Chromilo Amin

This is the scene on my way to work this past Saturday. I had hoped to not drive in to work because I end up paying an arm and a leg for parking everytime I go downtown, and also because its hard to take my whole family with me to the office any day of the week. This photo is taken at the corner of Hornby and West Georgia Street, outside of the Vancouver Art Gallery in Vancouver, BC. I have nothing against the OccupyVancouver movement http://www.occupyvancouver.com/ but seeing the tent city made me think if the answer is to simply go to work. I definitely don't know enough about the movement but it's what crossed my mind as I headed in to work with my family in tow this past weekend. Thoughts?

I just had a failed relationship with a potential residential mortgage broker. I just don't understand why the Senior Mortgage Analyst I was dealing with refuses to correspond via email and insists on phone conversations. I like email exchanges because it let's me document all the different options I'm entertaining with my upcoming mortgage renewal. It let's me put everything down into a spreadsheet for analysis, and is a great record-keeping method. I didn't have issues with my previous broker, who didn't mind answering my questions regarding specific calculations and amortization periods, all via email. I complained about this asking to get the Analyst's supervisor involved to get my questions in the emails answered, and guess what happens. That's right - the supervisor 'calls' me. She said that they have been in business for 20 years and that their preference is to conduct their transactions over the phone instead of email. Wha...

How do you cleanup the Surrey, BC image when you get people like this relieving themselves in a high-traffic and public place. It's in broad daylight nonetheless. I'm in the strip of asian stores by the Central City skytrain station and this was happening in front of me while I was parked outside King Wood Market. I suppose people will treat the area as a giant pisshole if it looks like a dump. We simply have to keep the place cleaner and I'm sure people will react differently, maybe treat the place with more respect. My 2 cents.

People are naturally good, especially Farmer Ron and his crew at Rondriso Farm www.rondriso.com , who found my lost camera in pumpkin patch. A week ago on October 13th, my little pumpkin had a school field trip to a farm to learn about cows and ride a truck to the pumpkin patch. We had a lot of fun, and probably a little too much because my wife dropped our camera filled with hundreds of photos saved on a 4GB memory card. We took turns looking for it but it was next to impossible, like searching for a needle in a haystack (or pumpkin patch for that matter). We eventually gave up and Farmer Ron said that they sometimes do turn up when his crew goes and clears up the patch. I thought it was a lost cause, until I got the call from Ron yesterday. Sweet. A family friend found it buried in the soil, so I was surprised it even turned up. I guess we must have trampled over it while making a sweep of the patch field. Farmer Ron and his crew are one of the good guys. (Rondriso Farm, 8390 172nd S...

We are hosting the Blessed Virgin Mary statue at our home this week and have religiously recited prayers every night since Sunday. Hosting the statue at a family's home is commonly known as "Black Rosary" and usually occurs in October but it's making the rounds in our neighborhood early. I had always wanted to get my family to join in on the prayers each night but everyone is busy and lives far away. I remembered that my Mom had Skype recently setup with a webcam so I thought I would web conference us together to say our 10 Hail Marys and recite the five Holy Mysteries each evening. Last night was our first web conference via Skype and we did run into some problems. My Logitech webcam's microphone would switch off when I establish the video conference via Skype so we instead used our land line in addition to video on my big screen. That's more ideal because the video and voice are on different channels, making the experience more fluid which is improtant when ...

Here are the flickr photos from the networking event. Copyright 2011 Jeremy Lim http://www.jeremylim.ca http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylim/6145617408/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylim/6145601176/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylim/6145597134/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylim/6138043127/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylim/6148249073/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylim/6148274499/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylim/6138042561/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylim/6138132279/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/rolexpv/6133832753/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/rolexpv/6133124129/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylim/6138681596/

The Labour Day weekend was fun-filled and we made sure it was spent in the great outdoors while we still have some summer left. We went to Aloutte Lake in Golden Ears Provincial Park on Saturday for a day-picnic and I would say this place is as nice as Cultus Lake in Chilliwack. The day before the trip, I printed Google Map directions (which says it takes 1hr 30min to get there) and a printout of the grounds so that we know where to meetup with other family and friends. We didn't know how to get there so we thought it was a great idea to go with others who have. Our other friends drove ahead in one car and we followed. They were armed with a GPS device and the driver's word that he knows how to get there. That was a big mistake. We left at 10:30am and didn't get to the day-use picnic site until close to 1:00pm. That's about 2hrs 30min spent driving around trying to get there. It was very frustrating. /Mistake #1 - Not Coming Prepared The first mistake we made was...