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Thoughts From My Life

Thoughts From My Life
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Hotel 31 - New York City
2008-04-01 13:21:00
In March of 2008, I spent 5 nights in New York City . It was a fantastic trip and I would recommend it to anyone that is any age. One of the downsides with New York City are that the hotels can be a bit pricey compared to what you may be used to. However, my in-laws recommended a fantastic little place called Hotel 31 with more reasonable prices that I would also recommend. The Price We found $110/night on Expedia, but since Expedia requires you to pay up front we thought we would phone and make a reservation (just in case something changed before we went). They were willing to go down to $120 from the higher price quoted on their website. At this price, we had a room without a bathroom, but it did have a sink in the room. There is air conditioning as well. Where Is Hotel 31 Located? Hotel 31 is on 31st Street between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue. It is on the south side of the street. Overall Quality For the price, I would say it is pretty good. We had a nice clean ro...

New York City
2008-03-31 13:31:00
My wife and I were in Manhattan for 5 days in March of 2008. It was a fantastic trip and I would recommend it to anyone of any age to go see. Where Did We Stay? We stayed at Hotel 31. It is a budget hotel on Park Avenue just a few blocks to the east of the Empire State Building. I wrote a review of Hotel 31 already. What Restaurants Did We Eat At? The Coffee Shop This is located across the street from the northwest corner of Union Square. A neat restaurant where the lighting is so dark I couldn't really read the menu. I had the Brazilian Seafood Chowder, oysters, and their sesame chicken salad was superb. It has some really terrible reviews on a lot of sites, but overall I thought it was fine. Some sites mentioned the snootiness factor which I did notice when we walked in, but it was fine after that. Elmo This is a tapa style restaurant. Probably the best calamari I have had and they serve a number of appetizer items that are pretty tasty. Check out the Elmo website. E...
More About: New York , York , New York City , City , New-York

Back From New York City
2008-03-28 12:54:00
I am back from the Big Apple now. Sorry for the gap in articles recently. It was interesting that while I was gone I had some of my highest earnings since I started this blog and tons of comments on some articles. Not encouraging me to write more. Look for some New York City travel articles upcoming.Published on Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:54:34 MST. - 0 Comments
More About: New York City , Back

Off To New York City
2008-03-21 13:27:00
My wife and I are off to New York City for close to a week. Looking forward to seeing the Big Apple and trying to see as much as we can in the days we are there. We are staying in a hotel a couple blocks from the Empire State Building and we plan on walking and taking public transit as much as we can the whole time we are there. The only planned events so far are the New York Knicks and the Late Show with David Letterman. We are going to get last minute tickets for a Broadway show as well. The rest of the time will be looking at all the sites and just seeing New York.Published on Fri, 21 Mar 2008 05:27:23 MST. - 0 Comments
More About: New York City , New-York

Guitar Hero For Nintendo DS
2008-03-20 13:41:00
I can't believe it. Guitar Hero is coming to the Nintendo DS. It is called Guitar Hero On Tour. It comes with a the fret buttons that plug into the Gameboy Advance game slot (Slot-2) and the game cartridge goes in the normal NDS slot IGN has an Guitar Hero On Tour exclusive on their site right now. Here is an advertisement for it below. Published on Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:41:23 MST. - 0 Comments
More About: Nintendo Ds

Toastmasters Ice Breaker Speech Today
2008-03-19 15:25:00
I joined Toastmasters a few months ago, because we formed a club at work called the Pason Presenters. If you are not familiar with Toastmasters, it is a speaking club that is aimed at helping individuals improve their speaking and presentation skills. Our work club meets twice a month over lunch and has a meeting. The main parts to each of our meetings are: Prepared speeches Impromptu speeches Evaluations I have participated in many impromptu speeches so far, but today will be my first prepared speech. I am a little nervous, but think it should go well. My Toastmasters experience so far has been really positive. You can get as much out of it as you want to put in and there is so much to learn. If you are interested in trying it out, you can find a club locally and go sit in for a few meetings if you like. Just go to the Toastmasters International website and use their "find a branch near you" feature.Published on Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:25:21 MST. - 0 Comments
More About: Today , Breaker , Speech

