I’ve become a fan of the Colbert Report, so I was especially pleased when he devoted much of his show to, well, me. You’ll see what I’m talking about in the first 15 seconds of his show.
(Maybe his future guests will provide naming inspiration for our offspring?)
A family member pointed out that I’ve been a bit sluggish with the posts recently. No surprise there what with the new iPhone and all. (What have I been doing with it, you ask? Why I’ve been preparing to time Sarah’s contractions with Birth Buddy, (beware: first of four links to the iTunes store) executing some precision steeping with Tea Timer, and rendering those 3D molecule ideas that I’ve been thinking about with Molecules.) So now I emerge from my darkened cave (lit only by flashlight) to tell you about the missing app:
ATT Wireless Manager (it doesn’t exist)
How can it be that this phone, which here in the US is licensed to only one carrier, doesn’t have a convenient way to manage its wireless account? An application that tells me how many minutes and text messages I’ve used and maybe even lets me change plans should have been shipped on board – or at least available in the store. But instead, we’ve got nothing.
Okay, almost nothing. I know you can dial *646# and get a text message. Or go to the settings button, press phone, then services button, then view my minutes, wait and then receive a text message, but if I wanted that kind of nuisance, I’d have kept the old Treo. Doesn’t all that seem arcane on a beautiful handset that has visual voice mail and so many other goodies baked right in?
AT&T – if you’re listening, put a developer or two on the project and make a management app for this great phone!
Remember the days when I pined for the (first generation) iPhone? (…and later, when I had a little iPhone lust mishap?)
On iPhone launch day, I got up at 7:00 and went to the smallest little AT&T store (you know, the overlooked strip mall kind that no one would think to visit on iPhone launch day?) Well when I got there, I found a line of 80+ people waiting for 20 phones. While I was there, iPhone refugees kept rolling in with tales of longer lines in other cities. I passed up the chance at the #3 place (at a cost of $275!) and went home empty handed.
12 hours later* I was in another line at an Apple store and two and half hours after that, I had my black 16GB phone in hand.
My mom says it’s the first time she’s been able to hear me clearly on a cell phone!
I’m tempted to write about all the great stuff it does, but I’m even more tempted to play with it some more. Bye!
* (I went home and got some work done… …and read about the lines of people waiting to get their iPhones activated.)
Yep. You’re reading it right! Sarah and I have some big news: there’s going to be a small addition to our family!
Sometime in mid January the stork will fly down our condo’s hallway and deliver a little bundle of us-ness! (Neighbors rejoice!)
We don’t yet know which flavor it will be, but we’re betting it’ll have a penchant for bacon, scooters and maybe sailing, too.
Please indicate your babysitting availability in the comment area, below.
P.S. The runner up for this post’s graphic was this ride at Lexington’s 4th of July carnival.
We live in a 1,000 SF condominium without a basement, significant storage space, or any good corners to hide things that we don’t use often. After tripping over lots of unnecessary stuff we’ve been collecting, we’ve decided to get rid of things that we don’t use or need.
To keep us honest, I’m going to post our progress here on the site. My goal is to get rid of 5 things a week (on average) for 24 weeks. Please prod me if we fall behind – or send a little comment if you’re interested in doing some lightening up of your own.
Oh, and about Flickr365, the picture-a-day campaign. Sarah and I have both had a good time cataloging our daily doings, but we’ve decided to put our energies into other activities instead. (Sorry if you’ve been a regular watcher.)
There was plenty of Rushingaround last week aboard Selkie in last week’s 635-mile, Newport Bermuda Race. It was a great one for the boat and crew: we placed second overall in the 123-boat amateur fleet! As the first “little boat” in the harbor, we got lots of dock cred from the big boat crews when we landed late Tuesday night. (We started 102 hours earlier.)
The real credit for our speedy arrival is shared by lots of people. Sheila did a super job preparing the boat and mastering the all-important navigation through the shifty and high speed currents. Dave and John were great watch captains, Annie made sure we never went hungry (Shepherd’s Pie!), Morgan was tireless on the bow and Carol was our can-do-anything-Swiss-army-knife gal. Great sailing with everyone! Here are some of the photos.
Team! On Friday I will depart Newport to race to Bermuda. I’m sailing with family friend Sheila McCurdy and Dave Brown and an all-star crew.
If you’re curious, you can read about the race at BermudaRace.com. Starting on Friday, look for links to a page on iBoatTrack.com where you can follow the boat’s progress. The boat’s name is Selkie and we are competing in the St. David’s Lighthouse Divsion.
If i get more information on how to track us, Sarah will post it in the comments area below. (See revised instructions, below)
(And I’m sure she’d love to hear from you during the 9 days I’ll be gone! I’m headed to Newport now to help with the set up and may be away from email until I come back.)
For good how-to instructions, read on. Read the rest of this entry »
Nine days ago I told you about Netflix giving its members thousands of free movies available as instant downloads. It must be the season of multimedia freebies because my sister and brother in law just gave us Slingbox, which makes our DVR available over the internet.
What does this mean? It means, where ever I can find the internet, I can also find our local cable TV and DVR shows.
If you know me, you know I’m not a TV watcher. This might be changing. Slingbox has done to the TV what the drive through did to McDonald’s. Crap — but so readily available!
If I stop answering the phone please come save me.
