You may remember, in early November 2005 I posted a blog about "How much is my blog worth".  Well, I just checked it today, and lo and behold...It's worth some money!  Whoo Hoo!

See...

Not sure if I should blog this or not, but, I have a contact at Oakley who can get me any gear that you can find on www.oakley.com for up to 50% off.  Also, as I am off to Whistler soon, he is going to find out the Oakley representative in Whistler and pass on my details!  Result!  Bring on the discount %

So, I've already taken advantage of this very generous offer.  For a couple of male (see the pink goggles?!?!) friends I have ordered the following:

WISDOM Pink/Pink Iridium	HELIX PANT Large Black
RRP £109 For me £67	RRP £150 For me £102
Click here to view	Click here to view

Well, there has, as expected been more snow fall in Whistler, a nice 20cm over the last 7 days.

Whilst researching more about Whistler, I came accross some really good 'stuff'.

• A set of Videos from this year so far at Whistler. (Click here)
• A set of photo galleries at Whistler. (Click here)

I've also heard from www.24-7snow.com (the people I'm housing with), that the pipe is in good nick!  A pipe?  So early in the season???  I must admit that this really does sound good to me.  Winter after winter, I have suffered from resorts either having carp pipes or no pipes at all, until late in the season!  *booo*.

it feels like I have gone Google mad lately!  I have found another good service that they provide!  Google Personalised Home (http://www.google.com/ig).  In summary, it allows you to personalise your Google home page!  Have a look!

I do think you need a GMail account though!  Want me to invite you to have a GMail account?  Add a comment and I will!

I think that Google offer so many different services, and advances search capabilities.  It's therefore a shame that most people dont use them, they just go to google, and enter a couple of words!  Wake up people, your on-line life would be much better if you actually took the time to use the tools avaiable to you!  You are good at surfing, so why not do something constructive instead of looking at those stupid video's and porn! *rant over*

After my exploits of finding Google Analytics, I thought I'd browse around Google a bit more.  Lo and behold, another chesnut!  This one is Google Sitemaps (https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login).  Bit of a pain to get working, but it is already giving me some good information.

Basically, its an 'easy' way for you to help improve your coverage in the Google search index.  it is a collaborative crawling system that enables you to communicate directly with Google to keep them informed of all your Web pages, and when you make changes to them.

My rating: 3 out of 5 (bit difficult to implement)

Whilst looking at my RSS feeds I came accross an article about Google Analytics (sorry can't remember where, otherwise would cross post!), so i thought that I would have a look.  Glad I did!  It really is quite impressive, and best of all free!

I managed to sign up and get it working, really good!  You can access Google Analytics here:

http://www.google.com/analytics/

It basically "tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site".  In easy speak, it provides free trend analysis of your site!

Got some news from Maria @ www.24-7snow.com today.  There is another house mate who does not want to travel on his own to Whistler, and he's 31.  I think that me and him will severely effect the average age   I've let Maria know that I have done a lot, and I really do mean a lot of travelling before, and have no problem in having a travel 'buddy'.

A while back, I suggested to Will (who runs the house @ www.24-7snow.com that I will be staying at in Whistler) that he pass on my details to the other 10 (11?) potential house mates so we can all get into contact.  Well, I now have been in contact with two of my forthcoming house mates.

As expected, they are both relative youngsters.  Especially compared to be, the soon to be 33 year old

The first one to get in touch was Andrew King.  He's 18 and on a gap year.  He might have trouble getting out to the bars in Whistler, BC, Canada, as the drinking age is 19?  Andrew will be flying out on 12th January.

The next one to get into contact was Timothy Aronold.  He's 24, and just like me, has also just quit his job.  Timothy, the lucky b'hatch, is flying out on the 19th November!

Let's hope that the rest of the house get's in contact soon.

Got another email from Tourism Whistler today.  There has apparently been another 7cm of snow (or for all those who are stuck in the pre-metric days, 3 inches!) in the last 24 hours.  There was a foreacst of another 13cm in the next 24 hours, but the actual BC weather foreacst doesn't look that promising.  You can find out the snow report here.

Blackcomb Mountain is open daily from November 11. Hours of operation are from 8:30 AM to 3 PM. Find out more on the What's Open page.

