Category Archives: Travel

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Disney world, it’s not so magical

Posted on December 26, 2010 | 1 Comment

Ok so we spent much of last week and Christmas day in Orlando with the In-laws. Mom-inlaw wanted to do Disney World.

Overall, I had a good time. Having been to Disney World with my mom two years ago, there wasn’t much “awe” happening since in 2 years Disney hasn’t done much to the place.

Magic Kingdom

I was really bummed that the Haunted Mansion wasn’t all “nightmare Before Christmas”-ed out. Must be a CA thing? Overall the park wasn’t too crazy, crowded to be sure, but not bad. It’s funny tho, i was talking to Mike Lee about his recent trip to the Magic Kingdom and he was saying how it’s odd when you see things not go right. Disney (like Apple) tries really hard to manage the entire experience, and when something goes wrong it’s glaringly wrong. Well we definitely had the BMF experience at the Kingdom.

Apparently part of experience now when waiting in line is to have the line be less a line, and more a mob. On two, maybe three rides when the iron bound queue ended and we got into the actual ride building, Disney employees informed us that the line wasn’t single file, fill all available space. I’m guessing as a way to make the lines outside seem shorter, or something. However as in all cases with mobs, it quickly went from “happiest place on earth” to “mob rules; cut in front, elbow and kick your way into the Pirates of the Caribbean”

So that kinda sucked and really ruined the experience of the ride. Thankfully most lines weren’t too long in general, and we fast passed the popular stuff.

Christmas day, we were flying home, so after breakfast with the fam we went to epcot to walk around. To get from breakfast to Epcot/our hotel we had to go past the Magic Kingdom. Here I was thinking, “Who the hell wants to be at Disney World on Christmas day?” Turns out, a lot of people do! We asked the gal behind the counter at hour hotel about it and she said, at around noon that day they were at “level 3″ meaning only season pass holders and resort guests could get in. The park was already turning away folks who were staying elsewhere or driving in. ON CHRISTMAS DAY! She said on New Years Eve day, they’ll be at “level 4″ meaning once you leave, you can’t get back in, and even resort guests and season pass holders might not get in.

I gotta admit, I’m amazed that it’s that busy on Christmas. New Years, sure, I bet it’s a pretty fun party, but christmas?!

Oh and Space Mountain, the new music sucks. I need a fast rock track to make the ride fun, the current music is way to mellow, i found myself just sitting there waiting for the ride to end.

Epcot

My favorite part of being in Orlando is Epcot. Mostly because of the world tour part, and beer. Epcot itself is fun, the rides are cool, and the new (even new to me) Nemo ride is pretty sweet. Actually the ride is lame, but there’s an aquarium attached (you can just walk into that part, the ride exits there) that is really awesome.

It’s funny, we went to a beer/snack cart in the United Kingdom Pavilion, and i got mocked (rightfully so) for ordering a Stella.

Also, if you like trying candy we don’t get in the states, the Twinnings Tea shop has a pretty good, but small selection. SKIP the turkish Delight. This ain’t Narnia!

Thankfully, with the Magic Kingdom being so crowded on Christmas day, Epcot was not. We breezed thru the park using up the last of our meal plan snacks with hardly anyone else around. AWESOME!

Meal Plans

I dont think the meal plans are worth it. Ours was actually free with our package booking, so that was nice. I’d have been annoyed if I had paid for it. For one thing it’s very rigid. A “meal” is an entree, drink (non alcoholic) and dessert. I don’t like dessert and would often prefer an appetizer, no go cowboy! (Props to the waiter at Nine Dragons in Epcot. he hooked us up with some apps for free. Course with a party of 8 and 18% tip built in, why not make sure we’re happy. I know we added a little more tip to the bill)

The way the plan (ours at least) worked was we got 4 meals, 4 snacks, and 4 quicks. After cracking the code on what exactly each of those was, then it was a matter of scoping out the icon on the menus around the parks to see what applied and what didn’t, and then having to tell the worker, “I want a snack, what’s that entail here?” every time.

So overall it was way more effort than it was worth.

Connectivity

I understand we’re supposed to be in the park, spending money, etc, but is it that out of the question to make our time at the resorts more enjoyable?

