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Archive for the ‘General’ Category

My Nikon Wish List

03 Feb

Hello all,

I am just putting together a list of all the things on my wish list for my Nikon D5000 DSLR Camera.

Currently in my inventory I have the following items:

  • Nikon D5000 Digital SLR Body
  • Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
  • Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR
  • Nikon AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED
  • Hoya 52mm UV(c) HMC Filter
  • Hoya 52mm PL-CIR Filter
  • Nikon ML-L3 Wireless Remote Control
  • Lowepro Slingshot Digital SLR Camera Bag
  • Dynex 60″ Lightweight Tripod

Now let’s take a look at my wish list. This is all the items that I am looking to add to my arsenal of Camera Equipment.

  • Nikon AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED
  • Nikon AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor 200-400mm f/4G IF-ED
  • Nikon AF-S Nikkor 500mm f/4G ED VR
  • Nikon AF-S Nikkor 600mm f/4G ED VR
  • Nikon AF Zoom Nikkor 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D IF-ED
  • Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC-20E III
  • Nikon SB-900 AF Speedlight
  • Gary Fong Lightsphere Universal-Cloud
  • Gary Fong Powersnoot LSU-PS
  • Gary Fong Lightsphere II Inverted Dome

This is the listing of what I am hoping for. Now it will take me a long time to aquire all these pieces, but I am looking forward to when I have my Speedlight and 70-300mm Zoom. Those will be the next purchases I make as they are the ones that will profit me the most right now. As for the Teleconverter TC-20E, I hope to get my hands on that one after the Zoom lens. This will give me close to 600mm Zoom capabilities with a lower cost.

For what I use it for my camera has served me very well. To see samples of my photography please visit My Flickrr Account. It is still new, but I will be uploading new photographs that I see to be worth while to me.

 
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Tens years goes by so fast

10 Jan

I am looking forward less than one week. I have my ten year anniversary coming up. I am really looking forward to this day. My wife and I are going to be doing some things on the weekend, though she will not tell me what! :)

I have been wondering about it since I found out. I guess I will have to wait though.

I am really looking forward to giving her the present I have for her :D

 
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What a Vacation

04 Jan

That was quite a good vacation. I got to spend so much time with my family it was great! The entire time of was spent with the kids as well. They loved it, as did I. Now I am back at work and getting everything caught up. I will start posting more informational tidbits starting tomorrow.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Holiday as well.

 
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It’s Christmas Time in Canada

24 Dec

Hello all,
Just writing because I am taking a break from the site for a week or so. Until the new year I will be off. I doubt I will be able to get on.

So Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus and all that jazz! Hope the season is great to you all and see you back in 2011!

 
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The Christmas Party

13 Dec

This weekend was quite a busy one for me. Saturday started with heading out Christmas Tree Shopping with my daughter. Then we went to her class to get the props ready for her upcoming show. This was followed up with bed. Then on Sunday we set the tree up and decorated it. Then we headed out to my wife’s family Christmas gathering. So lets look at the weekend a little more detailed.

Saturday, my eldest daughter and I headed out to pick the perfect Christmas Tree. We did not want to get one that was too tall, or too short. We wanted to ensure it had just the right amount of branches as well. To top it off, we wanted to keep within budget. And you will never guess…WE DID IT! We found the perfect Christmas Tree that fit in the house AND fit in the budget! It was awesome. The tree fell just right and there is only one small bare spot, which we positioned in the back (This bare spot made it a lot easier to set up as direct access to the trunk without getting spiked to death with the needles is always a plus! So we got the tree home and put it on the back deck for setup later. Then we got everything together to head out to her class. She had a good time making a clown for the production she is going to be staring in. I dropped her off and hit the mall for an hour or so to catch up on anything I missed this year. So yes, all my Christmas Shopping is done (I think). When I got back, she was still working on all of her decorations. So I helped out around the place to get everything ready. It was a good time. Later that night when the little one went to sleep, we set the tree up. Then we strung the lights on it and it was looking amazing! So ends a busy Christmas weekend.

