Monthly Archives: April 2006

Yahoo! GO TV

Posted on April 28, 2006 | Leave a comment

With Yahoo’s new Yahoo! Go service you can watch previews, flickr feeds, yahoo photos, download music and burn it to a cd. Of course it’ll play any of those files from the hard drive (or CD/DVD) and with a supported video card you can record television in a TiVo like fashion.

Unfortunately, Yahoo! generally chokes with a good idea before they get it done, but this is a great one so let’s see how they do. Especially since they are doing this just after TiVo has canceled their lifetime subscription and is now charging monthly rates only….

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Time Change

Posted on April 27, 2006 | Leave a comment

They do the change due to Daylight Savings tonight so while it feels like 10 PM it’s really 11 PM (so I’m off to bed)!

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Me on a camel

Posted on April 27, 2006 | 1 comment



meonacamel

Originally uploaded by garylapointe.

So we went on a camel ride yesterday!

We rode them up a dune (15 minutes) and then back down across the Sahara desert (and hour?) to a village where we had a tour.
It wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be!

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Posted in Egypt 2006, holidays + events, me + myself + i

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More Bombings…

Posted on April 27, 2006 | 1 comment

I heard there was another bombing. I’m in Cairo and plan to be in the immediate vicinity for the rest of the trip (just so you know).

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Aswan to Cairo

Posted on April 27, 2006 | Leave a comment

So now we’re off to Cairo, with a stop over in Luxor on the way. Security did a big inspection on my laptop bag. With a few spare batteries, four or five chargers, cables, adaptors, a variety of gizmos it’s probably a total of 20-30 feet of wiring and cables. Fortunately, I don’t get stopped more often. The upside was that I did find something that I thought I lost earlier in the trip.

We had a second security checkpoint and they ignored the bag but I had to remove my belt and check my pockets. I accidentally threw my chapstick in the bin and he opened it up to check it. In Abu Simble (the part I didn’t go on), they said there were eight checkpoints (although that was the day after the bombing).

Later: So after a what seemed like a long flight we spent forever in traffic. But I’ve had lunch now and we’re back in the neighborhood of the pyramids!

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Security

Posted on April 27, 2006 | Leave a comment

So I haven’t had a chance to talk about security here, it’s been on my mind since day one. We’ve had an armed guard with us whenever we travel as a group. This didn’t surprise me, I actually expected a police escort so it was tamer than I thought.

Plus every hotel or museum has one or metal detectors and may check bags (but not likely). I know it sounds crazy but you really get used to it.

I got so used to the guns that one night a few of us were walking in an area that got kind of dark and heard footsteps behind us when I looked and saw it was men with guns my thoughts of fear went out of my mind.

Security seemed to pick up when we went south (especially in Aswan). In the south we did have an escort pickup with one to four security folks and the security guy on the bus.

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Haggling…

Posted on April 27, 2006 | Leave a comment

So I’ve done really good in the haggling so far. Sometimes insulting the guys by offering too little, but then I factor that into my exchange with the next booth for a same or similar item. It’s amazing on how you’ll be walking away and they’ll keep offering lower offers. If they just had it priced in the first place I probably would have paid a higher price that it might have been marked.

The best I did so far was some guy wanted 120 LE for an item and I got him down to 50 LE for that item plus a larger similar item. Who knows, maybe I could have actually done better.

I’ve walked into a few shops and I can see them debate the price before they figure out what to charge me. Sometimes I just give them this look like “are you kidding?” and it seems like they don’t nail me too much. Most things as still less than you’d pay anywhere else. Even in a fancy resturant I don’t think I’ve every paid more than $2.50 for a Coca-Cola, most times it’s less that $1.

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These times may not be perfect

Posted on April 26, 2006 | Leave a comment

So the time and dates that come with these messages may not be perfect. Most are when I write them (actually when I start to write them) and I’ve posted them later. I’ve just recently finished a few that I started days ago so you may have to scroll down to see them.

We do their DST time change tonight (I think) so that will throw me off a little bit (and maybe the computer). I’m probably going to lose an hours sleep too :(

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