I’m down at Driven Audio down in Abbotsford right now getting some new speakers, an amplifier and a subwoofer put into my Mazda 3 sport. I’ve been meaning to upgrade the audio system for years, but have never gotten around to it. Considering I’m heading off on a bit of a road trip next weekend, I thought now would be a good time. Driven Audio Mostly Disassembled Mazda 3 Sport 10:45am – speakers in the doors are being removed Mazda 3 Sport Audio Makeover 1pm – Installing tweeters and 5x7s in the doors, along with the crossover Speaker and Crossover Installation 2:30pm – I wasn’t going ...

One thing I’m getting consistently more and more frustrated with is how supporters of the HST keep telling me, via blog posts and interviews, that the HST results in me paying less money as a consumer. The problem is it hasn’t so far, nor do I think that it will for me personally. Other than rebates for low-income families, the HST results in a tax increase on about 20% of purchases, most notably for me in restaurants and pubs. It’s a substantial increase of 7%, and I notice how much more expensive it is to eat out each and every time I go out to eat. I also don’t really buy the argument ...

I’ve been alluding to it for a few weeks now, but I’m pretty close to buying my plane tickets for the fall. I was originally planning on going to New Zealand, but a few friends convinced me to add Thailand to my list as well. Milford Sound, Photo from Wikipedia New Zealand As everyone knows, Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand, and the geography shown in the movies is absolutely breathtaking. Since seeing Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, I’ve been dreaming of someday being able to visit the country and do some exploration. As an added bonus, filming for the The Hobbit movies is currently ...

Update: Here are the slides from the presentation – enjoy! I’m giving a talk in a few hours down at The Network Hub, and wanted to start a post here for some of the information. For those of you who can’t make it or are stuck on the waitlist, I’ll be talking about the following items: Creative Commons Licensing WordPress and Social Media Stats Plugin: Copyrighted Posts (Licensing Content) Plugin: Tweet, Like, Google +1 and Share (Sharing) Plugin: ShareThis (Sharing) Plugin: Sociable (Sharing) Plugin: Flickr RSS (Flickr) Plugin: MudSlideShow (Flickr/Picassa) Post From Flickr to WordPress ...

I pulled about 6 GB worth of photos from my phone the other day, most of which were taken from my four month adventure in South America, New York City and Europe. The photos aren’t as high quality as the ones from my SLR or my EPL-2, but they still represent a portion of my trip that brings back fond memories. Here’s the slideshow for your viewing pleasure. I recommended clicking the fullscreen button in the bottom right and then clicking “Show Info” in the top right to view the captions. {EAV_BLOG_VER:4983f1ef5390f8c8} ...

Funny. The last post I did in the photography section of this site was titled “SLR Owner, No More.” That was written in New York City back in March right after I sold my Canon SLR and purchased my micro four-thirds system. Nikon D7000 That said, it’s always been my intention of buying some new higher-end camera gear when I had a chance. The Canon 40D I had was quite old when I sold it, and while it was still a decent camera, many advances have been made since I purchased it almost two years ago. I’ve also hinted many times about switching to Nikon, and I finally got around to doing that ...

Voted the #1 most unsanitary tourist attraction in the world several times, I managed to visit the Blarney Stone back in March and give it a little smooch. Me Kissing The Blarney Stone - Photo by Andy Peatling Apparently I now have “The Gift Of Gab”. So if I talk your ear off with eloquent speech, you now know why. It’s actually kind of awkward to kiss it as you have to learn all the back and lower yourself down. But, I somehow managed to pull it off. ...

A friend of mine on Twitter posted a question today asking if anyone had done any world travel, and if so, what they thought of taking a laptop with them. Since I just got back from four months of world travel, I thought I would write an entry detailing my experiences with backpacking with a laptop. I spent the majority of my time in the city of Buenos Aires in Argentina. I brought along my 13″ Macbook Pro, which is valued at around $1,500 in Canada. There is actually a lot of petty theft in Buenos Aires, so I avoided taking my laptop out for the first six weeks or so. But eventually that became ...

It seems that no very long ago I was writing about some looting and rioting with regards to the winter olympics. By comparison to what happened here in Vancouver two nights ago, those acts were relatively minor and forgettable. An officer in Riot Gear during the Vancouver Riots, 2011 By this time everyone knows what happened after game 7. A few drunken idiots decided to cause trouble, and other idiots got on the bandwagon. The media has tried to label most of these people as individuals from out of town, but not all of them were. They have also tried to scapegoat the entire group, saying they ...

A few weeks ago I made an impromptu decision to escape some of the rain here in BC and head down to California to visit a few friends for this upcoming weekend. Back when I used to work in the Voice Over IP field, I probably made at least 2 or 3 trips a year down to the Bay Area to work with some Yahoo! people and also to attend various functions at Google. Now the weekend is approaching, I need to decide just what it is I want to do in San Francisco. My friends live near Palo Alto (home of Apple store #1), so I plan to spend an afternoon there. Outside of that I’m actually thinking I may rent ...

