John Biehler and I decided to grab some grub around 7pm tonight, but unfortunately, had a hard time finding a place that could initially accommodate us. The first pub we tried to get into (on the corner of Robson and Granville) was completely full, so we decided to try the Kingston Pub on Richards street. While it was also extremely full, they managed to find room for the two of us downstairs near the large screen TV. Shortly afterwards Rebecca and John showed up, and we watched the Women’s Mogul event while sipping a few beers. When Jenn Heil started her final run, I turned my video camera on, ...

This morning I got to walk along Robson Street and watch the protests as they occurred. Given that I saw first-hand how the police officers and the protesters interacted, I thought I would make a few comments. First, it is everyone’s democratic right in Canada to be allowed to protest peacefully — these rights are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That said, you are not allowed to protest violently, or to break any of the normal laws of this country while in the process of protesting. Vandalism and destruction of property are not forms of protest, they are forms of violence. For ...

We just walked back to the west end from the Kingston Pub, and ended up walking past a huge group of people around Granville and Robson. Here’s what it looked like about an hour ago. ...

I’ve started putting some of my Olympic photos on VancouverStockPhotos.ca for use by organizations seeking stock photos from around Vancouver during the Olympics. John Biehler is also going to be putting a pile of his photos up soon there, so if you know of anyone looking for commercial licenses for photographs, by all means send them to the 2010 Olympic Stock Photos gallery. If you’re a non-commercial organization, then you are free to use the photos as long as you follow the attribution clauses as indicated on their associated Flickr photos (non-commercial, attribution). The set of CC licensed ...

This morning John Bollwitt and I were sitting on his couch watching TV and saw that there were a group of protesters heading towards Robson Street. Both him and I immediately grabbed our cameras and headed outside to see if we could see what was going on, and possibly grab a few photos. The group involved was waving a green and black flag with a big “A” in the center, which apparently stands for anarchy. Several of the protesters were wearing masks, and the police were following behind closely, but not engaging any of the protesters. At one point both John and I saw a group of protesters knock ...

I’m somewhere near Surrey I think, stuck near the back on a Greyhound bus. The mood here is pretty dismal — most people are either sleeping or in some weird state of iPod euphoria. The scheduled arrival time, barring any major road hiccups, is around 12:10pm I think. The first order of business for me will be to store my luggage somewhere, most likely in a locker in the bus terminal. That’ll of course mean that I have to come back and get it later, but that’s way better than walking around with a suitcase all day. It’s no secret that I haven’t been a huge supporter of the Olympics games in Vancouver. ...

Shortly after arriving in Vancouver, I saw someone Tweet that the Barenaked Ladies were busking on Robson Street, so I strolled on down. Sure enough, right on the corner of Robson and Burrard was a massive group of people and music playing. I only got to listen to a few minutes worth of music, but the crowd was definitely into it. Here’s a shot of the bass player, Jim Creeggan, that I snapped shortly after the show was over: ...

If you’re stuck at home during some of the festivities over the next few weeks, don’t fret entirely. Yes, you’ll miss out on TONS of great events, but the good news is you can catch a few things remotely. To that end there’s a new Yaletown web camera that’s now operational that gives views to the North and South. Tomorrow you’ll be able to see the Torch Relay go through that area by watching on the web cam. The webcam is sponsored by Wasserman + Partners Advertising, and can be viewed here (the links to activate it are in the top-right corner). Enjoy! ...

I have all my camera gear packed up, which for me, is quite a lot of stuff. I pulled my old laptop/camera-bag out of retirement, which means I can have the majority of my gear, as well as my laptop, all in the same bag. It is as convenient as it is heavy. I bought a ticket on the 10am Greyhound bus leaving Chilliwack for downtown Vancouver. I decided that having my car in the city wasn’t really a good idea with the games going on. Right now I’m just sipping a coffee, then I’m going to head down to the Greyhound and wait down there. I have a pile of work on my laptop, so I should be able to get ...

