My Christmas Rant

So this will kind of be my re-released version of the Rick Mercer Rant, about Christmas. Every year rolls around to the Christmas time and I'm always feeling discussed about the same few things each year. Now don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and I'm sure I will always, maybe its the way I was raised, the time period I was raised in, the location or some other outside factor. But there are three main things each and every year lately (last 5 to 10 years) that annoys me, read them below and let me know if you feel the same way:

1. Politically correctness during Christmas: Its Christmas people, not the festive season, the holidays or anything else. This time of year was made a holiday for a reason...... that reason is its Jesus's Birthday, its Christmas. Don't be giving me a "Happy Holidays" Mr. Wal-Mart greeter, say Merry Christmas. I don't want to see a winter scene on my Tim Horton's mug, I want to see a jolly ol' Saint Nick kissing mommy under a Christmas Tree. More and more we are giving in to all things to make them politically correct, but guess what Christmas should not be one of those times. So I think I am only going to shop at stores that support Christmas for what it is. Unfortunately for my wife the only store I have seen so far this Christmas that says Merry Christmas in their ad's and in store is Canadian Tire.
   
2. Kids want it all: Now this just may be me, but Christmas is a time for spending time with family, friends and loved ones. Yes, a gift is nice to receive and I love giving them more than I love receiving them. I donate to the food bank each year and also give toys to needy families so they have something. I hear some kids asking for more and more each year, costing hundreds and even thousands of dollars, and I shake my head, than shake it more when their parents give in. Teach your kids about how many more unfortunate people are out there with nothing, teach them the meaning of Christmas, spend time with family and friends and the people you love. These are this things that matter the most in life, not the material things. To this day I do not know of one Christmas where I have wanted something and was mad that I did not get it or ask for so many things that would make Mackey Cram poor (I think that was his name. Some rich old fart I heard dad talk about many times), and I'm sure my parents would agree with me on this one and so would my wife since my answer each year to that question of "What do you want for Christmas?" my answer is simply nothing. I have all I need.
   
3. Christmas ad's running earlier and earlier: Each and every year the TV ad's, Sears Wish book, and decorations in the stores come out earlier. It seems every year you now see decorations popping up before Halloween is even over. Why can't retailers wait until at least mid-November before bomb-barding us with everything. By the time Christmas day actually arrives your sick of it all. We received our Sears Wish Book this year in August, yes, August, five months before Christmas and just seven month after the last. When I was I kid that thing would not arrive till the end of November unless my parents were hiding it away from me.

Please feel free to add comments below or add to the list of stores that will still say Merry Christmas during this time of year and think about all of this and do some reflection, or soon Christmas will be forgotten for what its meant to be. I know, I for one, will not forget and I will have a happy and joyful Christmas as always. So Merry Christmas to all!

One week complete

Just over one week complete in my change of habits and lifestyle on the path to run in the Sears Great Canadian Run to End Kids Cancers. It has been a tough week and I have been making progress each and every day to get my stamina back. Each time I go for a run now it seem I am able to go further or faster to achieve another goal. I have been trying to get out at least three or four times each week to do some kind of activity, be it running, biking or hockey. It has only been just over a week and I am now noticing a difference when I play hockey on how much better I feel.

I did learn a few lessons in this first week though:

FuelBand water belt

• Don't run just after eating. I done this on my first run and nearly got sick multiple times while running;
• Bring water. This is a must, I didn't do this the first time and it made it a hard go, so I went out and got a FuelBand as seen to the right;
• I need a new pair of sneakers;
• Make sure the GPS is turned on. I lost half of one because of this;
• Stretch before and after the run. I got leg cramps half way into a run and had to walk back because of this;

Next will be go out and get a new pair of sneakers to be using solely for running. As I write this post I just got another email for a donation to my run of $200. Thanks so far to anyone who has donated and anyone who plans on doing so, you have been a great support and your donation is going to a great cause.

