Peru/Brazil/Argentina Day 2: Lima to Cusco

May 4, 2012
Peru Day 2: Lima to Cusco

Arrived in Lima! And now to Cusco...

And the adventure begins! We arrived in Lima after 100 bazillion hours on the plane and were punched in the face with a gloriously rank odour of fishy sars. I am not sure why/how/what the heck was going on, but seemed like maybe low cloud cover? Anyway we were happy to just be in Lima for a couple hours cause outside on the runway it smelled like a dirty fish shop. Sorry Lima, I'm sure you are usually beautiful. Today, you smelled like my feet are gonna smell on the Inca Trail.

Things were pretty quick-quick and efficient in the airport which was great since we pretty much hadn't slept all night. We met up with Kev (since he had come in on a different flight) and walked pretty directly through the terminal, checking out the food court on the way. There was a McDonald's there (anyone who has read my trip blogs before knows that I LOVE seeing all the localized foreign McDonald's menu items in other countries - it was kinda cool but nothing super weird and wild like Japan. A ham sandwich/tostada thing on the menu, otherwise it looked pretty standard). There was a Dunkin Donuts, but didn't have hilariously unusual garlic or avocado donuts like they did in Dunkin Donuts in South Korea. Meh. :) The place that did rock was one of the souvenir stores which had chocolate covered passion fruit, macadamias, bananas. We helped ourselves heartily to the free samples! Then on we went to Cusco.

On the way to Cusco

More awesome mountains

We arrived in Cusco and the air felt a little thin but not too bad. Jose from our hostel was already there and waiting and very organized. He sorted out the cab for us and off we went towards the city center. There were so many buildings up on the hillsides, so amazing! It was just so inspiring and exciting to arriving in a new country, so many unusual new things and unexpected surprises. You really feel ALIVE at a moment like this! That was nice given the lack of sleep the night before, haha.

Kev and I chillin' with some Coca Tea at the hostel

We got into town and arrived at Amaru Hostel, the place we were staying at in the San Blas neighbourhood. They were immediately very helpful and welcoming and nice. There was hot Coca Tea there waiting for us, to help acclimatize to the altitude. It tastes a bit like green tea, a little bitter, but good. We relaxed for a bit and took pictures. It was quite hot in the sun! We were pretty exhausted from the general schlep of travel so we took a few hours to nap and regenerate.

After a good nap we got rollin' and headed out to "El Buen Pastor", a pastry shop a few doors down which is run by nuns! It was amazing!! I got a queso empenadea (cheese) and it was great. The winner though was the peach custard pastry - man!!!!

THIS WAS AMAZING

Awesome selection of pastries near our hostel

Kev excited for breakfast

Pastry-fest at the "Nun" bakery!

From there we wandered San Blas square, and took a bunch of photos. This was a nice and picturesque place with some locals playing music and selling handicrafts. It was a great vibe.

Plaza San Blas

Cusco hills from Plaza San Blas

VWs seem REALLY popular here

After this we headed to Plaza de Armas, the main square. People were selling stuff pretty intently and were directly targeting tourists (of course), it was ok at first but quickly got annoying. There was some cool stuff like people walking around with baby llamas and you could take your photo with them, that was very cute and the girls/women were all wearing traditional clothing, so that was pretty nice. But so many people were selling junky postcards or offering massages (a bit dodgy?) but at the same time you clearly couldn't fault the locals in the ultra-tourist town of Cusco in the most touristsy downtown center... there are certainly a lot of foreigners here and you can't blame people for trying to make a comfortable living. But anyhow, it got to be a bit too much and we learned quickly that the phrase "No, Gracias" was the one to use. People seemed nice and friendly, but a few people were a bit too forceful. Oh well. Lots of "No Gracias's" today though.

Taking photos, note the girl with the baby lamb (or llama) in the background

We walked to Dos Manos, the place that organized the Huyana Picchu tickets for us. That was very organized and they gave us some bank advice - to take out USD from the ATM and then change it with a local private money exchanger person/store. That seemed a bit strange since they were so hardcore about only being able to take perfect USD bills - anything wripped or torn they weren't able to take, so who knows what quality of USD bills you'd get out of the ATM. Seemed like the "perfect condition only" rules only were for USD, if you have Peruvian Nuevo Soles, anyone would take them. So I ignored the advice from the travel agent and just took out Soles from the ATM and it turns out that was an excellent decision. Other than the $5 USD per-transaction fee from Wells Fargo, I was getting roughly the exact international exchange rate for USD to PEN. Amazing!!!

haha, "fanny"

This was amazing

and in English... "Soursap" juice. It was sweet and weird and good.

After getting our Billeto Touristico (so we could get into a bunch of Inca sites), we went to a grocery store (Gato Market) and then back to the hostel for a bit. This Guanabana (Soursop) juice was excellent!! So good, kinda like guava and pineapple together. Wikipedia calls it a "Brazillian Paw Paw". Either way, it was delicious!!

Back at the hostel, we were so tired so we slept for another few hours. Lonely Planet suggested it was very important to take it easy on the first day at high altitude and we were certainly chillin' out.

Then we headed to Peru Treks to pay the remainder of our hiking fees for the Inca Trail in a few days. We talked to the lady for a while there and she was very nice. She helped answer a lot of our questions. I joked about a few things, like the form asked us to check "Male or Female" and "Male" said "Masculino". I laughed and said, "Si, Muy Masculino!" trying to play-on-words Masculino with "Masculine". I have no idea if that translated but she laughed at my effort in any case. :)

Then off to dinner! The guidebook suggested this excellent chicken place called Los Toldos Chicken. It was some AMAZING BBQ Chicken!!! Or, shall I say, "Pollo Brassa". It was BBQ'd style, rotisserie, char-broiled. Amazing stuff. The salad bar was free and epic - pickled carrots, veggies, potato salad, salad with this great olive dressing... awesome. We got a 1L coke and it was so good too.

To Peru treks to check in

Salad bar at the BBQ restaurant

The dressing was made of black olives, so frickin' good

Sauces for the chicken

Mmmmmm

Amazing place

We wandered the town after that, seeing some city sights. For some reason, all the mannequins in Peru so far have been terrible and scary!! I don't know what's up with that.

One of many insanely scary mannequins we saw

Another terrifying mannequin... why?!??!?!?!

