Stargazer's Garage

The price for premium fuel here in Metro Vancouver is the highest in North America, reaching $1.799/L (about $6.80/gallon) earlier this week. Luckily, the last time I needed to fill the tank in the T8 was over a month ago! Since picking up our XC90 at the end of January with a full tank of gas and 12 km on the odometer, I've filled it up 3 times. Using an app that calculates consumption based upon distance traveled and fuel filled, our 3 month average fuel consumption is currently 4.58L/100 km (over 51 mpg). We’re averaging over 1000 km per tank. Not bad for living at the top of a mountain, hauling our large family around, and even helping my daughter move all her things between apartments from city to city.

While Roam Mobility worked fine for us in Portland, coverage in rural areas is severely lacking. Despite their access map showing coverage along Highway 20 as far east as Hamilton, in reality, we lost data on the outskirts of Sedro Woolley. At the campground, I switched in the AT&T SIM card and all is good again. Data is my oxygen.

29 June 2015 Day 2 wasn't as impressive as yesterday, but I was still able to earn over 330k AP in my quest to level up in Ingress . My biggest accomplishment was deploying 580 resonators and getting that much closer to the gold Builder badge. I concentrated on two areas today in downtown PoCo (Leigh Square and the PoCo Trail) for a total of 5 km of walking. AP earned: 337,595 Resonators deployed: 580 Distance walked: 5 km My Summer of Ingress Total Distance Walked: 19 km

My Summer Of Ingress: Day 1 - 29 June 2015 Today was a big day of Ingress for me. I walked over 14 km in two sections of south Richmond! I started at the dog park at the end of No. 3 Road and did a lot of doubling back for keys and creating fields for about 9 km of walking. I then parked the car near the Britannia Shipyards and walked into Steveston for another 5 km. My feet are very tired, but I also feel a great sense of satisfaction. I measured the actual walking distance from my car with my Garmin Fenix GPS watch. The Ingress app actually credited me with 18 km. AP earned: 482,715 Portals captured: 104 (93 uniques) Resonators deployed: 896 Missions completed: 13 As a bonus, I also hacked 3 AXA and 3 Ultra Link Amps. I had to Jarvis and recapture one of my portals at the end to finish a mission, but then I hacked another Jarvis to replace it.

To the average person, the Omega Speedmaster Professional looks like any other wristwatch. It doesn't attract a lot of attention and that's one of the main reasons why I enjoy wearing it. One time someone looked at the Speedmaster on my wrist and told me that the second hand was broken. I just smiled noncommittally and didn't bother to explain. There are things about this iconic watch that I appreciate and I don't care if other people know it or not. While my particular Speedmaster has not been on the moon, it has a heritage and a place in space history that holds special interest to me. I like that it is manual wind and it gets life from its user. The main reason I enjoy this watch so much is that I didn't buy it for myself. A few years before my 5-year-old son was born, I decided to buy something that was worthy of passing down and the Omega Speedmaster Professional was what I picked. So I'm borrowing it for now and giving it good use until the time is right ...

I used to be obsessed with the accuracy on my mechanical wristwatches. I kept records and measured time and it bothered me if a watch as plus or minus more than a few seconds per day, until I came to the realization that none of them would ever be as accurate as any of the solar-powered atomic watches I had. That's when I accepted that every watch had a specific purpose and role in my collection and that my everyday survival did not depend on up-to-the-second accuracy. The solar atomics are soulless robots that serve well, by my mechanical timepieces are living machines given life through movement. The time I spend winding and adjusting and listening to each one is a little night time ritual that gives me much pleasure.

Health and fitness apps will be key selling points for smartwatches

The CaptCase leather iPhone cover   was the second campaign that I backed on Kickstarter that was successfully funded, but it is the first to be delivered to me. The packaging it came with was very nice and quite suitable for gift giving. Although I do like my Twelve South BookBook leather iPhone cover, after a year of use some of the stitching is coming apart. The CaptCase is a similar design but slimmer with a cutout for the camera and an outside pocket for a card or two. It is available for the iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5 and cost me less than half the price of the BookBook.

I recently purchased a Nitecore EA4W  flashlight after educating myself with some of the excellent reviews written by Selfbuilt over on CandlePowerForums. I'm very pleased with this high-powered compact LED flashlight that runs on only 4 AA batteries. Before I knew anything about the real world of flashlights I purchased a  MAGLITE® LED 3-Cell D Flashlight from Walmart. You can see it in the top picture. It's brightness is rated at 131 Lumens. By contrast, the Nitecore EA4 is much more compact and rated at 860 Lumens . The picture on the bottom right shows the Maglite on the left and the Nitecore on the right shining on a fence about 30 ft away. The difference is clear. The Nitecore is noticeably brighter in the grass directly in front as well as on the fence.  I bought the "W" version of the Nitecore EA4 that has a warmer LED than the cool white that is also available. The Maglite has a cool white LED. The compact size of the Nitecore EA4 will make it much ea...

This TYLT Energi Backpack with Built-in Battery was my fourth successfully funded Kickstarter campaign, but the second one to ship. The whole project was very professionally run and actually shipped early. The bag is awesome: very high quality with lots of well designed pockets like my SCOTTEVEST products. The built-in battery can charge 3 devices at the same time and has the capacity to charge an iPhone about 6 times.

I recently acquired a Garmin fenix GPS watch (pictured in the center in the above photo). It's a very capable sports watch that has the ability to track and monitor a variety of data as well as help you navigate wherever you want to go in your outdoor adventures. My previous ABC (altimeter, barometer, compass) watch was a titanium solar atomic Casio ProTrek, pictured on the left. The third digital sports watch in my collection, pictured on the right is a Casio G-Shock Mudman.  The Garmin fenix has a built-in rechargeable battery that charges through a specially designed USB docking station. When you plug the docking station into a computer you can access the fenix as USB mass storage and backup or transfer files. Garmin says with the GPS on you should be able to get about 50 hours of use. With the GPS off and used only as a watch, the battery should last around 6 months. Timekeeping with the GPS on is very accurate because it synchronizes with satellites, but with the GPS of...

I recently picked up a number of items that I had ordered online including a Titanium Spork from Light My Fire. I used it this morning to eat an omelette and I'm glad to say it worked quite well. I expected the knife/cutting section not to be sharp because it goes into your mouth, but it cut surprisingly well. Our staff room at work is notorious for not having enough proper eating utensils--especially when needed the most--so the Spork will definitely come in handy. 

I recently acquired a Garmin fenix Outdoor GPS Watch through an air miles reward program. This awesome watch uses GPS and a variety of sensors so that you can track, navigate and gather all sorts of trip information whenever you are out and about. You can also upload your tracking data to a smartphone or tablet through Bluetooth to view your progress or review your journey. What's even more awesome is having enough loyalty points the get Garmin fenix including shipping and taxes without having to pay anything extra! The Garmin fēnix comes with a variety of user-programmable Profiles that tailors the data shown on the watch to the particular activity you are doing, such as Hiking, Running, Cycling, and Geocaching. However, I encountered a problem where some of the profiles shown to me in the setup wizard were deleted once I started to use the watch. The ones I was interested in were: Mountain Biking, Hunting, Military, and Off Road--not because I was going to be participating i...

Slowpoke drivers who hog the fast lane may be frustrating to some, but are they breaking the law? CTV British Columbia | Videos - Driving Slow in the Fast Lane 'via Blog this'

Monty Mushroom And Bacon Poutine @ White Spot Restaurant Originally uploaded by istargazer .

Speedmaster in Waikiki Originally uploaded by istargazer .

Taken at Waikiki Police Station

Taken at Waikiki Police Station