About 18 months ago a few people encouraged me to put some of my photos online for sale. Given that my Vancouver scenery ones are the most popular photos in my portfolio, I’ve pretty much only focused on that. I’ve actually made a decent amount by selling them, probably enough to be able to afford a cheap lens, which is pretty cool. The next item on my wish list is the Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera, which is one of the most affordable full frame cameras on the market. Unfortunately, the list price of that camera is around $3200, so it’s a bit outside of my price range at this point. So, I’m ...

I was wondering today just how long my little garden has been growing for. Looking at my Flickr set, it looks like I had moved a few of the tomato seedlings outside on May 22nd. Here’s a shot at the time: I took a few photos today, and wanted to do a little comparison. It’s been roughly five weeks since I started, and here’s what things look like today: As you can see, things are progressing nicely. I had a little mishap about a week ago where I accidentally broke the main stem on one of my roma tomato plants. I actually managed to fix it up such that the wilting disappeared and it started ...

..apparently came and went, and I missed it. I guess that means the days are getting shorter now instead of longer. Strangely enough, while I like summer and am looking forward to a few heat waves, my mind always wonders to the next season. For example, the other day there was a bit of rain, and it reminded me of sitting in front of the fire and watching movies a few months ago. Of course, when autumn rolls around I’ll be thinking of Christmas and of course being trapped in my apartment due to the snow (something that I actually like, probably because some of my best memories from Ottawa involve ...

I had the opportunity to spend last weekend in Victoria with some of Vancouver’s best food and travel bloggers, courtesy of Coast Hotels, BC Ferries, and Tourism Vancouver. The trip started as nothing more than a quick email from Danny Dang, social media coordinator for Coast Hotels, in which he invited me to participate in an all inclusive weekend on the island. Given that I really enjoyed myself last year in Victoria, I thought it would be a great opportunity to spend some time on the Island and visit some of the local attractions. I left my apartment Thursday evening and ended up at Arieanna ...

So, I gotta ask, and I’m probably going to get raked over the coals for doing so. I’m curious as to why there are so many technology events that focus exclusively on women? Some of them actually look pretty good, and I’m actually a bit disappointed that I can’t attend. In fact, some of the people I really look up to in the community are female, which makes it all the more disappointing that I’m excluded by nature from some conferences. And that’s really my question I guess — why can’t I attend some of these events? Obviously there are a lot of women in technology these days. I’d ...

I’m currently on the ferry heading back to Vancouver frm an awesome weekend on the island, courtesy of Coast Hotels. I should be home sometime later today. But in the meantime, as it’s fathers day, I wanted to wish my dad, Tom, and my step dad, Marty, a happy fathers day! Happy fathers day guys! ...

Some days I wake up and still find it a bit weird that I’m back in my home town. I’m totally enjoying myself here, more so with each passing month, but certain aspects of being here are still strange to me. High school literally feels like yesterday to me, probably because I spent so much of my 20s in school, but when I think back to high school here, I have a hard time putting all the pieces together. For example, I went by my old house I lived in when I was 17. Strangely enough, I couldn’t remember how I got to school in the mornings. I’m pretty sure I walked to school, and I’m pretty ...

About a month ago I got an email from Coast Hotels asking if I’d like to partake in an all-inclusive weekend in Victoria with a few other bloggers and social media people from Vancouver. Given how much fun I had in Victoria last summer with Arieanna and Ianiv for the BC Festival 150 concert, I jumped at the opportunity, especially since Coast Hotels was supplying the accommodation and transportation. The trip will start off on Friday morning at the Coast Hotel in Vancouver — everyone is meeting and boarding a bus for the Tsawwassen Ferry terminal. From there, we’ll all travel to the Tsawwassen ...

As many people know, there are protests going on in Iran, and the Iranian government is actively trying to stop the flow of information both in and out of the country. Twitter has been instrumental in helping getting the word out about what is going on there, so much so that they recently postponed a critical maintenance period simply so Iranian users could continue to use the service. A few hours ago I saw some requests on Twitter from Iranians asking for international proxies such that they could continue to use the Internet. Creating the AMI on EC2 Given that I have an EC2 account, and that ...

I’m going to overhaul this website again, most likely starting in July. To be perfectly honest, writing content just isn’t as satisfying as it once was, partially because I don’t have as much to write these days, and partially because I am just enjoying other aspects of my life more (such as going outside to hit some tennis balls around or heading up to the lake for lunch). Something I’ve always wanted on this blog, and that I’ve never really been able to achieve, is to have something that’s predominantly photo-centric. So my goal in July will be transform this blog into something ...

