One small annoyance…
by Michael on Jun.28, 2010, under iPhone
Last year I took the plunge into the smart phone market purchasing the ever popular iPhone 3Gs. I have no complaints at all thus far. I love having one device that does phone calling and music all in one, the convenience of having my email and the internet accessible from the phone is an added bonus, and having a camera that performs pretty well all things are considered is just awesome.
There is one thing that has bugged me though. And it’s really minor, but I’ve gotta say it. Apple was pretty smart about it when they added all the accents and other characters to the phone accessible by holding your finger on the key until a sub-key pops up with accents or special characters. For example if I want an e with an accent, I just hold my finger over the e and all the e’s with accents and other e like special characters pop up.
Apple also designed a specific keyboard for things like URL input. If it knows you are typing in a URL (say in the Safari Mobile Browser’s address bar), you can save yourself some keystrokes at the end of the URL because they’ve added a ‘.com’ key. This key functions very similarly to the other keys, hold your finger over it and you are given other options, in iOS 3 you would be given .org, .net, .edu, .com. Ok, no .ca… fine, I guess it’s not that much to type .ca. With the update to iOS 4, they’ve added a new one to the aforementioned list: .us
Wait! I need to set the keyboard, of course! So I head into they keyboard menu, and sure enough just “English” is selected, so I scroll through the list. Of available keyboards. The only other English in the list is “English (UK)”. So I give that one a try, now I get these options: .ca, .net, .us, .eu, .edu, .org, .ie, .com, .co.uk… Did I mention that takes up twice the amount of screen space as the US version? At least .ca is in there… but I don’ t need all those UK TLDs…
What about the “French (Canada)” keyboard? Well now my buttons are in a different language (like Go is Accéder)… but hey .ca is in the list! If I keep the French Canada keyboard active, I get a little world symbol (to change keyboards) that takes some space at the bottom right of the keypad. (shrinks the symbols and numbers button), not sure I like that too much. I’m not being too picky am I?
I guess Americans just don’t go to any .ca domains? And if they do they have to type .ca. So for now, I will just keep the keyboard set the US English, and type .ca. It keeps my buttons at the size that I’m used to. Oh, I have a whole other rant about that and new laptops, I’ll save for another blog post.
Anyways, that’s my random rant for the day. Now, I think it’s lunch time!
Ribfest 2010
by Michael on Jun.26, 2010, under Food, General
This evening we made our way down to Sparks Street for Ottawa’s annual Ribfest. This being my second opportunity to get down there this year (the first I had to pass due to dental work) there were no good excuses not to go this time around.
Once we made it to Sparks Street, we started walking toward some of the different vendors and the smell was just beautiful! One fellow ribfest-goer passed by me with their box of food with the sticker “Vote for Silver Bullet”. They (Sliver Bullet) appeared to be the only ones with stickers on their boxes of food. Then I remembered one of my buddies Facebook posts saying his favourite was the Silver Bullet. Needless to say, that’s the direction we headed.
When we had the chance to order, this being my first time, I selected the plate with a sampling of all three main courses: pulled pork, ribs and chicken.
Let me say just one thing: those were the BEST ribs and pulled pork I have ever had! The chicken was good… but not the main event. If you are going down to Ribfest, you want the ribs and the pork!
If you’ve missed rib fest so far, they are still open tomorrow, but after that you’ll have to wait till next year.
Blowing Smoke
by Michael on Jun.13, 2010, under General, Lifecentre
Today we had the opportunity to head out to Aquaview/Avalon/Portobello Park in Orleans after church and spend some time with such an awesome group of people. (Portobello is the official name if anyone is wondering.)
After receiving the invitation early last week, and looking at the calendar, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make it. Heather had a hockey game at 2:00 pm and that tied up the car. So it looked like I would be hunting for a ride after church. The only difference was, I wasn’t serving today.
Long story short, Heather was able to drive me to the park and all worked out.
The park was already fairly busy when we arrived around 1pm. Splash pad was on a constant rotation of splashing, both play structures were in constant climb up and slide down mode, while the 4 swings were on average 75% occupied.
As I sat in the sun waiting for people to start showing up (church ran a little later than expected) I was quickly becoming the guy just sitting there and watching as children played, and parents chatted. I found myself some shade and kept busy on the iPhone, looking up every so often wondering if I recognized that car, until eventually I did.