After playing hockey tonight I have noticed in just over a week on how much easier hockey is and how much I am not out of breath in pain after a shift of after the game.

Remember I am doing this to raise money for kids cancer research and you can always donate. The more donations the better to keep me motivated. Read more about the run and visit the Sears Great Canadian Run to End Kids Cancers page to sponsor me! You can also view my training status at any time by viewing the training stats on the right side of this page.

First training run complete

Tonight I went out for a run. The start of many over the next few months to gain the stamina and strength to compete in the Sears Great Canadian Run to End Kids Cancers on October 13, 2012.

What I looked like not long into my first run

Since knowing my area where I live, I had a good idea of the route that I would take and a semi-rough estimate of the distance. I thought this would be a good start to see how I can do. I have done this same type of route many times before but only walking with the dog. The route works out to be 2.65KM's, I know this does not sound like much, but for someone who has never done this before, it feels like death.

After this first run though, I have quickly learned a few different things:

1. Do not go for a run shortly after eating dinner. It causes food bouncing around your stomach and causing you to nearly barf multiple times;
2. Bring water. I did not and I really could have used some shortly into the run. It felt like I was breathing fire;
3. I will need to get a new good pair of running sneakers sometime soon, my older daily use ones are not the greatest.

I am using an Android app called Endomondo to track my training to give me route stats, time among other things. It seems to work fine and I love how it talks to you during your run to give you updates. On the right side of this page you can see my past runs and how I have been doing in my training. Click on any of the runs to see a map and more details of the run.

Remember I am doing this to raise money for kids cancer research and you can always donate. The more donations the better to keep me motivated. Read more about the run and visit the Sears page to sponsor me!

My new motto

Sears Great Canadian Run

So I have decided to run in the Great Canadian Run this year. It is a 100KM run from Ottawa to Montebello, QC in support to end kids cancer on October 13, 2012. This is something that I have never thought of doing before, since I find it hard enough to gather energy each day to take the dog for a walk. So not only is it a great cause, hopefully it will get me off of my ass to get back in shape and not a round shape. As a participant, my goal is to raise $500.00 for local pediatric oncology research initiatives at CHEO and hopefully break that small goal.

Andy

Team Smile's for Andy is running again on behalf of a brave little boy named Andy. Andy is my neighbor and has been battling T-call ALL (leukemia) for over a year now.  He has 2.5 years left in his treatment. Every single night Andy takes chemotherapy drugs, every 3 weeks Andy takes mood altering steroids, every 3 months Andy has chemotherapy injected into his spinal cord, and every single day Andy smiles.  He is beating this disease but it is not easy.  There are many physical and psychological side effects from chemotherapy/radiation treatment that will be with Andy for the rest of his life because just having cancer is not bad enough. And yet he is a fortunate boy because many pediatric cancer patients don't continue smiling and many others don't continue living. Help us end this ugly disease. Sponsor team Smiles for Andy as we run 100km in support of all the little hero's fighting cancer

This Run will not only benefit thousands of kids that are diagnosed with cancer every year, but kids cancer research also helps adult cancers. Your dollars, your support, and all our efforts are making a world of difference for so many. Please help me change the lives of children who are fighting for theirs everyday. Your generous contribution will help me raise money for an incredibly important cause. Every dollar counts. You can donate right to my personal page here: Sponsor Me.

I have also made the pledge that that from now until the start of the race on October 13, anyone who opens a ING Direct bank account with my Orange Key (14477247S1), I will donate the $25 bonus that I receive to this cause. I have sent ING Direct an email to see if I can find out who signs up than I will donate the $25 in their name. Read more about ING Direct from my review.


You can follow along on this blog all summer long to track my progress, read more about Andy: http://www.smilesforandy.com and please remember to sponsor me. :-)

Pool Tournament

Wednesday nights through the year I am on a pool team. The four of us play each Wednesday night as a way to get out and socialize and have a good time.

