This morning I got to walk along Robson Street and watch the protests as they occurred. Given that I saw first-hand how the police officers and the protesters interacted, I thought I would make a few comments. First, it is everyone's democratic right in Canada to be allowed to protest peacefully -- these rights are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That said, you are not allowed to protest violently, or to break any of the normal laws of this country while in the process of protesting. Vandalism and destruction of property are not forms of protest, they are forms of violence. For ...

I actually didn't apply for a media pass, so I technically do not have access to the BC International Media Center. That said, if you have access, you can sign people in as visitors, so I'm currently down here as a guest of John Biehler. Here's a quick video that John and I shot to give everyone a little tour of what it's like inside. ...

This morning John Bollwitt and I were sitting on his couch watching TV and saw that there were a group of protesters heading towards Robson Street. Both him and I immediately grabbed our cameras and headed outside to see if we could see what was going on, and possibly grab a few photos. The group involved was waving a green and black flag with a big "A" in the center, which apparently stands for anarchy. Several of the protesters were wearing masks, and the police were following behind closely, but not engaging any of the protesters. At one point both John and I saw a group of protesters ...

Shortly after arriving in Vancouver, I saw someone Tweet that the Barenaked Ladies were busking on Robson Street, so I strolled on down. Sure enough, right on the corner of Robson and Burrard was a massive group of people and music playing. I only got to listen to a few minutes worth of music, but the crowd was definitely into it. Here's a shot of the bass player, Jim Creeggan, that I snapped shortly after the show was over: ...

I'm somewhere near Surrey I think, stuck near the back on a Greyhound bus. The mood here is pretty dismal -- most people are either sleeping or in some weird state of iPod euphoria. The scheduled arrival time, barring any major road hiccups, is around 12:10pm I think. The first order of business for me will be to store my luggage somewhere, most likely in a locker in the bus terminal. That'll of course mean that I have to come back and get it later, but that's way better than walking around with a suitcase all day. It's no secret that I haven't been a huge supporter of the Olympics games in Vancouver. ...

I have all my camera gear packed up, which for me, is quite a lot of stuff. I pulled my old laptop/camera-bag out of retirement, which means I can have the majority of my gear, as well as my laptop, all in the same bag. It is as convenient as it is heavy. I bought a ticket on the 10am Greyhound bus leaving Chilliwack for downtown Vancouver. I decided that having my car in the city wasn't really a good idea with the games going on. Right now I'm just sipping a coffee, then I'm going to head down to the Greyhound and wait down there. I have a pile of work on my laptop, so I should be able to get ...

If you're stuck at home during some of the festivities over the next few weeks, don't fret entirely. Yes, you'll miss out on TONS of great events, but the good news is you can catch a few things remotely. To that end there's a new Yaletown web camera that's now operational that gives views to the North and South. Tomorrow you'll be able to see the Torch Relay go through that area by watching on the web cam. The webcam is sponsored by Wasserman + Partners Advertising, and can be viewed here (the links to activate it are in the top-right corner). Enjoy! ...

I'm going to have to spend some time going through all my friends' previous posts about the Olympics, because truthfully, I really have no idea where any cool events or things to see or do are, other than the actual events. It sounds like there are a lot of international houses that are worth visiting, as well as a few pubs (although based on some of the Tweets, the prices seem rather incredible for beer, even by Vancouver standards). As it stands, I have a few events to attend next week already. There's a party/event on Robson I've been invited to, which I may swing by and check out. There's ...

I'm planning to hit Vancouver on Saturday sometime and spend a week or so in the city checking things out. As I mentioned before, I'll be working during the days, most likely near Gastown. At lunch and in the evenings I'll hopefully be bouncing around with my camera, taking photos or checking out what's going on outside of most official venues. I made a few small changes to this site to facilitate me writing posts during the Olympics. The main page has been changed to show Olympic related posts, and I've added a Flickr gallery to the bottom which will ultimately start showing all the photos I'll ...

