Ode to my GPS Receiver

If you've been reading my blog for any period of time, then you already know this. Before we even start, for the benefit of any new readers, let me just state this right up front:

I am an electronic gadget nerd.

In response to a recent post of mine, David from Pearl Harbor asked how I like my GPS receiver. Short answer:

I LOVE MY GARMIN GPSMAP 60CSx!

I use it almost anytime I leave the house for any activity.

Driving Across Arizona

- In the car, I use it for car navigation. I bought the Garmin North America database. It does route calculations and guides you to your destination. It doesn't talk like a lot of other fancy GPS receivers do that are specifically designed for car navigation, but that's okay. It gives me a warning beep when I'm coming up on a turn, and it gives me a "turn now" beep when I am at the turn. The North America database comes with business listings, so I can search for nearby restaurants or gas stations or whatever else, and then have the GPS guide me there.

Hiking Diamond Head

- On the trail, I use it to keep track of the mileage and altitude profile of our hike, and sometimes to help me find my way back to the car. Note the "S" in 60CSx means that it has a built in barometric altimeter and magnetic compass. The altimeter gives me nice altitude profiles of our hikes like this one:

Geocaching around Beaver Creek Dam Reservoir

- Geocaching, the compass helps guide us to geocaches when we're close to the hiding spot. Without that "S" in the model number, the GPS would just tell you bearing and range to the geocache, and you would need a separate compass to figure out which way to the geocache.


Plus, this GPS receiver was built with geocaching in mind. If you download all the geocaches within a certain radius of your home or along a route you plan to drive, they will show up as little treasure chest icons on the geographic display. After you have found the geocache, you click "FOUND" and it changes the symbol from a closed treasure chest to an open treasure chest. Looking at my GPS map, I can easily tell which geocaches I have found and which I have not. Alternatively, I can delete waypoints of a certain type. So if I don't care about the geocaches I've already found and want to clean up the screen, I can delete all found geocaches and all the open treasure chest symbols will go away.


- On my bike, it easily clicks into place on my handle-bar mount. It helps me keep track of where I am, how far I've gone, and what my average and max speeds were.


- On the water, I use it both out boating and kayaking for navigation, keeping track of where I am, where I've been, and statistics like mileage, elapsed time, and average speed. When we take the boat out to our favorite cove on Lake Winnipesaukee to go swimming, there is an unmarked rock in the middle of the cove. I swam over to it with my GPS and marked it as a waypoint with a stay-clear warning radius around it, so it will beep at me if we get too close to it. Likewise, after we set the anchor, I set another radius circle warning to tell us if we're dragging the anchor.
The 60CSx is waterproof and has gaskets around the battery compartment and external cable connections. I don't think I would ever intentionally submerge it, but I have had it out in some pretty torrential downpours hiking in Hawaii, and it's gotten plenty wet out kayaking lately with no problems.

Other features: This is the Xtreme version that came out in January 2006. When they added that little "x" to the model number, they added a couple of very important features: the SiRF III chip and expandable memory.

SiRF III: The SiRF III chip is a super-sensitive receiver that enables the 60CSx to pick up very weak GPS signals bouncing off of tall city buildings or trees. The result is that I can sit here inside my house in my comfy family room chair and get a GPS fix. Or, I can get a fix under a heavy tree canopy in the summertime. Or, I can get a fix in a busy downtown city environment surrounded by tall buildings.

Expandable Memory: The x version of the 60CSx also has a microSD card slot. I put a 2GB microSD card in there, and I was able to load ALL the road maps for everything from Norfolk, VA up to Lake Winnipesaukee, NH (along with the accompanying business database for restaurants, gas stations, etc). During our drive across country last summer, I loaded it with all the maps for the west coast from Oregon down to San Diego, then most of the maps for the drive across country. (I think the microSD card was full at about Ohio or so, and I had to empty the maps and reload it with the maps for the rest of the trip.)

In summary, the Garmin 60CSx is a rugged and reliable workhorse of a GPS receiver, and I use it for just about everything I do outside the house. I would highly recommend it for anyone who likes doing outdoor activities - whether it's running, hiking, biking, geocaching, kayaking, boating, or driving your car around town.

Aside about running: I did, in fact, use this GPS for running, too. It's a little bulky and I carried it in my hand as I ran. I mainly used it for running unknown paths like the first time I ran the trails in Eleanor Lawrence Park over in Chantilly, VA. Once I was familiar with the route and the mileage, then I wouldn't continue carrying it around with me.

Click here to visit the Garmin web page for the 60 CSx specifications.

Note: Garmin didn't pay me a dime to write this blog post. These are all my own opinions from owning and using my Garmin 60CSx.

Kailee's Run

Sunday morning was Kailee's Run - a 5K fund raiser to benefit Tracy's Kids who have helped Kailee, a member of our church, in a battle with cancer.

It turns out that walking 7 miles around DC sight-seeing yesterday was a pretty good warm up for running in the 5K this morning. I set a new PR at 29:16 - nowhere near the front of the pack, but a darn good time for me.

Segway into related topic... you'll see the connection in a few minutes.

I think maybe I'm just cursed when it comes to electronic gadgets.

You don't have to scroll back very far in my blog to find a couple of common themes - an obsession with high-tech electronic gadgets... and an element of frustration and banging my head against the wall when said high-tech electronic gadgets don't work right.

No, I'm not going to regale you with more stories of my BlackBerry woes. Although I will say that my wife got the same BlackBerry that I did the same day that I did (buy one get one free promo). We use pretty much the same applications on them, too, and she doesn't seem to have the same problems I have with her BlackBerry. Maybe it's just me.

Okay, so yesterday we went to do our sight-seeing trip around DC. I wore my Garmin Forerunner GPS watch to keep track of the mileage we walked. When we got out of the car at the Iwo Jima Memorial, I looked at my watch to see what time it was. The watch said 9:16:50... I said to myself, "Self, I coulda sworn we left the house about 9:15, did we travel back in time?" In the time it took me to ask myself that question, I noted that the seconds didn't budge.

Yep, my super-whamodyne fancy high-tech GPS watch read 9:16:50 the ENTIRE day.

I tried looking for a reset button somewhere but found none. I tried pushing and holding one or both buttons for multiple seconds to see if that did anything. Nope, nada, zip, no response.

When we got home from sight-seeing, I went on the Garmin website and looked up the trouble-shooting guide. In order to do a factory reset, first you have to hold BOTH buttons for 6 seconds then LET GO of the TOP button for 3 seconds. Gosh darnit, why didn't *I* think of that???

That worked.

Then it beeped at me and told me the battery was low.

Nice.

No, it didn't really matter by that point, it just seemed to add insult to injury. No worries, I put it on the charger last night to get it fully charged before the 5K this morning.

Everything started out fine on the 5K, but it was sprinkling rain. Over the course of the run, it grew to a deluge of rain and I was SOPPING wet by the end.

