As most people know, I moved back to Chilliwack (a small farming community, where I grew up) last year. Recently I’ve begun looking at houses in Chilliwack and decided to solicit the help of a realtor. I obviously had a lot of choices, but I homed in on one. My mom was in real-estate years ago, and she said very few people were very nice to her except for one guy. That guy went out of his way to be nice to her when she was starting out, and was the only person who helped her career instead consistently. So, nearly 20 years later, I called that guy up and told him that based on how he treated ...

This is actually kind of a sore spot, so I thought that I would touch upon it. The New York Times recently announced that they were going to start charging for content in 2011. Strangely enough, most people who grew up in the Internet age seem to think that everything, including premium content, should be free of charge. I personally don’t believe that’s the case, and would even go so far to say that having an economy based on content generated at the expense of advertising dollars is an extremely bad thing. But at the end of the day, it always amazes me how little people are willing to pay ...

Hard to believe the Olympics are only a few short weeks away. When I was living downtown I remember when they erected that big countdown clock. I remember thinking it seemed strange that they put that up nearly three years before the event, but I have to say, it went fairly quick. It’s interesting to see the city ramp up to the event, and all the associated problems that are starting to occur. Last week the local skihill Cypress shut down in an effort to save snow for the actual Olympic runs. Given the unseasonably warm temperatures right now, it’s even hard for the local mountains to create ...

Well, today there are at least two important events that happened in the past. First, on January 15th, 1977, my friend Brennen was born. Since that time he has pretty much been a major pain in my ass, causing me to lift boxes for weekends at a time, to fix countless porn-infested computers, and to drive out to the edge of the world (White Rock) on weekends. That said, he’s a great friend, and I hope he has an awesome birthday today. Also, at this exact time last year I was packing up the last few things in my desk in Vancouver and leaving my job there for the last time. Hard to believe I’ve ...

So today is January 13th, which means I’ve been both caffeine and pop (soda for you Americans) free since the start of the year. I’ve given up caffeine at various times in my life, so that’s not amazingly impressive for me. But I can’t say that I’ve ever given up pop for more than a few days at a time before. I’ve had quite a few problems sleeping over the last few years, and I often have trouble both falling asleep and staying asleep. It seems even the smallest of noises will wake me up sometimes, or even something as small as a breeze blowing across some exposed skin. To be honest, ...

It’s been over a month of me trying to get some resolution to my problems with my Internet at home, and I’m happy to say that I’m a step nearer today. I imagine it’s due to everyone’s help on Twitter to be honest, since a few people made a few calls internally on my behalf. So thanks if you helped out. I got a call a while ago from someone within Shaw who was informed of my problems. Right away, she said she was going to make some price adjustments to reflect the fact that my service has been sub-par. First, she lowered my monthly internet fee from $45/mo down to $10/mo for a full year. ...

It seems like I spend a lot of time at the Apple store trying to get things fixed. My current laptop has had the LCD replaced, and the main board twice now. My previous laptop also spent a few visits behind closed doors there as well. Truth be told, in the shower today I was trying to think of any other devices I’ve ever owned that have been in for repair as often, and I can’t think of any. I’ve had each of my cameras in once to the shop, once to repair a cracked LCD (I dropped it), and once for a cleaning. So other than when I drop things or get them dirty, not many of my devices crap out ...

It’s still early in the process, but today we (as a group) started planning a big WordPress event in Vancouver: WordCamp Vancouver. For those of you who follow regularly, you’ll remember that I was a co-organizer of WordCamp Whistler, which turned out to be a very well received event with an attendance of about 120 people, which is rather remarkable, given how expensive Whistler is and how far many people drove to be there. In the past, I’ve helped put together a few small WordCamp Vancouver events, but the one we’re planning is going to be a fairly large one I imagine. Right now we’re ...

So, this is actually a timely story, given my recent efforts to purchase more local food. The British Columbia Centre for Disease Control has recently shut down a local Chilliwack company that produces raw (i.e. unpasteurized) milk due to contamination with faecal matter. I won’t argue whether or not that faecal matter is of concern, since I don’t know the levels that were found or how they relate. The owner of the business is obviously upset with the government interference: But Home on the Range owner Alice Jongerden said the health agency has never contacted them with concerns, or gave ...

I said the other day that I wasn’t going to make any New Year’s resolutions, and for the most part that’s true. One thing I’d like to do this year though is to try and eat as healthy as possible. For starters, I gave up soft drinks the other day completely. I’m sure I’ll still have a rum and diet coke from time to time, since it’s been my drink of choice for around 12 years now, but I’m going to try not to drink any type of carbonated beverages around home for the most part if I can. I haven’t had any diet coke in about five days now, which is a pretty big accomplishment. Second, ...

