The trip was amazing, 22,000km of exploration though 10 States, 2 Provinces and a Territory. If you weren’t able to follow my trip when I went, you can read about it here. I have been missing travelling lately, and I think this one year anniversary is why.

It’s been a somewhat busy year since then, with lots of changes. I had a summer to explore Vancouver Island, I found it beautiful and full of interesting places to discover. There was a trip to see Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge in Washington. I went back to University to finish a long-lost semester, and completed my Degree. I have started a new job, and moved to a new City and Province (Toronto, Ontario).

I’m looking forward to the next year and to see what it brings, and to enjoy all the adventures along the way. I hope to plan a new roadtrip this fall, on the Eastern side of the continent this time, hopefully it works out and I’m able to keep exploring!

After a great all day meeting with the United States Olympic Committee (thanks guys!) I finally had a bit of free time to go and check out some of the landmarks. I wandered over to 30 Rock to check out the skating rink, and the building itself.

Pretty cool building, lots of Art Deco style highlights and art pieces. I would come back here the next day for a trip up to the observation deck.

Times Square was amazing, such a showcase of marketing, advertising and pure commercialism. Still pretty cool to walk around and see just how bonkers the whole thing is. New York certainly does know how to make a show of things. One of the things the really stuck out to me was the US Military Recruiting centre right in the middle of the whole thing, I guess it’s a good place to use people’s patriotism of what the USA can create to put them to work defending it.

Walking by Bryant Park I was treated to a view of the Empire State building though the trees and I was quite happy with how this picture turned out. I find that New York begs to be shot in Black and White as it really makes the contrasts stand out.

Grand Central Station was really impressive, I knew it was big and famous, but I didn’t realize just how beautiful it is.

I woke up the next morning (again to brilliant sunshine) and had a couple hours to sightsee before the rest of my meetings and the flight home. I went back over towards 30 Rock and saw this great Cathedral with reflected sunlight on it.

I went to 30 Rock and bought a pass to go up to the top of the building to the NBC Observation Deck, after being quickly whisked up 67 floors (the elevator had a plexi-glass roof) I was treated to some amazing views of the New York skyline.

The Empire State building is also an incredible sight, it towers above anything around it and is a very imposing sight on the skyline.

This is my favourite picture from the trip, the Empire State Building is on the right. It was a quick trip, with lots of work, but I’m looking forward to coming back sometime and exploring a lot more.

Here in Canada we have three big Internet Service Providers (ISP’s), Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Telus Communications (and there’s sort of a 4th provider, Shaw Communications as well) and they are the guys who own most of the telecommunications infrastructure here in Canada. Not surprisingly, they also happen to own a lot of the television, cable and movie networks as well. You may already see where this is heading. Now that Netflix, Zune Marketplace (video only, unfortunately) and a few others are finally starting to get a foothold here in Canada, the cable and movie guys are starting to get nervous. So instead of setting up something like Hulu Plus where we’d gladly pay for our television content streamed online, they seem to prefer to let us consume our television though traditional channels.

It starts to get tricky when we look back just over the last few years, and finally last year when the CRTC decided the the big ISP’s had to share their infrastructure with smaller ISP’s to allow for increased competition in the marketplace. This was awesome, it allowed ISP’s like Teksavvy in Ontario to offer internet service that was competitive with the larger guys, and offering the opportunity for customers to have large data caps to download content.

As I am a new Toronto resident, I did my research when I first arrived here and decided on Teksavvy as my ISP. For $43 a month I get a 15Mbps download speed and am able to download 200 gigabytes before I hit my limit. Now I think the big ISP’s were a little pissed they had to share their lines with the little guys, in fact they managed to delay the line sharing ruling for years before it finally came into play. Now, less than 6 months later we see that Usage Based Billing is the new internet battleground for Canadian nerds, but it needs to be more than that. UBB is really a bit of marketing-speak that sounds reasonable at first glance, that people who download lots of stuff from the internet should pay more. (please note that there is no discussion whether this content is legal or not, but with services like Netflix it is quite easy to download quite a bit of data these days) What you start to realize is that people who know they are going to be downloading more are already paying more, as internet plans that offer a faster download speed are more expensive.