Sunday, was Christmas Tree Decorating day. We got all of our morning tasks out of the way and set out to improve upon the already perfect tree. This was a great time as the kids both took it upon themselves to get everything they wanted on the tree in just the right spot. My wife and I helped with all the glass bulbs and got this years Christmas Tree looking spectacular. This was a great time and I love this time of year. Later in the day we headed out to my wife’s family Christmas Dinner. This was a great time. Not only was it loads of fun, but I got to whip out my Nikon D5000 to get used to it! Talk about a double whammy of sweetness! So we had a great time mingling and eating and drinking. While all of this is going on I start to get a feel for the camera. I love it. Great food, great drink, great people. Who could ask for a better weekend?

All in all this weekend was an extreme hustle, but the sheer fact that we had so much fun during the hustle made it all worth while.

 
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Tangled weekend

29 Nov

This weekend was great. Christmas crafts during art time and watching Tangled with the kids.

The art class was excellent. We made a bunch of great Christmas related crafts. The one that my daughter liked the most was the Reindeer Bell Ornament. It was great. She took up the scissors and started to cut the ribbons to make the bottom while I glued on the eyes, nose, ears and mouth. Then I placed the pipe cleaner antlers in the exact pattern she wanted and started on the gluing of the ribbons to the bottom. It turned out great. We also did a stamping on paper which could be used for wrapping paper. She had a fun time with that placing many stamps all over the page. Some of the other parts that we did were a candy cane, which was a pipe cleaner with beads strung on it. She had a good time placing the beads in a pattern on that one. We also made a tray of cookies. This was done with some cardboard wrapped in tinfoil and then you glue on the “cookies” which were paper cut outs. After this is done, you add glue to the page and shake on the sprinkles. Great for the kitchen play set for those fresh baked cookies. Also another one that I will not mention but it was a lot of fun making that one for sure.

On Sunday we all went to the Movie Tangled. The movie is an off-shot of the book Rapunzel. Where Rapunzel has magical hair with healing powers. This is why the evil witch stole her from the king and queen. Eighteen years after her birth she runs into a Thief in her tower. She ties him up and then sets out to learn about the world which her mother told her was evil. The adventure she goes through is great and it was a load of laughs. The 3D was done very well also. The kids had a blast and my wife and I laughed many times. I would recommend this movie to any with kids old enough to understand the humor.

Well, stay tuned for this weeks installments of tips, and stay tuned for next week for who knows what!

 
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Weekend of Christmas and Harry Potter!

22 Nov

This weekend was chopped full of fun. The weekend started off with an art class with my youngest daughter, like many other weekends. Then we relaxed a little at home. After that was the scramble to get ready to go see Santa Claus at the parade. It was a decent enough time. The kids got to hug many parade people dressed in all kinds of costumes. I think my youngest loved the Elmo hug the most. Heck, The Grinch even tried to hook her with a candy cane! She did not really like that, but she did have a great time none the less. The weather was not too bad. It was a little chilly, but that is to be expected in November! They had a late night, and a fun time. Santa came by then we drove home, wow I hate traffic, and had a relaxing time there with friends.

On Sunday, we had a relaxing morning. Then my buddy came over. The kids love him. They were giddy all day to see him. Then played with him for a few hours before we headed to the mall for a little Christmas Shopping. This toy shopping was fun, and the kids had a blast. Once the shopping was done, we all headed to the theater. My wife took the kids home from there and my buddy and I headed in to watch Harry Potter 7 part 1.

They did a decent job in putting this one together, though I wish they did not break it into two parts. The movie follows some of the book, more so than other movies, but they tended to pull the normal add stuff that will just confuse the people who have not read the books mumbo-jumbo. This was a little annoying, but easy enough to get past. The death of Dobby was well done and I applaud that part of the movie, though I did not like the burial! Sand…1 foot deep grave…NOTHING like the book! Anyways, I liked this installment and I am looking forward to seeing the second part to conclude the series. Lets hope the battle scene will live up to my imagination!

 
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Busy Busy Busy!

15 Nov

I have not been overly active on this site because I am in the midst of building forty gallery pages on my other main website. That site is dedicated to Anime Wallpapers and Biographies. The site is Anime Wallpaper Site and it is coming along nicely. I hope to come back to you stronger than ever, once all the pages are done at the other site.

