In just three days, I'll be heading to the airport again on what will undoubtedly be a great tour of North America. I'm meeting Luciana in Toronto, and her and I will slowly make our way via train to Québec City. From there we are going to head back to Ottawa for a weekend, then off to Banff, Lake Louise and hopefully Jasper. After a brief stop in Vancouver, we're going to head down to San Francisco for some San Francisco Giants baseball action, and hopefully a few winery tours. Driving in the Canadian Rocky Mountains Many of the places we are heading to are places I haven't spent much time ...

My camera is a digital SLR, and by default captures color instead of black and white images. That being said, once and a while I do take the odd photo that I think would work well as a black and white photograph. I actually converted this photo into a black and white, but didn't really think that much of it. After uploading it to Flickr though, it became one of my most popular photos -- currently 43 people have indicated it's one of their favorites. Based on the response, I ended up printing out a copy for myself and put it on my wall at home. It should also be noted that the image has a square ...

Another great city that I'm fortunate enough to spend a lot of time visiting is San Francisco, California. I was recently down there in June for a big WordPress conference, and will probably be down there again in a few months I imagine. Here's a shot I took of San Francisco about a year ago from just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. I also just picked up a few diet cokes. Which means that today so far I've had three coffees, and one 500ml diet coke. Here's a shot of the current carnage: ...

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 about four ...

As Matt recently indicated, there will be a developer day on the Sunday after WordCamp San Francisco down at the Automattic offices on Pier 38. Should be a good time -- I'm looking forward to meeting some other developers. Hopefully the hangover won't be too bad that day. Unlike last year, I actually scheduled a bit of breathing room this trip, so I'll have time to check out the event and also catch a few sights in the Bay Area. ...

Today is Jason's 40th birthday. Jason's a good friend of mine currently living down in the San Francisco area. I used to be really bad at remembering birthdays, but now Facebook is pretty decent at reminding me. Have a good birthday, dude. Don't drink too much -- at your age I'm not sure your liver can handle it. ...

Part of the reason I drove to Seattle last weekend was that I was really anxious to try out Virgin America's relatively new airline. They have already garnered a reputation for being fun and innovative, much the same way Canada's West Jet is viewed by locals. Their planes are all new Airbus models, they have funky mood-lighting, and also plugs between all the seats so you can use your laptop during the entire flight. I even went so far as to email their media contact email address, and received a prompt, personal reply from the Director of Corporate Communications at Virgin America, Abby Lunardini, ...

Well, the event is all over now, and I officially have a small hangover to remember it by. I met a lot of really great people last night at the social, and it was a ton of fun. I have yet to meet a blogger I didn't like, and last night was no exception. Everyone was friendly, and a pleasure to hang out and drink beer with. The social event was at Pete's Tavern, which is conveniently located directly across from the baseball stadium. The bar was completely open as were the pool tables upstairs, so there was lots to do. I tried my best to walk around and meet as many people as I could, but I'm sure ...

To say that yesterday was a rather crappy day would be an understatement. For several weeks now I've been planning on attending WordCamp in San Francisco. Since I'm paying for the trip out of my own pocket, I decided to try and be a bit more financially conscious than I usually am on trips. So I decided I would fly out of Seattle instead of Vancouver, which as it turns out was around $300 cheaper. I was actually looking forward to the drive, and burned myself a few CDs. I went into work for a few hours in the morning, and then hit the streets heading for Seattle. Somewhere around White Rock, I ...

Updated - I booked a flight and a hotel for this weekend, so I'll definitely be at WordCamp on Saturday. I love San Francisco, and I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone in the Bay Area. If you see me on Saturday, feel free to flag me down and say hi. Drop a comment if you'll be there, and I'll try to find you! This Saturday is WordCamp down in San Francisco. I registered to attend, although the jury is still out on whether or not I'm going to go. Flights aren't that expensive to be honest, but accommodation is kind of a killer considering how much traveling I've done lately. I'd really ...

The following is a guest post by the always lovely Shira Lazar. Shira is an amazing reporter based out of Los Angeles, and was nice enough to offer to help me out with a guest posting. You can read more about Shira Lazar on her main site, or head on over and check out her blog, The Pop Report. Thanks again Shira! After a few hours of sleep, I'm back and ready to rumble in San Fran. My fellow Canuck and blogger, Duane Storey, has been doing a 24-hour blogathon for charity starting last night at 10pm and has been getting friends to do guest entries- so here's my contribution. Last night at the ...

