OMG! There’s An App For That!

Thursday afternoon I received an email from Shaw Cable Systems letting me know about their brand new ‘Shaw Go Gateway app’. This app allows me to view the TV program guide, start and stop recording and manage all TV shows right from an iPhone, iPad or Android Tablet no matter where I happen to be – in or out of our home. Seriously? Why would I ever want to do that? It sounded neat but kind of far out there. Surprisingly, just a few hours later, I actually used it. I’m hooked!

First, let me backup a bit to explain what the Shaw Gateway is. Essentially, it is one central HDPVR which acts as a file server for all the programs that you record. Each TV in the home has a ‘Portal’ that communicates with the Gateway and allows you to not only record programs directly but watch all programs recorded and stored on the main Gateway server. You can record up to 6 shows simultaneously while stopping a show in one room and picking up where you left off in another.

What I can do using the Shaw Go Gateway app on my iPhone

This new Shaw Go Gateway app takes managing TV recordings a whole lot further now with its ability to do remotely what you could only do before by sitting in front of your TV with a remote in hand.

I was showing this new app to a few friends while having lunch yesterday down in Victoria. With just a few clicks on my iPhone I set up our Gateway to record the TV show Blue Bloods playing at 7pm Friday night. Here’s a few screen shots:

The above image shows the main screen for the Shaw Go Gateway app. It’s displays the TV Program Guide and you can scroll through it by day, hour or channel the same as using your remote. In the example above I’ve highlighted Blue Bloods because I wanted to record it at 7pm Friday evening so all I did was click on it.

After clicking Blue Bloods a new Recording screen is displayed where I can elect to ‘Record Once’, ‘Record the Series’ or ‘See All Times’ this episode is playing. I clicked on ‘Record Once’ and the instruction was sent to my Shaw Gateway at home and the recording of Blue Bloods was set for 7pm – and, it worked.

Will I use this app a lot? Probably not but the way it works is pretty impressive and the technology is incredible. Part of the setup for this app was using my password to sign on to Shaw and then authorizing each of our portals and the Gateway. Beyond that, I haven’t checked into this to see how exactly the communication works.

Thanks for visiting!

Getting Down And Dirty & Steve Ballmer’s $2B Bid

A good portion of our time this week has been spent moving dirt. This included transporting, unloading and then spreading dirt. Actually, it was pretty good topsoil that Paulette wanted for her Rose Gardens and a few other areas in our yard. The first part of this job was a snap as all I had to do was hook-up our trailer and drive a few miles to the dirt yard. There, the operator loaded one big scoop of their very best topsoil into the trailer, I paid him $30, and I was headed back home.

One big scoop of #1 topsoil loaded into my trailer for $30

It had been a while since I had to load topsoil into a wheelbarrow so I’d forgotten how heavy dirt is. It took 8 wheelbarrow loads to move the topsoil from the trailer over to the rose garden. I was getting “dirt tired” by then but I still had one more load to get.

Dirt is heavy. Very heavy!

It was back to the dirt yard and after shoveling another 8 wheelbarrow loads of topsoil into my wheelbarrow and moving it to where it was needed that was enough for me.

The Rose Garden was chopped off by 40% – we’ll plant grass instead

Part of the reason for needing all this topsoil was because Paulette decided to reduce the size of her main Rose Garden by about 40% and replace it with grass. Less work for her and more grass to cut for me! In fairness, roses do take an awful lot of time, care and attention in comparison to just mowing the lawn. The work went pretty fast and I had all 16 wheelbarrow’s full of topsoil moved to their designated locations for filling and spreading. Next up – plant some grass seed!

Picking up this heavy sod was a real killer job – all done now though!

Little did I know that while I was playing in the dirt, Paulette was busy working very hard to keep me using our old wheelbarrow. For reasons known only to her, she decided to edge the sidewalk in our backyard as well as the driveway and even the roadway in our front yard. This amounted to about 10 more loads of extremely heavy sod that I had to first load into the wheelbarrow and then cart off to our big compost area. This was probably a harder job than just moving the topsoil.

If numerous media reports are true then Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO, has won the bidding war for the NBA’s LA Clippers. The bid – $2 billion!

Wowza! That’s a lot of dough for a hobby! The disgraced, racist owner of the Clipper’s, Donald Sterling, bought the NBA franchise in 1981 for just $12.5 million. His wife owns 50% of the team so they’ll get about $1 billion each.