We saw a pie shop and some other cool stuff. Then we headed to Marcelo Batata, a coffee and dessert place. We headed up to the rooftop for dessert and a glorious view of Cusco city lights. Glorious! This place was very relaxing and nice. It was expensive compared to dinner but excellent quality. I got a "Chocolate Calliente" (Hot Chocolate) which was orangey-tasting and made from chocolate from the Sacred Valley. So good. I also got an Oreo Strawberry Ice Cream Sundae which ROCKED. It was amazing and everyone was jealous but I shared.

Haha, wow so much blantant copyright infringement in Peru

Pie shop

These were suppper good too

The most epic orange hot chocolate ever, made from Andean chocolate

View of the city from our coffee place

Oreo Ice Cream mmmmm

Then we headed back to the hostel, and chatted about tomorrow. Now it's time to sleep cause we get up early tomorrow in time to meet Christy - he flight stuff is all sorted out. Tomorrow we're going to do a bunch of city stuff and then head to the Sacsayhuamán ruins. It should be awesome! What a super fun time already, and it's only the 1st day!

Peru/Brazil/Argentina Day 1: Leaving SF

Note: For those of you who haven't read my trip blogs before, I'm actually already back from South America now. I retroactively post my trip blog and photos after the trip now. I'll post the actual date of the blog "entry" at the top of each post. Enjoy!

May 3, 2012
Peru Day 1: Leaving SF

All my bags are packed...

What a great pre-roll to the trip!  I had such an amazing week at work, working super hard to knock out a bunch of stuff before the trip and totally rockin' it. Awesome times. I also saw AVENGERS last night!!!!!!!!!!! Arrgghghghghgggggggghhhhhhhhh soooo ammaazzziing!!!!!!!!!! The Hulk was so epic and was used so carefully and so well in the storytelling. I friggin' LOOOVED it. What a movie! The story was so good and such a great blend of visual effects with a strong and exciting story. Epic job, fellow ILM-ers!!! I spent a lot of time working on the Animation Pipeline for Hulk and it was so awesome to have played my part in such a cool movie. Also... this is my 2nd film credit at ILM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man, what a credit to get too. I was so excited for it and nearly burst out of my seat when the end credits rolled. What a feeling and what an amazing team to be a part of.

Last night after the movie I had the usual pre-trip "What did I forget?" jitters, cleaned the apartment and bathroom, etc. There's always so much work before you leave for a big trip: take out the garbage and recycling, turn off all your electronics, clean the fridge out BEFORE taking out the garbage otherwise you have to do it again, and so on... lots of work! Given all that pre-trip stuff I had to do, I got to bed a bit late, but oh well.

This morning I got up pretty early and took care of any last minute stuff. Frank picked me up and we went back to his place to wait for the SuperShuttle. It picked us up right on time and we zipped off to the fancy new Terminal 2 at SFO - I haven't been there yet! It was fun to chat with people in line and, of course, we met a random Canadian in line who noticed my flag :)

Ready to rock

My stuff with Frank and Jess's stuff

I am really loving this Triple Aught hoodie that Frank and Jess suggested I buy. It's funny because all three of us are wearing it today and we all look damn sharp. It's made of Merino Wool so it's very soft and comfortable, and also nice and warm. I really like it. This morning I started the Acclimatization Pills and they seem fine, no worries taking them. Everyone else in our group is just planning to take Advil instead, which also helps. I feel better taking them to ward off any potential problems in advance, with all the other general nervousness at the beginning of a trip (is it gonna go well? are we gonna enjoy it? is everyone going to be safe? is anyone going to get sick? etc etc) it's nice to take some things off the list of items to be worried about.

We met up with Kevin and we were all so excited to be rollin' to South Amerrriiccaa!! We had a nice lunchy/breakfast at Rulli's in Terminal 1 and then we left SFO on the way to Miami, intending to meet Christy there continuing together as a group of 5 to Lima. Everyone looks so healthy and thin and fit. We rock for following through on our fitness goals. Oh yes - I almost forgot to mention! Katie at the gym at work did my Caliper Body Fat Percentage test at work yesterday - the acceptable range is 12-22% and I'm 15.9%!! I am so psyched, this is already much better than expected. I will have to continue doing these tests as my weight loss continues... I want to ultimately aim for lower, maybe 12%-ish. (5-12% is considered "Lean").

Pre-trip weight

Turtle Power - funny backpack we saw at SFO

On the plane I read an interesting quote from A.J. Jacobs in the inflight magazine describing his new book "Drop Dead Healthy" about trying to achieve "physical perfection". I'd like to read it. His quote:

"It's incredibly hard to change your habits, but you have to do just that. You have to think of your future self, and treat your future self with respect."

I feel like I would have nodded but ignored that quote 6 months ago - now it really resonates. I'm so happy with my progress and I'm very keen to make sure I keep it going during the trip and afterwards too. I think I'll need some explicit goals to set. Say "Maintain at 170 for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year." Maybe that's enough to keep me on track until these habits become self-sustaining.

So in the first few hours of the trip, we had a couple mishaps... that's bound to happen. We arrived in Miami to find out that Christy's plane was cancelled. :( Poor Christy. We scrambled to quickly send a few emails to give the hostel and trekking place a heads up. It sounds like it will work out well but we all felt bad for Christy. Jess talked to her on the phone for a bit which was nice and we all tried to help out as best as we could. We all sat in different rows for SFO-Miami and met up at the terminal. Kev turned out to be on a different plane to Lima, even though it was leaving at exactly the same time! That was weird, and a bit of a pain as he had to run across the terminal to re-check in.

We ended up searching for Cuban Food and found an awesome place. It was super good!! I got a flank steak spiced with onions which was fantastic, and some friend plantains which were SOOOOOOOO good, I almost jumped right onto the plate. Also it came with excellent rice and black beans, a great meal to start the trip!

Dinner in Miami, minus Christy :(

Banana Fritters, you epic fiends

Frank, Jess and I headed to our next flight and were chillin', and chatting with some people also headed to Cusco. Now it looks like we're getting some more food on the plane?!?!?! YES!! It was random beef and rice, basically a repeat of what we had for dinner but airline-style... oh well, it's warm food!! Mmm. I totally crushed it and then went right to sleep for 4 hrs. That rocked.

Thank you, Picasa :)

Oh sweet glory.

