Sephy’s Platzish

A video special this week, of me stepping on ice - hopefully the embedding works

Oh, by the way, I hope y’all like seeing ice, as that is what is in every picture this week.

Sunday, 17th February

The start of the ice. No pedometer walk was done due to the fact that the whole of the driveway was in no condition for walking - you could barely walk out to get the paper (which didn’t even come until very late in the day due to the horrendous weather - normally it’s here before 5AM on a Sunday).

Monday, 18th February 2008

The rare full-size photo. Well, then again, it’s about half the width of a thumbnail. This is one of the icicles that were hanging off of the gutters. It got taken down by hand. As far as the walk was concerned, it was a bit dicey, but I did get a bit down the driveway, but didn’t quite trust myself for the full length and moved the car to get to the end of the path (and I’m not sure how the counting got this high for the pedometer…)

Distance - 1805 steps, 1.44km

Tuesday, 19th February

See what I mean about the ice? Fortunately, there has been a convenient little path to walk along, right at the edge of the driveway. If you were to step on the shiny spots, that is pure ice, and you’d probably wind up arse over head, or some other suitable phrase for falling on your backside.

Distance - 856 steps, 0.68km

Wednesday, 20th February

One place that there was actually some improvement (marginal though it was) was the road - the white layer that was there from the snow was replaced by an even friendlier coating of ice. Needless to say, the snow was an improvement…

Distance - 1562 steps, 1.24km

Thursday, 21st February

Another shot of the end of the driveway - even though the sun wasn’t out, you can still see the reflection on the pure ice sections of the drive.

Distance - 1194 steps, 0.95km

Friday, 22nd February

2-in-1 for the full pix…another lengthy icicle hanging off of the gutters. These were a little bit higher than the other ones, thus the more angular appearance.

Distance - 1503 steps, 1.20km

Saturday, 23rd February

Everybody loves thawing weather - if it’s hard to tell, that’s my boots breaking up some of the ice on the side of the road. I got a bit adventurous and started walking both feet on the ice, but that didn’t last too long.

Just in case the video doesn’t work (trying out Dailymotion set on private, so it might not embed properly), here’s a backup plan: an Alberta break! Let’s go to Fort Saskatchewan…it can’t be that much colder up there, eh?

Distance - 1527 steps, 1.22km

In other news, I might be getting some work out of the house. I put my resume in for a job that is 4 hours a week, 4 days a week, and within literally 10 minutes of hitting submit, I got a callback, and will be heading in to the agency who are handling the account on Tuesday. Trust me, I’m not going to let the weather get in the way of that.

Also, I’m continuing the therapy sessions, but nothing happened this week, except for me remembering the image from last time, along with not killing myself going a whole 80km/h on the freeway (at the fastest). All I can say is that this could be a very interesting week, with the possibility of me winding up in a situation where I am making money. Sounds good to me.

Note: This post is a paid post.

I’ve traveled through many parts of the Southeastern US (well, only Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia; I might have flown over Alabama once as well), and one place that I have not gotten to is North Carolina. As a racing fan, that part of the country is the birthplace of the sport, with its roots in the old moonshine runners.

However, the North Carolina of today is vastly different from the 1950s, and one part of the state in particular has become a leader in business development - The Triangle, anchored by Raleigh, the region’s largest city and the state capitol of North Carolina. Just because it is a hotbed for business doesn’t mean that Raleigh isn’t a tourist destination, either.

In fact, the Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau are hosting a contest where you can sign up to win a FREE Raleigh Getaway, featuring a one night stay at the Courtyard by Marriott-Raleigh/Crabtree Valley, VIP passes to Rum Runners, a $25 gift certificate for dining at the Bloomsbury Bistro and two tickets to each of the following - the North Carolina Theatre, the North Carolina Museum of Art’s exhibit of Landscapes from the Impressionist Age, and Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries, at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

The Dinosaur exhibit is a new look at the research palentologists do in order to determine the origins and lives of the reptiles which roamed our lands over 65 million years ago. From new technology to recreating the actual bodies they were using, the exhibit re-tells the story of the dinosaurs from the beginning through to the mass extinction that occurred around 65 million years ago from a new perspective.

