Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

This Site is a self made Mess

Well I fail and this is now a mess.

I’m trying to accomplish too much I forget to do what I started with. I’m trying hard to find my niche and but I can’t seem to get it to click and it is preventing me from doing the things I started out with. When I originally start The Bushman it was going to be my personal blog about my life and adventures I encountered. So for the first couple month that was all well and good, I would have the odd topical post that would drive up my traffic like the Ice Thickness Chart but other than that my followers were just friends and family that knew me.

But then my imagination got the best of me, I started exploring the blogging world more and more, and got hooked. My idea for a blog changed, or maybe not so much changed but I saw two possibilities rather than one. I wanted to keep my personal blog going but also wanted to write a blog that was topical and I would write about my niche (which I still don’t have). So the first thing I thought of was and probably still is a simpler and better idea, was writing two separate blogs. I have a bunch of domains already and registering one is only 10$ a year so that wasn’t the thing that stopped me. I actually started to try that with my iTalkout domain. If you go over there you can even still see it….. The thing that made me just use one blog was the fact that The Bushman was already out there and established. I have it register with Technorati, Blogger and many others, have a Google sitemap set up, SEO intact with the blog and some people were already following it, so I initially it would just be easier to go with The Bushman. As I looked back on it now, it would have probably been just as easy to start a new blog and market it.

Lets move on to my niche, (A Niche being the topic I write about and am passionate about) if you look at iTalkout it is directed towards a Canadian Living. Let me explain how I got to that and my many other niches I tried.  You can all take a guess that I like the internet and technology, so one of the topical ideas I considered was a blog about whats happening in the world of the internet. Like Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc. like some of the things I have on The Bushman currently. But lets face it I don’t have the in’s to all the news when it happens to be able to blog about it quick enough for people to care for it and with me being so far away from where there is more of a tech population it just didn’t seem possible. My next idea was definitely more local, I wanted to write a blog to students and eventually get some of them to write posts. A blog with tips and tricks for students, where questioned would be answered and advice would be give, as well news from school would be posted. But with the all the social networking sites out there like Nexopia, MySpace and Facebook I would have to really work hard to try and make it appealing to students. Its funny as I write this I think of new ideas for that site and think it might just be possible, so I wont scratch that off the list yet.  I don’t remember if this next idea was before or after the students idea but it was a more broad idea. I wanted to write a blog about Yellowknife, not so much about the History of Yellowknife but more the happenings of Yellowknife. I have looked for a site such as this but have yet to find one. I find Yellowknife is still a victim of static websites or the original web, so by making this site would be a way to try and show that the web is now very interactive. I also had a personal goal with this idea which was to get more involved with the community. If I was going to run a site about Yk I would need to be out there to be able to write about it. The only thing that stopped me from doing this was the fact that at the same time I came up with that idea, I was applying for school which would take me out of Yellowknife. Knowing the possibility of leaving Yellowknife I had to broaden my idea to the entire of Canada. So that’s where My Canadian Living came from, I would write about things I encountered while living my life. This would be an excellent topic to full fill my life goal of working online while living out of my truck, driving across Canada. The reason I don’t think I could do this topic is that I am still too young and do not have the experience to be able to write to the fullest.

So now its your turn. You have read my blog and some of you know me personally. What do you think I would write about best? Think about what and how I currently write and think about who I am as a person. Then leave a comment below. Thank you.

So because I have tried to pull off doing two different types of blogs on one site it became a mess, at least I think. It is slightly confusing because only my “journal” category posts go to the blog page therefor making it difficult to find the topical posts. I also have that shop page but that is just for kicks. I wanted to make a Bushman shirt and then I ended up setting up a free online shop, I think I’m going to get rid of that. I also don’t think the recipe page goes with the site when I write about technology…hmm. Like above tell me your thoughts.

Driving, its what I do. Part 1

I love it when we get these dumps of snow, it makes driving so fun. No seriously, I’m not being sarcastic. I put the truck in 4 wheel drive and snow goes everywhere.  The roads seem so perfect for that short period of time before everyone else drives on them and the grader ruins them again. Driving relaxes me, it is the one this I just enjoy doing. To some people or most, driving is just a bonus in life, to me on the other had is like a sport. Like Hockey to an athlete. I go driving when I need to think or blow off some steam.