Received My Meta Cafe Money
2008-03-17 16:50:00
I received my money yesterday from Meta Cafe . You can read about my Meta Cafe video making me money in some of my previous articles. Anyhow, despite all my doubts, I had a little over US$100 deposited in my PayPal account yesterday. I can't believe it. The video camera was taken along just to help record our trip, but there is an extra $100 out of it. We are going to use the money to go for dinner with our fellow travelers.Published on Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:50:09 MST. - 0 Comments
More About: Money

Meta Cafe Is Sending Me A Shirt Too
2008-03-12 15:36:00
I wrote yesterday about my Meta Cafe video making 100 dollars. I was still a bit skeptical if I would be eligible for a payout, but it looks like everything is fine. I faxed away my signed contract on Monday and Tuesday morning I received a confirmation mail asking for me to fill in what payment method I want. They give you 3 options: Pre-loaded Mastercard Pay Pal Direct Deposit I opted for the Pay Pal, since it is the least intrusive and I buy enough off eBay to use it eventually. Apparently I will be paid in April for my accumulations thus far. The other cool thing they do is a free Meta Cafe t-shirt. Free shipping too. I hope I picked the right size. We'll see when it gets here.Published on Wed, 12 Mar 2008 07:36:51 MST. - 0 Comments
More About: Shirt , Sending

My Meta Cafe Video Made Me 100 Bucks
2008-03-11 13:50:00
Well, my video finally made me some money on Meta Cafe . I uploaded it over a year go and thought it would never make the cutoff to get money, but I was wrong. It was a video of a giant elephant lumbering through the Ngorongoro Crater in Africa and a woman that was standing a bit too close in my opinion. Nothing bad happened. The video would have probably had a million hits if something did happen. Check out my elephant video. I have it embedded in the page farther down as well. I had written a few articles about it. Meta Cafe - Make MoneyFrom Your Video s Elephant Video Is Getting Close to 20,000 Views They sent me a contract by email that I had to fill out and fax back in. We'll see if they actually send the money now. Cross my fingers. The account is at $101 right now. For your video to make money, it must meet a few criteria: Produced it yourself. Maintain a rating of over 3. Had anyone in the video sign off that it is okay. Reach at least a threshold of 20,000 vie...
More About: Made , Bucks

Trip For 2008 Booked - Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey
2008-03-07 13:00:00
We just finished the main part of booking our trip the other day. We will be gone most of a month and taking a tour that starts in Cairo and ends in Istanbul. There will be 4 of us going. We ended up doing a tour through Gecko Adventures called Cairo to Istanbul. You can check out the detailed itinerary on their site. We are leaving a few days early and will will hang out for a couple days in Cairo or try to get up to Alexandria since it is not included in the tour portion of our trip. Booking With Gecko from Canada I learned something interesting when booking this tour. Gecko is based out of Australia and they do book anyone directly outside of Australia. The Canadian prices are also quite a bit higher than the American quotes because they were printed back when the exchange rates were quite a bit lower. They can be paid in American money. This is what we did. It saves quite a bit. I tried calling an American company that deals with Gecko in case this didn't pan out or...
More About: Turkey , Egypt , Syria , Jordan , Trip

Warcraft Tower Defense 0.5 Released
2008-03-05 19:17:00
One of the best homebrew games for the Nintendo DS that I play is Warcraft Tower Defense . It was written by noda and he has just released version 0.5. Read about the Warcraft Tower Defense 0.5 Release on his blog. There haven't been major changes, but enough to make it worthwhile to upgrade. My favorite changes have been the difficulty levels for each map and you can now save your game (only one at a time though). Read the article in the link above to see a full list of changes. He is hoping to add multiplayer but he needs more hardware to do it. He is trying to raise $200 and is at $71 already. Feel free to donate if you would like to see multiplayer. The game is fun, polished, and definitely in the top 5 for the homebrew game scene in my opinion. It has made it into a number of my articles: Warcraft Tower Defense for the NDS. This article explains on how to get it working as well. Best Games for Nintendo DS Best Nintendo DS Homebrew Published on Wed, 05 Mar 2008...
More About: Released

