Nathan Mellalieu was sitting at home one Saturday night three years ago when he got a surprise phone call. “Nathan, this is Harrison Ford.”

Vancouverites are always looking for ways to squeeze the most out of every precious hour of summer sunlight. That means taking any indoor activity and moving it outside. For those looking to escape the four walls of the gym, here are a few outdoor fitness options that don’t involve the words Grouse and grind.

Vancouverites are always looking for ways to squeeze the most out of every precious hour of summer sunlight. That means taking any indoor activity and moving it outside. For those looking to escape the four walls of the gym, here are a few outdoor fitness options that don’t involve the words Grouse and grind.

Thanks to a sweet exchange rate, more Vancouverites are willing to brave long border lines and perilously high gas prices to take a road trip south. Those heading to the U.S. might be interested in stopping by Trader Joe’s, a popular grocery chain that has gained cult status in many U.S. cities thanks to remarkably cheap gourmet food that’s free of preservatives and artificial colours and flavours.

Fed up with noisy kids or loud music? Jon Azpiri finds ways to enjoy the sound of silence.

Over the past few years, the number of people watching the sport has exploded, and many are also using it to keep in shape.

Yes, working out to gwen stefani or kanye west really can improve your fitness.

Finding a place to stay that truly does its best to reduce its environmental footprint can be a frustrating experience.

While sports fans across North America are busy obsessing about U.S. college basketball’s March Madness or the race to make the NHL playoffs, many in the computer industry are watching a competition in Vancouver.

There once was a time when the world’s great architects used greenery to cover up flaws in their designs. “The physician can bury his mistakes,” Frank Lloyd Wright once told the New York Times, “but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.”

Shah has seen a several-fold increase in patients looking to get rid of body art that was supposed to last a lifetime. When he first started removing tattoos in 2002, he would see only a handful of clients a week. Today, he often sees as many as 20 patients a day. Shah attributes his increased business to the boom in body art over the past two decades. According to a 2002 study by Canadian Press and Léger Marketing, 13 percent of Canadian men and nine percent of women aged 18-34 have at least one tattoo. Not surprisingly, many of them end up having a change of heart.

As I run flat out along East 2nd Avenue, carrying a nine-kilo medicine ball, the words of CrossFit owner Craig Patterson ring in my ears: "CrossFit is not for everyone."

Just about any street in León leads you to the Parque de las Poetas, a small square in the middle of the Nicaraguan town that features a white statue of famed poet and native son Rubén Darío. To much of the Spanish-speaking world, Darío is known as the father of modernism who helped give birth to literary movements in Nicaragua, Spain, Chile, and Argentina. In León, he is a hometown hero, something of a patron saint.

Way back in 1925, Wally Pipp experienced the most consequential headache in sports history. According to legend, the New York Yankees first baseman decided to sit out a game because his head hurt. Pipp was replaced by a rookie named Lou Gehrig, who would go on to a Hall of Fame career that saw him play 2,130 consecutive games at first base for the Yankees over 14 years. The Yankees traded Pipp to another team, and he soon found himself out of baseball.

Most couples enjoy planning a vacation, but for Vancouver's Sandy McMillan and Jody Kaden the preparation was bittersweet. The pair had decided that if their last try at getting pregnant didn't work out, they would take a trip to Africa to help them come to terms with not being able to have a child. "We were so done," says McMillan of her and her partner's two-and-a-half-year struggle to conceive. "We were planning a safari and a puppy. Those were our consolation prizes.

Back in the late '80s, Joanne Beatty and some friends would get together at Britannia secondary school's gravel baseball diamond to play softball and drink beer, often at the same time. Although Beatty played in a competitive softball league in Richmond, she also found time for more informal games with other members of the lesbian community. "It was drinking beer and having fun," Beatty says of those East Side pickup games. "After a while, we started to think that we had enough women for a league."

If your mind tends to wander and you're not doing your best in the moment, it may be time to do as Buddhist monks do

These are busy days for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In addition to managing our country's affairs and planning for an election that could happen anytime, he's also preoccupied with the NHL playoffs. Harper is a die-hard hockey fan, and as he will have you believe, he starts his day by cracking open the sports section and poring over last night's box scores.

"Do you have any friends outside of Ultimate?" Brett Price asks his employees at Gaia. The worker behind the counter of the store dedicated to selling Price's line of Ultimate gear shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head; Jill, another employee, raises her voice: "I do."

It's the middle of the second period at GM Place and Salim Visram and Oliver Dempsey are transfixed by the action. Visram is wearing a Vancouver Canucks jersey autographed by several of the team's players, and his eyes dart as he follows the puck. His pal Dempsey furiously stuffs handfuls of popcorn into his mouth between breaks in play. The two pee-wee hockey players watch intently as Canucks captain Markus Naslund glides past two defenders and rings a wrist shot off the goalpost.

As I walk through the Fadó Pub in downtown Seattle, I'm flooded with fond memories. The word fadó means "long ago" in Gaelic, and the sprawling, 5,700-square-foot drinking establishment tries to capture the history of Irish pubs. One room is designed to look like a traditional Victorian Dublin pub; another room, featuring murals hand-painted by Irish artists, celebrates Irish art and folklore; and a third room re-creates the look of an Irish cottage.

The French-Canadian comedy Seducing Doctor Lewis, a Quebec hit from director Jean-François Pouliot, won the audience award at the 2004 Victoria Independent Film & Video Festival, which wrapped in the capital city February 8.

Another Vancouver filmmaker, and an award-winner for confrontational documentary work like Bones of the Forest and In the Company of Fear, Velcrow Ripper is heading to two major hot spots--Afghanistan and Israel--to continue work on his feature ScaredSacred.

For centuries the Basques, an ethnic group who live in the Pyrenees straddling Spain and France, have successfully fought potential conquerors--from the Visigoths to the Vikings to Napoleon Bonaparte--and maintained their ancient language and culture.