German Cars are awesome

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of having a VW Passat as a rental car. I have to say that the Germans sure know how to engineer a car for maximum fun. I've ridden in a few other German cars, namely the Audi A4, Audi TT, and BMW 128i. All these cars seem to differ from their American and Japanese counterparts in the "fun" factor. I really can't put my finger on it but they just somehow "feel" better.

I took the Passat I was given through its paces in Atlanta and the overall driving experience was pretty good. Of course it was a rental and was beaten up a bit already but the feel of the turns and the acceleration of the car were awesome. The Audi A4 was very comfortable, you couldn't even tell how fast you were going when you were riding in it because it was just that smooth.

I think that my next car needs to be some form of German automobile. I don't know what kind I'm going to get yet but I just know that I want one. I asked my wife if she wants one but she said no. No matter, I'm a patient man. By the time I'm 40 there is going to probably be a pretty sweet BMW or something that I'll want and being my 40th birthday, you can bet I'm going to get it!

I just saw it on CNN.com: From $80,000 a year to eviction: Hard times in America

It has been a while since I've blogged anything but I've been busy with work as of late and my nights have been busy too........ feasting on all that Atlanta has to offer. Anyway, enough of the excuses.

My wife sent me an article from CNN about the hard times that are hitting America. There is no doubt that these are some tough times and even people I know have been touched by this. However, this article shows some of the dumber things that people have done even though they know the economy just simply sucks.

Example 1: Trading in your job to go get a Masters or some other higher degree with the hopes of advancing your career or getting more money.

This is just dumb at this point unless you're just fresh out of college with nothing to do with your time. The article mentioned a 35 year old comptroller or something to that effect leaving her job (making 80K in Detroit) to get a masters in hopes of landing a better job. Well if you read the writing in all the papers, there are no jobs to be had so just leaving your job in the first place was just an idiotic idea. Her bosses were probably looking at the vacancy and thinking "Hmm... I can now save on my budget to save my own ass since I'm not paying XYZ $80K plus benefits!". If you can swing going to school while remaining employed, this might be the smarter move if you have the money to burn or your company provides the money to you if you get a certain GPA.

Example 2: Leaving your safe and secure job to go into Real Estate

This was another person in the article who decided to leave their job in IT (although not exactly safe, its better than nothing) and go into real estate with the belief that money can be made in this buyers market. Hello dumbass, if people are losing their jobs and wages are basically frozen and housing prices are dropping no one is going to be buying real estate! There are forclosures hitting the entire country at quite an alarming rate to be quite frank and even though these homes are being offered way below value, banks just aren't lending money to people with good to great credit. So the move to real estate just makes no sense at the moment until credit frees up.

OK thats it for right now, I have work to do....

Crazy Travel Day

It just so happens that I am flying out MLK Day. The airport is a bit crazy but having elite status helps quite a bit. Tomorrow is another crazy day being Innaguration Day. I'm sure people are flying today either to get home or heading to DC.

The line to go through security was HUGE this morning and I take a pretty early flight. My hotel is also deserted right now because its MLK Day. This is a good thing for me because I'm liking the solitude.

Too bad I can't stay here going forward but its too far from my client. If Hilton gives me lots of points I dunno, I might have to reconsider but I doubt it. I wanted to keep my Diamond status too for this year.

Circuit City's Demise!

Yesterday I went to Circuit City to see if there were any bargains in the store and I thought that I found a few. I had a Western Digital 500GB had drive ($140), 2 spindles of DVD-R's ($12), and the game Gears of War 2 ($60) in my clutches. Everything was supposed to be 10 percent off and the prices on the tags seemed cheap. I was tempted to get a DVD player for the upstairs TV and maybe even get a 36" LCD TV but my wife was good at curbing my spending. There was even a Sony Laptop that we saw that seemed decent and I was all ready to get it but she vetoed that idea as well.