The Act, The Reality

Disappear: dis·ap·pear (dĭs’ə-pîr’)
noun
“the act of leaving secretly or without explanation” [syn: disappearance] [ant: appearance]

January 2, 2009

The Act of disappearing. Getting your audiences attention to focus on something while making something else disappear. While you looking over there, something else is happening over here. A trick of the mind, Slip of the hand, An illusion made real. Magicians have been doing disappearing acts for centuries and some will always remain a mystery on how it is done and why. They show us only what we want to see, no explanation. Just vanish.

The Reality. Negativity, its my enemy. I can be very negative, which in turn makes me depressed and stressed. Always complaining about everything, the weather, the city, my truck, snowmobile, whats on TV, people! All these things and more are what I complain about with a “negative” perspective. Its horrible, when I complain about these things it cause me to get stressed because I start to think about the bad side of things. What if it break, I can’t fix it, I don’t have any money, HOW AM I GOING TO SURVIVE!

Lets go over some of those “things”.

Lets see, The Weather, why bother complaining about it. We choose to live here, you don’t want to deal with the snow and the cold. MOVE! Only God controls the weather, and I think he knows what he is doing.

This beautiful city…. Its just like any other place, it has it problems. Its whether you help improve them or just complain, constantly about them is the problem. Here is my issue, I don’t mind this place, its nice and it offers a lot and although I don’t have to worry about property taxes and the cost of living I think it is a good place to live. When your around people who only complain about it it does rub off on you. You have to….. I had to disappear so I could cool down and relax. If all someone is going to do is complain about a place, MOVE!

As for my Truck and Snowmobile they are just apart of life. I don’t have to have them if I don’t want to. They’re going to break that’s what they do. If I maintain them and use them with care and respect instead of driving like a mad man and beating them they have a better chance at working properly longer. If they do break on the off chance and they do I have learned how to handle myself when. I have started to hide money on myself for that rainy day so I can get them fixed and go on living my life. Not complaining about the fact it happen and how I don’t have any money to fix them. You make you own path!

The People, ah this is a touchy one. Brod: If people your around are negative, chance are you will be too. Defined: To be blunt I am sorry. We all need to decompress to someone but it gets to a point where a person has to shut up and think about what they are talking about. Don’t get all depressed and jealous if that girl you like, likes someone else and isn’t hang out with you as much any more. Get over her and get over yourself. There’s more fish in the sea as they say. To the person who spends 10 grand on a transportation device, don’t complain to me about the payments and how you can not afford it to break. I also did that and have learned that I need to take responsibility for my actions instead of complaining about it. Your the one who spent the 10 grand of the banks money to get it. If you can’t afford to fix it, that’s not anyone else’s problem other than your own. 100% self inflicted, deal with it. I’m harsh I know. To the people who do not approve of the way something is being run don’t just flippin’ complain about it do something about it. Okay. And if you are trying to do something it, don’t continue to complain. We Get It, You Don’t Like It Enough Said.

All these things combined are to much for one person. What happen to Positive. I suppose it is easier to rant than praise. I want to praise, I want to be positive, I don’t want to complain. I hope I have gotten what you wanted to hear aross properly. I vanished because I needed to decompress and think about life. We are who were are, I am who I am. Don’t take this personally.

Pretenting to be something your Not, Can be a Good Thing

images5.gif Who are we? Who do we want to be? I find it funny when you find yourself pretending that your some one famous. Its not really pretending because I just silly at this age, but more like inspiring to be that person. We have had a lot of snow lately here in Yellowknife and the roads are a mess (and we all know how I feel about them but anyways) with snow all over them and with the ice underneath that. That makes them very slippery and dangerous for that fact. As I was coming to work this evening I was the only one on the roads and I was in that mood where I felt like I couldn’t be touched, the truck was full of gas, it was warm in side and it was riding really nice considering the conditions. With all that put together it for some reason it made me relax and actually enjoy driving for the first time since I got back. So enjoyable that I get the idea in my head or more or less the inspiration that I could be Mario Andriette! I wouldn’t brake so much going around corners and using the advise of Doc from Pixar’s Cars “Sometimes to go left you need to turn right” I would give it a little more throttle to go around those turns and let the back end slide out ever so slowly and all in slow motion I would drift the corner. Quickly correction it back to straight I would go on my way waiting for my next bit of thrill.

