Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

How a really old Ironing Board became a Standing Desk

This ironing board had been at my house for just over a year – yes I iron, get over it. I found it at the dump here in Yellowknife like any other piece of junk around my house. I gave it a quick spray with disenfectant and frebreeze and was on my wait to wrinkle free shirt land.

Admittedly I don’t use it as an ironing board very often so this week while getting lost down countless rabbit holes trying to figure out how to eaily build a standup desk I came acorss the ironing board in my laundry room.

So I started taking off the layers.

Seven layers later I was down to the frame. The covers on this ironing board dated back to the 70’s. I kid you not. Look at the photo. Apparently people were just lazy enough to leave the previous cover on. There was a couple iron accidents and what also looked like a murder scene somewhere in the early 90’s. I tried not to dwell.

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Anyways I needed to make the ironing board a little bit taller so that the platform was just below my elbows so it was at the perfect place for typing. After some hammering, twisting and brute force it was at the right height. Although it no longer folds down, but I do have a range of about 20 inches.

I will most likely refinish it, maybe add a nice wooden surface and enforce the legs a little more for stability.

It is working great so far though, I’m typing this on it.

http://instagram.com/p/y5ogkbsAfh/

2014, The Awesome Year That Has Past

As 2014 comes to close I will also dip my toes into the waters of reflection and look back over the year.

Without too much thought I have a lot to be thankful for, and, I truly am. This year I have experienced immense growth personally and professionally, and I couldn’t be happier with the direction I’m going.

This past October marked one year in my house. One year of homeownership. One year of making mortgage payments. One year of learning the quarks of the house. One year of having “my own place”. And while in the beginning I thought I would be a regular basket case stressing about this or that I have learned to take things in strides. To be calm when the unexpected happens and to look at things with a level head. I have come to enjoy home ownership, being the homebody I am. This fall I even installed a wood stove and have significantly reduced my heating fuel costs. Homeownership, to me, has become a game of “where can I save money?”.

The game got even more challenging this past July when after two and a half years I left my full-time employment to focus on my own business, With Media. It was a decision not made lightly, especially with the weight of the house mortgage lingering on my mind, but I did it. It was tough to leave behind some of the best co-workers and clients a person could ask for but I knew it was something I needed to do. Something that I had been working towards for about five years, really, since I started working in the marketing and communications industry.

These are two very big changes in a person’s life and I decided to take them both on within 12 months of one another, but I certainly couldn’t have done it without the support of some special people.

While I am a fairly independent person and have strived to set out on my own for a long time, my relationship with my parents has never been stronger and I would not be where I am without them. For that I am thankful. I am the best of both of them, and sometimes the worst. My father gives me regular financial, business consulting and life advice and his personality has started to come out in me. His big persona, charisma for people and eagerness to help. While my mother has shown me how to be a rock in tough situations and has gifted me with creativity, the ability to imagine something and create it. Maybe not creativity in the same ways but the general mentality that allows me to constantly come up with new ideas and think “why can’t I do that?”. It is one of the most freeing feelings in the world. My parents are more than just family. They are my friends too.

But speaking of friends. I have to be thankful for them as well, as without them no one would challenge me or tell me when something sounds stupid. They, in some sense, are my filter. They have told me honestly what they think about my ideas, good or just downright horrible. They have told me to stand my ground and have confidence in myself. They are there when I need to vent or talk through a tough decision. Without them I wouldn’t be moving as fast as I am. There is a quote that goes something like “surround yourself with people who bring out the best of you” and I’m thankful that this is exactly what my friends do for me. I am constantly better because of them.

Finally, I want to thank my clients, who I like to think become good friends. For without them (you) I would not be here in the state that I’m currently in. Even with all the advice and guidance from my family and friends, without the ability to do work and help others I would not have succeeded in the adventure that has been my life this part year. I want to thank my clients not because of the monetary gain I have received but because my clients have allowed me to do something that I have always wanted to do. Help. I love business, I love artists, I love people. I love helping the little guy strive to do what they dream of doing. So any chance I get to provide help in those instances I get very excited and sometime can’t believe how fortunate I am.

