Have a drink with me. Apparently I can’t speak English this early in the morning. No one believes me when I tell them that.
[MEDIA=69]July 2008
Look Out Pittsburgh.
Earl and I are in from our evening on the town on Pittsburgh. We went back to Station Square (“Anything but Square”) where we enjoyed a nice dinner at Buca di Beppo. It’s a hodge podge of rooms on multiple floors where you enjoy Italian food family style. The server’s name was Connie. She was very friendly and I enjoyed her demeanor very much. She looked like a Connie though. Big hands. A hearty woman. Perhaps she enjoys what she serves.
There is a body-building convention going on. At first I thought there was some sort of transexual convention going because I saw a guys dressed up as women but lo and behold, they are body building women. They could wipe the deck with me in about two seconds. Huge guns. Huge legs. And not a feminine trait to be found. If they didn’t have thick layers of makeup on I wouldn’t have known they were women. I guess it’s whatever supplements they use to enhance their body building performance. I don’t get it, but hey, to each their own.
After dinner we went down to the main square where we enjoyed a performance of the dancing fountains. We had done the same thing five years ago, it was fun to see it again.
Here’s a quick video I made while we were walking around.
[MEDIA=67]After the dancing fountains we walked up and down this “strip” a couple of times, where we stumbled across Karaoke Night at the bar in front of the comedy club. There were quite a few people in there doing their thing. We stopped by to hear some of the performances. A couple of beers later, I was on the stage performing “It’s A Miracle” by Barry Manilow.
No one threw anything at the stage and I had some applause so I guess I didn’t do too badly. I didn’t show Earl how to use the Flip Camera on purpose, so there’s no video, but behind door Number 2 Anitra Ford is pleased to show you the complete eight minutes of the dancing fountain performance we watched. It won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t watch the whole thing.
[MEDIA=68]Pittsburgh, Pa.
This morning Earl and I awoke in suburban Cleveland, Ohio and took a look at the weather forecast. There was a chance of showers if we headed north, but if we headed south it looked like clear sailing. We were originally going to head to Indianapolis, Indiana, but the drive home tomorrow would have been about 11 hours, plus we wouldn’t have arrived in Indy until mid afternoon.
We opted for Pittsburgh instead.
I’ve been to Pittsburgh a couple of times over the years. Back in 2003 we meandered through Pennsylvania on a ride and ended up here for the fourth of July. I distinctly remember the trip because I got a little tipsy at dinner and was enthralled with the fountains on Station Square as they danced to “Love Hangover” by Diana Ross. The fireworks in the background made me misty. The fountains are still there. This afternoon they danced to some heavier rock stuff. I remained sober.
We’ve been scouting around the city doing the tourist thing. We rode up the Duquesne Incline, walked around Mt. Washington a little bit and then rode back down on the Monongahela Incline. I think I like the first one better for the simple fact that it has open air cars in the summer and it is wicked hot here today.
We also milled about the festival atmosphere of Station Square and did some walking around downtown. We are taking a brief respite from the heat before heading out tonight for a night out on the town. I’m looking forward to the experience.
There’s a few random pictures in my shiny new MobileMe gallery. You can find that by clicking here.
Oh, I’ve also been getting tips from folks on Twitter as I update our location from time to time. This is why I love technology.
Willoughby, Ohio.
Earl and I are settled into the Days Inn in Willoughby, Ohio tonight. Earlier this week he proclaimed to me that it had been entirely too long since we went on a weekend long road trip so when he got home early from work today, we hopped into the Jeep and headed west.
I was originally going to head us into Michigan so that we could meet up with blogger friend Terry, but Terry is out of town on work so we are going to save that trip for the fall. Therefore, I have no idea where we are going tomorrow. The only constraint is that we have to keep the ride home on Sunday under 12 hours.
Earl is the principal navigator and has been wired with GPS. As you can see in the photo, he is very attentive to road signs and other important markings.
Always Right Behind Me.