So after a long year of playing pool on Wednesday nights we descended on Tailgators last Friday evening for the start of our year end Pool Tournament. We have been doing this now for a few years and have come away with money each time, though every team receives some money. I wouldn't say we are the best or the worst players in the league but we can have our on days and off days like any team. The tournament is played in a double elimination format, meaning that once you loose two games you are eliminated. Here is our year stats.

Friday Night

We were going into the tournament sitting in sixth place out of eighteen teams and our first opponent was Honk on Bobo who were placed in eleventh but their players had an overall better handicap than us. All 16 games were very close and it was down to the last four games. On my last game, on my first shot just as the game started, I made a risky shot that even the opponent stated they would not take. I was making a long shot at the one in the corner right next to where the eight laid. I took the shot, missed and hit the eight sending it towards towards the corner pocket where it bounced around a bit and came to a stop on the edge of the pocket before dropping in. Wow that was a close one and I now have to watch out for that pocket for the rest of the game. My opponent stepped up to make his first shot, which he made, but the cue ball continued to bounce around the table striking the eight and dropping it giving me the win in that game 10-3. The rest of the final games continued and we beat Honk on Bobo by just 4 points overall. I don't want to take credit for those four points, but if I didn't take that risky shot we would have lost. By the end of the weekend this was known as the TSN turning point of the weekend and Honk on Bobo would be our most difficult matches of the weekend outside of the finals.

Saturday

Saturday morning we were back at Tailgators at ten am to take on the third place team 3 Sticks and a Rack on the "A" side of the tournament. Everyone on both teams were a little hungover from the play the night before holding their Tim Horton coffee's, wondering how the day would unfold. On our side we were expecting our first defeat of the weekend and being relegated to the "B" side of the pool knowing this team has beaten us all times through the year even EROing (10-0 wins) most of us (I've only had one against me and it was from this team). All this while scenes of candy canes danced in their heads knowing it was going to be a easy win for them like my guarantee of getting a apple and orange in my stocking at Christmas. But has we know now they got nothing but a big lump of coal, at the beginning of the fourth set they conceded to a lost since their was no way for them to gain back the points in 3 games to beat us. Well holy crap the Chalk Rings are 2-0 and still in the "A" pool. We were now off for a few hours and were not due back to the pool hall until 7 pm for our next match.   

Our match at 7pm on Saturday we were taking on FELT. FELT finished on seventh place just below us in the standings. FELT is a father and son duo with two others. They have been coming up the ranks for the past couple of years and seem to have different extra players on the team each year. We felt going into these matches that we were capable of beating them but we would have to be on our game. Through the 16 games we were called multiple times by them accusing us of not calling shots or making fouls. But if they don't call a ref prior to the shot being made than no foul can be committed. Again we stayed to our main game plan to sink balls first, win the game second and it proved to work. Heading into the 13 game they admitted defeat since we were up too many balls for them to come back to win.

Having won 3 of our matches and still being on the "A" side of the tournament we were starting to wonder what was in store for our 10pm match up. Clearly there can only be a mighty team left for us to compete against knowing the winner would be in the finals on Sunday and the loser would be dropped to the "B" pool. Lo and behold the next team for us to compete against was Rack and Roll a team that finished in first place over with some very mighty stats. This also the same team who should not even be competing in this league. The max handicap for a team in the league is 28 and with their players they stood at 30. This was going to be the David vs. Goliath match up of the weekend and maybe the year. Going into the 16 games they were giving us a mammoth 28 points before we even started due to the handicap difference. These 16 games we would play on two tables and it was great to watch and play next to each other. After the first four games, we had won 3 of 4 and were up about 40 points on them. By the start of the third game in the third round we had won 8 or 11 and were up over 65 points on them, at that point they folded, we had defeated the top league team and were headed to the finals on Sunday. For the next hour we had drinks and were in awe of how we made it this far. Now tomorrow we would be back for the finals and what made it better was knowing that who ever we took on, had to beat us twice but we only had to beat them once because of the double elimination.

