When I came across contests who’s entry requirement was that you make a post in your own blog, I wasn’t sure if I should make such a post as it did seem a little self serving. The blogs I most admire do not post such contest entires, but then I guess I’m not quite at their level. To my surprise; after posting a couple, I noticed they were some of my most popular posts. In that case, be prepared for some contest entries as I have a number of them backlogged, and be sure to enter them yourselves.

First up is a contest by John Chow, who is giving away a 24 inch LCD monitor. Even a cheap monitor of this size runs at least $750 right now, and I’d love to have one of these one my desk. There are specific requirements needed in your blog post to enter this contest, the details of which are on his contest page. That link is the first of the requirements, in addition you must link to his Make Money page and to the contest sponsor BlurFur.com with the words hosting Canada. Be sure to visit John’s contest page to ensure you enter with exactly the right words; reading both his and my posts should ensure you get it right. Don’t forget that after you post, you must email John with your post’s URL in order for him to enter you into the draw bucket.

And if you found out about the contest here, I’d appreciate a link also!

While it won’t be required for our upcoming trip to Playa del Carmen (Mexico only requires ID such as a Driver’s License from Canadians), we decided that we should be proactive and get passports as both Karin’s and mine expired years ago. Canadians are well aware that Canadian Passport offices have had huge line-ups for months and there have been major delays in receiving a passport; largely due to the United States initiating new rules that anyone flying into their country has to have a passport. This will be followed in the future with a passport requirement for those arriving by land.

We’ll certainly need passports when the land entry requirement starts, as it would be a little silly to live 2 miles from the border and not be able to cross it. Getting our passports now will also mean that we will be prepared should we suddenly need to fly into the US, or should our plane to Mexico make an unscheduled stop. It also will make things a lot more convenient for Karin, as being born in Brazil has meant having to have ready her birth certificate ( a fragile piece of legal sized paper that has already been ripped and taped), her Canadian Citizenship, and our marriage license showing her name change in case a border guard at the US or Mexico crossing decided her driver’s license was not sufficient.

So we decided to brave the process this weekend.

Filling out the forms online and then printing them on your own printer is fairly simple if you already have a Government of Canada epass. Getting the photos was also simple; we just stopped by Costco. On Monday morning, while on our way to New Westminster for a specialist appointment, we stopped by our doctor’s office and dropped off our pictures and forms for our doctor to sign. He is the only person that has known us both for at least two years and meets the criteria as a guarantor, though new rules coming out in October to help speed the process will allow any passport holder to be someone else’s guarantor.  We then picked the signed photos and paperwork up on the way home at about 2:30, and decided to try and submit our applications that afternoon despite the late time.

To help ease the line-ups, several government locations in outlying cities have trained their personnel to review and accept applications.  They then forward them on to the main passport offices.  In Abbotsford, the Service Canada Centre now accepts applications.  We arrived and were met by a guard whom had anyone that was coming in specifically for passports sign a login sheet.  I’m not sure why this was necessary, but some research on the net afterward indicates that they may be limiting the number of applications per day in order to allow them to still perform all the other functions the office covers, such as Old Age Pension, Employment Insurance and Social Insurance Numbers.  However, if we could arrive less than 90 minutes before closing and have no problem getting in on a Monday, I would say the initial rush is over.

The guard’s other job was to warn and deflect away those looking to get their passport in under 55 business days; those people still need to visit the Surrey or Vancouver passport offices.  A lady arrived at the same time as us with her and her husband’s applications in hand.  When told she would not have the passports back by her travel date in August if she applied in Abbotsford, she whined “But we’ve already bought the tickets to Hawaii.”  Her attitude made it obvious that she expected the guard to fix the situation for her, but she finally accepted the piece of paper with the Surrey address that the guard gave her.  Karin and I both shook our heads, not believing that someone would still expect that you could just get a passport on short notice with no effort.  It was after the door shut behind her that the guard muttered, “And you’ll need to arrive at 2:00am to get a spot in line.”  She didn’t deserve any more warning than that.

W e then checked in with the receptionist and sat down to wait our turn.  In less than 5 minutes, we were called up to a counter where a lady reviewed our applications, had us make a couple of minor corrections (note to the government; if certain fields on the form cannot be left blank, then design the submission form so that it will not allow the field to be left blank), checked our photos against a template, and took our application fees.  We had to surrender my birth certificate and Karin’s citizenship papers; but this should not be an issue as they are rarely used.  We came prepared with copies of our driver’s licenses and CareCards that had been signed as true copies by our doctor; but it turned out that the clerk could would have copied them and signed that she saw the originals if we had not provided those copies.

All told, we were at the office perhaps 30 minutes.  Our passports and identification will be sent to our home by registered mail, and we were told that the goal date is September 18.  Assuming we have our passports on that date, I will not be able to complain about any part of the process.

Many of the blogs I read are by local authors. The niche each blog fits can be wide ranging and might not even be something I would read normally; but I don’t read just any local blog. Instead, the fact that they are local causes me to check them out the first time, but it is the style of writing and interest factor that will gain them a place in my Google Reader.

Darren Barefoot is a Vancouver blogger who I would follow even if he was not local. In fact, he’s quite famous on the internet, and has one of the top 2000 blogs according to Technorati. This is an impressive number alone when you realize that Technorati tracks 86.8 million blogs; but even more impressive when you consider that Darren writes simply because he wants to, and does not actively promote his blog like most of the others holding the top spots. His own description of himself on Technorati is:

The personal weblog of Darren Barefoot, concerned with technology, pop culture, marketing and PR, science and whatever floats Darren’s boat.

