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Monday, September 9, 2013

Car clubs of B.C. listings

1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1
1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1
Here's a list of the many collector car clubs in British Columbia. If you want your club added as a listing on this site, please leave a comment with the name of your club and its web address and I'll post the link.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Home Depot tool rental price list

I noticed that it's a bit of a challenge finding a Home Depot tool rental price list (updated Sept. 2012) on the web so I decided to scan one that I acquired from the PoCo location at 1069 Nicola Ave, Port Coquitlam, BC, V3B 8B2, Canada (Phone number: 604-468-3361).

Note that the prices may vary from location-to-location, the time of the year and availability. You may even save some dollars on certain specials that they run from time to time.

 For example, during the spring I rented a power rake during the week and there was a discount. Conveniently, the Port Coquitlam location lists their hours at the top of the rental list as well.

If this helped, please leave a comment below so I know people found this useful.  If it's used regularly, I'll try and update routinely.  BTW, if it's a bit blurry when you zoom in, I found that if you zoom out and zoom back in it becomes clearer.

Home Depot tool rental list
Click on image to see full list

Monday, July 2, 2012

Woody's on Brunette Show and Shine 2012

Woody’s On Brunette’s hosted its Annual Canada Day Show & Shine in support of the Woody's Dare to Dream Foundation.

The weather cleared up shortly after 11 a.m., after dark clouds and drizzle threatened the event and by the early afternoon cloud and sun brought out more cars and show goers.


 Barbequed eats were served up along with great tunes.

There were prizes awarded for the top 3 People's Choice vehicles as well as a 50/50 draw and several raffle prizes.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

What to do about bad breath before a fasting blood test

So it's morning and you've just woken up after fasting for 8-14 hours preparing for your blood test. However, you have the worst case of bad breath and you want to save the poor medical lab staff and other patients in the waiting room from the foul odor of your chronic halitosis. So what you can do about it without interfering with your blood work?

I talked to my local medical lab, B.C. Biomedical Labs, and asked what your options are. They indicated that you can do three things:

  1. Brush your teeth, tongue and roof of your mouth then rinse thoroughly to minimize swallowing any toothpaste.
  2. A little bit of mouthwash is acceptable but spit and possibly rinse with water to minimize swallowing any of the mouthwash.
  3. Do nothing. Go in with bad breath and all but have a mint or some gum handy for after your test is over.

Of course the best thing to do is to call and speak with your doctor and/or medical lab before hand to confirm what is acceptable.



Tuesday, February 15, 2011

How to get the Shared Dream in the iPhone Inception app

Dream completed
The Inception app is an augmented reality game of discovery. By performing some sort of action you unlock dream levels that, when listened through headphones, dynamically mixes the soundtrack of the movie with sounds around you.

This tutorial instructs on how to unlock "The Shared Dream" in the iPhone/iPod Touch app. If you want to figure out the game on your own stop reading.

***** SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT ******

You must have GameCenter installed on your iPhone to get the Shared Dream.  It is worth 50 achievement points in GameCentre if you initiate this dream with 1-6 players, however, unlock this dream with 7 or more players you will get 100 achievement points.

This dream was a bit tricky to unlock as it didn't instantly unlock as described in the application.  Despite having our GPS on and pressing the dream inducer arrows/buttons in the Inception app it didn't automatically unlock the Shared Dream.  This is despite having the iPhones sit next to each other for 30 minutes engaged in the Still Dream (not in infinity mode). We tried experimenting a bit thinking that the GPS wasn't activating within the app.  So we tried moving, getting into a car and driving, and more but it wouldn't unlock.

What did work for us was as follows:

  1. Reboot the phone (this is a precautionary measure and we're not certain it is required)
  2. Ensure that you have headphones plugged in (this is also a precautionary measure)
  3. Ensure that GameCentre is installed on your iPhones and you are logged into both.
  4. Ensure that you have added one another as a friend in GameCentre
  5. In the Friends section of GameCentre, click on your friend's name
  6. Under their name you'll see a list of games you have in common with your Friend, click on Inception - The App
  7. Click on the brown Play button in upper right hand corner of GameCentre to start the Inception app.  We believe that this may help the phones find one another.
  8. Once Inception - The App starts, click the induce dream arrows/buttons and lay the phones down next to each other (or in the same room at least)
  9. Wait.  It took about 5-10 minutes for it to work.  When it does, you will get a screen that says that the dream is unlocked.  If you have a jailbroken phone, it may crash but once you relaunch the crashed app and click on the Shared Dream dreamspace it will say it's unlocked.  Simply click on the infinite play button to fill the dreamspace in.
Figure 1
Once you have acquired the Shared Dream and initiate it with the dream inducer arrows, the screen will have a animated circle with the number of people you are sharing the dream with as seen in Figure 1 to the right.

It should be noted that we were located indoors when we did this.  When you are indoors, we believe it's using cell tower triangulation to get a fix on you which is less accurate than true GPS tracking.  This whole process may be made easier if done outside using a true GPS signal.

This completes the dreamscape.  I note that my friend's version of the app has all these Google Map icons in his dream pieces.  Also, note that the images in the dream pieces seem to be different from phone to phone.

If this worked for you (or didn't) or if you have discovered some other tips to get this dream functioning more easily, please post a comment below to help others. 

Saturday, January 29, 2011

My top 10 ways to motivate yourself to continue exercising (+1 bonus)

So, you're a month into your new year's resolution to workout and eat right and you're finding you are loosing the momentum that you had when you started.  Now is the time you really need to pull up your socks and not be one of "those people" who drop out when the going gets tough.  

This is particularly true if you're about a month into a program like P90X as the highest drop out rate occurs at this point.