Kailee's Run in the Rain

The Garmin Forerunner uses a cool touch-screen type of display where you touch the corners of the bezel to activate different functions.

Well... it doesn't work so well in the rain.

The water pretty much shorted out all four corners of the bezel. The entire run, the watch was beeping at me as the rain was causing it to go into all sorts of different sub-menus and activating all sorts of obscure work-out programs and options. I had NO control over it. When I actually touched anywhere on the bezel with my finger, it didn't respond at all.

The RAIN was in control.

Normally, my watch tells me how far I've run and what my pace is. This morning, I couldn't get it to go back to the display that told me how far I ran or what pace I was running, so I had no clue for the duration of the race.

So I just ran.

No idea what my pace was. I just ran at what I thought was a comfortable steady pace that I could maintain to the finish line.

It still recorded the data though, and I was able to download it when I got home. When I got home and looked at my pace and my time on the computer screen, my jaw dropped. I routinely jog 3 miles around Ashburn on my own, and I usually finish in about 30-33 minutes or so. Today I hit the 3 mile mark at 28:27 and I finished the 5K at 29:16. That averages out to about a 9 1/2 minute/mile pace, which is pretty darn good for me.

I still think maybe I'm just cursed with (a) an obsession with electronic gadgets and (b) very bad luck with getting them to work right.

BlackBerry Storm

Okay, for my fellow electronic gadget addicts out there (Eoin... Mark...). I've had my new BlackBerry Storm for two weeks now, so I figured it was time to post something about it.

I had been having problems with my BlackBerry 8830 crashing and had to do multiple wipe-the-Blackberry-clean and "restore factory defaults" resets, so we went to the Verizon store to have a look at the newer models.

Walking into the Verizon store was like taking a bath in fish guts and jumping into a pool full of great white sharks. The salesmen smelled us approaching before we even laid a smelly-fish hand on the door. I mean, seriously folks, if you're a college student taking any classes in social psychology and/or marketing and sales, then you should seriously write a term paper on the high-pressure sales tactics currently on exhibition at the Verizon Wireless store in Sterling.

One salesman immediately welcomed us and asked us to sign in. We said we were there to see about upgrading our phones, and he said he would go check our account status to determine if we were eligible for upgrades. No sooner did salesman #1 walk away then salesmen #2 swooped in for the kill welcomed us and asked if he could help us. Gee, think they work on commission?

Salesman #1 came back and was visibly annoyed that Salesman #2 was talking to us. Salesman #1 informed us that (a) I was eligible for an upgrade, (b) there was a buy-one-BlackBerry-get-one-free deal going on, and (c) my wife was eligible for an "early upgrade."* Ooooooh, tempting... LW wanted a BlackBerry, too.

It turns out Salesman #2 was actually trying to sell us on the new Verizon FiOS phone, tv, and internet service. All-in-all, it ended up being a very confusing and frustrating shopping experience because every time the Verizon Wireless salesman #1 stepped away to get an answer for us, the Verizon FiOS salesman #2 swooped into continue his pitch about how AWESOME FiOS is and what a GREAT deal he could offer us. I felt like a yo-yo...

Blackberry - FiOS - Blackberry - FiOS - Blackberry - FiOS - Blackberry - FiOS...

We eventually gave up because we were starving and couldn't make a decision on either front because neither salesman would withdraw from the battlefield and let one guy follow-through to completion of a sale. We went next door and had some dinner at Pei Wei.

At dinner we came up with a plan of attack. We decided to go back to the Verizon store and divide and conquer. My wife sacrificed herself as the chum for the FiOS salesman and kept him distracted while I looked at the Blackberry display and worked with Salesman #3 - because Salesman #1 left while we were eating dinner, so we had to start from scratch, have him look at our eligibility for upgrades, etc.

Curve vs. Storm

I was really torn between the BlackBerry Curve and the BlackBerry Storm. Either one would be an improvement from the 8830. The Storm sure looked like the cutting edge of technology, but I had a little fear-of-the-unknown. It was SO different from the 8830, I was pretty sure I would find some nuances that I wouldn't like about it, but I couldn't predict what they would be before buying the phone and using it for a week.

Even so, I decided to be daring and go with the Storm. It came with the SIM card that meant it was ready for international use (not that I'm planning any international travel in the immediate future, but you never know). It came with an 8GB micro-SD card. I liked the way I could view full web pages on it and turn the screen sideways to make the text wider.

Here are some of the good and bad things I've observed in my first week with the Storm:

Music.

It appears I've solved my whole Zen / iPod dilemma. I've been using my BB Storm to listen to music while I've been at the gym. It works like a champ. It loaded up all the songs I had on my hard drive, but stopped to ask me if I wanted to load the songs from Yahoo that had expired licenses. I clicked "no" and got rid of those. I created a new playlist for running on the treadmill at the gym. I'm very pleased with that so far.

Ring Tones.

You can take any song you've uploaded to the Storm and select it as your Ring Tone. Pretty cool. I'm using Peter Murphy's "Indigo Eyes" right now, not because it has any particular personal meaning for me, just because the intro riff makes a good ring-tone.

Battery life.

Battery life seems reasonable. I took it through a "test discharge" last Tuesday and totally drained it until the phone was dead as a doornail. (Aside: A "test discharge" being where you test the health of your battery by seeing just how much you can take out of it.) I took it off the charger Tuesday morning and went to the gym. Listened to music on it and read blogs on Google Reader while I was on the treadmill and elliptical machine for an hour. Used it at lunch for email. Left it "on" all day in a metal cubby-hole lock-box outside my office. That night I never put it on the charger because I crashed at Nate's place, and I used my cell phone A LOT that night for several phone calls to my wife and back and forth to the office and to my boss through the night. I think it was about half way through Wednesday when the battery finally gave up the ghost and the Storm died.

Reliability.

Four times so far this week (that I am aware of), the Storm has spontaneously crashed and commenced a rebooting process that takes about 5 minutes to get you back online again. It's particularly frustrating when you've been tapping out an email to someone or when you're trying to chat with your 7-year old son before he goes to bed because you're stuck at work. No doubt, someday I will need this as a PHONE in an EMERGENCY, then it's gonna wig-out and I'm gonna have to wait 5 minutes for it to reboot.

Vibrate mode.

For a while there, I was getting REALLY annoyed. It seemed like whenever I put the phone in the holster that it automatically shifted to vibrate mode. I don't WANT it in vibrate mode! I want it in THIS mode or THAT mode or WHATEVER mode I put it in, so STOP SHIFTING TO VIBRATE MODE!!!

