Would you rather live somewhere where the you see significant changes in the seasons throughout the year, or where it pretty much stays the same? What is your ideal daily temperature? from Friday Question #91.

I like the changes in weather. While I’d rather have winter shorter, Michigan weather isn’t too bad, but then again I’m used to it. I need more sunshine though! Give me more below freezing days but with sunshine I’d be a happy camper.

My preference would be the nice weather of Costa Rica every day (75-95° F) but I can’t have that here if I have to wear a suit every day. Plus, when you get something like the nice weather of Costa Rica you get the ultra-rainy season to be the down side (and when it stops you can’t get around due to the flooding).

So I think I’d choose Costa Rica. GIve me the hot weather and if I complain in the rainy season just remind me that I live in paradise.

So since the last time I looked the temperature has jumped from -8° F to -9° F but the “feels like” has stayed at -26° F!!!! And yet it still says “fair” on the report. But at least they are changing the “WInd Chill Warning” to an “advisory” until 10 AM tomorrow.

At least it’s bright and sunny out!!!

And for my foreign friends -9° F is -22 Celsius and -26° F is -32 Celsius. I’m not sure many of my Costa Rican friends can even comprehend cold that cold…

The roads are awful right now. I’m working my way down to my neck/back doctor’s office and finishing up Christmas shopping as I pass by places. The speed of the traffic determines how many of those errands that I’ll get done. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be anywhere near enough time…

And the weather doesn’t make it look like it’s going to get any better any time soon. That’s Michigan in the center if you can’t tell…

Haven’t been doing much the last few days. I’ve been experiencing the other Montezuma so I’ve been under the weather. Here’s a few recent photos all from the Montezuma, Costa Rica area.

This was my view from where I sat and had my lunch.

One of the water outlets to the Pacific Ocean.

I always like trying to catch photos of birds flying, but I’m never close enough.

A new canyon that I found

The El Chorro waterfall two hours up the north beach.

You can’t click to enlarge these, larger versions will probably show up in some other album later…

Weather great!

Internet is extra awful (I guess an actually satellite the good places use are broken). So it’s computer labs sharing two dial-in phone lines.

Don’t expect much in terms of posts and photos the next few days. But scroll down because I did get a few things posted in the last 24 hours…

So the first thing I head this morning as the alarm went off was all about the icy roads in the Detroit area. Specifically between me and the airport. Not a good sign, especially since I didn’t have that much extra time allocated since it was a morning flight and I didn’t know about the weather before had. But all was fine, a little slow on the roads but I got the airport fine. The airport was dead, I’ve never seen it so quiet there.

Got checked in, got me a morning McSandwich and got to my terminal with just a few minutes to spare. Someone took the seat next to mine so I moved to the back row, no reclining but i’ll live. I’ve got an empty spot next to me, an adorable little 8 month old boy on his Mom’s lap that I was pretty excited about, he had been pretty friendly the few times I had run into him. I thought he was going to be a lot of fun but he passed out a few minutes into the flight (boring!).

It’s beautiful up here in the clouds. We’re just above them and the sun is lighting them up perfectly. Looks like snow, maybe more of how I’d picture it in Antarctica (or some other vast snowy land). My cell phone photos just don’t do it justice at all; should have pulled out the real camera.

Bonus! They just brought us a bowl of cereal (Total) and a banana, don’t know if I’ve ever gotten that for a non-international flight. I’m a much happier flyer if I’m snacking and staying hydrated, it really makes the flight more comfortable for me. On a side note, I can’t believe the number of people drinking mixed drinks already!

I voted today. I walked up there in the wonderful weather we had. There was no line to speak of.

But there were no stickers. My precinct said they received no stickers.

It might seem silly but people were really bummed that they didn’t get a sticker…

It’s raining out today, pretty hard actually, but I’ve got my covered porch and my high-speed internet so I’m okay from an entertainment standpoint. I’d much rather it be sunny but it’s rainy season and I knew that before I came here. It’s nice and cool out so I don’t need to even have the A/C on. Also, knowing there are a few places to go around here that I can actually park at helps me mentally with the rain.