The thing that’s really getting people going is that UBB will make it difficult for the smaller ISP’s to compete with the big guys again, rendering the line sharing decision ineffective in light of the new UBB decision by the CRTC. Yesterday, the first caps were introduced, for DSL customers in Ontario and Quebec. Here in Ontario the 200GB caps are now reduced to 25GB, a 87.5% reduction. This sucks.

There’s been a lot of traction over at OpenMedia.ca, they have some great information and an easy way to email some prominent Canadian politicians. Be warned though, sending the message also adds you to the petition and they count you among those who are “minding the cap”. I support the cause, and for those who know me, I don’t generally believe in online petitions as they are too easy to manipulate. I had written most of this last night, and now – a day later the Liberals have said they are against the CRTC ruling and the Prime Minister has said he’ll be asking for a review of the decision, so it appears their public push is working.

And now some numbers showing how ridiculous this all is one hour of Netflix HD is 1.5GB, the average adult Canadian watches almost 29 hours of TV a week, so that’s 43.5GB a week, or around 124GB a month, and with other internet services (Youtube, Gaming, etc) it’s not hard to hit 200GB monthly.

Here are some fun stats, how much 200GB would cost you, and how quickly you can hit your bandwith cap with the available download speeds (that are so heavily advertised).

Bell Canada

Not that if you downloaded at maximum capacity on the Fibe 25 plan all month you would incur a bill of $7919.95
Also note that “Fibe” has nothing to do with “Fibre” which is used in the USA for such awesome services as FIOS which is fibre optic internet delivered to the home at speeds of up to 150Mbps.

Rogers Communications

Note, pricing matrix and overage fees are available here

I’ll update this once I know Teksavvy’s or competitors cable rates once UBB kicks in. In the DSL world, the caps went from 200GB to 25GB with overages costing $2 per GB. This is solely because of the CRTC UBB decision.

Ok, so this blog post is a *lot* late.

I’ve now been in Toronto for a whole month (wow typing that really made me think about it, and that’s gone really fast) and I’m starting to get into the groove of things. But first, we need to go back.

After the crazy drive I took a bit of a break the first day and slowly unpacked everything. It was fun rediscovering all my stuff, as it had been in storage for the better part of 9 months and I had forgotten what nice stuff I had! Well that and my clothes were looking pretty old and worn, at least I know Toronto is known for its shopping. I had a few days before New Years Eve so I spent it unpacking and wandering around my neighborhood (East York). It’s a cool little area, with a park nearby so once it gets nice in the spring I will have an area to wander around. So many of the houses and buildings around here use brick, which reminds me of the area around Melbourne a bit, but it’s certainly a change from the vinyl siding that is so popular in Vancouver and BC in general. I keep looking around for mountains, for the first couple of weeks I though they were just hidden behind the clouds that line the horizon, then I realized that they were never going to show themselves.

I went out to Hamilton, *cough*, sorry, Dundas to hang out with some friends for New Years Eve (Hi Mike and Kendra!) and it was great to see them again, they are old friends from my Snowboard.com days. Many beers were consumed, rooms were turned upside down and I learned all about Dice, all-in-all a great time. I woke up late the next morning feeling not-quite-fresh and proceeded to lay around until we managed a 3pm breakfast.

Soon enough though, it was time for my first day of work! Feeling spiffy in one of my new suits (thanks 50% off Mexx sale!) I rolled up and got started! It was good to see where I’d be working, and I managed to get a window seat which is great. I look west so it’s nice as I get the afternoon sunshine (when it’s around) and a small view of the Toronto skyline (hint: it’s flat).

