Hi there!

It's been so long since I've posted on this blog.

I got busy blogging on sports and only touched a little bit on drumming.. which I intend to blog more on in coming weeks.

My plans for this blog is to blog solely about my work in technology and other technology related articles.

I was also planning to redo the graphics which is long long overdue.

Lot's has gone on in my personal life over the last several months.... it's pretty wild.

Anyway. Hope the internet hasn't missed me too much!

 Alot has been going on for me. Something I decided earlier in the summer was really to learn about blogging and learn about the possibility of growing traffic... or better put "readership".... getting it "out there" so people who share the same interests could find the blog. The next challenge with that of course if writing something that is worthwhile in reading!

So I started a couple of blogs and then moved on to my 3rd.

yvesdrummer.com

On this new blog, if you haven't guessed it by the domain name, it's centered around drumming. I've been playing drums since the age of 12 and have had the pleasure of playing in many different styles and have also had the pleasure of teaching.

So this new blog will revolve around practice techniques, drum videos of drummers who inspire me, drum videos of me, stories... ideas.. events... whatever I come up with.

The art of drumming is something I've always been passionate about.

 Some time ago I had started a blog on my favorite NHL hockey team the Montreal Canadiens. Writing on it really became a fun hobby..... reading all the other hockey bloggers out there also became quite a fun hobby.

It was first started on a Blogger.com blog and I found there were numerous limitations so I was quite tempted to move it to a WordPress blog on 3rd party hosting.

After seeing a really great deal for a cheap hosting account, I decided to jump in and do it.

I used WordPress's import functionality to get all the content from the old blog onto the new one. This worked very well but there was a hitch. I used Blogger's labels as "tags" and not categories. Of course in the import the labels were treated as categories... so I spent lot's of time re-working the categories and redoing the tags for every post on the blog. Thank God that's over with.

So now I can concentrate on writing some stuff again. My new blog can be found here:

Mostly Habs Talk - Yves on Habs

I'm pleased to have my new site online!

The last week and a half, I've been reading and thinking, reading and thinking... all about how I can try to create a second income online.

The point of this excercise isn't to get rich quick. The point isn't even to be "rich" in strickly financial terms.

The reason for this new website and this new journey is to experience something new. I enjoy doing research and I love trying new things. This is part of it. Of course, I do have a goal. And my goal is to try and generate a bit of revenu by doing something I love.

But there is also opportunity to learn, to face new challenges, to meet new people and to share what I find. Share useful information to anyone looking to do the same, share my successes, share my failures... share my experience!

This website will continu to be more "personal".

But my new website will be a blog about trying to create income online.

Join me and let me know what you think!

www.yvesarsenault.com/

Lately I've been spending quite a bit of time on the internet. Well, I always do... but in the last week I've started to explore some websites that I've never really taken time and effort to discover.

What I've wanted to learn is different methods of building traffic driven websites. One of the goals in this would be to create another income stream.

But I also have been very skeptical of many website's that I've seen where someone is showing me "fool proof methods" to make oodles and oodles of money online. Some will even say that it's very easy and can happen really quickly.

I'm not a big believer in those kinds of messages as I feel they're really just giving people a "make money quick" scheme that likely even hasn't worked for them. Or, maybe it is working for them just because they're generating lots of traffic because of the (almost) empty message they're giving.

I've always been interested in building a few projects online and trying to build a revenu stream with them but was generally not to sure which way to turn.

In the last week I've spent some time looking for bloggers and online entrepreneurs who write about developping blogs and/or other types of websites that generate revenu.

What I've found this last week was quite refreshing. I've found some people who blog about creating money from affiliate programs and google adsense. These websites have been very beneficial to me in short term because I've learned something from them in a matter of hours... reading blog articles and also watching youtube videos (which were quite helpful).

These websites that I've found also have a much more sobering and real message. That it can be done. You can earn money online. But it's gonna take some hard work, some patience and it has to be something you're going to enjoy.

That's a much more realistic message in my opinion. So one of these projects is going to be a blog where I will be writing specifically about what I learn, what challenges I've found, what successes I have and generally what the experience is like.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of doing a short drum clinic for Music Rocks Academy in Summerside.

I was invited by Moe Hashie, one of the Academy's instructors, to give an hour long drum clinic.

