For months Melissa has been saying she wants an IPhone, for months I have been saying we have to wait till our contract is up before we can switch to Rogers to get you an IPhone. It all started 18 months ago Melissa and I activated a couples plan with TELUS Mobility on a three year contract. We both got HTC S720 Windows Mobile Smartphones, Its a functional but not practical or elegant. Both Melissa and I are coveting other phones.
Our plan was to wait till our contract was up in another 18 months and then move to Rogers, get Melissa an IPhone and me a Google Phone. With the news that both TELUS and Bell are going to start offering the IPhone new options emerge. We should be able to get Melissa her IPhone as soon as we are eligible for a Smartphone upgrade. Though for her IPhone we’ll probably wait an additional 4 months so that we can get the newest model when it’s release in June or July.
Of course that still leaves me wondering what phone I will get. I don’t want an IPhone. I think it’s a great gadget and I love the touch screen and tons of apps, but I want a physical keyboard. I like the HTC Dream’s slide out keyboard and more open OS. I want to have more control of my device. I want to be able to develop for my phone, and right now the only phone I’ve done any developing for is Windows Mobile, so I’m leaning to something like the HTC Pro2 or some new phone running Windows 6.5. But all this is speculation. I don’t know what Phone TELUS will have in 6 months let alone 10 when we’ll probably buy them. I might even be an IPhone convert by then. Only Time will tell
When Google first announce wave back in the spring I was intrigued. It looked like it could change the way that things worked on the web. Of course having to wait after the announcement to get access just built the curiosity. I applied for access to the developers sandbox as soon as I could. I was surprised back in July when I was granted access.
My first thought when I sat in front of the interface was ‘Cool’ and I started to explore. What I found after a short time of exploring was a bit chaotic, there were a ton of waves most of which I couldn’t seem to join. So after being frustrated in the chaos I asked myself what could I build with this. I never came up with an answer and life never seemed to give me the time to really explore it so my account sat mostly unused. I logged in every few weeks to see what’s changed but that’s about it.
When the major expansion of users came round and the hype started to build I thought it might be time to give it another shot. When I first logged in the interface looked the same but there was less Waves. Just one from Dr. Wave explaining how things worked, one for Inviting people to join wave(these are more recommendations then invites though), and one with some sample gadgets that can be used in waves. After exploring the waves I had I was soon wondering what the point was. none of my friend have access yet and I don’t know when the ‘Recommended’ users will be given access.
It was then that I found the ‘with:public’ search that gives you access to all the public waves. With the search chaos returned, but this time I could interact with the waves, and though I did experience some trolls editing my wave in troll like ways I also found a few Waves where the conversation was flowing and I saw the power hidden in Wave. Just one catch you need to have people to talk with. So though I’m sure I will take the occasional swim in the Wave until some of my friends join it wont be a daily destination.
As I’ve been taking about my experiences and not really reviewing the service I thought I would share the a video I found on Lifehacker that explains at least part of what wave does:
The other day I was going through some old sites, reviewing old accounts and I came across my NaBloPoMo account. I looked over the message board and thought maybe it would be fun to do again. My first thought was to keep it slow, try to post every weekday in October then go for the gusto in November. Then the other day I thought, why wait. What’s the point? Either I do it or I don’t but way wait a month to find out. So without fan fair on the first of the month I submitted my blog to the Blogroll and started.
On the weekend I was inspired to add the badge to my site (See sidebar) and as soon as I did I got blocked. I had a lot of trouble getting out my next three posts. I had planned on saving the post about what I was doing until I was a third or half of the way through the month, but today I figured why not announce it. Let people know what I’m doing. Let’s not fail in Silence, lets fail in front of everyone. Of course I might not fail. Only time will tell.
Family traditions is something Melissa and I feel strongly about. One we would like to start is the Family dinner. Of course wanting to and doing can sometimes be completely different matter. Though we try to eat together every night, it doesn’t work out as often as we’d like. Between my working and other evening events it doesn’t always workout. So tonight we had ourselves a nice Sunday dinner. Tonight it was a nice Roast beef with mashed potatoes and Corn. Next week we’re debating either a pork roast or some nice ribs. I’m hoping that we can make it a weekly thing. Of course in 4 short months when Melissa goes back to work it will be harder to find a Sunday where the family can gather for a meal. But we plan on trying.
Tonight after I got home and had dinner, I decided that I would take some time to play with Jacob. I had an idea, could we run his train set tracks from his table to his floor. It was ambitious and kinda silly, but it was something that Jacob got into. HE help pick out track pieces, Choosing track and running his trains down it. It’s amazing to see how good he’s gotten at putting the pieces of his track together. He still gets frustrated when a turn goes the wrong way, but it’s a fair cry from how he was with it when I first set it up last Christmas. Now I just need to get him a few more track sets so that we can have the train go off the table and back on again. I’ll try to get some pictures of the crazy track that we built tonight.