The description alone should explain why I read him, he is what the modern geek is about; interested in technology, science and the traditional geeky items, but an not introverted dweeb unaware of the world around him. A successful technologist and owner of his own company, he still finds time to find many different interesting items in the news and on the internet; more than I ever find. His posts are brief but informative, and can be quite intellectual without offsetting those looking for an interesting read, a tricky balance that he does quite well.

Darren and his wife recently sold almost everything they had in Vancouver and moved to Malta for six months, and will begin again anew when they return to build a house on Pender Island. Current postings include accounts of travels around Malta and Europe, with a similar interest in the cultures he encounters. He is also an avid photographer, which is a passion of my own in which I hope to soon re-indulge. I have therefore added him as a contact in Flickr in order to both appreciate his creations and to travel vicariously. A geek who is into travel and photography will always peak my interest.

An additional attraction that applies to all locals who stay in my reader is one that likely appeals to all of us; when he writes about the local park’s storm damage, his favorite hockey team, or his issues with a local credit union; we all connect better with someone who is writing about something with which we are familiar. Combine this familiarity with a casual writing style that flows well, and it feels as if you are reading something from a good friend. But in reality, the relationship is more the one has with a celebrity, in that he wouldn’t know me if I walked right up to him, but if I recognized across the room while out at a local establishment, I’d feel like he was a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time and would want to buy him a beer.

Edit: I almost forgot that it is through him that I discovered and won the Canuck’s Jersey contest, and so I already owe him a beer.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

WordPress made it fairly simple to transfer over all my Blogger posts and comments, but did not import other items; such as the list of blogs I follow, otherwise known as a blogroll. I could simply recreate the list in a 15 minute typing session; however, I decided a better idea might be to rebuild the list by sharing with everyone just what attracts me to return to each blog, adding each to my WordPress blogroll as I go.

I’ll start with the family blogs.

Karin’s Blog

My wife writes a blog called Self-Medicated (apparently, she does not like it when I medicate her). Like this blog, she began on Blogger and then moved at the same time as me to a WordPress blog hosted on a subdomain of our new site, PlayaParadise.com. She blogs about family, interesting life events, things she finds on the web, and all the other elements that are generally part of the class known as the Personal Blog. I follow her blog for obvious reasons, such as not wanting to ingest poisons inserted into my food by a vengeful, angry spouse; but also, as I’m the sweet loving person that I am, I do want to know what is happening in my honey’s life while I’m away at work and to know what is on her mind. Her posts as of late are updates on her progress towards creating a private section of our site for the family, which requires her to first learn to use Joomla, a content management software package. I just don’t have the time right now to help her much, but she’s doing great with it.

Matthew’s Blog

My stepson Matthew has his own blog with the exciting name of Matthew’s Blog . He is not a frequent poster, but generally you know that he is either extremely happy or very frustrated if he has posted, so it’s a good way for me to keep tabs on whether it’s safe to venture to his area of the condo. Lately, they seem to be happier posts, so that is good. Interestingly, his World of Warcraft character Rasgar blogs more often than he does. However, since Rasgar is not family, he’s has yet to earn a spot on my blogroll. Maybe if Rasgar showed me a little link love….

Cynthia’s Blog

Karin’s niece Cynthia started her blog before any of us, and encouraged the other members of the family to start their own. I had been thinking of starting one, but I have to give her credit for getting off her butt and doing it first. She has self-titled her blog Will-I-Ams (a play on her last name) and also writes a personal blog. Come to think of it, all the family blogs are personal blogs, so I guess I can quit categorizing each one separately.

Cynthia is a young mother who has a good portion of her day dominated by chasing after rug-rats; and as such her perspective is quite different from most of the rest of the family blogs. Reading her blog, I’m constantly amazed at all the events, functions, get-aways and activities she manages to attend while taking care of her two children. She has a lovely writing style, and I quite enjoy reading her adventures even when I don’t know the people involved.

Waltrude’s Blog

Waltrude is Cynthia’s mother and Karin’s sister. She and her husband find themselves bouncing between older parents that are beginning to rely on their children for care, and her own children dropping the grandchildren off to visit Oma and Opa. She therefore calls her blog The Sandwich Generation . Waltrude is deeply involved in her church, but also likes to sneak away for vacations with her husband. We might even have them convinced to come to Mexico with us this fall. She has not had much time to blog because of her commitments as of late, but now that the major ones are over we hope to see more from her soon.

As the oldest sibling in Karin’s family, she remembers much of the family back in Brazil and also is able to communicate with those who’s primary language is Portuguese. This is likely why she has taken on the role of informing everyone of happenings in the extended family, at first through email and now through her blog. Fear not, there are interesting items for those who are not family, an example being her recent trip report of a cruise she and her husband took from Los Angles to Vancouver.

Lucy’s Blog

Lucy is married to Karin’s brother Berto. At any family event, she’ll pull out her digital camera and be sure to document everyone that was there. If the event is at her house, she’ll have a blog post complete with pictures before you can get home. Even though my main hobby is photography, I don’t pull my camera out much at these events as I know Lucy will have grabbed group shots. She’ll need to watch out, though; I’ll likely be at it again after I get a digital SLR in a few months.

As so much of her blog is about family events, she has appropriately named it Our Family and Friends . Her latest post shows our Father’s Day get-together, in her pictures I’m the only one who didn’t feel the need to put on a coat and am therefore fairly obvious in my bright orange shirt.

Now that I’ve covered the family, expect to see reviews of my favorite blogs as I add each to my new blogroll, starting with local blogs.

Just a reminder to all the family, and anyone else that might have my on their blogroll; please update the link to point to this new blog!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite