Author: MRJ

Today the our neighbors to the south celebrate thanksgiving, a day of food, family and football.  It’s also a time to look at what you have and be thankful. I was thinking a lot about that tonight. Thinking about how thankful I am to have my little family. Of course looking at the American thanksgiving from afar, it’s hard to see it as a holiday for giving thanks  any more. With all the Black Friday sale ads, that seem to take over the airwaves in the weeks leading up to it.  I don’t understand how it got so big, so quick. I don’t remember hearing about Black Friday 10 years ago. Maybe it was there and I just didn’t see it. I do know that way to many Canadian retailers are jumping on the bad wagon.  What’s worse is how early the retailers are opening. It used to be that they’d open at six the day after thanksgiving. Now I’ve seen them opening as early as 8pm on thanksgiving. Thank just seems wrong. I know they are supposed to have great sales, but I can’t help but think that it’s only on a few items that it’s really worth the trip. Most things wont be such a great deal, It will look like one but when you do the math you will see it’s a scam. Just because it’s on ‘Sale’ doesn’t mean it’s a good deal. But I’m sure tonight and tomorrow morning thousands of people will head to the stores to cash in on the savings. I just hope nobody get’s hurt this year. It seems so senseless when you hear of people being trampled to death, or paper spread in the throngs of bargain hunters.

From Pictures of the Day 2012

Today after skating Jacob had a play date at his friend’s house, so it was just me and Violet hanging out at home. So out came one of her puzzles and we sat on the floor and put it together. It was nice having some time with Just Violet and me. Of course before I knew it Jacob was home and I was reading them the Paper Bag Princess before bed.

The Start Menu
It’s funny for years I’ve tried to use the start menu as little as possible. When I use windows seven I only open it to search for apps that I haven’t pinned to the task-bar. I don’t search through the lists of all the programs, it just seems a wast. Even before Windows Vista brought the Start Menu search to windows I used an application called Launchy to give me the search functionality.  Now with windows 8 I actually find myself using the start menu. Of course calling the tiled interface a Start Menu is a bit of a stretch. What it is a representation of the Information and applications you use most often. It’s how Microsoft brought the simplified phone to the pc. As with most of the new features in windows 8 this would have a greater impact on touch based tablets than desktops.

Continue reading “Windows Wednseday: Look and Feel”

From Pictures of the Day 2012

Today when I got home from work Violet showed off her tambourine. She made it at preschool and seemed really proud of it. So I thought it’d make a good Picture of the day.

This morning the Toronto Blue Jay’s capped off an eventful week of changes with a morning news conference. After a disappointing season where the teams pitching staff was decimated by injuries, the fans were watching Alex Anthopoulos to see if he could address the need for starting pitchers and some new bats. The off season had a ominous start for the Blue Jays and there fans, when the news of that second year Manager John Farrell was leaving the Jays to Manage the Boston Redsox.  So now Anthopoulos had to address the whole behind the bench as well as on the field.

After a few minor moves the Toronto GM shocked the baseball world by doing a 12 play trade with the Marlins. The Jays sent a bunch of young players to the Marlins and in return addressed most of there needs in the field with All-star shortstop Jose Reyes, right-hander Josh Johnson, left-hander Mark Buehrle, catcher John Buck, infielder/outfielder Emilio Bonifacio and cash. What’s amazing he did it without stripping the cupboard clean of the teams best young talent.  He wasn’t done there, before the trade was even approved by the commiseration office he signed free agent, left fielder Melky Cabrera to a 2 year deal, a bit of a gamble considering that Cabrera served a 50 games suspension last year for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs.

I expected this mornings news conference at the Rogers Centre to be the Jays officially announcing the trades and signing, but instead it was the announcement that they were bringing back John Gibbons to manage the club. It was a bit of a shock. His name wasn’t on any of the lists appeared in the media as possible candidates for the job. But there he was sitting next to Anthopoulos talking about how he had his Dream Job last year coaching a AA team in his home town and that he’d left it to come here to coach.