Please Note* That I did this while no other moving or parked vehicles were around and I had complete control of the truck the whole time. And to any batty old women who may be reading this and criticizing me for being reckless let me ask you this! Do I criticize you when you doing something you love and have a passion for?

I will leave you with this quote from Richard Robert “I want to go fast, Because if your not first your last”

images5.gif There are many other people that inspire me like Sir Richard Branson. When I’m looking in to getting a truck to only flip around for a profit or trying to find someone a good deal I always think of guys like him that just like me started off small. Branson start printing his own Magazine at the age of 16 and started to become so successful he didn’t finish high school. I’m not saying that if your smart don’t finish, in today’s world no one will even look at you if you don’t have a High School Diploma. But look where Branson is now one of the smartest or not the smartest Business Men around.

Note* English Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as a person who attempts to profit by risk and initiative.

I can go from one end of the spectrum to other like that. There is a man, Guy Grieve. You probably have no idea who he is and what he did. I don’t think many do but I think his story is amazing and he has been and will be my inspiration for the winter coming. He’s a man from Scotland who worked for a magazine who got fed up with a desk job and having to travel far distances everyday to work, always missing his family. He needed something extreme to shack up his life. For months he planned and considered with his wife about going on a adventure to save his life from becoming a drone like bore.images5.gif So for one year he took off to the extreme of Alaska into the interior just along the Yukon River where with the help of soon to be close aboriginal friends he built a cabin and learned to survive by his own means. Hunting, trapping, living in the remoteness of his cabin with just his dogs for company. I read through his book dreaming of going out to the cabin this winter, staying out there for couple nights at a time. Living off the caribou meet I stoke piled over the summer. But I’m afraid of the loneliness that comes with it, the longing for companionship. I mean heck sometimes I long for that right here in town, how would I last out there! Guy repeatedly said that with out his dog and respect toward Mother Nature he would have gone crazy and probably died and its proven. A lot of macho men head out into the land and try and prove there manliness and just end up killing  themselves from starvation, freezing, or by making the stupid mistake of trying to out smart Mother Nature. I just don’t know what I am to do. Someday I will take off the mask I put on and actually admit to my issues and do something about them.

images5.gif One of my favorite quote is one by a man who changed the way we look at life’s joys “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” Walt Disney created a kingdom out of a dream. The man was more than a cartoonist, more than a producer or a movie maker. He was a leader. He wanted to improve the quality of urban life in American so he designed the development of the “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”. I bet you have never heard of that, but you have you just don’t know it. It is the place we all know as the EPCOT center in Disney World. Did you know it had a deeper meaning than for our amusement while we are on vacation? If nothing else I hope at the end of my life I can look back and think of this quote and know that I fulfilled its meaning.

When I started writing this, which was a couple hours ago I had a specific topic in mind and as I look back on it I think I may be gone off path a bit, you could say I went down a New Path.

Thanks for Reading.

My Drive Home, Part 1, To High Level

I left East Pine Sunday. Sad Day. I left at 5am there time, so 6am Mountain time. I got to Dawson Creek for the last time for awhile, where I wen to MacDonalds for breakfast to go. A Bacon and Egg Bagel got me on my way. I quickly passed the BC/Alberta border and was approching Spirit River when on the left in a field I spotted 4 huge Bull Moose. I have never seem 4 together like that and they were just standing there eating. All I can imagin is the moose from Brother Bear, who happen to be two of my favorite Canadians Bob and Doug MacKenzie “Gots some Back Bacon eh!”. On I carried through Spirit River and in to Rycroft, where I stopped quickly for gas and made one left turn towards Fairview. Before I got there though I went by 11 dear walking through the ditch, just hanging out I guess and then there was the Dunvagin Valley. One of the nicest places on Alberta I think, just a giant crank in the flat prairies. Marvilous. Took my right turn in Fairview not looking back just watching the asphalt in front of me, only stopping for gas. Grimshaw was the gas stop before my mid point of High Level. I thought it was intresting though that gas was 109.9 in Grimshaw and High Level but in between them at Manning it was 119.9 still, didn’t get that one. upon arriving in High Level I went to get lunch first, got my Prime Rib sandwich from Quiznos again and then went to Shell to top up with gas and oil.

To come will be my Intresting journey across the 60th Parellel in to what seemed like a frozen hell at first.