Whistler Blackcomb - Hours of Operation 2005/2006

Photo Taken: November 14th 2005

Whilst surfing around, aim lessley looking for something interesting to read, I happened to come accross another Blog what mentions snowboarding in Whistler.  You can find it here: http://spaces.msn.com/members/markiswierd/Blog/cns!1pBX4ROxNOSPAjRtR5BQVKCQ!585.entry.  It's a blog by a guy called Mark Shepherd, who comes from Abbotsford, BC, Canada.  I'll make sure that I keep an eye out on his blog, to see what he has to say about the season in Whistler.  After all, he is already in the area!

Microsoft has today done one of their biggest launches in their history.  They have launched Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006.  For me, as a developer, this is really big news, and I managed to attend their Launch Tour in Birmingham at the ICC.

Ok, I have know about these for some time now, and also had a good look.  No hand's on, but a good look.  To me, it's not an evolution, it really is an evolution.  No longer is Visual Studio a tool just for the 'code monkey' developers, but is a full product lify cycle product.  It now involves everyone from Infrastructure Architect, Application Architect, Developer, Tester, Project Manager and many more.

The real exciting news, for me and many others is what Microsoft are giving away.  They are giving away all of the Express editions of SQL Server and more excitingly Visual Studio, to the entire world.  Hold on, better is to come.  For all those who attended the Launch Tour, we get Visual Studio Professional, SQL Server Standard, and BizTalk Server Developer Edition.  These have a retail value of: $5,999 for SQL, $799 for Visual Studio and BizTalk is as yet un-priced.  That's over $6,798! Whoo Hoo.

I do actually feel like a little kid.  My time in Whistler is still ages and ages away, however, as more and more snow falls the underwear is getting more and more used!

The company that I'm staying with in my time at Whistler is a company called www.24-7snow.com I asked Will (who runs the place) if it was Ok for him to distribute my email address to all the rest of the people there/going there.  However, not 1 single solitary response!  What a dissapointment.  So, I only really know of one person, and that's only because he replied to a posting I made on www.snowboardclub.co.uk Oh well.

Anyway, have a look at thei Web site.  has some fantastic pictures of the house and the hot-tub and the trampoleen!  The details of the house are:

I thought that I'd try and drive some more activity to my Blog and share it out a little.

So, I thought I would sign-up to the Technorati network.  You can view My Technorati Profile

I came accross this, in one of the blogs that I subscribe to.  It's apparently inspired by Tristan Louis's research into the value of each link to Weblogs Inc, I've created this little applet using Technorati's API which computes and displays your blog's worth using the same link to dollar ratio as the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal.

You can find out "How much is my blog worth?" here: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/projects/how-much-is-your-blog-worth/

I thought that for this blog, I'd let everyone know what my actual plans were for going to Whistler.

Actually, I'm going home to Scotland first, for Christmas.  Well, have to go there some time   Happy, happy, joy, joy...

So the dates are:

Scotland

On December 22nd I'm flying to Scotland and returning on the 27th.

Whistler, Vancouver

I'm actually going to Whistler, twice!  Why do you ask?  Well, 4 months is a long time.  And just because I can, I have decided to return half way through.  It also makes it easier to get insurance.

The actual dates that I'm going to be there is:

• 28th December AM - Train from Birmingham to London Heathrow
• 28th December 13:30 - Fly from London Heathrow to Vancouver
• 22nd February - Fly from Vancouver to London Heathrow
• 1st March - Fly from London Heathrow to Vancouver
• 30th April - Fly from Vancouver to London Heathrow

Well, I must admit that I am getting more and more excited about going to Whistler.  This is especially prevelant, as tomorrow the resort officially opens up the mountain.  Can you believe that they are opening up on the 5th November 2005?  That's so early!

I've subscribed to the www.tourismwhistler.com snow alert service, and boy has it already started to cause me problems.  Not bad problems though, good problems.  Been soo excited today about it, that I just had to have a look at the Web Cam's of the resort.

This is an extract of the first email I received today, from Tourism Whistler.  13-21 inches of snow due shortly!

---------------

http://www.tourismwhistler.com/www/weather/snow_report.asp

http://www.tourismwhistler.com/www/things_to_do/skiing.asp

Oh, what a dissapointment.  I've managed to get a blog server up and running on my hosting service, and no-one has come to see it.

Hmmm.  Do you think I should advertise it?

Still, there is no real surprise.  I am after all just trying it out first before launching it.

Well, I have finally managed to get dasBlog to work on my hosting service.

So, what is the point of me having a blog?  Well, for the moment, as I'm going to be heading off to Whistler, Canada for a few months snowboarding, I thought that I'd use it for this.  To keep a record of trip, and to allow others to share it with me.