Today the dream starts again.

Ayden Lukas Don Williams. 8lb 10oz born @ 3:36am

Just a false alarm. We're going back home.

On the way in 6 days late but woohoo

As part of the ongoing saga that is the is it/isn't fractured ankle debate between medical people, the resulting influence on me us that I am required to do modified duties. Thankfully I expressed an interest to the right people in video editing. This has lead to me to enter the inner sanctum of Shaw TV. I'm allowed beyond the black curtain and pass the red on-air light.

And what did I find behind the forbidden curtain? Actually a very cool studio. It's called a working studio which means items are filmed in studio with reporters and other busy people working in the background. Four big studio cameras are prominent in the middle of the room underneath two vast hanging lighting rigs.

My first and third days have been spent with Brad updating the Shaw web site. When the stories have been edited for TV, they are also compressed for the web and stored on a central drive. We then add the video to the sections of the Shaw site and link to other sites as appropriate.

One afternoon was spent sitting in with the editors. This, I loved. As a part time, amateur, basement editor myself it was great to see REAL professionals at work. I was surprised to learn that they only recently switched over to using Final Cut Pro on Macs, within the last year. Seeing as my Mac Pro is newer than the ones they were using I was not surprised that mine was more loaded then theirs.

Since then I have been working full time on the web site. Brad has been busy with the in studio stuff which left me available to work on it.

UPDATE: I have been given a date to have an MRI, March 19th. It will be close to eight weeks since the injury at that time.

Mobile Blogging from here.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

ME!!!!!!!!!!

So, against my better judgement last Thursday,(14th) my son convinced me to jump on a thin piece of plastic called a crazy carpet, the name of which should have been a giveaway from the start. The target was at the bottom of a steep bank that had already been well groomed by other young 'uns probably on their snow boards or other such death traps similar to the aforementioned carpet. A jump had been nicely packed and sculpted at the point of maximum velocity to take full advantage.

Well needless to say my jump did not go as I had previously envisioned in my head. As I approached the take off point, the carpet started to spin around as if it itself was too scared of what lay in wait. The result? My right ankle digging in to the upslope and dislodging me from the plastic mat in a dismount that would have been awarded with a 9.0 9.0 9.5 9.5. After the immediate few seconds of self realization that it was a bad idea to begin with, my focus was drawn to the stabbing pain in my ankle which even after a few seconds was twice the size it normally is.

After crawling on hands and knees back to the origin on the incident I called Shauna to come and drive me home. I've twisted my ankle before, no big deal.

Jump to three days later and the purple blue bruising around my still ballooned ankle. Hmmm, it never did that before. But I still decided it would go away and all would be fine so I went back to work. After three days of working I realized it wasn't going away and it was still hurting, more so by the end of the day. A trip to the doctors office is what I needed.

As it turned out on the day I chose to visit the doctor, Shauna also had a doctors appointment to check the pregnancy was all going ok. When we finally arrived at the medi-center, we were told the wait time would be close to an hour and it was already after one o'clock. I decided to go back the next morning.

I arrived at the medi-center at 8:45 and still ended up waiting over an hour to see my doctor. After pulling and pushing on my ankle he decided that I needed to go for x-rays to be sure that nothing was fractured. Finally at around one o'clock, after examining the x-rays he deduced that it was just a bad strain and that I would be in some pain for two to three weeks. And just as a precaution, the radiologist would also look at the pictures to double check fir minor cracks.

It was just about six when the phone rang. It was my doctor. Apparently the radiologist found a fracture in my heel bone and that I would have to return to the medi-center tomorrow to get a air boot and may be off work on short term disability for four to six weeks.

The things you do for your kids!

Here is a ultrasound photo of little baby Williams.

I have decided that I am going to give up frozen poultry products. That's right, I'm quitting cold turkey!!

Thank you I'll be here all week, try the veal.

It's a bit late but here are some photos of our pumpkins this year. Can you guess which ones were done y whom?




I need to remember to use manual focus at night time. The next one is a bit, (a lot) blurry.

I was asked to design and manage a web sie for Nicholas' Scouting group, Ridgewood 195. They were one of the last groups in this district to have a web site. Shauna naturally volunteered me and after making up a very rough test site they agreed to let me design it for them. The design of the site itself was not that complicated. The application I use, Rapidweaver, is very user friendly and can generate very unique designs based on various templates. The tricky part comes when it goes from me volunteering my limited, self-taught knowledge to the demands of a professional web master.

I decided that it would be best if I could set up each section to be updated remotely and not through me. I use various web based applications to update this site so setting up a blog page was easy. I looked no further than Blogger. I created a free blogger account for each section then used a Rapidweaver page to pull that information and embed it with our site, in our template.
Next they all wanted calendars, (or maybe I suggested it). Again I turned to Google. Google calendars are free and once you have one account set up with google, you get access to so much else. Once the online calendar is updated it again gets embedded in our site to our own template. Every section can now post entries to their blog and update events all from their own homes, which leaves me with the general smooth running to deal with. Aside from a few areas that only I can update and to be honest it's only a few pages at most, it's all taken care of remotely.

Check it out and leave a comment if you like what you see.

http://195ridgewood.com

Ok, so I know that the dumb blonde chick jokes are very patronizing and generally wrong but still. This girl makes some very good points, depending on your own views of course.

