So - is anyone doing anything with this. I thought a simpe blog would be easy to update... which it is, but "the guys" are not that up on posting stuff.

heaven forbid - should we let MOM blog on this as a replacement for newsletters?

guys... what are we going to do?

ok - I'll be quiet now. :)

Rick

WOW... what a cool conference. Talk about community and passion. I must have taken about 20 pages of notes from the sessions over the two days I was there. It had a great format that allowed for enough depth to the content, 10 minutes for Q&A.  Then you had a 5 minutes for something completetly not related called a JOLT from a different speaker on a different topic. whatever time was left (usually 10 minutes or so) was for break.

I was very impressed with the content and speakers. I'm now contemplating getting off my Butt and creating one myself. I remember growing up and listening to CBC on the kitchen radio over the weekends with the family cooking. I rediscovered that I enjoy audio drama, stories, comedy and discussions taking place on the speakers. I really enjoy the format and I'm now figuring out all the back end to be able to pull one off. What topics? hummm...

• fatherhood / family
• technology
• journey of personal development
• "remember when's"

I don't know. I'm working that out. I think I almost have a name - but I'm keeping that to myself right now.

Don't worry - I will keep you posted. And I will continue to blog here.

I took the kids out while Kelli was resting her back. Unfortunately her Mothers Day included her coming down with a bit of a cold that has been in the wings for a while. I decided that I wanted to get some up to date group snaps of the kids for the friends and family. They turned out quite well - I think. I took these with my Nikon S51c 8 megaPixel camera - not bad. My only criticism with the camera is the slow optics / auto focus and delay with shutter... oh well - 8 MP goodness is quite nice.

this one is my favourite...

More can be found here in my Flickr set. I hope you like them!

Rick

Well the work on refitting Hannah's tub ran into a snag, this morning.. I had to delay my return to NB 'til Thurs morning. I was aiming at finishing this morning, but the refininshed tub (which looks beautiful) had a problem with it's cast iron legs. I had built a hollow box of 2x5 1/4 to support it, but the drain pipe had sunk into the floor, or the the box was too high. I thought it would pull in  but no go. So I cancelled my Aeroplan trip, and to get the same rate, I had to delay return until May 1. So I wil have an extra day to resolve the problem, and to polish up the bathtub console that I had built, to hide the pipes.. A rapid skil-saw slice on the heigyht failed to solve the problem, so I may revisit that approach, anyway..

I called Mom, who was disappointed, of course, but I do get an extra day or so of seeing Noémie!

\I like the new cleaner layout.  

Hi Guys,

I did get in with John's help. I changed my password last night, but had to use the old one this morning.

I'm busy getting ready to build a bit of a bathtub console for Hannah, so I'll try again later.

I've had a great trip thus far, but it will be good t get back home again..

Dad 

Finally got off my butt and got the new blogging engine up and working on the new hosting provider. Hopefully, with a few tweaks, I can make the site look a little better then it's current state. I spent the better part of the evening manually copy and pasting the old entries from a static word doc I used as a backup once and we now have content.

The plan is to start once again documenting what is going on with the family and our lives, so that we can keep others up to date with what is happening. With this new platform, it appears that it is very flexible to add a number of things to the user experience to make this all more productive for everyone involved.

I must go off and get some sleep - 3 days of 2 am bedtime makes for one cranky dad.

I hope that you like what you find here and I hope that you come back to keep in touch.

Based on the number of posts I have done in the past year - I would have to say - it is stagnant.

Why is that? I don't really have a good answer for you.  I hear from so many friends and family that the site should be up and running with updates to get some pictures and news out there. I guess I need to get off my A** and get started again.

First off - a piece of information for you. If you come looking for pictures of the family and kids - they are now up and online at my flickr page.  You can see the public pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rick_claus and there are MANY more private ones that are invitation only for friends and family. If you don't already have access - email me and I will invite you into the private area.

Gotta run. I promise to make more recent entries.

DSCN3791
Originally uploaded by Rickster-CDN.

I wanted to post this photo just to see what the blog entry would look like since it is made by the flickr website. In theory, it should be just like any other blog post, but I do not know what it will come out as.
One thing I don't like about this service is that you have to make your photos public if you want to do things like this (blog post) or a flickr badge. They are great concepts, but it makes it so that you have to make pictures public in order for them to be viewed.
I am still on the fence as to if this is ok or not. Do I really want my pictures visible to the public? I guess this is the price to pay for the free service - but I don't know if the policy is any different if you had a paid for account.
There's nothing to do other then try things like this out to see if they meet the needs. It sure would make publishing gallery pictures a lot easier then a manual process.
What do you think? Drop me a comment!