I'm trying to figure out how if I can update this blog on my phone.
Here's hoping.

So here's a pic of Danielle I also took on my phone!

Unfortunately, all my phone updates will have un-pretty formatting because i dont know enough about HTML and all that. do you? email me.

Also, you'll notice I've added a twitter updater on you're right so I can be even more annoying.

Peace and love homies

Tips on saving money...

I don't know if anyone out there cares/is actively trying to save money and that's cool with me really. But if you're interested, ING Direct has a promotional Tax-Free Savings Account interest rate of 3%.
That's not a lot, but it's more than any other bank or savings account is giving for anything else that I know of.
For those that don't know, I'll attempt to give a layman's definition of what a TFSA is.
Basically, it's set up by the government as a way of encouraging more savings from people.
Currently, if you've filed your income tax and are above 18, you can put up to $5000 a year into a TFSA. That number will go up in like 2012 to $5500.
Anyway, the basic premise is that you put money in the TFSA and any interest you earn is tax free. You can take out the money, tax-free anytime.
This is unlinke a RRSP for several reasons. When you put money into an RRSP, it's tax deductible. Meaning you get the income tax back off and you reduce your claimable income by the amount you put into. Further, you can only take the money out when you're... i dont know... 71? you'll have to check youself. Regarldess, the intent that you don't take the money out until you've retired. The government gives you a break because they know it means they'll have to pay for your retired, sick ass less when you need it most.
Anyway, so there's a promotional offer of 3 per cent interest on a TFSA until Oct. 1.
So that fits into my savings plan because I've moved all my current savings (less than $5000) into the TFSA. The current interest rate on my regular ING is 1.35 per cent, which is like the lowest it's been since as long as I've had one (little more than a year).
So essentially, because there's no tax benefit or burden by putting my money there, I'll essentially make more than twice as much interest on the same amount of money. sweet.

For more info on TFSAs, visit this site.
Also, if you want to open an ING account, you can go here. TIP AND SHAMLESS MONEY GRAB: If you use my ORANGE CODE: 20743897S1 when you open an account and put in $100 or more we'll both get $25. that's super sweet AND, not to promote it, but it's sweet. no fees, complete access, you can get a debit card and make your money go straight from your paycheques.

Do I have to tell you why NO FEEs is a good thing?

peace

Skydiving is the best waste of money ever...

Oh man. Skydiving is possibly–nay, IS DEFINITELY–the coolest thing ever.

Danielle and I went skydiving again in our quest to become solo certified.

The last jump puts us up to four!

In this radically awesome picture that is a screen shot of the video that EDMONTON SKYDIVE CENTRE let me have for the purpose of this blog, you can see me almost doing the splits as it were.

I'm in my "arch," which makes it so I fly straight. You can see my pilot chute behind me. It will momentarily pull my main chute and I'll float away.

You can see jumpmaster Shawn (I don't know his last name, but he's cool as shit) giving me a peace sign. That's part of my awareness jump. To pass to the next level you have to prove that you're not just blacking out and going nuts jumping out a plane and tell him what sign he was giving you. I passed!

Finally, you can see Westlock airport in the distance.

Also when my chute opened, I had END CELL CLOSURE and LINE TWISTS, making the experience extra freakin heart stopping but I overcame them thanks to the all-day lessons they give you the first time to deal with it and I landed safely, albeit quite hard.

Danielle's jump didn't go so well, she didn't do her arch very well and rolled int he air. As well, the radio guy was late in telling her to "flare" so she hit the ground hard on her ass.

But it's all good! She passed the awareness, despite having her chute deploy when she was almost completely upside down, she kept her eyes on Shawn. (it's hard to see, but he legs are above her as he chute is about to deploy.)

And that's it for that really. Most of this stuff will be in a video I'm trying to make when I have time, though i'll be crazy busy over the next few days.

As a side note to skydiving, congratulations to my buddy Joel Anderson for graduating as valedictorian in his Aeronautics Engineering course, or whatever the heck it's called. Now he can take me skydiving, though I think he could have a while ago. Oh well, how many valedictorians are there ever, anyway.

Cheers!

Woooooo video camera

Danielle and I (mostly Danielle) purchased a video camera for our awesome adventure. He is a waterproof Sanyo Xacti.

It is pretty awesome. We have named him snoopy. Anyway, we've some shooting and I'm putting together a video that will be awesome as heck and legendary. We even got some footage from our skidiving adventure to make it more awesome. Just you wait people. just you wait.

Damn you peter pan! - i mean clouds!

I was supposed to go sky diving today. It was supposed to start with this picture of Danielle loading up the car with our breakfast smoothies and coffees and we went to be awesome and jump out of planes.

But unfortunately, inclimate weather (see pic below) had other ideas, and we had to hang around for a bunch of hours waiting to do nothing but leave essentially.

That's ok though, our jumps are now already paid for and we're just waiting for a day when we're free to go. It will be awesome then!

So you know, aside from going on a world trip, I want to try to get certified for solo skydiving.

It's a time consuming and expensive process... but i mean, c'mon, it's skydiving!

What I need to do is about 12 or so jumps. The next one Danielle and I do is called an awareness jump.

First you should know that when you're going solo, you literally hang off the plane until your instructor tells to let go. It's fuckin' cool.

Anyway, usually you kind of semi-black out because, well, you're jumping out a plane. However in order to qualify for your solo, the first thing you need to do is what's called an awareness jump.

As you let go of the plan and feel the roller coaster feeling, contemplate your death, and pray to whoever that the chute works, you also have to look at your instructor and see what kind of random hand signal he's giving you.

If you can tell him what it is, you go onto the next level, which is where you practise to pull your own chute, the finally pull it, then you progress to higher and higher levels until you're certified to jump anywhere in Canada.

How sweet would that be?

So that's what I'm writting about for lack of better thing. So to end, here's a cute puppy that was at the skydive place named Frankenstein. He was nine weeks old and still trying to hump a rotweiler. That's how Frank the Tank that pooch is.