Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

Some Where in Hawaii

I wish I was able to write more about the last 24 hours but as they have been very crazy at time I can’t remember it all.
I will give you a brief update on what has been happening in my world.
We flow all day Saturday.
On Sunday. On Sunday I stayed in a hotel in Honolulu right where all the big public beaches are and man was it busy. People were out early, 7am here I’m thinking that there will not be many people out and Bam hundreds of people.  Likely we had to check out by noon so instead of sticking around we decide to head north to the top of the island where the camp we were going to stay it supportable was. So we head of north. Now getting north is pretty simple.
There are 3 highways H1, H2 and you guessed it H3, and to get to the North side of the island you take H1 west and follow it until it goes in to H2. From H2 you just keep going north on that road and once H2 ends you just stay on whatever road it is now. That will take you right to the northern coast.
Now we did that and we arrived at the small town of Haleiwa, which is the town that is just east of our camp on the beach. But you see we didn’t actually have a map and we did look for one but no one had a good map of the area we need. So off we went like a couple chickens with their heads cut off looking for something that might not even be there. To speed this up a little bit, we found a road that we thought might help us called Crozier Road, which followed the shoreline along. We drove down that road for about 10 minutes and than turned back because we thought had ended, but actually it had just become narrower and more localized.  We turned around and went back to the town and found someone to ask if maybe they knew where to go. Turns out that if we had of followed that road for another 2 minutes we would have been right at the camp.  When we got to the camp we got into our cabin and settled in. We walked around and check out the property before heading back to the town to get something to eat. Once we filled up we decided to it was time to head back to Honolulu to pick the rest of the family up at the airport.
Getting to the airport parking lot was a bit of a story in its own. We got to the airport and tried to the follow the signs to the parking lot but didn’t make one of the turns. Our only hope in getting back to it was to go back out onto the highway and come back around. If only it were that easy, we ended up taking some exit that lead to the Military Base. Not a good idea. If you didn’t know the U.S is a very proud country and has a strong Military. This base was so heavily guarded you couldn’t sneeze around there with out them knowing. As we got up to the grumpy looking guard, we thought it wasn’t going to be pleasant but to our surprise he was quite helpful and blocked traffic for us to pull a you turn and head to back to the airport. When we arrived at the airport everything went smoothly. We picked up the rest of the family, got back onto the highway, got to the camp and settled in for the night,

I apologize if my spelling and grammar is horrible. Internet here at the camp is very weak and comes and goes as it pleases. Because we were so busy today I haven’t had much time to write and read but I wanted to at least get up an update of what I had.
Hopefully I will be able to get more done as we settle in to our “Holiday Homes”

Out of Yellowknife Vacation – Day 2,3,4

Well I better get on this as I have already let you down with my daily posts of my “eventful” trip.

If you follow me on twitter @the_bushman is will already have a good idea as to what I have been up to in the last couple days but let me fill the rest of you in.

My second day in Edmonton was much like the first. I was up early because I can no longer sleep for more than 6 hours at a time, so I came online until 11am. At that time my friends came and picked me up from my hotel and we grabbed bunch on our way back to the West Edmonton Mall. At the mall I got a new laptop/camera backpack that I quite like, as well I got to go in the Apple store and take in all the nice things that can be found there. I was told I looked completely out of place in the store as I was the only person with a plaid jacket and country look. There is another one of those moments where I feel out of place in this world.

After visiting a couple other stores around town we went to a $3.50 movie theatre and watched Marley and Me. A movie about the life of a untamed dog and his owners. Leaving the movie at about 6pm we decided it was definitely time for supper. Swiss Chalet was decided upon and off we went to find one. Once finding a rather busy one, I was able to enjoy a nice rack of robs with a garlic loaf. Eating that meal was an evening event of its own so when we were finished at the restaurant we all retired to our hotels for a good night sleep before our trek back to BC the next morning.