Stay tuned please and I will keep some more updates coming.

 
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Birthday Weekend

08 Nov

This past weekend was my youngest daughters birthday party. We had a great time. The theme was princesses. We had a Tiara cake that my wife iced. It was made out of cupcakes. The decorating on it was great too. it looked like a small crown. on two of the points sat two princess figurines. It was awesome.
We did crafts as well. Foam people and scenes as well as candy necklace making. The craft time was well spent and all the kids had a ball. They could make magnets or just a scene. They were all so very creative it was great! They also delved into candy making. The easy kind though. They took licorice shoe laces and made necklaces out of them with candy rings and cookies. They loved it to the points that the candy on the necklace was disappearing into their mouths before they tied them off!
The food was the standard, at least for my house, for party food…Pizza! We ordered a little more than we needed but it is all good, lunch for a few days cannot be something to complain about.

Aside from the party on Saturday, my eldest was swimming in lessons again in the morning. She was swimming like a little demon! Lengths are nothing to her any more, and the fifteen to sixteen she does at every class barely tire her. She is loving the lessons, and I am very happy about that. Later in the evening she had a birthday party to attend at the pool. so she did a lot of swimming this weekend. She had a blast there, doing the gym time and swim time party. She was with twenty or more of her friends and had a wonderful time.

So Saturday was a very hectic day. Now lets look at Sunday.

Sunday started with us all sleeping in until nine in the morning…But wait, time was tricking us as we had daylight savings time hit us. So what did that mean? We woke up at our normal eight in the morning. I went and made the standard egg breakfast and we all loved it. Then started the days real work. I was outside for most of the day preparing for winter. Bagging the extra five bags full of leaves from our yard. This was just to add to the ten bags I filled last week. So fifteen bags, and then get them to the curb to find out that the collectors are not collecting this week, but the city has changed the rules and is sending a leaf sweeper starting today. So I then take the fifteen bags and dump them into the gutter. Then I did an additional three wheelbarrow’s full to the curb as well. That is a lot of leaves! Then the Gazebo had to come down. That is the sure sign that summer is over and winter is fast approaching. It saddens me.

Well that was my weekend. Just a heads up, due to my lack of activity last week I will be posting twice a day starting tomorrow so stay tuned.

 
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Halloween Weekend, Part 2

02 Nov

So today I am thinking of adding some pictures to the site. Check out the costumes of my family. :)
Costumes

Erik Westlake Dressed as No Face from Spirited Away


The Trick or Treaters consisting of The Family!


Pumpkins

Jack Skelington


Wolf Pumpkin Carving

Well that is all for this week. Stay tuned for more from my normal subjects of SEO, Web Design, Graphic Design and Domaining.

 
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Happy Halloween Weekend

01 Nov

Yup, Yesterday was October 31st. The day was fun to say the least. But lets get to that in a minute.

Friday, on the way home from work I stopped by and picked up my aunt for dinner. This was great. My wife made lasagna and my eldest daughter got to do some really cool sewing projects. My daughter had a wonderful time learning to sew from my aunt. All in all the night was a good one.

Saturday was the normal that we do on the weekend…only my wife and I decided to reverse the rolls. So I took my eldest daughter to swimming while my wife took our youngest to art class. It was great. My daughter is becoming such a great swimmer.

After that I went to work at finishing the costume that was the torn in my procrastinating side for the last week. Getting the mask attached to the cage and everything ready to wear we took pictures. I will throw them up in another posting tomorrow as the camera is not available right now to upload the pictures. However, the mask proved too much for half my needles. I actually broke two needles trying to get the mask attached to the frame.

Aside from that after the kids were in bed we settled down for some good scary shows. There was not too much on the channels so we watched The Simpsons Halloween specials. These two episodes were decent and a good laugh. We had a great night.