A* Pathfinding Algorithm Demo Applet
2008-03-04 15:35:00
I created my first version of an A* Pathfinding Demo . It is an applet further down this page, so you will need Java installed. Basically, you can draw a map by setting a start point, end point, and drawings walls. Then press Start to watch the algorithm think its way through. Keep in mind, you are still allowed to have multiple starting or end points, but it will only lose the highest grid number of each when the algorithm starts. It costs 10 units to move left, right, up, or down and it costs 14 to move on the diagonal. If you pause AStar, any map changes at that time will also do nothing to change how the algorithm will finish. Here are a few instructions: To set a wall, click on a square once. It will turn red. To set a start point, click on a square twice. It will turn to a wall on the first click, but the next sets it to a blue start point. To set an end point, click on a square three times. Just like above, it will turn to a purple end point. To clear a grid square...

A* Pathfinding Algorithm Demo Applet
2008-03-04 15:35:00
I created my first version of an A* Applet Demo . Basically, you can draw a map by setting a start point, end point, and drawings walls. Then press Start to watch the algorithm think its way through. Keep in mind, you are still allowed to have multiple starting or end points, but it will only lose the highest grid number of each when the algorithm starts. It costs 10 units to move left, right, up, or down and it costs 14 to move on the diagonal. If you pause AStar, any map changes at that time will also do nothing to change how the algorithm will finish. Here are a few instructions: To set a wall, click on a square once. It will turn red. To set a start point, click on a square twice. It will turn to a wall on the first click, but the next sets it to a blue start point. To set an end point, click on a square three times. Just like above, it will turn to a purple end point. To clear a grid square to just be walkable, click on it until it turns white again. Just click Start ...

Alberta Election 2008 - Where Can I Vote
2008-03-03 18:57:00
The 2008 Alberta provincial elections are today, March 3, 2008. If you are trying to figure out where you can vote, you might have a bit of fun. My friend pointed out that he can't find the information on the Election s Alberta website and if you go to the Alberta 2008 Elections site right now (10:30AM), it says: The Elect2008 web site is unavailable at this time. Well, if you live by me in Lynnwood district of Calgary, I know the voting is at one of the two elementary schools by the hockey arena. I sent an email to the website guys and hopefully they fix it.Published on Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:57:33 MST. - 0 Comments
More About: Vote , Election 2008

Earn Revenue Online - February 2008 Recap
2008-03-03 13:15:00
February is over now. It was a bit of a shorter month, but was a leap year too so was only 2 days shorter than January was. Thoughts From My Life Traffic Stats for February 2008 February's numbers and January's numbers are in brackets. Page Loads: 20484 (19997) Unique Visitors: 12907 (12224) Average Uniques/Day: 445 (394) Lowest Uniques/Day: 301 (173) Highest Uniques/Day: 628 (721) Traffic was consistent the whole month. Most of my traffic came in for the following articles: Acer Extensa 5420 review Acer Extensa 5420 Black Screen On Startup Frets On Fire - Free Version Of Guitar Hero Getting Frets On Fire Working On Vista Getting Frets On Fire Working On XP Still showing very strong page views are my articles on the Best Nintendo DS Homebrew and Aeroplan Versus Air Miles - Comparing Them. January 2008 Traffic Thoughts From My Life Revenue Overall, my earnings for February 2008 were $244.46. Here is the breakdown with last month's numbers in brackets. PayU2Blog: $1...
More About: Earn , Online , Recap

Enchanted April - Theatre Calgary
2008-02-27 18:21:00
My wife and I went to see Enchanted April last night. It is a theatre performance put on by Theatre Calgary at the Epcor Centre for Performing Arts. The play started out a bit slow for the first few minutes, but was thoroughly enjoyable after that. Very funny and the the actors did a very good job. The Story Enchanted April is about 2 women from England who have drifting apart from the husbands of late. They decide to rent a small castle in Italy for the month of April as a getaway. To help with the costs they take out an advertisement in the paper for 2 more women to join them. Each one has a very unique personality of course and it doesn't take long for a bit of friction to ensue. Their experience at the castle is rather funny. There is the non-English speaking Italian maid, the landlord of the castle (a young English gentleman), and the husbands eventually show up themselves. All in all, it is an excellent play and I would definitely recommend. Check out the Enchanted...

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