I finally figured it out though. On top of the phone is a mute button (speaker icon with a slash through it). If, while the phone is in the holster, you happen to BUMP, brush, nudge, nick, push, flick, pick, knock, swipe, beat, tap, bang, or bash the phone in any manner whatsoever, then you're gonna hit that mute button. When you hit the mute button and it's in the holster, then it shifts to vibrate mode. I haven't figured out how to disable this feature yet. I HAVE missed a few phone calls this week because I had the BB Storm in the holster and it shifted to vibrate mode.

Holding the touch screen next to your face.

I keep having this odd experience. I would be talking to someone on the phone, and all of a sudden the Storm would start making weird noises in my ear like I left the phone off the hook beep-beep-beep-beep, but I could still hear the person in the background with whom I was already talking. I think I've figured this one out. While you're IN a phone call with someone, it puts up four big buttons on the screen for you to hit at random with your cheek bone while you're talking. The one I most commonly hit with my cheekbone is the "add another person to the conversation" button which I think opens up another phone line to dial somebody else, but then when I don't actually dial anybody else's phone number, it starts giving me the off-hook beep-beep-beep-beep-beep signal. ANNOYING!

I witnessed my wife have trouble with this tonight. She was talking to someone on her phone and all of a sudden heard her say, "Yes, I'm here, can you hear me?... Yes, I'm still here, can you hear me?... What the heck?!?!" Turns out another one of those buttons on the screen of the Storm is the "mute" button. While holding her phone up to her face, my wife bumped the "mute" button on the screen so that the person she was talking to could no longer hear her, and then she couldn't figure out how to UNmute it (at least not before the other person hung up).

Again, this may be growing pains. I'm learning not to hold my phone up to my face or try to hold it up to my ear with my shoulder. That doesn't work so well. Maybe my problem is that I didn't give in and buy the super whamodyne blue-tooth headset the guy was trying to sell me.

Keyboards.

This might just be that I haven't used it enough to get used to it yet, but I can't type nearly as fast on the Storm as I used to type on the 8830.

When you hold the Storm sideways, then it brings up a full QWERTY keyboard with one letter per button. One thing I like about it is that if you lightly touch your finger to the screen, it lights up a glow around the button it thinks you're about to push. In that sense, if you type slowly, you can do it accurately because you can tell whether it's sensing the right letter before you push it.

However, the buttons are small and I can NOT type accurately using this keyboard with any kind of speed. Also, it's clear that they divided the keyboard in half and biased the keys assuming whether you would be pushing them with your right versus your left thumb.

On the 8830 I used to jam out messages fast and it didn't matter what side of the keyboard a letter was on. I developed a rhythm with my thumbs alternating back and forth like you were playing some 1980's era track-and-field game. For example, if a word was predominantly on one side of the keyboard like "FACE," then I would probably hit the F and the C with my right thumb and the A and the E with my left thumb.

Yyyyyyeah, can't do that with the Storm. It assumes the keys on the left will be hit with your left thumb. Because of the angle your left thumb comes in at, it assumes if you make an error and don't hit a key square-on, then chances are you hit a little to the left of what you intended, so it biases a little bit to the right of where your thumb made contact. So, for example, if I try my old method of typing "FACE," it would show up on the screen as "GAVE" because the angle of my RIGHT thumb hitting the F and the C combined with the left-thumb bias result in it choosing one key to the right.

To make a long story short, I have to lecture my thumbs on staying on each of their OWN side of the keyboard and not hitting the other side. Also, I can't type one-handed anymore using this QWERTY keyboard.

But wait, all is NOT lost!

When you hold the Storm in the vertical position, it has a pretty cool new kind of QWERTY keyboard. It has two letters per key - (QW) - (ER) - (TY) - (UI) - (OP) being the top five keys. The buttons are a lot bigger since they have two letters per button. As you type on this keyboard, it figures out what word you want based on the combination of buttons you push. So using the same example as above, if I want to type "FACE," I type (DF) - (AS) - (CV) - (ER), and it figures out that FACE is the most likely word (only word?) that can be made from those four key strokes. In the cases where there IS more than one possible word from the keys you've pushed, then it will show both of them on the screen and let you tap on the one you wanted.

Because the keys are bigger in this vertical keyboard arrangement, it's actually designed pretty nicely to hold in your hand and do one-handed (one-thumbed) typing. I actually type faster with this keyboard than I do with the horizontal QWERTY keyboard.

Gloves.

I USED to be able to stand at the bus stop and read emails, read news, read blogs, etc on my BlackBerry 8830 while wearing gloves. I wasn't typing messages, but I could move the cursor around with the trackball and click enter to "surf" my way around things.

Not with the BB Storm. It apparently needs your actual finger to touch it. Instead of the track ball, you just slide your finger back and forth or up and down on the screen to scroll the image around... but it doesn't work with gloves on. This may be a minor thing if you're somewhere warm like San Diego or Hawaii, but if it's 27 degrees and windy out (like it was this morning here), don't plan on doing any reading on your BB while waiting for the bus unless you want to take your gloves off.

Shock Test.

Single data point. I dropped the Storm for the first time the other day. The battery cover popped off and slid across the floor, but unlike my 8830, the Storm didn't lose any of its "guts" (battery, SIM card, microSD card) and remained powered up the whole time. The few times I dropped the 8830, the battery usually popped out, then I had to wait five minutes or so while it powered up and logged into the network again.

Well, I figure this post is plenty long enough for now. I'll let you know if I have any other keen observations on the Storm as I gain experience using it.

Invisible Shield

Sticking to my previous disclaimer, nobody at Zagg or anywhere else is paying me or giving me anything for this.

I'm a big fan of the Invisible Shield screen protectors from Zagg.

They originally designed this stuff to strengthen Army helicopter blades. Turns out, the stuff works great for screen protectors on handheld electronic devices.

Zagg makes them pre-cut for every handheld electronic gadget known to man. Over the years I have bought one for just about everything I own with any sort of a display screen. I have one on my old Palm Pilot, on my new BlackBerry, on my GPS Receiver, on my Polar heartrate monitor watch... Even if you have something they haven't already pre-cut the correct size for, you can custom order the size you need.

They're really easy to put on - a lot easier than your typical sticky screen protectors. Other screen protectors I had tried on my Palm Pilot were like messing around with a sheet of scotch tape - getting stuck to your fingers or to itself and being unforgiving about realigning it after you've already stuck it on. With the Invisible Shield, you spray it with a special solution and it won't stick to your fingers or anything else. You put it on your display, slide it back and forth to the right alignment, squeegee off the excess solution and let it dry.

Once it dries, you can't really tell it's there anymore. The website has some videos of them trying to scratch the heck out of screens of iPods with car keys, and it leaves no marks or evidence whatsoever. Like I said, I've been using them for years on my gadgets and I've had no scratches or any other blemishes on any of them, in spite of geocaching and hiking and banging the stuff on rocks.

Anyway, the reason I am writing about them TONIGHT is that when I placed an order on their website tonight, they sent me two one taken, one left - one-time-use coupons for 20% off that I could forward to friends. They expire in 30 days. If you want one of the the last coupons, drop me an email and I'll forward it to you.