As we settle into the holiday season and close off 2014 I, again, want to thank each and every person I have encountered this past year, for it was amazing. And I can not wait to get 2015 started and see where it takes us.

Cheers!

Kyle

Frosty Kyle

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The one about Apple Support in northern Canada

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Dear Apple,

This is not a letter of complaint but a note about the situation I have found myself in, that I’m sure others have also found themselves in.

I live in Yellowknife, NT. It is the capital of the Northwest Territories, nestled on the North Arm of the Great Slave Lake. It’s one of the deepest lakes in Canada, you know. If you still don’t know where we are, we are above Alberta. They have the oil, we have the diamonds. There are 20,000 people in this community I call home, 40,000 in the territory. We are a small, diverse group of forward thinking people. Yes, we live in a place that is buried in snow 8 months of the year. A place that can sit below -30ºC for weeks on end. We deal.

And we are a good bunch of people. Yellowknife itself is quite urban. We have high-rises, coffee shops and pubs. We have sports facilities and several big box stores. We are far from uncivilized, we are just far away.

Now that you know where we are you can better understand the predicament you have placed me in.

You see, I have a 2013 Apple 13″ MacBook Pro Retina. I bought it in December of 2013 and it is awesome. It is fast, it is small and it is powerful but it has a problem.

When this beast of a machine is sleeping it tries to wake itself up. This results in it crashing. This poor MacBook crashes when it sleeps too long. It is unfortunate.

I’ve tried to help it. Update it. Repair it. Reset SMC, PRAM, RESPECT. Oh, no wait, that last one is mine. The issue still precedes. So I took further measures. I wiped this bad boy clean and installed a fresh copy of your new sexy Mac OSX. Mr. Yosemite 10.10.

For sure you’d think a clean install is what I needed. A fresh start. A new begging. It’s what I thought my baby needed. Did it work though? No, unfortunately not. Last night at 3:07 a.m., according to the diagnostic logs, while sleeping, the glow of the Apple logo lit up skies of my bedroom and blast the start-up charm as it rebooted once again after crashing. The problem is still there.

So why am I writing to you today? I’m within the 1 year hardware repair warranty. I can just get my poor rMBP repaired. WRONG.

In talking to your lovely support for 59 minutes. Lizzy and Keith came to the conclusion that there was nothing they could do for me. I have to take my computer into an Apple Retail Store or Authorized Dealer. Apparently, you do not offer mail-in repair orders. Something to do with no repair centre in Canada or the postal service. There was no clear reason.

That doesn’t work for me, Apple.

Remember, I’m in Yellowknife. There is no Apple Retail Store or Authorized Dealer here. My closest option is Edmonton, Alberta. On a regular day a return flight can cost around $500+ and driving 1500km would not only take more than one day but would cost me around $700 return. So to get my Mac fixed, which is under warranty, I have to spend money.

I find this absurd because I bought the computer online. It was shipped to me. Telling me you don’t have a better solution for people like me, in my situation, is a complete oversight on your part. If you offer you devices online and allow them to be shipped all over the world, you should be able to accommodate my warranty repair and have a solution over the phone.

We haven’t even touched on the issues that I would – and probably will – have to be without my computer for a couple weeks when I’m self employed.

Apple, I’m not here to bash your products or support. I’m still going to use your products, because they are great and I like them. I just want you to know that people like myself are being put penalized by where we live and I think this is unacceptable of you, one of the biggest companies in the world.

Sincerely,

Kyle Thomas.

Photo from: Unsplash.com

Doing it all.

I’ve read many book about the establishment of northern mining towns and I love them. I read the stories of different people who have adapted to their environment and who weren’t afraid to do whatever they needed to to survive.

Many, it seems, ended up doing things they weren’t necessarily educated in doing or had planned to do but did them because either someone asked them to or that particular thing just needed to be done.

I cherish this mentality and it feeds my constant wandering mind of ideas. 

Heck I can go from planning a piece on Yellowknife to baking bread to building a website to planning a content strategy. Why settle for just one thing?

How to do everything

Photo credit: http://howtodoeverything.org/