1. wifi ain’t cheap, i know the idea (to hotels) is that if you’re paying a lot to be at a resort, $10-$20 for wifi (per DAY!!) is nothing to skoff at. Problem is, that it is. We had the mifi (crappy signal) but really, just give the wifi away, the number of guests who actually use it will never be that many. Shoot, there wasn’t even lobby wifi. Come on Disney! Don’t nickel and dime your guests!

2. AT&T sucks. I know that’s not Disney’s problem, but bears mentioning. I never had more than about 1-2 bars, and was constantly losing my data connection. Even a few times fell to EDGE, and even “Searching” I suspect that was mainly due to overload, but come on there’s plenty of places to hide some towers in the parks.

So, good time overall

Ok that’s a quick and dirty run down of my christmas (oh and along with being at Disney World on Christmas, flying on Christmas is also very popular! WTF) vacation.

All in all, a good time.

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Posted in I am a Consumer, iPhone, Mac, Random, Travel, Work

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Buh bye Bubba Phillip

Posted on October 13, 2010 | 1 Comment

Yesterday we had to send our dog Phillip to doggy heaven. He’s playing with his brother Terrence (Yup, that was their names) who passed two years ago.

It was tough, I’ve had them both since they were about 6 weeks old, Phillip was about 12 years old. They were my campanions thru relationships, moves and more. They even moved across country with me and Nicole from CA to CO.

Yesterday was hard. Just as hard as the day we took Terrence to the vet, maybe a little more, we knew there wasn’t anyone at home waiting for us, to help us grieve and adapt to life without a dog. It’s funny how you get used to their presence, even when they’re just sleeping behind your office chair or down in the living room looking out the window.

In the end I know it was the right decision, he was old in big dog years, and his health was failing him, even though he didn’t always like that. He had a hard time getting on the couch (his favorite place to sleep) and food stopped being appealing (if you knew Phillip, you’ll know how serious things were), he had gotten anemic and there was probably internal bleeding too from who knows what :( He was on IV fluids and tons of pills just keep him from being nauseous :(

Our vet Dr. Graf is awesome! She was very supportive of our decision, even confirming that we were really sure, since there’s no take backs, she loved both bubbas almost as much as we did. In the end his big heart gave out, just with sedation, before she even administered the pink stuff. So we knew he was holding on for us more than anything else, and was more than ready to let go, and move on.

Dogs are so incredible. When they pass it makes you realize how short our time with them is, even small breeds don’t live that long compared to us. Being a dog owner means coming to terms with death, but it never gets easier. I have no shame admitting I cried like a little girl much of yesterday (and for that matter as I type this now), in front of the vet and the tech, Nicole and strangers in the cars next to us at lights. I’ve said goodbye to many dogs over the years and it’s never gotten easier. I don’t expect it will.

I’m certain we’ll get another dog. I almost wish we had gotten a puppy for Phillip to play with and be with at the end, as much for him to have a companion when we travel (I hated leaving him these past few months even for just a few days) as for us to help grieve and move on and focus our energies on someone else. We’ll probably wait a while since we’ve got travel or conferences every month the rest of 2010. There’s never been a doubt in my mind there’d be dogs after Terrence and Phillip, but it’s tough to say goodbye to a lifelong friend and then steel yourself for doing again in 10-15 years with your next friend. I sometimes wish Tortoises were more cuddly.

Goodbye Phillip, we love you and miss you.

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Posted in Announcements, Family, Random, Travel

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How does iThoughtsHD have this and Apple doesn’t?

Posted on July 12, 2010 | 4 Comments

One of my biggest complaints with the iPad is it’s complete lack of usefulness for content creators. I understand, creators are not Apple’s biggest market, or even a group the ever seem to care about, Shoot, they make “Consumer electronics” LOL.

Still there’s so little that would have to be done to make the iPad SO incredibly awesome for creators, and open doors left and right. I know it’s possible, iThoughtsHD (iTunes Link), a great mind mapping app has already done it!

When building a mind map, like many tools on the iPad, you can save off to the cloud somewhere, box.net, dropbox,etc. Unlike many apps, and all Apple apps. You can load from cloud.

It’s that easy. They did why didn’t/hasn’t Apple?

I caved, and paid $10 for Pages. Complete waste of money. I edit a lot of pages files. Sponsor packets,etc. All the time. I’d love to pull one up on my iPad, edit, and without having to think about plugging into iTunes, copying the files out of iTunes back to my iDisk where they live, overwriting the old one.