I am about to start posting my photos like crazy from my South America trip and my trip blog, and Google/Picasa/Blogger/Picasa Web Albums have finnaaaaaaaalllly removed the 5-photo-per-upload blogging limit when uploading :) Oh thank goodness. :)

I've been creatively working around that issue for years, most recently by emailing photos to my special Blogger email-to-post email address and then captioning the photos after they had uploaded to a draft blog post. In the past I also had to have a 2nd window open with Facebook running, so I could type captions into Facebook at the same time as I typed them into the blog. No more! It looks like Picasa sorted this out gloriously, and now I can easily caption the photos in Picasa once and then upload to Google+ and share them (with captions attached), upload them to Facebook and share them (with captions attached), and then load in MULTIPLE PHOTOS AT THE SAME TIME yessssssss into Blogger and have the captions still attached. This is gonna save me years of blogging time :)

Thanks you epic fiends at Blogger/Picasa/Google+, well done!

Weight loss rewards

Holy crap, I really seem to be in the zone about posting health blog topics tonight.

Anyway, a quick tally of the rewards I've given myself after reaching target weight loss goals, and a pledge for what I might get for the last big one :) Just cause I feel like remembering what I rewarded myself with for some reason!

I REALLY wanted to be careful not to "celebrate" with food. That was very important to me because food is so often an easy thing to celebrate with - "let's go out for dinner!" Terrible. The whole point of my hard work is that I'm making the conscious choice to put my long-term health before an immediate short-term enjoyment like fatty restaurant food. Double-negative warning: I shouldn't NEVER eat that kinda stuff :) But I definitely wanted to be sure not to buy food as my celebratory event.

Tea doesn't count though :) Since drinking tea is actually further helping my weight loss (given its properties for epic appetite suppression and also because it is 0 calories), I decided that was a good thing to use as motivation. Plus I am now somewhat obsessively in love with weird and wild teas, I figured this was a good thing to rally behind: I love it, and it's healthy, and it helps me continue on the right trend. Awesome!

I also bought practical stuff which would help me continue the weight loss or gym progress, like a nice gym bag, some running shoes for the gym, and nice and awesome workout clothes that I liked and felt comfortable in. They were pretty nice clothing items too, which I might not have bought otherwise, so it really was special to get some high-quality and nice workout stuff.

• At 200 lbs: Fancy tea kettle and joined the gym at work. Crazy new shoes. New workout Dry-Fit t-shirts and shorts from Macy's.
• At 190 lbs: More fancy tea: from Lupicia, Upton, The Republic of Tea, and more. An awesome Nike workout bag.
• At 185 lbs: Gaiwan tea preparation cup, yes, and even fancier tea from The Imperial Tea Court
• At 180 lbs: Clothing time! This was my first major goal (30 lbs). So this was a big one to celebrate. Getting this far means I'm close to what I expect I'll stop losing and start maintaining at (170 lbs), so I'm close enough where I can start buying some new clothing and giving away old stuff. I got this stuff: Suit, leather jacket, wingtip shoes, new belt in Buenos Aires. Long sleeve and short sleeve collared shirts from Banana Republic, new jeans from Levi's. Sorting through piles of T-shirts, pants, jackets and donating a massive amount of stuff to Goodwill. And of course, more expensive fancy tea in Buenos Aires.

What's next?

Well, I already bought some nice clothes and one shirt from Banana Republic is quite fitted - it's got a little room for me to lose a bit more to fit better in it. So that's a little extra motivation. The next goal is when I hit 170 lbs (or an equivalent low body fat percentage loss).

I am not 100% sure what I am going to get, but I might actually finally buy My Dream Jacket. An amazing $500 Gore-Tex ProShell, a glorious shade of purple, made in Canada, and can defend you from pretty much anything nature can throw at you. I LOVE THIS JACKET. Months and months later, I am still drooling over it. I think this would be an awesome celebration of my commitment to weight loss and also... a GREEEEEEEEEAT way to "bake in the loss" as I mentioned in a previous post. I totally love this jacket and if I spend a damn fortune on it, I sure as hell am not gonna put ANY weight back on that could result in the jacket not fitting well in the future. I actually think for that reason alone this is probably a brilliant idea. I am definitely gonna search around and try to find a nice sale price for it, but I'm starting to think this might be a fantastic gift to myself at the conclusion of the weight loss progress.

Subcutaneous Body Fat Test #1

I didn't realize I hadn't posted the results from my first caliper/subcutaneous body fat test which I did at my gym at work right before leaving for Peru.

This was my first of these tests and I got a value of 15.9%, which I am VERY happy with.

This is a much more accurate reading than the measurements I posted a few months back. Their scale goes as follows (for Males):

• <5%: Underweight
• <12%: Lean
• 12-21%: Acceptable
• 21-26%: Overweight
• >26%: Obese

I was suspecting it would be more around the 17-19% range given my values from the Fat2Fit calculator but yeah, this is awesome. I am excited to measure this every few months and watch this progress in a good direction as I've been doing with the weight loss.

One "problem" about starting to workout and do strength training more is that it will potentially start getting harder to just read the scale and say "Yes, I'm still on the right track because my weight is less!" since once you start building muscle you might put on weight even though you are getting healthier and even losing more fat. So I need to start tracking my success by Body Fat Percentage and not just weight loss anymore now that I've dropped a bunch. I'd like to continue onwards to 170 lbs (another 9 lbs from here), but I've already noticed a stabilization of the weight loss despite the fact that it looks to me like I've lost more fat. I think that's the muscle building from the Inca Trail hike, I bet!

I have no idea how much muscle you need to build before it starts affecting the reliability of using weight as a measure of your fitness success. So I should still keep trying hard to get to 170. But if I get to 175 but drop to 14% Body Fat, I have to make sure I still call this a huge success in my mind... and not just complain or be upset that I didn't get to 170. Keep at it Jutan...

Waist size

Oh baby this is awesome.

I went shopping at the Levi's Store today with Frank and Jess (who have now become my personal shoppers it seems) and it was epic.

Best part about today (other than finding 2 pairs of awesome jeans on sale)... my waist size is now 33. Thirty-frickin'-three!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually, even some 32's fit in some styles. Crazy.

I've been a size 36 waist solidly for at least 8 years, maybe even 9 or 10. That's insane. I haven't had this small a jean size since probably Grade 11. This is ABSURD.