Now when I got to the checkout line some of the prices weren't syncing up. The hard drive was $180 and the spindles of DVD-R's were $38! That wasn't the price I saw on the tags but the girl at the register didn't want to confirm the price. Needless to say I didn't buy those items but I did pick up Gears of War 2 since that has been on my wishlist for a long time. It doesn't surprise me in the least that Circuit City went the way of the Dodo. Even during a liquidation sale Best Buy's prices were still better overall on almost everything, that is just sad right there.

The extra money that I was going to spend on the TV or laptop will now go towards our Anniversary vacation in May, just a nice weekend getaway to recharge and all that. I have to research it a bit more with my wife but I do know that if I can do it, I'm using my points so its as free as possible.

Circuit City Blowout!

Today while I was out buying stuff at Sports Authority, I happened across Circuit City during their blow out sale due to their impending destruction by liquidators. It almost looked like Black Friday with all the people lined up outside of the store. I think they were letting people in a little at a time so that they wouldn't all rush into the store and trash the place. I went there yesterday thinking that there might be something on sale but there wasn't. I was all ready to at least get a new DVD player for my upstairs TV and if I was lucky, maybe even a plasma or LCD TV for my office. Alas, I don't think its meant to be but thats ok that just means money saved to spend on my insurance payments that are due soon. It's been fun Circuit City, but I guess Amazon and Best Buy will be my electronic stores of choice from now on.

New Jacket and Work Out Gear

Today I went out with my wife to do a little shopping at The Sports Authority. She always gets these coupons for so many dollars off if you spend so much money. She printed up two of them for us so that we could go shopping just in case we needed them. I ended up buying wind pants and a jacket by Adidas which is one of my fav brands for athletic wear. When I go to the gym, I don't wear any one brand like most people (Nike shirts, Adidas pants, and Asics sneakers). I supposed I don't have brand loyalty but the stuff I bought today is meant to keep me warm during the winter when I go to and from the gym. I don't have a problem with the cold when I'm away from home because I use the gym at the hotel. I already had one pair of the Adidas pants I bought today in a different color and they are nice which is why I bought another pair.

I didn't plan on it but I also bought a jacket for Fall/Spring but I'm hoping that I can use it for Winter as well. I bought a North Face jacket called the Apex which is totally awesome. It has the two features that I require, its wind resistant and water proof. I was going to get a regular fleece but using the wisdom of my wife, I decided on the Apex instead. I must say that it looks quite nice, I'll be testing this jacket out next week when I'm in Atlanta. It should be fairly cold and windy so it should be a great test. The best part, its small enough for me to pack into my carry on luggage really easily.

I'll give my review on it at the end of next week, I'm going to use it with my EMS gloves for ultimate warmth. Now the only thing I'll need is something to keep my legs warm since my dress pants in winter doesn't do anything for me.

Facebook Mobile

I have been only a Facebook user for a few months. I look at it regularly and stuff and even downloaded the app for my Palm OS phone so that I can keep up to date and everything but I always seem to go to the mobile site instead of firing up the application I downloaded. It seems that the app for Palm is definitely lacking in functionality and features and the web version is just a little better over all in terms of checking status for my people and looking at my wall.

I also have the iPod Touch and I downloaded the Facebook app for that and its way cooler than the one for Palm. When I'm at home I can use that instead of logging on my laptop and do a ton more stuff. As cool as it is, its not enough for me to get an iPhone and switch to AT&T. I haven't seen the one for Windows Mobile yet but I would like to just to see how good it is.

Now as for MySpace, I barely check that site at all anymore. The mobile site is crap and I don't think anyone uses it anymore anyway. Well thats it for tonight, I'm tired and its time for bed. I'll probably update my Facebook status tomorrow from my phone before work as usual :)

Still waiting for the Treo Pro

The new Treo Pre has been announced at CES and it was said that its going for Sprint. Well good for them but I have learned that the CDMA version of the Treo Pro is also going to Sprint as well before Verizon. I mean WTF man! I like Verizon, the network, and the decent customer service but come on throw a dude a bone!

