Tag: Hamilton

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WordPress GTA

There’s a new Meetup group in town … the WordPress Greater Toronto Area Meetup group, or WPGTA for short. I have been considering starting a Meetup group focused more on WordPress design and development for the last several months but I have also felt there was never enough time to devote to organizing it.

Now, although I have not magically added more time to the day, I also feel if I do not simply get started the ideals I have envisioned for this group will never see the light.

Ideally this Meetup group will also serve as a complimentary one to the growing number of WordPress related ones in the area. The Greater Toronto Area, or GTA, itself holds a large percentage of the population and spreads over a very wide geographic region(1).

Although there is no established agenda, or a first meeting scheduled yet (keep an eye on the calendar one will be announced soon), I look forward to being able to share my experiences and knowledge; especially that gained working with the WordPress Theme Review Team as well as the knowledge I have gained creating and releasing WordPress Themes and WordPress Plugins into the WordPress Extend repositories.

Also, look forward to the WPGTA Meetups to take place in the Mississauga and/or Oakville area. One, I live in the area; and two, to be quite honest, I’m not a fan of driving “into the city” … and hopefully this will allow others interested in attending a WordPress Meetup group easier access.

We will probably start out meeting in coffee shops or other WiFi hotspot locations(2); moving into a community center, library meeting room, or other larger venue is well within possibilities as the group grows.

… and remember to bring your “tools of the trade”(3)

To see the footnotes click here.To hide the footnotes click here.
Footnotes:
(1) 2006 Census data as noted on Wikipedia
(2) Starbucks comes to mind first but there are other eateries and venues that may work well for small gatherings.
(3) Bringing a laptop is probably a good idea … you can write good code anywhere but not if you don’t have the tools to do it.
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Royal Botanical Gardens

This is our first week of vacation in 2010 and like past vacations mostly a restful spur of the moment choice of places to go and things to do. Yesterday we waited for the weather reports to come in then decided to drive to the Royal Botanical Gardens near Hamilton, Ontario.

The weather was beautiful with blue skies and temperatures in the high 70’s; of course the humidity made it seem much more like the high 80’s but it was a great day all the same.

My wife, Terri, has a great eye for pictures and loves to take them. She must have clicked well over 300 digital photos on our day trip; myself, I only took a few with my iPhone that I found interesting. I rarely take pictures but with the built-in camera I am taking a lot more than what I have ever in the past. Here are some of the pictures I took:

The pictures are (in no particular order): My sandals on a bench, it was so nice to walk barefoot in the grasses; Roses in one of the Rose Gardens; My lunch at the Rock Garden Tea House, a Chicken Caesar in a spinach wrap with a Fanta; a small waterfall tucked away in the corner of the Rock Garden; and, a flower setting on exhibit representing Romeo and Juliet. Enjoy!