Gary Taubes shook up the world with his controversial 2002 New York Times article, “What if it’s all been a big fat lie?”, where he questioned the scientific basis for the claim that fat makes us fat. Nearly five years later he followed up that article with Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage), one of the most thoroughly researched and well-written books I’ve ever read in my life regarding the history of food and nutrition, and the fact that most of what we now believe in the field isn’t based on anything scientific. Last ...

For some reason, I initially thought I could simply turn my car off prior to leaving for my year long adventure and it would be completely fine when I returned. After talking to a few people though, it turns out that you really do need to take special precautions to make sure your car will actually be functioning if you leave it for any extended period of time. So if you’re looking to leave for more than a month or so, you should make sure you take the following precautions with your vehicle. What To Do Prior To Leaving Over-inflate your tires by approximately 5 PSI. This will help prevent ...

Getting down to the wire! Yesterday I was talking about my trip to some family members, and came to the realization that I’m only a week away from starting it. Truthfully, it’s starting to sink in now, and I find myself split between feeling excited and feeling a bit nervous. Excited, because I have a great opportunity to see some of the world and make some new friends along the way. Nervous, because I hate flying and challenging traveling situations. But, I’m approaching this whole trip with an open mind, so I’ll just roll with whatever punches come my way. I’ve said most of my goodbyes ...

Well, given that it’s already Christmas in some parts of the world, I wanted to write a quick post and wish a very Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope the next day or two for everyone are spent in the company of family and friends, surrounding by love and laughter. Yesterday we had Christmas over at my dad’s house, and today I’m heading over to have a mini-Christmas at my sister’s house. Tomorrow I head over to my mom’s house for dinner with that side of the family, and then Christmas is done for me. At that point I’ll finish my packing and start getting ready to head to Argentina. A ...

We just launched a new version of BraveNewCode, and I’m officially on holidays now. So, starting tomorrow I’ll be relaxing, Christmas shopping, and finishing getting my things in order prior to the move. Today marks the two week mark until I leave Chilliwack. On Sunday the 2nd, I’ll finish saying my goodbyes around town and head into the city. I’ll be staying at a hotel for a few days out there so that I can visit with a few friends and do a bit of last minute shopping prior to flying out. It hasn’t completely hit me yet that I’ll be leaving and most likely not coming back for a full ...

My friend John sent me this link. I think you have to watch the video to truly appreciate the application: Basically it’s an iPhone application that can translate (in real time) between Spanish and English. Obviously the grammar is a tad off since the words don’t get reordered, but I can imagine a lot of really great uses for this on my trip. I’m going to grab a copy and play around with it this weekend. But definitely cool. ...

Yesterday the Canadian government alluded to a plan to completely remove the penny from circulation in the next 12 months. Their main motivation for this change is cost – the currently cost of a penny is around 1.5 cents, but the value of the coin is only 1.0 cent. So, the government would like to get rid of the penny. Now what does that mean for the average person? To be honest, not a whole lot in my opinion. First, retailers are supposed to round the final values to the nearest 5 cent value. If the item is less than 2.5 cents away from a lower price, retailers are supposed to round down. ...

I’m one of those people that always purchases travel health insurance whenever I go out of country. Normally you just go down to the insurance broker, fill out a bit of paperwork, and leave with an insurance policy that will cover you in the event of any emergency. I figured (incorrectly) that it would be just as easy to obtain insurance for my upcoming trip, which is why I left it until the last minute. I’ve slowly been chipping away at the problem for the last month or so, and finally managed to acquire some insurance. British Columbia’s MSP Most of the problem with extended travel insurance ...

In less than three weeks, I’ll be hanging out in a nice Vancouver hotel, doing a last little bit of shopping before boarding a plane and heading to Argentina for three months (and after that, New York City and then Europe). While I’m definitely looking forward to a new adventure, I am not looking forward to the nearly 24 hours of traveling I have to do in order to get to Buenos Aires. But c’est la vie. I keep getting asked a ton of questions, so I thought I’d answer a few of the most common ones here. What Made You Decide To Do This? Since I work from home and coffee shops during the ...

Ron Paul, one of the most vocal opponents of the monopoly the Federal reserve has in the United States, has just been appointed to the head of the Federal Reserve oversight committee. He’s been denied the position twice before, most likely because he’s been itching to audit the Federal Reserve and finally make the Fed accountable. Well, today Ron Paul finally got the job, which is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Ron’s been a long time advocate for abolishing the Federal Reserve completely (he wrote the popular book, “End The Fed”). The Federal Reserve has contributed to the ...