Canon has just announced a brand new EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens – the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II. This is one of Canon’s most popular L-series lenses, and is pretty much a must-have for most serious wedding and event photographers. I have the non-IS (image stabilized) version, which works fairly well in most scenarios, but I’ve heard the IS version allows you to hand-hold shots in scenarios where the non-IS version would fail. Here’s some information on it: Canon has improved the optical performance by redesigning the internal elements, incorporating a fluorite element and a fifth UD element ...

Now that I have a blender, I’ve been experimenting with a few variations of a low-carb protein shake at home. My best iteration so far is a chocolate and banana flavoured protein shake. Here’s how to make it: 125 ml of normal or unsweetened soy milk 6 ice cubes 2 tablespoons of whey protein isolate 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder 1 cap-full of banana extract 3/4 of a teaspoon of stevia sweetener 1/4 teaspoon of Xanthan gum Put all of that in a blender and chop/mix it all up. It’s actually pretty tasty. Nutritional info: 227 calories, 6.8g of fat (4.5g of ...

Today was an odd day. It was the first day back to work in about two weeks now, which in itself was a lot of fun, given what we have on our plate. Prior to that though I had to go a few tests down at Chilliwack General Hospital as a final follow-up to all that garbage I went through with my c. diff. infection years ago. Thankfully everything checked out ok, and I think I can finally put that whole health saga finally behind me. That said, I got nothing but sympathy for anyone who acquires c. diff in a hospital setting like I did. After work today I went out and made a run to all of my favourite ...

Seriously. It’s a massive slap in the face to be on hold for over an hour with a company while they’re playing on-hold advertisements talking about how much better their customer service is than everyone else’s. My internet has been slowing down consistently month after month to the point where it’s become nearly unusable. I’m paying for one of their higher end packages which is supposed to give up to 15 Mbps downstream and up to 1 Mbps downstream. Here’s what it’s been like for the last few weeks: Right now I’m getting 4 Mbps downstream, and only 76 kbps upstream, with ping times ...

I picked up a Nexus pass about a year ago, mainly because I thought it would help with the amount of travelling I have been doing over the years. In theory, a Nexus pass will let you cross the US/Canada border without waiting in those huge line ups. My first attempt at using my Nexus pass was by road. It’s a bit scary using it, because they have so many restrictions in place for the program. For example, if you do something wrong (like attempt to bring a person across with you who isn’t a Nexus card holder), they can revoke your privileges and take your card away from you indefinitely. Plus, ...

I just got back from watching Sherlock Holmes with my dad here in Chilliwack. Strangely enough, I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie in the theatre, let alone a movie in the Chilliwack theatre. In true retro style, the Chilliwack theatre has yet to discover the true beauty that is cup-holders, but no matter. I really had no expectations with regards to the movie, but found that I really enjoyed it. I find it a little implausible that Sherlock appears to be a bit of a martial artist, but I guess you can’t be a hero nowadays without knowing a bit of kung-fu or karate. Truthfully, there ...

About a year ago I picked up The 4-Hour Workweek, a book by Tim Ferris. I actually saw Tim give a presentation at WordCamp San Francisco last year, but never got a chance to talk to him. There are a few main concepts in the 4-Hour Workweek that I think Tim spells out in a lot of detail. The first concept is the importance of residual income. That is, money that you (as a person or a company) don’t have to fight for each and every month. That may be the sale of an eBook from your website, or some photos that you sell on the side, but ultimately he stresses how important it is for most people ...

Recently I sat down and watched the movie Food Inc. which is a very informative documentary about where our food actually comes from. One of the chief consultants for that movie was a guy named Michael Pollan, who has written numerous books including The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defence of Food. After watching the movie, I decided to sit down and read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I actually ordered about a year ago but never found time to read. There’s a lot of overlap in the book with the content of the movie, so I had most of the key points already in mind. After reading the book, there ...

A long time ago I wrote that I had started to try and turn the Crossroads Flickr plugin into a full-featured stock photography plugin. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to work on it in the last six months, but finally sat down last night to start to hack on it a bit more. I’m thankful to say that I’ve finally put most of the pieces together such that I now have a full featured stock photography section on my website powered almost exclusively by Flickr. If you’d like to browse around, I suggest you head over to Leslie Feist gallery and start there. There is still a ton of room to ...

One of my goals over the holidays was to rework my personal website. I actually really liked the previous theme, but over the course of the last six months or so have received numerous emails from people that either a) didn’t like the black background or b) didn’t like the font usage and sizes (granted, I actually like really tiny fonts, which isn’t that great from a usability perspective). I sat down in front of the TV tonight at around 9pm and decided to try and hack something out that would make it easier for that group of people, while also allowing me to make a few improvements with ...