New Years Eve

Here we are Jackie and I. It's 9:30 and I am hoping to make midnight but I doubt it. Good night 2009, Good morning 2010.

Christmas

It's here again and I have decided to do it different. No crazy shopping, no work till I drop. I pray this season will find many in a place of deep gratitude and profound calm knowing that the One who made them is passionately loving them in ways that we cannot even explain.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among them.

One of Many

John Gibbons passed away of the week-end. He had not reached his 40th birthday. John struggled to find peace in this world and now that struggle is over. God bless you John. Your home now in the arms of your Savior.

Helena Has Arrived

The first RC of Mint * has arrived and It is very nice. A few tweaks and here is a screen shot. I downloaded Gnome Do with a few docklets and set it to Docky mode and replaced Rhythmbox with Banshee. This is such a nice operating system with very nice software choices. Open Source community is truly amazing. Webcam, wireless, printers/scanners all worked out of the box. Even the soft keys for volume and wireless and touchpad lock all work. Very Groovy

Xavier & Ayden

Dominic Douglas Shpak

We have a new arrival he is the Bees Knees

Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix

A friend of mine asked me to fix her Asus eeePC 900. It had a 4gig and 8gig SSD drive and with XP installed it was giving her disk full with nothing on it. So a quick download of the ISO and Unetbootin I created a bootable USB drive. A quick reboot to the USB stick and 12 minutes later I was looking at a very good looking and functional desktop. A few more minutes to update the install and to add codecs for the usual proprietary file formats and everything was working. Wireless Webcam everything. Nice job Ubuntu!

Windows 7

In my previous post I mentioned I ordered the 69 dollar upgrade disk. I wanted to mention that I expected to get a 32bit disk as my HP was shipped with 32bit Vista on a 64 bit system. I was pleasantly surprised to find two disks inside the package one 32bit and one 64 bit. Nice....
Even better when I did a clean install with the 64 bit disk and simply wiped the previous install and did a quick painless clean install and it found everything minus the video card and the scanner software for my HP All in One. There might be hope in Redmond yet......

Winows 7 and Karmic Koala

Wow Microsoft finaly delivers a good OS. I signed up for the 69 dollar upgrade in the spring and also held off purchasing a new laptop until the release date. I have only been using it for a few days but I must say I like it. I never hated Vista but it was a resource hog and it was bugger early in it's release with tons of issues. 7 has been quite the opposite. I think MS was a lot smarter this time with lots of beta testing and allowing folks to run the RC with a key. This allowed lots of in the field testing. And users saw quick responses to the issues that presented. I really like a lot of the new features very intuitive.

But with that said Karmic Koala was also released this week and It is a force to be reckoned with. Each release has brought new polish and innovation. This release has produced a stable, polished and integrated OS that is very frugal with resources (340 meg vs 750 meg for Windows). In a few days we should see the release of Linux Mint (a spin off distro of Ubuntu that I prefer. I run dual boot on all my hardware. This affords me the best of both worlds and the opportunity to learn each new Windows OS. I make a small income off Windows in regard to fixing bloated damaged and otherwise compromised Windows computers. So long live the King he keeps me in cash...

Stacy & Lise-Anne

Two marvelous people got married today. I was there to witness the union and snap this pic.

October has arrived

Well it has cooled off quite a bit lately. Fall is here and time to get the house winterized. But for now I sit typing this while gazing outside. It is a sunny and windy morning. The weatherman says the wind is to slow and turn west. Perhaps we can fly today..... perhaps.

Puppy 4.3

I have been using Puppy Linux for older computers for a long while but I must say this is the cleanest looking version I have ever seen. Very nice work.

Back to Work

After a uneasy summer it's time to get back to work. I have just finished my holidays. The rest was good.

Birthday Trip

My brother Derek offered the use of his KLR 650 for a trip north to see my daughter and grand kids in Quesnel. I could not refuse. Here is the bike. I dubed her "Big Red" and some of the senery on Hwy. 24

Speargrass

The view from Speargrass launch.

