I just got back to NYC. All my plans changed. Got stranded. Visited 3 states, none of them the destination I was planning on. I am going to shower and then drink heavily with friends. I will give a full rundown of the mass stupidity that I experienced in the past 28 hours sometime this weekend. For the 3 people reading this, please live with the suspense until then…
The Travel Blog
As I write this (no idea when it will be posted) I am around 35,000 feet. I am on the first leg of my Vegas vacation. It is short, but I hope to rest, and party a bit. So far no rest was possible. I sometimes forget why I stopped traveling for a living. Going away on a short vacation always reminds me. this trip is no different. Due to the hurricane my connections in Atlanta caused me huge delays. my flight left about 1:30 minutes late. I will miss my original connecting flight. Thankfully I got a page from Delta about the delay and called before I went to the airport. I was able to call and get confirmed on a later flight out of Atlanta to Vegas. problem 1 fixed. Problem 2 was that since I made a change on my plans I had to goto the ticket counter instead of the self service check in. it took allot longer but I was still early for my trip.
I had time to kill so I tried out the Delta Crown Room. In all my travels I never used airport clubs, and as I said I am well traveled. When I was at IBM my boss was going to take us to one on a few occasions, but we never ended up there. With my Amex card I get free admission to a few of the clubs, so today I decided to try it out. All I can say is, NICE. comfy chairs and a bar awaited me. T-Mobile hotspot access also was nice. I had to pay for that, but it was worth the $9.99 for the full day of usage. I only had time to download my mail before they called my flight, but I had stuff do to on the plane. I also plan on using the day pass in Atlanta during my layover.
Since I planned ahead I even got my aisle seats. The rescheduled flight is a good seat also. The customer service people were cool. After you have been flying allot you get to want things done in a specific way. I will freely admit I am a travel snob. I for example am grateful that the 2 dogs in little cages 2 rows in front of me are quiet now. they weren’t when I started this flight. Now I said planning ahead is good. Lets see if my plans hold water for the entire trip. They say best laid plans fall apart at step 1. Hopefully my next flight will not be delayed that much, and I can catch a decent dinner at the hotel tonight. My plans for a late afternoon swim or spa session is dead now that I wont be getting in until 8PM ish. I hope to do either or both of those things tomorrow while I wait for Sean to finish work.
Now that I have told you about my woes today, I can go backwards and tell you how this trip started. Before the flight I went to breakfast with my dad. He was still having issues eating after gum surgery, but we went to his usual breakfast place. My mom was busy doing something and passed on food.
I stayed over at my parents last night since the first night of the Jewish new year was at their house. Carrie, Mike, Morgan, Donny, Herb, Na, Loren, Andrew, Tina/barry and their kids Lindsey and Cory were over. It was crowded since my parents don’t have their new dining room set yet. Their old one is sitting comfortably in my apartment.
We got to play with Morgan, so the night was perfect. She even was giving out hugs and kisses without being asked. I love my niece. she is becoming talkative. it is very cute.
TRAVEL UPDATE: Sorry in this blog I jump around allot, but I am still stuck on the plane. We are over Georgia somewhere. We are in a holding pattern into Atlanta at this time. We have been circling for maybe 20 minutes or more and they say we will be doing it for another 30 before we can begin our final approach into Atlanta. This flight is way longer than normal since the flight crew also said before we started circling that we were moving slower than normal to avoid circling allot. Eventually I will get there.
New Cheap DVD’s
On Tuesday I received all 3 of my new DVD’s I ordered from Amazon. I used their zshops (think that is what they call it) and got 3 DVD’s for under $6 each. they were new, not even used. So far they are all in perfect condition. I will use that service again when I want something, but don’t want to pay $20 for it. I bought City Hall, Gia, and the Lawnmower Man. I never saw city hall but like john kuzac, can’t spell. I also never saw the entire movie Gia, but what I saw was weird and interesting so I figured I would pick it up. I need to go back online and get a few more cheap movies once I finish these.