I am hoping for a day where technology can no longer make things smaller, faster and better. Because on that day I will not have that burning feeling every time something newer comes out. I am writing this outside on my deck on my new and improved 17" Macbook Pro. At least this time, I did need to upgrade. My old 13" Macbook was getting a bit long in the tooth. Yes it was an Intel based Mac but it came to a point where I was just using it as a media centre. I installed Plex (plexapp.com) and had it hooked up to my bedroom TV just for watching movies. Which is all fine and well but it did seem like I wasn't using it for much else... like sitting on the deck for the few remaining weeks of nice weather we have here in Edmonton. I wasn't actually planning on upgrading the Macbook first. I intended to replace my old 20" iMac. Now this is 4 maybe 5 years old and is running the older power PC chips. So I can't even upgrade the OS to Snow Leopard. This will become my media centre on my living room TV eventually and it will do a very good job at it, but the Macbook is just more versatile for my needs right now.

My sister Rachel has finally had a baby. I say finally because her and and her husband Jason have had a tough time of it trying for a baby. Well I'm sure it wasn't too tough for Jason trying! But to cut a long story short, little Jessica Mary was born on 27th August at 7:27am. And when I say little I mean big, she weighed in at 8lb 6oz. Way to go guys.

Well the morning if day one started off early. We got up at around 7:00am and tried to finish off the last few things we had to do before our trip. Well as it turned out we had a lot more to finish off than we thought and didn't end up leaving until 10:30am.

The driving went quite well and went surprisingly fast. Nicholas was kept entertained and the traffic was moving well. We made a stop in Hinton for gas and the mandatory bathroom break. We, (and by we I mean me) were able to drive as far as a provincial campsite just before Kamloops. That's where we ended day one. I recorded an audioboo here of the lovely bird chorus.

Day 2 started off good and went downhill from there. We set off from our campground and headed in to the mountain pass. We took some amazing photos of misty rainclouds covering the tops of the mountains. We made it as far as Hope, BC before we needed gas. I mentioned to Shauna to remember the way we entered Hope as this was the way back to the highway, which is the way we duly drove out. The thing is it turned out to be the way back to the highway going back towards Kamloops! Luckily we were able to only spend a five minute detour turning around and we were back on our way towards Vancouver.
Next came the passing of Chiliwack. Passing it was fine, but just after we had a phone call from my friend Dan. He gave us a tip from his brother about some good campsites in Mission. Somewhere during the conversation, information got muddle and wires hit crossed and we ended up parked at the side of the road fumbling with our free AMA roadmaps. It was after fifteen minutes of fumbling that I embarrassingly remembered that Shauna and I both have iPhones. iPhones that both contain google map applications. We entered our current location and where we wanted to go and were off again. What followed, I won't go in to in great deal but all I will say is that I don't ever want to see highway 1 east or west, highway 7 east or west or the stupid gold bridge leading in to Coquitlam ever again. It really was like the scene from national lampoons European vacation where Chevy Chase is driving around London and keeps pointing out big ben and houses of parliment as he "just can't get over!".
Day 2 ended we us finding another provincial park, Golden Ears, only to be told there was a fire ban in effect so we couldn't have hotdogs for tea. Sandwiches it was for us. See you on day 3.

Now I finally am web 2.0'd. After a long time of not joining in with all the social networking tools that are available us, I resisted the urge until I crumbled under the pressure and signed up for facebook. SInce that day I have cancelled my facebook account twice. The latest craze to sweep the pages on the internet is something that I have known about for over a year but never really saw the reason behind it. Twitter, basically for those of you who do not know what Twitter is, it's a tool that lets you update your friends on what your are doing right now... in 140 characters or less. I think a lot of the draw behind it is quite a few celebrities have embraced it and quite often post updates on their whereabouts or activities. Stephen Fry, Jonathon Ross and Philip Schofield are probably the best known for those of you living in the U.K. U.S. president Barrack Obama is on there as well, but I'm sure he doesn't actually update it himself. So as you can probably tell where this post is heading. Yes, I am now on Twitter and you can follow me by searching for deejaydoubleyoo, (notice the 2 o's).

Well I am following a mac guru by the name of Leo LaPorte. While viewing his recent updates I noticed that he used a service called PixelPipe. It turns out that this application updates several services at once. As you can see the previous post is of a bunch of flowers I took with my new camera. Via a plug-in in Aperture I am able to upload that photo to my blog, my twitter account, my flickr account, my youtube account and many many more if I chose to add them such as facebook, Vimeo, Friend Finder, Photobucket and myspace to name just a few. I have also downloaded the iPhone application from PixelPipe as well which gives me even more connectivity.

Sometimes I think I might love technology too much.