In times like this, I hate being right. I met with a few financial people Friday afternoon at their offices in Abbotsford. As I was leaving, I casually asked everyone who worked there what they thought about the recent run of gold. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly, depending on how up to date you are with what’s going on), they didn’t seem to think it meant anything, and that the US economy was going to recover shortly. I then made a comment that I wouldn’t be surprised if the US did another round of Quantitative Easing (QE3 I dubbed it), but they simply laughed that comment off. Not more ...

Random Visa Card I received an automated call last week from TD Visa letting me know that my card had been deactivated due to fraud. Of course, there were no unauthorized transactions that I could tell on my VISA, nor has there been any previously when this has happened. In the past few years, I’d say this has probably happened three of four times. Each time it does, I have to head down to the bank and pick up my new card about a week later. It’s nice that they are trying to reduce fraud, but not so nice that it causes an inconvenience, first because it takes my main VISA card out of commission, ...

World travel is one of those things that most people think is completely unaffordable, at least until retirement. If you ask most people what they wish they were doing other than working, a lot of them almost always say they wish they were traveling and seeing some of the world. Part of the reason I think that travel is so appealing is that it represents a form of constant excitement. Let’s be honest, while many people like their jobs, jobs by definition involve doing work, and work isn’t always fun. Money is probably the least constraining barrier to travel for me, mainly because I have a ...

Today is December 4th, which means at around 9am exactly 30 days from now I’ll be aboard a plane slowly climbing out of Vancouver airport and heading towards Houston. I have a six hour layover in Houston airport, after which I’ll be boarding an evening 10.5 hour flight for Buenos Aires, Argentina, arriving around 9am in the morning there. So, a full 24 hours of traveling from airport to airport. This last month has been quite stressful. It’s one thing to move from one apartment to another, but a different experience entirely moving from one apartment to no-where. Instead of transferring ...

That’s a wrap. I just left my old place where I did the final inspection with my landlord. As I blogged about previously, he was a bit flustered when he came by a few weeks ago, probably because he was towing the original owners of the suite along behind him. I had a bit more time to chat with him today, and as I suspected, the owners are a bit hard to deal with. For the most part, he thought the apartment looked really great. The only complaint he had is that the carpets in the second bedroom hadn’t been shampooed. I purposefully didn’t shampoo those ones because it was just a guest room ...

I’m only about a month away from leaving on my big adventure. First stop is obviously Buenos Aires, and then over to Ireland to drink one of these bad boys with Andy. After that, I really have no plans, other than to hit Serbia sometime around July. I also have some family that’s visiting China in August, so I may hit that as well. So, if you were slowly making your way around the world, where would you go? What would you want to see? ...

The Adventure Starts Soon! Things are moving quickly now. My apartment is about 90% packed at this point, and I’m currently cleaning like a mad man so that I can get most of my damage deposit back. I’ve already moved in with my parents for the month of December, after which I’ll be heading to Vancouver Airport and catching a plane to Buenos Aires. Everyone keeps asking me if I’m excited. Truthfully, not yet. I know I will be, but packing and moving are both a bit stressful, and I haven’t had too much time to fantasize about my first beer in Argentina yet. I’m hoping once December rolls ...

There are various statistics used to track each country’s currency in circulation. The main ones that most people reference are the following: M0: The total of all physical currency, plus accounts at the central bank that can be exchanged for physical currency. M1: The total of all physical currency part of bank reserves + the amount in demand accounts (“checking” or “current” accounts). M2: M1 + most savings accounts, money market accounts, retail money market mutual funds,and small denomination time deposits (certificates of deposit of under $100,000). M3: M2 + all other CDs (large ...

I’m really surprised I didn’t read more about this today, but I imagine in the coming days more people will have something to say about it. China and Russia announced today that they would only be trading in their respective local currencies for trade between their own countries and abandoning trade settlement with the US dollar. This is big news. Ever since the abandonment of the gold standard, all international trades have historically been settled using the US dollar. This coveted position is known as the US Dollar’s Reserve Currency status, and it effectively gives protections for the ...

So, looks like Ireland is now in a bit of financial trouble. First, we had Greece. Next, we had some trouble in Spain. And now it looks like Ireland might be in for a world of hurt. If we go back a few years we can also find a few more countries in distress. Argentina had its currency nearly collapse in the early 2000s, and Zimbabwe went through a massive period of hyperinflation this last decade. Last night, right before bed, it looked like North Korea just launched a small attack on South Korea – so things aren’t looking very good on a global scale. I haven’t blogged about finances or ...