On the morning of Halloween the kids were all a tizzy. We had our customary Sunday breakfast or bacon and eggs. This was good, as I was looking forward to this meal all week. Then we began to get ready to head to our eldest daughters best friends house for the romp around the town. It was great, we had my eldest as Hermoine Granger, my youngest as Mickey Mouse (complete with flashing ears), my wife was the Phantom of the Opera, and I was No Face from Spirited Away. This costume got many turned heads and a few people actually recognized me! It was awesome. My eldest daughters friend was dressed as Bugs Bunny.

The kids got a lot of candy, though I doubt it will outlast the next two weeks. They also had a lot of fun and stayed up later than either my wife or I would have liked, but that’s a Sunday Halloween for you. Anyways, got the kids home and into bed then settled in to watch my show of choice and head to bed myself.

Thus ended the Halloween of 2010. Check back for another posting including pictures of the costumes we were all in.

 
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Party Weekend!

25 Oct

This past weekend was great. Not only did I watch a great movie with my wife, we celebrated my grandmothers 80th birthday!

During the day we did our standard Arts time, my daughter and I. And it was awesome! The theme, as I mentioned last week was Halloween. We had a blast making four great crafts, including a haunted house and a scare crow with a pumpkin for a head. The time I spend on these mornings with my youngest daughter are priceless to me, and bring joy and relaxation into my life.

After this we decided to head out to the pumpkin patch to have a day of fun and mayhem. This was not the best, as it rained off and on throughout our entire trip there. We had the customary hay ride through the haunted corn field, which was too short in my opinion. That was then followed by the pig races, this was a fun to watch, but very wet as at the start of the races the rain started to pelt down on us. Proceeding this, we had a snack of fries at the Snack Bar. The seating was very limited and it took the entire time my wife was in line getting to food to scour up enough seats for the two kids, my father in law, my wife and me. After that we headed into the Haunted Barn. Not as scary as I would have liked it, but not the worst one I have been through either. All in all it was a less than stellar day.

My wife and I settled down on Saturday to watch Robin Hood. This movie, in my opinion, was great. I enjoyed the scenes immensely. The story that lead up to Robin Hood being created was amazing! I love how they made him a normal everyday archer who stepped into the shoes of a noble knight. Through his actions and personality, he gains many followers. He helps defeat the French when they invade from the north. Though King John banishes him to become an outlaw, he still lives in harmony.
The movie was great and I would watch it again and again!

On Sunday, we headed to my grand parents house for my Grandmothers 80th birthday. It was great fun. The entire family was there, even most of the ones who live on the other side of the country. We had fun watching the kids play all throughout the house and yard. We also greatly enjoyed catching up with everyone, once again. The dinner was good, and the dessert was amazing! All in all it was a wonderful time, which was had by everyone in attendance.

Next weeks segment will hold, who knows what, as next Sunday is Halloween. Perhaps I will have the pictures of my costume, which I have yet to complete. Perhaps I will have other things to talk about. Who knows? Check out the site again to learn more!!!

 
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Another Weekend come and gone.

18 Oct

Yet another weekend has passed me by. This weekend was quite busy for me.

Saturday was made up of art class with my youngest daughter. That was a great time. Spending nearly two hours doing crafts with her was a great time. We made an alien out of leaves, and many other autumn crafts. She had a blast and I am happy to say that I did too! I am looking forward to next weekend for this. Next weekends theme is Hallowe’en, so this will be a good time. I am really looking forward to it!

Later was my nephews birthday party. So we packed the kids into the car, set up the iPod Touch and drove an hour to the party. It was a good time for sure. Everyone had fun.

After the party we had to rush home to get the Television fixed. Our signal quality and strength was poor to say the least. So a signal booster was installed and, poof, we have TV again (Yay!). Now that bandaid fix is done, we wait for the Cable company to get the real problem fixed.

So my weekend was filled with fun. This week I will be starting my Halowe’en costume as well. I will be making a full write up of the costume, and all the work I put into it with pictures so you all can see the Cosplay Costume I created. I hope it turns out as good as I am envisioning it.

Well that is all for today, starting tomorrow I go back to the informational posts that I keep this site flooded with :)

 
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What a Thanksgiving Long weekend

12 Oct

Yup, another Thanksgiving has come and gone. This weekend was great.