Tournament ladder showing us in the finals

Sunday

Here we are again, back at Tailgators on Sunday. We showed up at 3 today, with our finals starting at 4pm. There is still no decided winner in the "B" pool, so we don't know yet who we will be facing but there is a good chance that it will be Rack and Roll the first place team from last night. Sure enough Rack and Roll would be moved back into the "A" pool and we would have to play them again but not once but twice. We got started our first matches at about 5pm and they came to the table a different team, with their foot on the gas and not letting off. They took the first set of 16 handily so we would now have to play in the second set for all the gusto, who ever wins this wins it all. We went back to our game plan of sink balls first and try to win second. This ended up not helping, we were not on our game and they were having awesome games. It came down to the second last game before they won it so I think we gave them a run for their $4000, but we just couldn't do it. We came in second overall for the weekend and won $2000, so not to shabby for the team that could. Pool is now done for the year except for the end of year banquet where we will receive our trophies. It was a great year and tournament overall and I did not expect to make it that far. A wonderful showing by the Chalk Rings: Andrew Boyle, Danielle Boyle*, Justin Clouthier and myself. *Richard Steeves subbed in for Danielle from February till the end including the tournament since Danielle had a baby. Take a look at the pictures below. 

Justin, Andrew, Me and Richard

Me, Richard, Andrew and Justin

Android app Review #2: Google Currents

Google Currents is a news reader with a twist. News organizations or anyone for that matter can create their own customized Currents portal that users can add to the Currents app, but users can also add their own RSS feeds. I have been using the Currents app for about 4 months now. It was first only available to the US but in recent weeks has opened up to a whole new list of countries including Canada. It is available on Android and Apple devices.

I am a news junkie and have been looking for a good useful news app for some time now. I have tried Pulse, News Republic and a few others but they all have been off the mark.

• Pulse seems to be pre-installed on a lot of devices but its layout is a bit lacking when trying to view the news you want.
• News Republic allows you to select topics and it will provide you with news results, not allowing you to add your own sources. 

 

Google Currents has mainly US news sources right now for you to pre-select, I think this is mainly that it has not been available in other countries for too long. But don’t fret, it is as easy as adding a RSS feed and the Currents app will create a nice looking edition for you. News, Sports and everyday users can just visit the Google Publisher and create their own custom Google Currents edition to publish on Google and their website. It took me 15 minutes to create a Google Currents edition for myself. You can use the Currents publisher and add different elements to it and it will all get updated when anything changes on your sites. I have added my blog, Google+ Feed, Twitter Feed, Picasa Photos and a few other things. Anytime the Adam Sooley Current edition is opened it syncs for the newest information. Since Google Currents is linked to your Google account, all devices you have will be synced with the same sources.

Add my Google Currents Edition or browse some editions online.

Overall the Google Currents app does everything I need it to do for a news app and in a clean, intuitive way. Download it now from Google Play for Android or iPad and iPhone.

Visit the Google Currents homepage.

ING Direct: 1 Year Review

Its been just about a year now since I moved all of my banking needs to ING Direct. It was a easy process to complete and ING Direct was there along the way to help when there was a problem. You can read that review here: Operation Bank Switch: Complete You will notice above that I said all of my banking needs, well that all does not mean all I will explain a few of these below.

What has changed in the year:

• ING Direct now offers Interac E-Mail money transfers at $1 each. This allows for faster money transfers to people who do not have an ING account. ING still does their free email money transfers though it will take a couple of days if the receiver is not an ING client.
• ING Direct gives more than the 20 free cheques now. First when they launched the account you would receive 20 free cheques and would have to pay ~$10 for an additional 50. Now you will receive 50 from the get go but you will still have to pay after the initial 50.

