Flecks of… Gray?

Yesterday I went on a nice hike up to the top of Mt. Cheam (pronounced Shem) which has a great view overlooking Harrison Lake, Agassiz, Cultas Lake, Chilliwack and Mt. Sumas. The drive up took about an hour through some bumpy and otherwise very unfriendly roads and at the top there were almost 50 other 4X4′s – the hill was full of people taking in the clear Saturday for a great hike up to the top.

In the pictures starting at the upper left and going clockwise is Lady Cheam, Spoon Lake, Scott overlooking Chilliwack and the massive Mt. Baker.

A few years ago, I read and posted on a book that I had read, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” which I had really enjoyed. It was the story of a mountain climber (Aron Ralston) who got his hand pinned by a boulder and was stuck for a couple of days before he finally amputated his own arm.

The exciting news is that I saw a trailer today for this true story coming to the big screen and it looks great. It has A list talent in both direction (Boyle) and acting (Franco) so I’m pumped to see this. Check it out for yourself at traileraddict (via movieblog).

Vancouverites put on what’s called a ‘slow food tour‘ in different regions around Vancouver; what this means is that you get on your bike and pedal around between different local shops to see what they’re doing. On Sunday, we did the Chilliwack segment which was great! I hadn’t really been to many of the shops that we saw, so getting to go on a bike tour with the whole family to see them all was great! We got to see a grain mill, a honey farm, a cow dairy, a goat dairy, the corn maze, a winery, the Heron reserve, a soap maker and a few other things.

The total biking distance was 27.2km which we did at a moving average of about 11 km/h (that included walking around at the various stands); all this information, the map above and more was grabbed from my Android using the My Tracks app – awesome stuff.

A little while ago, I noticed that Mint was starting to bring on some Canadian banks. I just noticed that they’ve quietly added support for virtually all the Canadian banks including my PC Mastercard and my other bank, RBC. Time to start putting my full effort into mint and slowly phasing out my outdated MS Money.

satisfaction.mint.com via lifehacker (note that netflix streaming is coming too!)

This weekend, I was able to get to Inception in IMAX with some friends and although my expectations were really high, it still delivered!! I noticed that it’s currently #3 on the all time top 250 and while it won’t stay that high, it is an indication of how good it is.

After the first trailer for this, I shut myself out of all other information on this film to make sure I knew as little as possible going in since I knew that I’d want to see it. The story is amazing, the visual effects are solid and the acting holds it all together. This movie rewards those that can follow complex plots with a deep story across multiple levels and helps it go down easy with lots of action.

Nolan, the director of a couple of my very favorite movies (Memento (#29), The Prestige (#72), Batman Begins (#108), The Dark Knight (#12)) adds another to this list. Slightly behind Memento, this is my second favorite of his and that says a lot because I loved the Batman’s and the Prestige.

I’m really excited to see his take on the third Batman which I believe that he’s writing presently. He’s becoming a hit machine the likes of which we haven’t seen since… Pixar!

Part 2 of my multi-part MegaMan stitching series is complete! (here’s the first part). I think I’m going to tackle the logo next and that’ll fill up my canvas.

from threadless.com

Click on the picture to see how many you can get – answers after the break.
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This week, I got my brand new Droid Incredible from Verizon and my jaw is slack in admiration. In getting this phone I’m making a major upgrade from my previous Razr phone to the brave new world of smartphones.

It has integrated GPS tied right in to my Google Maps account (all my highlights are there!), I hooked up my Google Apps (mennoboy.com) and GMail accounts in a few minutes and instantly my inbox, contacts and calendars were all filled up with their online bounty. My work account (Exchange based) took about the same amount of time and also works seamlessly, merging the contacts and calendars together and creating a new inbox for that mail. Also, there’s an application for my Yahoo IM account so I’m able to be available to my online work buddies whether I’m at home (with WiFi) or on the road (with 3G). Top that off with an 8M camera which is capable of taking some decent shots (here’s one of Grenz).

Aside from this great core functionality, there are some other great apps which make the phone so capable, there’s a barcode scanner (to see if there’s a better price somewhere else), weather channel information, IMDb quick lookups, dropbox integration, mint.com personal finance, Google Earth, Google Sky, Google Voice, NES Emulators, FM Radio, and a DivX player (for my .avi type movies – no conversion needed – sweet!).

The other day we lost our third GPS to thieves (see 1st and 2nd). I’m not sure if we just don’t lock our door because the car alarm didn’t go at all. Anyways, for me this is the third strike; as much as I like having a GPS, I just can’t afford to keep losing them to thieves (this time it was on the floor of the car with no octopus marks on the window). The car change was gone as well but thankfully, that was it.

I was frustrated about it for awhile but then I spent some time on my drive down to Seattle listening to the Meeting House’s series on Inglorious Pastors (recommended to me by my brother and Lyf). It was about pacifism (actively pacifying) with the theme being that you should be willing to die for Christ but not to kill for him. It was a great series that addressed a ton of questions that I had myself and others that are frequently asked – it really challenged me to live with Christ’s peace at the core of me and submit to His Lordship.

Back to the GPS – I’m also not getting another one because I’m getting a new phone that’s going to have an included GPS, the Droid Incredible. It’s a pretty sweet phone that can do a lot of cool stuff, presently it’s on back order and I should be getting it in a few weeks; I’m really excited to play around with this thing.

With my spare time in the last month, I’ve been crafting up a MegaMan 2 cross stitch scene from the final battle with Metal Man; that’s why my posting’s have been sparse. The total scene is 81 X 81 squares (6561 stitches) and it took me about 50 to 60 hours and I got through a lot of hockey as well as the Caprica, Spartacus and the Terminator series’. If all goes according to plan, I have 7 or more to do – I’m on to Flash Man next.

I got the graphic from RedHerring1Up who did the project with beads – see all the levels here if you want to preview what I’m going to be doing for a few years.

See my previous crafty MegaMan post and play the game here.