So this was my second full week at the gym. Other than Wednesday (where I missed going because I had to go to Vancouver), I was there every day this week. I’m definitely noticing an improvement in fitness, since my heart rate has come down while doing cardio, and I find it harder to get out of breath when I’m whacking a tennis ball around the court. I’ve been doing my normal routines in the morning, and also trying to get out and do something in the evenings as well (either go for a walk, hit some tennis balls, or rollerblade). I generally eat fairly well when I’m at home (depending on ...

“These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration: — feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man’s life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed ...

Part of the reason I moved back to Chilliwack was so that I can finally have the proper time to eat decent food and hopefully get some exercise on a regular basis. While my current apartment is the only place I ended up considering, part of the reason I did so was because it’s only about a 5 minute walk from a gym. And while I did my best to go outside and get exercise in Vancouver, I generally worked a lot of hours and didn’t really have a ton of time. I’ve had a gym membership out here since about April, but haven’t really been going more than once or twice a week. My main problem is ...

I bought a new BBQ a few weeks ago, and have pretty much used it everyday since. My favourite food to cook on the BBQ are peppers roasted in a bit of olive oil. Second favourite thing would be a good steak. I don’t eat a lot of potatoes, but I’m thinking about doing up some nice little potatoes in some type of dill sauce or something. Anyways, I’m looking for awesome new BBQ recipes. So, please drop a comment with your favourite thing to cook on the BBQ, and possible include some information on how to make it! Thanks. ...

I haven’t slept that much lately. In San Francisco the sun would rise around 6am and wake me up. Normally I’d be ok simply falling back asleep, but that just hasn’t been working lately. Surprisingly though, I haven’t been tired. If anything, I’ve found myself a lot more energetic than usual. For example, this morning I woke up at 7am and decided to go to the gym. It was a bit tough, given that I hadn’t had any real food yet, but I felt pretty awesome when it was over, especially considering I started my work day at my usual time and had already got some exercise in. I think I’m going ...

Tomorrow I’ll be packing up and making the long journey back home. Truthfully, I’d probably rather leave tonight if that were at all possible — not because I’m not having fun here, but mostly because tomorrow is just going to involve sitting around and killing time before our flight. I fly out of San Francisco in the early evening, and will land in Seattle sometime around 9pm. From there, we have to find my car and drive back to downtown Vancouver so I can drop Rebecca and John off at home. While they’ve offered me up their couch for the night, I’m looking forward to hitting my own ...

Yesterday was WordCamp San Francisco, and Rebecca, John Bollwitt, John BIehler, Dale and myself all attended. The night before we thought it was a good idea to sit around and drink margaritas until around 2am, so we were all a bit tired during the event. But it was a great event, and we’re all glad we made the trip down. Several fairly exciting things happened during Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word Presentation. First, Matt showed a slide which displayed some of the new profile information that is going to be coming to WordPress.org — BraveNewCode has actually been helping with that ...

So, here I am, in San Francisco. I’ve actually been here a pile of times before, and I always find something new and unique about it every time I’m here. We actually went out for some wicked Mexican food tonight. The guacamole was $15 USD, but it was totally worth it. I’ve had some great guac in my time (thanks Keira), but this was probably right up there as some of the best I’ve ever tasted, and it was a really great meal. Dale arrived from Toronto at around 11pm, and him and I went on for a few drinks in Union Square. We’re back at the hotel now trying to sober up before WordCamp SFO ...

I was talking to my mom on the phone the other night, and she reminded me that it had been nearly a week since I’d written a post on here. Truthfully I almost forgot that I had a blog — I just haven’t had the urge to write much lately. Maybe it’s because my days all sort of blur into each other these days, something hopefully the summer will remedy. I hung out with an old friend on Sunday, and we basically just bounced around Chilliwack drinking the odd beer in the sun – it was good times. I even managed to whack a few balls up at the Cultus Lake driving range. Most of them ended up ...

A few months ago I picked up a pretty cool cook-book called the Low-Carb Gourmet. It was written by a Vancouver chef, and most of the recipes in it came about from some professional recipes used in some local Vancouver restaurants. I haven’t had a pile of time to create many recipes from it yet, but one of the ones I have used a few times is a really great recipe for Flaxseed muffins. I can’t really say that I’d eaten a lot of flaxseed in my life prior to making these, so first thing I did was do a bit of research about Flax on Wikipedia: Flax seeds come in two basic varieties, brown and ...