Bluetooth Card And Other Travel Gear
I got a new Bluetooth PCMCIA card yesterday. I wanted to see how/if I can successfully use the bluetooth card with my Sony Ericsson T610 phone as a wireless modem. In tests yesterday things looked good. I have yet to need to test it on the road. Like I mentioned in my travel post, I had a T-Mobile hotspot in the airport in NYC.
I had a little issue getting the install shield to run on the CD of drivers that came with the card. I found the hidden exe that starts the actual install to run and got the drivers and software to install. I even paired the phone without major issue. I will put the card through its paces later this weekend.
What I didn’t like was whenever the card was inserted and I opened any network connection, the bluetooth card asked me if I wanted to use the phone to connect. annoying, but I will see if it happens again.
Besides the bluetooth card (from 3Com btw) I am also trying out the Thinkpad extended life battery. Gus and Dean have had them for months (in Gus’ case a year) but it is the first time I have used one. It is heavy compared to the old card. So far I have 80% battery life left. That is good since I have around that much % of my trip left:) I have my regular battery as a backup. Intel says you can go 8 hours with this battery. I may be pushing the spec’s on this trip.
What didn’t make the trip is my trusted (aka old) Sony cybershot camera. it is only 1.3 mega pixels but it works. Well it did up until last night. I was going to take some shots of Morgan but the camera wouldn’t turn on. that was weird since I had charged it up earlier in the week in planing for the trip. I left it with my parents to save weight. I will get it next week when I am back there, and try charging it. It may be dead, or the charge I gave it didn’t hold. not sure what yet. I need to look at that in more detail when I get back.
New PDA
I want a new PDA. I know I have my Treo, but I cannot read ebooks on it, and the camera sucks. as a PDA phone it is good, but for other multimedia functions I need something else. I currently have an HP iPaq 1945, but for the life of me I cannot get the wifi card from Sandisk that I bought to work with it. I can’t sync the via bluetooth either. I think it is just Pocket PC being buggy. The wifi card works. it see’s wifi networks, but never authenticates right, or gets ip’s from open networks. the screen is great so I keep it for now and read ebooks on it.
I was all ready to buy a new PalmOne Zire 72, but realized that Palm ussually refreshes their product line in October. I figured I can wait and see what they come out with before I buy. If anything I can get the 72 for a cheaper price.
I figure if I sell the iPaq on Ebay and buy something else it wont cost me that much more. I got the ipaq as a present so it was free for me.
Blogging on My PC
I normally blog while on my Powerbook. For this trip I took my thinkpad because of the extra battery life I have on it compared with the Powerbook. When in transit I like to blog. What to do? They now make a version of the blog software I use on my Mac for the PC, but I don’t want to shell out another $15 on ecto for the PC. I downloaded w.bloggar for the PC. I used it before, but last year when I had it, it was very buggy and I never used it due to problems. Now I have a newer version and it seems OK. the one thing it doesn’t do that ecto does is save several blog posts offline to be posted later. I have to export posts to txt files if I want to work on several at a time when offline. this is annoying, but otherwise I like the software.
While on the topic of blogging itself I think I will keep Typepad past the 30 day demo. So far I have not had a problem with it, and I like their management features. It is all around a cool service. it is allot compared to my free hosting by Gus, but the MOB and list features make it worth it for me to stick with them.
While in the air I also did some Moblogging. I got several pictures of the airplane cabin. Due to the shitty camera on my Treo most of them are blurry. I will post them when I get a chance.
EMT Prep Test
I went to apply for an EMT class today. A bit of background, I was an EMT for 6 years and a CFR for about 1 1/2 years. I did volunteering when I was in college. Since then I have not had time or motivation to really take the class again. I finally found someone willing to take the class with me, and I found a course that starts in a few weeks. Unfortunately they require a test, and interview. I took the test today. It was a basic reading comprehension test. I got a 96 on it. I only got 4% off because I rushed to finish the test. I wanted to get the interview over quick and they did it in order of who finished the tests first. When I tell you my 11 year old cousin could pass this test I would not be stretching the truth. That said it looked like people failed the test anyway.