Whoop de do, Verizon has the Storm..... that phone totally stinks! I was trying it out at the store and I couldn't get into it no matter how much I tried to like it. There were just too many little things that were wrong with it. It's good for email but thats about it. I need my phone for PIM and web, email is pretty secondary and even then the email program on BB isn't the best. I will take Chattermail over BB any day.

I still don't see any updates on the VZW test site, it just constantly says that the 700WX is available while supplies last. If the network and customer service didn't rate so poorly on AT&T, I would seriously considering switching. I could make good use of the roll over minutes and the ability to buy GSM phones. OK enough ranting for one day, time to continue watching WWE!

Blasting through my old books

I have been blasting through my books fairly quickly over the past two years but for some reason I always seem to go back to my old Battletech or Robotech books. More Battletech though because my Robotech books can't take a pounding (they are already bound together with scotch tape).

I am reading a book that is like 3 books in 1 becase its so long and the story is interesting and everything but I don't think I can bring myself to read it again. First its too long, and second I would be compelled to only read certain chapters so that the story kinda flows.

I should start reading the Complete Tales of Uncle Remus that I bought for myself. I don't think my parents ever gave me a book like that so I might as well do some childhood catch up in my 30's so I'm prepared for when I have kids someday. Well its time to hit the hay, maybe I'll be compelled to blog tomorrow.

The Treo Pre!

Well here it is in all its glory, the brand new Treo Pre. Impressive isn't it? That keyboard is a slide out keyboard so most of the time you're going to be using just the touch screen. Palm announced this little gem just yesterday at CES and I gotta say that I'm excited. There are tons of articles and stuff on it on TreoCentral, Engadget, and Gizmodo so I won't go into the drool worthy details like the brand new OS and junk like that. They did mention that the phone won't be backwards compatible with all the Palm OS 5 apps which is kind of a bummer but I know someone is going to make an emulator for them. The only things I really use the phone for are calling people, all my contacts, my calendar, ListPro, and Butler for my alarms. Other than that, most of the other software kinda goes to waste (well maybe not the backup software that runs nightly). Anyway.....

I do harbor some disappointment though, this device is going to be coming out for Sprint first exclusively for at least a few months which means those folks on Verizon are just shit out of luck once again when it comes to a new Palm phone. I'm due for a new phone but I'm just holding on right now to my 700P hoping that this thing will come out for Verizon as soon as the exclusitivity contract runs out.

I must say that the videos of this thing are stunning and will kick any phones ass. Now my own personal opinion is that Palm should license out the OS and let the device makers just have at it like MS and Symbian do. Thats where the money is these days, making software that people want and that they'll like. The iPhone is a great example because the hardware isn't all that fantastic, it was the OS that blew people away and made people just run and go to AT&T just to get their grubby little mits on one.

I might settle for the Treo Pro if it comes out to Verizon. I'm not all that keen on changing my phone yet until its something that I truely want. Whats the use in spending $300+ on something that you only kinda want because your contract was due?

FL Panthers Game

Last night I was in for a real treat, my wife was able to get tickets to the Florida Panthers game for 7:30PM. I happened to get in at 7:00PM last night and madde it home by 7:30 which is when the game started. I managed to get into the house and change into something more comfortable clothing and dashed off to the game.

I don't think I've driven that fast in a long time in my Altima. I was hitting around 85mph but there were people passing me like I was just standing still which is crazy. What was surprising to me is that parking was free at the Bank Atlantic Center where the Panthers play. I was expecting to pay at least $6.00 like I used to at other venues (granted that was in NYC). We spent way too much on food there but we were both quite hungry and they always inflate prices at stadiums so it wasn't like it was a surprise or anything.

