I realise it's been a few days since I've written anything but that doesn't mean nothing has happened recently. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I've got so many fun photos and videos from my adventure so far that I want to do them justice when I write about them here. Until I get round to doing that properly, though, I'll give you a sneak peek just now of the things I'm going to be talking about.
1) Sailing on Lake Ontario
2) Eating in my favourite places in Toronto
3) Staying with friends in a house that looks out over endless fields
4) Going to Heidi & Brian's wedding
I don't know if this is worse than not posting at all, but I just wanted everyone to know I've not forgotten about you and I'll write more details soon.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
I have slept
I'm now part way through my first full day in Canada. I got up at about 10:15 which was a fairly reasonable time to get up. I had gone to bed at about 11 o'clock the night before. Oddly enough, despite my being awake for so long, it still took me a wee while to eventually get to sleep.
I was trying to figure out just how long I had been awake when I did finally go to bed. I had got up at 4:10 am (Glasgow time) the morning of the flight. I then went to bed at 11 pm (Toronto time). That's about 24 hours all together!
This morning when I woke up, I had no idea what time it was because I was in the basement and my phone which is my only clock was in the other room. I thought I would probably wake early since I've moved 5 time zones to the left. :) The first few times I therefore went back to sleep.
The other odd thing is that my throat is really sore today. It's possible it is from the flight but I don't think that could be it, because I had already been in Canada 12 hours since the flight without any problems. I actually think it's an odd sleeping characteristic of mine. I know that I can snore for Scotland and I think this is especially true when my body has missed out on some slumber. Perhaps I have a "snore quota" that needs to be fulfilled and the lack of recent sleep has left my body with little option but to compensate. I'll keep drinking lots of water and see how it goes from here.
I was trying to figure out just how long I had been awake when I did finally go to bed. I had got up at 4:10 am (Glasgow time) the morning of the flight. I then went to bed at 11 pm (Toronto time). That's about 24 hours all together!
This morning when I woke up, I had no idea what time it was because I was in the basement and my phone which is my only clock was in the other room. I thought I would probably wake early since I've moved 5 time zones to the left. :) The first few times I therefore went back to sleep.
The other odd thing is that my throat is really sore today. It's possible it is from the flight but I don't think that could be it, because I had already been in Canada 12 hours since the flight without any problems. I actually think it's an odd sleeping characteristic of mine. I know that I can snore for Scotland and I think this is especially true when my body has missed out on some slumber. Perhaps I have a "snore quota" that needs to be fulfilled and the lack of recent sleep has left my body with little option but to compensate. I'll keep drinking lots of water and see how it goes from here.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Kenada
I have arrived safe and sound in Toronto. I had a direct flight from Glasgow. It was cool to get a direct flight rather than having to change planes somewhere.
The flight was scheduled to depart at 8:15 am which all sounds very civilised, but in reality I was meant to be there three hours in advance. Yep, that's 5:15 am. Well I was a couple of minutes late but it was fine. Checking in was a bit slower than usual because they were being very strict with the security measures.
First of all, passengers were only allowed one carry on item each. Secondly, it had to fit in a wooden box near the counter. They were very strict with the fact that the bag had to completely be contained within the box. This meant a lot of people had to re-pack certain items. I had to move my musical instruments from my backpack to my suitcase.
I had a bit of a silly moment when waiting to board the plane. They were boarding by row number which was fine. They started off with rows 1-4 or something like that for first class. Then they did something like rows 22 to 32. My boarding card said row 33 so I groaned inwardly and then waited for my row to be called. Next they said something like rows 16 to 32. I thought it was odd that they were going in the wrong direction. It was then that I noticed that 33 was actually the GATE number and I was actually in row 22. I could have gone earlier!
I got a whole row to myself which was so cool. There were three seats, from the right windows to an aisle. Unfortunately the nearest TV screen wasn't working so I had to watch the one a bit further down the plane.
All in all the flight was good and the cabin crew were very cheerful and helpful which always makes a difference.
Stay tuned for more updates of my antics!
The flight was scheduled to depart at 8:15 am which all sounds very civilised, but in reality I was meant to be there three hours in advance. Yep, that's 5:15 am. Well I was a couple of minutes late but it was fine. Checking in was a bit slower than usual because they were being very strict with the security measures.
First of all, passengers were only allowed one carry on item each. Secondly, it had to fit in a wooden box near the counter. They were very strict with the fact that the bag had to completely be contained within the box. This meant a lot of people had to re-pack certain items. I had to move my musical instruments from my backpack to my suitcase.
I had a bit of a silly moment when waiting to board the plane. They were boarding by row number which was fine. They started off with rows 1-4 or something like that for first class. Then they did something like rows 22 to 32. My boarding card said row 33 so I groaned inwardly and then waited for my row to be called. Next they said something like rows 16 to 32. I thought it was odd that they were going in the wrong direction. It was then that I noticed that 33 was actually the GATE number and I was actually in row 22. I could have gone earlier!