By now you are probably wondering what does the title “Blowing Smoke” have anything to do with what I’ve written so far. Well as others arrived and kids spread throughout the park I found myself at the swings and one of our music pastors children was asking if she could swing on the swing I was sitting on. Of course I got up, helped her up on the swing and she asked for me to push her on the swing.
While I was pushing her she asked if I could do an under-duck really high like daddy does. My reply, hesitant as it was not my daughter and I felt responsible for something happening to her, was that we should check with mommy or daddy. So as she slowed down on the swing she ran over to our music pastor and asked “Mommy, can the guy from church that blows smoke do an under-duck on the swings?” The answer of course was yes, and the under-ducking did happen… probably not as high as daddy does it, but it was good enough.
Whats with the blowing smoke? When we had the fog machine set up at church for Christmas, I was the “FX Guy” and gave our music pastors daughter a change to hit the “Go” button. From then on, that’s the way we start every conversation we have. “Remember when you let me push the button to blow the smoke?”
When our music pastor told me that I was the guy that blows smoke at church I had a good chuckle. It was certainly something that we all had a good laugh over.
What an awesome day for this outing. It was hot at times, but overall when there was a breeze it was just right!
Dropped off the map?
by Michael on May.31, 2010, under Teaching
Its been over a month since I’ve added post to the blog, but lets face it … it’s the summer, we tend to spend less time on the bench and more time in the sun. With that being said let me tell you a little bit about what I’ve been up to over the last 30 days or so.
It all starts at Algonquin College. I was asked to teach Electronics I to Electrical Engineering Technician/Technology students over the summer term. I of course accepted the offer, as other than the trickle of Simplificare work I’m doing, there isn’t much else happening. After I accepted that position, they asked me if I wanted to take part in one of the college’s recruiting programs called Algonquin Connections. I would have to complete a lab activity with High School students on days 1 and 2, then a small scavenger hunt activity with grade 8’s on day 3. Then start teaching the following week.
The activities went well, and so far going into Week 4 teaching is going alright as well. I’m finding myself re-learning a lot of the material as I go. I’ve really lost a lot of it since I haven’t really used it in a while, but it’s all coming back to me slowly. The lab portion of the class is probably my favourite, simply because it is the hands on stuff, rather than the theory.
So that’s basically what I’ve been up to over the past month, and will be doing until mid-august.
Since I’m writing this today, wow Monday already, time flies, I want to just quickly talk about what I was doing all day Sunday at church.
The Watoto Childrens Choir visited Lifecentre on Sunday. This energetic group of children came for both services and shared their stories and songs with us and it was absolutely powerful! With the regular video post processing guy away in Korea on business, nicknamed “Nat from Away” during the live stream on Sunday morning, I have been given Weekend #1 of video post processing. Let’s just say I had to overcome a few hurdles to get the video done, but I did prevail.
The video is in the final stage of processing as I type this (from home) and will be online for Lifecentre Church Online – On Demand soon, if I can encourage anyone to do one thing this week, it would be to check out the On-Demand version of the service as it is only going to be there for a week! Check it out http://live.lifecentre.org.
It was fun while it lasted…
by Michael on Apr.25, 2010, under Hockey
So the Ottawa Senators, looking like they may bring themselves one step closer to the impossible last night took a step in the wrong direction. Unfortunately for Ottawa they had all the momentum going into game 6, but just couldn’t carry it over into the last half of the second and entire third period.
Seems this has been one of the story lines of the season, not being able to complete a full 60 minute hockey game. Not to mention nearly playing 2 full hockey games just 2 days before.
Pascal Leclaire has redeemed himself in my books after playing the three or so games he played. He really couldn’t be faulted for most of those goals. If he can return to that form next season, I will be very happy to see his salary go to him. (not that I can control that anyway)
Until next year… hope for some signings over the summer, everybody to heal up and come back refreshed to do it all over again next season!
Easter Dip 2010
by Michael on Apr.06, 2010, under Family
Easter Sunday at Rosie and Rogers cottage is usually cool, wet and muddy while there is usually still ice on the river. This year… not so much. The ice had been melted from the river for only two days, the sun’s heat was even more intense when there was no breeze. It was even getting hot enough that the talk of going swimming was surfacing, and it did finally happen.
Lisa and Sarah (maybe left some out?) agreed to give anyone who dared go into the river an annual day/night out. Here are the proceedings.
We never got a water temperature, but I can say that I tied a sprite to one of the ropes attached to the dock and let it sit in the river for about 10 minutes and it was completely refrigerated when I took it out, so if I had to guess I’d say it was cold. 