I'm so excited and psyched at the news. I was expecting to drop to 34 but didn't expect that 33 would fit. Was SHOCKED that some of the 32's even fit me, that's totally crazy. That's like my Grade 10 waist or something. Just insane.

I was reading some health blogs a while back which said waist size is a very important factor in health and you should really be concerned about a lot of fat - specifically fat placed around the belly area - so this drop is massively awesome.

As with the "Fat Former Self" photos, by buying awesome and somewhat expensive jeans now at this waist size, I'm "baking in" my progress by setting up pillars (in this case, they are made of expensive clothing) so that I have increased self/social pressure to maintain my weight long-term. The thought process is roughly this: "these jeans look great and I feel good in them, plus I spent a bunch of my hard-earned money on them. I have to make sure I get a lot of good use out of them. So I can't put this weight back on! EVVVVVVERRRRRRR!!!" I'm also donating my entire stack of 36" jeans and other pants to Goodwill. This is intentional as well, not only for the clothing recycling aspect of it, but so I can't pretend I have a bunch of clothes that will fit well if I "only gain back a few lbs..." That's where the disaster starts, so I am gonna make sure to keep "baking in" my awesome progress.

Let the fitness goals continue...

PS. Seems like I've been thinking about and writing a LOT about health, weight loss, fitness, healthy eating etc. over the past 9 months. It seems important enough to me now to make it a blog "topic". So I am gonna now try to remember to tag posts with the label "Healthy Living and Fitness" so I can group them all together as I keep writing about this stuff.

Swap it in, Swap it out: Tips & Tricks for using nested referencing in Autodesk Maya

Wicked! My talk from the Autodesk University ADN 2011 conference has been posted to the Autodesk AREA site. Check it out here!

It's called "Swap it in, Swap it out: Tips & Tricks for using nested referencing in Autodesk Maya" and is about some of my recent work.

Fat Former Self (photo #4)

Here is the next installment in the famed "Fat Former Self" photo series! I'm happy to announce, as I was hoping to say, that on my recent trip to South America "I didn't gain a bunch of weight, and I still had fun." Awesome times. I'm now down 32 lbs since I started and sitting comfortably at 179 lbs - easily back at my Grade 12 high school weight. Insane.

The trip was epic and we crushed the Inca Trail - an amazing challenge and a truly fantastic experience. It would have been a LOT harder and wayyyy less enjoyable had I not gotten my act together and still been my previous weight (32 LBS HEAVIER). Crazy.

Anyhow, here's another addition to my self-imposed internet meme "Fat Former Self".

The progress continues! I'm now aiming for 170 lbs as (likely) my end weight loss goal, and I'm going to start stepping it up harder at the gym now and focusing more on strength training in the next 6 months. When I hit 170 lbs I'll post one more "Fat Former Self" photo, but after that I'll be focusing on strength training rather than further weight loss. So perhaps I'll need to start a new series called "Scrawny Former Self"?! :)

(Here's the explanation again, if you think I'm insane for posting these):

Now, why the hell would I intentionally post horrible photos of me at an earlier weight? Well... lots of reasons. It's fun to share a sort of ridiculous before/after style photo with friends, but more importantly, this is my way of increasing social pressure on myself to make sure I maintain this weight loss. By tracking down horrid photos of me as "Fat Former Self" (and also, referring to my old pics as that), I'm celebrating how much happier I am with my weight loss/fitness progress so far. Each photo reminds me further why I'm so glad I've made these healthy changes, and how I never want to drop the ball in the future and end up re-gaining this weight.

Oh, awesome. Phillip Phillips won American Idol!

While I was away in Argentina it looks like the American Idol season finished. Surprisingly, and AWESOMELY, the acoustic/folky/jazzy/rock singer Phillip Phillips won which is super awesome. I didn't see too many of the episodes but I randomly caught a few including his performance of Dave Matthews Band's "The Stone" which is an EPIC and incredibly tough song to do well and he just rocked it so fierce.

This is super cool, I guess as part of the American Idol deal he will put out a record of his own songs, which is awesome cause he seems very stick-to-his-guns style with his musical ideals and he's drawn a lot of comparisons to Dave Matthews over the past few months, (i.e., I clearly am gonna love this album). Psyched to hear that something with some heart and soul can win a pop music contest... that rocks. I'm pretty keen to hear his album. Come on DMB, get Phillip to open for you guys!!

Star Wars 1313: E3 Gameplay Video

Star Wars 1313 E3 Video Released today! Check it out.

Awesome work guys, it looks ammmaazinng.

I didn't gain a bunch of weight, and I still had fun

As I posted back in March, I was very keen to enjoy the hell out of South America, eat lots of interesting stuff, drink 1000's of tasty and epic weird Amazonian fruit juices, and NOT gain weight. I was hoping to say "I didn't gain a bunch of weight, and I still had fun" after the trip...

Verdict is: success!!!!!!

I suspect I lost about 5 lbs on the Inca Trail given that we were expending somewhere around 5000 calories per day and not eating anywhere close to that. But after the crazy start to the trip, I jumped into the exciting culinary epicness of South America and definitely made sure to try everything (except the Guinea Pig, there was no way that was gonna happen).

After a month away of not recording on MyFitnessPal and not weighing myself, I'm down about 2 lbs!! Hoorayy!!!!

How?

Well, I definitely didn't limit my food intake if I really wanted something. Ice Cream, cake, huge steaks in Buenos Aires, tons of fruit juice in the Amazon, etc. I went to town on all that stuff. The big difference between now and earlier trips is if there was food that wasn't special (crappy white bread, boring dry pasta etc) I didn't just eat it cause it was there. That was the main difference. I usually lose weight on a trip due to the 8 hrs of walking every day, but in the past 10 years I've also typically been at a much higher weight (therefore, it was easier to lose a lot quickly by changing a habit like walking a lot every day). So I didn't gain anything on this trip, which rocks, but I also didn't lose a TON. So that probably means my habits are pretty solid, and the fierce exercise while on the trip nicely balanced out my try-everything-cause-it's-new-and-exciting food style.

