History Lesson & a Casino

Well today was an interesting day. I got a history lesson AND I wrote a new page for our website. One doesn't have anything to do with the other though.

First off - my history lesson. I went to the new Canadian War Museum with my husband, my father and our guest from England. All I can say is - WOW! I know that is not the most intelligent way to explain a museum that has so many emotional exhibits and content within it but I was amazed. It was an informative tour to say the least. I have taken so much away from our 3-hour tour and I just hope that I remember most of what I read. I would highly recommend a visit to the Museum when you get the chance.

On to our newest page/article for our website - I created page # 63 tonight. It is on the Casino du Lac Leamy. It offers quite a bit of information about the Lac Leamy complex.

Hope these creative juices keep on flowin'.

Cheers to anyone who is reading my blog (is there anyone out there)?!

Ottawa Public Schools - CLOSED

This has nothing at all to do with our Ottawa website but in order to provide up to date information for our blog readers we felt that it was necessary to mention about the closure of the public schools that is going to take place on Wednesday, May 25.

We don't have children (well, not the 2-legged kind) so this doesn't affect us but I am sure it will affect a lot of people in Ottawa.

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board - Strike.

At least it is supposed to be a nice, sunny day so you can send the kids out in the yard or to the park to play!

Westin Hotel Ottawa is Page # 62

I have just created our 62nd page for our website. I can't believe that I have created 2 pages in 3 days - that is the best I have done in a long time. Maybe I am back on track. Yipppeee!

So, our most recent page is on one of the best hotels in Ottawa, the Westin Hotel, which is located in downtown Ottawa. It is in the perfect location to all of the attractions.

Not only did I create page #62, I also figured out how to create a list within a list with HTML. If you check out our Site Map page you will see that I needed to create another list within our Accommodations section! I was very impressed with myself. For all of you expert HTMLers...don't laugh! It was new to me and much easier than I thought!

Have a great Monday and I am sure I will post again soon!

One of these things is not like the other...

I am sitting here at "stupid o'clock" (as my husband likes to call the early morning) on a Sunday with a cup of tea sitting beside me, staring at my Ottawa website and also staring at this blog and my mind is blank! I don't have any creative juices flowing at this time of the morning. So, instead of adding new information to the blog and/or the Ottawa website, I will ask you (my loyal readers - are there any?) for your suggestions.

I was pondering the whole idea of having this blog that mixes information on Ottawa and information on my Site Build It (SBI) journey and I realized that the two probably don't mix very well. What I mean is if someone finds our blog while they are looking for information on Ottawa then they probably don't care about how I am building the website, any problems that I am having, Google issues etc. And vice versa - people who are interested in my website building process probably don't really care about what is happening in Ottawa (although some might).

So, my question is "what do I do"? Apart from creating a second blog - I would prefer not to do that because I have enough distractions as it is so I don't need another blog to think about. What if I split the blog entries in two sections? Maybe with headers like these:
"Ottawa Information" section and "Site Build It" section
or
"What's New in Ottawa" section and "How's the website coming along" section
or
"Hey there Ottawa" section and "Hey there fellow webmasters" section

Yeah - those aren't too creative, are they? Seriously, I told you I didn't have any creative juices flowing at this time of the morning. If any of you have a suggestion on how I should split my blog entries, I would greatly appreciate it.

Hope you all have a nice Sunday. I hope it isn't grey & dreary as it is here in Ottawa.

Cheers!

Page # 61 - Complete!

Okay, so it has been 10 days since I created page #60 on our Ottawa website so I felt that it was time to create another one. I should be pumping them out much quicker than this because there is so much to see and do in Ottawa but I just keep making excuses. Everything & anything has been coming in the way of creating more content for our website.

Anyway, the newest page is all about a really cool 1860s historical village called Upper Canada Village. For those of you who live here you probably went there when you were younger. I remember going on a few school trips and thought it was neat but then I returned as an adult and seriously thought "WOW, this is very cool"! I will even be going again in a couple of weeks because we have a visitor coming from England.

Besides the new page that I just built I have also been playing around with the location of the Google ads on some of our pages. Unfortunately, as soon as I moved them the ads changed and were completely irrelevant. They seem to have fixed themselves for the most part. Thank God! I had a mild panic attack when I saw that my playing around had messed them up so bad.