I am no drummer. Although I can tap out a beat, it generally wanders off rhythm and I'm sure it doesn't belong to any official drum beat pattern. However, since we got Rock Band and subsequently Rock Band 2 for Nicholas' Wii, I have been getting better at the drums. Mainly for two reasons. (I'm sure I've wrote this before somewhere just not sure where). 1: Because I have a lot of respect for people who can play the drums properly and 2: because no-one else wanted to play them. Since the early days of 'Eye of the Tiger' I have progressed. And finally last night I gold starred my first song. To achieve this feat you need to complete a song on the expert level. I always thought you needed 100% on expert but last night I completed it with 99% accuracy but I'm guessing I only made one or two mistakes giving me the 5 Gold Stars! What song did you play I hear you ask? Psycho Killer by Talking Heads. Not the hardest song I admit but I how many songs have you gold starred... Huh? Thought so :p

Manchester United have just won the Carling League cup after a very tough battle against a surprisingly equal Tottenham Hotspur. Nothing was settled after ninety minutes of regular time, and the score remained goalless after a further thirty minutes of extra time, so the match headed to a penalty shoot out. Giggs scored a precision penalty to put the reds up 1-0, then Jamie O'Hara had his shot stopped by Man Utd goalkeeper Ben Foster. Tevez scored for Man Utd and someone netted one for Spurs making it 2-1 after 2 kicks each. Christiano Ronaldo slotted home United's third and Bentley missed his giving Manchester a 3-1 lead. Anderson had the responsibility of winning the cup by scoring his penalty leaving Tottenham no way of coming back which he duly did. Manchester United are still in for a chance of winning fours trophies this season as they are still in the FA Cup, European Champions League and currently sit seven points clear of Chelsea and Liverpool who have 55 points, plus Man Utd have a game in hand.

I think I've had enough of the snow. It was a novelty when I first came to Canada but now it's just a pain in the arse. Maybe because I don't snow board or ski that I hate it. Maybe it's because stupid people pile all their snow from their drive ways and cover my cable boxes even though there us a sticker on the box in plain view indicating that it is against local bylaw to cover it with dirt, snow or shrubs! And don't get me started on shrubs.

I have been really getting in to editing with Final Cut Pro and making silly little videos just to experiment with different effects and techniques. I have been using training videos from Lynda.com. The videos on there are really clear and easy to understand. Anyway here's another test video. Also I should add that all my videos have been uploaded to youtube as well. Just search for deejaydoubleyoo. Or just click here.


Click below to download.
Distort PIP test

For women it's shoes or handbags. For me it's computers. I just can't stop buying them. I always want the newest and greatest. That's one big flaw with computer buying... they are updated so fast that as soon as you buy one, another one is released that is just slightly better and it makes you wish you held off that little bit longer so that you could have bought that one instead. Well I have solved that problem. It turns out that I solved the problem about a year and half ago. Buy Apple. Just buying Apple isn't really the solution but having made the switch it sent me down the right path. I'll give you the long background process that led me to buying my new computer as all my decisions seem to have to pass a variety of tests before I make the final yes or no.

As you may (or not) have read in my other entries, I recently bought a HD video camera. The Sony SR12 120GB. Blue ray camcorders just aren't a realistic approach yet. Now I went back and forth on which camera to buy, weighing up the pros and cons of different manufacturers, recording formats and storage. Having finally settled on the Sony AVCHD format and checking that my video editing software, Final Cut Pro, was compatible I was disheartened to discover that my research wasn't as in depth as I had thought. It turned out that the AVCHD format will work with FCP but only when converted to the Apple Pro Res 422 codec. Now there is nothing at all wrong with that codec but another thing presented a problem. Apple Pro Res 422 would only work on newer Intel processor Macs. Mine was an older IBM processor Mac. So I needed a new computer to run FCP to work with my new camera. Talk about knock on effect. Now full HD resolution video is very CPU intensive and although I could run FCP on a regular iMac and convert the AVCHD to Apple Pro Res 422, rendering the video and editing would be on the slow side. We would be talking hours to render video files depending on their length. Some might be asking, "Who does this guy think he is... Steven Spielberg?". Well to go further back in time, when I was living in England, with the help from my cousin Ian, we used to be quite the video making enthusiasts. Spending our weekends making short, sometimes intentionally funny short videos. Often we would spend so much time laughing and joking through the shooting of the video it would take us several weekends to put together the short amateur videos. So I have always had an interest in making videos whether it be spoof commercials or tourism clips, whatever the subject. I have recently put in a request to spend a day with the video editing department with my company, Shaw. I seem to get asked quite a lot about what computer to buy. I always answer the same way. Buy the most advanced computer you can afford because as I mentioned earlier, as soon as you buy it, it's out of date. Having said that, I felt myself flip flopping between buying the computer I wanted and waiting for the next NEW one to be released. With Apple, their products go through cycles. Every 8 - 18 months a new version of the product will be released. Every product. iPods, computers, even the iPhone has been updated to the 3G version. So should I buy my computer now, or wait until January. That being the projected unveiling of the latest incarnation. January being the annual Macworld Expo. At macrumors.com in the buyers guide section they set recommendations to buy or not to buy Apple products based on their current cycle. My computer was listed as 'DON'T BUY: UPDATES SOON'. I guess I should tell you what computer I bought instead of just referring to it as 'my computer'. I am now the proud owner of a Mac Pro 2 x 3.2 Ghz quad core currently with 2GB ram, soon to be upgraded to 6GB ram! That's QUAD core as in four. And I got two of them meaning 8 processors!!! 8... EIGHT... one more than 7!! 8 3.2 ghz processors!! And 6 GB Ram! I was going to go to 12GB ram but I held back. I really, really wanted to get 12 but my level headedness came through and made me see that I would not use 12 GBs on a day to day basis. I would get some use out of it when rendering the video but that didn't justify it for me. So getting back to my decision to get my Mac Pro sooner rather than later given that January is only a few months away. After lots of debating, Shauna finally convinced me to get it now. She put it a good way and in a way that I related to. She knows that if I postponed the purchase until January that when January came I would then tell myself to wait until April for the end of the tax year and get it then. But then I would find some other reason not to get it then and wait for the next reason to pass by. I also tried hard to see myself outgrowing the Mac Pro. 8 cores isn't going to become obsolete anytime soon. But the final nail in the coffin is the best. It re-affirms my loyalty to everything Apple. Everything they stand behind. When I was in the store buying my Mac Pro I mentioned my reservations with the new versions imminent to the store genius, (Apple employees are called Genius's). He told me that with it being so close and the fact that I was buying a Mac Pro for a lot of money, that if Apple did release a new version in January that was a significant upgrade to mine, that I could go back to the store and request that I get the newer model, stating that if I had known I would have waited. He said that he had seen people come back with macbooks purchased a few months before the new aluminium uni-body versions were released and swap them. If they were willing to do that for a macbook worth $1000-$2000 they sure as hell better do it for me and my Mac Pro.