Now that I'm back, it's back to normal

I had a nice long chat with my bro Heev before the trip about what to do when I got home, and he had brilliant advice: just make sure you go back to your new awesome habits... and you'll probably really be keen to anyway! And that has really been the case - I was so excited just to eat a bowlful of vegetables and have some V8 and Tea and other stuff I am used to. It's taking a little bit to re-adjust but mentally I know I have to. I set a new goal to lose another 10 lbs (or, 9-ish, I'm at 179.6 now and I'm now aiming for 170), and this new goal is helping to encourage me to get right back on the horse. I'm eating carefully and measuring everything with MyFitnessPal again, just like before the trip. I have another goal to reach, so now is not the time to slack off! Back in BIZ, baby.

Lock it in

I just went to Banana Republic today and bought 2 slim fit stretch collar shirts and they look awesome. The craziest part: medium was TOO BIG. So I (wait for it)... had to BUY A SIZE SMALL. Yes... SMALL. I was like... whhhaaaaattt????! Yeah. Seriously. It's a pretty snug fit, but you're supposed to wear those a bit tight, and yeah. SMALL?! Anyway, these shirts were expensive, plus they kinda look amazing, and there is no damn way I want to donate these new puppies to Goodwill anytime soon (sorry Goodwill, but you're about to get a truckload of XL and L shirts...). So by getting these awesome new and quite fitted clothes, I'm encouraging myself to keep things going and on-track and not to fall victim to any bad habits. I also can't treat SF like my trip - food is now a luxury cause I'm not hiking for 8 hrs a day anymore. Food needs to be carefully chosen, and healthy habits need to keep being the top of my priority list.

I'll post another "Fat Former Self" photo soon, I've got a baller photo of me looking like Indiana Jones in Buenos Aires, so I'll try to find a horrible old photo of me and pair the two with the usual cheesy pun. More importantly... back to the gym this week!

Back from South America

Hello all!

Just got back from South America this morning and it was a heck of a trip. I'll be starting the usual trip blog journal sometime in the next week or so, posting the usual captioned photos along with a write-up about all the goings-on over the past 4 weeks. It was an awesome trip and so many great experiences and memories... yet as always, happy to be home :)

I'll be tagging the posts as usual with a Blogger label, and also summarizing them all when I'm done posting each day's entry on my website. I hope you enjoy reading almost as much as my friends and I enjoyed the trip! More soon... Jutan

In Peru

In Cusco, Peru and it is totally amazing. Food has been fantastic and really enjoying it already.

The hostel is beautiful and we have a truly epic view of the city. I am armed with my Canon T1i, 2 batteries, 3 lenses, a circular polarizer and 38 GB of memory! Even so, RAW photos take up a huge amount of space so I am generally shooting pictures in superfine JPG, and switching to RAW for targeted, specifically awesome lighting and photo opportunities.

And taking a few with my iPhone like this one!

I'll be writing up the usual major trip blog when I am back and posting tons of photos with a journal from each day in the upcoming months. Here's a quick taste. Cusco is gorgeous. The altitude at first was a little hard (noticeable especially when walking up steps) but at 11,200 ft we're already getting acclimated for the majority of the Inca Trail trek.

This trip is awesooooommmme!!! Frank just told me to go to bed so I don't wake our buddy Kevin up, so I'm off. I hope everyone is well, more photos on Facebook right now and I'll post tons of pics later.

Mike :)




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Avengers

Saw Avengers last night and it was epic!!!! Hulk was so beautifully hand-crafted, one of the best 3D characters I've ever seen. Amazing! The movie itself is so excellent too and some really fantastic story arcs beautifully blended with amazing effects!

Be sure to stay for the end credits- I'm in the ILM Research and Development section.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Weight loss graph in Matlab

In an awesome moment of "Like Son, Like Father", my Dad was super psyched about the R Statistical program I wrote a few days ago (see this post) for doing a fancy regression and analysis of my weight loss progress so far... he was so psyched that he did exactly the same thing I did - spending a few hours fiddling with a stats program to make a cooler and more interesting version of the plot.

Matlab graph of my weight loss from Oct 2011-April 2012

Since Dad is a Matlab genius, he took the opportunity to refresh on some Matlab and graphing details, like I did with R a few days ago. This plot is similar to my R one, but I think it's a lot easier to read, the spacing is better and clearer, and you get a much better sense of the flow of the data. Also, the colouring and grid lines help give the graph some better readability. Funny that Dad and I both spent a few hours geeking out about similar things. Like Father, Like Son!

Website update

Mid-size website update tonight. As always, check it out at http://www.mikejutan.com

What's new:

• Updated ILM page with Avengers credit
• Updated Resume
• New image rotations on main page, added new Ferry Building image
• Modified Photo page (more of that later)
• Updated Where I've Been Map
• Couple other smaller updates

Later, I think I am going to maybe update the photo gallery a little more and split the photos into galleries by photo type (Nature, People, Architecture), something like that. I will also probably pair down the "best photos" a little more and choose a smaller amount. I'm also planning to start spending more time on post-processing in the future so I may re-release some of the existing images after some post-processing work later in the year. Plus, of course, a selection of the best photos from South America!!

Good times,
Mike :)

Weight loss re-done with locally-weighted polynomial regression

My buddy and epic Math fiend Chris Twigg saw the previous crappy Linear Regression graph and suggested a fancier method of using R to do a locally-weighted polynomial regression instead for a better fit line. Anyhow, in a sign that I overwhelmingly need a stronger social life on a Sunday night, I just spent a bit of time refreshing myself on how to use R and drawing a plot using this cool method. Fancy!

Here are the results:

For the Math nerds in the crowd (I know there are a lot of you), here's my weight-vs-dates scatterplot redone in the statistical program "R", using locally-weighted polynomial regression

The green line is a smoothness of 0.2, the red line is a smoothness of the default which is 2/3.

