You might’ve noticed I’ve been messing around with the blog lately — fonts, header image, some text in the pages and such. Small changes, kind of like changing the shower curtain or the magnets on the fridge. I like change, but change happens whether you like it or not (ageing, for example), so my attitude is that you might as well embrace it. Work it, even. Because it’s usually better when you choose the change rather than the other way around, especially if you are resistant to change in general.
The most significant change to the website this week is behind the scenes: I’ve upgraded my hosting account to a dedicated IP and a suite of features — none of which is evident or remotely exciting to a reader, only to a website owner. However, as a reader you will notice the site loads much faster. This is the one change I’ve been wanting to make for a while, but the Bluehost rep told me they were introducing another package between the standard and pro accounts soon. In the end I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade directly to the Full Shebang as this site has over a dozen sub-domains, and this domain alone gets enough traffic to warrant more bandwidth. After a few days, I’ve seen for myself that search engines (particularly Google) take websites with dedicated IPs more seriously — crawlers and traffic have increased exponentially since I upgraded.
Meanwhile, David’s birthday is coming up at the end of this month and I’m still trying to figure out how to commemorate it, whether to fly again, in what type of aircraft, or if I’m going to do something completely different this year. I’ve got a few weeks to decide. Here are the photos from the previous seven years of birthday flights:
May 30, 2012 – flew in a Cessna 206 float plane with Cameron Air from Billy Bishop Airport (Toronto)
May 30, 2011 – flew with Tyler Bator from AVP (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Airport, Pennsylvania)
May 30, 2010 – flew over Mount Pocono Airport (where David got his pilot’s license) in a helicopter, which was also where I flew in a helicopter for the first time (Pennsylvania)
May 30, 2009 – flew with Alan Highhouse in a Piper Super Cub (Pennsylvania & New York)
May 30, 2008 – flew with Alan Highhouse in a Piper Super Cub (Pennsylvania & New York)
May 30, 2007 – took the controls of a Cessna Skyhawk for David’s 40th birthday (Brampton, Ontario)
May 30, 2006 – scattered David’s ashes from a Piper Cub stunt plane flown by the legendary “Flying Farmer”, Stanley Segalla over the Hudson River in upstate New York [RIP Stanley Segalla: March 5, 1914 - March 31, 2011]