The interview was not even 10 minutes. They said the decision boils down to first come first serve on the applications, and who passed the test. I put my application in late, but I think that is a line they tell people. I have done this before, and got high marks on the test that they value. I will find out friday if I am in or not. If I am in, the class is expensive. I never paid for one before. My squad in school always took care of the cost of the class. I think it is worth it, so I will do it if I get in.
I will have to give up 3 nights a week of my life (4 nights, 5 weeks out of the course) life until mid january. I hope work understands. This is something I want to do, and other people take classes. I figure I will end up working late other nights to catch up.
Now I wait until I hear if I got in or not. Rationally I should get in the class. My irrational part of me is worried that I wont get in. I think I just worry too much sometimes.
The Backlog
Since I am feeling fine today, and I am not in DC (like I planned on) I decided to make a dent in the backlog of work I have piling up. Right now I am taking a break (while my printer is working for me) from going over resume’s. I am still looking for a helpdesk person in NYC. It is a grueling process to go over hundreds of resume’s. I just printed out like 40 for someone else to look at before we call some of these people up.
I am also trying to do some updates to my companies domains. We own way too many of them. The amount of changes I have gotten are piling up. I need someone to do some data entry and make all the changes. It will take days. For now I am doing the most urgent stuff when I have time (like now).
I just finished cleaning out my inbox. I had a few hundred emails to go through and sort. I also went back and cleared out a ton of automated messages I get every day. I am a slave to mail…
September 11
It is September 11. Of course you can’t forget that. Everyone is trying to remember what happened. I think we should remember all who died on that day, but sometimes I try not to remember the actual day. Maybe it is different for those who don’t live in NYC, or for those who didn’t watch everything in person. I was a very safe distance from everything, but we had a great view from our office window. Man it was a good view of southern manhattan. The one time you didn’t really want a view. Dam, a quick mention of the importance of today, and I am now thinking all about that day. I remember most of it in detail. People are right when they say you don’t forget what you were doing when something major happens. I don’t remember my morning commute or what I was doing before I heard a plane hit, but I remember everything from after breakfast on from that fateful day. Like I said, sometimes I don’t want to remember that well.
My two cents. I know I won’t forget anytime soon. In many ways that is a good thing, and a bad one. Maybe today being 9/11 is partly related to my lack of sleep. I know I couldn’t sleep for most of September 2001 either. I remember my dad was worried then. Hopefully I am just reading too much into the situation. Either way I just read a bit about some memorials that happened on MSNBC, and I got a bit upset. I will try sleeping now. Hopefully it will be a peaceful sleep. Tomorrow is another (hopefully better) day.
EMT Class, Well Maybe
This week Jayson and I decided to research where EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) class’s are given in NYC. I want to get re-certified, and Jayson always wanted to take a class. While I was in an endless meeting yesterday Jay found the only place that is still taking applicants for the class. it is in Queens but right off the subway. It will cost some $$, but if we go and pay an application fee (rip off in my opinion) and sit for a comprehension test and an interview we might get in the class.
All these hoops to get into an EMT class is funny to me. I haven’t been on a call as an EMT in a while, but I was one for 6 years plus like 1 or 2 years as a CFR. I taught (as a practical skills instructor) in my last EMT class. I don’t know what they want out of an interview, but if I don’t get into the class, I don’t know who they will be having in the dam thing.
This is something that I have wanted to do for a while, so I hope we get into the class. it will be 3 nights a week. Which seems like allot since both other EMT classes and my CFR class was twice a week for like 3 hours each night. I am willing to put in the time. I just want the certification again. As crazy as volunteering as an EMT was, I enjoyed it. More news next week.