Archive for the ‘Personal Stuff’ Category
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
It’s a big week for Facebook. With their annual developer conference coming up, they’ve rolled out a few new features including “Smart Friend Lists” which I hadn’t even had a chance to write about here before today’s HUGE news: you can now subscribe to a personal profile’s public updates without having to friend them.
Here’s how it works. As you browse around the site, you’ll notice that some users have a button at the top of their profile that says ‘Subscribe’. Click it, and you’ll start seeing that user’s status updates in your News Feed, just as if you were their Facebook friend. But there’s a big difference: unlike normal Facebook friends, the people you subscribe to don’t have to approve your subscription request, and there’s no limit on how many people can subscribe to any given user.
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Of course, Facebook has offered a similar feature called Pages for years now, which was meant for nearly the same thing (you’ll find that many journalists and politicians have already created Facebook Pages… because that’s what Facebook told them to do). The difference here, Facebook says, is that users no longer have to maintain two separate entities; they can just use the site’s sharing settings to decide which content they want to share very broadly, and what will only be shared with friends.
via Facebook Launches Twitter-Like ‘Subscriptions’, Lets You Share With Unlimited Users | TechCrunch.
(more…)
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Tags: changes, church, Facebook, ministers, schools, social media, social networks, teachers
Posted in Churchy Stuff, Personal Stuff, Social Media Stuff | 1 Comment »
Monday, September 12th, 2011
I tried twice this summer to teach my almost 6-year-old to ride her new bike without training wheels. Both outings were epic failures leaving both of tired and frustrated.
Imagine my envy when I came across this little story from one my favourite parenting bloggers…
..at the tender age of three years and 10 months, he just learned how to ride his bike without training wheels.
I’m super proud of him, but actually, I can’t really take any credit for teaching him.
The only person who taught Nico is Nico. Seriously. Other than that last twenty minutes or so this morning, when my oldest son Marco and I repeatedly yelled, “Pedal!!!” and “Keep moving!!!”, no one taught Nico any bike riding skills.
via How I Didn’t Teach My Three-Year-Old Son to Ride His Bike Without Training Wheels | Playborhood.
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Tags: bikes, Family, parenting, playborhood, training wheels
Posted in General Interest Stuff, Personal Stuff | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
photo credit: Mark Donovan
Last night the inevitable happened. My Vancouver Canucks (of whom I’ve been a fan for over 15 years) lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. I say inevitable because a storybook ending to a storybook season would have been too good to be true. When the Canucks finally win a Cup, it will be in a year that they finish seventh or eighth in the Western Conference. (more…)
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Tags: canucks, Hockey, riots, sports, Vancouver
Posted in Personal Stuff, Random Stuff | No Comments »
Friday, March 4th, 2011
If you haven’t read my first post on the new school controversy, you can find it here: http://colincarmichael.ca/a-new-school/
Earlier this week we attended a public meeting that we hoped would shed some light on the new school boundary situation. I honestly hoped that in talking to the school board planners that some previously unknown bit of info would surface that would make it all logical.
Didn’t happen that way. In fact, when I pointed out my concerns, the response I got from the planner was “you’re right, it’s not ideal.” Wow. Unfortunately, despite that acknowledgment of the non-sensical boundaries, there was a definite “nothing we can do” attitude. No invitation for alternative solutions or offers to be accommodating to certain neighbourhoods.
I’ve always felt that one should never complain about a problem without being willing to proffer a solution. I do not claim to be a “planner” or to take into account all of the intricacies of urban planning but here is how I would approach the situation…
Below is a map of southeast Galt with Stewart Ave school and the new school marked. I’ve overlaid a 1km radius on each school – which I think is a reasonable distance to expect kids to walk.
click for larger version
You can see that most of the kids in southeast Galt fall into one or the other of these 1km walking zones. There are, of course, those which fall out of the radius, and those within the radius but whose actual walk is too far. These children could easily be picked up by the buses bringing the rural kids into town from North Dumfries township.
Can it really be that easy? I doubt it. If it were that easy, the school board would have just done this in the first place. There must be, however, some middle ground – some way to ensure that kids aren’t being bused to one school when they could be walking to another.
if you’re interested in seeing the current boundaries compared to the board’s proposed ones, I’ve uploaded them here: http://colincarmichael.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/newandoldboundaries1.jpg
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Tags: maps, new-school, school, walk-bus, wrdsb
Posted in Local Stuff, Personal Stuff, Political Stuff | 3 Comments »
Friday, January 14th, 2011
That, my friends, is a Starfleet Command badge that’s been laser-etched into a battery cover for my Blackberry. If there was any doubt about my geek cred before, there should be no longer!
