Tag: Chilliwack Posts

While many people advocate going to school and getting an education, the reality is that education costs are more expensive than most people realize. Canada thankfully provides reasonably priced educations compared to the rest of the world, but it is far from free. Given that I grew up in Chilliwack, and that I had to move out to Vancouver to attend UBC, I spent approximately $11,000 per 8-month period, which included housing on the UBC campus along with a university food program (which tasted fairly similar to prison food, I imagine). Of those costs, approximately $3,000 went towards tuition, $1,000 for books, and the rest towards accommodation, clothes and food. Given that the average engineering summer job back then paid around $2,000 per month, it was essentially impossible to pay for a full year of school by financing it with the money you made during the summers, at least in […]

I’m down to 12 days until I leave to Thailand, and it’s definitely fast approaching. My friends Scott and Samantha leave tomorrow, so I’ll get to starting watching their Facebook stream in the next few days to see my first glimpses of Thailand. I spent the last few days camping up at Cultus Lake, which is one of my favourite summer activities. It was pretty much perfect weather, other than being a tad cold at night, and was really enjoyable and relaxing. I have all my camping gear in my car right now, and am going to start getting it ready this afternoon to put back into storage for probably another year. Tomorrow I plan on spending the entire day sorting out my storage locker out in Chilliwack. It’s been almost nine months since I put the first few boxes into my locker, and some of them have started to […]

Tonight is my last night in Chilliwack. It’s been nearly two full years since I packed up my apartment in Vancouver and moved my entire life back to the small town I grew up. At the time, I was in desperate need of a break from city life, and welcomed the thought of having some family around as well as a slower pace of life. Since then I’ve spent the last two years working from my apartment here in Chilliwack, visiting old friends, having dinner with family, and doing a little bit of soul searching. Not long after I arrived back in Chilliwack my family started commenting to me about how much happier I seemed to be. Truthfully, the last few years that I lived in Vancouver were rather hard on me. I had multiple rounds of surgery, a pretty severe bacterial infection, and more than my share of 60 […]

I haven’t blogged about my upcoming trip in a while, so I thought I’d do a quick update. I have one room officially boxed up, and the living room is mostly packed as well. The next big chore is to go through all my old clothes and get rid of anything I no longer wear. After that, I can box up what’s left of the bedroom, and then start working on the kitchen. Truthfully, it probably wouldn’t take me too much longer to get the rest all boxed up, but at this point if I go too much further it’s not going to be very exciting living in my apartment anymore. I sold my TV a while ago to someone who was interested, and have been using my laptop to watch movies ever since. That’s fine and all, but it seems strangely quiet in my apartment while only watching TV […]

I’ve been thinking lately about starting to go to Yoga. I really know nothing about it, other than people go and bend in various directions for an hour or so at a time. I had a few friends in Vancouver who went religiously, guys too, and they always seemed pretty pumped about going. I’ve been trying to come up with more things to do when I’m not working, and things that involve exercise or being healthy are at the top of the list these days. The gym is great and all, but treadmills and dumbbells get a bit boring after a while. I’m also hoping I can meet a few more people in the class and get to know some of the locals. I guess the first order of business would be getting a Yoga mat? Where does one go to buy one? Are there good mats or bad mats, […]

As I get older and a bit wiser, I’m starting to see the wisdom in not always buying the cheapest items. That’s never been a problem when it comes to technology, as I’m attracted to shiny objects. But when it comes to items like food, it’s a bit more challenging to spend an extra dollar or two on a dozen eggs, or to buy hormone free ground beef. Lately I’ve been making purchases that I wouldn’t have made in the past, mostly people I’ve been trying to go out of my way to help smaller businesses. One such transaction I made before Christmas was to go to a local tire shop and buy a set of tires from Kal Tire, mainly due to a recommendation by my dad. Despite being a bit more expensive, they did a great job and it was a pleasant experience. Today I hit a coffee […]

It won’t be much longer now until things start heating up around here. It seems like just a few days ago that Christmas was here (or possibly it only seems that way because my tree is still up). I for one am getting pretty excited about enjoying the sun again when it comes. This summer I’m hoping to do quite a bit of camping and hiking. The campground reservation system for the lower mainland isn’t open yet, but I found out that the one in Tofino actually opened the other day. So I decided to whip out my credit card and book three days of camping on the Island in July. I’m going to probably take the whole week off and spend my time exploring Vancouver Island, and hopefully also visit a few friends. Years ago I camped in Goldstream Provincial Park near Victoria, and I thought it was pretty […]

I woke up yesterday to another sunny day here in CowTown™. I was debating going to the gym, but decided instead to go and try a local hike. So I pulled my hiking boots out of a box, found some clean socks, and drove up to the trailhead for Teapot Hill, which is only about 10 minutes from my house. Teapot hill isn’t that hard of a hike, but considering I haven’t been hiking really in years, it did a good job of wearing me out. The elevation gain is only around 300 meters, but a lot of that comes near the end. At the top of the hike is a pretty nice view of Cultus Lake, so I snapped a few photos and rested there. I used to actually be quite the hiker. About 5 years ago I would meet up with some friends on the North Shore and […]

So, this is actually a timely story, given my recent efforts to purchase more local food. The British Columbia Centre for Disease Control has recently shut down a local Chilliwack company that produces raw (i.e. unpasteurized) milk due to contamination with faecal matter. I won’t argue whether or not that faecal matter is of concern, since I don’t know the levels that were found or how they relate. The owner of the business is obviously upset with the government interference: But Home on the Range owner Alice Jongerden said the health agency has never contacted them with concerns, or gave them the chance to do their own testing. “They’re missing the point. If public health had real concerns about public health they should speak to us directly — but they never did,” she told ctvbc.ca in a telephone interview. Selling raw milk is illegal in Canada, but raw dairy coops […]

I have to say, I’ve always been in that camp where cheaper was generally better, at least when it came to retail items. Part of that was because usually my knowledge of what I was buying was greater than that of the 17 year old kid trying to sell the product for me. So in that case, might as well get the item as cheap as possible. Chilliwack has definitely undergone a fairly big transition in the last ten years, moving from small, family run businesses to mostly large franchise stores. A few years ago one of the only places to buy electronics in town was a store called John’s Electronics, which was eventually forced to shut down when Future Shop came into town. I was always surprised when I’d come back to town here from Vancouver and see just how many shops had changed ownership in our local mall. […]