Saturday was spent watching my eldest daughter swimming. She is doing awesome! I am very proud of her abilities in the pool. After that we headed back home to relax. My daughter and I also took a trip around the town on our bikes. This was good, because it has been a week or two since we last went.

Sunday came, and I was tired. However, it was egg day, so I got out of bed and made breakfast for the family. After that we started to get things ready for the Thanksgiving celebrations that were to happen that night at my uncles house he just moved in to. We made 10 pounds of potatoes. They were good, but very heavy to carry three dishes from the car to the party. My arms were tired after that.

After much mingling with the family, the kids having a ball in the huge back yard and eating our fill of Turkey, Ham, Potatoes, Veggies, Bread and many other yummy dinner things. They brought out the desserts. All I can say is it was great! A good time was had by all for sure.

Monday, which set the long weekend to be such, was great. We relaxed a good deal, then packed up and headed to my father-in-laws house for his chef version of Thanksgiving. The start of the celebrations was a family walk around the forest with his dog Whitey. Whitey is a large, black dog, thus the pun of his name. After just over one hour of walking we headed back to the house for dinner. Turkey, Stuffing, Caramelized Carrots, Mashed Potatoes, Gravey and to end, Pumpkin Pie! The kids had a good time watching Ice Age 2 and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Who am I kidding, I loved the second movie more than the kids!

I have to get another viewing of this movie before Haloween hits us.

This coming weekend will be filled with my costume creations so stay tuned for the break down of how I am making my No Face Costume!

 
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Weekend of the Garage

04 Oct

Read the title? Confused? You should be!

This weekend I did some more work on my garage at home. I finished the shelving on the back wall. One small detail to be fixed there is left, then I move on to electrical. Once this is done my garage will be 100% usable!

What did I do you ask? Well here is a breakdown.

  • Set up Shelving units across back wall
  • Set up counter top across back wall
  • Set up tall cupboard across back well

These three things have given me a work area of 12′ wide with tonnes of storage! I will be able to keep everything neat and tidy in there as well as, which will be a plus.

That said, I am very sore from this! Drilling into concrete with a 20 year old power drill is not my idea of fun. Next time I do things like this I will make sure I have a hammer drill on hand.

Well, this is sore me, signing off for now.

 
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Yet another great weekend for me

27 Sep

From the looks of the site you will notice that every Monday I release an update on myself. Every other day I work on giving you all tips, tricks, howto’s and other relevant information on Domaining, Graphic Design, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Web Design. Today, being Monday, I bring you some updates.

This weekend I had a good time reading a lot. Got more than halfway through the book I have been reading, which is awesome! Did a lot of relaxing, as well as shopping.

New Dish Washer is ready to be delivered soon. I will be so happy when my old crappy one is gone. No more staying up while the dish washer goes chugga-chugga-whirr-whirr for hours. It is silly how loud it is!

My family got most of their Hallowe’en Costumes ready to go this weekend. I still need to work on mine though. I am going to be building a costume of No-Face from the Anime Movie Spirited Away. This is going to be a tough one and test me in many aspects of shaping foam, sewing and painting! I am really looking forward to the faces of people when a 7-8′ Monster is walking down the street on the faithful day of October 31st!

Had yet another bike run with my eldest on Sunday as well. We went all around town on the bikes. I was tired after the 45 minute excursion in 12th gear! Hills make my heart pound and breath come in short spikes. But it is worth it because we get to have a great time, just the two of us, and get some great exercise as well!

Attempted to see NetFlix this weekend as well. I was pleasantly unimpressed. The selection was all movies from 6-12 months ago in their “New Releases” section. I am glad it is a free one month trial! I am not happy with it. I am going to do a  little more digging on their site to see if anything sparks my interest, then if nothing of value comes to me, I will be dropping it faster than a marble off the C.N.Tower!

Anyways, that is the brief overview of my weekend. Stay Tuned for more useful information in the future!