We didn't arrive too late, we arrived just when the first period ended so we were able to find our seats and watch the last 2 periods of hockey. The seats were fairly close to the glass but we were only really able to see maybe 2/3 of the rink because the penalty box was in the way and obscured our view. It was kind of cool to watch people getting hit into the glass though, it was up close and personal. I'm sure we would have been able to see a lot more of the game if we were higher up but I'm not going to arge with free tickets. Unfortunately the Carolina Hurricanes (aka the Hartford Whalers) lost to the Panthers in this contest. I was quite pleased that I remembered enough about hockey strategy to know that because the game was so close entering the 3rd period (3-2) that the Hurricanes would pull their goalie to get another body on the ice. Unfortunately this would cost them a goal by some awesome shot by the Panthes to make it 4-2. Over all a very fun night and a good way to come home during the new year.

A lack of Comedy Central at the Marriott Atlanta NW

I'm sitting here in my hotel room at the Marriott Atlanta NW and its time for South Park (even though they are re-runs right now) but for some odd reason this hotel doesn't have it. How crappy! I have all these other channels that I don't think anyone would really care about (really, the NASA channel??)

At least with Comedy Central I could get a good laugh or something in the evening. I can't even watch most of Comedy Central online yet but at least I have South Park Studios to entertain myself. I'm not big into conflict so I'm not going to say anything to Marriott but I think they have Comedy Central at the Hilton, maybe I should start staying there or something. At least I'll be able to get some laughs in.

I guess the saving grace is that at the very least there's Cartoon Network so I can watch Family Guy.

Gotta post real fast

I gotta make this a quick post because I didn't realize last night that the number of posts I had on my blog was the same as the sign of the beast! If you don't know what that is, I recommend going to a book store and buying a Bible and flip to the Book of Revelations. K thats it. I'm un-motivated to write anything more, maybe I'll be inspired tomorrow!

A new Treo on the horizon?

It would appear that Palm is going to be coming out with a new phone and a new OS at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) which starts this week.

I personally hope that the new OS is bad ass and that the phone comes out on Verizon. I'm in dire need of a new phone and I've already hit my New Every Two limit so I can get a new phone right now. I went off and tried out a couple of phones at the store but I still can't bring myself to part with my 700P (unless the Treo Pro somehow showed up).

The unveiling will take place this Thursday (the day I'm heading back home from the ATL) and supposedly this will either revive Palm or it will totally decimate the company and then I'll really have to start shopping around for a new type of phone that is missing all the features that I love about my Treo. Well here's hoping that things will go well, go Treo!

Going back to the ATL

It's a New Year (2009) to be exact and traveling for me has started anew! This means I have started to travel yet again to the ATL. For the un-educated, the ATL is Atlanta (it's also the airport code just as an FYI). Today is my first day back at work and it was a busy one. I didn't get a decent car (no iPod jack or FM radio!) and my day was full of meetings and scheduling even more meetings on top of that.

Still, it is good to be working again although I wouldn't mind a few more weeks off to be at home with my wife and cats. There are a few people that I know in the area from work and hopefully sometime this month we can meet up and eat at one of the ATL hot spots around here.

Here's to the new year and traveling to the ATL until at least the end of May! If I have a good outing I'll be sure to write about it.

Lisa Lampanelli

This blog post is late but I don't care, I was lazy this holiday season. For Christmas this year, rather than giving me a physical gift, my wife decided to give me the gift of laughter by getting us tickets to see Lisa Lampanelli the day after Christmas at Foxwoods Resort and Casino.

If you don't know who she is you better look her up because she is just awesome! She is known as the Queen of Mean, an Italian insult comic who has appeared on numerous comedy central roasts and even her own TV special.

I had an excellent time at the show and she didn't pull any punches when it came to insulting just about everyone under the sun. I was especially pleased that she did a joke just about Filipino's (I can't repeat it here of course and I only half remember it anyway).