New Toy Syndrome

Okay, well, I don't have new toy syndrome YET because I haven't bought one YET, but Garmin just rolled out the new Oregon series of handheld GPS receivers. Check out the demo!

It looks pretty sweet. I especially like the fact that it can upload the GPX files from the Geocaching website and it will display the geocache listing with descriptions and clues and whatnot. Right now I usually carry my GPS for bearing and range to the geocache and my PDA for the cache listing to read the description and hints. It would be nice to have them combined into one device.

From the looks of the image gallery (click on the check it out link above), it looks pretty small - like smaller than my current Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx.

I'm not sure how I feel about the touch screen though. It'd be nice to find one of these in a store somewhere to get a feel for it.

Hmmmmm...

I know I've written before that nobody pays me anything to write on my blog.

However (comma), I will shamelessly say that if anyone at Garmin is reading this and wants to let me take an Oregon out for a trial run and blog about it, let's talk. :-)

Who are you and what have you done with my son?

I think ES was possessed by aliens tonight. When I first got home, ES was being a pain in the butt about doing his homework. He did it, but with a lot of flippant attitude and drama. I said to myself, "Self, it's gonna be one of those days."

Then, it was as if someone flipped a light switch in his head and he became the most pleasant and easy to get along with child on the face of the planet. He WATCHED me play Wii Fit for like 20 minutes without once asking if he could have a turn. He came inside when it was time for dinner and ate his dinner. When he asked to be excused from dinner, I told him to get his dry erase board so we could practice his spelling.

In my mind I sorta cringed and waited for the firestorm of whining in response, but he didn't whine or complain at all. He went and got his dry erase board and sat down next to me on the family room floor. It was actually downright FUN to practice his spelling with him tonight, and he did such a good job at it that we only had to practice once. He finished so early with his spelling that he still had time to go outside and play with J & M across the street for a good 30 minutes. When LW told him to come inside because it was time for a bath, he came right in, went to the bathroom, and got undressed without ANY fuss.

While I was giving him a bath, he started asking me questions about what country is Rome in and we started talking about what continent Italy is in and what other countries are in that continent. Somehow our conversation drifted to Russia and the Cold War and the differenced between communism and capitalism and the Vietnam War and the Korean War. We finished his bath and came down to read a bedtime story.

For his "bedtime story" he picked out his enormous Encyclopedia of Modern Military Aircraft that he got for sale at Borders. He said he wanted to pick out one airplane to read about. I said okay, sure.



He picked out the "flying porcupine." (Disclaimer: I cannot confirm nor deny any information on that website. To tell you the truth, I didn't even read the text, I just saw that it had pictures, so I put the link here.) I sorta winced as I thought about how to explain what the plane does in unclassified terms that were easy for a first grader to understand. He seemed to enjoy reading about it nonetheless.

We went upstairs for the usual bedtime routine of brushing his teeth and getting in bed, and as usual I asked him what his favorite parts about today were before we said prayers. Do you know what he said?!?! He said his favorite parts of today were:
- Playing with J & M across the street (no brainer, that's a given)
- Watching Daddy play Wii (who knew Daddy's lack of balance on the Wii Fit board could be so entertaining?)
- Practicing his spelling with Daddy (Cue theme song to Twilight Zone - I just about died when he said that)
- Drinking orange soda with Daddy (I let him try it, and he really liked it)

Wow... I'm speechless. (Not typeless mind you, just speechless). Why can't every night be like this? Was Father's Day moved to today and I just didn't get the memo?

BT BT (Break Break - shifting topics slightly)

Have I mentioned how cool Wii Fit is?

Tonight I tried doing the yoga moves. (Hey, don't laugh, and don't knock it 'til you try it). LW scored higher than me on all but one of the yoga poses. It gives you a score based on your ability to maintain your center of balance on the board while doing poses like the Tree.

With Wii Fit, you get this Balance Board to stand on. Don't be alarmed! I was thinking it was going to be some wobbly thing that I wouldn't be able to stand on without risking substantial injury to my ankles. No, no, no. This board sits flat on the floor like a bathroom scale, but it senses your weight and which way you're leaning.


This is the Wii Fit board. It's very solid and immobile. Notice the crosshair lines so you can tell where the center of the board is. It senses when you shift your center of gravity (lean) forward or backward or left or right.

For the yoga and strength exercises, you can choose whether you want a male personal trainer...

...or a female personal trainer. LW says the female trainer's voice is annoying. These last two images were of the demonstration of the "tree" in yoga.

When you actually DO the yoga exercise, the screen looks like this. The gray rectangle represents the Wii Fit balance board. The yellow circle is your target where it wants you to keep your center of gravity balanced. The red dot that is moving around on the screen is where your center of gravity really IS. Notice the red trail swirling around from my horrible balance... the camera in my hand may have had something to do with that. The blue circle in the background slowly grows and collapses to guide your breathing.

For the aerobic exercises and the balance exercises, it has several activities to choose from that all have more of a silly video-game appearance. This is YB playing the soccer head-butt balance game.

One of our other favorites is the ski-jump. You start out crouching down. The objective is to hold your center of gravity (the red dot) as close as possible to the blue dot on the balance board display (upper right corner).

When you get to the bottom of the ramp, you quickly stand up to launch yourself into the air.

Yeah, LW holds the top record on the ski jump, too. I need more practice...

I wonder how long this will last...

If you have small children like us, then you're probably always trying to find new ways to inspire or motivate your children to pick up their eighteen bajillion toys scattered all over the floor in the house. Here's a new method that worked for us this morning:

Buy a cool robotic vacuum cleaner and tell the boys we can't play with the robot until they pick all the toys up off the floor.

That worked like a champ this morning. I don't think I've ever seen the boys pick up the toys off the floor so quickly. (Aside: No, I'm not suggesting you run out and buy a Roomba just to get your kids to pick the toys up. It was just a nice unintended consequence of getting the Roomba.)

Now, while LW tries to figure out how to put the batteries in the controls for the robot, YB has decided to perform an interpretive dance for us on the now-clutter-free family room floor. It's pretty funny to watch. Where's the camera when you need it?

Here's a recap of the maiden voyage of the Roomba in our house...

T +1 minute: For the first couple of minutes, the boys aren't sure what their reaction to this creepy-crawly robot should be. They both take up perches on the couch and chair to observe the behavior of this new creature in the house.

T +3 minutes: ES is now chasing the robot around the family room as if it were a small furry creature. The robot doesn't seem to notice or care.

T +4 minutes: Intrigued by the fact the Roomba will go under couches and chairs, ES is now trying to invent a Roomba-Trap that will lure the poor robot in and not allow any avenues for escape.