Major Wordpress Overhaul
by Michael on Apr.01, 2010, under General, Simplificare
This week, I bought, on behalf of Simplificare a subscription to a bundle of Wordpress Themes, at Elegant Themes. The creator of these themes is downright a creative wordpress theme-ing genius. What’s more he only charges 19.95 USD for 1 years worth of access to all of his themes!
They are already professional themes as they come out of the ZIP, but I needed to make a few tweaks to one of them this week. I spent an evening trying to wrap my head around where certain things came from in the WP engine. Once I found them I was off to the races. About 2 hours later I had what I thought was a pretty slick looking website. I sent an email to our client just asking them to take a look and let me know what they thought. I wanted to make sure they were going to be happy with the design before I went too much further with it.
The reply from our client came in with the following “I LOVE IT!” At this point, my adrenaline started to run pretty high, and I think I walked around the apartment with a HUGE grin on my face for about 15 minutes.
It’s always a great feeling to hear a client loves what you’ve produced.
Oh and I just realized I was supposed to post a “Showcase” of NACUE on our Facebook page on Wednesday… WHOOPS!
No Appointment Necessary
by Michael on Mar.23, 2010, under General
You spend 5 minutes on the internet to quickly check the hours of the express service centre at your local Honda dealership. Unfortunately they only have Sales, Service and Parts on the website… okay you think, maybe they are categorized under service, which means they’ll be open. Before leaving the page you notice they state “No Appointment Necessary” under the express service centre section. ‘Great!’, you think to yourself, ‘this is going to be a breeze!’
You drive your wife to the office, and make your way to the dealership. As you pull in the fence is open, so that’s step one at least, and the express service centre area is pretty much empty, only 1 car in the lot. As you park you notice a service technician coming out of the garage to bring that car into the service bays, confirming that they are in fact open. When you walk through the door a gentleman greets you relatively energetically like hes probably already had 4 coffees and it’s only 7:45 am, and asks “Do you have an appointment with us today sir?”
And then it happens, all of a sudden you get that feeling that what you were hoping would be done today is not going to get done. “No…” you respond, as the gentleman ruffless through some papers on the desk looking for the appointment book.
“I’m booking as far as Thursday morning for work, how does that sound to you?” he asks.
“Don’t you have anything earlier? Any chance you could do it today?” you reply.
“Well…” as he ruffles through the book again, “…no, not today though we can fit you in tomorrow at 2:30 in the afternoon, we had a cancellation. How does that work for you?”
Thinking quickly in your head, ‘2:30, nope don’t think anything else is scheduled for 2:30 tomorrow’, “That’ll work”, you reply.
So your appointment is made for 2:30 pm, tomorrow, at a no appointments necessary service centre. You probably should have figured this was going to happen, it is a car dealership afterall.
*sigh*
Reading Rainbow
by Michael on Mar.19, 2010, under General
Does anyone remember the show on PBS, or maybe it was TVO called Reading Rainbow? For me it was always the show that Geordi La Forge was on. Of course at the time I didn’t know that Geordi was really LeVar Burton and he in fact didn’t need that cool visor to see.
I’d have to say in general there were not many things in general to made me want to read. Reading Rainbow was definitely not a television show that instilled reading in me either. Actually to be honest the only time I read, other than the newspaper or comics, was a book for school. Never really was big on the whole pick up a book thing at all.
I remember various times growing up, I’d pick up a book and be asked what I was doing, cause I was surely not planning on reading the book cover to cover… Okay, maybe I had intentions to, but I can count on one hand the number of times it really happened for leisure.
And now the growing up part happens. I still don’t really pick up a book and read it just for the fun of it. Although I can say there are a few books on my hit list. The first of which I’ve just started is titled “Playing With Fire” – The highs and lows of Theoren Fleury’s life. I can say only being at the top of the third chapter this is a very interesting book! Might talk about it more later on.
Next on the list that I am very interested in picking up is “Hockey Dad” by TSN hockey analyst Bob McKenzie. Maybe I’ll get it read in 2010! That would make 2 books in 1 year!
Wedding Website
by Michael on Mar.14, 2010, under Simplificare
It’s official! Simplificare has launched its wedding website service. Feel free to check out out wedding services page to see a demonstration version of the website, you can reach it by clicking here.
Also, if you know of anyone that is getting married, please share the website URL with them! We would greatly appreciate it!