Knowing how much better I actually feel mentally and physically makes me feel better:)

But it doesn’t look like it’s going to clear up soon (see below image). Clicking the image shows you a live weather view of Costa Rica. I’m around the “155″ highway marker on the most left part.

Maps courtesy of Google Maps and Weather Underground.

Can you tell I’m feeling more “normal” today?

Sorry, I’ve been off-line lately, I haven’t had ‘net access or felt well enough to do it (I’ve been really really sick the last few days), but I’m feeling much much better today. I’ll give you the scoop on my experiences with the CR medical system later.

I’m in Tamarindo the next few days, I couldn’t get the little hotel that I liked from last trip, Domus Kahuna, but I grabbed a room at the Best Western Vista Villas since I didn’t feel well enough to go looking for a room (wanted a safe bet); I’d normally avoid the US chains when in Costa Rica. Turns out my room has a view of the ocean and so does the pool/returant area (which also has WiFi), it’s a little bit of a hike down to the water but it’s a great view

This is looking like one of the top weather days this trip so far! I think I just need to take it easy for a little bit still. So I’ll drive into town and pick up a few things and then head down and check out the beach.

It was a much nicer day today! It was mostly sunny but drizzly on and off but looked stormy so I didn’t want to walk up the the waterfall (a real hike) and get caught in a storm; later I hear the water that you walk next to (through at some parts) were pretty wild so some people turned around and came back, which must have been all the rain from yesterday/last night.

I got to spend some time at walking the beach and relaxing. It was nice to not be running around too much. I just walked for a while and read and talked to some people that I’ve run into more than a few times this trip. I started to go farther up the beach but it started to rain again and since there was a (fancy) hotel on the beach so I popped in there for a deliciou$ lunch (and stayed out of the rain).

I did try to catch the sunset but it just got cloudier and cloudier as I got closer so that was a bust. But on the way I did pick up a couple of guys from Argentina on the road and gave them a lift for a few kilometers they were interesting and spoke great english. Just to be clear, they were from Argentina, not on the road from Argentina…

It’s pouring out now but that’s okay since I’m inside and have nothing else to do but grab some dinner and sleep. If it’s nice I’d like to get up early so I can play in Montezuma more before I head to San Jose tomorrow.

The weather was amazing all day. Sunny and warm but very humid. We didn’t get any afternoon rain at all.

But, regardless of the wonderful weather, the first thing I did this morning was find a new hotel, the other one wasn’t that great but I was too tired to look around any more last night (I did check two others that were full). I found one that is nicer and cheaper, $30 a night which includes A/C and hot water. Don’t laugh at the “A/C and hot water comment”, some hotels have 4 prices based on which combination that you would like. As long as I sleep okay here, I think I’ll stay here until I have to go to San Jose on Wednesday.

So after I moved I went up to the waterfalls which was a little more exciting than usual, with all the rain the current was really flowing. When I got up there to swim it was pretty quiet (in terms of people) the the falls were raging with all the extra water. I tried swimming but the current was too much for me, I’m not that great of a swimmer and certainly out of practice. Hung out there for a while, for as dead as it was when I got there, I think it got the busiest I’ve even seen it. Not the best picture of me, but it’s the only one I have of me so far.

So since I didn’t wear myself out swimming I decided to hike it up to the upper falls. Another difference because of the rain a few recent downed trees and lots of mud. But I got up there just fine. Unfortunately, right when I got up top I dropped my bottle of gatorade! So that meant I really had to ration my other bottle of water on the way back; I usually take 3 bottles total (of water or gatorade) I was so thirsty on the way down but I made it. It fell pretty far and I’ve climb that part before (to get to the lower fall of the upper falls) but where I usually climb had loads of water running down it.

Here’s the cRaZy spot where you have to climb down to the upper falls. This is while I was halfway down rope looking down and looking up (fuzzy), it’s really not as bad as it looks

Stats according to my GPS: I climbed from 97 feet altitude to 572 feet, but I actually ascended over 600 feet and it was a total of 4 miles for the round trip. (But now I need to go double-check since none of that was meters or miles and I thought I had all that switched to metric; I’m certain it was “feet”, maybe it was 4 kilometers?)