So what does all this mean for the average Jay’s fan? Well it means that the powers that be in the Blue Jay’s organization have decided that this is the year to take the next step in the pursuit of the playoffs and to finally getting back to the world series.  If the team stay’s healthy they should be able to compete in the competitive American League East, and even if they have some injuries their increased depth should  help the team stay competitive. Going into last season there was a lot of hope surrounding the Blue Jays, they were a young team with a lot of potential that didn’t hold up for the entire season. Looking at the team now, they have added proven players that should take them to the promise land. Of course the Marlins thought that these same players would take them to the post season this year only to finish the year 69-93 last in their division. So the question we have to ask ourselves is the young core of the Blue Jays good enough to benefit from this influx of talent.  Or will next October come around with the Jay’s on the sidelines. That’s not something that can be answered today. That can only be answered on the field. What I do know is that It should be an exciting season. The only problem I have is that it’s still November  we have 3 months before spring training and 5 before the season starts and we can find out just how good a team Toronto will have.

From Pictures of the Day 2012

Today after a meeting at Violet’s preschool, I was walking home and I saw a few houses with Christmas Lights up. At first I was surprised that they were up so early, but then Sunday was the Santa Clause parade and this week is Thanks Giving south of the border so I guess it’s really not that early.

Today I thought I’d share an application that I find myself using more and more for my picture of the day. Photo Grid is a collage application for Android. It creates 4 type’s of collage, plus the ability to add boarders to a single image.  I’ve spent a lot of time looking for applications for adding effects to photos on my phone. Most are filled with tacky effects and usually lower the resolution of your images to un-usable quality. I usually use the Grid Collage for my picture of the day. I like the clean look it produces and how easy it is to use. It still lowers the quality of the pictures to 720 or 1080p, but most of the time, I find the grid look worth the loss of image quality.

Continue reading “Mobile Monday: Photo Grid”

From Pictures of the Day 2012

Tonight Melissa spent some time slaving away in the kitchen making muffins for Violet’s pre-school. So I thought a picture of the muffins would make a good picture of the day.

As the clock ticks closer to midnight I find myself trying to think of ways to stay awake. I should be thinking about climbing into my bed next to my wife, but there is one little obstetrical to that. You see, young violet doesn’t like to sleep. She fights it when ever she can. Which would be fine except that she goes and goes and goes, until she stops. When she stops, she stops. She’ll fall asleep where ever she is and goes right out. Today she fell asleep as I was cooking dinner around 5. This wouldn’t be so bad, except she sleeps for 2 hours and then wakes and doesn’t want to go back to sleep. So I’m left sitting here as the day ends wondering when she’ll get tired again and head off to bed. Depending on how late her nap ends up being, most nights I can get her in bed between 1 and 2, but on days when the nap is later, I sometimes find myself dozing off on the couch before she runs out of steam. When that happens she either falls asleep on the living room carpet or heads up to her own bed without mentioning it.

Tonight is going to be a late night, but I’m not sure how much I can take. I’m already feeling quite tired after a long day. So I ask myself do I feel like a coffee? Or maybe a walk to the 24 convinces store to get a bottle of Pepsi Max.to fight my growing desire for sleep. As much as I would rather be curled up in bed, there is something to be said for the Father Daughter time the two of us get to spend on a evenings like to-night, I just wish we could enjoy it earlier in the evening because after a long day like today I’m not really sure how long I can last before I need to head up to my bed for the night.  Perhaps if I’m lucky I ca get ere her to head up to bed around 1 or 2and it wont be too long of a night.

From Pictures of the Day 2012

Today our family headed down to the Santa Claus Parade for an morning and afternoon of Christmas cheer. The day started early with Jacob and I heading out first. We got to our spot on the parade route around 9 am with Melissa, Violet and my mom joining us at about 11. It was good that we went so early because by the time everyone joined us the crowd was two rows deep. The kids had a great time watching the floats and seeing the big man, we took hundreds of photos, but I’m not up to sharing them today. Stay tuned in the coming days for a more.