T +5 minutes: The Roomba is now an "enemy" robot from some far away planet. Both boys are shooting at it with toy laser guns.

T +8 minutes: Now it's a physics experiment. The boys are trying to test how much of a load the robot can carry by stacking toys up on top of it.

T +8 minutes 30 seconds: The Roomba outsmarts the boys attempts to overload it and drives under the couch with barely any overhead clearance, thus sweeping the toys off the top, then it turned around and tried to vacuum up the toys. ES frantically picked up the toys.

T +10 minutes: The boys resume shooting at the enemy robot with their laser guns.

T +12 minutes: Ding Dong! The doorbell rings. See my previous post about the door bell. Sure enough, it's M from across the street asking if the boys can come out to play. Bye boys! The novelty of the Roomba appears to be officially over. My ears pop as the boys race out the front door. Now the Roomba is vacuuming in peace.

YB "shoots" at the "enemy robot" (Roomba)
with his "laser gun" (drumstick).

Note at least he's wearing proper PPE -
sunglasses to protect his eyes from the laser.

HD vs. Blu-Ray DVD - Follow Up

Follow-up to my previous post on HD DVD versus Blu-Ray.

First, on Tuesday, Netflix and Best Buy announced they are letting HD DVD go by the wayside and are sticking with Blu-Ray. It sounds to me like it's "game over" for HD DVD. (See "Netflix and Best Buy Feeling Blu").

Then, yesterday, in spite of this article back in April 2007 in which Wal-Mart had declared HD-DVD the "winner" in the HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray format contest.

There is one retailer that has the power to call the winner of the protracted Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD fight and that vendor is Wal-Mart. Over the weekend they apparently leaked plans to bring in a massive number of low cost (possibly sub $200) HD DVD players for Christmas...

What does this Mean?

It means that any studio wanting Wal-Mart’s support after year end had better be selling HD DVD movies. Wal-Mart won’t be promoting Blu-Ray and, after year end, will increasingly focus their marketing on getting people to buy into HD DVD players and the related HD DVD movie from them. (Rob Enderle, Digital Trends, 23 Apr 2007)

The latest news says that Wal-Mart is switching sides and will only sell Blu-Ray

Wal-Mart Stores said on Friday that it plans to exclusively back the Blu-ray high-definition movie format, in the latest blow to the rival HD DVD camp backed by Toshiba.

In a statement on its Web site, Wal-Mart said that over the next few months it would phase out sales of HD DVD systems and discs, and by June will sell only Blu-ray products.

The decision marks the third retailer this week to turn its back on HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray... (Reuters, 15 Feb 2008)

HD-DVD is like a sinking ship. I wonder how long it will be before Toshiba, Microsoft, and anybody else clinging to a hope of HD DVD staying afloat will give up and get on board the Blu-Ray boat? I suppose they have to continue to publicly support it until they get their inventory of HD-DVD players and DVDs sold off to minimize their losses. In fact, I think that must be why my mom found such a great deal on the HD-DVD player - the retailers see the righting on the wall and they're trying to clear out their HD-DVD inventory (note: HD DVD movies are like 50% off on Amazon.com right now).

Follow-Up 2/25/2008: Toshiba has raised the white flag and announced they will no longer manufacture the HD DVD players. Game over, man.

The Big TV Debacle

OMG. I never thought buying a new TV would be such an ordeal. It's almost comical how many iterations this ordeal went through.

I've been drooling over a Sony Bravia flat panel LCD TV at the NEX for a while, and we planned to buy one sometime soon with taxes and stuff done. So I already had a well-defined target (model, size, and price).

Then, as I wrote about yesterday, we went in search of a new entertainment center yesterday to go with the anticipated TV purchase. While looking at the TV stands and entertainment centers at Best Buy, my jaw dropped when I saw a Sony Bravia with screen size 6 inches bigger than the TV I wanted to buy at the NEX, but for the same price as the TV at the NEX. Aaaaaand, to sweeten the deal, they were offering 2 years of interest-free financing!!! SOLD!!! ...Well, not so fast.

Tangent: A warning to anyone not experienced in "interest-free" financing schemes. These can be very good deals IF you pay off the entire balance in the time period offered as "interest free." Normally what these companies do is your account will continue to compound interest, and IF you pay off the purchase before the time limit is up, then they'll waive the interest. If you DON'T, then WHAM! You just got socked with ALL the interest, and chances are, their interest rate is astronomically high. They CAN be very good deals IF you make darn sure to pay it off in the alloted time.

In terms of the "time value of money" and compounding interest, using one of these interest-free financing schemes makes good financial sense even if you HAVE the cash on hand and could pay for the item all up front. Let's say you wanted to buy something for $1,200, and you happen to have $1,200 burning a hole in your pocket, and the store is offering interest-free financing for one year. Take the interest-free financing and put the $1,200 in an interest-bearing account. Set up an automatic payment from your account to the the credit company for $100 per month to pay off the purchase in the alloted 12 months. Meanwhile, your cash is growing in value by gathering interest in the bank. At a fairly low interest rate, you could earn on the order of $34 in interest by my quick calculations in this scenario.

End of Tangent. Resuming Original Story...

Well, I thought that the TV at Best Buy must be too good to be true and thought I should go home to check it out on the internet, verify I wasn't misremembering the price on the TV at the NEX, check the user reviews on the internet, etc. Turns out, this model of TV was THE TOP rated LCD for it's size range on www.consumerreports.org, and the price was a GREAT deal. One quick background piece of data you might need to appreciate this ordeal: I have impeccable credit and have never been denied credit on anything before.

Purchase Attempt Round 1: I tried filling out the Best Buy credit application on their website last night. After filling in and submitting the application form online, the website said it needed to confirm my identity by asking me some questions. Okay, shoot.

First it gave a list of several different addresses and asked which one was a previous address where I had lived. One of them was our address back when we were in Monterey. No sweat, easy answer.

Next, it asked me in what town Muriel __________ [my last name] lived in and listed a bunch of city names in Virginia. Um.... I don't know ANYBODY by the name of Muriel, so why on EARTH would I know what city she lives in??? One of the answer options was, "I don't know anyone named Muriel _______." So I clicked on that option, then they said I had to call them at their toll free number to resolve my identity.

Of course, their business hours are in Central Time, and they were long closed by then.

Round 2: Today, I figured I could bypass silly nonsensical questions about Muriel, Arial, the Little Murmaid, and anybody else I don't know by just GOING to Best Buy and SHOWING them multiple forms of identification with photos to prove who I was. Nope, they denied my credit application in the store. I suspect it was due to the fact that I have an open and unresolved credit application via the website, but all the rude lady behind the counter would say was that I would receive something in the mail in 7 to 10 days explaining why I had been denied credit. Thbbbbbbt. :-P

Round 3: I went back home, got the phone, and called the toll free number to "resolve my identity" with Best Buy over the phone. The guy on the phone pulls up my application and tells me he will have to ask me a series of questions to verify my identity. I said, okay, shoot.