Or at least getting old before my time. I find myself sitting here writing this after a frustrating, cold, pain in the ass day at work. I was scheduled for standby, in case someone called in sick (or sick of working) I pick up their work. I can almost guarantee that if I am on standby I will get a run in Bonnie Doon, an area of Edmonton that I hate. It's old, it's overhead, it generally requires wiring outlets. The customer service reps don't help matters when they seriously under book calls for time. twenty five minutes is the standard time for adding a standard definition digital box. This is still cutting it short. A high definition personal video recorder box has a lot more explaining to be done to the customer yet they are still booked for the poultry twenty five minutes. I had fifteen minutes booked for the HD PVR as well as filling out a credit contract for the purchase of the box. And they wonder why we cut corners? So after all my work was completed and filled out and handed in, I come home and have something to eat. Now I am sitting in my leather office chair, listening to some classical music whilst sipping on a gin and tonic. I may as well be wearing a smoking jacket and wearing slippers.

Take me out to the pasture and shoot me now, I've seen better days!

Here is a quick (very rough) edit from our camping trip to Drumheller this past summer. It's a rough edit because I was forced to use my windows pc to edit the footage together using Sony Vegas Pro 8.

Camping

Lots has been going since I last updated this blog and I've been up to lots as well. I will now give you a very condensed version of all thats been happening. Firstly, I installed Linux on my web cam computer, (Linux is another operating system like Windows and OS X). As it turns out it isn't that great to use but I wanted to see if I could use it and how it works so that I am able to work with the basics. Now I getting the web cam to work with it proved frustrating so I am putting XP back on it but I just haven't gotten around to it. I did buy a new HD camera, the Sony one that I was looking at. Only thing is, I need a newer computer to work with the format. When I was researching it all I overlooked one little detail. It needs to run on an Intel processor Mac and not a power PC Mac like I have. SO I am saving up for the new bigger better and much improved Mac (32GB RAM better!). I also have an iPhone now so I have busy playing with it. Nicholas just had his 7th birthday and we bought him Rock Band for his Wii... and I have gotten addicted to that. It's freaking awesome! LOL even though I suck and have little rhythm I still give it ago. I shouldn't say that as I managed to get over 80% on expert on the guitar on one song. We also went camping a couple times this year, once to Drumheller to the dinosaur museum and once just to the lake.

So thats kind of what we have been up to this summer. I will try to update more regularly from now on.

I know I have not been here for a while but I have some good reasons. All I will say is that unfortunately we are no longer expecting a baby. I will leave it at that and just ask that no-one talks to Shauna about it. Person after person saying "sorry" doesn't make it any easier to move on. We know that everyone is sorry and are there for us if we need them and we appreciate it.

But now I am back at my computer and I also have some other news. My camcorder is back from the repair shop, although it didn't get fixed. It was going to cost around $500 to get the parts replaced. It still powers on so I will just continue to use it as a webcam. This is a blessing in disguise really as it means I get to go buy a new one! Can anyone say high definition? I'm torn between two models. The first is made by Canon and records in HDV format, the second is by Sony and uses a AVCHD format. Both have pros and cons am I am still weighing up which one is the best to go forward with. I am leaning more towards the Sony HDR-SR12. It has 120GB storage built in which can record up to 15 hours in full HD. Recording in AVCHD is both a blessing and hinderance. At the moment to edit AVCHD requires a powerful computer and still takes a while to capture and render. Final Cut would take this raw format and convert to an Apple equivalent for editing. The pro is that it is the way forward in HD recording and it seems like with every passing day technology is advancing so that it will become easier to work with. HDV, although easier to manipulate and edit with more software, is coming to the end of it's run. It is limited to 1440x1080 whereas AVCHD is capable of 1920x1080. Looking to the future, blu-ray camcorders are not yet at any performance standards to the earlier HD camcorders.

I have a lot more things to post but I will save them for another day, hopefully very soon.

PS: Don't forget to check out Nicholas' blogs over @ http://nicholas.deejaydoubleyou.com

Well what with us expecting a baby, we need all the space we can get. I finished the entertainment room part of the basement last year. I just decided one day to see if I could get it done before Mum came over for her holiday. With help from Larry, (Shauna's Dad) we got it pretty much done except for a few cosmetic finishings. This left half the basement unfinished. We had always planned to complete it and turn it into another spare room and another bathroom but it was being utilized as a storage area for all out junk. It's a kind of blessing as well because it has forced us to throw a lot of stuff that we had no reason to hang on to. I once heard a quote from a professional spring cleaner that said, "If you haven't used something in the last year, you're probably not going to use it next year!".