Without further ado, here are my top 10 things (in no particular order) that motivate you to continue to working out: 
  1. Buy new stuff - Trying buying some new equipment like runners, weight gloves, heart rate monitor, etc. After buying a new set of runners, who doesn’t want to go out and try them out?  Same goes with a heart rate monitor, first time you get one you’ll find that you’re checking your heart rate every 2 minutes. 
  2. Try supplements – A subset of buying new stuff, is to pick up some new supplements and see how they improve your workout.  One of the best for weight or resistance training is Creatine. Seeing it’s impacts on your body.  If you can handle them, even try an energy drink.  You may be surprised by the increased performance you get even if the results are psychosomatic.
  3. Take your supplements before your workout – Related to trying supplements, if you’re the type of person who makes and excuse minutes before your workout, try taking your supplement such as creatine 30 minutes before your workout.  You’re less likely to renege on your workout as you don’t want to waste what you’ve just paid to consumed.
  4. Competition – You know that guy on the treadmill next to you?  Try running faster than him or running longer.  Is he at the gym more often than you?  Well, keep up with him.  I may sound childish or immature but a little healthy competition can lead to motivation to some.  Just keep your abilities in check cuz if he's benching 250lbs and you're just starting out you're going to get hurt.
  5. Workout partner(s) classes – This can be part of competition but doesn’t have to be.  Sometimes it is easier to let yourself down than others.  Try being each other's motivation and also try out doing one another by competing to see who can keep with the program or even sneaking in extra workouts to get on better than your buddy.
  6. Documentation – Try keeping your work outs documented with workout sheets, a diary or share your experiences in a blog.  Not only will it keep track of your progress but it may serve to benefit others who are going through the same process as you.
  7. Yourself – Don't let yourself down.  If you miss a day ensure you make up for it cuz if you miss 1 it’s easy to miss 2.  If I only worked out when I felt like it cuz I was feeling good and had energy, I’d likely only be working out 10% of the time.  Therefore, if you want maximum benefit, it’s the other 90% (when you don't feel like working out) that really counts to get yourself motivated.
  8. Change of scenery – If you're running or walking and it's starting to get monotonous, try simply taking a different route.  A change of scenery will be a welcome change and there’s nothing that’ll kill a workout more than monotony. 
  9. A schedule – You can’t workout if you can’t make the time. Schedule a regular time in your day to workout.  Make sure you get your spouse's or partner’s support so they can take care of the kids or do the chores while you're working out.  Of course, you'll have to do the same for them if they are trying to keep with a routine.  If you have a hard time doing this at home, try joining a fitness class as they are already scheduled for you.  Plus the fact that you paid money for the class may add some additional motivation to ensure that you get your money's worth.
  10. Change your workout – Don’t do the same thing day in and day out.  Trying a new workout DVD or a different routine. Programs like P90X, Insanity and Power 90 have alot of variety to them to keep things changing.  It will also keep your body from adapting and eventually plateauing.
  11. Get a trainer – When I say get a trainer, it doesn’t have to be a professional at $80/hr.  Use a DVD to follow along with or if you have friends who are gung ho about working out, use their experience as a coach.
Do you have some additional things that motivate you to keep working out.  Please share them by posting your ideas below.

Monday, January 24, 2011

How to get the "KICK" achievement in the iPhone Inception app

The Inception app is an augmented reality game of discovery. By performing some sort of action, you unlock dream levels that, when listened through headphones, dynamically mixes the soundtrack of the movie with sounds around you.

This tutorial instructs on how to unlock "The Kick" achievement. If you want to figure out the game on your own stop reading now as I am providing spoilers on to how to unlock "the Kick" secret feature in the iPhone/iPod Touch app.

***** SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT ******
  1. You must have GameCenter installed on your iPhone to get the Kick.  It is worth 100 points
  2. For maximum benefit it's recommended that you associate Inception with your Twitter and/or Facebook account to document the fact that you discovered the Kick.
  3. Induce a regular dream such as the Still Dream or the Sleep Dream.  I did this with the Sleep Dream.  It cannot be in infinity mode. This can apparently be done in infinity mode too as tested in the Reward Dream. The Kick may actually work with any dream state as I've heard it worked with the Action Dream too.
  4. You must sustain the regular dream for about 5 minutes  after which time the screen which normally slowly pulses red, starts to flash rapidly.  Musical horns will start to fade in and sound like a train is coming and suddenly it'll be quiet.  As soon as it becomes quiet, the Infinity sign will completely disappear for about 3 seconds.
  5. 
    Figure 1
  6. Like in the movie, "the Kick" is triggered by the sensation of falling.  So when the infinity sign disappears, you must recreate the sensation of falling. This can be done by dropping your phone about a half a foot or higher onto a soft surface such as your blankets or a pillow.  Some say the action of jumping or "leaping" and then landing on your feet will induce the same sensation for the iPhone but I haven't had luck with that.  Remember after the horns stop and the infinity sign disappears, you only have about 3 seconds to execute the Kick before the infinity sign returns.  If you miss the window of opportunity you must wait for another 5 minutes.
  7. If done correctly you'll be given a white screen as displayed to the right that says you've taken the Kick and to take a snapshot of reality (as displayed in figure 1).  There is no time limit to take the picture. If you have associated the application with Twitter or Facebook you can take your photo and publish it to either social network.  If you Tweet it and you follow the official Twitter account @inceptiontheapp, they may retweet your accomplishment.  Lastly, as an additional feature, your dream inducing buttons (which are normally red) will turn to gold.
If you got it work work, let's hear about it.  Post a comment or a link to your Kick snapshot.  Also, if you discovered a problem with these instructions or a better method, leave a comment and we'll amend the instructions..