It’s almost the weekend and I still haven’t caugth up from virtually no internet time last week. I have a couple posts in mind but I won’t be getting to them until next week. As a side note, if I read your blog and you are at blogger, I can’t leave you a comment. I think google gobbled up my password. I’m not going to try to get a new blogger id until next week.

I’ve heard it said that the secret to success is figuring out what you love to do and then find a way to make money doing it.

Of course, when you think about it, that makes alot of sense. If you are doing something that you love to do, then alot of the things that are common goals of working become secondary. A perfect example of that is making money. Alot of people work to make money so they can do things they like to do. If you are already doing something you like to do, you will probably spend less money pursuing other things that you would like to do. IOW, you will probably have less expensive tastes.

Without thinking it through in advance, I fell into something I love to do. I discovered in college, that not only was I good at my chosen profession, but that I also liked it. What I learned from teaching in college was that my students’ ability at computer programming was largely dependent on whether or not they liked it. I don’t believe that all professions will distinguish between those who do like it and those who don’t to the degree that programming does.

This time of year many homeschoolers are ‘off’ of school as they somewhat follow the societal school calendar. One of the beauties of unschooling is that there is no ‘off’ time and no ‘on’ time. The closest thing we have to that is learning for the fun of it. There is learning which we do which falls into the category of life skills. I learn things for work. We learn things to improve our life, our home, etc. But sometimes we explore in an area where there is no direct association with life skills. To me, that is our ‘off’ time.

If you’ve been following along in this and Andrea’s blog, you’ll know I’ve been working pretty flat out on getting our old house ready to go on the market. Usually when I get to the computer at night I’m tired enough that I don’t feel like writing. In the same vein, I’m having a bit of trouble transitioning from one thought to another.

The closing thought I’ve had for this post over the last few days has been that I hope that all 4 of the kids (Addison, Sarah, Meaghan & Emma) learn the principle I opened the post with in the course of their homeschooling ‘education’. Unschooling caters particularly well to that because they will have far more opportunities to discover what it is they love to do. Hopefully, we will provide them with avenues to discover how to make money doing it.

I wanted to write a bit more about Canadian Idol. Since I last wrote about it I decided I would write about each of the competitors I mentioned in the previous post on CI.

Jaydee reminds me of Kalan Porter. In the previous post, Chris left a comment about a post of his where he talked about Kalan. Kalan held a record when he was competing in that he was the only CI competitor to have never been in the bottom X (2,3,4, etc.). I heard/read somewhere (at the time) that throughout the top 10 he had received the most votes in every episode. But, I’m not sure of that. And, from what I could tell, it seemed as though the only competitor who didn’t know that Kalan was going to win was Kalan.

I don’t think at this point that Jaydee has it in the bag already. He may not win, but I’ll be surprised if he does not end up in the top 2. Listen to this. Can you say Elvis? That was 2 weeks ago. It would be an understatement to say that this week he sang a song that most of the guys he’s competing with would find challenging. He sang it like he was the person who wrote it and that he was having fun.

Oddly enough, the way that Jaydee mostly reminds me of Kalan is that he doesn’t seem to have a sense of how he measures up with the other competitors. Earlier idol shows have affected the industry. Of all the competitors, the one who I think least needs to win CI is Jaydee. I’m sure there will be a line up of record deal offers. If you are in the US, you probably won’t have to wait that long before you see a CD with his picture on it.

Don’t be misled by the title. Except Emma, everyone included this in their guess. And, I love the colour of JD tractors. When we had been talking about painting the tractor, I’d asked Meaghan how she thought it would look with a yellow mower and rims and the tractor green. I was also fairly sure that the brand of paint I was buying does have JD green.

Obviously, I’m not the only one who likes that colour as JD has kept the same colours for as long as I can remember. But, the same applies to Ford blue and International red.

Because I was getting a mixed response from the family over the ‘paint it like a big tractor’, I decided to pick up a white and keep it the colour it is. When I got to the store on Saturday I discovered that they had both a flat and gloss white. While I was trying to decide which to go with another colour caught my eye, and then another. You know how it goes. What I settled on was *drum roll please*

International Red

Due to suggestions on Andrea’s blog, I may add some detailing later

I decided to check Andrea’s blog while I stopped for lunch, Andrea’s posted about my recent toy project. Here’s a pic:

I bought the paint. I’m looking for guesses as to the colour. The hint I’ll give is that it will look like it’s aspiring to be bigger

Earlier today I was planning on writing a post Andrea keeps reminding me of. However, Addison and Kaytlyn visited up unexpectedly this evening. Addison’s a married man. I’m not so much surprised as caught off guard. So, I’m a bit speechless atm. That’ll be all for the night.

As I’m writing this, I’m listening to Theresa Sokyrka (official site). I have Billy Klippert’s CD in the player in the car. And, this year, I received a Kalan Porter (official site) CD as a gift.

I realized in the last couple weeks that it’s been 3 years since I’ve tuned into Canadian Idol. And I haven’t watched American Idol since the first CI. One of the things I realized in watching the first 2 seasons of CI is that successful artists in Canada are different than in the US. In Canada, if an artist is going to “make it” in the big time arena they have to be unique. They have to be real. The Canadian judges are all from the Canadian music industry and they know that.

The very qualities that make someone a good candidate for CI makes them a poor choice for AI. It’s the main reason I stopped watching American Idol. American Idol is looking for people who can be manufactured, produced, packaged and marketed. I’m not saying that to disrespect the judges of AI. They are choosing the sort of artist that make it in the industry there. I think it’s sad that many of the million selling artists in today’s industry are as much a result of a technician’s genius as their own talent.

This year I’ve caught peices and parts of a few episodes of CI. I’ve seen 2 whole episodes now. Last night’s results show left 14 remaining. I’ve seen all of the remaining competitors perform at least twice. I’d like to go way out on a limb and say who I think the final 5 will be. If you checked out the links in the first paragraph, you may have noted that only one of them won CI. While I think all the competitors want to get as far as they can, they know from previous years that winning isn’t essential. Pretty much anyone who makes it to the top 10 have the opportunity to have a career in music.

Jaydee
Liam (This is my favourite of the performances I’ve seen this year.)
Carly Rae
Montana
Tyler

All very original, I think. Check ‘em out. Let me know what you think.

Andrea did this first. Given what I do for a living, getting a higher score than me says something

How White and Nerdy Are You?