Friday Five

The Excuse

At this rate I’m beginning to think I might not need this any longer. Of course I really shouldn’t jinx myself.

The Week

Found myself in Dallas again. Well, Irving to be specific. What was nice is that it was a class that I’ve done a million (or so) times now, which makes for a very relaxing week.

I wish I could add something cool that happened this week, but I kept it pretty low key. Watched Deadliest Catch. Took (and passed) an exam (I’m now a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Application Development). And beyond that, mostly just worked, ate, worked out and slept.

The Restaurant

After working out on Tuesday I wanted something cheap and easy for dinner. I found Genghis Grill on Yelp and decided it fit the bill. Nothing overly special – just your typical “Mongolian bbq” joint where you fill up a little bowl and they stir-fry it for you. Kind of a divey little place, but for $10 for all you can eat, it certainly worked just fine for me.

The Exercise

4 times. Yup – you read that right. 4 times. Felt fantastic!

The Travel Note

I had a small adventure last week trying to get home, as I mentioned on Twitter. There was a storm in Houston that caused the airport to shut down for a couple hours, which just backed the entire system up. I wound up catching a flight out of Tampa at 6:30 – and that was the 2:30 flight that was delayed until 6:30. I then managed to catch the 7:00 flight from Houston to San Diego which departed at 11:30. Didn’t get home until about 1-ish. Blah.

The one frustrating part of the deal was this – When I landed in Houston I knew that my original flight was not going to take off on time, so I ran down to the Continental club and had them swap me to the earlier (also delayed) flight. The attendant there was kind enough to look to see where the plane, flight attendants and pilots happened to be. He told me the flight wouldn’t be taking off until 10:45p. The board said 9:30, which I didn’t notice until after I had left the club to grab food. I spaced the conversation we had until it was after 10, meaning I waited around by the gate for a good hour plus when I could have been sitting comfortably in the club or in a bar.

Memo to all airlines – please give us departure times that are at least in the correct ballpark.

The Five

Wound up going with a few food-related things.

1. When I was a kid I never thought I’d tire of eating out. Since I’m forced to eat out almost all the time, I can tell you, I tire of it frequently.
2. The two “demons” I have conquered are soda and sweets. I rarely have soda, and don’t often snack on sweets or have dessert.
3. That being said, I have a hard time resisting certain fatty foods. In particular there’s a small sub chain called Jersey Mike’s that does NJ style subs (anyone who’s had one knows what I’m talking about). That means it’s doused in oil. But boy is it yummy.
4. Having a grill and a great butcher has completely ruined me on eating steaks out. For a fraction of the cost I can get a much better steak at home now.
5. I know that on the whole there’s no money to be made, and it’s extremely stressful, but I’d love to own a restaurant some day. Not that I’ve taken any steps in that direction.

I Love My iPhone

Over the years, I’ve had many a smart phone, to the point where I can’t imagine life without one now. Having my calendar on my phone, as well as my contacts, the ability to check sports scores and Wikipedia from anywhere, and play the occasional game while standing in line is invaluable to me. But no other phone has engendered the passion for a smart phone as the iPhone.

The iPhone does so many things perfectly. Their App Store, where they sell add-on applications, is seamlessly integrated with iTunes, making it almost too easy to download and install applications. Safari, while not perfect, is still the best mobile browser that I’ve come across. The feel and interaction of the phone is perfectly intuitive – without an instruction manual you can figure out how to do whatever it is that you’re trying to do.

Listed below, in no particular order, are my 10 favorite things about my iPhone. These include built-in iPhone features as well as add-on applications.

1. Safari – Having fought with the version of IE that’s built into Windows Mobile devices for years, Safari was a breath of fresh air. It’s not perfect when it comes to rendering sites, but it’s very close.
2. Yelp – In case you hadn’t noticed, I travel a fair bit. Having a Yelp application on my phone makes it very easy to find new restaurants in whatever town I’m in. The new version also includes “Twitter-like” 140-character reviews that can be added from a mobile phone.
3. Facebook – As if I needed to spend more time on Facebook.
4. TwitterFon – By far the best Twitter application I’ve found for the iPhone. It’s what actually keeps me connected to Twitter.
5. Shazam – A great little application that listens to a song and can tell you what it is. No more having to guess which 80’s hair metal band it is.
6. FlightTrack – A tad delayed, but FlightTrack gives great information on flight status, including a little map of where the plane is. I can’t imagine travelling without it.
7. Photo Gallery – It’s nice to be able to sync photos on the phone with my PC. And the implementation is very slick, with the ability to zoom in on photos.
8. Email Client – It’s IMAP compliant, meaning that emails I delete from my GMail account on my iPhone also get clobbered on GMail, and that I can access the archives.