Below are some photos of the work in progress.

The spare room
The closet
The laundry room
The bathroom
The hallway from the entertainment room, passed the bathroom and into the spare room

So the web cams are up and running and all seems fine with those, I'll try not to mess with them too much! :) Also Nicholas has his own website now http://nicholas.deejaydoubleyou.com. Just click here and check it out and leave him a message or something. And lastly the biggest news of all:

We're having another baby! Yes Shauna is pregnant and due around middle of January. Things have bit a little stressful to start of with but I'm sure everything will all work out fine in the end.

When I picked Nicholas up from school today, I asked him what he wanted for tea. He suggested that we make something from his new cook book that he was given from a school field trip to a farm. We looked through it and decided that chicken fingers and parmesan tomatoes were good meals to start with. We took the cook book with us to the grocery store, picked up the ingredients we needed and came home. Nicholas read out the instructions and told me what to get from the cupboards. He crumbled up the soda crakers and measured out the parmesan and herbs. He mixed it all together and coated the chicken strips. He laid them out on the tray and placed them in the preheated oven that he turned on. After he set the timer, he carried on with the tomatoes. Then when they were ready he put them in to cook as well. When the buzzer went off he opened the door and pulled out the trays and served the food. All under my supervision. It was very nice and I would have him make it again.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I am proud of him.

I know I wrote about my new phone along time ago. Well since then the iPhone was released in UK, Germany and just about everywhere except Canada. How was this possible seeing as we border America? Well it was reported to be for several reasons. The iPhone runs on the GSM network of which there is only one provider in Canada... Rogers. Now Rogers are not big fans of unlimited data plans, Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) is. They apparently could not come to an agreement for an unlimited data plan. The equivalent pricing in Canada would be over $200 a month. Secondly, the name iPhone was already taken in Canada by Comcave. On March 25th, 2008 the trademark application was updated casing me to think that a deal was settled. Today Rogers released a statement confirming a deal that will bring the iPhone to Canada!!!

For more information read it here: iPhoneincanada.com

I watch the UFC. I never used to like watching two guys just punch each other in the face, It seemed pointless. Why would someone put themselves through that? You are going to step in a ring and stand there with someone else who wants to inflict pain on your face. He wants to break your nose, make you eyes swell shut, cut open your mouth, always seemed a bit backwards to me. That was when I was just watching boxing. Ever since the Ultimate Fighting Championship was bought by three guys who enjoyed martial arts and saw something in the future for mixed martial arts, it has become more and more popular and definitely more safer. Gone are the days of the 'Two men enter, one man leaves' mentality. Referees are on hand to jump in if one man can not intelligently defend himself and is getting the worst of a beating. Not the same as boxing. With boxing if a guy gets beaten so badly that he gets knocked down, he is given an eight count to regain himself and get punched in the face some more.

Now from time to time, all it takes is one punch to knock a guy out and then there is nothing the ref can do to save the guy except stop the fight at that point. Anyone can get caught with a knock out punch on any given day. It is almost better to get knocked out in some cases, it saves you from getting hit four, five or six more times before the ref pulls the other guy off, a saving grace almost. However, sometimes a punch, knee or well timed elbow will not knock you out but instead open up a cut so bad that the ref calls a halt to the fight so a doctor can assess the cut. Some cuts on the forehead or around the head area will bleed very badly and quickly but actually not be that serious. Edwin DeeWees and Yves Edwards are two fighters who I think have had the most bloodiest fights I have ever seen, but both fighters were seen by the doctor who allowed them to continue. Some fighters are not so lucky. The most well known "bad cut" belongs to Marvin "the Beastman" Eastman. If you ask anyone that has some degree of MMA knowledge about a bad cut, his Marvin will almost always be the first name mentioned. Here is his photo: Warning It's pretty brutal.



That was caused by an elbow form Vitor Belfort at UFC 43. What make sit so nasty is the length and width. You could park a semi in that thing!! A top contender in the cut department. However, just recently a new challenger has stepped up to take the top spot. This is a fighter from England called Ross "the Gladiator" Pointon. He was recently on the reality fighter series "The Ultimate Fighter" with eventual winner and fellow Brit, Michael "the Count" Bisping. Here is his entry photo:



What makes this cut so bad? While Marvin had length and width covered, Ross takes depth! Yep, that white stuff you can see is his skull. I believe this was caused by a knee. Now for the third scary photo:




Me with a beard, thats scary LOL. Don't worry its all gone now.

Not too much to say about the old one. It was starting to get too much to keep fixing all the little things that had gone wrong on it. Just recently I spent $373 just to get the front two door handles repaired. Then just last week, it wouldn't start. Various people have all suggested it may have been the fuel pump, another 300 - 400 dollars to fix. I was looking at getting a new vehicle a while ago, but decided to try my old van for a little while longer, but it didn't repay my faith in it LOL.

So, with that all said, I pick up my new vehicle on Thursday. It's a blue 2008 Honda Element. See it here.

And I know I say that a lot, but since I left Facebook I guess I really have to keep up with it. Now that I know a lo of you actually do get onto the internet regularly there should be no reason not to check here as well. Just make sure you leave a comment about each blog, just think of it as my new super fun extra cool fun wall LOL.