San Francisco is without a doubt one of my favourite cities in the world. It's situated right on the Pacific Ocean, nestled snugly between Marin Country and Oakland. While Napa Valley is usually extremely hot, San Francisco boasts a fairly moderate climate, with sunshine occurring on most days of the year. In August, there's going to be a WordCamp session down in San Francisco. Given that I'm a huge WordPress advocate, and that I love the Bay Area, I registered today and made the quick, impromptu decision to attend. Flights out of Vancouver are around $400, but are only around $250 return out ...

Well, thus marks the end of my first two-week vacation stint. This vacation saw me bounce from San Francisco, to Los Angeles, back up to Vancouver, to a Matthew Good show, then to the North Cascades, up to Whistler, and then back home. Not bad for just over two weeks. Golden Gate Bridge, taken during my trip It was great getting to hang out with my sister, brother-in-law, and their two kids down in Disneyland. Despite only being an hour and a bit away, I don't get a chance to head home that often. Plus, I haven't really spent much time with my niece and nephew (although I was there in Chilliwack ...

Well, I'm sort of packed. Given that I no longer have a dryer at home, I was forced to dry most of my clothes out on the patio over night. Good news is that most of my clothes are completely dry. Bad news is some of them aren't dry yet. It's a nice sunny day in the Bay Area today, so I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt. In fact, today seems like a pretty warm day in Vancouver as well, so for all of you people hanging out at home, enjoy. I'm heading down to the airport right now. **Update - First, big thanks to Dan for helping me get through the custom's line in short order. That easily saved me ...

Last night I ventured across the water and ended up down at Dave's house in North Vancouver. It was good times, complete with an amazing BBQ, some rum, and a bunch of tech talk. I didn't really feel like hiking to the bus stop at 1am to head home, so Dave let me crash in his guest room. The one thing about having a huge chunk of plastic under your eye is that you can really tell when your body is a bit dehydrated. For example, right now my left eye is really sore and I have a mild burning sensation, which usually happens when I'm dehydrated, or when I've had a few drinks. Obviously that kind of ...

Ok, ok. I'll take a break from writing about the iPhone. But business has been great lately - my traffic has nearly doubled in the last few days. Not like I really pay attention to those things, but it's pretty clear when there's a big prolonged spike -- clearly people are excited about the iPhone. To be honest, while talking about web traffic, I'm actually surprised mine has stayed up. I used to host all my plugins here and sort of assumed when I finally moved them over to BraveNewCode that alot of my traffic would disappear. But for whatever reason, my traffic has actually increased quite a ...

As I mentioned in my last post, my mind is starting to drift towards a vacation sometime in the next two or three months. I'm thinking about overlapping it with a trip I'm making in June to Disneyland (to hang out with some of my family who will be there). Here are a few ideas: Vancouver -> Los Angeles -> Costa Rica: I loved Costa Rica when I was there, and it might be cool to head back and rent a little place on the beach for a week. The flights for the entire trip are about $1000 right now. Not bad for five flight segments. Vancouver -> Los Angeles -> Cancun: I've actually never ...

So, this is the first blog entry I've written in quite some time while disconnected from the internet. I'm about 30 minutes out of San Francisco, somewhere around 40,000 feet. I feel like complete shit, and I'm really glad I decided to head back today instead of risking being down south and getting even sicker. A few minutes ago I had my head in my lap in pretty much unbearable pain -- turns out my right ear had some real problems adjusting to the change in pressure in the airplane, probably since I'm so congested right now. If I don't see some major changes in how I feel by tomorrow, I'm heading ...

After leaving Las Vegas, I ended up in San Francisco yesterday. I spent a good part of yesterday just driving around with Jason taking photos, and soaking up some of the beautiful California weather. Normally San Francisco is rather chilly in the summer time due to the fog that blankets most of the city. However, the last few days it has been really nice here - sunny with a nice breeze. I walked into Safeway down here last night to get some wine. On my way out, I saw some weird type of diet coke. Upon picking it up, I nearly fell over when I saw what it was. They call it Diet Coke Plus, and it's ...

Last night I went down to Malone's on Seymour street for a few after-work drinks with Kasia, Chris and Cisco. Afterwards, we decided to make our way down Granville (which eventually brings me home) and stopped by the Granville room for a bottle of wine. I ran into my old friend Brigitte and some of her friends which was a nice surprise. Unfortunately, I drank more than I should have, and had a nice headache most of the day. Tomorrow I'm going to head into work for a bit and catch up on a few things, and then Sunday I'm heading out to Chilliwack to hang out with my family for father's day. I'm ...