Saturday, December 11, 2010

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

Continuing the theme of local authors that we kicked off with our recent post about Ingrid Baier's Fish On book, we now want to bring another published Okotokian to your attention!

Chris Garrett and his co-author Darren Rowse are highly regarded in the blogging and internet marketing world. It's Chris that's the local boy among this duo, having recently moved with his wife and daughter from the UK.  When we say these guys are highly regarded in their sphere, we are rather under-playing it.  For instance, these guys were invited to speak at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2010 in Las Vegas.  Here's a video of Chris being interviewed at the Expo.

Chris and Darren's book, "ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income" has a fairly self explanatory title and it is now in its second edition.

The book is available in book stores but also on Amazon.ca, here.  You can preview the book on Amazon and if, like us, you are interested in blogging and want a grounded view on how to focus and develop what you are doing with your blog (whether generating income is a goal or not), then it is an excellent read.

J&E

Friday, December 10, 2010

Fish On - Seafood Dishes that Make a Splash by Ingrid Baier

We had to share this with you all as we think it is just so excellent!

Our next door neighbours, the Baier family, have been so friendly and welcoming to us since we arrived in Crystal Shores Pt back in 2007. Along with the Vincent family on the other side of us, we couldn’t wish for better neighbours. We all chat away and help eachother out where we can but this past couple of days, we have discovered a remarkable secret about Ingrid Baier – she is a published author!

Modest and unassuming, Ingrid has never thought to mention this to us before! We were gobsmacked! The book that Ingrid has recently had published is a down to earth cookbook that gives many great ways to enjoy fish. It is called “Fish On – Seafood Dishes that Make a Splash”.


You can see from the link below that it is readily available via Amazon.ca

Fish On - Seafood Dishes that Make a Splash by Ingrid Baier

Ingrid has been kind enough to provide Jan and I with a copy with a little inscription and this is something that we will treasure. If you want to preview the book, you can do so via the Amazon site at the link above.

Should anyone wish to buy a copy (and have it signed by Ingrid) to add to your own cookbook selection, order it from Amazon and when it arrives with you, drop me a line to let me know and we'll figure out a plan for getting Ingrid's signature on it.  Jan has 3 on order (for her sisters and for her Mum and Dad, as a little Christmas present).

This has been a strange year for meeting authors.  We'll blog about another author living among us shortly.

J&E.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Town of Okotoks Community Calendar

For those living in Okotoks, check out the month of October 2011 in your new Okotoks Community Calendar.  It should have been delivered with your Western Wheel this week.  The photo it features was taken by Jan.

The sharp eyed among you might recognise the photo as that used on http://3crystalshorespoint.ca/

We both really like the photo and thought we would submit it for inclusion in the community calendar - and it got selected!

The photo was taken from our home, one fairly still, summer evening.
J&E

The Lake Freezing

This blog post is for especially for Lee in the UK, who wanted to see some photos of the lake freezing.  We have never really monitored how quickly the lake starts to freeze once it begins to get colder, so actually, we thought it quite a good idea!

We first noticed ice on the north end of the lake on 13th November.  However, it warmed up a little the next day and it looked as though most of it had melted.

We took this photo on 17th November which doesn't look much further along than it had looked to us on the 13th.

We took these two the next day, the 18th November (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) and with the amount of snow and freezing temperatures, you can see that the lake is pretty much covered now.
19th November 2010
20th November 2010
21st November 2010
22nd November 2010
There doesn't seem to be much changing on the surface at the moment, so we have decided to leave it a few days.
24th November 2010
We have the first person testing the lake.
He was obviously happy with the thickness of the ice, as the skating rink prep begins.  Not being brought up with this sort of thing, we usually wait until the lake staff put up their notice to say the lake is safe to go on!
However, this was issued on 25th November from the Beach House saying that the last recorded ice thickness was two inches and it is not yet considered safe - oops.
Sunday 28th November 2010
It was quite a nice day out, not too cold.  So more work begins on creating new skating rinks.
They certainly make the most of it and were out on the lake for several hours.
However, on 29th November, they Beach House was still suggesting that the ice is still not thick enough at just six inches, which seems quite thick.  However, we believe the Beach House likes the ice to be 10" to 12" in depth for greater safety, (especially for use by the community at large as opposed to these few folk) which is just fine by us!!

On the 1st December the ice seems to be melting as the notice on the website had changed from 6 inches to 5.5 inches.  It was still saying that on 9th December so we popped into the beach house.  Unfortunately, due to the warmer weather, they are saying that it is unlikely to be considered safe until after Christmas. 

However, while we wait, we have had a couple of garden visitors over the past week or so.
 

 Have you ever seen a deer under a trampoline?  They seem to quite like it under there.
Personally, we think seeing a deer on a trampoline, instead of underneath it, would make a much better photo!
  
 

We will keep you posted.
J&E