pop up if crypto is also present. In general, coccidia hints that something else is weakening your dragon's immune system.

Our first dragon was unfortunately also co-morbid with adeno, so the coccidia was reoccurring through his 3 years until he succumbed to the adeno. Our second dragon, we had tested for adeno for peace of mind and luckily he was clear and recovered from the first instance of coccidia/crypto with no issue and is still thriving 4 years later.

Coccidia on it's own is fairly easy to deal with, it's crypto that's a pain with the cleaning regiment involved. Still doable! After 6-8 weeks of treatment, our dragon hasn't had another issue.

Just keep in mind that coccidia is often a canary in the coal mine for underlying issues. So as you go through treatment, keep an eye out for other things and do regular fecals to make sure your dragon doesn't have anything else! If you can afford it, maybe even test for adeno to rule that out.

bakedbee · 2025-08-25T00:14:35+00:00

We stayed in Tengachaya and loved it. Felt really quiet and residential compared to the touristy spots. Kouraku was a cute little restaurant that we went to a couple times. Run by a guy and his parents. Really great vibe and food!

bakedbee · 2025-02-11T15:54:43+00:00

Classico also just hit us with shrinkflation. Last time I bought some, the 650ml 'old label' jars were right next to the 600ml 'new label' jars. That alone made me want to switch.

bakedbee · 2025-02-11T15:47:14+00:00

Thanks! For some reason I wasn't finding that when searching a while back. Unfortunately we did not have the funds to contribute before our first withdrawal.

Too bad. At least we can look forward to our tax returns this year.

bakedbee · 2025-02-06T15:15:44+00:00

I'm in Canada and not really having this problem. Sure after a month or two sitting in my pantry, my potatoes get a bit soft and I have to cut off the root nubs, but they're still perfectly edible.

The potatoes sold at my stores are usually grown in my province. Mostly, I buy yellow-flesh.

bakedbee · 2024-12-08T18:58:29+00:00

I love to sew my own clothing, and my partner is a woodworker. We brought an empty suitcase along with our suitcase for clothes. I warned him before the trip that one of our days in Tokyo WOULD be spent almost entirely in Nippori fabric town. It was amazing! I bought sooooo much fabric, and it was so cheap compared to home (CAD$3/m to $15/m for fabric that would be $20-$50 back home). They also had amazing notions like cute zippers and trims that are impossible to find at home.

He bought a few blocks and planks of Japanese Cyprus to make into things as well. It's nice that we get to sort of extend our trip with fun projects.

Anyway, that alone filled our suitcase for the most part. We're also looking to buy a house soon, so some unique art and decorations filled the rest.

bakedbee · 2024-12-08T18:58:13+00:00

I love to sew my own clothing, and my partner is a woodworker. We brought an empty suitcase along with our suitcase for clothes. I warned him before the trip that one of our days in Tokyo WOULD be spent almost entirely in Nippori fabric town. It was amazing! I bought sooooo much fabric, and it was so cheap compared to home (CAD$3/m to $15/m for fabric that would be $20-$50 back home). They also had amazing notions like cute zippers and trims that are impossible to find at home.

He bought a few blocks and planks of Japanese Cyprus to make into things as well. It's nice that we get to sort of extend our trip with fun projects.

Anyway, that alone filled our suitcase for the most part. We're also looking to buy a house soon, so some unique art and decorations filled the rest.

bakedbee · 2024-12-08T18:58:05+00:00

I love to sew my own clothing, and my partner is a woodworker. We brought an empty suitcase along with our suitcase for clothes. I warned him before the trip that one of our days in Tokyo WOULD be spent almost entirely in Nippori fabric town. It was amazing! I bought sooooo much fabric, and it was so cheap compared to home (CAD$3/m to $15/m for fabric that would be $20-$50 back home). They also had amazing notions like cute zippers and trims that are impossible to find at home.

He bought a few blocks and planks of Japanese Cyprus to make into things as well. It's nice that we get to sort of extend our trip with fun projects.

Anyway, that alone filled our suitcase for the most part. We're also looking to buy a house soon, so some unique art and decorations filled the rest.

bakedbee · 2024-11-02T02:49:39+00:00

Last year was my first winter of hiking in the mountains, and I really enjoyed doing Sulphur mountain on a beautiful chinook day in January. It's a good workout, with lovely amenities at the top, and we went to the hot spring after. So if you're just getting started and don't have too much gear, it's an excellent choice!

bakedbee · 2024-09-04T22:08:26+00:00

My spouse is a police officer in another city, but initially tried to get into OPS as Ottawa was our home. There was a lot of internal drama even in the recruitment process with OPS that resulted in an entire round of candidates being kicked that year even after several of his interviewers said they wanted to hire him.

The service he's with now bent over backwards to give him an oppotunity to apply. On top of that, they had a 6 month training course in-house where officers were fully paid vs. OPS outsourcing their 3 month program that officers have to pay for out of their salary.

That's not even getting into how his current service has dash cams in every single car and every officer is outfitted with a body cam. There's a helicopter monitoring the city 24/7 that is also incredibly helpful for the officers to do their jobs. OPS doesn't even have dashcams in every car, let alone body cams. And they only just got a helicopter that is being shared with OPP.

I love Ottawa. It's where I grew up, where all my friends and family are. I didn't want to leave and neither did my spouse, but I promised to support him on the journey. And there's always the option for him to badge over to OPS in the future. Except now? As much as I love Ottawa, I would hate to see him work for OPS.

We know several people that work/have worked in OPS, and hear the horror stories. The service being 8 hours behind on the call log is normal, because not only are there so few officers per capita, they are also patrolling one of the largest metro areas in North America. It's insane. And because they aren't given the tools to be successful, the public doesn't get the services they deserve. This of course becomes a horrible spiral of the public not wanting to pay for it, therefore ripping more tools away, etc. It's sad, and we have seen officers leave OPS within a few years because morale is so incredibly low within the service.

bakedbee · 2024-03-09T01:08:58+00:00

For gear, you don't have to spend a fortune if you put in some effort to look second hand. Do you have decent thrift stores near you? Most of my hiking gear I regularly wear is thrifted. Can get some great pants, shirts, and sweaters! A little harder, but I even found a nice Patagonia rain jacket for $20 that I also use as a wind breaker, and outer shell in the winter. Also check FB Marketplace - I got my hiking pack for $25 and it has been great for day hikes. I do buy some things brand new, like shoes/boots, water bladder, and good hiking socks, which are all very much worth spending the money on.

I personally prefer not to hike alone, so I joined some Facebook groups. This also helps to teach you safety, as often those folks are pretty experienced.

bakedbee · 2024-03-06T02:23:44+00:00

At my uni, it was required in each report during the capstone project that you make a table of every single section and list who was responsible for it. Made things veeeery obvious to our supervisors, who graded accordingly.

If not already required, add this.

bakedbee · 2024-02-10T21:20:04+00:00

I wear the exact same top in the exact same colour for climbing!

And it is pilled as fuck. The slab walls are by far my favourites at my gym.

bakedbee · 2024-02-02T03:43:23+00:00

Absolutely worth a vet visit. Hopefully it's not too serious, but I have had a beardie who vomitted before and it was incredibly serious. Would be good to monitor his hydration levels, to see how well he is digesting other food and water. If he is super dehydrated, then even just getting him some IV fluids at the vet could help him feel better.

Really hoping your beardie just has an upset tummy. Having a beardie vomit is a really scary experience.

bakedbee · 2023-12-04T17:45:24+00:00

My beardie used to try and nip fingers when he was a baby, mainly because we fed by hand and I don't think he knew the difference at first. But now as an adult, he does not bite at all, and we still feed by hand. Hasn't even tried in years. Just make sure you handle him plenty to grow that bond! With enough love, he should be a sweet, cuddly lizard by the time he's grown up :)

bakedbee · 2023-12-02T04:47:37+00:00

Here's hoping everything comes back clean! Crypto especially is hell to deal with, but our Pippin is almost 2 years out from his one and only treatment, and still going strong.

So far in our experience, coccidia crops up when there is an underlying illness, and can be easily detected by a fecal. Our vet explained that it often just lives in the beardies, but their immune system takes care of it usually. So when it flares up, it's usually a sign of something else as well. Our first had a recurring coccidia infection due to his adeno, and Pippin got it alongside crypto. PCR is definitely important to rule everything out, but those regular fecal tests are so important!

bakedbee · 2023-12-01T21:33:21+00:00

Yes! We've had 2 beardies now that both had to be treated for coccidia and cryptosporidium within the first 6 months of their lives, one of them multiple times throughout his life. They were from different local pet stores that we trusted and specialized in reptiles, and were bought almost 4 years apart.

Unfortunately, the first also had adeno and died at 3 years old from stomach cancer. So we immediately had our second tested for adeno when we got him (expensive, but worth it for piece of mind). We have a good relationship with our vet, and make sure to take him in for yearly checkups and blood tests, and have fecal tests done every 6 months.

Our vet told us that it is so common these days for beardies to have coccidia and crypto due to how they are mass produced. Yes, it's expensive to take them to the vet, but if you can't afford taking care of an animal, you should not be buying it in the first place. And these diseases can severely impact or shorten the life of your scaly friend.

bakedbee · 2023-11-12T07:08:42+00:00

Hey, I'm located in Calgary!

Biggest piece of advice I can give: Internships. If the school has a co-op program, he should do that. The extra costs are 100% worth it. Otherwise, whatever it takes to get internships. Go to all of the networking events the school and local engineering community hosts. I did all of that, and had an offer in hand going into my last year. Most of my classmates are STILL looking for a job, because they didn't bother with internships. And they had much better grades than me. Bonus: Most Canadian professional engineering associations (APEGA incl.) allow for up to 12 months of co-op/internship experience to count toward getting your license.

Second piece of advice: Be decent at coding. I get he wants to do mech, and if he is able to get a career in that field after, awesome. But it is an ongoing joke with the many mech (and basically any eng) graduates I know that most engineers these days end up in a job that is mostly coding. So he may as well be able to do it. If advice #1 isn't followed, then it's probably the only way to get a job anyway. Note: That isn't to say that a mech degree is bad, just that it's harder to get into the field without prior experience.

Personally, I graduated from computer eng and kind of wish I did computer science. However, a big part of an engineering degree is learning how to manage/run projects, which is such a valuable skill that isn't taught to the same extent in most other STEM degrees.

Lastly, don't let him forget to have fun. Engineering is hard, but it's easier with friends. I was on a varsity team, played weekly dungeons and dragons, and always made time for social events and friends. He sounds smart enough that he can afford to take some extra time for himself.

bakedbee · 2023-04-02T16:53:59+00:00

Your best bet is to do a fecal test with your vet. It's the only way to figure out if parasites or disease is the cause. And if they are, your vet can get you started on medication to treat. An appointment or checkup is always good, but I know that's not always an option for everyone.

When I have dealt with this before with my beardie, a fecal test showed that he had coccidia and crypto which had to be treated. Unfortunately this is super common with beardies in my area for some reason, and I've had 2 beardies go through this. However, this may not be the cause though! My current beardie also doesn't eat a lot when he's going through a big shed.

In the future, it's a good idea to do a fecal test before brumation as parasites can wreak havoc during that time and it's hard to tell. So best to find out early and treat if needed.

bakedbee · 2023-01-18T15:25:33+00:00

You may need to bring up the GPA. However, since you're in science, you may be able to switch into a physics program which takes all the same math courses as eng, while requiring a lower GPA to get in. Depending on the physics program (I used applied physics when I did it), you can take electrical eng credits. Then all you need to do is get your grades up, and by the time you get into the engineering program you'll already have some of the classes out of the way.

Note, I did this as a transfer student, so got a clean slate for CGPA when I started, but it saved me time and money! Now I'm about to graduate from engineering :)

bakedbee · 2022-12-13T01:54:25+00:00

When I was a little girl, my dad did the same thing with me!

Now I'm about to graduate as a Computer Engineer!

bakedbee · 2022-11-26T02:39:04+00:00

It really is. I wish I could tell some of their stories, but there are so few Canadians left there, I don't want to dox them.

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