Christmas morning at Kristine & Micah's Place

Chrismas morning and breakfast is served. The presents wait while Kristine makes us some fine vittles

Christmas Eve

It was the day before Christmas and Jessica cooks her first bird. And it was yummy.

Acer Aspire One AA1

A while back my wife and I purchased AA1's the 160gig HD Windows versions. My wife is quite happy with her AA1 XP netbook but I am a Linux guy so I started a quest to find a distro that would perform well on this small Atom based netbook. After installs of Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora 10, and a host of others I was pretty frustrated. Most of the disros worked, more or less. Wireless seemed to be the biggest problem along with the card reader. I could tell you how long I wandered around the net looking for the Holy Grail. Many hours including repeated visit apireoneusers.com. But it was a Google Alert I setup on my Gmail that gave me the best solution yet. It's called Eeebuntu Netbook Remix you can find it here It is a very nice looking setup as you can see.

The PS3

So I go out and buy the PS3 to stream media to my home theater. After some messin around and adding Tversity to my Vista Box it mostly works. But here is the twist. While I bought it for the media streaming I was also prompted because of the BlueRay disc. So I hook up the PS3 only to realize while the PS3 has an Optical out my cheesy little Sony Home Theater had no optical in or HDMI. Hum so no way to get all that 5.1 BlueRay goodness into my receiver. Ok so I look around for a better reciever an find a out of box Sony for 1/2 price. I'm thinkin I will just hook up my speakers and I'm away...... not so fast I'm told. Your old speakers are 6 ohm and the new reciver you bought are 8 ohm so while it may work for a while but it will cook the speakers.... are we having fun yet? Ok so I need new speakers..... I look online and find a discounted set of Polk Audio. Are you old enought to remember the song :There's a hole in the bucket"? I would have to say I really understand that song now.... :-)

Thoughts

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson

Sunday Nights At The Movies

Just sitting here with my wife watching "Prince Caspian" being played from a 8gig thumb drive plugged into a PS3. We live in amazing times.

Music

I have been listening to a lot of Mary Chapin Carpenter. I used to have a few of her albums a way back. They are timeless tunes that capture the human heart. Harry Chapin (no relation) once said "Music it's been my greatest friend and my fiercest foe. For it can take you so high and it can bring you so low." MCC has the uncanny ability to draw you into the song. have a listen to "Between Here And Gone" or perhaps "Come On Come On" or "John Doe No. 24". We are blessed to have such a talented story teller in our midst. here is her website have a listen your heart will thank you.

Xavier gets a truck for his B-day

Grandpa bought Xavier a R/C truck for his B-day. I think Mikey likes it!

Thankgiving 2008

Joshua with his boys Ayden & Xavier

Grandpa trying to get in the air

Josh & Jessica

Well I'm way overdue posting this but here we go. My daughter Jessica and family came up the mountain to see Grandpa fly and we caught a few shots

Re: The Casio Fiasco

Well after giving up on ever hearing from Casio they returned my calls many days later. The tech told me to send the camera to Ont.. So I packed it up and sent it along. Two days after that I get a call from a less than pleasant fellow who explained to me that they would not fix the camera and do not send it in again. I explained it had already been sent as per the techs instruction. We end the call with me telling the guy to keep the camera as it was no good to me broken. I explain the the camera will be my last purchase from Casio. A funny thing happens after that. I wait until the camera arrives at the Casio depot (tracking Canada Post) and I call them, as usual no one answers and so I send emails over the next 4 weeks again one one answers. Here is the strange part after 61/2 weeks the camera arrives back here fixed with a form letter telling me what a valued customer I am and how Casio stands behind their product. That it has been fixed and enjoy.... Well if that ain't a strange ending. My conclusion... this will be my last Casio purchase

Long Time

Hum funny thing lately. I look at my blog link and just keep on going. I have not posted in a long time. Seems everything has a season. All is well just really busy. Learning lots of new things at the Mission. I have been given the website to revamp and I know nothing about the content management system we use, it's called Joomla. It's been a bit of a learning curve and I am nowhere close to being proficient. Most of my work lately is IT stuff it's keeping me busy.

Little Dome

Having Fun

The Casio Fiasco

If you read my earlier post you know I'm having trouble with my Casio camera. Well after several days of trying to actually speak with someone from Casio in Canada I have been informed warranty does not apply because they think the camera was "bumped". I tried to pin him down on just what "bumped means and why that would void warranty but it was like pulling teeth. They did a firmware update and returned it without any explanation So I am now stuck with a camera that reads "Lens Error #2" and takes blurry pictures. Apparently as explained to me by a fellow from Casio Canada the camera is considered fixed even while still displaying an error. I was told in no uncertain terms that nothing else will be done. While I enjoyed the camera while it worked I will never buy another Casio based on the two month fiasco I just went through. Sometimes your the windshield some times your the bug. I'm a firm believer in voting with my wallet.

Food For Thought

Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

G. K. Chesterton

I Tried I Really Did....

I own a Casio camera. It broke. It has been hellish trying to get it fixed. I have sent it for repair twice and it has been returned to me again with the same error message that I sent it for. Now I am being asked to send it to a different depot for a third try. I'm thinkin Canon is looking good right now.

I Can't Resist

"People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes."
--- Dear Abby (Abigail vanBuren)

Justin gets a lesson

Daves Lid

This is Daves lucky helmet..... hum well it's his fav helmet.... well it's his helmet. And he has had it a long time.

Harold Buzzing Speargrass

We took a little trip up to Speargrass and I caught Harold coming by.

