haggaret.com

Well I guess Apple got their way, after hoping that that my WiFi stability troubles would go away with the latest OS X update, and then realizing that they didn't - I am at the point of being so sick of the dropouts I'm experiencing (to my network) with my macbook that I'm willing to shell out the $$ to buy an Apple AP; specifically the airport extreme. To be fair, I'm not convinced this is actually a problem with my macbook not playing nicely with my AP, but more thinking it's a problem with my POS access point. I've used the macbook in a bunch of different locations now, with different APs and I only get the dropouts occuring at home so... Anyways, placed the order today for this new unit and I'm looking forward to getting it. It'll play nicely with my macbook and iPhone and I plan to plug a USB hub into it and connect my printer and external HDD to it. That way I should be able to print, even if the iMac is asleep, and I'll have a backup solution for my macbook which I'm currently missing. Fantastic! The only thing I'll be missing now is the AppleTV, but that should come within a few months I think. :)

Check out the screen capture to the right of this post. A piece of SPAM showed up in my SPAM folder today and when I took a closer look at it, it was sent to homdepot at haggaret dot com. The only place I would have used that address would have been to sign into the Home Depot webpage, and I don't think it is supposed to be publicly visible. To me that means that they must have sold my email address. Not cool at all.

BTW, I do this for nearly all website where they ask for an email address. Makes it easy to filter incoming mail and also to find out if they are doing stuff like selling your address...

I've never lined up early for something before today, well not really, I mean I've waited to get into restaurants, movies and amusement park rides, but nothing like this. So, prior to today I had sent an email out to a few people I knew who were thinking of getting an iPhone, seeing if anyone wanted to join me in the waiting game this morning. Most people said no, but one friend said that he'd join me. Unfortunately (for me) on Thursday night he backed out, saying he had something else to do. At that point, I wasn't sure if I was going to bother going alone or not. I watched the eleven o'clock news to see how many people had queued up already to get a feel for whether or not it was worth it to go the next morning. It didn't look like a whole lot of people were there so I decided that I'd get up early and head down to have a look.

I set my alarm for 0600, but was up by 0530 and out the door before 0600. It was a bit wet out, having rained over night and I thought this would help my chances of being in a decent place in line. I drove downtown and cruised by the Rogers store on Bank St - the one that was supposed to open early at 0800. There seemed to be a decent lineup, but I parked the car and added myself to the end of the line.

As most people who know me know, I've been anxious to get my hands on an iPhone ever since they were first released. Sadly it took more than a year for the thing to come to Canada (yes I know I could have bought one, unlocked it, etc) but now that it is finally arriving - we are getting the latest and greatest, and at the same time as the rest of the world - that is good news indeed! Anyways, when Apple announced that the iPhone 3G was coming on July 11th, I was all set to rush out and get one...until Rogers announced their rate plans that is. After careful consideration, I decided that it just didn't make sense at the prices they were offering and so I signed the petition at ruinediphone.com and set about moping and cursing Rogers. I also decided to send them an email to express my displeasure, here it is:

This post is more so I can remember that this happened than anything else. Got my first (?) ace today while out golfing with JK at lunch. It was on hole 1 in Kanata from the red tee. It was a forehand throw and I used my Hawk, which I haven't used in a really really long time. Why the red tees? Well JK and I (and sometimes Dave) go out and play the Kanata course quite a bit at lunch time and since it is only a 9 hole course, we play each hole from the blue tee and also the red tee. Why the question mark up next to first? Well I can't remember if I've ever gotten an ace before. While you'd think I might remember such a thing happening - you would be wrong, since I have a horrible memory. There is some speculation that I may have aced the original hole 4 at JC Park way back when, but nobody is really sure. Anyways, just wanted to make sure I mark it down somewhere so it's recorded for the history books. :)

The second Saturday of our vacation saw us leaving PEI and driving directly to Dartmouth, NS which is where my brother Sean and his family are living. They've been there for a few years now and we had yet to visit them (and if you think that's bad - we've been in Ottawa for 9 years now and they haven't come to visit us either) so we took advantage of the fact that we were only 3.5 hours away with no set plans in place. Rather than drive back to Fredericton after our week in PEI, we turned left instead and headed to Halifax. Unfortunately our stay was VERY short, with us arriving at around 1500 on Saturday afternoon and leaving around 1130 on Sunday. In that time though we got to see their house, wander around the Halifax harbour with Liam (he even got to see Theodore Tugboat), grab a bite to eat at Jack Astors and just hang out. Sean and I even fit in a short 45 km ride on Sunday morning before we hit the road for the drive home. It was really great to get the opportunity to visit, and I hope we can do it again sooner rather than later. Actually, I'm still trying to convince them that Ottawa would be a great place for them to move to. :)

Amy, Liam and I headed back east for a couple of weeks at the end of June. The main purpose of the trip was to head to PEI so that we could help carry out my mom's last wishes and scatter her ashes in the ocean just off of Stanhope, PEI.