It was nice to spend some time with Jacob just playing. with all the different things that I need to do each night, I sometimes thing I don’t get to spend enough time with him, just playing. I’m hoping that it’s something I can work into my schedule better in the coming months.
Today marks the first day of the fall swim classes for our kids. That’s right both Jacob and Violet start their lessons today. Our goal was to do an evening class, so that I could meet Melissa and the kids there after work. Unfortunately we couldn’t find both Jacobs Preschool 3 and Violets Guardian swim at a timed worked. So after looking at all our options, we determined that our best choice was Thursday mornings. So today I take the morning off from work and head off to swimming with the family.
This will be Jacob’s second swimming session in a class with other kids, and he’s very excited. He was asking me last night about how many kids would be in his class and who would be going with him. It’s hard not to get caught up in his enthusiasm. I just hope that he can focus in the class. When he gets to excited he has a tendency not to listen, of course he’s only 3 so I guess that is to be expected.
Our second little swimmer, because of the city workers strike and the cool weather this summer, has only been in a pool once this summer. For her it will be an adjustment, I wasn’t there when Jacob took his first Guardian class so I’m not sure how Violet will react. Of course after our family day at the pool (See photos from yesterdays post). I’m pretty sure she’ll be alright. I am glad that the whole family will be there for her first lesson, though I’m not sure how well Jacob will do just watching.
Of course I’m posting this before leaving for swimming so I can’t say how the day went, but as this is just the first week, I’m sure I’ll find time in the coming weeks to talk about our adventures at swim class.
At the beginning of the month I picked up a copy of EA’s Wii Active. Wii Active is an fitness ‘game’ for the Wii. The idea is to have fun while you get in shape from your own living room. Wii Active comes with a leg strap and resistance bands allowing for a wide range of exercises. This is the second fitness product I’ve got for my Wii, the first was the Wii Fit. I liked the Wii fit, but I didn’t keep it up. After a couple of weeks I stopped working out. I’d come back to it ever few months but it didn’t stick.
I’m hoping that the tracking features will inspire me to work out everyday. Well almost everyday, the 30 Day Challenge has a rest day after every 2 days, so the 30 day challenge is actual 20 works in 30 days. Yesterday marked the half way mark of my first 30 Day Challenge. So far I’ve managed not to keep on schedule.
My plan is to do 3 consecutive 30 Day Challenges, one at each level of difficulty. I’m not sure if I will keep to the 2 days workout, 1 day off schedule. I’m leaning towards moving to a 4 or 5 days working out then one day off. These will make the 30 day challenge down to 24 or 25 day. I’m hoping to do regular posts on my progress. So stay tuned
Writing my bio the other day started me thinking about my youth and one of the things that stood out was the games I played on the C64. So here is a list of my favourites, there are many more I could have included but these are the ones I thought of first so they made the list. I had planned on including screenshots but thanks to YouTube you’ll get to see some video of the some of the games I played as a kid.
Jumpman: A great game, you had to navigate through puzzling levels without falling or being shot, while disarming bombs. One of the memories of this game that stands out for me is that a friend and I hacked the level files to change the order.
If watching the video makes you want to experience it all over again you could check out: Jumpman – Under Contruction
Impossible Mission I & II: ‘Stay a while. Stay for forever’. Dodge robots, solve musical puzzels while hunting for puzle peices. I’m looking forward to playing this on my Wii, it’s been released in Europe on the Wii Virtual Console, just waiting for it to come to North America.
Heading into work this morning was a chore, not just because it’s back to work after a week off but because of a delay on the subway. It’s like the Universe was taunting me, not only do you have to go back to work but we’re going to make your least favourite part longer. The only saving grace was I had plenty of coffee, lots to write about and the driver on our train provided regular updates. Sure the updates were all, ‘there is a delay at Christie because of passenger injury’ but was better then the silence that usually accompanies delays.
Going back to work gives me an opportunity to reflect on my short vacation. First thing that came to mind is a week off doesn’t feel like enough time. Going into it I had all sorts of plans about family outings, work to do around the house, work to with my blog and a few programming projects I was hoping to start. At first when I looked at it it felt like I didn’t get enough of the me stuff done, but then from the beginning I chose to make this vacation about family and not about me. We went to the Zoo, the Ex, the local parks and other family outings. What we did manage to do, redo our living room and start transitioning our kids clothes from summer to fall, I feel really good about. I just thought I’d have done more. It was a great family filled week, I just think next summer I should plan for 2 weeks off.
The biggest thing I failed to get done this week that I wish I had managed to do was reorganize my Office / Man cave / storage room. It’s a good space, but because of bad planning and having to take out a bunch of the boxes we had stacked in the back it’s become a bit of a disaster. I need to make it a better space for working and storage. for that I need to do some planning and just buckle down and do it. Perhaps tonight after the children go to bed, will be the time.