However, that isn’t everything that the city has on offer this fall. Another season of the NHL has just started and the Carolina Hurricanes are looking to be strong contenders to take their second Stanley Cup title since the league came back from a labor stoppage two years ago. Tickets are available for almost all home games. If you’ve never been to a hockey game, this would be the perfect opportunity.

Also, there are a lot of festivals coming up this fall in Raleigh, including the North Carolina State fair runs from the 12th to the 21st of October at the State Fairgrounds. There are also many concerts slated for the near future, including one that I definitely would love to go see - the Branford Marsalis Quartet performing at the NC Symphony on the first weekend in November.

So, if you’re looking for a place to take a Fall Getaway, you should consider heading down to Raleigh and entering their contest. Plus, if you’re from up north like I am, it’s a bit warmer down there this time of year.

Note: This post is a paid post

I’ve been active off and on in chat rooms for about nine years. Now, of course, there are other people who I know who have been around the chat scene ever since it started, but that’s their story.

There have been a lot of different ways of being in chat rooms, from the bare-bones IRC server networks, to one-on-one environments like ICQ and AIM, and then to Yahoo Instant Messenger which was one of the first chat clients to include a variety of chat rooms right there in the messenger client.

However, over the last couple of years, chat systems have moved away from separate, downloaded, programs to being able to chat right in your browser. One of the newer services out there that provides these free chat rooms is wireclub.com.

Interestingly, aside from a chat site, wireclub also provides a sort of “lonely hearts” club by letting you know if a member is there for just to chat, or if they’re there to possibly start dating. Also, the site goes beyond just having chat, and into the web 2.0 world with the availability of clubs to join (literally everything from erotic discussions to almost any sport out there).

If you sign up, you will also be able to start a blog there, post photos of yourself in the gallery (which is only visible to registered members), participate in the forums, and of course, have access to the chat rooms.

For me, as a stats junkie, the most intriguing page on the site is the country listings, where they show profiles from the ten most active countries for the day. Not surprisingly, the most popular countries are the US and Canada, but usual suspects like India, Australia and the Philippines are there, but you also have three African countries represented today - Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa.

They’ve got a good setup going there, and the best part is that to use their services, you don’t even need to have extra software - it’s all based on javascript and html, no need to have Java running and taking up system resources.

If you’re into chatting with new people online, have a go with wireclub - it’s completely free and you might even meet some new friends there.

Note: This post is a sponsored post.

As you may know, I’ve been working on changing my diet and exercising more. The main way that I am dieting is to just cut back on how much I’m eating. I have tried to count calories in the past, but it can be a frustrating experience when you don’t eat the exact amount that is listed for a serving, or don’t know exactly what the nutritional information is for a product.

That’s where a site like MyFitnessPal comes in - they have a lot of completely free tools, such as a calorie counter that will keep track of what you are eating. They also offer ways to lose weight in a safe manner - by spending more calories than you take in. If you decide to join, you’ll also have access to a diet journal to watch your progress as you do lose the weight.

The best feature of the site, however, is the calorie chart, which has the nutritional information available for a wide variety of foods, including selections from some of the more popular fast food restaurants including McDonald’s. It’s not a complete service, but considering that you don’t pay a single cent for it, you’re getting a great deal.

We’re coming into the Christmas shopping season, and that means that you’ll start to see sales for everything under the sun, especially about two months from now, on the day after Thanksgiving. In recent years, it has become known colloquially as “Black Friday”, from the fact that many retailers use the sales from that weekend to come into profit after a potentially bad year otherwise.

Before last year or so, the only time you would be able to find out what was on sale would be when the Thanksgiving Day paper came (or, if you live in an area like I do, the day before Thanksgiving’s paper). As thick as a Sunday paper, it is filled with thanksgiving ads for specials only valid for five hours on Friday, and rock bottom prices on the stuff you want to have.

The newest trend is for people to get leaked copies of these ads and post them on the web for everyone to see. There are a lot of sites out there; some have the actual ads posted, but black-friday.net has just a plain list of the items on sale. They’ve got the items for sale listed for a lot of stores. Having a look through, though, I’d say that Fred’s deals are some of the better ones out there.

It’s early though, and I’d expect that there will be a lot more stores with their sales listed for Black Friday, whether they want them to be out there or not. You can also sign up for emails when more ads get listed to the site.

Note: This post is a paid post.