Steve Ballmer won’t be the first former Microsoft exec to buy a professional sports franchise. That honor belongs to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen who owns both the Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks as well as the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers.

Part of the deal requires that Ballmer not move the Clippers from Los Angeles to his hometown of Seattle. Seattle is still bitter over losing their NBA Supersonics. But, as Ballmer said for $2 billion a large TV market is needed and that’s Los Angeles. It’s not like he’s going to lose any sleep about this expenditure as he’s reported to be worth around $20 billion. Besides, the second highest bid from a consortium of businessmen was a reported $1.6 billion so he can always sell it if he wants.

Thanks for visiting!

How To Use Chrome, Firefox & IE To Display Your Passwords

Passwords have been a constant source of frustration for computer users ever since the Netscape browser burst onto the Internet way back in the early 1990’s. Today we have passwords for everything – lots of them. Since it’s never a good idea to use the same password for critical sites we end up using all kinds of different ones that we tend to lose or forget. Did you know that Chrome, Firefox and IE browsers all have settings for managing and displaying your passwords? Well, they do!

This is Chrome’s prompt to save your password for the next time you visit site

Whatever browser you happen to use, we’ve all seen an image like the one above where Google Chrome is asking if you want your password saved for a site. If you say yes, then the next time you visit the site you will be logged in automatically. But, as you create more unique passwords even this doesn’t work all that well when  you want to access one of those sites using a smartphone or tablet. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “I have no idea what my password is for hotmail etc.”.

The good news is that buried deep inside the settings of each browser there is an easy way to display the password associated with all of the sites that you’ve told your browser to save. I’ll show how to display these passwords below beginning with the steps required for Google Chrome:

Google Chrome

1. Click on bars to display menu	2. Click on Show Advanced Settings

3. Click on Manage saved passwords

4. This screen shows the site, userid and encrypted password

5. Click on site to hi-lite then click on Show

6. Enter your Windows password or for Win 8 – your Microsoft Account password

If you follow these steps, key in your Windows password as shown above, then your passwords for each site will be visible. This is a good way to find passwords for sites that you may have forgotten and also to check to see if you are using duplicate passwords for any critical sites. For obvious reasons, the list of sites I’ve shown here has been severely redacted to sites I don’t really care about.

For the information on how to display your passwords using Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers, please refer to my sidebar gadget Rick’s Tips and Techniques. There you will find links for both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Last week, John (RV Life on Wheels) posted a great pic of his grandson Charlie crawling through a pipe. Charlie is exactly 1 month older than Mason. It’s been great watching Charlie as he first learned to roll over, crawl, stand up and now he’s starting to walk. Charlie has been a great benchmark for us on Mason’s progress and what we can expect. Sure enough, like Charlie, Mason seems to enjoy crawling through pipes. Carrie took him to the local drop-in play center last week and he had a ball.

Last night I sold the HDPVR 630 for the full asking price of $175. I was just beginning to wonder whether I may have been asking too much when I received 2 emails within 30 minutes.

The first guy wanted to horse around and see if I would throw in other satellite equipment and lower the price. The 2nd person offered full price with no argument at all. It turns out they are RV’ers who spend their winter down in Mesa, AZ. So, on to the next item for sale! This could be fun.

Thanks for visiting!

Idiot of the Day – Joe The Plumber

Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher

“As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights”  for guns. Those were the words used by former Republican candidate for Congress, Joe the Plumber, in an open letter he posted online directed to the families of victims in Friday's shooting rampage near the University of California, Santa Barbara.

In his letter, Joe the Plumber told Richard Martinez, whose son (Christopher) was among those killed that he needs “to back off” and that blaming guns “will be exploited by gun-grab extremists as are all tragedies involving gun violence and the mentally ill by the anti-Second Amendment Left.”

Joe the Plumber says his words may be “harsh”. Really? How about plain old stupid, ignorant and totally insensitive to parents and family members who have not even had a chance to lay their loved ones to rest after they were gunned down in another mindless, senseless mass-shooting. Now it seems that even offering sympathy and condolences to victim’s families is an infringement of Second Amendment rights.

Joe ‘The Plumber’ should be flushed down the toilet . He is the Idiot of the Day.

A Time To Remember And Give Thanks To Many

United States of America - Memorial Day 2014

A time to remember and give thanks to all who served

No words can adequately express the thanks due to all those who served and especially to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

Thanks to all American veteran’s past and present.

