It's good to be back home!

Over all, a very good trip. Ride down and back was enjoyable, thanks to my back seat buddy Lexi, who kept me entertained for the most part. Seeing Chris, Krista, Alyssa, Brionna, Bryce and Christian was, of course, the best part of the trip. Spending time with family is always the best part of any trip in my book, especially when they live so far away.

Food was good too, from the great cookout Chris and Krista provided on Friday, to the meal we had Saturday evening at Outback! in Memphis, even though it caused some problems for me later that evening. I think being so used to a certain diet for so long and then subjecting your body to a much larger variety over the course of a weekend tends to cause problems, especially for those of us advancing in years.

As Krista and the kids were leaving Saturday evening to attend a baby shower, Randy decided we should take a side trip to Memphis to see the place where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968. This was my first time to see the site, even though I have been to Memphis a few times since this event took place. I guess I wasn't all that aware of the event as it took place while I was in high school and during a time when I was distracted by other things. It was interesting to me from a historical point of view, but I'm not usually one to care that much seeing where someone was killed. I have the same reaction when passing by an accident as I do my best not to look at the misfortunes of others.

One thing I didn't know about this site was that there has been a protest by one woman since 1988. The events surrounding her protest are somewhat unclear. Some sites say she was living at the motel when Dr. King was shot, but then others say she started living at the motel in 1973 when she was hired as a maid. Whatever the case, her protest there has been active now for over 23 years. She has a website and makes several claims about how the on-site National Civil Rights museum should be boycotted because the museum has become a Disney-style tourist attraction, which seems preoccupied with gaining financial success, rather than focussing on the real issues. I suppose you can judge that for yourself if you ever decide to check it out. You can visit the museum's website for more details.

Of course all of this meant nothing to an 11 year old as Lexi was completely uninterested, but she was instead captivated by catching a glimpse of what she called a peep truck! She was totally upset by her father's refusal to turn around and go back to see it and have her picture taken with it. Even so, I managed to find several images on the web which display the odd vehicle, which is actually referred to as a peep mobile. As expected, the organization which uses this vehicle for promotional aspects is the Peeps brand candy which is popular during this time of the year. My daughter, Autumn, plans to digitally insert an image of Lexi standing next to the car so she can have her picture with the peep truck! Kids...


No trip to Memphis would be complete without a picture of the King's mansion, and it was certainly true this time around. We just did a drive by on this one also, so no really good pictures were taken. I did take pictures when we visited Graceland in '98, but they were taken on a Ricoh digital camera with only 640x480 resolution. The image quality is very good for an early example of a digital camera, but one of the reasons I chose this model was for it's known good quality photos. This image above was taken walking up the drive to the mansion. 









As long as the light was good, the images look very good, but not being able to use the flash inside led to some blurry looking images. This is caused by the shutter remaining open a lot longer to capture enough of the image to be viewable and it's almost impossible to hold the camera steady long enough to make this happen. I suppose if one had the camera mounted on a tripod the results would have been much better. At least you can make out what things are and I was glad to at least have this ability. Some images turned out much better in the low light, like the picture of the artwork above. No doubt because of the light on the painting itself, more light equals better pictures with older cameras, that is for sure! At least you get an idea of what conditions were like way back when inside Graceland. 

Once back to the hotel in Blytheville, I didn't waste any time in going to bed as we wanted to get an early start on our journey back home, but the No Rules Parmesan Pasta with chicken that I ordered did not sit well at all and I was up again about 1:30 until after 4 before I finally was able to get a little sleep. Back up after 6 and headed for home after a short goodbye with Chris and to pick up Lexi. 

Back in Indiana we made a brief stop in Madison to pop in at my granddaughter, Carly's, baby shower. We left Lexi there to ride back home with my other granddaughter, Jordan. Made another brief stop in Versailles to pick up Kylie from her grand parents house and then we were finally on our way to Seymour. 

I didn't stay up very late and shortly after 11 I hit the hay where I stayed until shortly after 10 this morning after getting a voice mail on my phone. I feel much better now and very glad to be back doing my thing at home!

Arkansas bound!

Yep, making the rather long trip sometime after noon today. Always enjoy seeing my son and family, but I just hate the long trip there and back. At least I don't have to drive, so I can perhaps cop some zzzz's.

Seems like every time we go there, the weather is worse there than it is here. This time is supposed to be the same. It's 69 degrees here in Seymour and only 51 degrees in Blytheville. Rain most of the trip as well.

At least we don't have to take the truck as there was a problem hooking up the trailer to it last night, so it was decided we would just take the Escape. Gotta love how Ford got away from the whole post OJ debacle with new vehicle names.

Should be back Sunday evening, then 2 weeks later scheduled to go to California with brother-in-law (Jim), and sisters Melody and Kathy. Looking forward to spending time with them as my trip to Minnesota to get my Buick was most enjoyable with Jim along.

The Big Announcement

Well, now that we know what Apple has come up with for it's next gen iPad, the real debate starts. Is the desktop PC dead? I'm sure this is a valid debate for certain people, but I still think for the majority of users, it's not really all that important.

Just listen to any tech podcast or even the tech journalists on TV, they all think this is the big question. To them, I'm sure it's true. They live in a completely different world from the rest of us. It's really no different from any other main stream media, none of them can see the forest for the trees.