I got a whole row to myself which was so cool. There were three seats, from the right windows to an aisle. Unfortunately the nearest TV screen wasn't working so I had to watch the one a bit further down the plane.
All in all the flight was good and the cabin crew were very cheerful and helpful which always makes a difference.
Stay tuned for more updates of my antics!
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Crazy Week
It really has been a crazy week in more ways than one. We have had an amazing prophetic conference at our church this week with Patricia Bootsma and her team from Jubilee Christian Fellowship in Stratford, Ontario. It was especially busy for me because I was doing sound. This meant I had to be there early for each session and available for the band during sound check as well as being there throughout the sessions. I also knew a few of the guys in the team so we invariably hung out together when the evening meetings finally finished around 10:30pm or thereabouts.
As if this wasn't enough to be keeping me busy, I was also packing everything up. I've been getting ready to finally move out of my flat and today was the day. I am writing this at the home of my good friends Phillip and Sarah who have let me stay here tonight. I am currently of no fixed abode! Well, ok, technically speaking my parents' address is the one I use but I'm in transit already, although my flight doesn't leave till Monday morning.
I'm starting to get pretty excited about going to Kansas City. Even though it's been a really busy week, there's something I love about being active. I feel kind of reluctant to say I like being busy because I know the whole School of Ministry thing was so much about rest and not striving. I would say, though, that it's being active rather than striving that I enjoy. :) I like feeling tired when my head finally hits the pillow (or cave floor) at night. It's good to have a sense that I've actually done something today!
With that thought I'm going to leave. It's late and I AM actually tired! Nice one!
As if this wasn't enough to be keeping me busy, I was also packing everything up. I've been getting ready to finally move out of my flat and today was the day. I am writing this at the home of my good friends Phillip and Sarah who have let me stay here tonight. I am currently of no fixed abode! Well, ok, technically speaking my parents' address is the one I use but I'm in transit already, although my flight doesn't leave till Monday morning.
I'm starting to get pretty excited about going to Kansas City. Even though it's been a really busy week, there's something I love about being active. I feel kind of reluctant to say I like being busy because I know the whole School of Ministry thing was so much about rest and not striving. I would say, though, that it's being active rather than striving that I enjoy. :) I like feeling tired when my head finally hits the pillow (or cave floor) at night. It's good to have a sense that I've actually done something today!
With that thought I'm going to leave. It's late and I AM actually tired! Nice one!
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Blog of the Day, apparently
You may have noticed my previous post was a bit more techy than my usual ponderings in here. Part of the reason for that is that I wanted to follow up on a my post about the new look for the blog. It seems that entry earned me the title of "Blog of the Day" on the aptly titled blogoftheday.org website.
Here's a nice wee link to it so you can see for yourself:
For those of you who were a bit perplexed at the complexity of my discussion on CSS and HTML, I want to reassure you that normal blogging will resume momentarily. Thanks for your patience!
Here's a nice wee link to it so you can see for yourself:
For those of you who were a bit perplexed at the complexity of my discussion on CSS and HTML, I want to reassure you that normal blogging will resume momentarily. Thanks for your patience!
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Slight tweak of layout
I noticed that the "Edit HTML" feature of Blogger Beta was now active so I've been trying to make a few small improvements to the layout of my blog by hacking the CSS and HTML a bit. I say "hacking" just because these changes weren't possible through the layout editor itself.
Today's shopping list contained two items:
Right-Justifying the text
The Blog Description is written in Dari, which is an Arabic-based language. It is read from right to left and, consequently, should really be right-justified on the page for normal situations. (Granted, in English we sometimes right-justify things that are written in English, but that is in special cases such as the header of a letter or something.)
There are two ways I knew of to right-justify the text. Firstly, you could use the CSS attribute of "text-align:right". I was able to do this by editing the Template HTML and finding the rule for "#header .description". However, this isn't really the best solution. Why do I say that? Well, because the direction of the text is implied by the content, not just by style. As we are all starting to catch on to these days, Style=CSS and Content=HTML. Therefore, an HTML solution would be better here.
The HTML solution I had in mind was to use the dir attribute. It is used to indicate that a piece of content is either ltr (left to right) or rtl (right to left). To make this change, I had to check the "Expand Widget Templates" checkbox above the HTML editor, because the HTML for the Blog Description is hidden inside the Header widget.
Inside this widget, I tried applying the dir="rtl" attribute to a number of different elements but it didn't work. Now as I write this, I'm wondering if it only affects the direction of the characters while not implying a change in justification of text one way or the other.
A quick check on the web reveals this W3C article which suggests setting the directionality on a block element should change the justification. Oh well. I've stuck with the CSS option for now, but I don't like it.
Changing the Blog Description's Font
The font for the Blog Description can be changed through the Fonts and Colours section of the Template area of Blogger Beta. You can choose the font family and size as well as bold and italic settings. It contains the following fonts:
While I understand that these are probably the only fonts you can assume a user has available, I would still like to add a font of my own choosing to the front of the list. With CSS, the browser will attempt to use the first font family specified and then roll over to the second if the first is not installed and so on.