We decided the best way to get there would be for Amy and Liam to fly home (so we wouldn't have to endure 12 hours in the car with an unhappy 2 year old) and I would drive so that we would have a way to get around when there. That worked out really well actually, or at least from my perspective it did...Amy may say differently - I think the plane ride was tough for Liam and sadly it was fully booked so that mean he had to sit on Amy's lap the whole time. Quite a difficult feat since she is 8 months pregnant. Anyways, we all made it back to NB safe and sound.

I've recently noticed new ads for Dos Equis beer. The commercials are fairly clever, featuring an older guy (the most interesting man in the world) who's done it all, with phrases like, "His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man's entire body." The commercials all end with this guy saying, "Stay thirsty my friends." The first time I heard that, and every time since I've thought to myself that it is a strange slogan. I guess what they are trying to say is to stay thirsty so that you'll always want to drink Dos Equis, but for some reason when I hear it, it makes me think that Dos Equis leaves you feeling thirsty. :)

I can't recall if I've actually tried this beer or not, but I think I may have had a little sample at the Beer Store the other day. I like all beer (don't think I've tried a beer I haven't liked) so I normally just buy whatever is cheapest. :) Anyways, check out staythirstymyfriends.com for a closer look at this guy.

Way back when, Boris told me about something called RSS and showed me how I could use it to bring information to me, instead of having to go out and look for it myself. It took a while, but eventually I 'got it' and started amassing RSS feeds from all over the place - starting with my friends' blogs, and then later finding feeds from newspapers, tech blogs, and even Environment Canada (for local weather updates).

I tried different desktop clients as my RSS aggregator (or reader) for a while, but then eventually found out about, and started using exclusively, Google Reader. I love it, and one of the things I like best about it is 'Shared Items' - both being able to share with my friends as well as being able to see what they are sharing. Even better, with some recently introduced features, I can even add a note to items that I share to explain why I'm sharing them. FriendFeed takes this one step further and allows you to have conversations (in the form of comments) back and forth about shared items. I signed up for FriendFeed and have it aggregating some of my stuff (Flickr photos, Google Reader shared items, and Twitter posts) but since nobody else I know is using it - I'm not really making use of it all that much. My FriendFeed feed is here.

Anyways, if you're not using Google Reader yet - I highly recommend it. My shared items page can be found here and there is even an RSS feed for them - although if you've got me listed as a contact in your gmail, then you'll automatically have a feed for my shared items anyways.

Just over two years ago I bought a new road bike and if I had to guess, I'd say I've probably put somewhere around 2000 kms on it. In all that time, I've never got a flat tire. Well unfortunately that all changed this past Sunday. I was out for a ride, by myself, on the back roads around Stittsville. The plan was to do 60 kms - and I came close to that. I was on my way home from a there and back route, when I noticed that my bike was feeling a bit weird - riding much rougher than it normally does. I immediately suspected a flat and when I slowed down, sure enough that's what it was. I know exactly when it happened (I remember the bump my back wheel took) but I have no idea what caused it. Was it a large rock that I somehow missed with my front wheel but hit with my back? A pothole perhaps? No idea.

I had about 8.5 kms to go when this happened, so luckily I had completed just over 50 kms of the 60 kms I had hoped to do. I didn't have a lot of options at this point because although I had an extra tube, and the tools to make the change - I didn't have a pump or any other means to inflate the new tube. D'oh! Walking that distance in cycling shoes would be absolute insanity, so luckily I had brought my cell phone with me. I just called up Amy and asked her to come get me, which happily she did. Lesson learned - if you're going out alone, make sure you have the means to inflate your tires should the need arise. I'd rather not have to carry a pump so instead I'll be looking into CO2 cartridges. Steve first told me about them a while ago, and I confirmed with Grant that you can get them at MEC so I've added that to my list of things to do/get before my next solo ride.

Anyways, like I suggested in my post title, perhaps I was just due for a flat. :)