A bunch of us are currently down at Workspace in Vancouver, which is a shared office space situated right on the water in Gastown. I have a rather great view of the North Shore mountains along with the cruise ship terminal at Canada Place. One of my favorite photos is this next one from Gastown I took last year from the lookout at Harbour Center: I actually shot the photograph through a window, so it’s surprising that you can’t see any glass. But I’ve always liked all the angled lines in the photo, and of course the film-noir type lighting. If you’re ever in Vancouver, make sure you head ...

A few months ago, another event occurred that was intended to help raise money for the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation. That event was the Chip’s Not Dead Yet memorial mile. Here’s a little quote from the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation as shown on the Chip’s Not Dead Yet site: The Chip’s Not Dead Yet Memorial Mile supports BC Children’s Hospital and the uphill battles faced by children who are trying to get well, and the medical staff who are trying to make miracles happen. Children are precious and the most vulnerable members of our society. They rely on us to care for them. We ...

In less than 24 hours, Blogathon kicks off in Vancouver. I forced myself to go to bed around 11pm last night such that I would have a pretty decent sleep. I tried to get up at around 7am, but my body wasn’t too happy about it, so instead I slept in until around 8:30am, and now I feel pretty decent. In theory I should go easy on coffee today such that tonight I can have yet another decent sleep, so that’s probably what I’ll do. Tomorrow however I’ll be pushing my little donkey cart down caffeine mountain there and riding it all the way to the bottom. I’m hoping there’s some easy to ...

British Columbia just announced that they are going to be switching to a harmonized sales tax model in July of next year. Basically, instead of having a provincial sales tax (PST) of 7%, and a goods and services tax (GST) of 5%, they are going to have one combined tax, a harmonized sales tax (HST) of 12%. I’m no economist, but that seems like a pretty bad idea. Here’s a quote from the official release: This is the single biggest thing we can do to improve B.C.’s economy,” said Premier Gordon Campbell. “This is an essential step to make our businesses more competitive, encourage billions ...

This morning I was thinking about Blogathon while hopping in the shower, and I had that image in my head of the joker from The Dark Knight saying “And Here…. We… Go… ” In less than 48 hours Blogathon 2009 will officially kick off. Some people will be down at WorkSpace in Vancouver hanging out, and others will be congregating in the Valley somewhere. I still haven’t decided where I’ll end up, although I’m leaning towards the WorkSpace route, as it would be nice to hang out with some friends for the day, and cross the finish line as a group. Free Ice Cream is pretty rad too, so. There ...

I spent the last five years pretty much exclusively coding in C++. Strangely enough, I haven’t really touched a C++ compiler since leaving Vancouver, and instead have been pretty much coding non-stop in PHP. Obviously C++ is a compiled language, and PHP is an interpreted one. In terms of enjoyment, I think I like the challenge of coming up with cool C++ code, but without a doubt, PHP is far more enjoyable overall. The main reason, at least for me, is because I can write some code and instantly see the results of that code in PHP. With C++, you have to compile your code, and even with incremental ...

One of the things I’ve noticed lately is that I’m spending way more time on Twitter than I’d like. Truthfully, it’s fairly addictive, and I really don’t know why. This afternoon I noticed I noticed myself sitting on the updates page, refreshing occasionally, waiting for a few replies to some messages I had sent out. While doing that, I had the sudden idea that Twitter (at least for me) would be a bit more useful if it were a push system instead of a polling system. That way at least, I wouldn’t have to sit at the site and continue to poll it — I could simply be notified when a new ...

I just got off the air with The Hawk, Chilliwack’s Rock station, located at 98.5 on your Chilliwack/Abbotsford dials. Rebecca Bollwitt is currently putting a recording of the broadcast on her Viddler account, at which point I’ll put it up here for everyone to listen to recorded the interview, and has provided it for everyone’s listening pleasure — thanks Rebecca! I hadn’t really thought about a goal for fundraising, so I said I was going to attempt to raise $2,000. The good news is that I think that’s a realistic goal, but I’ll need everyone’s help. So if you can help at all by ...

This is it folks, summer. Like most summers, I do my best to relax a bit and venture into the outdoors as much as I can. Most summers I’m not entirely successful, but last year I actually managed to go camping three or four times, which was enough to satisfy my cravings for the season. Camping is actually one of the few things I really enjoy in life: just tossing my tent into the back of my car and driving off into the distance. Maybe it’s that feeling I get when I’m half-cut and I stare up at the stars for a while, or the enjoyment I get watching the lights from the campfire dance around ...