Well, here we are, two days away from the start of the Winter Olympics. As everyone knows, the event is massively over budget. The last time I checked, the total cost (thus far) of the Winter Olympics was at 6 billion dollars, the majority of which was paid for by the people of British Columbia. I've been on the fence for a while now about whether or not I want to be in town for the Olympics. I didn't vote for them, but at the same time, here they are, and there's no going back now. So to that end, I finally decided that I'm going to try to be in Vancouver for at least a week during the games ...

I've been playing around with Google Adwords a bit, experimenting with a few basic campaigns to figure out how it all works. I was partly inspired by a friend of mine who drove some traffic to his retail store here in Chilliwack using a Facebook Ad campaign over Christmas. The part that I don't really understand is how Adwords is a good investment at the CPC prices they charge? For example, I was trying to target Vancouver Stock Photography using an adwords campaign. After playing around with a few keyword combinations, it quickly became obvious that the average CPC for something that targeted ...

I'm currently in Victoria, awaiting my ride back to Vancouver. I already checked my laptop as baggage so I'm writing a quick entry from my iPhone. Today was a gorgeous day out here, and Jeff, Maya and I spent most of it outside. One of the things I decided today was that I want to join some sport or team this spring, even if it's on a drop in basis. I kind of miss being outside or being involved in a competitive sport, partially due to the exercise, and partially for the social aspects. I used to be pretty good at badminton, so I might try to find a local badminton league to get into as a start. ...

I can't really say that I've seen much of Victoria since being here, since I haven't really been out that much. That said, it's been really great just hanging out with some old friends and taking it easy. My friend Jeff (who has been a friend of mine since high school) picked me up at the Helicopter pad in Victoria on Friday night, and we spent most of the night just chilling at his place watching movies. Today Jeff, Michele and I took Maya (their 2.5 yr old daughter) down to her gymnastics class and watched that for an hour or so. Then we came back to Jeff's house and made a pretty awesome dinner ...

Here's an exclusive look at the iPad: The iPad - watch more funny videos ...

It's true. Sure, it might not have flash, and it might not come with 3G by default. But really, do any of those things matter when you're sitting on the porcelain god? I think not. Obviously a laptop is too big to take into the can. Well, at least I hope nobody is taking the laptop into the can (Dan Lilly, that means you buddy). That leaves the iPhone or the iPad. iPhone works decent, but really, there are usually a variety of pads in the can, so might as well add one more. It's pretty easy to use the iPhone with one hand while grabbing some TP with the other. I imagine one will have to come up ...

This upcoming weekend I'm shutting the computers down and heading over to Vancouver Island. One of my best friends from high school (and also university) lives over in Oak Bay in Victoria now -- strangely enough I haven't really seen him in about a year, mainly because we've both been busy. I'm sort of known amongst my friends as the guy who is always busy. I don't try to be, it just always seems like there's some event or something I've committed to that I have to go to. That's why a few months ago I said I was taking a break from all the Vancouver events -- it's not that I didn't want to go, ...

If you've seen Food Inc., you've undoubtedly seen a few scenes with one of America's most well-known farmers (at least nowadays), Joel Salatin. Joel is a revolutionary farmer in so much as he has stuck with more traditional methods of raising and growing food. While he's applied a few basic modern tools (such as low-power electric fences) most of what he does on the farm has been passed down to him by his father. I've seen a few videos of him talking now, and he's so passionate about his quest for better food and accountability in the food system that it's hard not to get caught up in what he's ...

Read a pretty good piece at the LA times about how art is becoming a commodity. ...

I had a rough sleep the other night, so I was a bit tired yesterday. I passed out on the couch for a bit in the late afternoon and early evening, and woke up just long enough to grab some McDonald's for supper. Afterwards I started watching a bit of Lost, but could hardly keep my eyes open. I strolled into bed at around 9pm last night, thinking I would read for a while. Apparently I passed out, because next thing I knew it was about 4am in the morning. By the time the night was over, I had slept 11 hours, which is a pretty long sleep for me. I'm just taking it easy this weekend. I have a WordCamp ...

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 my ...