All photos should be clickable for a larger version (but not very large, the ‘net is really slow here).

So last summer my Sebring convertible roof was peeling from my rear window. I didn’t want to replace the roof (the most common suggestion) so I glued it with some Permatex Black Super Weatherstrip Adhesive for a mere $5. I can’t believe how well this held up throughout the winter and this summer. It doesn’t appear to be peeling at all, I thought I might have to re-glue it a few times a year but it’s holding up great.

I know this is kind of a boring entry but I’m amazed every time I notice how well this has held up…

So we haven’t had a huge amount of sun this trip and that’s okay since that means it hasn’t been hot, but today has just been wet wet wet. I want a nice sunny day to take Mom on a boat tour on the Thames or up in the London Eye (huge ferris wheel). We’re off to Cardiff in Wales tomorrow so you know it’s going to be a sunny day in London!!

So the snow is making the traffic pretty bad around here, it was the longest ride home from work ever! Probably 45-50 minutes, when on a nice day I can sometimes do it in 20 minutes; I think 15 minutes is my record and that’s not catching any lights and probably some speeding involved since I think it’s 14 miles door-to-door.

But I gotta say it looks really pretty on all the trees and bushes.

It’s such an extra blah/yucky day outside. It looks more like the end of the world instead of the end of the year.

I don’t even have enough time to cover everything I did today. I mostly ate, slept and wandered all over the place. I also made my plans for tomorrow (which you’ll hear later).

Weather wise, it was an awesome day. Sunny, the humidity was down (or I’m used to it), the sunset was awesome. The weather stunk in Michigan, thus that makes the exchange rate for the money worth even more to me

The sunset was awesome, the previous few days were no comparison! This is one of my favorite sunset photos from today.

I’ve also got a second album uploaded (be sure to pick “Set 2″).

So I ran all over today. I went swimming in the pacific and then packed up my backpack and headed north (actually north west I think). Took all sorts of pictures and a little video.

Ate lunch at a nice place on the beach, the name escapes me for now. Some people sat down at a table next to me and it turns out it was a guy from Traverse City, Michigan! What are the odds? He comes down a few times a year to vacation, seems to really like to eat and stay at that place (although they were booked up). I actually started talking to them because they liked the place they stayed at we chatted for a while.

I swam some more and then rented a scooter (moped). It was a bargain at 6 hours for $25 but they closed in 4 hours and I didn’t want to be responsible for it overnight so I gave him $20 for 4 hours. It was a new scooter too, the temporary plates were just a few days old. I buzzed around all over the area, lots of development going on. Riding is nice and cool compared to walking around

I’ve decided to stay another day in Jaco. I’ll leave on Friday for somewhere or another…

I can see I got some sun today. Since I was wearing a backpack for a chunk of the day it looks like I was wearing a bikini top. Hopefully, that’ll even out in a few days!

Weather report – It was cloudy on and off all day, but still very bright and very hot (maybe more humid than hot. That was okay except for when it came time for the sun to set, way too many clouds. RIght now as I’m writing this it’s almost cool, but still way humid. High of 82 for tomorrow!

I’ve got some photos up on-line too.

Image courtesy of the CIA World Fact Book.

We’re past rainy season by a few weeks, and even more since they (the gov’t?) called off the warnings that come with it a few weeks earlier. But I keep seeing thunderstorms in the forecast. I’m only here 4 weeks earlier than last time. Is this really going to be an issue?

The first time I was in Costa Rica was in April of 1999, it rained a lot of the days for 15-30 minutes (maybe a little longer) but I don’t remember much more than that. After all, a chunk of the place is the rain forest there must be some rain, right?

It did drizzle on and off (mostly off) yesterday and you could see the very dark clouds inland but not here. Sometime after dark it really poured for a while, but this morning is beautiful. Hopefully the rest of the week goes the same….

It’s so so so bright and sunny out! If it’d just get a little warmer I’d go play outside (bike or blade). I’m just going to go run some errands though and see if I can get me some Vitamin D at the same time…

And give my car a badly needed cleaning, both inside and out.

