When the protests started in Egypt, they were over something relatively benign: the increased costs of basic food items. That led to full on revolts, and the eventual toppling of the government in Egypt. We now see what’s happening in Libya, and it’s possible that these are just the first few pebbles in what will undoubtedly be a much larger avalanche. People who are hungry are motivated for change. Make no mistake, the increased costs of commodities and food is in large part the result of the United State’s loose monetary policy, especially concerning QE1 and QE2. You simply can’t double ...

I started an Iguazu Falls posting last night, but it’s undoubtedly going to be a large post and will take me a while longer to put together. Look for it tomorrow or Wednesday night sometime. According to my little iPhone widget, I only have 37 days left in Buenos Aires. Obviously that’s not much time, and it means that I’ve already been here almost 50 days or so. I’m heading to Ushuaia for St. Patrick’s Day, which means I only have four other weekends to do some more exploring within Buenos Aires. My current landlord has $1,100 USD of damage deposit, and I’ll be looking forward to ...

I’m currently at around 35,000 feet, somewhere between Buenos Aires and Puerto Iguazu. No, I’m not blogging from the plane, but rather I’ve set this post to publish while I’m up in the air. I wasn’t going to do another post before leaving for Iguazu Falls, but then I remembered my weekly Friday updates and wanted to get another in. So I thought that for this week’s Friday update it would be fun to create a few lists about what I enjoy here so far, and what I miss the most. Things I Love About Buenos Aires The People – Everyone I have met here has been super nice, especially when ...

Sexy, that’s what I’ll say. When I first looked into purchasing a few silver coins, I did it under the assumption that the coins would mostly be worth value due to their intrinsic silver content (called the ‘melt value’). While some collectors coins fetch a hefty premium on top of their melt value, most bullion and high purity coins are mainly traded for their metal content. That said, I read a post recommending the purchase of the Canadian Mint’s “Silver Wolf” coin a while ago as opposed to the Silver Maples since the author claimed they would fetch more value in the after market. ...

Last night a few of us went down to check out a little party on a boat docked in Puerto Madero. Puerto Madero is the area on the east of Buenos Aires that is one of the newest, trendiest (also, more expensive) areas within Buenos Aires, and is home to a lot of skyscrapers, one of which houses Microsoft’s offices here. It was the first time I hazarded to take my DSLR out in public, and I’m really glad I did. Truthfully, it’s been great getting back into photography, since I essentially took a few years off when I was in Chilliwack. Here are a few shots. Puerto Madero Skyline Puerto Madero ...

I’ve been blogging a fair deal about my upcoming trip to New York City, and how one of the highlights for me is undoubtedly going to be visiting B&H Photo in New York City. B&H is an extremely well known photography store, and it’s been on my list of places to visit for many years now. B&H Photo-Video, Photo Supplied by B&H Thanks to the power of the Internet, Hershel Waldner, Supervisor of the Online Marketing Department for B&H Photo, contacted me and asked if I’d like a private tour of the facilities while I’m there. Obviously, I said yes! So, I’ll be visiting ...

I originally wasn’t going to bring my SLR along at all on my trip, mainly because it would take up a pile of room. As the departure day loomed in front of me though, I just couldn’t bring myself to travel the world with only my point and shoot. As a compromise I decided to bring along the Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 lens, which I bought right before coming. On a 1.6x crop factor it acts more like a 44mm lens, which is close to a standard lens but slightly wider. I was hoping that would be a useful field of view for most situations. I find it a little long for walking around the city, but it’s decent ...

Photo by Gerdschenkel on Wikipedia This is my last blog entry until next week most likely. Friday afternoon I’m packing up some of my stuff and getting on a plane to Puerto Iguazu, a small city right on the edge of some of the nicest waterfalls in the world, Iguazu Falls. This will be my first real trip from Buenos Aires, and the first time getting on a plane again since I arrived. To say that I’m looking forward to this trip would be an understatement. Ever since I saw my first photo of the falls a few months ago, I’ve been anxiously awaiting my chance to see them. So this weekend I’ll ...

Traveling the world for leisure is obviously a great adventure. While I get to enjoy the weekends and the evenings, I’m also working as I travel, so most of my days are spent building plugins for WordPress and helping keep things afloat. But I do get to venture out from time to time free of computers and cell phones and enjoy some of what the world has to offer, for example, this weekend’s trip to the famous Iguazu Falls. But other types of travel are for more nobler causes. As an example, a good friend of mine from the Vancouver area, Rebecca Bollwitt, recently got asked to participate in ...

Right before I left on my big adventure, almost everyone in my family was talking about going on a New Year’s diet. Years ago I was having trouble dropping a bit of weight, so I tried the Atkin’s diet when it was all the rage, and lost so much weight that it wasn’t even funny. Since that time I’ve studied up on why low carb diets work and have to come the one conclusion that refined carbohydrates are pretty evil. So while I’m not as lean and fit as I once was, I try to stay away from anything that causes big spikes in blood sugar and insulin, such as sugars, starches, flours, etc. My ...