Yesterday I went up to Golden Ears park to scope out some campgrounds for the summer. I was actually surprised just how pretty it is up there, and am regretting that I only just discovered the area now. From the front door of where I live to the entrance of Golden Ears is only about a 30 minute drive, so it’s quite conceivable I can be camping in about an hour after I decide to go camping. Alouette Lake, Near Golden Ears Park It sounds weird, but I still get surprised when I realize that I can simply get in the car or on a plane and go somewhere new whenever I want. I spent the morning today ...

WordPress Presentations at the Network Hub, photo by Ianiv and Arieanna Rebecca is over in Victoria right now for Social Media Camp, and it sounds like it’s a great event. WIthout a doubt, everyone is interested in social media right now, and learning how they can leverage it to build relationships and better run their business. While it hasn’t been officially announced yet, I’ll be giving a talk about WordPress and social media on June the 23rd at the monthly WordPress meet-up in Vancouver. It’ll be at the Network Hub, and should be a fun event. Hopefully whoever comes out will be up ...

Stella As many people know, I spent the last four months bouncing between South America and Europe. It was a fun time, and I met a pile of great people over the course of my trip. One such person is Stella Maris, who lives just outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil. I was at a random pub in Buenos Aires called “Sugar” when I ran into Stella and her cousin. I was a few sheets to the wind, so I honestly don’t remember too much that night, other than meeting up with them. But thankfully I’ve kept in touch with Stella over the last few months, and it so happens that I can wish her a virtual birthday ...

I’ve been following along with the Air France crash investigation with interest. I don’t like flying: I get anxious on airplanes and would rather not be hurtling through the atmosphere. But I know that if you want to go anywhere fast, you need airplanes. So whenever I hear about a plane crash, it always unnerves me a bit. Normally I put the crash out of my mind as simply a crappy plane used by a lesser-known airline, or the result of some route I’ll probably never go on. But the crash of Air France 447 was neither: it was a one of the more well-known airlines in the world, and it was on ...

About two months ago I was packing up my items in Buenos Aires, getting ready to fly to New York City and then to Europe. I’ve been out in Port Coquitlam now for almost a month and am pretty much back into the swing of my normal routine here. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the summer, and of course what my plans are after that. Everything is still up in the air, but here’s how I think things will shape out. I’ve been planning for quite some time to take most of July and August off. I have a few little personal side projects to work on as well as some house keeping items over at BNC, ...

I’m up to a little over 60 kilometres worth of biking on my new bike, and so far I’m really enjoying getting outside again. The first few rides I did were pretty painful, both from a muscle perspective and also from a cardio perspective. But I’m up to about 16 kilometres a ride now, and I can see myself doing a 25 kilometre ride fairly soon as well. I’ve actually been using the RunKeeper application on my iPhone to track my progress. It’s a free application as well as a free service (there’s a paid upgrade option). I don’t think I’ll upgrade, mainly because I don’t think I’d ...

For those of you following along on my great Twitter adventure know, I recently purchased a new bike and am trying to get out and get some exercise from time to time. Prior to leaving for Argentina I was actually going to the gym about four or five times a week, but didn’t really get much exercise (other than massaging my liver from time to time) while I was away. Despite what many people think, exercise really only has a moderate affect on weight loss, if any at all. In fact, almost every proper study ever done that tests the hypothesis whether or not exercise leads to weight loss is inconclusive. ...

Many people have heard the phrase low-carb before – basically a low-carb food implies food with a minimal amount of carbohydrates in it. I would say that any particular low-carb meal should probably have less than 10 grams of digestible carbs in it if it is be classified as a low-carb meal. The motivation for doing so is to limit the amount of insulin that gets produced after the meal. Since insulin directly influences the accumulation of fat, a low-carb diet/meal minimizes the amount of fat that can be stored after a meal, and often leads to more stable blood sugar. A slow-carb meal on the ...

This upcoming weekend is the 2011 incarnation of Northern Voice. I went to my first Northern Voice back in 2007 and met so many great and inspirational people. In actuality, that event was the catalyst that started me playing with WordPress and meeting some of the people that I now call my close friends. A Mosaic Of 1600 Northern Voice Photos Since I lived out in Chilliwack during last year’s Northern Voice I didn’t get a chance to catch it all, but I swung by for an hour or so and said hello to some friends. This year I should I live a lot closer and will be there on both Friday and Saturday ...

Derek Miller, Photo by Kris Krug As everyone in Vancouver now knows, Derek Miller passed away Tuesday evening and his final blog post, written before his death, was published online first thing in the morning. When I first read the post, I did so thinking it was an actual update from a living Derek, and had to read it twice before it sunk in on me that he was actually gone. I never knew Derek Miller before cancer. The first time I heard his name was at Northern Voice in 2007 I believe, and a few people organized a video to be created to eventually be shown to Derek. It wasn’t until a social ...