Today is Sunday 4th November and we have had snow! The first snow fall of the year and it's funny how different people react. I overheard, (when I say overheard I mean the checkout girl at the grocery store thought that it was ok to talk to her friend who was behind me in the line while she was still serving me) a conversation between two teenagers discussing the snow. Basically they were excited that it had snowed so that they get to go snowboarding soon. The girl was "pumped" because she was getting a new board this year. When I saw the new white blanket this morning, I just think about shoveling the snow and how much it sucks to do my job when it snows. I guess it's all perspective. Maybe it's just age.

I am working on a way for you to upload anything you want to to my site. Whether it be a funny picture, joke or video. I'm still working on it and I think you will need to have an ftp client but I think Internet Explorer has one built in so it should be ok.

OK, so I could sit here and tell you all that I've been busy and that writing this has gotten away from me. I could lie and put it down to me going to the gym everyday or doing lots of charity work, (don't like to talk about it mate). But instead I'll be honest and it's Phil's fault and I'll explain why.

About five years ago I went on holiday back to England. I stayed at my sisters house while she went on her honeymoon to Bali. While I was there I asked her if it would be ok to use her computer which she said would be fine. So one night I go and visit my best friend Phil. He casually hands me a CD. "You should play this game mate" he says nonchalantly. "If you like football, you'll love this game". After the visit I went back to my sisters house and loaded the game onto her computer. For the next week I was hooked on this football managerial simulator called Championship Manager. It has since changed it's name to Football Manager. I have bought or downloaded each succeeding version of the game since that first one was handed to me. Each time I always take control of a low league team and try to get as close to home as possible, normally resulting in me being the manager of Torquay United. I go through phases of playing the game especially during the latest version due to the difficulty of this latest incarnation. However, after reading various forums on this 07/08 season of the game, I have a lot more insight in to how the game can be played. As such I have taken my lowly Torquay United from league 2 and in the red with the bank, to league 1 and over 2 million in the bank. Not much of a promotion in leagues status you might think but as I eluded to earlier, this version is very difficult. I have also improved other aspects of the team such as stadium size and training facilities.



I am eagerly awaiting the new copy to be released so that I can be sucked in to the Blue Square Premier league to play my beloved "gulls" as they were relegated in real life. Maybe I should apply?... Nah they couldn't afford me :-)

Also what's funny is that when you set your profile up at the beginning it asks you for your background. I chose the highest level of football history which is 'Former International Player'. Because of my prolific background, while I was in the bottom division Juventus, a big name club in Italy wanted me as their manager. But I turned them down to stay at favourite club!

It always seems that there's never enough time in a day to do everything you want to. That's the way I've been feeling recently. What with deciding to finish the basement in ten days to preparing for my mum's visit, it's all been go, go, go. But the basement room is just about finished. Just a few touch ups and finishing touches left and I will finally have time to breathe. At least it's finished enough for me to be able to setup my Mac down here and hook up the internet properly.


We are hopefully going to Jasper on Thursday which will be fun and also it will provide some good opportunities for some good photos. I will post them as soon as I get back.

What with playing golf at a Jack Nicholas designed course, to dj-ing a 70th birthday party. It's been all go for me over the past few weeks. I haven't had time to record any new jokes either so I'll get a few of those uploaded in the next few days.

We have finally stopped having bad thunder storms over here and the weather has been hot. It was 30*c the day I went golfing at Northern Bear! It's been in the mid to high 20's since then, so when the weather is good... I'm busy.

Keep checking back this week for new updates, or the best way to stay updated is to sign up for my mailing list. Whenever I update this, you'll receive an email from me. And don't worry about receiving any spam either. Sign up here.

The weather over here in Edmonton has been very bad as of late. Although it's not a continuous barrage of all the worst mother nature has to offer, it has been some of the most torrential downpours I've seen. The weird thing is it appears on the horizon as a big black thunder cloud and rolls across the sky until it unleashes a flood of water from above resulting in an inch or two of rivers flowing along the side walks. I managed to capture a few seconds on my camera phone before and after.

Well I have finally received some photos from a visitor to display on here and share with the world... well the half dozen or so people that actually view this web site lol. My cousin Ian went to a special promotion with a PA from two popular snooker players. Jimmy "whirlwind" White and Alex "drunk wife beater" (allegedly) Higgins where great players in their day.


Jimmy White putting on his "I'll smile cos I have to, now get this freak away from me" smile.


Is this stalker still here? Security!!!



Alex "friar tick" Higgins signing an autograph... or a restraining order.

I have been asked recently about the things that I miss about England and Cornwall. Contrary to what some people think, there are things that I can still enjoy over here. However, it's just quite not the same. I can still enjoy fish and chips over here and after a few months of going without them, the chip shop over here tastes just like back home. BUT, trying them straight after I have been back home for two weeks reminds you how much they aren't just like 'back home'. I can enjoy a nice cold can of Boddingtons or Caffreys anytime I want but I have to pay more for them than if I was to drink other ales available like Sleemans or Rickards. Although it's now coming into summertime so I will probably be downing a few Coronas or my favourite South American beer Brahma while the barbecue is firing up, but then again I haven't had a beer in ages seeing as I am trying to get fit and beer isn't the best thing for that. Better to drink shorts like vodka, whiskey and gin, not as fattening.

