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Everything’s Amazing, Nobody’s Happy

Very funny video clip from Conan featuring Louis CK. We do live in an amazing time, and it’s truly funny/sad how we take so much for granted, how impatient we are. As he says, maybe we do need to get back to a simpler time to appreciate what we have.

“It’s going to SPACE, will you give it a SECOND!?”

Running Away to the Smirkus

We're into the last few days of our vacation back east where I serve the two key Dad-on-vacation functions: ATM and Pack Mule. I'll provide some detail on what made this trip a bit different in a future post but today we gathered up the gang and took a road trip to Sandwich, MA to see Circus Smirkus.

Circus Smirkus is a traveling show put on by young performers. It's not an "animal circus" thankfully, but one that focuses on acrobatics, juggling, and some good clowning around. It was a bit hot in that tent (and cardboard fans are only $1?) but the troupe put on a good two hour show. My kids really enjoyed it - and that's a range of four to nine for those keeping score at home. Smirkus runs a summer camp in Vermont to teach circus-type skills.

The write-up I saw talked about the science angle to it but really the science part was just folks dressed up with white coats and some funny technology. These were the "clowns" between the acrobats and jugglers. The MC was a robot kind of guy - very well done, and the show had an overarching theme and recurring skits that held together.

My favorite skit was at the end, when a "science clown" asked a girl from the audience to come forward. With some very good original music, which was quiet and magical, he gave her a tray to hold and he squirted a three foot tall tower of bubbles onto her plate. Cool. He sliced the top two feet off with his hand and it slowly rose up, tumbling gently to the music. We all watched this thing rise to the top and then disappear out of the tent. It was silent for a second and then everyone applauded. Pretty magical for a plate of bubbles.

It reminded me a bit of Teatro Zinzani in Seattle, but adjusted for kids. Apparently these kids are doing seventy shows this summer and if it shows up in your town, I suggest checking it out.

 Photo by hbp_pix!

Post-Disneyland

We took a big family trip about a week ago to Southern California. We met up with my wife's parents and spent a week with the three kids at Disneyland, California Adventure and Knott's Berry Farm.

It was a great trip. The kids were the right age, the weather was fine, and we paced ourselves. I booked a flight/hotel deal with Alaska and stayed at the Holiday Inn in Buena Park. The room was a queen bed in one section and a "kids area" that included a bunk bed, a day bed, TV and dresser in their area, plus a big fridge and microwave. The kids ate free (albeit a mediocre restaurant), free shuttles to Disneyland and Knotts - and free WiFi!

I brought the Zune 30 loaded with some videos if the kids wanted to see something at the end of the day. Unfortunately, the TVs were just ancient - their old tubes fading to dark on the edges. Each TV had an RCA in for video and audio (mono?) and the input switched automatically to this AUX line when you plugged in the RCA video cable. The main TV had no sound through this AUX line and the other TV had nothing.

I did have the repair guy show up and he said he yes, the TVs were old and shot and he would try to find us another room. How about just a new TV? He brought one in, maybe almost as old, but it did work. Oh well.

I used the Nikon and collected about 300 photos and a few shorts videos. I imported the day's shots into Windows Live Photo Gallery at the end of the day and sharpened, cropped and even tagged 'em. I then uploaded the collection to Windows Live Skydrive to share with other family members. Live Photo Gallery doesn't yet support direct upload to Skydrive so you still have to drag and drop.

I'd also like to see Live Photo Gallery support upload to Costco's photo site. It's cheaper to upload and print at Costco than printing at home by almost .10 a print for 4x6 - nice!

I also used Disney's PhotoPass, whereby pro photographers take pictures of you with Mickey, Ariel, etc and they get wirelessly uploaded to a share. You login with your PhotoPass number and they are all there. Big downside is that each print is $12.95. Get this - the CD of your images is $79.95 - criminy! You can "PrntScrn" and scrape it off the site. Not print worthy but not bad.

Sci-Fi Museum

My brother was visiting this past week and we spent Wednesday in Seattle visiting the Science Fiction Museum.

Cool place - ideal for kids around nine or so - any younger might be a bit spooky (especially the life-sized Alien Queen).

One neat feature, in addition to numerous hands-on interactive displays and just a ton of collectibles, is the mobile phone tour. Dial a number, punch in a code for an item and hear the back story.

Speaking of Sci-Fi - check out this new baby naming book from Robert Schnakenberg. Anakin?

Virgin's Linux in-flight system barfs

Nice article in the New York Times on Virgin's Linux-based in-flight system. Maybe they can get some open source volunteers to fix all of the bugs. Notable quotes:

"She asked the flight attendant to reset her terminal, but that actually made the problem worse. Every 10 seconds for the last four hours of the flight, a small graphical box popped up on her screen that unhelpfully said: “Fork failed: error 12. Can not allocate memory.”

Is this related to the food service? Here's another good one:

"The header on the message declared, “Airplay Error” – which in my opinion is a little too close to “Airplane Error.”

Well, at least Virgin saved a bunch of money because the software was free. Nice.

National Car Rental gets it right

Putting aside the absurd Southwest Rapid Rewards policy, there was a logistical bright spot in this trip.

