Having lived in Vancouver for over ten years of my life, it's safe to say I've been exposed to a pretty wide gamut of sushi. I'm told that Vancouver sushi is pretty much the second best in the world, the first being obviously Japan and Tokyo. While I've never had it, San Francisco sushi is supposed to be pretty tasty as well, although many of my friends who have had both prefer Vancouver sushi. I spent ten days in Tokyo back in 2006, and was treated to some of the best tempura I've ever had in my life. Eating out in Tokyo is a pretty cool experience, mainly because dinners are long and drawn out ...

Years ago I found the website SpaceWeather.com, and since then have made a yearly pilgrimage to the site in the fall and winter months. Having seen the aurora borealis probably about 7 or 8 times in my life already, it's something I try to see whenever I get the chance, sort of like hooking up with an old friend after a long absence. The first few times I saw it I was up in the Yukon Territory for a summer. Obviously up there it's pretty easy to see (that is, when it's not daylight for 24 hours a day, as it very nearly was for my first few months up there). I actually remember coming out of a ...

A few hours ago I spread my legs out on the couch hoping that my headache would go away if I rested for a few minutes. I just woke up, and realized that I had actually fallen asleep for around two hours, which I guess means I was pretty beat. As I mentioned before, I'm heading out of town for the weekend. I've been treated to a complementary weekend in Kelowna thanks to the Grand Delta Okanagan hotel. It's a great hotel situated right on the lake, and the Delta is putting me up in one of their nicer suites for the weekend. Tomorrow night I'm being treated to a really nice dinner in their new restaurant. ...

About three years ago, I walked onto a Mazda lot in Abbotsford and bought a new car. I only had about half of it in cash, so I was forced to finance the rest. During the application process, the guy looking at my credit said it had been quite a while since he saw someone with credit as good as mine. Last night I decided (since I'm looking at maybe buying a house in the new year) to get a copy of my credit report and make sure everything was in order. There are two places you can get one online, the first being EquiFax, and the second being TransUnion. Neither service is free, and are about $20 ...

I read an article this morning that basically made me feel bad for being against the Olympics at this stage in the game. It was written by a participant in the games, one who is disappointed with the lack of support in this province: With a blunt and harsh realization that not everyone with a Canadian passport is brimming over with excitement and anticipation for the sixteen day event in February, I must admit that my bright and shiny optimism has turned a murky shade of grey. Not because sliding hasn't been great - it's been fantastic. I feel in top form on my sled, I am in my best physical ...

There was a tweet tonight that kind of got me thinking. Nowadays, most of us are educated in school that we should start saving for retirement as early as possible to take advantage of the benefits of compound interest. There are lots of books that parable that concept, one of which is The Wealthy Barber, a book I read when I was probably 23 or so. The question on Twitter had to do with the amount of money a person would need a year to maintain a roughly comparable quality of life. The number floating around was $50,000 a year, one which I think (depending on where you live obviously), would probably ...

A while ago I was contacted by a PR company and asked if I wanted to enjoy an all inclusive weekend out in the Okanagan. I was fairly busy at the time, so wasn't able to take advantage of the offer then. But given how my schedule is lightening up, now seems like a good time to have a relaxing weekend. So this upcoming weekend I'll be heading to Kelowna for a weekend of Duane R & R. I'll be staying in the Delta Grand Okanagan hotel, which has a nice view of Lake Okanagan. I believe there's a wine festival going on throughout the weekend, so I imagine I'll class myself up a bit and pretend like ...

A few weeks ago my friends Patrick and Dale were in town. Patrick is actually a pretty good cook, something that was evidenced by a lot of the meals Patrick made for us while he was here. One of the things that visit did was remind me how much I enjoy tinkering around the kitchen, and just how much better fresh/good food tastes. One of the things that's cool about Chilliwack is just how easy it is to get fresh ingredients. Next door to me is a big Cooper's grocery store, which I can most things at in a pinch. While it has a good selection, it's a lot more money than some of the specialty shops ...

Today is a grumpy day for me. I haven't had a good sleep for a few days, and woke up with snot dripping all over my face. That being said, I wanted to point something out on my site. I've been told that one of the most disrespectful things you can do in the corporate world is to add someone as a CC to an email. Basically once you're on an email thread, you're there to stay, whether you like it or not. Ever remove someone from a CC list? It happens I'm sure, but it's not the norm. Ideally you'd ping someone on IM or some other back channel and ask a person before adding them to a CC list. "Hey ...

