This last year, I've become far more interested in eating healthy. To that end, I find I frequent a lot more farmer's markets out here in Chilliwack, and spend a bit more time shopping for quality food as opposed to cheap food. The other day I drove out to Mt. Lehman Farm in Abbotsford and bought my first batch of beef directly from the farm. That's a luxury that's not available to most people in Vancouver, and something I think more people should take advantage of. In a supermarket, you rarely know where any food is ... Read more...

For those of us in British Columbia, a new law is coming into affect on December 31st that will restrict the usage of cellphones in vehicles to only those people who have hands-free gear. The B.C. government is reminding drivers that on New Year's Day it will become illegal to drive in the province while using a hand-held cellphone or other electronic device. Under the changes to the Motor Vehicle Act effective Jan. 1, most drivers will be allowed to use hands-free units with earpieces or speaker-phone functions. But talking, texting or gaming on a hand-held device will no longer ... Read more...

Last night I rented "Food Inc", a pretty startling movie about the sad state of food in the world. One of the main consultants for the movie, Michael Pollon, argues that what we eat today isn't really food -- it looks like food and sort of tastes like food, but it has been manufactured on assembly lines and is a really pale representation of what food used to actually be like. Chickens are raised on farms and are grown so quickly that their legs can't support their weight -- after walking only a few steps most of ... Read more...

Most of the units still are in the process of being leased it looks like, but progress is definitely being made on the new Garrison Village. I've been trying to determine when places will start opening up in there, but so far it's not obvious to me. While some commercial units have signs indicating what will be going in there (so far I'm pretty excited about Waves Coffee opening up, since I spend so much time in coffee shops), most units are still pretty bare inside, which leads me to believe they are targeting a spring opening. There'a sushi ... Read more...

The new overpass (linking Evans road with the Industrial park area) has officially opened. Yesterday mayor Sharon Gaetz was on hand to do the official unveiling. Yours truly came back from yesterday afternoon, and was quite happy taking the new Evans road exit to take me home. The only unfortunate aspect of the new overpass is that it cuts off access from Luckakuck way and Evans road (which was a really popular route before). Because of that, you see a lot of people doing an illegal turn from Luckakuck onto Evans, even though the sign ... Read more...

Given my recent troubles with regards to a certain barking dog, I thought I'd do a quick post regarding some of the local noise bylaws. Here are a few quotes from the official Chilliwack noise bylaw page: No person shall make, or cause or allow to be made, in or on a highway or elsewhere in the City, any noise or sound which disturbs or tends to disturb the quiet, peace, rest, enjoyment, comfort or convenience of the public, neighbourhood or persons in the vicinity. No person shall cause, permit or allow the following noises or sounds: ... Read more...

I have a pile of things at home that I really want to sell and be rid of. Here's a partial list: Quad core server with 1.0TB of RAID5 storage. Currently running Centos. Was used mostly as a development web server. I'm just selling the server, but if you want this, I can toss in a LCD monitor as well. No keyboard or mouse. Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR camera Another single core computer currently running XP. I'll have to check the specs. Doesn't come with a monitor, keyboard or mouse (just the machine) Apple TV I'll ... Read more...

Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates on here -- unfortunately things have been rather hectic. With that in mind, I'm looking for a few motivated people who would like to write on this site from time to time. Ideally you'd be interested in certain aspects of this city, such as music, business, politics, etc. If you're interested in contributing to this project, then please drop us a line! I'm also updating the framework of this site over the weekend. When it's done, some of the glitches should be fixed, and everyone will be able to ... Read more...

Yes, it's true. It's actually always been my plan to make this a social network, but I just haven't had the time to convert it. Truthfully, I still don't have the time, but I woke up this morning and felt like trying to do it. What that means is that you can now have friends, create groups, send messages, write on each other's walls, etc, all from this site. If you're interested in what happened under the hood, here goes. This site was based on WordPress up until about 6 hours ago. WordPress is ... Read more...

I'm taking part in a massive coordinated charity event called Blogathon this weekend. Basically I'll be staying up for 24 hours straight and writing a blog entry every 30 minutes over on my personal site www.duanestorey.com. Last year I teamed up with Rebecca Bollwitt (affectionately known as Miss604 in Vancouver) and musician Matthew Good to raise nearly $10,000 for the Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver, which was really awesome, and something I'm thankful everyone supported. The charity I've decided to support this year is the BC Children's Hospital: all proceeds will go directly to helping that cause, ... Read more...