I’m going to have to spend some time going through all my friends’ previous posts about the Olympics, because truthfully, I really have no idea where any cool events or things to see or do are, other than the actual events. It sounds like there are a lot of international houses that are worth visiting, as well as a few pubs (although based on some of the Tweets, the prices seem rather incredible for beer, even by Vancouver standards). As it stands, I have a few events to attend next week already. There’s a party/event on Robson I’ve been invited to, which I may swing by and check out. There’s ...

I’m planning to hit Vancouver on Saturday sometime and spend a week or so in the city checking things out. As I mentioned before, I’ll be working during the days, most likely near Gastown. At lunch and in the evenings I’ll hopefully be bouncing around with my camera, taking photos or checking out what’s going on outside of most official venues. I made a few small changes to this site to facilitate me writing posts during the Olympics. The main page has been changed to show Olympic related posts, and I’ve added a Flickr gallery to the bottom which will ultimately start showing all the photos I’ll ...

Well, here we are, two days away from the start of the Winter Olympics. As everyone knows, the event is massively over budget. The last time I checked, the total cost (thus far) of the Winter Olympics was at 6 billion dollars, the majority of which was paid for by the people of British Columbia. I’ve been on the fence for a while now about whether or not I want to be in town for the Olympics. I didn’t vote for them, but at the same time, here they are, and there’s no going back now. So to that end, I finally decided that I’m going to try to be in Vancouver for at least a week during the games ...

I’ve been playing around with Google Adwords a bit, experimenting with a few basic campaigns to figure out how it all works. I was partly inspired by a friend of mine who drove some traffic to his retail store here in Chilliwack using a Facebook Ad campaign over Christmas. The part that I don’t really understand is how Adwords is a good investment at the CPC prices they charge? For example, I was trying to target Vancouver Stock Photography using an adwords campaign. After playing around with a few keyword combinations, it quickly became obvious that the average CPC for something that targeted ...

As most people know, I spent a lot of my time in Vancouver taking photos of the city. I was one of the first people in the city to dabble with high dynamic range imagery, and because I carried my wideangle lens around with me quite often, ended up with quite a few HDR images of Vancouver. While down in the Dominican, I was talking to Dale about possibly putting together a little package for media organizations during the Olympics. While in the process of putting that together over the last few weeks, I figured I might as well put everything online as well. To that end, I registered the domain ...

I’m currently in Victoria, awaiting my ride back to Vancouver. I already checked my laptop as baggage so I’m writing a quick entry from my iPhone. Today was a gorgeous day out here, and Jeff, Maya and I spent most of it outside. One of the things I decided today was that I want to join some sport or team this spring, even if it’s on a drop in basis. I kind of miss being outside or being involved in a competitive sport, partially due to the exercise, and partially for the social aspects. I used to be pretty good at badminton, so I might try to find a local badminton league to get into as a start. ...

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 ...

Here’s an exclusive look at the iPad: The iPad – watch more funny videos ...

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 ...

It’s true. Sure, it might not have flash, and it might not come with 3G by default. But really, do any of those things matter when you’re sitting on the porcelain god? I think not. Obviously a laptop is too big to take into the can. Well, at least I hope nobody is taking the laptop into the can (Dan Lilly, that means you buddy). That leaves the iPhone or the iPad. iPhone works decent, but really, there are usually a variety of pads in the can, so might as well add one more. It’s pretty easy to use the iPhone with one hand while grabbing some TP with the other. I imagine one will have to come up ...

If you’ve seen Food Inc., you’ve undoubtedly seen a few scenes with one of America’s most well-known farmers (at least nowadays), Joel Salatin. Joel is a revolutionary farmer in so much as he has stuck with more traditional methods of raising and growing food. While he’s applied a few basic modern tools (such as low-power electric fences) most of what he does on the farm has been passed down to him by his father. I’ve seen a few videos of him talking now, and he’s so passionate about his quest for better food and accountability in the food system that it’s hard not to get caught up in what he’s ...