Tag: Terri Caissie

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Thank You

Bringing awareness to a rare disease is no easy feat. Generally speaking, most people do not go out of their way to find a rare disease and although there are over 7000 rare diseases out there it usually takes yourself, a family member, or a friend to contract one before you even know it existed in the first place.

Some of you may know my wife, Terri Caissie, and some of you may know she has Hashimoto’s Encephalopathy (Autoimmune) with Progressive Cerebellar Ataxia … but how many of you know what that is?

Terri and myself had tried to get the details of this disease in front of more people to consider and learn about but until very recently we were not having much success. This changed … and for that I am writing this post to say thanks to the people that are affecting this change.

First off, we’d like to thank Tom McFarlin for his post. This caught the attention of others in the WordPress community and sparked a post by Jeff Chandler at WP Tavern; thank you very much, too!

Look what happens with a post on WP Tavern:

WordPress News 2015-12-13

What does that mean to awareness for HE? Considering WordPress powers 25% of the Internet … THAT. IS. HUGE!! Thank you!

Thank you again for the people sharing these links; and, thank you for those that have donated monies to help Terri. We are very grateful for your support.

Our hopes of bringing awareness to those with Hashimoto’s Encephalopathy (or any other rare disease) are buoyed up beyond anything we could have imagined when Terri started her YouCaring campaign.

Thank you, again, to the WordPress community … without you this would not be happening.

 

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IDxD

Wait? What?!

Some days are a bit of a challenge around home but we always try to find a way to makes things light and continue to look for the bright side as often as we can.

Although a topic for a much longer series of posts, Terri has been diagnosed with a rare brain disease, Hashimoto’s Encephalopathy (Autoimmune) (HE). Among its many varying symptoms and issues the ability to communicate will at times have us use “Identification by Description” (IDxD) for Terri to get her point across. Fortunately this is not often but it can be infuriating, frustrating and downright demoralizing when it does but being together for over 20 years we know each other well enough that it works.

Coming up with this little acronym gave us both reason to laugh … and laughter is the best medicine!

 

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Apple Watch: June Delivery

I booked a try-on appointment at my favorite Apple Store (the one in Sherway Gardens) and went for the experience on a Saturday afternoon. I haven’t worn a watch in more than 20 years but the “cool” factor just couldn’t be resisted. I really just wanted to get a better look at what wearing one would be like, better than what the Apple Watch app offered … there’s only so much holding your iPhone on your wrist can really accomplish.

I picked out three “favorites” that I wanted to try … all the 42mm face (the app really did help there) and prepared for … well, um, not a whole lot … what can you accomplish in 15 minutes?

It turns out quite a bit. “Alex”, the associate who helped us, made the experience quite enjoyable and definitely no rush. Did I mention this was my favorite Apple Store? We go out of our way to shop there when in-person product review / purchase is necessary.

I went to try on the Apple Watch. I selected the 42mm Stainless Steel Case with Milanese Loop; and, the 42mm Stainless Steel Case with Link Bracelet; then, for comparison the 42mm Space Grey Aluminium Case with Black Sport Band (from the Apple Watch Sport line).

Although I liked all three models I was most impressed with the Milanese Loop as the Link Bracelet (although not fitted well) tended to unclasp very easily (perhaps too easily?) and the Sport Band just didn’t have the “look” I wanted. I’m not sure a rubber-like band would ever have the look I wanted but it did feel good. I was actually really surprised the Apple Watch 38mm Stainless Steel Case with Milanese Loop was quite snug getting over my hand (as in almost not getting over my hand at all), but the face itself was just a bit too small and the thinner band also did not quite look as good either.

Terri was with me during all of this and Alex was very kind to offer her the experience of trying on some of the different models … all told, between the two of us, I think we tried on seven or eight different models.

We played with the demonstration models in the store as well and were easily impressed with the functionality being displayed there. Terri was very impressed with the ability to use touch gestures with the watch given how much trouble they present her on her iPhone 6+ and new iPad Touch … and the display was very easy to read, too.

My thoughts on the Apple Watch: waiting until June is going to be a challenge; but, I am definitely looking forward to wearing a watch again.

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I noticed this morning that Apple has gone ahead and put through the charges for my Apple Watch nearly a month prior to the shipping date … does this mean they will be a month earlier than their scheduled end of June / beginning of July shipment status?
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Telus Loyalty Reward – Thank You!

I had thought about just sending out a tweet to say thanks but then 140 characters or less probably will not convey Telus‘ kindness or the value of their thoughtful gifts … yes, gifts! Completely unexpected, too.

Let me backtrack a bit … we pre-ordered our iPhone 6 Plus 128MB phones shortly after it was possible to do so on the Telus Mobility web site. We hemmed and hawed a bit about which model to go with an ultimately decided to just go BIG. After ordering I thought it would be nice to share this with a tweet:

Earlier this week I received a call from FedEx asking to confirm my address for a delivery. All said and done, I asked who is the shipper? They replied with Telus … and I’m thinking cool, the iPhones are coming earlier than their original October 6th promised shipment date.

Yesterday, as arranged, the FedEx delivery arrived … Terri opened the box as I knew if I opened the box the rest of the day would be gone (I really do love to play with new tech). The iPhones were not there?! What?!! I spoke to Telus earlier in the week and they said they were just completing the order processing and the iPhones would be shipping this week. Very patient and helpful customer service associate as well. (The iPhones were shipped via Canada Post and arrived technically on Thursday … I had to go to the Post Office to pick them up on Friday).