In my previous Blog Description, I used the Tahoma font which makes Arabic characters look quite nice. I wanted to make that the first font it would attempt to use here, with Verdana and sans-serif as the other options.
Poking about the CSS in the template, I discovered the #header .description rule contained the following attribute for the font:
font: $descriptionFont;
This is using a placeholder which is later substituted with the values you chose earlier in the font settings. Very clever - a spot of dynamic CSS. I tried adding my font to the front of the list like so:
font: Tahoma,$descriptionFont;
This didn't work, though, because the $descriptionFont variable does more than simply state the font family, it specifies font weight, size, boldness, italicisity (?) and finally font family. My attempt to hack it produced this CSS:
font: Tahoma,normal normal 173% Verdana, sans-serif;
This isn't a valid CSS rule since Tahoma should appear between 173% and Verdana.
In the end, what I did was add a font-family attribute immediately after the font: $descriptionFont; line:
font: $descriptionFont;
font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,sans-serif;
This way, I can still use $descriptionFont to alter bold, italic and size settings, while my rule will only override the font family.
I think in the future, custom fonts could be supported through Template -> Fonts and Colours by allowing users to specify a font family in a text box while still forcing them to choose one of the generic fonts as well. Their own font would be put at the start of the list and ignored if the user doesn't have it installed.
Phew! That was quite a long post. Sorry about that!
Today's shopping list contained two items:
- Change my Dari Blog Description to be right-justified.
- Change the font of the Blog Description to one that looks a bit nicer.
Right-Justifying the text
The Blog Description is written in Dari, which is an Arabic-based language. It is read from right to left and, consequently, should really be right-justified on the page for normal situations. (Granted, in English we sometimes right-justify things that are written in English, but that is in special cases such as the header of a letter or something.)
There are two ways I knew of to right-justify the text. Firstly, you could use the CSS attribute of "text-align:right". I was able to do this by editing the Template HTML and finding the rule for "#header .description". However, this isn't really the best solution. Why do I say that? Well, because the direction of the text is implied by the content, not just by style. As we are all starting to catch on to these days, Style=CSS and Content=HTML. Therefore, an HTML solution would be better here.
The HTML solution I had in mind was to use the dir attribute. It is used to indicate that a piece of content is either ltr (left to right) or rtl (right to left). To make this change, I had to check the "Expand Widget Templates" checkbox above the HTML editor, because the HTML for the Blog Description is hidden inside the Header widget.
Inside this widget, I tried applying the dir="rtl" attribute to a number of different elements but it didn't work. Now as I write this, I'm wondering if it only affects the direction of the characters while not implying a change in justification of text one way or the other.
A quick check on the web reveals this W3C article which suggests setting the directionality on a block element should change the justification. Oh well. I've stuck with the CSS option for now, but I don't like it.
Changing the Blog Description's Font
The font for the Blog Description can be changed through the Fonts and Colours section of the Template area of Blogger Beta. You can choose the font family and size as well as bold and italic settings. It contains the following fonts:
- Arial
- Courier
- Georgia
- Times
- Trebuchet
- Verdana
While I understand that these are probably the only fonts you can assume a user has available, I would still like to add a font of my own choosing to the front of the list. With CSS, the browser will attempt to use the first font family specified and then roll over to the second if the first is not installed and so on.
In my previous Blog Description, I used the Tahoma font which makes Arabic characters look quite nice. I wanted to make that the first font it would attempt to use here, with Verdana and sans-serif as the other options.
Poking about the CSS in the template, I discovered the #header .description rule contained the following attribute for the font:
font: $descriptionFont;
This is using a placeholder which is later substituted with the values you chose earlier in the font settings. Very clever - a spot of dynamic CSS. I tried adding my font to the front of the list like so:
font: Tahoma,$descriptionFont;
This didn't work, though, because the $descriptionFont variable does more than simply state the font family, it specifies font weight, size, boldness, italicisity (?) and finally font family. My attempt to hack it produced this CSS:
font: Tahoma,normal normal 173% Verdana, sans-serif;
This isn't a valid CSS rule since Tahoma should appear between 173% and Verdana.
In the end, what I did was add a font-family attribute immediately after the font: $descriptionFont; line:
font: $descriptionFont;
font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,sans-serif;
This way, I can still use $descriptionFont to alter bold, italic and size settings, while my rule will only override the font family.
I think in the future, custom fonts could be supported through Template -> Fonts and Colours by allowing users to specify a font family in a text box while still forcing them to choose one of the generic fonts as well. Their own font would be put at the start of the list and ignored if the user doesn't have it installed.
Phew! That was quite a long post. Sorry about that!
Come Alive
"Do not ask yourself what the world needs, but ask yourself what makes you come alive because the world needs people who have come alive."
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