In just a few days I’ll be leaving for the city of Buenos Aires again. As people who read this blog know, I started off this great travel adventure of mine last year in that very city. At the time I was a pretty green traveler, and struggled with the language and figuring out how the city worked for the first month or so of my trip. I was frustrated a few times, and a little disheartened with how hard it was at first to meet people. But I eventually overcame most of those obstacles, and probably grew as a person in the process. When my three months were up in Argentina, I was looking forward ...

I’ve been spending a bit of time talking to Dale recently about life, careers, and where we both want to end up in the next few years. During one of our recent iChats, I was reminded of this Mexican Fisherman Story I heard a few years ago and managed to track it down. After I showed it to Dale he suggested I post it up here, because it has a fairly important message in it. An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the ...

Back when I was in Thailand, Scott and Sam gave me the official invite to their wedding in Cape Town, South Africa for March of 2012. I was actually really excited about visiting Cape Town, but after leaving New Zealand I was pretty much out of money and had a lot of expenses back home to deal with. But I decided it was important for me to go, so I bit the bullet and purchased a $1,500 plane ticket to Cape Town, South Africa, leaving from Las Vegas (flights are always quite a bit cheaper out of the United States, and I was going to be down there for my mom’s birthday anyways). Journey Cape Town ...

Without a doubt one of the hardest aspects of life on the road is saying goodbye to people you care about. Maybe it’s just a person you had an insightful conversation with at a bar one time, or maybe it’s someone that you spent a few weeks with traveling around a foreign country. But with that final hug (and it always comes unfortunately) comes the bittersweet knowledge that it will likely be quite some time before you get to meet them again. I spent eight months on the road this last year, and in that time met many great people. Since being home in December, I have watched on Facebook as ...

When I went to Argentina in January of 2011, I had two cameras with me: the Canon EOS 40D and some type of Canon Powershot. I left Canada with the idea that it would be a pain in the butt to carry around a whole pile of lenses, so I took only a 28mm prime lens. While it ended up being relatively light, having only a single focal length lens significantly impacted my ability to take the photos I wanted to. Other than one or two shots that turned out well, I didn’t really walk away from Argentina with the photos that I thought accurately represented what it was like to be down there. The Canon ...

I decided when I got back from New Zealand that since I was going to be stuck at home for about four months I might as well try and get back in shape. Prior to all my surgeries and that bad infection I got that time in Vancouver, I was actually pretty skinny. But between all the recovery periods and the hardcore antibiotics I was on (vancomycin often causes weight gain in people and animals, probably because it wipes out a lot of the beneficial intestinal bacteria), I somehow put on a pile of weight. It also didn’t help that I ate primarily restaurant food for most of last year while traveling. I ...

As many people know, I suffered a few facial fractures back in 2006. The primary result of that incident was to put my cheekbone slightly out of alignment, as well as the complete destruction of the bone under my left eye (other than maybe a 1mm ledge on one side, there’s literally nothing there any more). I had one surgery back in 2006 to put my eye back in the right place. It improved things slightly, but still left me with a droopy eye and some residual double vision. About six months later the surgeon did a CT scan, which ultimately looked like this: The surgeon concluded at the time that ...

A few people know already, but I’ve been considering getting a set of braces or possible Invisalign sometime in the near future. As a kid I had approximately two years of orthodontics between the ages of 14 and 16, but since then my teeth have slowly shifted. It’s at the point now where if I don’t do something soon they are probably going to revert to what they looked like as a kid (not good). The good news is that they haven’t really shifted *that* much yet. So I am hoping that the treatment time I need will be relatively short. Since I pretty much spend a lot of my time by myself in ...

One of the biggest surprises for me over these past two months is just how dull and depressing things can be in the winter when the weather is sour. I’m not normally one to walk around with my head down, but I’ve had quite a few days where it’s been hard not to feel a tad melancholy with all the rain, snow, and the early darkness that comes from the winter. Since I left in January of last year, I basically haven’t experienced winter here for two full years. Stated another one, I’ve had the luxury of experiencing two years of spring, summer and fall, and it was pretty awesome. I have ...

I was reading about the Rio Theatre and their liquor license issues over at http://www.miss604.com. To summarize, the Rio theatre applied, and was granted, a liquor license for their movie theatre. Their intention was to have limited showings of movies where alcohol could be served to adults. The BC Liquor Control Board has now placed a restriction on the license which essentially means they can’t use it to that effect anymore (not without cancelling regular movie screenings). Many people know that I spent eight months of this last year traveling around the world. Without a doubt, BC (and Canada ...