My sister is two years and five days younger than me. She’s my lifelong friend and has always stood behind me in both good times and bad. When we were kids she always joined in on my schemes, whether we were driving through town in a snappy crap-brown Vega, organizing a “parade” of our cousins and such for the grown-ups or riding bikes to town and back.Today she celebrates her birthday.
Happy birthday sis!
Kool-Aid Anyone?
Alright, after my Apple rant from earlier today, I have to come clean. Since I got all my frustrations with MobileMe/.Mac and the iPhone 2.0 release I’ve been using my MacBook Pro all afternoon and evening. I love my Macs and I think that’s why I am feeling a tad bit passionate about the snags that occurred at the end of last week and last weekend.
I love my Ubuntu Linux machine. And yes, I still love my Macs.
All is right with the world.
Jingle Jangle.
Here’s a random thought that popped into my head during “I Love Lucy” (which was another rerun!) Imagine being an aspiring singer. You want to hit the big time and have adoring fans as you grace the world with your melodious voice. American Idol isn’t good enough for you, you’re going to make it big, big, big like Jessica Simpson or Debbie Boone. Maybe Wayne Newton.
Wouldn’t it be quite the detour to be known as the guy that sings the rockin’ tune “1-2-3 LUMP SUM”. Oh sure, you can disguise it as a trendy pop tune, but in reality, it’s just “1-2-3 LUMP SUM! 1-2-3 LUMP SUM.”
Big time.
Geek Scream.
Even though I am a geek through and through, and I’m sure that is quite apparent on my blog, I try not to focus too many blog entries purely on technology. Let’s face it, purely technologically themed entries can be boring for the casual reader. But, I need to get something off of my chest.
I am a Mac user. I love all my Macs. We have six of them in the house, along with a small armada of Linux based machines. I abandoned Windows as my primary platform ages ago, mostly because I was sick of anti-virus software slowing my system down and quite frankly because I was bored with the whole XP experience. For the most part I love OS X as a desktop platform. It’s easy to use and it allows me to do great things in a Unix-y sort of way. It’s not as customisable as I’d like it to be but you do what you can do.
I also have two iPods and an iPhone. I have been asked on countless occasions about my iPhone and if I love it. My answer is always “sort of”. I love the concept of my iPhone, a.k.a. having the internet in my pocket, but in some respects moving from my Motorola Razr to my iPhone last year was a step backwards. I can no longer receive multimedia messages from my friends, I can’t send a multimedia message to my friend’s cell phone (I have to send to their e-mail address) and I can’t take video on the iPhone. These key points (to me) were not rectified with the release of the iPhone 2.0 software last week. Am I going to buy the new version of the iPhone? Nope. Am I ever going to buy another iPhone? Nope.
I have also faithfully kept my .Mac account year after year. I occasionally use the e-mail services, though over the past year I’ve been primarily using gMail. I was very excited about the conversion of .Mac to MobileMe. MobileMe promised the nirvana of services – my computers (Mac and PC based, if I had any), my iPhone and the web interface would all be instantly sync’d with one another. Since the launch of MobileMe mid last week, I still can’t get to all parts of the MobileMe service nor does my iPhone sync reliably with my iCal on the web interface. The biggest insult to me is that while Macs (naturally) and PCs can get to the web interface using Firefox or Safari (and Internet Explorer, to some extent), Apple has not given any sort of access to Linux users. None. I can tell Apple that my Linux browser is a Windows browser and it’ll work just fine, so there’s no reason that a Linux computer can’t use MobileMe, they just choose not to have it work. In addition, Linux is not part of the whole “sync scheme”. Even Microsoft is writing a Linux client for their Live Mesh services. This makes me crazy.
Now folks will go on and on about how Apple had a bigger response than anticipated during the MobileMe and iPhone launches. However, MobileMe undoubtedly runs on Xserve and/or Leopard OS X Server. Apple is aggressively going after the Enterprise/business class user market. If Apple’s servers can not hold their own for the company that created them, why on earth would I want to invest in Apple products for my own company’s server needs? When Earl and I purchased new MacBook Pros back in the spring, we paid a premium price for pretty much the same hardware that I could have had for half the price from Dell, HP or Gateway. Granted, I wouldn’t be getting the “Apple experience” via OS X, however, I can come pretty damn close that experience AND have control of my own destiny as it were with Ubuntu Linux and more powerful while less expensive hardware. Why wouldn’t corporations and business users do the same exact thing? If Apple can’t keep their services running on their own hardware and software, why do I think that they would be able to do the same for my business?