I noted recently that National Car Rental's Emerald Club is now free if you register from their web site (rather than pay the usual $50).

That means that when you make a reservation you should just go right to your car when you land. This is nirvana when traveling with kids and just convenient anytime.

As I was arriving Friday night in Hartford I was sure that this was going to be messed up. My name wasn't going to be on the sign, or the sign wasn't working or installed, or something. I was actually composing this post in my head at the time.

I got off the shuttle and asked the drive where the Emerald Club sign is (nudge nudge, wink wink, waiting for the punch line). He said, "we don't have a sign, just get into any car in the Emerald row and drive off."

What? I walk up to this Monte Carlo SS, hopped in, showed my ID to the gate person and drove off. That's it. When I dropped off the car I didn't have to wait for the guy to print out a little piece of paper, either - I was just emailed a PDF of the receipt as I sat here.

Totally seamless and a great price. Looking forward to the family trip in July.

3,289 miles

We arrived back in Bellevue, WA after ten days and 3,289 miles of road experience.

It was a great time, with a wide variety of places to see and things to do, and friends and family to meet.

Some key takeaways for me:

• Coleman powered 40qt cooler was key. it kept our water and snacks nice and chilled without ice and soggy water messes
• We didn't use the camcorder but we used the Nikon L1 to take short movies. I should investigate a newer camera that has even better video capture capabilities.
• I need a nav system with an internet conmnection to find local Targets and Quizno's, ideally with voice recognition
• We avoided fast food stops by focusing on sandwich shops like Quizno's and a great place in Bakersfield called Sequoia Sandwich Company
• Streets and Trips was helpful as print outs for the kids to look at. It would be great to get this app updated so it can create custom travel books with info about surrounding areas as opposed to just printing maps.
• Set up your Windows Mobile phone as a data modem before you set out - maybe next time I can ditch the notebook altogether
• Suites are worth seeking out with three kids, like the Windmill Inn in Ashland, Oregon.
• Zune works well on the road!

Glad to be back home!

Arizona signals

We arrived in Dolan Springs Sunday at 6:45pm - exactly on time based on the Streets and Trips plan. We did get mixed up on the time change - although we went an hour ahead into Idaho, Arizon and Nevada have the same time at this point in the year. S&T wasn't too helpful on this point.

We spent Sunday afternoon in Zion National Park - a truly outstanding place. The weather has been pretty sunny and warm, a nice change from the past few months up in Bellevue.

I'm getting a good signal here while roaming on "Cell On DC", presumably the local wireless carrier. I've taken a few calls from family in the car and for better or worse I am up to date on my emails, or at least I have flagged ones that I should dig into when I return. Apparently my "Out Of Office" message was set to say I was in Barcelona (leftover from 3GSM) so I was able to change that via my phone to something more rational, a helpful Exchange 2007 feature when you need it. Speaking of helpful Exchnage 2007 features, I also searched for an old email on the server - it's like a regular Window Mobile demo session down here. I do see an open 802.11g here on this sunny dry desert morning (likely from a neighbor) but the signal is too weak.

The "Internet Sharing" app on my Windows Mobile phone enabled me to connect this PC using my phone's GPRS - I just needed to adjust the PC's Windows Mobile Device Settings to "The Internet" from "Work" after a bit of fiddling. Handy, but it seems like "The Internet" would have been a better default. Interestingly, the connection is so slow that Windows Live Writer is timing out on me so I have reverted back to the TypePad posting method right through the browser. A Windows Mobile version would be nice . . .

I guess these are things that should be figured out before I hit the road - doh!

Fillmore, UT

We've steered the Roadship through Oregon, Idaho and Utah, landing here in Fillmore. The Best Western is recommended (free WiFi).

So far so good as we have seen some interesting country and my wife met up with a childhood friend of hers who is living in Kaysville, UT. We stopped in Twin Falls, Idaho and looked at a big gorge (while munching on Quiznos) and pondered some serious prairie.

I do notice a discontinuity between the Nissan navigation system and Live Search on my Windows Mobile phone. For example, I had the nav system point me to Twin Falls, Idaho but I needed to find a Target there (to pick up travel pillows) and a Quiznos. For the latter two queries I had to use Live Search on my phone that lacks GPS. What I really need is one connected nav system that provides turn by turn but also enbales me to look up specific businesses or ideally community-rated restaurants and lodging.

On to Arizona . . .

Return of the Pack Mule

I'm done.

I was reasonably early this year in the big summer trip plans, although not early enough to get the 25,000 tickets on Northwest - doh!

However, I cashed in my miles, points and the usual web surfing to get our flights, hotel in Boston and a decent rental car all set up. Some tips to pass on:

• Book a YEAR in advance to get the 25k miles tickets, otherwise you're paying 50,000.
• National Car Rental has a free deal on their Emerald Club. Rather than the usual one time $50 fee. That gets you straight to your SUV/Minivan, no paperwork. Nice.
• Check out WhereKids - pretty cool site to check out fun things to do.

For us, we're hitting the Freedom Trail, the Museum of Science and a bit of Boston sightseeing before heading out to Cape Cod in July. This year we still have one baby seat and one booster, but . . . we have an additional Zune.