Having said that, I do miss going out on a saturday night for a drink. Not even going out clubbing and dancing like a freak, coming home with a soaking wet shirt, stumbling up the stairs and launching the spinning bed ride while calling to Huey on the big white telephone. I just miss being able to walk to the pub, have a game of pool, and take the piss out of Quinton! I miss being able to order a bitter tops. Caffreys straight from the tap. Having a choice of which pub to drink in. I miss the fact that I would be able to take Nicholas in the pub with me, or even to sit outside at a table and drink a beer while runs around and has a juice. Over here, everything is so far away. The pub, the mall, the shops, everything.

I miss English t.v. Good mindless humour. Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Shooting Stars, Fantasy Football League, Vic and Bob's Big Night Out. I miss watching Grandstand on a saturday morning as well and watching the grand prix on sunday afternoons. I get to watch three football games a week over here on a saturday morning, but its just not the same. It still has English commentary but at half time they cut back to the studio and have Canadians analyze it. At least they don't cut during the game like they did during the 2002 world cup.

I miss the rain! When it rains over here, it really is like the 'heavens' open up and sheets of water fall from the sky. Then after 5 minutes it's all over, the sun comes out and within 10 minutes all the rain is dried up and the only trace of a downpour left behind is the rainbow and the black clouds in the distance. I miss the drizzle. The hours upon hours of rain that I refer to as rain that gets you wet. As stupid as that sounds it's true. When it pours you wear a rain coat or carry an umbrella and you are ready for it. When it drizzles, it never seems enough to bother with the coat, you always seem to sweat more inside than you would actually get wet from the rain. But it's that constant drizzle that eventually soaks you. I'm sure I wouldn't miss it as much if I lived with it, kind of similar to how during the first 2 -3 years over here I would get excited about the snow each year. Now in the 7th year I can't wait for it to be gone each spring.

I miss the smells of Cornwall. Portreath harbour can smell pretty bad sometimes but it's when all you can smell is the salt sea air is what I miss. For me it's one of those internal smells that trigger memories. The smell of a freshly baked pasty, reminds me of lunchtimes on a saturday. It used to be a ritual on saturdays when I would mess around with Ian. Freshly cut grass takes me back to when the field used to get cut at St. Day school.

So there's a little insight in to my sensitive side and you call all thank Ian for that. Seeing as this is my web site and I can type anything I want, does anyone know what the area code is for the 999 is in Newquay? Answers on a postcard to the regular address and I'll pick the winner next week who will receive a blue peter badge. Till next time, don't have nightmares.

And to those of you who just want the chocolate bunnies... HAPPY EASTER

I apologise. I have been very busy here and have had a lot of things going on. Keep your computer tuned in here, same bat time, same bat channel for more updates. :-)

Well, I was originally going to go to Jasper this weekend but I decided against it when it was pointed out to me that its sill cold in Jasper this time of year. Well it is in the mountains. Good for boarders or skiers, both of which I am not, although I would like to try snow boarding but that is for another day. What I can do is play golf. Well to be more precise I can hit a tiny white ball around a field all day growing more and more irritated by my pure lack of form and horrible technique. Shauna mentioned that it might be a good idea to go to Jasper in the spring and go golfing while I am there. Good idea.


But, I had already booked this time off, so I thought I would just keep it booked and just take a week of from work. Nothing too exciting. Probably just laze around the house, (what's new?) maybe get a few things done, but generally, just relax.

I just finished work early, ready for my long weekend! The sun is shinning here in Edmonton, the couple of inches of snow that fell yesterday has melted and I have three days off. Not that I hate my job or anything but if I was given the choice to work or not... I'm picking not. Those people who win millions on the lottery and then say "I'll back to work as normal on Monday" are just plain idiots, pure and simple. I work because I have to. I have bills I have to pay, therefore I work. Then there are those people who say, "You'd get bored if you won all that money". Again, these people are obviously retarded. How could you possibly get bored? The only thing holding you back would be your imagination. For the first five to ten years I would be fulfilling everything that I've ever wanted to do. From hand gliding to flying helicopters, from producing home made horror movies to traveling the world. Then after that I would start to venture out into the extremes. I would buy a football club, enter the Dakar rally and maybe climb a mountain or two. Either way, I would most definitely not get bored! I think people who are or have been poor can relate to this more than well off to rich people because all poor people do is dream about what they would do if... There is never a rich person dreaming about being poor.

Isn't it funny how if you buy something, lets say a new pair of shoes. When you get them, they are all clean and spotless. The first time you wear them, you avoid everything possible to keep those shoes looking nice and new. The first time you get a mark on them, it's like it's the end of the world. Immediately you rub the mark to see if it will just rub off. Then maybe you'll try some water to see if it will come out. You may even go as far as to buy some shoe cleaner to bring back the "newness" of them. But when you have something wrong with your body, at first you ignore it! It will go away. Then it does. Second time it happens, maybe you feel a bit more security by thinking that it went a way the first time so all you have to do is ignore it for a bit and eventually it will go away. It's amazing at how long you can ignore something and deflect the blame of what is causing the problem to keep from actually finding out what is wrong. Maybe it's human nature to not to want to know the truth about something that concerns your body because "what if"? There's always that chance that what you thought was just an annoying little pain, could actually turn out to be something much worse. This is why it's becoming more and more publicised about self examinations. So many people were getting stuff checked out far too late. Now most of this refers to lumps and growths and stuff like that. But stress isn't something that can be felt or seen or examined. The effects of it can be. But when do you finally give in and admit that the headaches, tiredness, muscle pains, lethargic attitude and general grumpiness have all been building up for some time and that hidden ailment is the cause of it all. Well this is how I was feeling this morning. Issues in my private life and work life and my general sub-concioussness' ability to think things through again and again and again with differing out comes and scenarios made me very light headed and my heart beat faster. This is why I finally admitted that maybe I need a holiday. Just a week or two to just sit back, relax and not let trivial things take over. Jasper, Alberta is close to where I live but is remote enough to be able to let the worries slip away! Apart from coming back to England this year and one or two weekend camping trips, I haven't had a proper holiday since the last time I went back to England. Even though I was invited to go with Shauna and Nicholas to Disney land I do feel that the stress levels on that trip would not have been any lower than if I stayed here. As the saying goes, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". I also found this good quote from actress Lily Tomlin. "For fast-acting relief, try slowing down"
The Symptoms
The Cure!

