I really wanted to make it out to the torch relay for the Paralympics last night which was held in Memorial Peace Park.  Unfortunately, I was working out in Abbotsford yesterday, and didn't get home until about 6:30.  Yes, I know that's when the ceremony started, but I wanted to right up front, and if I didn't even get to the site until 6:45 or so, that wasn't going to happen.
So, did anyone go to the event?  How was the attendance as compared to the Olympic relay held back on February 8th? 
I'm hoping that we're going to be able to get tickets for some of the events during the Paralympics, as we just couldn't justify spending the money that the tickets for the Olympics cost. 

I never intended for there to be this much of a gap between my last posts and now.  But then, I never figured that I'd write exactly ONE post between Christmas and the start of the Olympics, either.  Is it the winter months, even if they haven't been that bad?  Who knows.
I'm getting back into writing now, though, as I'm going to have more of an opportunity to be out in the community, which will give me a lot more to write about, both here, and on the Post site.
For those who have been looking for updates, my sincere apologies for not keeping the Post site updated more regularly.  That's about to change, and there are even some more exciting changes that are being looked at. 
Stay tuned.

I haven't posted here in awhile, and the RidgeMeadowsPost.com site has been a little quiet as well, so I thought that I'd chime in with a bit of an update on what's been going on lately.  

This post is more for personal reference more than anything, but if anyone else can make use of it, that's all right too.

I was sitting on the couch watching the news this morning, with the backdoor open, and the cats out in the yard.  When I looked up, there was a coyote in the yard.  I stood up and walked to the door, and it took off as soon as it saw me, jumping over the fence.

Calling the non-emergency number at the RCMP resulted in this number for animal control:

1.800.731.6373

When I called the number I was told that because coyotes are so prevalent throughout the Lower Mainland, that animal control won't do anything about it until it goes after a child ,or shows obvious signs of being sick.  So, all I have to do is keep the cats inside.

So, if anyone needs that number, here it is.

One thing that I've always wanted to try and get into was podcasting.  It was about 2005 or so when I started listening, and I've got a pretty regular group that I listen to at the moment - Leo Laporte's TWIT network, CNet's Buzz Out Loud, and for pure entertainment, LUG Radio, which, while it may not necessarily be family entertainment, is still funny as hell in my book.

And while I'd love to give podcasting a go, I can tell you right now that I don't have enough to say to make the effort worthwhile.  It's something that I'd like to do, but without a clear idea of what I'd be doing a regular show about, it just ain't gonna happen.

So I'm having to be content with learning to edit audio with Audacity, which is a great little open source audio editing tool, available on SourceForge.  After finding a couple of online tutorials on how easy it is to edit the audio files that you generate, I gave it a bit of a try myself, and the results were quite surprising.  I read a passage of text, and when I exported it to MP3, it was about 38 seconds. 

Then I went back and edited out all of the 'uhs' and long pauses, and got it to sound much better, cutting about 5 seconds off of the duration of the MP3.  Which means that I either say 'um' a lot more than I think, or I sure dropped some long pauses in there.  Probably a combination of the two, really.

If audio is something that you've been interested in trying to work with, download Audacity and give it a go.  It's really much easier than you think it'll be.

I'm a reporter for the Ridge Meadows Post, an online 'non-newspaper' that tires to not just report news in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows where I live, but rather what it's like to live here.  And to be honest, it's not really all that bad.

Sure there's always issues, and someone's always getting pissed off about something, but you'd have a hard time finding a place that isn't like that.  So why not cover it?  It's what makes things interesting.  And while I have immense respect for all of the journalists writing for the local papers, one of the things about journalism is that you're not supposed to expose yourself in the story.  Just report it.

That's not what the Post is about, though.  We're going to try and cover the stuff that you won't see in the other papers.  We'll be using audio and video when possible to try and tell the stories.

As for myself, well, those stories are going to have to come out over time.  I'm a huge technology geek, although I'll try not to bore people on the Post website with all of that stuff unless it relates to Maple Ridge.  On this site, though, you're going to get some tech stuff.  And non-tech stuff as well. 

We're just going to have to see what it turns in to.