If for some reason you desperately want to see a nicer regression line for your own epic weight loss, here's the code for it. Have fun :) And don't forget to put your own embarrassingly (though, previously) high weights and dates into it instead of using mine. :)

#R program for weight loss vs. date plot using locally-weighted polynomial regression
require(graphics)
require(stats)
library(lattice)

plot(weight)
dts <- c("2011-09-11", "2011-09-17", "2011-09-18", "2011-09-24", "2011-09-25", "2011-09-29", "2011-10-02", "2011-10-08", "2011-10-09", "2011-10-15", "2011-10-17", "2011-10-22", "2011-10-30", "2011-11-06", "2011-11-07", "2011-11-16", "2012-01-02", "2012-01-21", "2012-01-29", "2012-02-02", "2012-02-04", "2012-02-11", "2012-02-20", "2012-02-25", "2012-02-29", "2012-03-03", "2012-03-07", "2012-03-14", "2012-03-17", "2012-03-24", "2012-03-31", "2012-04-01", "2012-04-08", "2012-04-12", "2012-04-14", "2012-04-21", "2012-04-22", "2012-04-25", "2012-04-29")
weight <- c(210.2, 206.8, 206.8, 205.6, 205.6, 204.4, 204.4, 202.6, 202.6, 202.6, 201, 201, 199.6, 199.6, 198.4, 198.2, 200.6, 200.8, 199.2, 199.2, 198.2, 196.4, 195.2, 194.4, 193.2, 191.6, 191.6, 191.6, 189.8, 188.4, 186.4, 186.4, 186.4, 185, 185, 185, 185, 183.8, 182.8)
xyplot(weight~as.Date(dts), main = "Weight vs Dates")
lines(lowess(weight), col=2)
lines(lowess(weight, f=.2), col=3)

I guess I should probably go watch sports now or something.

Mike :)

Graphing my weight loss

This is pretty cool, I was just fiddling with Google's new Fusion Tables and made this useful plot of my weight loss over time from when I started tracking it on MyFitnessPal (Oct 2011) to now (May 2012). Very awesome to see the details in this time format. You can see the (small) plateaus and how actually they have been very short, usually on the order of a couple of 1-2 weeks long. Surprising.

Also interesting to see is this Christmas vacation, where I stopped recording on MyFitnessPal for about 3 weeks. Here you can see the only time in the graph where my weight loss was not decreasing week-by-week, in fact it did jump up about 3 lbs. But it's good to see that's the only place where I backtracked, and otherwise it's been full sail ahead since Oct 2011. Pretty motivating to see all my work lined up like this.

Weight loss by date (Oct 2011 - May 2012)

Maybe it's just the Math degree talking, but this data is pretty hot. You can't argue with the obvious negative slope here. But to see it better we gotta kick it up a notch, I didn't see Google's new code have fancy stuff like a least-squares/linear regression so let's copy it over to Excel and plot a Linear Regression line to get a more "summarized" view of what the data looks like...

That's some sexy linear regression, huh

I dunno about you, but it looks like whatever I am doing to lose weight (explained in detail here) is mathematically sound ;) This graph here is a bit easier to see cause we're removing those outliers (like the Christmas Break over-eating) and focusing more on the actual trend line itself. Which is clearly going downwards, and at a nice sustainable pace too. Math!

What are the takeaways here? Well I'm definitely sure that the weight loss is going well, though that was obvious before. I think the general thing I get from these graphs, especially the linear regression, is that a few little ups and downs are not really a big deal, the main thing to focus on is the solid, consistent work, and that I can very safely say that I am doing an awesome job. The trend line is good, but I want to continue it further until more things come in line (like body fat percentage, etc). Overall though, this is awesome to see, and really motivating. Woo!

Whhhhatttt!!!

Holy sweet damn, my favorite bass player in the world (from DMB ahhh!) just followed me on Twitter?!!?!!???! This is absurd!!!!!!!! Excuse me while I go exclaim my happiness from a mountain top...



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New DMB song on Jimmy Fallon tonight

Holy, sweet, damn.

http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/blogs/2012/04/dave-matthews-performs-mercy-at-unc-chapel-hill/

This album is gonna be mental.

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Body Fat Percentage test #1

The community on MyFitnessPal suggests roughly ignoring the BMI value for testing body fat/weight loss goals and focusing instead on Body Fat Percentage tests.

Apparently it takes a while and can be a bit expensive to get this done professionally, but you can do a simple tape measure version at home using different formulas. This was pretty easy, and the app "Fat2Fit" is pretty straightforward.

I got some interesting (and varying) results from the 3 different formulas:
"Original" Formula: 23.8%
Military Formula: 22.4%
Covert Bailey Formula: 17.5%.

This puts "lean muscle weight" at like 140-150lbs, and that's how it calculates fat on top on your lean weight. Interesting. These values are quite varying unfortunately, and since the healthy range ends at 19%, it's unclear whether I am in the healthy range yet or not. If you take an average of all the values, it's 21.2%, which is getting close.

So this data is a bit unclear but the one thing here is obvious, getting to my original goal weight of 180 lbs (very close now) is not good enough, as I suspected. My new goal to hit 170 next is a great call, and I may even push to 165 after that, though I bet that is gonna be TOUGH. Anyway, good to get a rough idea. Mostly this is just to plant a marker so I can re-test using all of these formulas again monthly and track my results more closely.

CNN: Why losing email is like a snow day

Great opinion piece about communication now and then, and how losing Gmail service for an hour last week has both pros and cons for our over-connected lives. Great piece.

"Whenever there is an unexpected silence -- cell service goes dead or e-mail freezes up -- we get a chance to reflect on how much we rely on technology. A digital break can at times feel like a treat, Bob Greene says."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/22/opinion/greene-gmail/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Fat former self sez (photo #3)

The epic fitness goal continues!

I'm so psyched to announce that I'm now past 185 lbs, with a total loss of 25 lbs so far. Fitness, healthy eating and weight loss is my big goal for 2012 and it's going really well so far. It's actually been surprisingly straightforward after making some serious and well-thought-out changes to diet and exercise. (See this old blog post for details). In honour of this progress, here's the next installment of my self-imposed internet meme "Fat Former Self".

Now, why the hell would I intentionally post horrible photos of me at an earlier weight? Well... lots of reasons. It's fun to share a sort of ridiculous before/after style photo with friends, but more importantly, this is my way of increasing social pressure on myself to make sure I maintain this weight loss. By tracking down horrid photos of me as "Fat Former Self" (and also, referring to my old pics as that), I'm celebrating how much happier I am with my weight loss/fitness progress so far. Each photo reminds me further why I'm so glad I've made these healthy changes, and how I never want to drop the ball in the future and end up re-gaining this weight.

Good luck to all of you also working hard to lose weight and get healthy - it's tough, but it's SO worth it. Keep working hard. MyFitnessPal is an awesome website/iPhone app, and I've found it incredibly helpful to keep my head in the game, and really learn about calories, it's been very surprising and enlightening.

Night Photography: Success!!