Back to the mystery(?) FedEx shipment … inside was a quality note card with a hand-written message thanking us for pre-ordering our iPhones and sending out the tweet above, signed by “Your friends at Telus”. Thanks!

What else was in the box? Another box with a big purple ribbon tied up into a bow and inside that box was the following:

Now I can really have some more fun. Stay fit. More power. Great sound.

Thanks, again, Telus … we will enjoy these thoughtful gifts!

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A New Lens and a Lot of Help

Terri and I were out and about on the weekend and we decided to stop in at a camera outlet store as we were passing by … literally passing by, I made one of those right turns from the far left (three lanes over); at the stop light no less.

We walked into the store and started looking around, neither of us were really looking for anything in particular just whiling away the afternoon together. Every time we go to this store I always stop to look at the “used” lenses and happened across a good condition Sigma Zoom 100-300 1:4.5-6.7 DL lens. The glass was clean and as far as I could tell also clear. I hung onto it and continued to look around. Terri found herself a great “macro” lens at the other end of the table, a Canon 28-80mm, that she is very happy about, too. I’m sure she will post some of her pictures soon enough at Terri’s Tales.

We eventually talked to one of the sales associates and put the lenses on a T series Canon to check the optics … for the prices we paid we’re happy, even though the Sigma is a little quirky at lower zoom values.

The following is a sampling of the pictures I took with my T3i and the Sigma lens. I wasn’t really having much luck with post-production so Terri offered to see what she could come up with. The gallery below is the result.

Just to note, the dandelion image was taken and processed by Terri with the Canon lens.

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Photo Walk: Niagara Falls 2014-03-08

It’s not a common thing for Niagara Falls, or perhaps more accurately the Niagara River area around the Horseshoe Falls and the American Falls to freeze but this was not a common winter for cold either. These are are a few images from a photo walk Terri and I took yesterday:

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My 2013

The year 2013 stood out more than past years, enough so to write this post..

Our “babies” left us this year … our babies being our fancy pet rats. We rescued, and provided a sanctuary at times, as well as adopted fancy pet rats for close to ten years but as difficult as it was we chose to take a pause in that work this year with the passing of our last babies over the summer time. They are beautiful, intelligent, addictive little creatures but we are among the few that see them that way and they require a great deal of work to ensure they live a safe and comfortable life. A life any family pet deserves.

I changed jobs this year, some may even say I started a new career, too. I spend nearly 25 years with E.C.E. (Canada) Ltd. serving many roles with many titles but essentially it could all be boiled down to customer service. It was a tumultuous year for E.C.E. as well with new ownership taking over but they will survive and strive if by nothing more than the passion of that new ownership … or so at least I firmly believe and wish them all the best going forward with.

After many months of discussions and negotiations I started my second career as the Lead Happiness Engineer – NextGEN Gallery at Photocrati Media; in its essence a customer service role but one with great potential for growth. The opportunities offered by a small company can be immense, especially one that is building its product offering on the WordPress platform. Obviously there is the possibility of growing the Lead Happiness Engineer role, but there is also the possibilities of being able to actually use my WordPress knowledge and the code writing skill sets I have built as well with contributions to the Photocrati Media products currently being offered and the new products, features, and options being considered for the future.

We, Terri and I, traveled this year, too. It wasn’t that we has set out in the beginning of the year to cross something off our bucket lists but we created the opportunity all the same. We rode the world famous trolley cars of San Francisco. Although we had far reaching plans to visit the Grand Canyon, Yosemite Park, and the Hoover dam (not necessarily in that order) the US Government happen to “close” at the same which was actually quite fortunate in hindsight as our travel plans were forced to be drastically changed but, also in hindsight, our west coast vacation was a much better holiday. We stayed in Monterey for a few days and then moved up to San Francisco for a few more days.

Looking forward to 2014 already has a significant event on the horizon, Terri and I will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary … not certain what else this year holds for us but we have each other and I am certain we will have things to do and places to see.

Happy New Year!

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First Days Of Winter 2013

The first day of Winter brought with it freezing rain. Now this was not so bad by itself, a light coating of thin ice makes for beautiful images and generally does not have a dramatic impact on the trees around Lake Aquitaine …

… but unfortunately the weather forecast and the continued freezing rains that followed left many of the trees around our lake in a sad and broken condition.

Terri and I walked around yesterday (follow the link to her images) taking pictures of the trees and other ice covered pieces around the lake, my images are in the first gallery. We walked around again early this morning (more images by Terri) and this is when I took the second gallery images.

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Big Basin Redwood State Park

After our harrowing experience driving on mountain roads to get where we were going. We were almost to the point where we had enough and just wanted to find our way out of the wilderness … and a freeway to Monterey. We pretty much stumbled upon the park, so much so that we didn’t think we were even at the right place and dreaded the very thought of having to return the way we had just driven. Fortunately we had finally found Big Basin Redwood State Park … and with the help of the park rangers also found we could just keep driving and find our way back to Highway 1 and a more or less safe road to Monterey, too.

Before we left, we paid a second time for day-use of a state park and proceeded to take our time following a simple trail through the trees. Here are some of the picture from the day:

 

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Travel Tip: When touring California State Parks, you only have to pay once … and just remember to display your ticket in the driver’s side front window … for any State Park visit that day.