Checkout51 - A Grocery App That Pays You Cash

Over the past few months we’ve had a major re-shuffling of our supermarket chain stores in Canada. First, Sobeys Inc, headquartered in Nova Scotia, purchased 213 Canada Safeway stores for a cool $5.8-billion. For reasons that are not important to this story, Sobey’s sold 23 of those same Safeway stores. Vancouver billionaire Jim Pattison stepped in and bought 15 of them for his Overwaitea/SaveOn Foods chain. One of the store’s Pattison bought was our local Safeway.  Dang it anyway!

Now, instead of a local Safeway, we’ve added SaveOn Foods to the already existing  Thrifty’s (owned by Sobey’s), Costco, Canadian Superstore and Country Grocer. All of these stores have their own loyalty cards that provide shoppers with discounts and other incentives for shopping like gas rebates, air miles etc. The trouble is that we end up with a wallet full of plastic cards that are a complete pain but do save $$$. I went looking for a simpler, easier way to grocery shop while saving money.

Hey – look what I found - Checkout51

Enter a brand new to me application called Checkout51 which is a company that partners with brands to bring its members cash back offers. The cash for redeemed offers is paid to Checkout 51 by the brands. That money is then passed on to the members when they request a cash out payment. Checkout 51 makes its money from the brands by getting its members to try the products in the hopes that they becoming a regular customer. It’s free, very simple and it seems to work!

Once a week, Checkout51 publishes a list of their cash-back offers

The beauty and simplicity of Checkout51 is that you can use it no matter what store you may have bought your selected groceries at whether it be a Safeway, Wal-Mart or Costco or even online. It doesn’t even matter if you may have used a coupon for the purchase. Also, you don’t have to use a smartphone as this app can be run exclusively from your own PC. The best way to demonstrate how Checkout51 works is to show you how I used it on Saturday after shopping at Costco on Friday.

I saw a $0.50 offer for 1 litre of milk any brand – we still had a Costco receipt

After going to the Checkout51 site for the first time I registered for an account in the normal way by using my email address and a password. Immediately, I received a verification email and after clicking on that I signed into the main Checkout51 site to see what offers were currently available. I saw there was a .50 cent cash back for ‘1 litre of milk’ with any brand being eligible.  SCORE as Paulette always says as we still had our receipt from Friday’s shopping at Costco.

Checkout51 requires a photo/scan of your receipt showing the purchase date

Checkout51 requires that you submit a photo or scan of your store receipt that shows the date of purchase. It’s not necessary to mark the receipt in any way like I have in the image to the left. I just did that to show you as an example of what I was going to claim.

When I scanned the receipt and saved the picture, I then cropped it to remove anything that might identify me including my Costco Membership #, method of payment and any kind of reference number.  I ended up with a basic receipt showing some, but not all, of the items that were originally on the receipt.

Next, it was time to upload the receipt to Checkout51 and wait to see if it was approved and my account was credited with .50 cents.

The upload process includes a screen asking you to check claimed products

Uploading my Costco receipt was easy and once confirmed I was shown a new screen asking me to check off the times I had purchased that were eligible for cash back. I checked on milk and the onetime $2.00 offer for being a new member then clicked on submit to see what was next.

A new screen was displayed telling me that I had just claimed $2.50 and once approved it would be added to my Checkout51 account. The message said receipts were typically processed within 48 hours. Immediately, I got an email saying:

“Thanks for submitting your receipt to Checkout 51.
Your receipt (Receipt ID 4995083) is in our processing queue right now.”

Just 30 minutes later I received this email:

Yay is right!  It only took 30 minutes for Checkout51 to process and approve my Costco receipt even though I had cropped out a lot of information.

I’m rich – I have $2.50 of free money in my account

When my account reaches a minimum of $20 I can request a payout. All of the customer reviews I’ve read on this app have been good. It even works for purchases made at online stores like Amazon. It’s not like this is going to save us thousands of bucks as it’s sort of like the gas discounts we get at Safeway for buying groceries. We’re definitely going to give it a try and see how it goes as even $25 a month is better than zippety-doo-da!

It’s fun being retired and having the time to try out all these different things!

Thanks for visiting!

Mason’s New Car Seat & Wildflowers On Mt. Tzouhalem

We bought a spiffy new car seat for Mason yesterday.  Car seats have sure become a huge safety issue these days and they come loaded with safety features to make sure little ones are protected in case of an accident.  It’s a far cry from the days when toddlers used to sit on their Mom’s laps in the front passenger seat. That seemed o.k. at the time, I guess, but it’s pretty scary to think about now.  Mason’s new car seat is a Safety 1st convertible which means it can face rear or forward.