Well, I hope everyone in Ottawa has a great long weekend. And for those of you in Affiliate Marketing land, have a great weekend! Hope your sites are doing well!

Happy 20th Anniversary!

No, it is not my anniversary. I haven't been married that long (yet)! I am wishing a Happy 20th Anniversary to one of our favourite Ottawa Restaurants, Chahaya Malaysia.

We just went there (again) this past weekend and they told us that they were having a raffle because it was their 20th anniversary in September. The prize is a dinner for four and they will be choosing a new winner every month. If you haven't had a meal there then you don't realize what an excellent prize this is!

Chahaya Malaysia has Malaysian, Indonesian and Vegetarian food. The food is absolutely amazing and the selection is huge. Being a vegetarian I find it one of the best menus in the city. The service is also wonderful. The owners come out and serve and talk with the customers when they aren't too busy. It is like going to dinner at a friend's house.

My suggestion (even for you non-believers of tofu) is V12 - it is a Vegetarian Malaysian noodle dish with lots of tofu and vegetables. For those that want meat, there are plenty of dishes with beef or chicken or lamb.

Can you believe that after our meal we even ordered a couple of dishes for take out so we could have it for dinner throughout the week?

Once again, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY CHAHAYA MALAYSIA! We'll be back soon (even if we don't win a dinner for four).

Bright Colours on a Rainy Day (Part 2)

Ottawa Tulip Festival 2005_Picture # 2

As promised, here is another picture that we took today at the Ottawa Tulip Festival. There were all different coloured tulips. There were red, purple, pink, yellow, white, orange and multi-coloured. I can't decide which ones were my favourites but the purple ones were just about to open and I imagine that those will be absolutely gorgeous by next weekend (which is when I hope to go back again & I hope that the sun is shining).

Enjoy the rainy day photos!

Bright Colours on a Rainy Day

Ottawa Tulip Festival 2005

My husband and I made it to the Ottawa Tulip Festival today. At first we were a little bummed because it was a pretty rainy day but that made for less crowds and some very interesting photos like the rainy tulips above. We checked out the tulips, watched a great band play outside under a tent, saw the Tulip Cafe and of course, we found time to have a beavertail at a Beavertail stand! The rain sure didn't dampen our spirits and we had a fun time taking photos on our semi-new digital camera.

I also tried something else new today - I posted a photo to my blog for the first time. It wasn't too difficult but I had to download a program called "Hello" so I could post images on Blogger. It seemed to work out okay but I don't know how to post more than one. I would love to share some more photos but I think they will have to be in separate blogs (sorry)!

For those of you who live in Ottawa, I sure hope you can make it down to the Tulip Festival. David Wilcox is going to be playing tonight. It should be a fun show!

Amazing Race Couple - Wedding in Ottawa

If any of you watched the most recent Amazing Race 7 series then you will know who Lynn & Alex are. They were the gay couple from California. You know, the ones that couldn't stand Rob & Amber.

Well, one of the local Ottawa Radio Stations, HOT 89.9, has invited Lynn & Alex to come to Ottawa, where it is legal for gay couples to get married. They are even going to cover all the costs of the wedding. The wedding is going to take place on June 1 with the couple expecting to arrive around May 29th.

Rumour has it (not that I am a big fan of rumours but it does sound believable) that Entertainment Tonight will even be here in Ottawa for the event. It is going to be interesting to see who else makes it to Ottawa.

I may be a bit biased but I think Ottawa is a great city to get married in. We got married in Ottawa in 2003 and we even have a section on our website (not this blog, our other website) about Ottawa Weddings. So, if anyone else wants to get married in Ottawa, take a peek at our wedding page!

So, Congratulations to Lynn & Alex on their upcoming wedding!

The Rolling Stones in Ottawa

It has been confirmed that the Rolling Stones will be coming to Ottawa. The whole city has been talking about this rumour for the past week but it is true. They ARE coming! Read more about it on our Ottawa Concerts page!

Not only am I excited about this fantastic concert, I am also happy to say that our concert page is now page #60 for our Ottawa Information Guide website!

Shall I celebrate tonight? I think so!

Cheers!