Fire Season

We have had a crazy fire season. This was not one of the worst days but it was quite smokey. This the view from Aberdeen.

Back To Work

Well I just finished 7 days off and man I could use 7 more but as they say "suck it up buttercup" so off to work I go.

Snow Leopard Has Arrived

It's here; lets see if the upgrade can match the hype

One Of Many

Here is a shot of the spotter aircraft getting back in the air.

At The Airport

I took the dog for a walk down near the airport along the river. I watched the many aircraft coming and going to fight fires. And then a huge flock of gulls passed over.

Fires Everywhere

This is the view from Aberdeen while we where car hunting. A local fire combined with many others in the region have made life here very difficult for those with breathing issues

Cinnamon Ridge

Our local composting site is aptly named.

Speargrass Launch

I drove up to Speargrass to retrive Dave's van after a early morning flight. By this time the wind had really picked up. The view however was as sweet as ever.

Changes, Changes

The Mission where I work is going through some huge changes. We lost one of our funding contracts a few months back. Several staff where laid off at the time and the ED looked for new streams of income, but to no avail. So we have had to lay off several more workers and really pair down to bare bones while we struggle to stay afloat. I have been chosen to stay on but I will be back in the position of Chaplain as well as my other duties. So I will a very busy boy until we get this ship back on track.

Where He leads me I will follow.

Amazing Grace

Wow it's been a long time. So much going on.

Recently a good friend lost his wife to cancer. She fought a courageous battle with her husband by her side every step of the way. While I did not know her well I know her husband. And I hope that if any thing like this ever befell myself or family. That I would be able to walk through it with the grace and endurance these two have displayed though out a long and difficult journey.

Things

Things must be as I want them to be. Otherwise I would change them.

G. Rothstien

"Do you want to be well?"

Jesus Christ

Les coming in

Les coming into land a Little Dome

Big Sky

A big sky over Lac Le Jeune

The Tent Trailer

We bought a Tent Trailer and took it to Lac Le Jeune for its maiden voyage

Found on a chalk board.

You can't think you way into good living.

We have to live our way into good thinking.

Author Unknown

Getting High

Some of the boys headed to Little Dome to try our luck and It turned out to be a good day. We got high! I reached 2941 meters and flew for over an hour and a half. It was very cold up high and I got sucked into a cloud while farting around taking pictures. You can see the cloud that got me in the second picture. I was able to descend and make several passes at top landing but no luck too much lift on launch. But it was my best flight of the year so far.

Linux Mint 7 Gloria

Wow is this one awesome OS. Mint 7 has arrived and it is very very, nice. Stable fast and pretty. This is the RC1 version but so far no bugs. For more info go here. The dock is the new Gnome Do in Docky mode. If you ever wondered what a world without windows would be like give this a look.

Craig gets Ready

Me Buzzin Launch

Harold waits for a cycle

Thoughts for a life

Don't compare your life to others.
You have no idea what their journey is all about.

Ed gets a new wing. It's an Axis Vega II. I took this as he cruised launch on his second flight.

It's Comfirmed

My government is completely paralysed and ineffective in meeting the needs of the people it serves.

Made By Love

Today someone explained to me why we struggle so with hurts and tragedies. She said "We where created by Love to be filled with Love through a relationship of unity with the One who made us. This is why anything that is not love creates in us a dis-ease. Wow eh. Who would have thought it was that simple.

The Weather

Oh my, how much longer before spring arrives. It is -11 this morning and I really need a some sun and warm weather.

Hum.......

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.
- Patrick Young

Saturday Morning

It's 9am and -8 outside our hope is to fly today. The winter keeps hanging on and I really want it to be over.

Stuck in a Walnut Tree

After a great series of flights by Dave, Jim, Harold and I a gusty landing had Jims wing in a tree. A Walnut tree to be exact. After much careful work we were able to get it free with no damage to the tree or the glider