Now everyone who knows me, knows I'm a tech junkie, but I'm writing this while sitting at my desktop computer system. At the same time, I am watching Tech News Today on Twit.tv and in the background, I have EyeTV recording content coming from my HDHomeRun streaming TV over my LAN. I'm also monitoring my file server via the screen sharing capabilities of OS X as well as receiving email.

My point is, there is no way I could do this with any tablet, much less an iPad. I might manage to do one of those things, but since tablets can only run one program at a time, there is so much I would miss out on. I'm sure I'm not the only one, when you use a desktop computer, you just get used to being able to do more than one thing at a time.

So sorry Apple, your new iPad is nicer than the previous version, but it's not going to make people stop using their desktop computers. So despite saying the phrase post PC repeatedly in your announcement today, it ain't gonna happen.

Windows 8 consumer preview

Big day today, Microsoft is posting the Windows 8 consumer preview for download. I plan to attempt to download it, but the site will probably be overwhelmed for a good while. Not a huge Windows fan, but always eager to play around with any new operating systems.

Also on tap today, the Raspberry Pi is finally on sale. Initially I believe this will only be available in the UK, but hopefully we will soon be able to buy it here in the US. This little gem, for those who don't know, is a complete computer available on a credit card sized board and is able to run special versions of Linux. It is also capable of displaying 1080p video, so the uses are many for this pint sized computer.

The big plus is the cost. Only $25 for the version without ethernet, and $35 for the full blown system! As I said the uses will be many, but I have plans to make a music server for my car.

Mountain Lion

I know it's not supposed to happen this way, but I couldn't help trying to install the Mountain Lion developer preview on one of my Hackintosh machines. I purposely chose one of the systems which has been very compatible, so far, for this experiment.


The chosen one is a Gigabyte P35-DS3L, a bit older, but as I said, has been very compatible thus far. The system has a core 2 duo e4800 3.0 Ghz CPU, an Nvidia 8400 GS video card, with 4 Gb of system memory.


I first tried to install the actual ML DP1, downloaded from a source which was posted online, but I could not get the image copied to a flash drive for the install attempt. I later searched the bay filled with pirates for another version, and found an image someone had made specifically to install on a Hackintosh.


After several unsuccessful attempts (I could get it to boot and begin to install, but it would KP each time early into the installation), I decided to play around with some of the kext in the /Extra/Extensions folder to find a combination which would allow this version to be installed onto the hard drive.


Once found, I was able to install the system on to the hard drive and then boot using the flash drive to boot from, but so far I have been unable to get ethernet to work. I do have sound and full screen resolution, complete with QE/CI, but with no ethernet I have not been able to get online.


Once I find the proper spell to cast over the system, ethernet will work and I will have a fully functional machine. Not that I would ever use a beta OS for any productive system, it's just kind of neat to get it working on a Hackintosh.

Where is the outrage?

I can remember back to when Exxon/Mobil announced it's profit a few years ago and just how outraged people were when they heard about it. Yet Apple's recent announcement  of their excessive profit results in barely a wimper, even though the profit margin is such that it is very obvious that their customers way overpaid for the products or services they received. Add to that the recent headlines in tech journals and even CNN, about how poorly workers in Apple's factories in China are treated and one wonders why no one is all that upset.

The answer is easy for those of us who are familiar with the tech scene and Apple's customer base in general. Apple customers are basically loyal to a fault. It almost seems as though they are mind-numbed robots in a way. Apple loyalists will defend any and everything that the company does as in their mind, Apple can do no wrong.

This was even true back in the older days when Apple was just a niche player, their customers always seemed to look down on the lowly PC users as if they were somehow inferior for choosing a lower priced computer, even though the Apple systems were far slower than anything available in the PC market of the day. Anyone who used both and was objective, could easily see the difference.

So why is this? I think the answer lies in Apple's own ad campaign of the day, Think Different. This somehow translated into think better or smarter in the eyes of Apple customers, as they clearly have always felt superior in their choice of Apple products. Just ask one to compare their product, whatever it might be, to your generic version of the same item. Theirs will always be better, even if yours is clearly superior in it's ability to accomplish whatever task it was meant to perform.

The reason why Apple is no longer a niche player is obvious. Just look at the pop culture of the day, no longer is practicality king. Nowadays glitter and glamour rule, you have to have the latest and best to be highly thought of by the youth of today and make no mistake, young is where it's at these days. Us old farts with our outdated ideas about making do with less is just not cool anymore.

But I'm not really worried, anyone who has studied history knows that it will all change again in time. The next generation will rebel against whatever their parents think is best and things will change again. It's the only time honored tradition that never seems to change and I think that is a good thing.

Waiting on UPS

Don't you hate waiting for a delivery? I know I do. I think the internet makes it worse when you can track the package and know that is on the truck for delivery. Great, but what time will it get here? And, unless you happen to be near the door when the blessed event happens, every little noise you hear makes you run to the door to see if that was it!

I got so when I lived in Vevay, that I wouldn't get up to check, I would just track the package again online to see if it had been delivered or not. Much easier than jumping out of my seat each time, but this only works with FedEx or UPS b/c the scanners they use register almost instantly online. USPS scanners do not register until the carrier gets back to the office and returns the scanner to the charging cradle.

Then there is the letdown after the package has been delivered and opened. Now what? You look at what you got and wish that you had another package coming. And the cycle starts again...