A start of a new month brings new blogging software. You shouldn't
notice much difference. I have made the switch from a program called Blog
to one called Thingamablog,
both of them are standalone blogging applications. I had come across
this program last year and played around with it, but never made the
switch. It wasn't until asking Carolyn if she was going to do a blog for
their trip down to the east coast that I started playing with it again.
I setup a sub-domain on my web server space and loaded the program on
her computer. Check out her blog at http://carolyn.tanabe.ca/blog.html.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Catching up...
After 10 years we have jumped back into the digital universe. In 1997 we
became a cable free home and for the girls living without cable was the
norm. They would have their cable fixes at the sitter's or the
relatives. We survived on rabbit ear channels, which wasn't as bad as
one might think. Sure some of the channels were a little fuzzy. But I
always said, it only takes me the time to go through 10 channels to
decide there is nothing good on, as opposed to 200 channels. We have
subscribed to Bell ExpressVu and have more channels than we know what to
do with. Part of the reason for the lengthy delay on the blog updates
goes to watching tv. Now the girls don't have to mumble or pretend when
their friends say "Did you see that on tv last night...". I always
remember asking Gillian one day when she was in Grade 3 or 4, "what do
your friends say when you tell them you don't have cable?" Her response
was "Dad, I don't tell them!"
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Slideshow
I have been looking for some options to displaying photos on the blog.
Thinking ahead to the next trip, I have may have more photos than I can
handle, so one option I am thinking of is a slideshow. Testing it out
with some photos from yesterday.
Monday, April 28, 2008
St Richard Fog Collector
I was able to attend the FogQuest
presentation at the girls school today. One of the volunteers with
FogQuest was at the school to do a brief talk on the work she has been
involved with and to receive a cheque from the school. During Lent, the
student council and the faith ambassadors chose FogQuest as their Lenten
Project. With the help of the School Council, they raised $1000.00
during Lent to help purchase a fog
collector to supply water to a village in Guatemala. A picture of
some of the students presenting Melissa with a big cheque.
When Gillian was in grade 5, I had done some work for the Executive
Director of FogQuest, in lieu of payment, I asked Bob Schemenauer if he
would give a talk to Gillian's class on a weather related topic. From
that talk a couple of the teachers who were involved with the Student
Council mentioned at the time that FogQuest would be a cause that they
would like to support as a Lenten project. This year they took up the
cause and they were very successful. The money they raised will go
towards a fog collector for a family in Tojquia.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Hi-Res Photos
All the photos on the blog are re-sized to 400x300 pixels to speed up
the loading of the pages. It doesn't really work well if someone wants
to print out their own copy of the photo. I'll still continue to do the
same with all the blog photos, but I will also upload the original
photos of select photos. Click on the link
on the left or here.
Photos can be added upon request.
Saving Photos: Click on the thumbnails and the hi-res photo will open.
Once it has opened it will automatically resize to your browser window.
Click on the download icon
at the bottom right. The picture will open and it can be downloaded by
right clicking on the image and selecting the "Save Picture (or image)
As" option from the menu.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Wii Fit
Today was the official launch of Wii Fit in Canada. It worked out well
since I was taking some time off in the morning to see Gillian off to
Ottawa, I headed over to Wal-mart when it opened at 7:00am. There were
about 7 people already in line at the cash in the electronics section,
they had four people working in there, two were opening the shipping
boxes, one was doing cash and the other was bagging them. There were
still three left after me and only one guy in line, but I think I heard
them say they had more in back.
The activities are grouped as Yoga, Strength, Aerobics and Balance
Games. Most use the balance/scale board. Last night with Gillian in
Ottawa and Angela at Guides, Claudia and I got to try all the games. It
recognized that it was my birthday.
Claudia did some of the Yoga, but mostly we played with the games. One
of them is soccer, you have to move your body to head the soccer ball or
avoid getting hit by the soccer shoe. Here is a video of Claudia playing.
Another one is the Hula hoop, you have to do the hulahoop motion as many
times as you can, every so often they throw another ring and you have to
catch it with your body.
They have a jogging game where you stick the wii remote in your pocket
or hold it and you jog through a town. You just run on the spot or you
can run in circles, this is one of the games where the balance board is
not required. If you run too fast bad things will happen to you.
Gillian has updated her blog
of her school trip to Ottawa. I set her up with the same software I use
and we'll see how she does with it. The URL for her site is http://gillian.tanabe.ca
Monday, September 15, 2008
Hello I'm a Mac and I'm a PC...
I have been thinking of switching our main family computer to an iMac
from a PC. The more I read about it and talk to Mac users the more
convinced I become. Originally I was looking at the MacBook laptop, but
for the amount of mobility we actually need and the price difference
between the iMac and MacBook I'm leaning more towards the iMac. And the
commercials are better than any PC or Microsoft commercial, even the new
Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates series.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Updated
Finally posted some overdue updates to the blog. I have been playing
with some photo edit software. Here is a photo of Angela during one of
her volleyball games last term. I was able to turn the background to
black and white and colourize just Angela.
I have also been working at categorizing and organizing all of my
digital photos. I am trying to get this done before buying a new camera.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
New Camera
After going almost three months without a camera, I finally got back
into the digital world. I bought a Nikon D40, it is a digital SLR. Here
is picture number 1.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
A380
The world's largest passenger jet flies over a few times a week. Since
June of this year the Emirates Airline A380
lands at Pearson on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, it passes over around
3:30 in the afternoon. We get alot of the larger planes making their
approach because the north E-W runway is the longest at Pearson. Here is
the A380 from our backyard.
I found these photos on the internet.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sesame Street Google
During the first week of November Google was celebrating the 40th
Anniversary of Sesame Street. Chances are if you did a google search
that week you saw one of these google banners. For those that missed it
here they are.
On the actual anniversary day they had the entire Sesame Street ensemble.
at the bottom right. The picture will open and it can be downloaded by
right clicking on the image and selecting the "Save Picture (or image)
As" option from the menu.