First, he asks me what county one of my previous street addresses was in. The street address he gave me was my MIL's condo on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH, where our mail was sent for a brief period of time in between duty stations during a PCS move several years ago. I don't have the FOGGIEST idea what COUNTY my MIL's lake condo is in. So I tell the guy to hang on while I look it up (he just told me the street number and name, not the city or state, so it's not like I could just google the city and state if I didn't already know where the place was). LW picked up my cell phone and called my MIL and asked her what county the lake house is in and we got the answer right.

Next, he asked which of the following phone numbers was one of my previous phone numbers. He listed like 7 phone numbers, and NONE of them were EVER my phone number. He listed a bunch that were the correct area code and first three digits, but the last four were never right. I told him none of them were right, so he moved on to the next question.

Next, he asked which of the following people I had an association with, and listed half a dozen names of people I've NEVER heard of before. Where do they come up with this crap? I mean, it's been a while since I looked at my credit report, but I don't remember my credit report ever listing any sort of "associates." I told him I'd never heard of any of those people in all my life, so he moved on to the next question. (Note to self: Next time, just apply in the store and show them your ID).

Next, he asked another phone number list question, and this time one of our previous phone numbers was on the list.

Finally, he said, congratulations, I had passed the test and was granted an account with them. Hooray. I go to order the TV from the website... and it says "In Store Only." I checked with the store, and the TV is out of stock. Thbbbbt :-P!

Round 4: So I said to myself, "Self, just use the NEX's price-matching policy." I bet the NEX had the TV I wanted in stock, and I was sure if I showed them the ad from Best Buy that they would sell it to me for that price. I wouldn't get the interest-free financing, but I also wouldn't pay sales tax. I called the NEX to make sure they had the TV in stock. The salesman told me yes, they had them in stock, but in order to invoke the price-matching policy, they had to be able to call a local store and verify that they had the TV IN STOCK. What a load of horse crap! I'm sorry, but that "certain restrictions apply" cliche in the fine print doesn't cut it for something as big as that. That's just a darn rude business practice. I wrote an email to the NEX and told them they should print that in their price matching policy.

Round 5: LW suggested I check and see if they had them in stock at Circuit City. I had previously checked Circuit City, and they were charging $300 more than Best Buy, but that was still significantly less than what the NEX was selling it for, so if I could just get the price matched with Circuit City that would still be a better deal than buying it for the listed price at the NEX. So I called Circuit City. Low and behold, NOT ONLY do they have the TV IN STOCK, but they are having a SALE and lowered their price to MATCH BEST BUY's price. Aaaaaand, they were offering THREE YEAR interest-free financing. SOLD!!! ...Well, not so fast.

So I hop in the car and take off for Circuit City. I told the salesman what I was there to buy, and he sorta gasped and said he wasn't sure if they had any left. I told him I had just called and that the lady had told me on the phone that they had one in stock. He checked the computer and sure enough, they still had one. I filled out the credit application... and got DENIED. I suspect this was due to recent credit history of just recently opening an account at Best Buy, but the guy told me the same standard blurb about, "I don't know the reason why you were denied, but you will receive something in the mail in 7 to 10 days explaining why your credit was denied." Thbbbbbt! :-P

Round 6: So I hopped in the car again and took off for the NEX. The NEX salesman was shocked that Circuit City both had the TV in stock and were offering it for a price like 25% less than what the NEX was selling it for. SOLD!!! ...Well, not so fast.

I drove over to the large item pickup by the NEX furniture store, and... the TV was too big to fit in the car.

Round 7: Quickly called a friend and went to borrow his truck. Got the truck, went back to the NEX large item pickup and FINALLY got the TV.

Whew!

Now we just gotta find a TV stand or entertainment center to put it on...

P.S. Oh, and if any Best Buy or Circuit City CEO's read this: You each lost out on a BIG purchase today. Too bad for you. Maybe you should reevaluate your credit procedures. I find it a little ironic that the bank that Circuit City offers financing through is Chase, and they turned me down, yet when I purchased the TV at the NEX, I used my Chase credit card that has a credit limit several times more than the amount of my purchase. Although the experience was a little frustrating for me, I got what I wanted for the price I wanted, and Best Buy and Circuit City each lost a sale.

Funny Quotes and Awesome Customer Service

YS Quote of the Day

So I go into the bathroom to start the water for the boys' bath, and YS comes barrelling, hopping, thumping, skipping, jumping into the bathroom like a herd of elephants and pronounces to the world, "I'M going to take my TEMPERATURE!" and he proceeds to stand on our digital bathroom scale and watch the digital numbers start to blink up on the screen. His temperature... er... I mean, he weighed in at 39.8 pounds.

ES Quote of the Day

So the boys are now IN the bathtub, and I'm washing between ES's toes. He normally giggles and squirms ferociously when I do this. After I finished cleaning his toes tonight, he said, "Daddy?" Yes, son. "I know one monster that isn't mythical." (Yes, he used the word mythical.) Oh yeah, what monster is that? "The TICKLE monster!" Sorry, maybe it's not that funny or maybe you just had to be there. I was just blown away by his use of the word "mythical."

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Two-Thumbs Up for D-Link Customer Service!

First, a disclaimer: Keep in mind that the comments I will share with you here are based on a sample size of TWO, so I don't know how scalable my opinion is to the corporations at large. That being said... There are two companies that stick out in my mind as having earned my undying loyalty due to their phenomenal customer service.


The first was 3Com. We set up our first home LAN back in 1999 in Monterey so LW and I could play video games together and access the internet at the same time on our two computers instead of taking turns on the phone line. My first LAN hub was a 3Com OfficeConnect that had a built in 56.6k modem, so it dialed out on our phone line and connected to the internet and acted as the proxy server for our two computers on the home LAN (think stone-age version of a cable modem router).

It worked like a champ and our home network rocked with some epic Civ II battles. One day I tried to upgrade the firmware in the router, and it died. No worky. Non-responsive. Kaput. I called the 3Com toll free tech support number, I got to talk to a real live human being on the phone, and he immediately shipped me a replacement router via next-day air. When the delivery guy showed up at the door, all I had to do was open the box, take out the new router, put the broken router back in the box, slap the RMA address label on it, and hand it back to the delivery guy to take it away. Poof! Our LAN was back up and operational in a day, and it didn't cost me a dime.

Later, on my initial attempt to join the world of wireless LAN people, I tried to use a Linksys wireless router. I hated it. No matter how hard I tried, I could NOT get it to work, and tech support was non existent and/or not helpful.

So based on my previous high-esteem for 3Com, I did some online shopping and found that 3Com had a wireless router on the market, so I bought it. I have never been disappointed with it. The 3Com wireless router worked right away with no set-up issues or problems over the past 3 years.