Take a look at the photo on the right. If you notice, there are four boxes for Canon Digital Elphs, two boxes for Digital SLRs, and one box for a HD camcorder. That photo was taken almost three years ago now, and since then I believe I’ve had at least one more Canon point and shoot camera. The thing is though, I’m all Canon’ed out. At least in the Point and Shoot realm, I have found myself continually disappointed with the performance of the cameras. Every Digital Elph I’ve owned has suffered from the exact same pixel bleeding issue when exposed to bright lights, such as those in a club. ...

So last night I was really craving a kick ass steak dinner. I generally eat pretty healthy during the week, which means I look forward to indulging a bit more on the weekends. I did a quick Google search and ended up deciding that I wanted to visit La Cabrera, which is a very well known steak house and also the #3 restaurant (out of about 770 or so) in all of Buenos Aires on TripAdvisor. So I was definitely looking forward to it. Jump ahead about 15 minutes and I found myself outside of the restaurant, just south of Plaza Serrano. It looks like a nice enough place, and there are a few people ...

To be perfectly honest, one of the items from my childhood that I miss the most is going for a bike ride. Back when I was about 17 I picked up my first real mountain bike, a Specialized Rockhopper. Compared to most modern mountain bikes, it was a bit lacking – it didn’t have shocks, or fancy XTR equipment, but it was fun to ride and was a fairly modern metal matrix design (at the time). I remember a lot of good memories of hanging out with Jeff and Brennen and heading into the trees for an afternoon of biking. One time in particular we decided to cross the Chilliwack River with our bikes, ...

One of the biggest questions people always ask me about Buenos Aires is whether or not it is a safe city. Buenos Aires has an international reputation (at least lately) of being riddled with petty crime. Prior to coming here, I did quite a few scans on the internet and there is no shortage of sites talking about people’s personal experiences with crime in Buenos Aires. In fact, many of the locals talk about it like getting something stolen is almost a rite of passage in this city. Upon landing in the city for the first time, you’re immediately bombarded with stores covered in iron bars and ...

Matt Trentacoste was talking about this bad boy on Twitter the other day, and I’ve been passively thinking about it ever since. In short Fujifilm is releasing a compact camera that has some high-end image specifications. I suspect you’re going to see more and more of this going forward. While SLRs are great, they are a big and bulky and hard to carry around. If you could get comparable image quality out of a smaller camera, it would be a game changer for the professional camera market. So before you read too much more, check out the official site for the Finepix X100. What I like About This ...

As soon as I leave Buenos Aires, I’ll be heading over to Ireland to visit my friend Andy for a few days. I’m not sure how long I’ll be in Limerick, but afterwards I’ll probably make my way to Dublin to explore that city a bit more. Another friend of mine from Vancouver, Tanya, is probably going to meet me in Dublin for a bit of exploring, so that’ll be fun. Sometime in June I’d like to make my way to Serbia to visit my friend Milan. But outside of those two bookends, I really don’t have any plans for Europe. Truthfully, it would be great to meet up with people I know along the trip, ...

As the title says, I’ve been in Buenos Aires now for 37 days. After next week, I will have officially crossed the half-way mark here, at which point I’ll be winding down and starting to get in my last sight seeing before leaving. I still have almost seven weeks here though, which is still quite a bit of time. This last week was mostly uneventful, other than a very late night out at the pub last Saturday night. Unlike North America, most people don’t even go out on the weekends here until midnight, and often later. I was in a little pub at around 5am and they were still serving drinks to ...

I gotta say, I like precious metals. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen Pirates of the Caribbean one too many times, or maybe I was a gypsy in another life. But there’s something strangely appealing about the shine and lustre of a piece of gold or silver. Most guys don’t have many opportunities to own any metals. I used to have a gold plated watch, but unless you’re wearing a suit or at a formal event, a gold watch just looks out of place most of the time. My current watch is made of titanium, which is actually a very expensive precious metal, but I like it mostly because it’s extremely ...

It’s been a long time since I did a technology post, but I’ve recently had security on my mind and thought I would give a quick primer for SSL. For those of you who don’t know, SSL stands for secure socket layer, and is the technology on the internet that makes all eCommerce and web security possible. And here’s how it works. First, you need to understand the two different types of encryption. Symmetric Encryption Symmetric encryption is any encryption that involves one key and can be decoded in exactly the same manner that it was encoded. In fact, often decoding a message is simply the ...

Here’s a quick video update from Buenos Aires on roughly day 34. And just to clarify – when I was talking about free kisses being awesome, I was referring to the ladies! ...