Since then I’ve done three weeks of work, and it’s flown by. I’m spending all my time researching stuff and trying to figure out what’s in store for us! It’s exciting work and I can’t wait to see how it is all going to come together. I also had a bit of time to wander around downtown Toronto this last weekend and discovered famous things like Eaton Centre (it’s big) and the building where Much Music is filmed. For a bit of a throwback I found the newly opened Buffalo Bills Toronto and had a bit of a Whistler mini-reunion. I’ll update again soon with places I’m enjoying and things I discover.

The prairies greeted me with a wonderful sunrise, with the darkness slowly giving way to a lovely blue glow, followed by yellows, oranges, pinks and eventually the Sun itself showed up. I will be letting everyone down though, I really didn’t end up taking may pictures on this trip, I’ll post what I did take in a few days but most of my time was spent driving. I figured my other trips this year were for photos and this one was to get to Toronto quickly.

Once I hit Saskatchewan the wind started to pick up, generally at about a 45 degree angle to my right, making for some blowing snow and neat looking roads. At first I was worried as the trailer is a big sail for the wind, but it was no problem and I didn’t have any issues driving around.

I arrived in Winnipeg just after sundown and thought I was smarter than the GPS and decided to continue on Highway 1 though the heart of town instead of around it like the GPS said. Unfortunately I am not smarter than the GPS and ended up on slow streets with lots of corners. This isn’t awesome in the truck + trailer combo, but I managed to get though it and stopped for a quick dinner at Safeway (nothing but class I tell you). I decided to keep pressing on and hit the road! I stopped in a road side pullout about 200km into Ontario for a few hours rest. This was a great day and I managed to drive around 1400km, a new personal best, though I had to stop for gas 4 times.

The next morning was another early start and I quickly made it to Thunder Bay for gas and didn’t enjoy the $1.24 a litre I had to pay. Oh well, that’s the price you pay when you drive across the country. Ontario was quite different to the prairies in that it had a lot of rolling hills, lakes and trees! It was a nice change and it was awesome to get my first view of the Great Lakes, with Lake Superior showing up and looking quite large indeed. I rolled into Sault Ste. Marie just after sunset and with only 650km to go to Toronto I decided to press on.

I arrived in Sudbury some 300km later and really hit the first large city since Winnipeg, the glow was visible for quite awhile before I got there. After leaving Sudbury I ended up on the 400 heading South and I was essentially the only person on the highway! This made for a very easy drive all the way to Barrie where I had to fill up with gas yet again. After that is was time for the final 100km to Toronto! This was very exciting as I had pushed hard to get here in two days from Medicine Hat. After coming from Western Ontario where I could see the stars even with my headlights on it was weird to see the whole sky glow with the lights of the city reflected off the low cloud cover, looks like it’ll never be fully dark here.

Driving into Toronto at 1am was probably the best time I could have come in with the trailer, and it was pretty easy to find my new home. I knew parking would be a pain, but I lucked out and found a spot large enough for the truck and trailer just outside. It still required me to parallel park after 17 hours and 1600km of driving (yet another personal best) and that was quite a challenge. And even better, I didn’t have a ticket the next morning (everything is permit parking around here).

Since then I’ve unpacked and am enjoying my new place! I’ll post another update once I start working again! Thanks everyone for following my trip across the country.

The road to Medicine Hat was mellow, and people aren’t lying when they say the roads get very straight once you hit the prairies. I was treated to an excellent sunset, especially when I stopped to fill up the gas tank (again) and the sun showed up under the clouds for the final part of sunset. I didn’t have a great chance for photos, but I’m sure I’ll get another chance to get a sunset photo.

When I got to Medicine Hat, it was just after dark and I did contemplate continuing on to Moose Jaw but decided to take it easy, check into the local Super 8 motel and make tomorrow a big drive. I hope to make it all the way to Winnipeg tomorrow, or maybe even further! Ontario here I come, I’ll be there soon!

I rolled into the ranch a day before most of my family and had a great day helping my Aunt and Uncle out setting everything up for the 15 of us who would eventually be there. I enjoyed scraping the snow off the ice for the traditional family hockey rink that we like to set up for Christmas. The ranch and lodge looked beautiful as always, the 20-foot Christmas tree was great! (will upload a picture later).