Then we have the iPhone launch. Please. As a geek that works in telecommunications, I can tell you that AT&T is acting like their other Baby Bell brethren in coming up with ridiculous pricing, billing and activation procedures. I hear O2 in the UK required Windows Internet Explorer to activate your iPhone with them. I’m not surprised. AT&T and their Baby Bell brothers and other counterparts have tunnel vision: they know one way to do something and if you deviate from that path, even by an inch, you’re screwed. So this whole activation in the store/be iReady for the AT&T visit/etc thing they had going on is no surprise to me. That’s what AT&T does. It’s a shame that Apple had to saddle up so tightly with this company to get their phone out there.
By the way, since upgrading to iPhone 2.0 I now must make most phone calls twice and my reception is about 2/3 of what it was before. Battery life bites the big one. Tips tell me to “turn off my Wi-Fi” and to “turn the brightness all the way down” to save battery life. If I wanted to use my phone in the dark and away from the internet, I would have stayed in the closet years ago.
Am I going to buy another Apple product again? Yes. Will it be a large investment? No. I don’t see a new iPhone in my future, ever. I don’t see a new Mac in my future, ever. My MacBook Pro hardware is not as good as my PowerBook G4 was. Am I going to renew .Mac/MobileMe? Nah. I can get the same services for free or I can make my own server in the cloud. Will I continue to recommend Apple products for casual computer users? Yes I will, because for those that aren’t as technologically savvy, I still feel that Mac is the best way to go.
Path.
This past weekend Earl and I attended the graduation party of my cousin’s daughter. Naturally the question that was asked the most often was where she was going to go to college and what she planned on studying. She is going to become a pet psychologist. I give her credit for knowing what she wants to do with her life. I wish her luck.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m odd or what but at 40 years old I don’t know that I’ve settled in to what I want to do with the rest of my life. I probably have but then again I’ve changed careers a couple of times: I worked for a computer company. I’ve been a radio DJ. I work in technology again. I’ve worked with the developmentally disabled. I went to school for music education. I went to school for civil engineering. Don’t get me wrong, I like what I do. I like it a lot. And I’m pretty confident that I could do this for the rest of my life. I might need a change of scenery along the way but all in all my gig is pretty good.
I sometimes wonder if we put too much pressure on those entering adulthood by expecting them to know what they want to do for the rest of their life and then expect them to pay bucketloads of money in education, only to find out that it isn’t their cup of tea 10 years later. I know people that have changed careers as many times as I have and they’re very happy with their life. When I was in college there were several in my classes that had no idea what they were getting themselves into as civil engineers, it just sounded good in the college catalog so they signed up for it. They did their best but the lack of enthusiasm was apparent. They were told that they had to go to college and that was that. If they had just been given the chance to “find themselves”, I’m pretty confident that they wouldn’t have chosen the career path they were on.
Now, I’m not knocking my cousin’s daughter’s decision to become a pet psychologist. No, not at all. She knows what she wants to do and I think that’s wonderful! My point is that I don’t think we can expect each and every person to know what they want to do out of school. The New York State education system tends to test the hell out of every student these days and it also places what I feel to be unrealistic expectations on some students. The system sets many up for failure. Not everyone is hard-wired for continuing education. I’ve met many people that could barely write their name legibly and perform simple algebra, but they could assemble, disassemble and reassemble a V8 engine in a different car in less than a day. They did horribly in school and ended up not getting a diploma because of a fear of testing. However, they were given some room, a second chance via a GED and they now own a very successful auto repair shop.
Some people can clearly see the path that lies ahead. Others find twists and turns along the way. I think the most important thing is to recognise individuality and to celebrate that. If society allowed more of this exploration along the way, perhaps we’d have a happier society today.
