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 Camera Here’s ...

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, but I honestly ...

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 a packed ...

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 light, not ...

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 result ...

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! ...

One of the hard parts of traveling around is deciding what to bring with you and what to leave behind. That’s relevant before your adventures, and it’s also relevant while you’re traveling. Despite Buenos Aires having a relatively high petty crime rate, I spent my first week and a half here walking around with my wallet in my back pocket and basically every piece of ID and financial card in there as well. It wasn’t until I lost my bank card a few days later that I started to really think about the stupidity of carrying everything I have on my person at all times. So, I’ve made a few changes, and ...

I shot a quick video showing the Buenos Aires Obelisk the other day. Check it out. And here’s a photo I snapped from the distance. ...

We’re only about two month’s away from the US hitting its debt ceiling of 14.3 trillion dollars. Congressionally the US isn’t allowed to borrow any more than that amount (the entire wealth of the population of the planet is around 100 trillion dollars – so that means the US owes almost 15% of the entire wealth of the planet in debt). The estimated date of this occurring is sometime in late April of this year I believe. When it does, the US has two options: default on some of their debt obligations, or raise the limit. Raising the limit is financial suicide as the US has clearly demonstrated that ...

Hard to believe, but at this time about a month ago I was boarding a plane in Vancouver to start my big adventure. I was trying to remember my flight down here, and other than a few moments in the airport and on the plane, I don’t really recall too much of it. Truthfully it seems like a very long time ago already. I’ve been in Buenos Aires now for 30 days, and have seen quite a bit of it. A month ago I didn’t know how to do laundry, didn’t have a phone here, wasn’t able to order food in a restaurant, and had no idea where the best places were to get money. Thirty days later I have most of those ...

Well, I just did it – I booked a trip to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southern most city on the entire planet. I was originally going to go to Machu Picchu during that time slot, but once I learned that the southern most Irish pub in the world was in Ushuaia and that St. Patrick’s Day would align with the day I arrived, the decision became easy. As you can see from the above map, Ushuaia is about as far south as you can get on the planet, other than Antarctica of course. In fact, many of the ships that go to Antarctica leave from Ushuaia. If I had more time, I would consider making the journey there, ...

It’s no secret that most of the organized governments in the world are essentially broke. The current debt to GDP ratio in the United States is almost 100%, a fairly incredible number that continues to rise. That number alone indicates that the US is in poor financial shape, and it’s not even that accurate a number. For example, the US has a number of off budget items that are technically debt as well – all the Freddy May and Fannie Mac purchases, Social Security (the US has been taking the money every year and basically putting an IOU in its place) and Medicare. If you factor in all of those ...

For whatever reason, people keep acting like the only way to do what I’m doing is to be filthy rich. That is the myth I mentioned in my other post about world travel only being attainable for millionaires. Tim Ferris has a great example in his book about some actor saying if he won a million dollars he would take a few months off and motorcycle around Thailand – Tim’s point is that you can do that for probably a few thousand dollars, so no need to gamble that experience on the lottery, just save for six months and then go experience it. I was just down at Starbucks in Palmero Soho, Buenos Aires, ...

Last night I casually asked on Twitter if people reading this website would like me to blog more about food. Surprisingly the response I receive was the most vocal and energetic of all the things I’ve asked or done so far, so apparently my followers like to eat. So, going forward I’m going to try and write about all the unique foods or food related experiences I have while on my trip. A few weeks ago I had mentioned to my spanish teacher that I was heading to Uruguay. Upon hearing that, she immediately asked me if I was going to be eating a Chivito. I had no idea what it was at the time, but she ...

I don’t know why, but I’m excited that it’s a new month. Maybe because I’m fully booked for my trip to Igauza falls in 17 days, or possibly because it’s a trip to Machu Picchu is probably on the horizon. Either way, I’m feeling fine, and today is a new day in a new month. I left Vancouver on January 4th, so that means I’ve been here nearly a month now. Time flies. I have a little widget on my phone with my rough itinerary in it, and it says I have 57 days left in Buenos Aires. I fly out on March 30th for New York City, where I’ll be meeting my business partner and his girlfriend for a few days ...

I tried purchasing an application tonight in iTunes, and received the following error: For Google’s benefit: “Please contact iTunes support to complete this transaction”. I tried again and again with the same results. Afterwards I tried from my computer and got the same cryptic error message. I contacted Apple iTunes support tonight, and here was their response: Welcome to iTunes Store Customer support. I am Chandan. I understand that you are not able to make purchases from your Account. I will surely help you in resolving the issue. Apple is currently working toward a resolution for the issue ...

As most people on Twitter now know, a dogsledding company in Whistler has recently admitted that it killed 100 of its dogs after demand was less than anticipated after the winter olympics. Instead of euthanizing these animals, allegedly some employee was given the task of killing these animals one by one and then burying them, some apparently while still alive. Obviously this act is causing a lot of people to be upset. I personally think it’s an extreme form of cruelty, and that the company and people involved should be punished. These animals should have been offered up to others, or at the very ...

I’ve spent the last month taking in the sites in Buenos Aires, and am now starting to make plans for viewing a few sites outside of the city. The first location I’m probably going to visit is Iguazu Falls. If you are planning a trip to Iguazu Falls, then this post is for you. Iguazu Falls Iguazu Falls is a massive set of cascading waterfalls right on the border between Argentina and Brazil. People who have seen them say it’s one of the most impressive natural wonders in the world, and it’s something I’ve been anxiously awaiting for since I found out about them approximately six months ago. Iguazu ...

I’ve been here three weeks now, and have most of the basics figured out. But definitely one of the hardest problems I’ve had to solve in Argentina so far was how to get a SIM card in Buenos Aires and ultimately top it up with funds. Why Movistar? There are two large GSM cell carriers in Buenos Aires: Claro and Movistar. Having investigated them both prior to moving to Buenos Aires, I came to the conclusion that Movistar offered the best deal for pay as you go plans. First, why Pay As You Go? Unfortunately unless you’re a local and have a DNI card (a local resident card) you can’t get a phone on ...

I’ve gone through various mutual fund companies and financial planners over the years, but ultimately decided last year to take my finances into my own hands and manage my own portfolio. My main issue with the financial planning/advice market is that there is an inherent conflict of interest in most of the advice given out. Yes, a par-life plan may in fact be a great investment vehicle, but when your purchase of one results in a $1,000 bonus for the financial planner, how can anyone ever be sure that the advice was given solely because it was in your best interest? Also, most mutual funds have ...