I set out to create some free Facebook header images the other day based on the eight months of travel I did in 2011. While I’ve customized them a bit further, I thought I would release these basic versions in case anyone else would like a new header. Simply click on each photo to obtain the large, properly sized Facebook header image. Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, Argentina Cape Reinga, North Island, New Zealand Ko Pee Pee Leh, Thailand Oahu, Hawaii, United States Running Gentoo Penguin, Ushuaia, Argentina Wish Lantern, Northern Thailand Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina Yaletown, Vancouver, ...

Back in the summer Future Shop had a sale on the extended BlueRay versions of the Lord Of the Rings. Given that they were basically 50% off and that I know I eventually wanted to buy a BlueRay player, I decided to buy a set. Now that I’m back in Canada, I went out and finally bought a BlueRay player. I sat down over the Christmas break to watch a few of them, and I can say without a doubt that the quality of the films in excellent. But what seems absolutely incredible to me is how each disc has 5 or 6 crappy trailers that you are forced to watch whenever you put one of the discs in. The disc ...

In the fall of 2010, I decided I wanted to set out on a big travel adventure. At the time I had become a bit bored of life in Chilliwack, and wanted to take advantage of the fact that I can work anywhere with an internet connection and actually see some of the world. I sold most of my furniture at the time and put the rest into a storage locker. And almost exactly a year ago, I boarded a plane and headed to South America. Natalie and Bruno in Wellington I spent approximately eight months of this past year living out of a suitcase, bouncing between apartments and hostels, working from little remote ...

Now that I’ve had time to reflect on my time in New Zealand, I thought I would post an update with what I thought of the country in general. First, New Zealand is gorgeous. I didn’t get a chance to visit the South Island on this trip, but I made my way from tip to tip of the North Island. One thing that’s pretty amazing there is just how green the grass is. We have green grass in Canada, but it’s more of a florescent green in New Zealand – it’s pretty surreal. It’s like what grass looks like when you bump the saturation up on a typical grass shot in photoshop, except you don’t ...

As many people now know, I’m back at home in Chilliwack. I left Wellington a little over a week ago, flew to Auckland, and caught a flight back to Vancouver. I was always planning on being back for Christmas, but decided to leave Wellington a bit early to get back home and sort a few things out. I have a few more posts to write about the last few months of travel – I’ll try and get those done over the Christmas break. But people keep asking me what my plans are, so I thought I’d detail those a bit here. First, I decided a few months ago that going forward I wanted to have a home base ...

In less than three days I’ll be vacating my little apartment here in Auckland and hitting the open road again. Most people told me beforehand that Auckland wouldn’t be that interesting, but I quite enjoyed my time here. Here is a summary about my four week visit to Auckland, New Zealand. First, I took two weekends worth of sailing lessons from a pretty famous New Zealander named Penny Whiting. While I still have a ways to go, I now have a Certificate of Sailing Competency, which should allow me to charter a boat on my travels if I want. Penny was a great teacher, and she’s well known for ...

Last summer I was sitting in a rented room in Vancouver, trying to decide where I was going to go next on my little adventure. I had always had New Zealand at the top of my list, but given how it was winter in the southern hemisphere, I needed to come up with a plan that didn’t involve freezing to death. After all, I am a migratory nerd, so I should probably follow the sunshine. Sam and Scott That’s when my friends, Scott and Sam, contacted me and said they were going to be in Thailand for a few months and that I should come for a visit. Thailand: land of smiles; I like happy people, so it ...

Skytower in Auckland I’m only in Auckland until the end of the month, but I have a pretty busy schedule until then. This weekend I start sailing lessons with the Penny Whiting sailing school. It looks like there are about 8 people in our group, so it should be a fun experience. I’ve already received some introductory material, so I’ll spend the next few evenings going over it to get ready for the course on Saturday. One of the items we were told is that we’re not allowed to wear any non-white soles on the sailboat. That gave me a good excuse to go out and buy a new pair of Adidas casual ...

I left Koh Samui just a few days ago and flew up to Bangkok. My original plan was to spend three days in the city and then fly out to Auckland, New Zealand on the following Monday. Unfortunately though, the flood crisis in Bangkok was hitting the tipping point, and residents were being urged to get out of the city if they had the means. Since Air Canada was offering free change fees on all flights in and out of Bangkok, I decided to change my flight around. All in all it worked out for the best. Instead of a 10 hour layover in Kuala Lumpur, I ended up with a direct flight to Auckland on Thai Airways. ...

As per my last post, I was supposed to spend the weekend in Bangkok this weekend and then head to Auckland on Monday. But given how people are evacuating from Bangkok, I decided to try and change my flights around to get out before things get even worse. Even the smallest penguin can change the course of the future Thankfully most airlines (including mine, Air Canada) are offering free change fees on flights to and from Bangkok due to the flooding crisis there, so my ticket was eligible for a change. I tried calling last night to sort it out, but unfortunately due to the time change I didn’t ...