This is a two part interview. You can find Part 1 of my interview with Duane Storey here.
Of all the places you’ve traveled to, which location has been your favourite and why?
That’s tough! I think every place has an attribute that’s unique and hard to top in other locations. In Buenos Aires I appreciated how much time people spent socializing. In Vancouver it’s pretty hard to find anything to do after about 11pm on a weekday (in fact, many stores and coffee shops are shut down at that point), whereas in Buenos Aires you’d routinely see people out on patios sipping coffee or a beer at 1am. Some of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen were sitting in a little pub on the beach in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. In terms of an actual city, Edinburgh, Scotland is probably at the top of my list – it’s the perfect combination of the old and the new.
To know you is to know that you like your nachos! For all the nacho lovers out there, where did you encounter the very best nachos?
Also tough! They said hunger is the best sauce, and I think that applies to nachos as well. I had a really great batch of nachos at the top of Grouse Mountain after doing the Grouse Grind, but hunger may have had something to do with those. In Vancouver, probably the two best locations are the Two Parrots on Granville street and Smiley O’Neils on Pender.
As a techie, you say you are naturally attracted to shiny objects. What is the shiniest object you were attracted to as a child and what is the shiniest object you are attracted to as an adult?
My mom tells a story of me getting bored one day and dismantling our Commodore 64 into a pile of pieces and then putting it back together. It’s a true story, and is probably why I eventually went to school to become an engineer. I was always interested in knowing how things worked, not simply that they did. As a kid I spent a lot of time messing around with that Commodore 64 and eventually my first PC. As an adult I have to say my iPhone 4 is probably the coolest tech gadget I own, although I have lots of little toys such as the iPad and my new micro four thirds camera.
You share with your blog readers that you were thrown through a plate glass window in 2006 which obviously landed you in hospital. Would you mind sharing how this incident happened and how it impacted your life?
I was attending a friend’s wedding one night and ended up at the Railway Club in Vancouver. When the bar shut down I was the last person left out in front trying to hail a taxi. I ran into four guys who were harassing a group of young girls and I attempted to diffuse the situation since the girls didn’t appreciate some of the things the guys were saying to them. Before I knew it I was fending off punches from some of the guys. The police say I was thrown through the plate glass window the 7-11, but I honestly don’t have any memory of that. I do remember suddenly being on the ground and covered in glass when suddenly I took a kick directly in my left temple by one of the guys.
I ended up in the hospital that night with cuts to my face and my scalp, as well as five broken bones in my face due to that kick. I had two rounds of plastic surgery to put my left eye back in the proper position, and now have a 4cm by 4cm piece of plastic seated in my eye socket to hold everything together.
In truth though, other than the surgeries, looking back the incident was a net positive. It caused me to re-evaluate my life and to reconnect with some old friends. It also was the catalyst for me becoming active in the Vancouver social media scene, and also for me to start blogging. Eventually it led me to meeting Rebecca and John Bollwitt, Vancouver musician Matthew Good, and also my current business partner, Dale Mugford. That led to me forming my own company, and gaining the ability to travel the world while working. Had I managed to get into a cab that night, I may have saved myself a few surgeries but would I probably still be stuck at a job in Vancouver I didn’t really like.
In a blog article entitled Generation iPod you wrote, “While it is true that it is the use of the technology and generally not the technology itself that makes it harmful, I think we have the capacity to become too wrapped up in it all and lose ourselves.” Do you ever get too wrapped up in your blogging? Does blogging affect how you interact with the people in your life?
I’ve met a lot of great people through blogging, and most of my best friends are very active online. That said, many of them appear to be happiest when they are disconnected for a while, and I can’t help but feel that it’s far too easy to get overwhelmed with blogging and social media in general. The low barrier they provide to meeting people makes it too easy to form inconsequential relationships that can easily take away from time that could be used on genuine relationships with friends or family. That was one of the best aspects of visiting Argentina – you didn’t see a lot of people spending time on Facebook or Twitter, they would rather put the phones and computers away and go sit on a patio with their friends.
You recently starting posting about the little tube amp project you plan to get underway in the fall of 2011. What is a tube-based hi-fidelity home audio amplifer and why are you building one?
Most amplifiers people use at home are based on solid state components (i.e. transistors). They work similarly to vacuum tubes, but produce a type of distortion that is often characterized as “harsh”. In contrast, vacuum tubes product musical sounding distortion and are far easier to listen to. Many audiophiles refuse to use anything but tube amplifiers, as do many musicians. Given that I have a degree in electrical engineering, I’ve always wanted to design and build my own tube amplifier. Unfortunately it’s a time consuming project and I haven’t had enough time to dedicate to it. But one day I’ll manage to build on.
Shira Lazar did a guest entry on your blog during the 2008 Blogathon which helped to raise over $10,000 for the Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver as well as some of Vancouver’s homeless. If you could choose anyone in the blogosphere to do a guest entry on your blog, who would it be?
I always like meeting artistic people, and would love to get an entry from someone who could provide thoughtful insight into a subject. I was recently reading some poetry by Amber Tamblyn, so I would definitely welcome an entry from her.
You’ve photographed many musicians and fashion models. What famous person would you most like to photograph?
Everywhere I went in Argentina people asked me if I knew Michael Buble (since his girlfriend is from Argentina and I am from Canada). I actually took a few random shots of Michael during the Juno awards in Calgary, but never had a chance to meet him or photograph him in a personal setting. So, that would be pretty cool. In terms of fashion models, I would probably say Beau Garrett.
As a seasoned photographer, what is one tip or piece of advice you could offer to the average person wanting to take a better picture?
Just get out more and take photos. There’s famous quote that there are no great photographers, only great photographs. Even the best photographers I know through away 95 shots out of every 100. So just get out, have fun and take lots of shots.
You and your business partner have developed some very successful wordpress plugins. What inspired these creations and will you develop more of them?
Most of our plugins were created as solutions to our own problems. Once they solved our problems we worked on monetizing them to help others solve their problems. Our flagship plugin for WordPress, WPtouch, has been downloaded nearly two million times now from the WordPress repository, and is the active iPhone theme on WordPress.com. So it’s definitely a well-liked plugin and we couldn’t be happier. We’re currently working on the successor for WordTwit, which is our popular plugin for WordPress.
What are your future plans for travel? Where would you most like to travel to and why?
I had originally planned to go for six months or longer, but I was feeling pretty drained at the end of my fourth month and decided to come back home to Vancouver to recharge. The next places I’ll probably visit will be New Zealand and Australia in the fall. Since I’m about to hit my second consecutive summer, it only makes sense to head to the southern hemisphere again in the fall and try and catch my third! 
Ideally I would love nothing more than to meet someone in Vancouver to come along on the adventure this summer, but we’ll see!
Blog start date: 2000
Hours spent blogging: ~5 hours/week
Blog views: ~20K/month
Hobby or professional blogger: hobby
Income generated from blog: Not directly, but having a blog has led to random jobs in the web sector as well as photography.
Time spent reading other blogs: ~10 hours/week
Favorite blogs: Miss604.com and GreaterFool.ca
