Month: January 2019

I’m glad I got my new winter coat yesterday. With the wind chill, it’s extremely cold here today despite the bright sunshine. Minnie is taking advantage by snoozing in the warm sunlight streaming in our front window.

Today MY Jane and I went to Sport Chek to look at winter coats for me. Jane had been there yesterday and spotted some nice Columbia  coats on sale. I like Columbia because they are wind proof and the one I got today has a reflective layer inside like the stuff they use for emergency blankets.

We had a huge amount of snow fall since yesterday and it’s very cold here in Barrie.

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I received word this morning via e-mail that the sample recording I sent in to ACX has met their standards.

I finally completed an audio recording of one chapter of my book, If The Walls Could Talk, and sent it in to ACX Quality Control for review. It has been a fascinating, albeit time consuming, exercise. I had no idea what was involved in dealing with digital audio. There are so many ways to manipulate and enhance audio recordings.

A former Correctional colleague of mine, Stephen Lonsdale, is ready to soon release his ninth book called All Things Considered.

Like his other books, Steve is self-publishing this one on Amazon and he anticipates it will be available within the next week or so.

This kind of weather makes for dirty driving conditions.

You have to make sure your vehicle has windshield washer fluid topped up.

MY Jane and I went up to Georgian Mall earlier today to run a few errands. It was pretty quiet up there even though the parking lots were pretty full. The roads were clear and not icy  although the temperature has dropped. 

It’s snowing right now and the Weather Network is calling for messy conditions for the rest of the day. It’s a good occasion to stay inside which is exactly what we plan to do.

There is something to be said for tenacity. Despite being discouraged with my recent unsuccessful attempts at recording a book for Amazon’s Audible, I took the advice of some of my FB friends and kept at it.

The sample recording that I sent in to ACX, the Quality Assurance part of Amazon’s Audible Books, advised me that my submission did not meet their standards. Upon further investigation of my recording, I discovered that my laptop has an internal crackle that messes things up.

Last night MY Jane and I were hosts to our across the street neighbours, Jenny & Allan and our next door neighbours, the Jones Family: Chris, Rina, Colter & Carson.

It was a great evening enjoyed by everyone.

Yesterday afternoon, MY Jane and I went to see a newly released movie called The Upside.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable movie, one that did not have any boring spots at all. It had all the elements of a good story; humour, tragedy, sorrow, and kindness and understanding.

I continue to spend early in the morning recording the narration of my first book, If The Walls Could Talk, which was published last September. I do it very early because this is the quietest time of day thus making for a cleaner recording.

Today I spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to get a small headlight bulb out of its socket. No such luck. I even enlisted the expertise of my across the street neighbour, Allan, who is very knowledgeable about such things, but we were still unable to do it.

I’ll have to check out YouTube.

I spent part of this afternoon replacing a headlight on our KIA Rondo. It’s pretty easy to do but then I discovered that one of the running lights was not working as well.

Today I had a regular scheduled appointment with my optometrist. The last visit was over a year ago.

I am continuing to read and watch YouTube videos on how to use my free download of a recording app called Audacity. I am amazed at the capabilities of this free software and learn something new every time I watch a video or re-read the manual.

It’s very interesting and a lot of fun playing around with this.

I have been reading up on doing book narration at home and what equipment should be used. My take is, that to do a good job, you should try to use quality equipment. To that end I got a pretty good microphone from Best Buy and a Mic holder from Amazon. Headphones I got at Walmart.

This morning, Mother Nature decided to decorate our back door with some crystal designs in ice.

It is a very interesting design; similar to snowflakes, but almost feather like at the same time.

Yesterday I received my Life Unfolding book for 2018 which is a hard copy of all my daily blogs from last year. It’s fun to sit down and flip through the memories.

This is the fifth such book and it makes my daily blogs entries very worthwhile.

It began snowing this morning around 8AM. Big snowflakes, the kind that you used to like letting hit your tongue when you were a kid.

Weather patterns seemed to have changed over the last several decades. My recollection of years ago was that it began to get colder in the Fall and kept getting colder and colder until Spring when it then start to get warmer and warmer.

Today I did some experimentation with a free recording app called Audacity. Of course, there are all kinds of tutorials about this app on You Tube. What isn’t on You Tube?

Several weeks ago we had ordered ribs from St Louis Bar and Grill, using Skip the Dishes. Turns out the delivery lady named Divine wasn’t so divine after all. She never did show up.

Today I took a spin up to Best Buy to look for a quality microphone. I spent a few hours on the internet researching them and decided on this one.

My new project is to make my book, If The Walls Could Talk, into an audible book. While sales of the printed version of my book have exceeded expectations on Amazon, another market, namely that of audible books, won’t hurt.

This morning I took down the outside lights in both the front yard and back yard. It looks pretty bare now.

Jane and I are just back from watching Clint Eastwood’s movie The Mule in which he plays the starring role.

After breakfast, MY Jane and I finished taking down the inside decorations. They are all packed up and stowed away in the garage loft. The two trees are out for pickup.

After breakfast this morning, MY Jane and I began taking down inside Christmas decorations. We hadn’t really planned to do it today; it just kinda happened.

I am now down at Minetts Point having a Timmy’s and watching the ducks and geese.

MY Jane set a beautiful table for NewYear’s Eve dinner.