Ok, so it's -32*c today with the wind chill. That makes me laugh while I think about it. If the weather channel says its -26*c today but with the wind chill it will be -32*c... then its freaking -32*c not -26*c. Anyway, when I am in my van its actually warmer if I turn off the engine. When the engine is on I have the front de-mister on to keep from fogging up, but its blowing cold air! I'll have to find a way to keep warm while I wait... maybe I'll do push ups and star jumps LOL. Thankfully it is supposed to warm here over the next few days... actually reaching zero at some point. We seem to have had a lot of snow this year, certainly more than last year. It fell earlier this year as well, about two weeks before Halloween. I have a pile of snow outside my house about five feet high. We are already into the middle of February so I wonder how long it's going to take to melt all of this. One thing about Canada or should I say Edmonton, the transition between seasons is very quick. One minute it will be -20*c next week it will be +15*c. Even still, there's a lot of snow to melt.

One day about two years ago, a lady at Shauna's work brought a small puppy with her into work one day. She said that she had found him in a ditch beside the road. The lady had phoned the SPCA and a animal shelter called the Blue Cross, but both said that they had no vacancies and that the dog would be put to sleep if they took him in. Well, to cut a long story short, we ended up taking him. We had always planned on getting another dog to be some comfort for Chase. However, after about 3 months he was causing too much hassle. He was still just a pup and wanted to play all the time. Even at three in the morning. One night I woke up to him barking and growling with Chase, just play fighting. The neighbour next door was not pleased and at this point neither was I. He had to go. So we let him go to a friend of Shaunas, but he didn't last long there either. After he ripped up there garbage and generally made a mess of their back yard, he came back to us. Luckily, Shauna had a friend who lived on an acreage and had lots of space and was far away from her neighbours! But the story doesn't end there. Apparently he was very keen on her cats... a little too keen. After she had seen him run behind her shed, she chased after him. She seen Muck running away and a dead cat on the ground. After that, I'm not sure where he went, to the SPCA I think. He had a hard start.

We've had Lady for some time now but have only just got around to taking some photos of her. Not that she is looking the greatest right now anyway. She is in desperate need of a haircut. ;-)

Its been a while since I updated this, but with so much free time on my hands I decided I needed to catch up on some Football Manager 07! Yes I know what a geek. But if you look at it from the point of few that I am doing all this work for what seems like nothing at this point, then why not.

Now I like all types of humor. Pretty much anything will make me chuckle, but observational humor is what really makes me laugh. To quote someone very wise, Homer Simpson once said, "Its funny cos it's true!" Things that I can relate to on a daily basis and maybe have already thought of as quite funny. Some people use sayings and and are so straight faced when they say them not realizing that what they just said makes no sense. For example, if you have lost your car keys someone will always say, "they will be in the last place you look." Of course they will. I'm not going to find my keys, then keep on looking for them! If you have ever heard Jerry Seinfeld do standup then you know that he does a lot of observational material. Also, since I have had my Sirius satelite radio, I have been listening to alot of commedy. One commedian in particular I like to listen to is Mitch Hedberg. A very funny guy but who is sadly dead. So many great quotes I would like to list a few here.

An escalator can never break down... just become stairs. You would never see an "Escalator out of order sign, just an "Escalator temporarily stairs" sign, "Sorry for the convenience".
A guy showed me a photo the other day and said, "this is a photo of me when I was younger". Every photo is of you when you were younger. Try and show me one of you when you are older!
I like re-fried beans. One day I would like to try fried beans because they might taste the same and we are just wasting time.
I walked past a dry cleaners at 3 am and the sign said, "sorry we are closed". You don't have to be sorry, its 3 am, it would be unreasonable of me to expect you to be open.

So many more but my delivery, (or yours), doesn't do his comedy justice.

2-1 over the Minnesota Wild. Goals from Joffrey Lupul and Marc-Andre Bergeron. Not a very exciting game but then games against the WIld never are. I worked kinda late tonight an then watched the hockey so I haven't had time to look for a guest book or page counter yet, but I will get to it. Shauna and Nicholas are getting excited about their trip to Disney Land. Nicholas can't stop talking about how he gets to be a 'Toon" for the day. It's funny when he tells other people about it because they have absolutely no idea what he's ranting on about. I took Shauna's Mac book to work this afternoon and used it while I had some down time. It still amazes me that people don't secure their wireless networks. Oh well free internet for me.
Well guess I should go look for a guest book for you guys. I don't kbnow, the things I do for you to make your life simple.