littlewoodenman

Who Are You People?

The Sarcastic One Is Matthew

Matthew was born in 1977. If you ask him where this happened he’ll tell you Halifax, Nova Scotia, when in fact it was Fredericton, New Brunswick. His childhood was pleasant and relatively uneventful, and for that he feels lucky. He loved The Friendly Giant, Transformers and He-Man. He played too much Mario. He had freckles.

He was not the most popular teenager in school, but he didn’t want to be either. After junior high he grew up—waaaay up. It took some getting used to. He also found himself a bit of an attitude. If any former classmates are reading this, you might not remember him. He was that smarmy, cynical guy who always had a remark about everything. And no, you probably weren’t good friends.

Matthew can be cynical, skeptical, sarcastic and sometimes downright cranky. His sense of humour is dry. He’s been known to crack wise for no one else’s amusement but his own. He’s polite, but occasionally politically-incorrect. He doesn’t like complicated or pretentious things. Give him a slice of (plain!) cheesecake to shut him up and keep him happy.

Matthew is geeky, but not so geeky as to be oblivious to how geeky he might appear to other people. (He’s not afraid of sunlight, and he’s talked to girls a couple of times.) But he does spend a lot of time at the computer. He’s a web developer by profession and happens to be pretty darn good at it.

The Smart, Pretty One Is Angel

Angel was born and raised in Nova Scotia where she developed a love for nature, music and generally just being silly, thanks to the influence of her eccentric South Asian family. Like most Maritime girls, she loved the beach and Anne of Green Gables. Like most Indian kids she loved Amitabh Bachchan movies and Disco Deewane. Angel is thankful for being exposed to different languages, cultures, places and people while growing up. She loved any Jim Henson production, Meccano, and Cindy Lauper.

Angel grew up having lots of friends and sleepovers listening to Madonna and taking her beloved dog, Charlie, for long walks around the lake. She was a very talkative and energetic person who partook in a variety of extra-curricular activities from Highland dancing (did we mention she’s South Asian?) to Tai Chi.

Angel is by nature a very positive person and has studied extensively, both in and out of school, to understand the world. She loves surprises and finds joy in living in living out her dreams (and she’s doing so now).

They Make A Handsome Couple

Matthew and Angel have known each other a long time. We’re talking about those days before the Internet, when parachute pants and Hypercolor T-shirts were considered fashionable. Not having much in common, they somehow became friends during the cold, dark winter bus rides to and from university—when not having a seat buddy increased your chances of sitting next to the crazy lady. It was soon after that when they were romantically linked in the tabloids. It’s been a scandalous love affair ever since, successfully proving the old axiom that opposites do, in fact, attract.

The Banana Republic

Being fans of the unconventional, they currently live in Honduras. (That’s in Central America.) Much to their parents’ chagrin the car, the house, the baby and the steady salary are all going to have to wait a couple of years while they volunteer for CUSO in the town of Juticalpa. They are both of the belief that the First World has more to learn from the Third, and not the other way around. Plus, Central America is a lot of fun.

littlewoodenwha?

Believe it or not, there actually is a little wooden man. When Matthew was a kid, his father carved him (the man, not Matthew!) out of a block of balsa wood. Matthew can’t explain exactly why he thought it was so nifty, but he did. So much so that he, uh, kind of kept it for himself. He still has it today.

The domain www.littlewoodenman.com has been around for years. Originally, it was the home of Adventure Hogg and Brown Dog Adventures, two websites about hiking in Nova Scotia. Brown Dog died soon after, and Adventure Hogg became the.kinetic.experiment (does he have a phobia about capital letters and spaces?), which had more of a weblog “feel” to it. After a time, the format changed completely to that of a personal weblog about anything and everything. And thus we have littlewoodenman.

Matthew doesn’t know exactly how many iterations of this website there have been—he redesigns more often than he changes his underwear and throws out old data with reckless abandon.

Some Nerdy Details

This weblog is driven by none other than WordPress (we’re currently running version 2.2) and is hosted by 1&1, which used to be free but is still a pretty good deal. We fight comment spam successfully with Akismet (which has blocked 10,825 comments so far).

This site’s design is a custom WordPress dubbed �Vaya Pues!. It’s a one-of-a-kind, homemade by Matthew. Whenever possible, this weblog is both XHTML and CSS compliant. Remember kids, friends don’t let friends use tables for layout.

RSS Feeds (Really Nerdy Details)

If right now you’re silently mouthing the word “feed” to yourself with a puzzled look on your face, then, well, feeds probably aren’t for you. But they are a handy way of keeping track of what’s going on. There are 4 feeds you might be interested in: (1) the weblog feed; (2) the comments feed; (3) the photos feed (via Flickr); and (4) the videos feed (via Vimeo). There is also a comments feed for each specific post.

The Fine Print

All content and code found on this weblog, unless otherwise indicated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. So, all rights reserved (and kept safe and sound in a shoe box under the bed—don’t make me take out the shoe box!).

All of the opinions expressed here on this weblog are those of Matthew, Angel or our readers who leave comments. They do not in any way represent the views of any other individual or institution. We all have opinions, the right to express them, and the right to ignore them if we disagree.

That said, we reserve the right to edit or remove comments that are misspelled, off-topic, blatantly offensive, disrespectful or just plain stupid. Don’t be stupid. Unless, of course, your name is Dave. Dave can write whatever he wants.

Drop Us A Line

If you have any other comments, questions, complaints or shout-outs that are too intimate or unsuitable for the weblog, you can always email us. and would love to hear from you.