Okay, I'm stepping down off of my 3Com soap box now and stepping up onto the next soap box.

The second company to earn this high praise from me is D-Link.

Sometime during our last shore duty, I replaced my Intel Print Server with a D-Link DP-300U Print Server. It's been a few years, and I'm sure that the D-Link is probably no longer under warranty. While the setup of the D-Link was by no means intuitive or "plug and play," it came with a VERY HELPFUL quick setup reference sheet that was very easy to understand and follow step by step, and it worked like a champ. The quick setup sheet is available for download from their support website, so each time I've bought a new computer and needed to map my network printer to the new computer, I've been able to quickly relocate the setup guide on the D-Link website and follow the instructions.

I decided to upgrade our cable modem router. This is not meant to put down 3Com in any way, that 3Com router was awesome and served us well. I decided to go with a Zyxel router this time that had really good user reviews on the internet, was reasonably priced, and was recommended for use with the X-Box for playing video games on X-Box Live.

The problem arose that I could no longer print after installing the new Zyxel router. The default IP address that the D-Link print server liked to use was not in the IP address range that the Zyxel router assigns to computers on the network. I emailed D-Link customer service to ask for help. I quickly received a reply email informing me it would be easier to help me fix it over the phone, and to please call their tech support available 24/7. I called D-Link tech support tonight, and with a few menu options and button pushes, I got to a live human being. He quickly understood my problem and walked me through step by step to fix the problem. He never asked me when I purchased it or if it was under warranty or anything like that, he was very professional just helped me solve the problem and got me back in business.

So there you have it. Two anecdotal stories on why I hold 3Com and D-Link in such high esteem.

What about the other end of the spectrum you ask? Hmmm... The ONE company that I will forever hold a grudge against and NEVER EVER purchase something they make is BenQ. Avoid BenQ like the plague! It's a rather long story spanning nine months of multiple RMAs and complaints to the Better Business Bureau, so I'll have to save that one for another post.

Palm versus Blackberry

You don't have to know me for long to find out what a gadget-fiend I am. I always have to wear pants with lots of pockets to accomodate the gadgets, especially when I go out geocaching - the wallet, the palm pilot, the cell phone, the GPS receiver, the camera...

I've been through four generations of Palm Pilots now. I can still remember the first time I saw the original Palm Pilot in a magazine ad and then the first time I saw one in a store at the Crystal Mall in New London, CT. I needed to hold a cup under my chin for the drool.

That original Palm Pilot Professional carried me through my JO tour out of Groton and our time in Monterey. Then, when I went to SOAC, that was back in the days when they ISSUED all of us SOAC students a Palm Vx. I used that for most of my department head tour.

During my pre-deployment shopping spree to get everything-I-never- knew-I-needed-but-you-never-know-what-you-might-need-thousands- of-miles-from-nowhere, I decided I really wanted a Palm Pilot with a COLOR screen and some more memory. I went browsing through Best Buy, and they had JUST received and put up the display for the NEW Palm Zire 71. It had a color screen, an SD memory card slot, it could play audio music files, and it had a built in camera! SWEET! I bought it, and we headed off for WESTPAC.

WARNING: Tangent Ahead - one quick sea story to tell...

Two weeks into deployment, we had our first port call in Chin Hae, Korea. I had that awesome Palm Zire in my back pocket. (Note, for those of you non-literary types, that is called foreshadowing). It had been raining topside. I don't remember why I was topside, but I came down the ladder (this one was an actual straight-up-and-down ladder) through the Weapons Shipping Hatch (the one forward of the sail that puts you into the Command Passageway between the CO and XO's staterooms), and turned to go down the "ladder" (a steep set of stairs) from the Command Passageway to the Forward Compartment Middle Level (FCML) passageway. As I started to put my foot out to take the first step, BOTH of my feet went FLYING out in front of me. I felt like Wile E. Coyote in that moment between running off the edge of a cliff and plunging to his demise. Why is it time seems to slow down in those terrible instances? During those long moments that seemed like hours as I tumbled down the steps of the ladder into FCML, I had a conversation with myself that went something like, "Self, is this the end? I wonder if you'll break your neck and this'll be "the end." Or, if not, I wonder which bones will be broken and which hospital they will take you to? That medical clinic on the American section of the base looked pretty darn small, and your injuries are bound to be more than they can handle... I wonder what South Korean hospitals are like. I hope they're not like the karaoke bars..." and then I landed - OOF! MUCH to my surprise, it WASN'T my demise and I DIDN'T even break any bones. I was battered and bruised and really sore for a while, but the only irreparable damage was that darn Palm Pilot that was in my back pocket. It shattered the screen, KAPUT!

While thankful for my health and lack of serious injuries, I was devastated without my Palm Pilot. I quickly went to the internet cafe and wrote LW to ask her to get me a replacement Palm Pilot as fast as humanly possible. I forget the exact logistics of it, but LW and my stepmom teamed up to get me a replacement in the mail that same week.

We had subsequent port calls in Chin Hae, Okinawa, Guam, Yokosuka, Guam, Brisbane, Guam, Saipan, Guam... mmmm... I think we might have gone to Guam once or twice in the middle there, too. Each port call, I got mail and care packages from my family, and almost always about one week after they had been mailed, but no sign of the package with the replacement Palm Pilot. After about two or three months, I gave up hope and assumed some postal worker in Guam had himself a new palm pilot.

Two weeks before we returned home from deployment, we had our final port call in... can you guess? GUAM! After running some errands around the island, I came back to the boat and found a package waiting on my rack. It was my replacement Palm Pilot!!! It only took 5 MONTHS and missed all but the transit over and the transit back, but it made it.

Picture taken with my NEW replacement
Palm Pilot on the day we returned from
deployment in 2003.

Anyway, whether it was my original Palm Pilot, my Palm Vx, or my Palm Zire, I always had my Palm Pilot. If my CO wanted to know what the tides and currents would be in the channel if we delayed our underway by 4 or 6 hours, I would whip out my Palm and with a few taps tell him the answer. I used my Planetarium program to predict when we would spot the Southern Cross on our way south to Australia, and by golly I found it with the periscope that night on the midwatch. When it came time for me to transfer, my CO wanted me to include the Palm Pilot as part of the turnover process. How could my relief POSSIBLY function without the Nav's Palm Pilot???

During my last tour in DC, I discovered geocaching, and I started doing a juggling act with all my electronic gadgets. I had to carry the GPS receiver to find the geocache. I had to carry the cell phone in case of emergency. I had to carry the palm pilot for the geocache description and hints. If I wanted good pictures, I had to carry the camera, too (the Zire camera was only 0.3 megapixels). So I decided to upgrade to my fourth Palm: a Palm Treo 700p.