Flying Mara

More from Mara

Ya Got yer A's and Ya Got yer C's

A little road trip to Mara Lake was in order. We arrived to so-so conditions but all flew. For Harold and I it was the first launch at this site. I managed to get above launch on my second flight and milk it for a while. 40 minutes I would guess. This picture is me doing pre-launch sort of my lines. More to come

Flying, Flying, Flying

Ed getting his self cooked. Some times we wonder if repeated passes over the tower is any good for us.

Graduation day has finally arrived for my youngest daughter Kristine. She graduated with straight A's and grand in scholarships. Way to go Kris.

OpenSuse 11 Has Arrived

Here is a Screen Shot of the the new Open Suse 11. It is a very nice distro. The is the Gnome GUI. It is also available in KDE. Click to enlarge the image.

Fathers Day 2008

All the pilots gathered at the Little Dome LZ for a flight and man it was a flight. I was in the air for over 2 hours and got to 8000 ft.. I could see the Rocky Mountains to the west and all up and down the valleys. Man what a great day. Ed took the day 3 hours and 10,000 ft. All flew and all landed safe. A truly epic day for me.

Ed gets Yanked

Fly out at Deadmans launch near Savona. Conditions where very unstable and ...

Linux Mint 5 (Elyssa)

Wow Wow Wow. Mint 5 has arrived and it is very, very nice. It is very clean and elegant. And seems to work well. This is a screenshot of a fresh install.

Sweet Stuff

The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.
Orison Swett Marden

Pilots and Weather

Norm and Derek are discussing the finer points of unstable weather. A shot I took at Deadman's launch. A little Photoshop here and there.

Sigrid and Willy gettin some sky time. Sigrid I hope I spelled you name correctly

Sigrid At Hullcar

We took a little trip down to Hullcar and got a flight in. Les Martin was kind enought to catch my launch.

Things I find here and there

"In my own life, I am now looking back, and I can tell you that there's a wonderful moment that comes when you realize, 'I'm not striving for anything.'
"What I'm doing now is not a means of achieving something later. After a certain age, there's not a future, and suddenly the present becomes rich and it becomes a thing in itself which you are now experiencing." Joseph Campbell

Justin Has Gone Home

Sadly our grandson has returned to his fathers home in Calgary. We will miss him deeply and hope to see him return here for the summer.

Little Dome

Well We all (pilots) gathered for what we thought was going to be a great day for flying and it was a flop. You just never know what the weather is going to do. In the end three of us got off. And I had my second high flight. The air was very active but manageable. We all got down safe. Can't wait to go again.

Puppy Linux 4.0 "Dingo"

It's confirmed. This little Distro has to be the most fun I have ever had with Linux. It has booted on anything I have ever tried it on. My latest is installing it to a 1 gig SD card. It is extremely fast and the latest incarnation is under 90 megs. This includes the OS and all the basic software to get going. And if your looking for something a bit flashier. There are a multitude of variants. I just loaded a Version call "Fire Hydrant" There are four variations. The one I chose was about 200 megs complete with Java and Flash. It looks great and performed very well. If speed is your thing then try a version of Puppy Linux. The OS runs from ram, if you have over 128meg. And it flies. Also give Teenpup 2008 a look. It has everything but the kitchen sink and weighs in around 500megs.

Gallbladders and Grandsons

Just sitting here with an aching bellybutton. I had my gallbladder out last Mon. and I think I have and infection. Bell is getting very sore and red around the button. Off to the Dr. tomorrow. But Just have a few minutes to let you know we have our Grandson living with us. Justin arrived last week and we have been getting settled in together. He arrived under some difficult circumstances but we are going to try to help him find his way.

Vista SP1 Woes

Say what you will about Vista but besides being an absolute resource hog and some file transfer issues it has performed OK. Having said that though I will add that any OS that needs 600+ megs just to load is needless bloat ware. But alas I digress. I have tried to install SP1 about 9 or 10 times. My first few attempts where on my own and searching the net for solutions. The last few have been with email help from Microsoft. After 4 more tries with solutions from them I am beginning to find it all just a little bit much. No service pack should give you this much grief. There is nothing special about my machine. Acer 5630 Core 2 Duo 1.66 2 gig ram 160 Nvidia Go 7300. The only thing unusual is perhaps that it dual boots Linux Mint. At this point I am waiting for a reply from Microsoft after sending some log files. My wife runs a Mac Book with Parallels and had no issues installing the SP. It must be embarrassing for Redmond to have to create a whole team to help us "common folks" install their patch. I have been working with "Gillian" he answers back every fews days with a few more "solutions" to help me have a safer more enjoyable computing experience. Can't wait to see what they come up with next.

The Mission

This is where I work.

Saturday Afternoons & New Floors

Well I'm just surfing the net around looking out the window. The weather has turned ugly with 40kmh + winds and just below zero temperatures. It was snowing last night. I just finished laying my first floor. We chose a new product. There vinyl planks that are simply laid down over and solid sub-floor or in my case an old tile floor (we ripped up old carpet). I was a little nervous to start with but it was really quite simple. The only tools I needed where a good solid 36 inch ruler and a sharp knife to cut and score the planks. I would recommend this product to anyone wanting to upgrade with simplicity in mind. The product is called Trafficmaster "Allure" It looks good and has a 25 year warranty.

Vernon Reserve Clinic

We headed down to Vernon to do a reserve repack clinic. Of course we also got some air time in. Here is a couple of shots of things we saw. I will be posting more pictures at my web album.