My buddy Justin and I headed out to Treasure Island tonight, the island smack-dab in the middle of the San Francisco Bay between Emeryville/Oakland and San Francisco. I brought my new ball-head tripod and had some pretty solid success with it tonight!

I'll post more photos later, but just spent a bit of time post-processing my favourite one, so just this one for now. I'll post more later when I get time to post-process.

San Francisco Ferry Building, from Treasure Island
Canon Rebel T1i // ISO 100 // 250mm // f/20 // 15 sec. Postprocess in Lightroom 4.

Learned a few significant things tonight, and made some good progress after our last nighttime photo shoot on Twin Peaks:

• You actually (surprisingly) don't want to use a low (wide) aperture for nighttime shots of scenery like this. I had brought my 50mm f/1.8 lens and figured that would be useful, but I didn't even take it out.
• Small aperture is your friend here, as those cool star patterns only show up past f/15 or so.
• Holy crap shooting in RAW is a good idea. I shot in RAW+Jpg, and realized only afterwards that my favourite shot (this one) was shot with White Balance of Daylight. This caused a very yellowish/orange glow of the lights which was... ok... but in comparison with the final image I am incredibly pleased I was able to change the colour temperature AFTER taking the photo. The comparison is shocking (see comparison image below)
• Hat, gloves and windbreaker are a good call for nighttime photography!
• Post-process is actually much more awesome than I thought. In my photo class we were taught to try to get everything right in-camera, even cropping if possible. So I try to do as much at shooting time as I can. But stuff like incorrect white balance or noise or wanting stronger shadows is too hard or impossible to get right at shooting time. I am VERY happy with the results you can get in Lightroom, and this post-process on the image above only took about 20 or 30 min. Not bad.
• Oh yeah, and Lightroom is awesome. It's slow on my Windows machine, not sure why. These RAW files are like 15 megs each, but still. I might try it on my Mac and see if it's faster there before I commit to buying it on one platform or the other.

And now for the before and after, check this out... crazy. When I took this photo I loooved it and figured it was gonna be the best one of the night. It still was the best of the lot when I got home, but once I started fiddling with it in Lightroom the power and potential of post-processing became pretty obvious.

 Not a bad photo, in fact I still really like it. But man look at those oranges, the red/orange colour bleed on the buildings, not that great.

And side-by-side in Lightroom 4:

Really happy with the more natural lighting look in the post-processed image, and the sharpness brought on by the improved contrast.

Those streaky lines by the way were caused by a tourist cruise boat driving by while I was taking the photo. The framing of the cruise boat lights on the San Francisco sign is a complete accident, and I love how that kind of accident works out sometimes :)

Matcha

Back in '09 when I went to Japan I was really surprised at the kind of green tea they gave us at the sushi place I went to - it was powdered and you just added hot water to it and stirred. I was so surprised and it tasted great, a little bitter (or "bittersweet") with what people usually call "vegetal sweetness". Haha that word is weird. It is a bit grassy-tasting but has this interesting sweetness to it. Pretty damn awesome. I think it's often used for Green Tea Ice Cream.

I haven't had it in ages and just noticed on Steepster that there is a fancy matcha from a company called PureMatcha that looks pretty tasty. Reviews were great and it looks pretty fun. There is a cool preparation method too, you can get this crazy bamboo whisk and that's the usual method for stirring it. When you stir it in such a way, it often foams up. I guess they must use a lower grade version of this for stuff like Green Tea Frappucinos at Starbucks. Anyhow, this looks pretty good and I think I'm gonna try it at some point. Maybe I should start with a cheaper one first from Japantown, but I'd love to get the tea preparation equipment too.

Maaan this bamboo whisk looks so friggin' badass!!!! Yes. "I want to go to there."

Tea it upppp

Electric DeLorean

Um... SOLD!!!!!!!! Hoverboards are next :)

I love the plates. "Gas? Where we're going, we won't need gas!

Isotope Wines

Check out my buddy Justin Rose's new wine company! He's the "chief wine nerd" and founder/winemaker of Sonoma Valley's Isotope Wines. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay both now on sale on his site here: http://isotopewines.com/

Both wines are badass. Just got some of the Chard last week... looking forward to cracking it open after Passover :)

Use coupon code CARBON12 for a savings of 8.33% on a case of 12.

Quoted in EaterSF Article!

haha, this is awesome. EaterSF just quoted me in their article about Wise Sons Deli in The Mission, this is hilarious.

http://sf.eater.com/archives/2012/04/06/the_early_word_on_wise_sons_delicatessen_in_the_mission.php

About the Pastrami:

Blogger Mike Jutan writes, “the pastrami really holds up and the portion is more reasonable/less over-the-top than the usual Katz or Carnegie ‘whole-cow’ style.”

About the Pickles:

Blogger Mike Jutan asks and answers: “so... how are the pickles? The answer: garlicy enough to kill 1,000 vampires and crunchy like the wolf.” 

Haha, "Blogger Mike Jutan" :) I really love that Deli and this EaterSF article is some great further promo for them. The demand there is justifiably very high... Go Wise Sons! I'll have to go there again soon (well, not during Passover) :)

Thanks to Aliza for the heads up about the article!

1000 Awesome Things: Canada :)

JUST mentioned Neil Pasricha in the last post and noticed he's just posted #10 in his "1000 Awesome Things" countdown. And it's about... the land true north strong and free... Oh Canada :) How I love you, you epic land of awesome.

Check it out, this totally rocks. http://1000awesomethings.com/2012/04/06/10-canada/

Positive Psychology on TED

Been really interested in the field of Positive Psychology lately. The "father" of positive psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman, describes it as an alternative to tradition psychology, which historically focused on fixing mental illness. In contrast, Positive Psychology aims to study what makes people happy, what attitudes/skills/environments are conducive to happy and productive work, and so on. This is truly fascinating, and it feels to immediately applicable to my life.

Just watched a couple of interesting TED talks from two of the big-dawgs in the movement, Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. As usual I'm up watching and reading too late again, it's 2:30 and it might be an "early" night compared to the usual this week. Oy. :) Anyway I could discuss a bunch of thoughts right now but maybe I'll leave it for another time, or after I've read some more. Dr. Seligman has a couple of books, my Dad is currently reading his new one "Flourish" and recommends it, so I'll plan to check that out when I have the time. In any case, this is incredibly fascinating stuff.

