whats new

Welcome to www.PottsFamily.ca ! This is the online home of the Potts family of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Welcome to www.pottsfamily.ca Edition 3.0

We’re now hosting the site LIVE from the living room. If you can read this then apparently it’s still up and running. A bunch of things lead to the site being self-hosted.

Firstly, the site has thoroughly outgrown the 600MB size limit imposed by my web host. I could get more space, but it would cost more $$$ and we’d only outgrow it again eventually. I could host the images elsewhere, but it gets hard to keep track. Facebook galleries worked for a while, but their external links seem to have a best-before date or a traffic cap or something. With our own server we will have plenty of space for image galleries!

Secondly, we finally gave up on Rogers High-Speed internet. After 12 years on a cable modem, the benefits just disappeared. Over the past few years Rogers has been steadily cutting corners on their service and their recent decision to start charging hefty fines to those who exceed their arbitrary traffic limits. A friend recommended TekSavvy.com; they are a Bell subcontractor that offers 3x the bandwidth that Rogers provides at a lower cost. And if ever I do exceed the teksavvy cap, the cost per GB is 10% of the upcharge that Rogers hits you with.

G3 Server

So then I was surfing a surplus electrics store on my lunch break and found a PowerMac G3 desktop computer on the rack. It was one of the blue and white models, with PCI video and a SCSI internal hard disk. It booted OK on the test bench at the store, and went home with me for a mere $35. Once I got it home I added some upgrades from the spare parts closet and loaded some stuff on it.

I then made a $4/month upgrade to my TekSavvy account to allow me to host a server; that part was easy. But then I also had to migrate the mail server, which is a bit more complicated.

But as I said before, if you're reading this then I guess it works.

What else is new? Glad you asked.
- Colleen got hired by the TTC; she's now driving a city bus based out of Wilson station.
- Frances is now in grade nine at Delphi Academy in Scarborough.
- Our 1985 Cabriolet was relinquished to the province's "Retire your Ride" program. We got $300 for it.
- It was replaced with a 1990 Golf 4-door Automatic which is much more reliable and a great deal more civilized.

Some of the summer highlights from 2009 include a trip to North Carolina for the High Country Bus Festival, a fun time for 40 buses at Buses Of The Corn, and a great labour day weekend at the Shelter Valley Folk Festival.

OK, it's been a long time since my last update here. Things have been busy, and my attention has been elsewhere. I have been putting stuff online, it's just been happening at Facebook, instead of here. Facebook has free image hosting, and this site is getting pretty full.

In July we got to Bellhaven in Bobcaygeon, the KW Bug Out, and August brings us to BOTC, Haliburton Scout Reserve, and Warsaw.

At Warsaw Caves we take home the door prize for the Best "The Cars Movie" decorated vehicle. The event was fun, but the weather was awful. But that doesn't really affect the caving much.

In September we attend BusQuinox, and Ernest Green sends me to Abbottsford BC for a printer installation. The install is complicated by shipping damage and missing supplies. I catch dinner with the local Vanagon community at a White Rock Restaurant and catch up with family friends at brew pub in Mission, BC; it's a very good trip.

In December I install another new large format printer in Vancouver; another excellent west coast adventure.

Later in December Colleen starts a contract position as a program coordinator with the Canadian Mental Health Association. Since she won't be driving the school bus any more, we buy a 1985 VW Cabriolet for use as a commuter. It turns out to need a lot of work, and isn't plated and insured until June.

In March I go back to Vancouver. I managed to snag a mini cooper as a rental car for an unscheduled service call in Abbottsford, in time to catch dinner with Nathan Poole from the vanagon mailing list. Back to Vancouver for an emergency, determine the problem (but don't have the part to fix it) and just barely make it to the airport in time to catch my flight. Then Westjet diverts me to Montreal as a snowstorm closes the Toronto airport. The snowstorm then closes Montreal as well. What a week *that* turned out to be.

As the weather improves in Ontario, I decide to plate and insure the Magna V30. Insurance costs three times what I paid in 2001. The bike is a lot of fun.

In early May I am "downsized" from Ernest Green & Son. I dust off my resume and make some calls. Some promising leads pop up, but don't pan out. It's a somewhat leisurely summer.

Greg attends the KW bugfest and blows up the engine on the westfakia on the way home. The engine is replaced, and after a 2 week run-in it seems ok.

The last weekend in July the replacement bus engine seizes up in Niagara Falls on the way to a campout in North Carolina. We get towed off the highway, and the engine gets swapped out again.

The CNE was awesome... I visited the Canadian Armed Forces Pavilion and considered a different career entirely.

In late August I start working for Renovated Solutions, doing all manner of renovations work. Decks, fences, drywall, doors and windows, ceramic tile, basic plumbing & electrical, roofing, stucco.... You name it, we do it. You want a house built from the ground up? We can do that too.

The Peterborough Bus Volks festival was a BLAST. The combination of campout, pub crawl and music festival is simply unbeatable.

BusQuinox happens at Valens again. The park warns us 4 times about the noise; we have a good time anyway.

The index on the left leads to pages devoted to the Potts people and events, and will be developed as the Potts' info-centre for event planning, news and links to info on the things that matter to us. On the basebar below are icons which load pages dedicated to the Potts' many hobbies, including ATV's, Boats, Motorcyles, etc...

Feedback, suggestions and complaints gladly accepted here , please let me know what I can do to make the site more useful for you.