Mason’s new Safety 1st convertible car seat

All car seats sold, or used, in Canada must have the Canadian Standards Association seal of approval which guarantees the product has been tested and certified as meeting all current safety rules and regulations.

That’s a good thing but Mason’s car seat also has to have a very important 2nd CSA stamp before we can use it.  This process is even more rigorous and detailed than the Canadian federal government’s.

Our little man must get everything CSA approved – Carrie’s Safety Approval

The 2nd CSA is the Carrie Safety Approval and means that Mom has personally inspected the car seat, checked the installation, belts, harnesses and location just to make sure she is totally satisfied everything is safe and secure. Then, and only then, will our little man be approved to ride in his new car seat that is safely and securely, I believe, fastened and locked in the back seat of my truck!  We hope to pass inspection and get approved this weekend.

Rick’s Pics from our Wednesday Mt. Tzouhalem Hike

As part of my new and as often as possible “less wordy” blog format, here is a display of some of the photos I took on our Wednesday hike up Mt. Tzouhalem.  It was a perfect day and even though the wildflowers are beginning to fade a bit there were still many fields of flowers for us to enjoy.

How about these wild Sunflowers?  Probably our favorites.

Yesterday I wrote about evil hackers using Blackshades, a Remote Access Tool (RAT), to hack into computers, steal information and even take over your webcam to take pictures and videos. I mentioned that I often use a RAT named TeamViewer. Over the past few years I’ve used TeamViewer to remotely sign on to over a dozen RV bloggers computers to diagnose and fix computer problems that were too difficult to repair via back and forth emails. How is TeamVewer different from Blackshades?

I’ve used TeamViewer frequently to diagnose problems on remote computers

Although both TeamViewer and Blackshades both allow for remote control of pc’s there is a major difference. Unlike Blackshades, using TeamViewer there is no way possible for me to invisibly control your computer. For security reasons, the owner of the computer being accessed must initiate the process and then send me the new password generated for each session. Once the session is ended, the computer owner simply terminates the session and closes TeamViewer. End of access!!

Thanks for visiting!

Blackshades Lets Hackers Spy On You Via Your Webcam

It’s a pretty scary thought isn’t it?  But unfortunately that’s exactly what happened to Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf when a fellow college student used Blackshades malware to gain control of her laptop’s webcam and take nude photos of her. The hacker then compounded this gross invasion of privacy by demanding a ransom otherwise he would post the photo online. A very courageous Miss Wolf was not about to be blackmailed and instead reported the hacker to police and the FBI.

Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf demonstrated tremendous courage

As a result of Cassidy Wolf’s actions the scumbag suspect in her case, 20-year-old Jared James Abrahams, pleaded guilty last November and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Not only that, but the FBI and law enforcement officials in more than a dozen countries have made scores of arrests in cases involving Blackshades and for that I think we all owe Cassidy Wolf our thanks.  She was very courageous to have come forward knowing the publicity that would follow.

The simple to use $40 Blackshades control screen – total control of your PC

What is BlackShades?  It’s a malicious software program that allows hackers to take over a computer, steal personal information and even secretly turn on your webcam. Basically it’s a Remote Access Tool (RAT) used by IT professionals to fix problems when they can’t sit down in front of the computer itself. I’ve used some of these programs and, in fact, still use the Remote Access Tool TeamViewer to help fellow bloggers with computer problems but TeamViewer is completely safe to use..

Blackshades is allegedly owned by a 24-year-old Swedish citizen named Alex Yücel.  According to the FBI, Yücel and Michael Hogue​, a 23-year-old American co-developed Blackshades and were selling in online for only $40.  At that price, it’s no wonder so many creeps, perverts and criminal types bought it. Hogue was arrested in 2012 as part of the FBI’s investigation into Blackshades but not before they had raked in an estimated $350,000.

Malwarebytes is a great free tool to protect yourself from malicious malware

Right about now, I’m sure many of you may be wondering if this RAT is installed on your computer and, if so, how did it get there?  Let’s look at how it might get on your computer first. It’s the same old, same old – you probably unknowingly put it there yourself.  Here’s a few good security rules to abide by:

• Make sure you have updated antivirus software on your computer.
• Don’t open e-mail attachments in unsolicited e-mails, even if they come from people in your contact list, and never click on a URL contained in an e-mail, even if you think it looks safe. Instead, close out the e-mail and go to the organization’s website directly.
• Only download software—especially free software—from sites you know and trust (malware can also come in downloadable games, file-sharing programs, and customized toolbars).

