Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Askipedia And Other Stories

Years ago I started a company with my friend Chris called Askipedia. We had a website that makes money still and we had some fun with it. Then we decided to get serious and start an SMS service which didn't take off quite as well as we had hoped. After running out of money we put it on the back burner. The original website kept on trucking but we weren't really maintaining it. Now we're rekindling the old flame.

Kate has been more than fantastic getting some of the business aspects together that I sorely lack the ability to do, maybe the desire but it amounts to the same thing. Her initiative has made me excited about getting the site moving in a forward direction again.

The site will stay basically the same but we're going to be pushing for people to sign up to be question answers, we still have plenty of people asking. We'll be starting with a contest, details to follow, and we'll be adding a couple items to the web page. Hopefully we'll get the ball rolling and the questions being asked and answered at a regular pace without too much work from us. Then we can invest our time to other improvements to the site.

Askipedia is another topic I will be adding to this blog so check back for more crap about the company and what we're doing with the web site.

Some other notable pieces of information.

I had my third test in french last night, I think I got perfect or close to perfect in some sections and close to zero in other sections. Hopefully it will average out high. I bombed one of the oral sections but I think I actually got perfect on the other oral section. I think it's a good sign that I can at least some of the time listen to people speak in French and understand what's going on. If you ever need someone to translate directions for you, I'm your man.

I have a new workout at the gym but have been quite busy so I've not been going as often as I should. We were in Mississauga/Hamilton this past weekend for a wedding and with renting Halloween costumes for it and then being in a new place that needs work the Gym has been low on the priority list but I am still going. I have noticed a different although I'm not paying too much attention to that, I'm in it for the looks and the strength to beat people up, not the health.

We had Thanksmas this past weekend. We were there for the wedding so it was a good time. Uncle Morris and Aunt Irene were in town for the wedding so they stuck around for it all. It's always good to see them. Hopefully we'll be able to make a trip out west again soon and head down to California to see them. One trip at a time though, it's Texas for us next month.

Doran would not do well in my current apartment. He's got this sick sound system that will pretty much destroy everything you love if you turn it past 16 and he likes to play it on 18. He gets the odd complaint, although they are consistently coming in. I have a standard tv with no extra sound stuff, just the plain old tv speakers. Two days ago Ludo and I are playing Gears of War at a loud volume but we could talk to each other without raising out voices. It was also 6 in the evening. We're playing and I can hear this constant pounding, the guy above us is always making noise so I ignore it as long as I can. Finally I'm sick of it so I pause the game, the pounding stops. This guy is pounding fro us to turn the game down? It's 6pm, it's not really that loud and he's the noisiest person I've ever lived under. I can tell we're not going to get along. He even looks like a doofus. The guy below us seems fine though. He told us that we didn't actually have a parking spot like the landlord said. Turns out he tells everyone in the building there are three spots, one for each apartment, when in fact there are only 2. There are a lot of jerks in the world and it seems like I am their fluorescent light.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear about the neighbour-jerks. Boo them! Oh and when you're in the hood, drop us a line! We'd love to see you guys - Just FYI :)

DeClara said...

For sure, last weekend we had a strict timeline, arrive Saturday morning 1am. Wedding 12:30 pm till whenever. Sunday Thanksgiving\Christmas from wake till 4 then 7 hours drive back to Montreal. Once Kate gets though her probation at work we'll be able to take an extra day for our weekend jaunts to Toronto and have more time. Unfortunately the company is not paying for me to come back for the Christmas party though so I don't know when we'll be back. Soon hopefully though.