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 one ...

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 coffee shops, ...

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 a distinct ...

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 ...

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 menu ...

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. I spent approximately eight months of this past year living out of a suitcase, bouncing between apartments and hostels, working from little remote coffee shops, and taking in ...

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 somewhere ...

I am in Koh Phi Phi, and it's gorgeous here. This area of Thailand is where the film The Beach was filmed, so last night I downloaded a copy to my laptop and watched it before bed. When I woke up, I opened my laptop up and realized it was dead. So I grabbed my charger (which I had used yesterday to charge it) and plugged it in, waiting of course for the little green light to turn on, but it never did. I spent about ten minutes wiggling it and rechecking connections only to finally admit it wasn't working. I then grabbed my little camera charger and plugged it in, and sure enough, it worked fine. ...

Last year my friend Dave got his genetic profile done up by 23andMe. Basically they can take a saliva sample, extract your DNA from it, and then compare it against all the current research in the field of genetics. When they originally launched they were asking over $400 for each profile. I've been patiently waiting for a sale to get mine done, and eventually managed to find a coupon to bring the cost down to $99. So right before leaving to Thailand I mailed off a saliva sample to California and have been waiting for the results. Some people have told me previously that they actually wouldn't ...

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About a week ago, I got word that my cousin Corey had died back in Chilliwack. It obviously caught everyone off guard, since he was only 38 years old and was relatively healthy. As a family, all we have been left with are questions, sadness, and the hole where Corey's life used to be. When I originally set out to Argentina at the start of this year, my mom sat me down and we talked about what would happen if someone were to pass away while I was gone. Obviously if possible, I would do my best to get back home for a funeral or support. But I was told by my mom, and later reiterated by a few other ...

I spent last night packing up everything I took out of storage at the end of April. In a few hours my brother-in-law will show up and help me load everything up into his truck, and we'll head back to Chilliwack together. Once my items are in storage, probably around noon sometime, I'll officially be homeless and in migratory mode again. And at that point, I'll finally get a chance to relax a bit after a fairly exhausting week. I'm scheduled to fly out on Wednesday afternoon, stopping briefly in Tokyo, and ultimately ending up in Bangkok after about 17 hours of flying. I get to have a quick sleep ...

At exactly this time in one week, I'll most likely be heading down to Vancouver International Airport for my flight to Tokyo, Japan. That means I only have five or six more days to get everything sorted again before I take off - I'm starting to feel the pressure! The most pressing issue is packing up my room and taking everything down to my storage locker. My brother in law is coming on Friday to help me move my bed back to Chilliwack, and I need to have everything sorted and boxed up by then. That means the next two nights are likely to be busy. But the bright side is that I should be mostly ...

I have this fear, especially as a guy with a bit of meat on his bones, that it'll always be hard for me to obtain clothing in other countries. It is probably unfounded, as not everyone in Buenos Aires was rail thin, but it's still one of the things I worry about when abroad. It's frustrating enough buying clothing for myself in North America and having things not fit my Ukrainian physique, but when you toss in a language barrier as well, it's not something I'm entirely looking forward to attempting one day. That's why prior to all my trips so far I've made a point of buying some new clothes that ...

If you want to see what's wrong with the world of online journalism these days, simply read a few of the recent articles describing how Gerard Depardieu urinated on an CityJet flight to Dublin. Of course, most articles depict Depardieu getting up and purposefully pissing in the aisle of the plane, forcing it to go back to the gate. Passengers, especially men who urinate multiple times per day, were obviously traumatized having to watch such an event. If you read between all the fluff, it sounds all that happened is a 62 year old guy simply couldn't hold it any more. Guess what? I've been that ...

I gotta hand it to the S&P ratings agency - I didn't think they had it in them. After the other two ratings agencies reaffirmed AAA rating a few days ago, I thought S&P would simply cave to political pressure and keep the rating in tact as well. In fact, I read a few news articles that basically seem to allude that the government was frantically trying to get S&P to keep the rating in tact. There was even talk in congress about passing some legislation to restrict the ability of the ratings agencies to downgrade any debt. But S&P followed through and downgraded US debt from AAA ...

Earlier this year I was visiting the city of Ushuaia, Argentina, which is the southern most city in the world. I spent an afternoon visiting a penguin rookery, which was absolutely amazing and probably one of my best memories from my last trip. In the town of Ushuaia I ran into a store that was selling a bunch of plush penguins. I thought at the time it would be pretty cool to take one along with me on my travels, but unfortunately just didn't have the room in my bag to bring one back with me on that trip. But that idea has been on the back of my mind for quite a while now. I was joking to my ...

The senate passed the deal to raise the debt ceiling today, which means the United States can pay their bills and not default. But truthfully, that's probably the worse thing that could have happened, since the US has delayed dealing with some very hard problems. First, let me comment on the ratings agencies. Right after a deal was announced, two of the three major rating agencies reaffirmed the United State's AAA credit rating. These are the same ratings agencies that also gave AAA ratings to the credit default swaps and other securities that were the underpinnings for the 2007-2008 financial ...