Pages, and most apps, come kinda close, you can access the file, pull it in locally, make edits, but then you’re stuck, the document is trapped in the iPad and iTunes.

Why not make the iPad apps (at least the Apple ones) more connected to Oh I dunno, say Apple’s own cloud services. iWork.com and mobileMe. Some of us (still) pay for mobileMe hoping it’ll mature and actually be useful. I have no idea what iWork.com is for, but it seems like it’d make perfect sense to tie the iWork iPad apps (maybe the new iLife ones too) to Apple’s own (though dropbox, et. al. would be nice too) services to extend their usefulness.

Please Apple here my plea! The iPad is great for games and consumer shit, hook those of us who create up! It can’t be hard, a third party did it! You can too!

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Posted in Business, I am a Creator, Mac, Random, Technology, Travel, Work, Writing

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iPad….. nice but not magical, yet (my Review)

Posted on April 5, 2010 | 8 Comments

So I’m writing this on my iPad. I’m not feeling the magic. (update, i had to save it so I could edit on my Macbook, else this post take would’ve taken 40 years to write)

Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty, but not useful. Yet.

And before you decide I’m just an Apple hater, let me lay out my credentials for those that don’t know me.

I own:

Unibody Macbook, 2 Minis, 3 iPods (including an iPod Photo), 2 iPhones, 1 iPad, 2 Airport Express, 1 Airport Extreme, my wife has a white plastic macbook.

I’ve Previously owned:

a Macbook Pro, Newton 110, Powerbook 510, Performa.  I think it’s safe to say my fanboi-ness is secure.

That out of the way.

The iPad is a very pretty device, and if your life (as some do) revolves around reading websites, watching videos, and …. well that’s it. Checking email I suppose too. Then the iPad is the perfect toy for you (albeit, for those simple tasks, the price IMO is a bit steep).

I tried. I didn’t write this review the night i got my iPad, I didn’t write it Sunday night, I waited and actually tried to do things I’d normally grab my Macbook for.

First I went up on my deck, to get some sun, and enjoy working outside. Since I was just gonna reply to a few emails, I grabbed the iPad.

  • While I enjoy seeing myself, i don’t want to watch my face as I type emails. That’s easily fixable though, so it’s not a knock. Why Apple is obsessed with uselessly glossy screens is beyond me.
  • First I tried holding it and typing with my thumbs. I prefer landscape mode, and have locked it in that orientation. I have big hands, so it’s quite possible, but not a long term thing. Then I set it in my lap, as many have proclaimed is the perfect use case… I got a sore neck. By this time I’d responded (lengthy responses sure) to two emails. Perhaps if I invested in a $40 (?) case from Apple that i could sit on our patio table, and use? Or buy a Bluetooth keyboard?
  • One email I needed to send an export of attendee data to. I couldn’t. The export is .xls of CSV. kudos to Mobile Safari for opening the .xls and showing me, but I needed to send it to some one. Sure the iPhone doesn’t support this, but if the iPad is a revolutionary bridge device between my iPhone and a laptop, I expect a few laptop like things to be there.
  • Of course since I can’t run two things at once, I had to close out mail.app mid compose to look up a discount code for a sponsor. Close mail, open safari, go to eventbrite, copy the code, close safari, open mail.app
  • Then I thought I’d take a break, check on my Kingdom and my weird little people on Planet Wilker. Thankfully the display is so crisp and bright, it overpowers (mostly) the sun, so i could actually enjoy those games.

Last night I went to a user group meeting, taking only my Mifi and my iPad.