Here’s a list of activities that could possibly indicate that your computer may be infected with Blackshades malware:

• Mouse cursor moves erratically with no input from user;
• Web camera light (if equipped) unexpectedly turns on when web camera is not in use;
• Monitor turns off while in use;
• Usernames and passwords for online accounts have been compromised;
• Unauthorized logins to bank accounts or unauthorized money transfers;
• Text-based chat window appears on your computer’s desktop unexpectedly;
• Computer files become encrypted and ransom demand is made to unlock files.

Blackshades malware affects Microsoft Windows-based operating systems. If you are concerned you may have a computer that is infected with this malware, search the computer’s hard drive for the following files that are known to be present on Blackshade-infected computers:

• dos_sock.bss
• nir_cmd.bss
• pws_cdk.bss
• pws_chro.bss
• pws_ff.bss
• pws_mail.bss
• pws_mess.bss

To perform the above check, click the Start menu and type each file name in the search field. In Windows 8.1 just go to the Start screen and start typing in the name of these files one by one.  If the search yields positive matches for one or more of these files, the computer may be infected with Blackshades.

My own computers came up blank for Blackshades.  I’d be shocked if anyone reading this were to find Blackshades on theirs either but if any of you do I’d sure like to hear about it.  My hunch is based on probabilities and my own experience with these widely publicized malware attacks. It’s still worth checking though as you don’t want to gamble based on my hunches.

Thanks for visiting.

6 10 14 Email Extravaganza.

Dear Classmates,

Special treat:

Bob Brown will demonstrate LibreOffice

 

LibreOffice is a powerful office suite; its clean interface and
powerful tools let you unleash your creativity and increase your productivity.
LibreOffice embeds several applications that make it the most powerful Free
& Open Source Office suite on the market: Writer, the
word processor, Calc, the spreadsheet
application, Impress, the presentation engine, Draw, our
drawing and flowcharting application, Base, our
database and database frontend, and Math for
editing mathematics.

=====================

 

Our
Windows 7 & 8.1 workshop will meet Tuesday June 10 at 7 pm.

You will be amazed at what your email program can do.

We will demonstrate Windows Live Mail,  your email program may be similar:

 

 HOW TO: 
 

1.
Automatically check for messages.

2.
Change the font and size used in reading messages.

3.
Change the font and size sending
messages.

4. Add
preset Signatures to your emails.

5.
Automatically Spell Checking your emails.

6. Click on
Read Receipt and get an email when the person you sent an email opens it.

7. Insert a
photo into your email.

8. Add
Contacts and put them in alphabetical order.

9. Put
several email addresses in a folder so you may click on the folder and your
whole group will receive an email.

10.
Save your email addresses to a CD or Thumb Drive.

11.
Copy a photo from an email or web site

12. Use
the Snipping Tool to send an email by Gene Wheeler

13. Resize
a photo.

14. How
to setup the Calendar.

15. Review
of the latest changes to Windows 8.1  

Kindest regards,

      

Joe Isaac                            

================================================================ 

 

WINDOWS LIVE MAIL

 ==========================================

 

WINDOWS LIVE MAIL CALENDAR

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

 

Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for Skype.

Google
paid $1.5 billion for YouTube.

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

 

Q:
My Desktop Icons have disappeared.

A:
RIGHT click the Desktop, click on View, click on Show desktop icons.

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

 What's different between Outlook.com and Outlook?

Outlook.com is free web-based personal email service that helps you
share, organize, and stay up to date like never before.

You
can sign in to your Outlook.com email from your browser.

Microsoft Outlook desktop app is part of the Office suite.
It's the world’s most popular app for reading email, managing a calendar, and
connecting to people. It works with both your personal email and your work
email.

=====================

 

Windows Live Mail is a free email app that helps you manage
multiple email addresses, calendar info, and contacts.

 

How to configure Windows Live Mail:

http://www.yoingco.com/windows_live_mail_settings_windows_7.htm
 

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

 

Q.
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 

Guess
what!!  The last time I checked my computer—several days ago, “SkyDrive”
still showed up in File Explorer.  When I checked it this morning, I found
that “OneDrive” appears there now.  Also, Joe, the power options and
search icons now appear on my Start screen/tiles.  So doesn’t that mean
that the 8.1 update HAS installed on my computer? 