I Hate My iPhone

Over the years, I’ve had many a smart phone, to the point where I can’t imagine life without one now. Having my calendar on my phone, as well as my contacts, the ability to check sports scores and Wikipedia from anywhere, and play the occasional game while standing in line is invaluable to me. But no other phone has engendered the passion for a smart phone as the iPhone.

What I find most infuriating is the fact the iPhone does so many things perfectly, flawlessly and intuitively. But too often I’m left scratching my head wondering what in the world the designer was thinking.

With that in mind, here are the 10 things I hate about my iPhone.

1. No copy/cut/paste – Really guys? No copy/paste?
2. The calendar doesn’t auto-detect the time zone – The clock on the phone does, but the calendar doesn’t. Which means every time I land in a new time zone I have to manually go in and change it.
3. No tethering – This is something I’ve been able to do with all of my Windows Mobile devices. It’s allegedly coming, but I’m not too sure. And, no, I don’t want to jailbreak it.
4. iTunes – I hate, loathe, and otherwise despise iTunes. I can’t for the life of me figure out how Apple, who allegedly makes good looking and easy to use applications, has released iTunes and garners any praise for it.
5. Can’t remove the built-in applications – I don’t use iTunes. It would be nice to get rid of the icon from my phone.
6. There’s only two options for the ringer – silent or ring, rather than 3 – silent, ring or vibrate. Yes, you can toggle vibrate, but that requires going into another screen rather than just flipping a little switch.
7. No turn by turn navigation – Almost every other GPS enabled phone offers this. Why not the iPhone?
8. No video on the camera – Again, nearly every other phone offers this.
9. No MMS (multimedia messages) – I’ve seen $20 pay-as-you-go phones offer this, yet the iPhone doesn’t.
10. No expandability – It would be nice to be able to slide in an SD card to add on memory.

Friday Five

The Excuse

None needed! W00t!

The Week

I found myself in Tampa again this week. After a couple of visits I begin to become more comfortable with a city, and more complacent when it comes to actually doing anything touristy (if that’s actually possible). But familiarity with a town does help the week go by faster.

By far the highlight of the week was seeing Bill Murray. The Outback Pro-Am is being held in Tampa this week, and I’m assuming that Bill’s playing the tournament (as he’s known to do). The hotel I was in was a host hotel for the tournament. I was walking up towards the elevators and there was a group of people in front of me and I didn’t pay them much mind. Then I turned the corner into the elevator lobby and standing 15 feet from me was Bill Murray.

Karin asked if it was a, “Hey, isn’t that ….?” moment. Absolutely not. It was an instantaneous - “That’s Bill FREAKIN Murray!”

I just stopped dead in my tracks in dead silence. I just stared, and he gave me a “Yup, it’s me” grin. The rest of the time my mind went about a million miles an hour trying to figure out how to react. I know he’s supposed to be a friendly guy and likely would have posed for a pic if I would have asked. But he was chatting with the people he was with and I didn’t want to be *that guy* and interrupt. Rather than do much of anything, I just stood there with what had to be the dumbest look ever on my face. One of his peeps did compliment me on my “geeks rule” shirt. I managed to eek out a “thank you” to that.

Abram did come up with what should have been my line: “What are you supposed to be? Some kind of cosmonaut?”

The Exercise

Moving on…

The Restaurant

I basically have two rules whenever I’m travelling – No chains, and no hotel restaurants. “Well, it’s more of a guideline than a rule”. After I finished work on Thursday, the Bill Murray night, I decided I wanted to treat myself to seafood (good seafood). The hotel really drummed up The Oyster Catcher, their seafood restaurant. I’ve always found that restaurant quality is inversely proportional to the amount that they feel the need to hype the place. But laziness won out, and I decided to check the place out.

I’m so very glad I did.

I sat at the bar (<voice style=”Eddie Izzard”>like I do</voice>) and started off with my standard very dry Maker’s Manhattan up. (If you’ve ordered anything at Starbucks that takes more than 4 words to specify I don’t want to hear any static for being specific.) It was made to perfection.

I ordered the salad and then froze when it came to make a decision on food. The bartender suggested the yellowfin tuna blackened. I decided to trust him and was not disappointed – it was just amazing. Great sear on it, very rare on the inside, and just all-in-all a great piece of fish. He also paired it with a pinot noir, which I never would have put with a fish. Excellent match.