 
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Last Summer of 2010

20 Sep

This past weekend was the final days of summer for this year. What did I do? I spent it relaxing and having a blast at the cottage.
We left for the cottage on Friday, spent five hours in the car, having to bypass a highway closure on the way, to get to the cottage. Relaxation is what I describe the cottage as in one word. I love it up there.
There serene scenery is the main thing that gets me. There is nothing but water, rocks and trees (and the occasional cottage) for miles.
I could sit staring out of the windows for hours. The majestic jack pines, the fallow rock faces, the roving black bears. Everything about that area relaxes me. Be it night or day, the scenery is that of pure beauty.

This weekend was a very special one. Not only was it the last weekend of summer, but my best friend Adam (AKA Uncle IceCream) joined us in this venture. Needless to say a stupendous time was had by all. The weekend started off with us putting the kids down to bed (after staying up very late) and then having a good time talking into the wee hours of the morning. After this we hit the sac in the bunkies. In the morning, being refreshed we ate breakfast. Saturday was rainy in the morning. That did not stop Adam and I though. We took the sea-doo’s out for a spin. The rain was not the bad part, though it did soak us through to the bone. It was the aftermath of the misty rain that was the problem. Like pins and needles by the thousands hitting our faces as we drove over the water through the islands. Though we were wet and cold, the stinging of the mist did not stop us either! We got back laughing from the great time we had.
Fishing was, as it has been most of this summer for me, a flop. I caught nothing this weekend (not a lot of fishing though in my defense). Actually, to my surprise no one caught anything. Adam, nor my eldest daughter who fished more than me, caught a fish at all. Ohh well, a good time was still had while fishing.
After that, another late night talking into the darkness.
Sunday rolled in cloudy. Still the kids hit the beach. It was a great time. After the sun came out and the water was still quite calm, my wife and I took a sea-doo out. It was her first time driving one. It was great, she enjoyed herself a lot. Lets hope it is not the last time she hits the water on one. After lunch Adam and I hit the water again for another tour on the sea-doo’s. Over by the marina, where the boats do roam, we hit waves and generally had a blast. After what felt like minutes, though it was near an hour, we headed back, only to find more boats making great waves. After we finished with the waves, we weaved our way back to the cottage through the labyrinth of islands and water to dock and start packing.
After the cars were packed up and we left, we went back south to our homes.
It was great to be back at home in my nice comfortable bed, but I long for the next visit to the serene location up north where the bears roam free and the jack pines grow until they fall on the barren rocks.

 
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What A Great Weekend Is Comprised Of

13 Sep

This past weekend was great. Went to the store and bought a mountain bike, a helmet and a new helmet for my eldest daughter.

Now that we both have a bike and helmets we are heading out for biking rides. It was great. On Saturday, we went around the town for 45 minutes. We had a blast. This was her first time riding her bike around the town more than to the park and back. She loved it. On Sunday we did another route and were out for over an hour. I was very tired after that run. Man I need to get back into shape…

That aside, we also had my best buddy Adam come over (Uncle Ice Cream as the kids call him). It was a great time, we watched Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. That is the best movie of all time for sure! If you have not seen it, I would suggest getting it and watching it over and over again! After that he took his boaters exam. Now when we go to the cottage he can ride the sea-doo’s! That is going to be an awesome time for sure!

Other than the biking and movie watching, we missed out on our camp fire. That was a bummer. Rain destroys the best of times, like late night campfire parties!

We also had my wife Jasmine’s family reunion. It was a decent time. The girls flew their kite since it was so windy, played on the playground and ate a lot of food. We got lost on the way up there turning onto the West Road instead of the East…I guess I misread that direction map. But we got there with only that one setback and it was a good time.

I wanted to get some Final Fantasy 13 in, but many more important things came up. All in all it was a great weekend. I hope I can beat it next weekend!

Happy living!

 
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New Site, New Look, New Start

09 Sep

Hello all,

I have just rebuilt my site again. I know it gets annoying when things change. However, this is for the best. I am now working on a fully functional system and the pages will look a lot better. So please stay tuned as I update the site more and more.

In my spare time, when I am not building my other site Internet Picture Site, I will be keeping this site up to date with all the information I have about updates in my life, SEO, Web Design, Graphic Design and much more!

I hope you all enjoy this new site layout and content. Please let me know if you have any thoughts you would like to express!

Enjoy,

 
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