So I talked a bit about warm up excercises and some of the stuff that I've practiced over the years and currently practice. I took some questions about influences and favorite drummers. It was fun.

Got to see some faces I hadn't seen in quite a while. It was a fun time.

Played some grooves... Moe asked me to play some faster stuff, so I played around the kit a bit faster and talked about playing around the kit getting the motion of the body smooth.... talked about stick control a bit as well. So I played a pattern around the kit slowly and gradually sped it up.... which in fact I had to do a bit to get it going faster. Playing on someone else's setup is always a bit different..... when the toms are a couple of inchs off where you are a customed to, it makes a difference.

Finally, a couple of the guitar instructors got up on the stage and we had a little jam. Played Crazy Train, Enter Sandman and Moby Dick (which I hadn't heard in a long long time).

It was a fun time.

I must say that I, as many I'm sure, was surprised when I heard the news that Michael Jackson had been rushed to a hospital for cardiac arrest....

I was working... actually, I believe I was taking a lunch break when the news broke on CNN.

As time went on they got more updates.... to where he was in a coma... and then that he had passed away.

Wow.

He was in fact trying to make a bit of a come back to sold out shows this summer.

Very hard to believe that he had passed quite suddenly.

But, as a couple of days passed, I started thinking a little more about him.... as I had before. About how he grew up, what he had possibly gone through being an international star... what people had accused him of.... and the constant bashing of him in certain media outlets for quite some time.

The fact of his passing became less surprising... really. I don't know (or didn't) know the guy. But I do know that being through what he had been through would have been rough.

I try to let the kids be kids. Really. I love seeing my daughter learn and discover.... and play. She's 5 years old. She has talents.... I know that... she even has musical and dancing talents. But I would never imagine of getting her to work at performing. No way. She's got to be a child while she is in fact a child. I can't imagine attempting to force her to be at a stage where she is not.

Mr Jackson had quirks.... for sure. In fact, I'm sure we've all had things in our closet (to varying degrees)... and many still do.

But I can't imagine the kind of pressures that were put on this guy... from childhood... and though he was loved and adored by many... seemed totally reclusive and lonely.

One interview I saw of him... he talks about being about 10 years old and being in the recording studio for hours... and at times watching kids playing in a park across the street and crying because he would have loved so much to be a part of that.

How far would you be willing to push your child for your own wants/needs/desires??

Mr Jackson obviously wanted to be a child while he was a child. He needed to be a child while he was a child.

Kids need to be loved. And they need to be kids.

Mr Jackson had great musical talent... a gift everyone saw early on.... but the focus many had on that gift for their own gain robbed him of his childhood..... and in part having a whole life. The focus was on developping the gift and delivering the gift instead of developping the person... the child in this case.

That is my opinion.

Your kids need love. And they need to be kids.

Been quite busy lately.

Workin' on a few projects. Writting lot's of ColdFusion which I love.

Even the getting up at 4 or 5 am to start work resulting in some fairly long workdays isn't so bad. But when I string several days like that together... a cranky man I may be. And did I mention tired?

Being a one man show, self-employed... being a one income home with family.... packs on some pressure.

I've been working on a project to build some residual income... but until that gets rolling it doesn't pay my groceries. I really like the potential this project brings and others have also thought that it's a great idea. But how to get "at it"??

That's part of the challenge.

Ah well.... coming into the summer months... I'm hopin' for some relaxing soon.

Peace!

 I have a couple of blogs over on blogger.com and recently I wanted to create a tag could. I had already setup blogger's "Label" gadget but this just displayed all the labels (or tags) in a list... which made a very long list.

So, I started to look around and see what was out there... I didn't really find anything in blogger's gadgets so I figured I would google.

After looking around google for about 10 minutes, I found one that I wanted to try.

And it worked very well... .complete instructions can be found.

Enjoy!

http://phy3blog.googlepages.com/Beta-Blogger-Label-Cloud.html

For a live example on my "Habs blog"... check it out!

http://yvesonhabs.blogspot.com/

I found this off of slashdot  and somehow felt compelled to post a little "thing" on it.

It's a blog post about an old computer.... pretty neat.

The Non-Von Neumann..

Check it out here:
http://chrisfenton.com/non-von-1/