 

A.
Yes, but to double check, go to Control Panel, Windows update and check for
updates. The Windows 8.1 update was over 800 MB by itself.

 

Thank
you for last night’s presentations.  I always learn something, but last
night I learned a lot.  Thanks
for the comment, it makes my day. I really try hard.

 

Response;  

Once
again, you have saved me!!  As you suggested, I went to Control Panel,
Windows Update, and checked for updates.  It said that my system was set
up to install updates automatically and that I had four optional updates
available to download and install, one of which was the
8.1 update.  I installed all four.  Now I have only one
optional update listed as available—Silverlight, which I do not plan to
install. 

Thanks!!

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

 

Take a screenshot of the entire screen in Windows 8.1

Press
Windows Key + Print Screen

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

 

========================================

========================================

========================================

How To Follow My Blog & Mason Sees His First Horse

Since I switched to my new blog format a few days ago I’ve had several requests asking me “how do I find, follow or access your new blog”?  The answer is pretty much the same as how you accessed my old blog.  By that I mean if you have a ‘Blogs I Follow’ gadget on your sidebar and it still shows Rick & Paulette’s RV Travels then you’ll want to delete that entry and add a new one for Rick’s Bits ‘n Bytes, Pics and News. The instructions for this are below under Point #1.

If you don’t have a “Blogs I Follow’ Gadget on your sidebar then you can choose to follow my blog using the Reader List on your Blogger Dashboard.  The instructions on how to do this are below under Point #2.  Using either method will result in any blog I publish showing up either on your sidebar or on your Blogger Dashboard.

1.  Add Rick’s Bits & Bytes, Pics and News to Blogs I Follow Sidebar Gadget 

If you have the Blogs I Follow gadget on your sidebar then you can add my new blog by going to Settings > Layout to display the image below:

Image 1.

Look for the gadget Blogs I Follow and click ‘Edit’ as shown in image 1 above.

Image 2.

Scroll down and click on Add to List as shown in image 2 above.

Image 3.

1. In the Add by URL box enter:  http://bitsnbytespicsnews.blogspot.ca/
2. Click on Add
3. Click on Save

My new blog will be added to your sidebar and will show whenever I publish a new post.  You may want to consider removing my old blog Rick & Paulette’s RV Travels as well as I won’t be adding any new posts to it.

2.  Add Rick’s Bits & Bytes, Pics and News to the Dashboard’s Google Reader

1. Open your Blogger Dashboard and look for the ‘Add’ tab below the Reading list
2. Click on ‘Add’ to bring up the following pop-up window:

1. In the Add from URL box enter:  http://bitsnbytespicsnews.blogspot.ca/
2. Click on Follow

All new posts of my blog will now show up on your Dashboard Reading list.

Mason sees a real, live horse up-close for the first time

The Victoria Day long weekend in Canada always features lots of local events like fairs, parades and fireworks.  In Victoria, Carrie took Mason to his very first Country Fair and judging by the photos she sent me our little man had a great time.  Mason even got to meet his very first horse.  To top that off, his Mom won him a stuffed blue bear at one of those usually rip-off carnival tents.  Carrie had to throw 3 dull darts and pop 3 balloons to win the bear.  She took dead aim and did it.

Our little man’s dart-throwing Mom won Mason his own little blue horse

Carrie was undoubtedly excited to win a little stuffed blue horse for Mason and as soon as she got home she posted this message on Facebook:

Just back from Luxton Fair, mason saw his first horse and mommy won him a stuffed horse.. It was high pressure, could I possibly hit 3 balloons with a dull dart?? I had to contemplate this but then I remembered well if I can throw a block of cheese across the living room and hit my ex-boyfriend square in the eye.. Then yah I got this!! Pop, pop, pop!!! Ohhhh yah!!

That’s my girl!  Way to go Carrie!

Carrie told us that Mason loved the fair and was completely mesmerized by all the colors, music, people, rides and especially his visit with the horse.  It won’t be long I’ll bet before he’s wanting to go on some of those rides himself.  The Bumblebee ride he’s watching in two of the above pics looks safe enough even for his Grandpa to go on with him!

A day at the fair can sure make a little guy tired – time for a nap!

I’m planning on taking a forced day off from blogging tomorrow so as not to get caught up in my old daily blogging cycle.  I’m finding it’s a very hard habit to break after 5 years.

Thanks for visiting!