Saturday 6 December 2014

Happy Hometown Christmas week!

4 Dec 2014 Magrath AB: Many thanks to all who made our 10th annual Hometown Christmas so fun again this year. I will attempt a list of some of the helpers .. and forgive me in advance if I missed you or yours:

  • The Magrath Chamber of Commerce
    • Duane Thomson, President (Keyline Publishing) organized and responsible for posters and printing
    • Arlen Bennett, Vice-President (Magrath Pharmacy) for helping organize, permitting his staff time off to organize, and keeping his store open late for the event
    • Roger Davies, Secretary (ssdirect.com) for maintaining the website, booking tables and overseeing set up and take down of same.
    • Jay Mackenzie, Past-President (Roosters) for the Gingerbread Contest fundraiser and keeping Roosters open extra late that night, and his staff
    • Ross/Julia Moore, Treasurer (Canadian Security Systems) for keeping track of all our monies
    • Chamber members who help support this event
    • Shannon Sabey, Tannis Beazer and helpers promoting the upcoming Gala Event 
    • Our main street merchants who hosted tables: ATB, Keyline, Coop, Magrath Dental, 1st Choice and SASH and all the main street businesses and organizations who stayed open late for this event - and thanks for all the treats!
    • All our table vendors who helped fill all the venues 
  • The Town of Magrath
    • Council, Admin and Staff - for preparing the giant kiddie treat bags and getting Santa and the Mayor there .. 
    • Mayor Barnett for attending and leading us through the Tree Lighting ceremonies - keep hold of that big red button ..
    • Santa (you've lost weight) for spending all night meeting and greeting our kidlings
    • Fire Dept staff for the bonfire and hot chocolate
    • Wayne Quinton for getting us access to the ice arena tables  
    • Town Crew for putting up the lights and blocking off the roads for us that night
  • Magrathites
    • Sam Yamamoto and the Magrath Band for performing and leading Mayor Barnett and Santa into the tree lighting ceremonies.
    • The Magrath Library, Museum, Seniors, SASH, Susan's Place and Winks all stayed open late or had their own special events running this night as well
    • Westwind News for covering our event in their 4 Dec issue.
    • Kudos to all the gingerbread makers who made entries into Roosters contest for judging and auction -with proceeds raised going toward Pals of the Pool. I understand in commercial division the 1st Place went to Leisel Quinton and 2nd Place awarded to Magrath Pharmacy .. but how do you judge all those beautiful entries?
    • Everyone who braved the cold and made the event fun and exciting!
  • Any else I missed

Wallpaper 101

Recently asked to review how to customize some Windows 8 laptops with pretty and cool background pictures also known as 'wallpaper' as part of some home school training. We found two methods, each with their own advantages.

Method 1: Right+click > Set as Wallpaper. Pretty much any image you can view on the internet or from your own photo collection can be set to be your personal wallpaper. Image search on Google or try a webpage like interfacelift.com to find and view an image you like. Then you can Right+click > Save Image to get it somewhere onto your computer, for example saved into your Pictures folder. Final step is to find and open the picture, where you can Right+click > Set as Desktop Background!
this was a favorite choice Dec 2014
For extra credit .. you can create a small library of favorite pictures, say of cats with horses or horses with cats and make a wallpaper slide show from those favorites .. Right+click on empty part of desktop and select Personalize > Desktop Background to get a screen like this:
use screen like this to select images for a wallpaper slide show ..
Check the images you like and then click the Save changes  button and .. Voila! The main advantage here is complete control over what and when.

Method 2: Use a customized Windows Theme .. click windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wallpaper or you can .. Right+click on empty part of desktop and select Personalize > Get More Themes Online. If you like one of the prepared themes, click the Download button, once downloaded click on the .themepack file to install and use it .. Easy Peasy, The advantage here is that all the think work is done for you, with the only disadvantage in not being able to pick and choose what pictures you want to use or see ..

rogerdavies.net