The Palm Treo 700p wrapped my cell phone, palm pilot, and a 1.3 megapixel camera into ONE device, and it enabled me to check my email or search the internet on the fly. I chose the 700p (Palm O/S) over the 700w (Windows Mobile) because I was so familiar with the Palm O/S, and the Windows Mobile version came with a lower-resolution screen.

So you're saying to yourself, "Self, why doesn't he get to the POINT already?"

My point in telling you all this is that I want to set the stage by explaining my long history with Palm Pilots. I have been very pleased with them overall.

Having said that, I have not been very happy with the Palm Treo. It's slow. It frequently locks-up. The BlueTooth didn't work. The email was difficult to set up and frustrating to use. The thing that really drove me nuts was whenever it lost the Verizon signal and regained the signal, then it had to stop everything and do this lengthy process of logging back onto the Verizon network, and it wouldn't let me do ANYTHING ELSE while it was doing that. So I couldn't use the Palm side of the device as a Palm Pilot and write appointments on my calendar and I couldn't use the camera side of the device to take a picture of a fleeting moment if it was in the process of logging back onto the network. Whenever I tried to make an urgent or just a QUICK phone call, I NEVER could. Inevitably, the phone would lock up then. I was convinced that if I was ever in a car accident or needed to make a life-and-death emergency phone call, the Treo would lock up and I'd have to remove the battery, put the battery back in, wait for it to start up, wait for it to log onto the network, and finally dial 911 ten minutes later.

My first Treo died on me and I had to get a replacement from Verizon under warranty, and I have had the same problems with the second Treo.
It's like in the process of cramming three gadgets into one, they gave up a lot of the functionality and robustness of those individual components, so all three suffer.

Enter the BlackBerry.

Well, I continued using the Palm Treo anyway, until we entered the shipyard and I couldn't take it to work with me because it has a camera in it and cameras aren't allowed in the shipyard.

Aside: One of the paradoxes of the submarine force is that everyone on the submarine has a siprnet computer right at their desk (secure classified military internet). The detailers at Navy Personnel Command (NPC) in Millington, Tennessee, don't have access to siprnet. The detailers have to use the regular unclassified internet (a.k.a. "niprnet"). On the boats, we have limited access to internet email. We can send and receive emails, but no forwards and no file attachments. The "Sailor Mail" we use for unclas email is sort of like a webmail program on the siprnet. It takes a few days for the emails to go through, and sometimes they get lost in the cyberspace shuffle and never show up. It's neither reliable nor fast to communicate via Sailor Mail.

Between the need for email access (without a built-in camera) and the desire for a local Hawaii cell phone number, I picked up a BlackBerry 8830.


Being such a long-time user of Palm Pilots, it took me a while to get used to the user interface and nuances of how the BlackBerry works. Setting up the email was not-at-all intuitive nor explained adequately in any of the documentation that came with it.

However, I have quickly grown to REALLY like this BlackBerry A LOT. It has MUCH better functionality and ease of use than the Palm Treo had. The device is about the same size, but they keys feel bigger and it's easier for me to type messages using the keypad on the BlackBerry. It hasn't locked up on me at all yet. Once I got the email set up, it has worked like a champ and is much easier to use than the Treo. The BlueTooth works GREAT in my car. It doesn't prevent me from using the date-book or the task list when it's lost or regaining the network. There are a lot of little things that just make me say to myself, "Self, why didn't the Treo designers think of that? (or just copy it?)"

I was worried that going from the Palm Treo with the touch screen to the BlackBerry with NO touch screen that I would lose functionality and it would be difficult to move from one display to the next without being able to just point-and-tap. The little roller-ball in the middle of the BlackBerry keyboard is AWESOME. It's VERY easy to switch from one application to another, to make new entries, or to switch between the day, week, or month view. I'm curious to see how long the little roller-ball thing will last before it needs to be replaced, but for now, I REALLY like it. How did I ever survive without a BlackBerry before this??? Why did I put up with that darn pain in the butt Treo for so long???

In summary: TWO BIG THUMBS UP FOR BLACK BERRY!

Another Substantial Change in Home Entertainment

We went shopping today...

In Best Buy, I had one of those life-changing experiences. I can think of two times in my lifetime that I've experienced something as mind-boggling as this (in the category of computers, electronics, and technology).

The first time was in like 1993 when I got to use a computer with a SoundBlaster card for the first time. A friend showed me the game Castle Wolfenstein - the first FPS (First-Person Shooter) type game I had ever seen. Instead of the standard PC "beep" noise, it was actually making real lifelike sounds like the German guards' voices yelling, "HALT!" I was in awe and HAD to get a SoundBlaster card for my computer. Now we just accept that as the norm. EVERY computer has a super-whamodyne sound system these days. Who in their right mind would buy a computer WITHOUT a sound system built in?

The second time was in 1995 when I went over to my friend Vince's room in the Susse Chalet in Groton during SOBC (Submarine Officers Basic Course). Vince had one of those new "surround sound" systems. In order to demonstrate it for me, he turned on True Lies, and I was blown away by the all-encompassing sound that made me feel like I was IN the movie. The other really good sampler was Jurassic Park with a sub-woofer so you could feel the tyranosaurus rex's foot stomps reverberate up through your legs and through your chest cavity. I think it was less than a week later that Vince took me to Lechmere and I bought my very own surround-sound stereo system.

My experience today was on-par with those previous two revelations in modern technology. They had on display an HD DVD player showing Night at the Museum on an HD screen.
O... M... G... I was getting dizzy watching it. It didn't feel like I was watching a screen. It felt like I was in a playhouse watching a LIVE performance. The boys and I were totally mesmerized and couldn't be pulled away. I mean, I've seen HDTV's on display before, but they've always got some pretty picture of mountains or flowers or something off the discovery channel that looks cool, but I couldn't really say off the top of my head if it was any better than what I see on other TVs. Seeing this, a really cool movie that I had seen before, I could TELL the difference.

Excuse me while I go wipe the drool off my chin...

We didn't make any impulse purchases today (LW was with me in the store, so she managed to break the hypnotic trance and lead us away from the TVs), but now we're comparing the reviews on Consumer Reports and evaluating if the finances can support.

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Oh, and an update to my blog music... At least two of you (I think that makes a simple majority of the regular readers of my blog) were unhappy with my music always being the same. So I changed my blog music to "random" mode and added a bunch more songs to the list. I hope you enjoy the change of pace.

BTW - WELCOME HOME JOHN!!! Or should I say, Bienvenue à la maison! John had to move his family from one foreign country (where at least they spoke English) to another foreign country (where they don't speak English), and then promptly left his wife and son there while he went to a 3-month school back in DC. Glad you made it back home safe and sound. I know J and Q missed you tremendously, and Q must be bouncing off the walls to have you home. Now STOP READING MY BLOG and go get your wife a cup of coffee! (I'm assuming you're reading this in the morning your time - if not, go get her a glass of wine instead).