I don’t normally do dessert (and if I didn’t – and if I didn’t get interrupted during dinner by both my brothers – I wouldn’t have seen Bill Murray), but they had a goat cheese cheesecake. Anyone who knows me knows my love for goat cheese and cheesecake, so the two together sounded like one of the greatest things ever created. And it was. Once again I relied on the bartender for a drink pairing, and he brought out a cappuccino with some Gran Marnier. It worked perfectly with the sweet/savory flavor from the cheesecake.

To top it all off, the restaurant is right on the bay, which offers a fantastic sunset if you get there at the right time. I will definitely be back!

The Travel Note

An open letter to all hotels: Putting a sheet of glass over the work desk in your rooms only kills a mouse from working while adding nothing to the decor of the room. Just knock it off!

The Five

In honor of Bill Murray, my five has to be my five brushes with greatness (and almost greatness).

1. Bill Gates – This one is almost too big. I basically can never just bring this up in conversation without being the world’s biggest name dropper. But man it was beyond cool, if for no other reason than hearing him say “sh**”.
2. Bill Murray – Still wishing I would have asked for a picture.
3. Wayne Brady – He was the male lead for Chicago on Broadway one week while Karin and I were out there. We heard from the ticket agent that he was the nicest guy and would come out after the show and sign every autograph and take every picture. And sure enough he did. At some point I need to scan the pic with Karin and him.
4. Joe Bays – On our now First Annual New Year’s Eve Vegas Trip <pause for moment of silence in reverence> Abram and I sat down at a 1-3 poker table at Excalibur, which is by far the cheapest stakes to be found in Vegas. Sitting just to my left was Joe Bays, who was the 2nd boss in Office Space. Very friendly guy, and mentioned that Office Space was by far his favorite movie.
5. Tsuyoshi Shinjo – This definitely falls under the “almost brush with almost famous” category. Karin and I were up in San Francisco to check out (then) PacBell Park. Afterwards we found ourselves at a great little Japanese restaurant named Anzu (go if you’re ever up there). As we were sitting there, Shinjo, who was a journeyman center fielder for a few years and was with the Giants at the time, walked in with his “posse” and was seated at the table next to us.

Friday Five

The Excuse

None needed. W00t!

The Week

For me this was a fantastic week for one simple reason – I only had a 3 day class this week. I was home by Wednesday night, and have been enjoying my time home ever since.

I was out in Houston for a three day class. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to hook up with anyone as I was busy pretty much the entire time. The biggest problem I had was my sinuses revolting – all the travel finally caught up with them and my head was a mess most of the week.

The Restaurant

Since I was home I was able to do lunch with Karin today. We stopped by the 94th Aero Squadron, a replica of a French farmhouse set in WWI. Not only does the restaurant have a ton of charm, it’s location is fantastic – it’s located on Montgomery Field, a small airport in San Diego. For most of the lunch I was watching planes take off and land, one of my favorite things. The food was good, although I didn’t think it was wowing. Granted, I only had a salad, so I’m willing to give them another shot for dinner and a real meal.

The Exercise

Next week. Really. I promise.

The Travel Note

Poor Dora.

On my flight back from Houston a little old lady named Dora was seated next to me. Dora, as we found out, has dementia. She had no idea where she was, what was going on, and by the end of the flight was convinced that everyone around her had stolen her money. She was petrified the entire flight, couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t allowed out of her seat on approach, or why she couldn’t get out of the plane.

Unbelievably, she wasn’t accompanied by anyone, not even a family member. One of the flight attendants used the best adjective for what her family did to her – cruel.

The Five

1. One of my favorite things is watching airport operations. I could sit and take that in all day long.
2. One of the little things that I miss the most while travelling is watching sporting events on Sunday. I love being able to relax and watch a golf tournament or a NASCAR race on Sundays. Can’t really do that when I’m flying.
3. I dig office supplies. I have no idea why or what it is.
4. Every now and then someone will say, “Wow that sounds glamorous” when I mention that I travel full time. I’m here to tell you it’s not near as glamorous as one might have you believe.
5. I’m hoping to start taking in ballgames when I’m on the road. I keep showing up in all these cities – I may as well start checking out different ballparks.

Friday Five

The Excuse

None needed!! W00t!

The Week

Because I get to go to all the glamorous places, I found myself in Mission, TX this week. I’ll give you a minute to find it on Google Maps. One of my students did tell me that I was really in Mexico, adding that I was going to need my passport to leave.