I really wish I had taken Psychology classes while at University, too bad it was such a busy life in the Computer Science faculty! That's ok though, it seems with amazing things like TED, iTunesU, Khan Academy etc, the intellectually curious have a mountain of amazing and worthwhile lecture material available online - and mostly free too. Totally amazing!

If you want the quick play-by-play, Wikipedia has quite a nice long article about it here. I found myself waiting at the Doctor's office for a good hour and a half earlier this week, and spent the whole time reading this Wikipedia page in detail, it's pretty awesome.

The thing I think I really like about this is how immediately applicable it is. The famed "Happiness" class at Harvard that is based on some of this research is making waves and it's clear why it's so successful: everyone wants to learn how to maximize it in their own lives! Me too. I'm gonna check out those books and post some more thoughtful articles in the future about it. But for now, some great TEDs that I've watched recently on this and similar topics. Shane Achor's TED is fantastic and he's a a great, energetic speaker too. And of course, I gotta re-post epic fellow Torontonian Neil Pasricha's talk on "The 3 A's of Awesome". I love that guy's books, and he is so cool and soooo Canadian. What a champ!


Martin Seligman: Why is psychology good?


Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow


Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work


TEDxToronto - Neil Pasricha "The 3 A's of Awesome"

One Laptop Per Child

Wow, how freakin' AWESOME is this???

After my previous post about Abel, I had to read more. That cute Peruvian kid called his one-laptop-per-child laptop "his friend" because he can open it up when he is home alone and he can play, and when he doesn't want to play he can write stories or draw instead. Oh. MAN.

So I had to learn more about this organization. It's called One Laptop Per Child (http://one.laptop.org/) and is founded by the founders of the MIT Media Lab. Epic. You know, I think I heard a bit about this a while back but hadn't really heard many details since then. After seeing the laptop in the movie Life in a Day, I wanted to see their progress and it's really impressive.

I wanted to know more about their organization and it looks like the laptops they supply to 3rd-world countries are Linux-based, running a custom OS that they develop called "Sugar". It looks like all the software developed on this system is done in Python (ie., awesome).

The coolest thing is you can propose a project and donate your time to DEVELOP AN APP for these systems?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is really freakin' awesome, and such an interesting way to make a difference. I reaaaaaaaaaaally like this idea.

For any CS friends who are interested, check out their information and their "Contributors Program" here. This is some really fascinating stuff, and what an awesome way to make a huge impact on the world with your software development skills. I friggin' love this.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developers
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program

My favourite clip from Life in a Day

Not sure why I hadn't posted this until now, this is my favourite clip from Life in a Day.

This sweet kid from Peru is so hardworking and appreciative of his life despite what looks like pretty heavy poverty. The coolest part is at the end of the video when he brings out his laptop, part of the One Laptop Per Child program and says he loves Wikipedia because it's like "a big library"?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man I was so blown away by this clip. I have to learn more about this organization, this really is so awesome.


Abel's story


Abel and a Professor from Lima at the Sundance Film Festival where the film was released

Full-frame vs. Cropped DSLR Camera debate

The Canon 5D3 is out and is EPIC, but also $3500 and super far out of my price range. But, with the release of the 5D3, the 5D2 - still a truly amazing machine after 4-ish years on the market - is dropping like a brick in the price department.

Been doing some research to see if it actually makes sense for me to upgrade to a full-frame at some point. Given the dropping price of the 5D2 (going for ~$1600 on Craigslist or Ebay) it seems a good thing to think about.

I found articles on both sides of the issue. This one: http://www.extremeinstability.com/topic-full-frame.htm argues against full-frame, discussing the issues of vignetting on the frame edges and that the quality of the lens declines as you get closer to the edges. A cropped sensor does not use the edges of the frame, and so you don't have those issues.

This article from Ken Rockwell http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/full-frame-advantage.htm takes the completely opposite stance, voting strongly for the quality of Full-Frame and suggesting much greater clarity/sharpness, colour differentiation, and low noise giving you the ability to get more out of a given ISO setting.

Finally, this article is less biased one way or another http://digital-photography-school.com/full-frame-sensor-vs-crop-sensor-which-is-right-for-you and seems to just encourage you to pick a camera based on how you plan to use it. It suggests a cropped sensor if you take a lot of wildlife photos or sports, since the cropped sensor in effect gives you a free multiplier on your zoom lenses. It suggests a full-frame if you take a lot of photos of architecture or landscapes and might benefit more from more use on the wider-angle spectrum.

Given a quick peruse of my favourite photos of the last few years (http://www.mikejutan.com/photos/) my broad style of photos seems to cover roughly: architecture, people, portraits, nature, landcapes. These mostly fall in the wide-angle camp and there are some close-ups, but they are all shot at pretty close range and not zoomed-in from afar (the effect that you would get from a cropped sensor).

So that seems somewhat conclusive. I'd be interested to make sure I don't end up with the vignetting issues that the first guy talks about, and perhaps that means dropping some further bills on a 28-105 f/4 lens which is certainly gonna increase the "upgrade cost". So it's a tough call, but I've been a big fan of the 5D2 for a long time and I'd be interested to trade-up from my T1i if the time was right.

I think the best advice comes from Ken Rockwell (and, my buddy Schmuel Zimmer): the camera (and even the lens) isn't gonna be what makes you good, and isn't gonna be what makes you a better photographer. Only practice will do that. Joel suggested upgrading "only if I think it's gonna make me go out and shoot more" - that's a great suggestion. I don't know if that's definitely the case or not, likely not. But, on the other hand, I'm starting to plan for more photo hikes with my buddy Justin and reading more about night photography, and just bought a pretty cool ball-head swivel tripod. So it does seem like I'm enjoying this more and more as time goes on. A photo class might be a good idea, and I also want to spend a solid amount of time learning better post-processing skills in Lightroom. Just downloaded the trial of Lightroom 4 and it's pretty awesome - seems like a reduced-scale Photoshop with only some key things you really need, and without the mountain of things to learn. Pretty nice. After Peru and Argentina I think I am gonna spend a good amount of time post-processing the best images of that trip, and also going back to some old photos and pimpin' them out a bit. I'll then re-post those to my website, and perhaps split up the photo section into different categories - trimming the images down further and focusing even further on quality over quantity.

Interesting article on Blogging vs Social Media

Interesting article from Calgary. Go Bloggers!

http://www.calgaryherald.com/touch/news/story.html?id=6391879


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