The Next Morning: Day 3,

Monday was ultimately uneventful except out flat tire while we were trying to leave Edmonton. The flat delayed us almost 2 hour but no matter we were getting out of there one way or another. After the 6.5 hour drive through places like Whitecourt, Valleyview, Grande Prairie, Beaver Lodge, and Dawson Creek we finally arrived at the House just off the highway here in BC. As it wasn’t that late a movie was put on but I was again way to tired and crashed.

Day 4,

After a breakfast of eggs, bacon and potatoes we headed in to Dawson Creek to go grocery shopping as it was direly needed. While heading in to town we quickly stopped by a wee bit of property with a cabin on it 10 minutes out of town that was for sale. A smile comes across my face as my imagination runs wild of the possibilities. Oh one can dream.

That concludes the last 3 days.

I am looking forward to tonights meal of Butcher Block steaks and potatoes.

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.

Owner of Paper Mill & Youtube

Okay you know how I sometimes go on and on about how great Google is and how I think it could be one of the best things for the Internet. Yeah! Well I found one of its flaws this morning. Ads!

As you may know Google bought Youtube, which is all part of their giant plan of owning the Internet ( evil laugh ) I am guessing. No I’m joking, but if you look at what they own they’re doing pretty darn good.

youtube-google-2

Note* Little off topic but Google just bought a paper mill in Finland. What you say a paper mill in the digital world. Why would they want that. Well the paper company had gone out of business early in 2008 after operating for 53 year. (wonder if Google will ever go out of business, wouldn’t that be funny) Google spokes people say that they have plan to build a new data center on the property as well as give some of the land back to the town which it is located in.

What I’m getting at here is lately I have taken up watching more videos on Youtube, lets just say working nights can bore some. While I have been watching Youtube something started to really bother me, it was the Google Ads that would pop up WHILE the video is playing. That drove me nuts, it would cut off a 3rd of the video screen size. Not only that but it would do what an ad is suppose to do, draw my attention to it rather than the video. That is what I don’t like. I realize people are putting up their videos for free and it does cost to run the site but could we please just stick to the ads on the right hand side above the user info? I think something better could be worked out so that Youtube could raise a little more money. For example look at what Yahoo(Soon to be purchased by Google, in my dreams) did with Flickr. They allowed users to upload so many photos a day or month and limited your from adding more sets(albums) unless you bought a pro package and then you had unlimited everything. All it cost was a Whopping $20.00, whipty freakin do! Unless you take tons of photos you don’t need the pro package, which should be the same for Youtube. Average or everyday users can have a free accounts but with basic limits and then for more frequent users pay a small one time fee. I’m sure there would be a small up roar but in the long run I think it would be worth it. No?

Let me know what you think?

Follow me on twitter @the_bushman

Follow me on Youtube (soon I hope to get more videos up) thebushmanca

I have to watch myself

For the first time since I started blogging I found someone who disagreed with me on something I wrote. At first I was like “oh no someone doesn’t like me!” I felt the needed to please everyone with what I write but then it quickly occurred that I can’t and I’m not meant to. The point of a blog or at least what I think a blog is suppose to be is a place for someone to write about what their views on things are, whether it is life, technology or politics, etc. If you were to try and please everyone that reads your blog you yourself would be confused. Your article would be miles long and would both agree and disagree about your opinion all at once. That can not be done. I also believe there need to have conflicting opinions in the blogging world, so that the readers are able to see different views of things. Like reviews, if everyone wrote about all the good things about a certain product, us as readers would all go out and buy said product and not be happy when we found out it actually does have faults.

Sometimes when I write my opinions about things I tend to forget that people actually read what I write. As people we often judge very quickly and jump to conclusions. So sometimes when I write about certain topics I don’t get all the facts and I even assume things which can be very false. I suppose this is how we learn, so I encourage you to speak up when you think something is false in any of my posts and as well if you just flat out disagree with me. From now on I want to make a good effort researching and make sure I understand my chosen topic as much as possible before writing about it. One thing I have found I am bad for is going off topic. I start out writing on certain thing, which leads me to thing deeper about it and I end up shifting the post. So by the end of the post the reader can be very confused. I Apologise. If you know of any good tips on how to be a better blogger let me know!

That’s it I’m out. The Bushman.