Ok, So I was a little bad at updating my blog over the year. Sorry, but I can come away with some great experience and lots of fun memories!!  Some highlights:

Dubai for a week in November
   Burj Khalifa, dune bashing, geocaching, swimming in the gulf, meeting up with some Halifax friends, making a good friend.

IndoChina for Christmas - Thailand (Bangkok), Vietnam (Hanoi, Halong Bay, Ho Chi Minh), Cambodia (Phnom Penh, Sinoville, Siem Reap)
Had a great time with two other teachers, can't wait to travel with my new friends over the next year

Geocaching in Qatar - I found about 240 caches in the country (a little over half, when I left), to do this I bought myself a truck, Land Rover Discovery 2003.

I will try harder to keep up with the blogging.. but something life gets busy!!

First week done!!

So first week of classes are done, and I'm felling more comfortable in the classroom than last week, when I didn't have any books or anything.

Prep is slow, because I am still trying to dissect the Alberta curriculum but I hope that now that I'm in a routine prep should go faster.

I'm also running the LEGO club at the school so I really hope that doesn't take up too much of my time, I'm really glad that a few fellow staff mentioned they wouldn't mind helping out with it. This will give me time for prep and we could send more students.  They want one coach per team, but if we have two teams in the same level then I think that is ok.

We did a brunch yesterday and it was awesome.. I'm so happy I went.. great food and great people!
Well back to work.. later!

Lots to update!!

So things have changed a lot since my graduation from U of U, B.Ed. program.

I was offered a job in Doha, Qatar at the Qatar Canadian School.

The whole process has been very very quick.. Aug 4th was when I emailed with my resume and yesterday, Aug 31, I arrived in Doha!

Here is an email update I seen my family.

So finally got into Doha, the stop over in Montreal wasn't too bad.. I
walked around for a little while, also manged to get Wi-Fi on my phone
to do some emails.  I was able to get a seat at an
emergency exit with about 4-5 feet in front of me.. If you fly with
Qatar, I would suggest doing this.. the other seats are very cramped..
for 12 hrs!!  The man seating next to me asked if I would move for his
wife.. but it would be into the middle.. Sorry.. I should have asked
the flight attendant if there was a free seat in first class.. (they
look very nice, when I walked through to leave the plane. )

At the airport, I had the Al Maha Services. it's a little
lounge and they help with the visa and getting through customs.  I'm
not sure the hassle of not using this service but it was nice to relax
and grab a little food after the flight.

Mike (principal) and Jon (CNA-Q host) met me at the Airport and gave
me a ride to the hotel (Moevenpick Doha). All my bags were ok in the
flight, and didn't have to pay again, yippie.

My room includes 3 meals and wifi so I am able to relax here at the
hotel.. I went out for a 10 mins walk over to the Al Corniche before
lunch and I was sweating by the time I got over there..
I went for a swim in the outdoor this afternoon, the outside temp is
44 and the pool is 32.. like a big bathtub!

I don't think I'll go outside during the day but I'll try to go for
another walk after supper.

App is done!!

So after changing my mind again I finally finished my app, submitted it and got a email "
Vendor Portal for BlackBerry App World Submission Receipt" I finally hope that this means I can get that playbook!! And also I can start doing some school work too!

I'm off to bed!

More App stuff

So my app is coming along nicely!

I have a main page with three buttons each which go to the next screen.  well one of the buttons work.. I'm still working on the other two.. I thought copying and modifying the code would work.. but it doesn't, I was able to find a page outlining what I need to do to fix it.

The next thing is to get the math in the background to get working.. that is the goal for Wednesday night.
Tonight is to work on my Physics Assignment.. right I still do have school work!

My App and Go!

So I have been learning to program in Java with the intent to built an app in android. It has been a rough start with no real great tutorial. I was able to find a decent one on Youtube, edu4java.  I finally have a working app that can multiple two numbers together!!  Now to expand that for more numbers and make the user interface a little better and bam, I'll have a working app to submit!!

In my searching for sample code to work from I found out about Go - it's a new programming language that Google made.  I have only seen demos of it but it seems very fast!!  The thing that I am interested it is the learning curve.  If the curve isn't very steep, this would be a gret addition to a high school classroom!

'via Blog this'

'Smart' Bus Shelters

So Ottawa is replacing some bus shelters.  The interesting thing is that they are adding HD tvs to them for ads and that is it.  I hope they have something to do with the buses or this will be a waste of money, but from I'm gathering it's just for advertising.  

The thing that sort of bothers me is they can't go a step further and add a solar panel to the roof.  San Francisco annouced they are doing the something similar a few weeks ago, but it will be a lot better. Solar roof, Wi-Fi, real-time bus schedule, LED lighting after all this putting power back into the grid.


Why not go as far as they did in Italy? These bus stops look awesome and they have great features - touch-screen, LEDs, features a bus map, plotting locations in real-time, e-mail and Web access, tools for planning a best route and getting directions, a community bulletin board, and, of course, a place for silent video advertisements.