Christmas eve saw the rest of the family show up during the day, lots of hugs and discussion about what everyone has done over the last year or since I’d last seen them. Some of my cousins have gone on some amazing adventures, including visiting Antarctica and going for a swim! Seems we have a family that likes to explore. We had an excellent dinner and then it was time to sit around the fire and sing Christmas carols with the family, this was really fun and I enjoyed seeing everyone.

Christmas morning started relatively early with lots of coffee, Mimosas for everyone but me (I would be driving) and a delicious breakfast. Stockings were opened  and I got special permission to open all my presents early as I was getting ready to hit the road as the weather looked great! After a long round of goodbyes, hugs and photos, I pulled the rig onto the road and started driving towards Revelstoke.

The drive was excellent, partly sunny and clear the whole way. I took the route that went through Merrit, Kamloops and Salmon Arm before arriving in Revelstoke (see the map on the sidebar for more info, especially the full map). Just as I was nearing Revelstoke I came around a corner to an amazing view and the last of the sunset light on the mountains! It was beautiful, but by the time I pulled over and took out my camera the sunlight had dissapeared.

I’m writing this Boxing Day morning at 7am, I am up early and ready to hit the road! I’ll update everyone soon!

I moved to Vancouver just over 3 years ago, from Whistler. For me, that was a big change at the time, but it was a good one, Vancouver has been an amazing city. It is beautiful (when it’s nice out), friendly, frustrating, dangerous, and rewarding. I am sad to leave and I hope to return one day, but I also know that’s what everyone says when they leave someplace the love. My friends have been awesome and I will miss them, but at least it is easy to keep in touch these days.

Let’s back up for a minute, “Toronto?”, you say, “What the heck?”. This is one of the biggest changes I’ve ever made, moving across the country to start a new job and essentially, a new life. After an amazing experience at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games I have really enjoyed a summer of adventures, relaxing and school. I had forgotten the “experience” of looking for a new job, the difficulty of selling yourself in the resume, the pain of combing over job websites for the best jobs, etc. I finally accepted a job with the Canadian Olympic Committee working on their online media (Websites, social media, etc), though it did mean I would move to Toronto. Fast forward to today and I’m all packed up and ready to move!

Today I will drive to Princeton, where my Aunt and Uncle have an amazing ranch out in the countryside and a lot more family will arrive tomorrow. The ranch is a great place that easily holds us all in the lodge, we (conditions permitting) may play hockey on the lake, and will certainly enjoy good food and a nice glass of wine. The drive out there will be good practice for me as I don’t have a ton of experience driving with a trailer, and to test out the new snow tires. I’ll stay at the ranch until Christmas morning when I’ll start making my way across the country. I am itching to get on the road!

New! Follow my progress “live” with on my map.

Here is a video of some of the pictures I took earlier this year, set to “First Snow” from The Fountain soundtrack (just to continue my soundtrack theme this week). Let me know what you think below!

Oh man, so good! Daft Punk have gone orchestral and created a great soundtrack for the forthcoming Tron:Legacy movie. Sit back, turn it up and enjoy

Moon

Moon is an interesting, lesser known movie starring Sam Rockwell pretty much by himself. I won’t spoil anything but it’s quite an interesting movie and Kevin Spacey is the voice of a robot. Clint Mansell does the soundtrack and he’s amazing as always. It’s worth checking out the Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain soundtracks as well, also by Clint Mansell.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

It’s funny, I’ve never actually watched this movie but I have been listening to the sountrack for over a decade now. This is one soundtrack I can come back to over and over again.

Battlestar Galactica

Here is some music from the 4th season, but I highly recommend checking out Bear McCreary’s full soundtrack, seasons 1 – 4. It is very good for a TV series.

Inception

What can I say, Hans Zimmer is the king when it comes to movie soundtracks. For more good stuff check out the Batman Begins and Dark Night soundtracks, Gladiator, Mission Impossible III and more.

Randoms

Here are a few additional soundtrack songs that are awesome.