I can’t believe it’s September already. The weather is starting to become cool and wet, days are becoming shorter, marking the end of what has been an incredible summer (and year to date). It’s been a while since I’ve written here, so with the changing season I thought I’d share a bit of an update of 2016 so far. Some of these warrant their own blog posts, but until I have time to write the full thing here is a summary.
Life
Amateur Radio and the Vancouver Sun Run
Earlier this year, in search of a new hobby, I took an Amateur radio course (also known as ham radio) and received my license about a month ago. Amateur radio is all about non-commercial communication over radio waves. Most consumer walkie-talkies (like ones using the FRS) work only over several kilometers in the best of conditions. Believe it or not, Amateurs are able to use equipment to communicate all over the world, and even into space contacting the International Space Station using radio frequencies. This kind of communication was probably more popular decades ago when there was no Internet, or cheap long distance Continue Reading
A visit to the Vancouver Art Gallery
Yesterday, for some odd reason, I woke up wanting to visit the Vancouver Art Gallery. I haven’t been in that art gallery for probably more than 10-15 years. When I was very young my mom used to have a membership and brought me on Sundays after church to participate in some kids art activities, but I haven’t been since then. As it was Tuesday, I took advantage of the Art Gallery’s admission-by-donation time in the evening. It’s the only day of the week that the Gallery is open late in the evening so I could visit after work. Also, I Continue Reading
The 4 Liters Water Challenge
At one of our recent EDGE youth ministry sessions talking about the Corporal Work of Mercy “giving drink to the thirsty”, we challenged our youth and ourselves as leaders to complete the 4 Liters challenge. On a normal day most of us use over 350 liters of water, however, for many other people around the world, water is not as abundant and people may be lucky to get four liters of water each day. So the challenge is to live in “water poverty” for one day, using only four liters of water over a 24-hour period. I ended up picking last Thursday to Continue Reading
Fun ways to get from Richmond to Downtown Vancouver on transit
I commute from Richmond to Downtown Vancouver every day for work. Normally I take the Canada Line, which is a quick and reliable way to and from work. As much as I like trains, some days it just seems boring; after all, the majority of the ride is underground. So I tasked myself to find five different ways to get to work (potentially one for each day of the week), if I wanted to take a break from the Canada Line. Let’s assume we’re commuting from Richmond Centre to Waterfront. Obviously we’re not optimizing for travel time. Option 1: 403, Continue Reading