The battery cover was ordered from Coveroo.com and only cost about $25 – less than a regular replacement cover. I should note that this cover is EXACTLY like my old (and broken) battery cover – not some cheap replica. Well done Coveroo.
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Tags: blackberry, geek cred, geeks, Star Trek, Starfleet
Posted in General Interest Stuff, Personal Stuff | No Comments »
Friday, January 14th, 2011
Having kids changes your life. Duh. Just a few years ago, the building of a new school (and all of the bureaucratic wrangling that goes with that) was a mildly interesting civic event to someone like me who has an interest in local politics. Now, as our second child prepares for kindergarten in the fall (just as our oldest is leaving) the prospect of a new school in the neighbourhood has ramifications that will profoundly impact our family’s daily life.
My wife sits on the ‘School Council‘ at our kids’ school. The new school planned for southeast Galt (the part of Cambridge that I live in) and the boundary implication were mentioned at a recent meeting. This isn’t news but I hadn’t thought about it for a while and I was curious how the existing school boundaries would be affected.
A quick Google search brought me to the Waterloo Region District School Board’s Accommodation Review for southeast Galt elementary schools. There is a LOT of information here, and I will admit that I have not read it all. I did, however, spend a little time poring over the maps provided in Appendices C&D. (I love maps)
Appendix C: JK-6 boundaries:
click image for full-size
Appendix D: 7-8 boundaries:
click image for full-size
There are a couple of weird things I noticed:
- our kids will go to the new school for 7-8 even though Stewart Ave is closer. This is even more problematic for us since we’ll have kids going in two directions (Chalmers and Glenview to the west and ‘NewSchool’ to the east even though Stewart Ave is situated between Chalmers and Glenview.
- kids who live on Dudhope (a block away from Stewart Ave) will now be bussed the 1.9 kilometres to ‘New School’?
- Based on my reading of the busing rules (here), it would seem that our kids will be bussed to ‘NewSchool’ (1.85 kms) when they could easily walk to Stewart Ave. (1.1 km). It’s ridiculous to bus kids within city limits when there’s a school within walking distance!
I realize that these are pretty complex things to figure out (especially with the Jr/Sr split) but I will maintain my position from my trustee campaign last fall that if we had smaller schools in more neighbourhoods we could probably eliminate all intra-city busing.
If you live in southeast Galt – or even if you don’t – what do you think of the plan for the new school? Leave a comment below…
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Tags: Cambridge, galt, kids, life, new-school, parents, school, wrdsb
Posted in General Interest Stuff, Local Stuff, Personal Stuff, Political Stuff | 7 Comments »
Thursday, January 6th, 2011
A lot of Canadians spent the day today saying to themselves (and anyone else): What happened in Buffalo yesterday? How could things go so wrong? What are we going to do about it?
Well, here’s just a sampling of what happened in Buffalo yesterday:
How could things go so wrong and what are we going to do about it?
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Tags: buffalo, Hockey, Team Canada, WJHC
Posted in Personal Stuff, Political Stuff, Random Stuff | No Comments »
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
So there we are (myself and the two older girls) in the car driving to the dump of all places when Hannah (4) blurts out “I don’t think I want to have any babies, Daddy.”
Woah. What? My mind suddenly filled with scenarios of jealosy and resentment towards the twins, etc. I quickly replied “Oh yeah, honey? How come?”
Her answer was very matter-of-fact: “I don’t want a big cut on my belly.”
Whew! Is that all? That’s nothing! Now, I should have had my guard up as soon as we got anywhere near birth, but I was so sure of my answer that I plowed ahead. I dove in without checking for depth.
Confidently, I assured Hannah that not all babies require “cuts” to be born, and that, in fact, both her and Bella had been born without any cuts required!
Great, right? No, you see it, don’t you… her next question.
“Well, then, how did I get out of Mommy’s tummy?”
Panic. I blurted out the only answer that came to mind – it’s served me so well in the past: “You’ll have to ask Mommy when we get home.”
The Punchline
Knowing the conversation on this topic was decidedly over, Hannah turned to Isabella and concluded: “I must have made my own hole.”
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Tags: Family, family day, Family Sunday, Hannah, Isabella, kids, questions
Posted in Personal Stuff | No Comments »