Of course no night is complete without dinner which we went to first. We went to an Italian place (to go with the whole theme of seeing an Italian comic) and I think we lost $20 gambling at the slot machines. No matter, I had a lot of fun playing although I couldn't find the Gambling for Dummies machine. I did see one for the Soprano's but I had the most fun playing a machine that featured animated pigs.

Needless to say we got home really late that night since it's a 2 hour drive to Foxwoods and we didn't finish gambling until around midnight. I plan on seeing her again if I can find out where she's performing. Atlanta maybe??

Nike+ Quirks

My wife and I have Nike+ because we run. Thats not really true, my wife runs and I try to un-successfully but we both have the tech for our iPods. She has a Nano and I have a Touch and for the longest time I couldn't get the results to sync to Nike.com.

Well after a few months of having this stuff, I decided to change my default web browser from Firefox back to Internet Explorer and believe it or not this actually solved my problem. Now I can see all my data from the few runs that I've done as well as the ones that my wife has done.

This is one of those little quirks about software that bugs me but it still tells me that the web is still owned by Internet Explorer no matter how much penetration Firefox has received in the past few years. There are still too many sites geared towards IE to ever give it up fully and even IE Tab doesn't do the best job of simulating IE. If IE only had the extension support that Firefox had, I'm sure it would regain any lost market share.

I'm thinking of getting a pair of Nike's for my next pair of shoes so I can just shove the
sensor in there and forget about it. It hasn't run out of juice yet and I'm hoping that my wife will use it during her half marathon in a few weeks so we can see how long it takes her to finish.

Making more blog posts in 2009

I was just reviewing the number of blog posts that I posted in 2008 and I was surprised to see that I had beaten my 2007 count by a whopping 2 posts! I used to blog a lot more in the early days when I started this blog but its been tailing off as the years have gone by.

My new goal is to get back into triple digits in terms of number of posts. I was well into the 200's when I started but now I'm just under 100 posts a year. I intend to change that trend and start posting more. I know that I can do it and I plan to add more pics and stuff. I have that awesome digital camera that my wife gave me last year so I intend to use it along with my blog to better chronicle whats going on in my wanderings across the country.

Although I don't know what I'm going to blog about for the next few months since I'm only going to be heading off to the Atlanta airport and to my client site. Maybe I'll see what interesting things I can do while I'm there. I know that I'm going to meet up with some friends in the new year so I'll probably blog about that but we'll see.

Anyway, here's to blogging in 2009!

I still can't decide what phone to get

Tomorrow is January 2nd and I will be eligible for my new every two upgrade with Verizon to get a new phone. I'm still running my Treo 700P and I'm still happy with it but I want something new and improved.

I don't have all that many choices because Verizon is CDMA and not GSM so I just can't take a chip and put it into a new phone. My only requirement is that the new phone has to run Windows Mobile. I still like my Palm OS but the Centro is a downgrade from the 700P and Nova won't be out for quite a while. Blackberry is also out because I secretly pull down my work email and they won't let me pull it down with a BB. I also am not the biggest fan of the OS although the new Storm looks pretty cool.

That only leaves me with a few choices. There is the HTC Touch but Verizon managed to mess it up on the keyboard and the asthetics (it litterally looks like a black brick). The Samsung Omnia all touch screen phone is also out but the keyboard totally sucks when I tried it in the store although the rest of the features are pretty awesome but they crappy keyboard is a deal breaker for me. That leaves with the Samsung Saga and the Treo 700WX. Both phones are pretty similar except for the fact that the treo is 3 years old now but it has all the features I crave in a phone and the form factor still kicks ass. The Saga is newer but its way too long and the D pad acts more like a mouse rather than a 5 way key pad.

I might go to Verizon tomorrow or call them up and see if there is a new Treo on the horizon. That's what I really want but I also don't want to have to switch to AT&T or something in order to get a decent phone (the Treo Pro is unlocked and available now) considering all my family has Verizon currently.

I guess I'll continue to sleep on it and make my decision in the next few days.