What they still need to work on:

• A Visa or MasterCard; I have said this in the previous posts and I continue to say it. Right now I use a RBC West Jet MasterCard and I have just come to learn that the interest rates will be going up in June for all account holders of this card. So here I am again having to look for a good credit card to get. I know if ING did get into this it would be a huge blessing for allot of their clients.
• A RESP; ING does offer RRSP's and do have children's saving accounts (CSA) but have no RESP so parents cant take advantage of the Government of Canada's grants available when investing into RESP's. This is just recently become an issue for me since Paige was born we have been putting money aside for her in a CSA but now we would like to invest it further.
• A Line of Credit; If not a Visa or MasterCard, a line of credit would be nice when need access to funds for repairs and such. Though this is not high on my wish list.
• Save the Rest; This more of a wish than anything. It is something that ScotiaBank offers. When you purchase something with your debit card, you can have the amount rounded up and the rounded up amount be placed into a savings account. So if you but something for $8.62 you can have it rounded up to the nearest dollar or five dollars. That way $0.38 or $1.38 gets deposed into a savings account. 

Overall I would still give IND Direct a 8.5/10 since it is free banking after all and they pay you to be a client. So here's hoping they can improve on some of the things above.

What other bank in the industry pays you to become a customer? Well the answer to that is easy, NONE. When you sign up for an account at ING Direct and use another customers ORANGE KEY you will both get $25, no strings attached. But the FREE money does not stop there, when you are ready to move your payroll into your ING Direct Thrive Chequing account, they will give you an additional $100 just to say thanks. Now I'm not saying you have to sign up with my ORANGE KEY but I would certainly love to get the bonus $25 just like you. My ORANGE KEY is: 14477247S1. http://www.ingdirect.ca/referafriend   

Long time coming

So it seems this post has been a long time comming since I seemed to have forgotten about my blog for quite some time according to my last post time. It seems like I slip into this much too often where I do a bunch of web posts and than forget to do a post. So here is goes for my first post in 6 months.

Paige was born at 4:29pm on September 15, 2011 weighing in at 10lbs 10oz, below is a timeline view of the last 6 months in picture format:

 

Arriving home for the first time. September 18, 2011

Her Christening. October 1, 2011

Heading to Edmonton for her first ride on a plane. November 4, 2011

2 Month Needles. November 28, 2011

Close to the first Christmas relaxing with Mommy. December 18, 2011

Its the new year. January 4, 2012

Mommy reading a book. February 2012

At Nanny and Poppy's house in Florida. February 15, 2012

Sporting her Google hat. March 2012

Sporting her flower. 

 So has you can see she has grown up quite a bit over the last 6 months. Since that time she is now rolling, crawling and has two teeth coming out. Also got a little bit of ink done on my right forearm to remind me of her all of the time.

So hopefully I will continue to keep this blog updated in the future now that I have started again.

Android App Review #1 - Instagram vs. Camera Zoom FX

Many months ago I purchased the Android app Camera Zoom FX when it went on sale. One of the selling points for me of camera zoom was the ability to download plugins for the app to do different effects with your images. Once you place the effects on your images you can save them and share the image on mutiple social media sites with ease. I had heard about Instagram but to my dismay it was only available on iOS so Android users were SOL for trying Instagram. That was up until two weeks ago when Instagram released a Android version of their popular app. So we Android users finally have had a chance to see what all the hype was about.

Ease of Use

Instagram has this hands down. Once you take a picture, you are shown a preview and you can select the different filters or none that you like and hit go to have it uploaded to the web. While with Camera Zoom FX you will have to take extra steps to apply the filters.

Cost

 Instagram also has this one won hands down since it is free, while Camera Zoom FX will cost you $2.79.

Conclusion

Over all I like the ease of use of Instagram, but Camera Zoom FX has many more features and abilities overall. If you are looking for a camera app to share all of your photos use Instagram but if sharing is not your main deciding point go Camera Zoom FX. While writing this post, news just broke that Facebook has bought Instagram for 1 billion dollars. So I don't know if this information will change anyone's view. For me I am not a big fan of Facebook so I may stop using Instagram in the future if Facebook messes with the quality of the product but for now I will continue to use both.

Downloads

Camera Zoom FX
Instagram