December 15, 2023

Relax.

A quiet day at Walt Disney World today. We didn’t have park plans today so we decided to take a boat to Port Orleans Resort and walk around where we first stayed here together in 1997. We then took a bus to the Magic Kingdom and rode both monorails, first passing through the resorts in the Magic Kingdom Area and then taking the monorail to EPCOT. Our intention was to then try the Disney Skyliner gondolas, but they’re not near the monorail stop so we didn’t do that.

We’re back from “Drawn to Life”, the Cirque Du Soleil-Disney joint adventure replacing “La Nouba”. We’d seen “La Nouba” several times and always enjoyed it; “Drawn To Life” is similar but not as focused on the Cirque Du Soleil part. The acrobats and other feats are not as plentiful as in the first show, and I didn’t find the musical score as memorable, but we still had a great time.

I was surprised to see the audience only half full. In fact, the attendance in general seems a little low; perhaps it’s just that time of year.

Tomorrow is suppose to rain impressively, with some high winds and thunderstorms thrown in for good measure. That should keep things interesting.

15 December 2023 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Sync? Sunk.

The whole purpose of iCloud syncing in iPhotos is your snapshots are instantly available from any Apple device after you take a photo. That’s what Apple likes to tout in their marketing messages. I want to believe it’s true but it’s simply not.

Granted, everything works great when you’re home on your home internet connection. Most of the time. But when I’m on vacation I don’t want things to fall apart, and iCloud syncing just falls apart once you’re out and about. The last thing I want to do when I’m engaging in a few days R&R is troubleshoot IT issues.

I took a bunch of photos during our vacation day yesterday. We also had quite a few photos taken by Disney cast members which I imported into iPhoto via my iPhone.

None of these photos showed up on my iPad nor my MacBook Air. Yes, I’m a fool that brought along both on vacation because that’s what I do.

I took a peek at my iPad and it had paused iCloud photo sync to preserve battery power. The iPad was plugged into the wall. iPhoto sync on my MacBook Air had been paused due to “poor network connection”, though a speed test shows Disney’s Internet connection is more robust than what’s found in most of the United States.

A bit of cajoling and tapping on messages and things got moving. Almost. Then the imported photos didn’t appear on the iPad but they did appear on the MacBook Air.

I had also created a shared album with my husband so we could easily share photos between our accounts because after all, “It Just Works”. Though it’s not working. It needs more cajoling and noodling. AirDrop is a crap shoot at best.

So we send text messages back and forth with the photos.

I like what Apple is trying to do, and I’m willing to pay the premium price so I don’t have to think about these things because after all, I am on vacation and I don’t want to spend our vacation troubleshooting IT issues.

But Apple needs to step up their game here.

15 December 2023 by Apple. 0

Observation.

I am back from a two mile walk around the resort here at Disney. The weather is windy and cloudy but still quite enjoyable. On this side of the country they have this thing called humidity. It’s making me sweat.

Walking along the parking lots I’ve noticed a huge increase in the number of pickup trucks, very large pickup trucks at that, parked here and there. It would appear that a decent number of families have opted to drive very large pickup trucks as their family vehicle. A part of me wonders if the trucks are larger than the homes some of these people own.

I don’t see the Tesla CyberTruck being adopted by these types of folks anytime soon, though that prediction could be way off base because I’ve completely lost touch with the way American society thinks these days.

Many of these pickup trucks seem rather large for their purpose. I guess it was just crazy that my grandfather managed a beef farm with a late 1970s Ford F250.

In today’s world he’d probably be chastised for using his truck as a truck and not the family station wagon.

15 December 2023 by Ponderings and Musings 0

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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