  • The auto brightness doesn’t seem very responsive, so I was routinely blinded when loading something with a white screen in the darkened room. No biggy really, annoying a little, sure, but not a “Damn you Apple”
  • I had two tasks I was hoping to get done, or at least get started, while listening to the presentation. Write an email to attendees of 360|iDev (thru eventbrite.com’s email feature), and compose the last speaker email to speakers at 360|iDev using mailchimp. The result. FAIL. Both websites use HTML based text editors, apparently not the html web that Apple supports. Kinda crappy. Can’t use Flash, can’t use some HTML…
  • So I spent the UG meeting, not using my iPad except to occasionally tweet, and that was only because my iPhone was in my pocket

I’ve tried to replace some of the things I do on my iPhone and my laptop

  • I completely understand why Apple made the iPad support iPhone apps. It’s nice to launch and crow about 100k + apps. I have yet to use an iPhone app on the iPad that wasn’t completely and utterly fail. Why use it in 1x mode? I’ll just fire up my iPhone. In 2x mode, no app escapes the ugly tree. I understand the logic, but think Apple should have given developers more time to get their apps ready. I mean really, no facebook app? Hell, the mobileMe app… uh Apple. I know you want me to shell out $30 for the iWorks, but I’d love to be able to access my mobileMe account in a native iPad app, how about that?
  • I think the iPad will be much more interesting 3 months from now. Now that developers have an actual device to test with, those that (I can’t blame them) waited to actually use the device before building apps for it, will begin releasing apps. Right now the iPad app store is woe-fully anemic… well maybe not if you’re independently wealthy, and can afford every $9.99 app, LOL. Even then, there’s only a small list of apps I’m buying later, as I feel richer. Most of the apps I want, aren’t there.

Yeah Apple is about the experience, I agree, and sure surfing the web is very nice, if you only want to surf the web and consume. If you actually want to create… well so far the iPad hasn’t done much to support creation. I read one review that gushed and gushed about how awesome surfing the web is. OK sure, but I don’t spend my day complaining about surfing the web now.

So what do I like?

  • The feel of it. It’s a nice piece of equipment. The screen (once covered in a smudge/glare free cover) is awesome. Sure I’d like to not have letterboxing when I watch a movie but whatever, that’s a first world problem, and not that important to me.
  • The OS, it’s the iPhone OS, which while I wish wasn’t so closed off, and anti-hacker (Pro user), it’s an easy OS to understand.
  • The Apps. iPad apps, are nice. They use the screen really well. Those that will shine are the ones that didn’t simply recompile for the larger device.
  • The future potential. The iPad right now, for me is a cute toy that gets attention, and let’s me play a few games, and waste time. The iPad in 6 months, could seriously kick ass. There will be more apps that are useful, there will be (Please Apple, it’s kinda obvious) some way for me to work on files in mobileMe (or Googledocs) over the cloud. Screw this dragging files into iTunes, and back and forth. It’s 2010 Apple, you have a cloud storage service, that people are paying money for now. Tie that in to your devices!

What don’t I like? (and please, you don’t have to agree, I welcome your opinion, but if Apple makes you happy with what they deliver, don’t try to tell me what I should be happy too)

  • It’s a bit heavy. Not really a “Bad mark” but it’s not light.
  • The video app needs an update. Looking at my movies, it’s fine to see the thumbnail and name. Looking at TV shows. A thumbnail from an episode, isn’t helpful. I had 6 icons. Some Seinfeld, some Big Bang Theory. No labels. I had to open one up to see that it was the folder for a season of that show. I like the breakdown by season, that’s nice, but not having any visible clue, it’s like hunting around to find the show you want to watch.
  • The single port. This is totally an Apple thing, and I wasn’t surprised, that they’d only have a dock connector, and sell $29 things that plug into the dock connector. Doesn’t mean I think it’s ok.
  • The lack of Flash. I don’t actually miss Flash THAT much, because I’ve had my iPhone for a while. I think flash on the iPhone isn’t really a deal breaker. But the iPad is another device entirely. I expect on a media consumption tablet, that I could hit up Hulu, or youtube (fuck having a separate app, that’s lame), or any of the what? 80% of the web that uses flash to deliver content. It’s a business play pure and simple, and as a business person, I can’t find fault. As a consumer, hacker, and person who tries to see thru bull shit, I think it’s weak sauce. “Open Web”, my ass, it’s the “Apple Web”, and them trying to come off like it’s anything but a power grab, is disingenuous at best.
  • the iPad of now. If 360|iDev wasn’t the weak after iPadmas, I probably would have waited. It just doesn’t do anything I can’t do now with the tools I have. I don’t need “an semi-adequate alternative” I need a “solid replacement”… the iPad isn’t there.

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Posted in 360|iDev, eBooks, I am a Consumer, iPhone, Kindle, Mac, reviews, Technology, Travel, Work

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