Most people probably wouldn't look at aging like one, but aging is actually fairly similar to a disease, one that ultimately catches up with everyone. There's no real smoking gun with regards to what causes us to age, but there are a few culprits: Every normal cell has within it an ultimate limit on the number of times the cell can divide before dying. This limit is known as the Hayflick Limit, and ultimately determines when cells in the body die. It is believed that this limit is a direct result of the influence of the enzyme telomerase whichs repairs the end of DNA segments. In most cells it's ...

I just got home from dropping Dale and Patrick off at the Abbotsford airport. Without a doubt, it was a great visit, and it was good to catch up with both of them. As I mentioned previously, this last weekend was the last item on my radar for the foreseeable future. This last summer was extremely busy -- I attended two out of town conferences, and it seemed like I was bouncing in and out of the city on a routine basis. Given that I moved into my new place here in January, it's only recently that I've found the chunk of time necessary to finally unpack. We're also been extremely busy at BraveNewCode, ...

Two of my friends, Dale and Patrick, are currently out from Ontario visiting. For the most part, it's been a university type weekend, filled with late movie nights and copious amounts of beer. We've also been eating for six people, even though we're only three, thanks mainly in part to Patt's love of cooking. On Saturday we woke up in the morning and decided it was such a nice day that we'd head down to Stanley park for a few hours. We ended up on the patio at Lift, drinking a few beers around their outdoor fire pit. Jump ahead a few hours later and we found ourselves visiting a friend in the ...

Today is my sister and brother-in-law's 15th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe really, since I vividly remember being at their wedding years ago and doing the chicken dance over and over. It was a nice little wedding, right up at Cultus Lake, in a tiny little community hall that held around 80 people. In true Ukrainian fashion, the bar was completely open (a definite requirement for when I get married -- I'm willing to compromise on everything else, but the bar has to be open). The wedding photos were across the road and on the edge of the lake. So this afternoon I'm going to be heading up ...

My ceran top stove I hate you with all my being I wish you were dead ...

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When I got off the plane last night in Bellingham, I was immediately greeted with a big burst of autumn air. Apparently we're just a few hours away, but last night you could smell it, the faint scent of another season gone by. Without a doubt, I'm looking forward to it, more so because my plate, which has been overflowing for the last little while, is almost clear. Unlike last summer, where I took a few weeks off, I didn't really have much time off this summer, other than a day or two on either side of a weekend. The good news is that this fall will probably be intentionally light in terms of ...

Well, I made it back home late last night. Thankfully, the border agents didn't grill me as hard as they normally do, otherwise I probably would have started with the smart ass responses. I gotta say, WordCamp Portland was a really amazing event, so major kudos to everyone involved in pulling it off. In fact, with each WordCamp I attend, I think that bar is getting progressively pushed higher and higher. For example, prior to my talk someone came and fitted me with a wireless microphone in addition to a normal microphone, the former being for the live stream. In addition, they exported all my ...

Walking around WordCamp Portland today it was completely evident not only how much work has gone into it, but just how big the WordPress community is here in Portland. I knew this would be a good event, and have been pleasantly surprised with the number of people randomly coming up to me and saying hi, or just passively making WordPress conversation. I commented during my talk today that other web events have tickets with prices that can range up to $700 or so. Most WordCamps, due largely in part to help from sponsors, have prices that average around $25 or so. As a result, anyone who wants to ...

I finished my presentation about an hour ago, and have just been drinking a bit of beer since then. I just wrote a little post over at BraveNewCode about a cool little addition I had for my WordCamp Portland presentation, and wanted to post about it here. Both Andrew Sampson and comedian Stephen Fry contributed some data and a video for my presentation, talking about WPtouch and WordPress. It was very much appreciated, and was extremely well received down here. You can read the whole entry over at BraveNewCode, or check out the video here: ...

Well, here we are. It's been a long time coming, but WordCamp Portland is finally here. I spent most of yesterday traveling, mainly due to the slowness of airlines, but ended up arriving around 6:30pm or so last night. There was a dinner last night for the speakers and sponsors, and it was good to finally meet everyone involved in the event. The restaurant was Ethiopian, which you don't see too many of back in BC, so it was a great treat. Thanks to the dinner sponsor who picked up the food and drinks last night. I was originally going to come back to my hotel room last night and work on my slides, ...