Mission, TX (and the entire area) has an extremely large Latino population, the majority by far (about 80% or so). What I did find very interesting was overhearing some of the conversations where people would mid-thought (and sometimes mid-sentence) switch back and forth between Spanish and English. This week also reaffirmed that I need to learn Spanish.

Despite my first impressions upon hearing where I was going to wind up, I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the town. It’s not nearly as small as some of the places I’ve visited (Danville, VA for instance).  The one thing that did concern me, though, was the mobile police tower that was in the parking lot of my hotel for the first 3 nights. The receptionist at the hotel said I had nothing to worry about and dismissed it saying, “They move those all over town.” I don’t know if that was really the explanation I was looking for.

As normal I wasn’t too much of a tourist (not that there would have been much for me to do anyway) so I mostly hung out in my hotel room trying to get some studying done.

The Restaurant

I found a place called The Republic of the Rio Grande. I was initially hoping for Tex/Mex, but wound up with what I can only describe as a hode-podge of a restaurant. Their menu seemed to have a little of everything, from kabobs to pizzas too steaks to …. But I must say that I was very impressed. Now, the made from scratch (including squeezing fresh limes – no sour mix) Patron margarita may be what put me into such a good mood, but I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the place. I did the filet kabobs, which came with a veggie medley and a *very* tasty side of au gratin potatoes. The “kabob” was really just some small (but still good sized) filets that, while not as rare as I would have liked, were very tasty. If I find myself back here, I will definitely go back.

The Exercise

Blah, blah, blah.

The Travel Note

The McPaper did an article the other day about the fear of flying. Generally I’m not afraid of flying. I figure when it’s my turn to go, it’s my turn to go. Outside of some pretty good turbulence a few times, the closest that I think I’ve ever come to seeing something even remotely out of the ordinary was the plane having to recycle it’s landing gear after takeoff. Although I will admit I’ve pulled my seatbelt a bit tighter a few times when we hit turbulence on approach.

The Five

Misc 5:

1. I dig Facebook if for no other reason than the chance to reconnect with people who have crossed my life who I’ve long since forgotten. But there’s another part of me that is a tad worried about that concept. Not that I think I have any enemies looking to settle a score, but still.
2. The digital setup I have at home is the definition of the “Cobbler’s Kids Shoes”. Granted I’m on the road constantly, but the amount of things I’ve been meaning to finish at home on our computers and TiVo is immeasurable. I definitely picked up my father’s trait of starting projects and never finishing them.
3. I honestly have no idea what I would do with my life if I wasn’t a computer trainer or doing something in technology. I kicked around the idea of becoming a lawyer for a little while, but even that doesn’t interest me all that much. Fortunately I don’t see computers going anywhere any time soon.
4. I’m hopelessly addicted to any of the VH1 countdown shows. Top 100 80’s One Hit Wonders? I’m in. I Love the 90’s? Absolutely. There must be a 12 step program.
5. The two languages I’d most like to learn are Spanish and Japanese. The former for practicality, the latter for sheer pleasure.

TiVo’s Had That for Years

One of the things that makes me smile the most is when tech companies start touting a feature they’ve added to their product that another has had for years. Recently DirecTV has been running a marketing blitz letting the world know you can program your DirecTV DVR from the Internet.

No kidding? Really? Interesting. See – I’ve been able to do that with my TiVo for years.

Quick show of hands – who knew you could program a TiVo from the Internet? For the two of you who raised your hands, put your hands down if you heard it from me.

That’s what I thought.

This leads us to the greatest problem with TiVo – their marketing department (assuming they have one), well, sucks.

I’m often asked why I don’t use <fill in satellite or cable provider’s DVR solution here>. The simple answer – it’s not TiVo. TiVo offers me features that I can’t get from any other provider, including:

• The ability to schedule from the Internet. Just head on over to TiVo’s site and you can program anything you like. Or you can do it from Yahoo. Or if you download i.TV you can schedule it from your iPhone (thanks to Jarod for that tip).
• Access to many streaming media options, including Amazon, Netflix, YouTube and, soon, Blockbuster.
• The ability to transfer most recordings off the TiVo onto a computer (which makes for great plane viewing) or a shared server in the house.
• The ability to transfer programs from one TiVo to another. (I thoroughly enjoyed watching AT&T U-verse get all excited about this feature that TiVo’s had for years.)

The simple fact of the matter is that there is not a device that offers me what TiVo does. Unfortunately, as TiVo slowly dies on the vine, few people know what TiVo actually brings to the table. Hopefully TiVo will start putting together a good marketing campaign.

Hopefully.