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 ...

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, ...

I had the opportunity to spend last weekend in Victoria with some of Vancouver's best food and travel bloggers, courtesy of Coast Hotels, BC Ferries, and Tourism Vancouver. The trip started as nothing more than a quick email from Danny Dang, social media coordinator for Coast Hotels, in which he invited me to participate in an all inclusive weekend on the island. Given that I really enjoyed myself last year in Victoria, I thought it would be a great opportunity to spend some time on the Island and visit some of the local attractions. I left my apartment Thursday evening and ended up at Arieanna ...

About a month ago I got an email from Coast Hotels asking if I'd like to partake in an all-inclusive weekend in Victoria with a few other bloggers and social media people from Vancouver. Given how much fun I had in Victoria last summer with Arieanna and Ianiv for the BC Festival 150 concert, I jumped at the opportunity, especially since Coast Hotels was supplying the accommodation and transportation. The trip will start off on Friday morning at the Coast Hotel in Vancouver -- everyone is meeting and boarding a bus for the Tsawwassen Ferry terminal. From there, we'll all travel to the Tsawwassen ...

I was going through some of my old videos tonight, and realized I have a pile that I haven't uploaded yet. Here's one of Feist singing 1234 at the BC Festival 150 in Victoria. [easyvideo video="http://blip.tv/play/AcnFUAA"] ...

This morning we woke up at 6am in order to catch the 8am ferry back to Vancouver. I don't think my head hit the pillow until around 1am, so needless to say I was pretty exhausted this morning. I've been trying to watch my caffeine intake over the last few weeks, and I definitely had a bunch this weekend. So even though I'm really beat today, I'm trying hard to not have any more caffeine. In terms of the concert, it was easily one of the best events I've been to in a very long time. We spent most of yesterday bouncing between watching concerts, walking around in the sun, and sampling beer in the ...

Blog traffic is pretty low, even by weekend standards. So I can only assume that everyone's out enjoying the long weekend. I'll keep this post short for now. We all had a rather crappy sleep last night, so we're a bit tired. We went down to the main stage early in the morning and managed to catch a few artists doing sound check. Here's a quick shot of Sarah McLachlan. Here's a quick video I took of sound check. It's not finished converting yet, but head over and take a look. ...

Here's a shot that Arieanna took of me. And here was the shot I ended up taking: ...

Arieanna and I spent this afternoon walking around the festivities. Today is basically the warm up for tomorrow, so it was rather relaxed. We spent time bouncing between beer gardens and the second stage, the latter of which had various talent performing throughout the day. Ianiv took the ferry this afternoon, and will be getting here shortly. Arieanna and I sweet-talked our way onto the fireworks barge later, so we'll have press access for that as well. I haven't really taken photos since the Junos, so today was a good warm up day for me. Here are a few shots I took: Also, here's a video ...

Just a quick post. I met up with Arieanna this morning at the helicopter pad for our trip to Victoria. The helicopter was a lot of fun, and surprisingly smooth. We picked up our media passes a while ago, and are about to go get some fish and chips somewhere. Look for more shots later. You can follow my Flickr stream by clicking here. Also, I'll be posting to Twitter from my iPhone throughout the day, so add me on Twitter here. ...

I went for a walk this afternoon down to the mall to buy a few new shirts. When I got there, I fielded a SMS message from John Biehler saying he was heading to the Apple store and asked if I wanted to meet up. I met him and Peter there, after which time we all headed down to the new Crumpler store on the edge of Gastown. I've always wanted a Crumpler bag, but they were hard to come by in Vancouver. So today I picked up a new camera bag with the intention of taking it to Victoria tomorrow. Here's what it looks like: I opted for the smaller of the two bags they had, and I'm already regretting it. ...

Update - Hotwire came through for me again. We're going to be staying at the Magnolia Luxury Boutique Hotel right in Inner Harbour. So exciting. The other day Arieanna contacted me via Twitter and asked if I wanted a photo pass for the festivities this weekend in Victoria. Since I haven't been to Victoria in a few years, I thought it might be a good opportunity to sample some island beer and take some photos. Sometimes photo passes just let you get your camera in the door, and aren't really anything special. However, Arieanna just got confirmation that our passes include access to the front-stage ...

As most of you know, I turned 31 on April 7th a few weeks ago. At roughly the same time (and coincidentally, on the same day), somewhere over in Victoria, Lloyd Budd was welcoming his son into the world. Lloyd Budd is a hardcore WordPress user, and an all-around nice guy. I meant to post something about this a while ago, but just got swamped (with WordPress stuff). That aside, I want to congratulate Lloyd and his wife on their new addition to the family. Given that he shares the same birthday as me, I'd recommend stocking up on beer now. ...

Just read that an Air Canada flight from Victoria to Toronto was forced to make an emergency landing in Calgary due to turbulence. Apparently the plane hit a patch of turbulence that sent a pile of people into the ceiling. I would have probably shit my pants had that happened on my flight. My last flight to Kelowna was pretty bad, and my glasses came off at one point, but thankfully my head didn't encountered the ceiling. Half a dozen passengers were badly injured after an Air Canada plane bucked in midair on a flight across Canada, probably because of heavy turbulence. A spokesman for Calgary ...