As most of you know, we're mid-way through a total exterior renovation to the building that houses the Queen Street Commons. The building has been neglected over the years (mostly by its previous owners) and we knew it was time to give it a total facelift.

Part of this facelift included a lot of things that were energy conscious:

• We've spray foamed the entire old part of the building. Previously there was no insulation at all
• We've HomeWrapped/Tyveked the outside walls. Keeping air & water from coming and going from the outside
• We'll be installing 29 brand-new energy efficient wooden windows.
• We're heavily insulating our attic
• Installing new doors
• and a whole lot of little picky things

At the outset of this project we decided we'd like to use the Federal Governments Energy Retrofit Grant Program. You know... to help us make these costly improvements to our old energy consuming building.

The results are in. Once we make all of these changes to our building, totalling tens of thousands of dollars, we will receive a whopping $1,500 - $1,600 in assistance. Sure, it's a help but to get that assistance we had to complete an energy audit that cost us $2,400 + GST. So we're down a thousand bucks... Thanks a lot Canada.

As seen on a video from CNN.com about Air Canada Jazz taking life-vests off of their planes to save fuel.

Air Canada Jazz also flies to Charluttetown, Mincton, Fredructon, and Muntreal.

My apologies for the month's hiatus. You really should be used to it by now. I've been renovating buildings, at weddings in Ontario, and have just returned from an awesome week hiking in the Colorado mountains. Here's a quick taste of the mountains.

I've always wanted to be notified on my cell phone of potentially awesome weather here at home. Surprisingly I'm not always able to be at my computer refreshing the warnings page of Environment Canada. Enter weatherwatchers.ca. They allow you to sign up, identify the warning area you live in, and enter in an email to receive the alerts.

I did all of this a few months ago and forgot all about it. Last night my phone chirped and I had a text message stating that there was a severe thunderstorm watch for the Charlottetown area. A few hours later another message telling me the watch had ended. Fantastic. It's exactly what I wanted.

The site is a little rough around the edges but the service is highly recommended.

We've launched an upgraded Canadian rockers Sloan's website today. A new fancy design and completely rebuilt from the ground up using our various open source packages. I think it turned out well.

Non-Fiction: "Snow in the Kingdom: My Storm Years on Everest" by Ed Webster. Multiple tales of Ed Webster's journeys to the peaks of the Himalayas. Great writing and beautiful book. Full colour photos abound.

Non-Fiction: "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder" by Richard Louv. A research-based warning shot across the bow of today's predominant child rearing trends.

Fiction: "Trinity" by Leon Uris. I'm a sucker for Uris' books. I found this one at a used bookstore for 50 cents. I couldn't resist. From the book's Amazon page:

It is the electrifying story of an idealistic young Catholic rebel and the valiant and beautiful Protestant girl who defied her heritage to join his cause. It is a tale of love and danger, of triumph at an unthinkable cost -- a magnificent portrait of a people divided by class, faith, and prejudice -- an unforgettable saga of the fires that devastated a majestic land . . . and the unquenchable flames that burn in the human heart."