I doubt that this year I’ll be able to watch any of the fireworks, but in previous years I’ve tried to catch at least one fireworks display. Strangely enough, you’d think I would have seen them all, given how I lived right on the corner of Beach and Howe in Vancouver for three years. I have lots of memories of the fireworks, but my favourite memory, and a story I tell often, involves some heartache and a beer. I had just broken up with my ex-girlfriend, and was feeling a bit blue. So my friend Dustin came to hang out, and we decided to see the fireworks. Since we had a few hours to kill, ...

I woke up yesterday in Cascade Locks, Oregon and decided to hit the coast for a few hours. I bounced through Portland, grabbed a coffee and some breakfast, and had a really great, leisurely drive along a forested road towards Cannon Beach. I pulled in right around lunch time, and hunted around for a good place to grab some food. Thankfully I found a neat little brew pub, just a block from the water. I tasted a few of their beers, and also a nice plate of Halibut and Chips. Afterwards, I grabbed my camera and spent about an hour down on the beach. Cannon Beach is of course super beautiful. The ...

Last week I had the chance to talk to Paul Henderson of the Chilliwack Times regarding Blogathon. We ended up talking about various other items, including Facebook and Twitter, and some of my thoughts about the stuff I was doing over at InTheWack.com (which I need to update a bit more frequently). Today the Chilliwack Times ran a story in the local paper, and it appears the online version is available here. Just a couple of clarification points: Last year Rebecca and I supported the Union Gospel Mission. This year she is supporting it (as well as others I’m sure). The caption in the photo seems ...

Whenever you travel somewhere new, there are invariably a bunch of local customs or behaviors that you encounter that are completely opposite to those back home. I try to keep a mental list in my head such that I can try to seem less out of place when I return to a location a second time. Here’s a partial list of things that I’ve encountered on my travels that are different in various locations: In the United States, soft drinks are called “Soda”, not “Pop”. Most people will either giggle when you say the latter, or not know what it means In Oregon, all gas stations are full service. ...

I’m current hanging out at the KOA in Cascade Locks, Oregon. It’s fairly dead here tonight, mainly because most people left today to go back to their 9-5 routines. Thankfully the wireless works a lot better now that not everyone is using it. My friend Sean swung by tonight, so we had a few beers around the picnic table. It was good to catch up. Last time I saw him was probably about six or seven months ago down in Portland when I had a job interview. I briefly went into Portland this afternoon to do a bit of work and to unlock my iPhone 3GS. Once I had my phone unlocked, I went down to Best ...

This morning I woke up and decided to make some plans. Strangely enough, that line from Shawshank Redemption kept going through my head — “get busy living, or get busy dying. You god damn right.” Anyways, it also didn’t help matters that Dave and Lauren took off the other day, as well as Tanya and Gus. Even Dale left yesterday to go do some relaxing at a cottage. So Instead of just heading south without a plan (something I’ve done many times before and been burned for), I decided to call a few campgrounds first. Thankfully the little KOA right outside of Portland had one tenting spot ...

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Well, today was a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping to be camping right about now, but apparently it’s next to impossible to get a campsite nowadays. Strangely enough, getting a campsite when I was in high school was trivial — you’d simply go up to the lake whenever you wanted a spot, and you’d probably get one. Worse case you’d head down to Chilliwack Lake (40kms), and find a nice spot there for even less money. Things started to change years ago when Discover Camping (the web service behind BC campgrounds) started allowing reservations. That means about half of the sites now typically ...

I did a photoshoot the other day for a few friends of mine. The shoot was in a big field, at around 4pm in the afternoon. There was lots of light obviously, since it was a sunny day, but the sun was high in the sky and the shadows were pretty harsh. For the most part, I always take a flash outdoors with me now. A long time ago using a flash outside would have seemed silly, but I’ve photographed a few weddings now, and understand that fill flash is required in many outdoor situations to help balance the ambient light. So for this shoot, I brought along my speedlight. While the photos turned out ...

I’m pretty close to wrapping up a few projects here, so much so that I’m half packed already for my upcoming road trip. Until this afternoon, I hadn’t really decided what I was going to do for a little break, but after talking to a few people, decided to hit the open road and see where it takes me. It’s more of a working vacation to be honest, as I still have a few client projects to do, but I plan to do them from beside the pool at a KOA, or little coffee shops near the ocean somewhere. I’ve been up and down the West Coast quite a few times now, so it’s a drive I’m familiar with. ...

I’ve been playing guitar since I was about 18 years old. My first guitar was actually (believe it or not) a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar. It was basically my high school present from my mom in exchange for graduating and getting myself to UBC. Unfortunately, I really couldn’t afford an amplifier at the time, so I basically just practiced on it ampless for the first few years. Eventually I managed to save some cash and bought a Fender Princeton 112 amplifier, which I still have (although it’s been at my friend’s house for a few years now — something I’ve been trying hard to remedy ...