So I normally don’t put too many topics per post, actually I generally only put one topic per post. But I’ve been sick and all my little post-its on things to blog about are getting too long. So I’ll steal the Bullet Sunday idea from Dave for this week.

WordPress – WordPress is one of the larger blogging platforms, lots of plug-ins and looks well supported. For example, on Wednesday Matt (a WP developer) is having a WordPress 2.3 upgrade party in San Francisco

WordPress 2.3 is coming out on Monday, so come out Wednesday evening and upgrade your blog with the pros. How badly can you screw it up when the developers are right there? If you upgrade your blog before Wednesday come and help out others and make feature requests.

I think it’s kind of a cool idea I’d go if I were in the area and I don’t even really use it. I’m hoping I can hold off to really using it until after Lisa Sabin-Wilson’s WordPress for Dummies book is published. What I don’t like about WP is that it’s all dynamic (but that’s part of what I do like about it too). The dynamic-ness is just going to slow things down; I liked that in MT you can make some pages static and some dynamic but the cool part is MT will cache the pages once it generates them until the next post so it’s semi-static. Keep in mind you break some important dynamic function, everything is probably going to break. I think my next blog experiments will be with WP….

Legion of Super Heroes – Season one was great but season two (started yesterday) has the Superman from the 41st century (actually a clone of the 21st century Superman) who has traveled back to the 31st(?) to work with Legion and (I’m assuming) the SuperBoy/Man of the 21st century. It seems like it’s going to be a little two complicated. They characters seem liked the characters have gotten a little bit older too (Duo Damsel is so cute).

Snakehead – A new Alex Rider novel is coming out. They’ve definitely gotten better as the books went along, I recently re-read the first one and it’s no where near as good as the later ones.

So the roof on my 7 year old convertible was starting to peel between the back window and the roof (I purchased it about 5 years ago). This seems to be a problem with many of the Sebrings when they start to hit the sever year mark (I should have taken a before picture). I will admit I am rough on the car and drive it through the car wash which probably has more to do with it than the weather although I’m sure Michigan ice buildup has something to do with it too.

I starting asking people who had Sebrings from the 7+ years range and most of the people I asked had replaced the whole roof since that was what was recommended to them!!! I figured, what do I have to lose if I muck it up if replacing it is the only option? After a while of googling around and asking at car places, I finally purchased some Permatex Black Super Weatherstrip Adhesive which was suggested by my oil change guys (about $5 for a tube). It’s great, I’ve survived many major storms, done a road trip or two and gotten the car washed a few times over the last month since I’ve done it and it still looks great. It could be better but that’s my fault, I’m not so good at that stuff, if I had taken better care I’m sure it would be good as knew. If it starts to peel again I’ll just squirt in some more glue, even if it gets messy it’s better than how it looks when peeling.In case you’re interested in my process – I cleaned the window and the cloth part that I needed to affix to the window (the latter still had some some kind of plastic strip which I assume was attached with some kind of heat welding). I then just did a tiny bit of sanding on both parts (the plastic and the glass) to make sure the glue would had something to stick to. I applied a thin strip to both the glass and the plastic keeping them seperate and letting them dry for about 30-45 minutes (I think). Then I applied another thin strip to where the glass already had glue on it and stuck the two sides together. I then taped it down with vertical strips of gaffer tape (think duct tape but more easily removable) and let it sit for 24 hours. I probably could have driven an hour later but I’d wanted to put the roof down (and I wasn’t willing to do that) so I just walked, rode my bike and made someone else drive when I went out that night.

There’s also 3M Super Weatherstrip Adhesive, but it’s more $$ and Permatex was specifically recommended to me.

So I made it to Chicago, even with the traffic reports not helping me any (actually I had two ways to go and choose the one that I hadn’t heard any numbers mentioned so maybe it did help). The weather is awesome right now and looks like it will be great.

On the way in, I was starving and I headed straight for Standing Room Only to get some ribs. It was the last meal I had the last time in Chicago and they were delicious, so I made it my first meal this time around. Google maps on my phone helped me get here, I sure wish it had GPS to figure out where I am so that when I want directions and I’m don’t have an exact location that it could figure it out for me!

I think I might take a short walk, and then go check in. I’ve got to get this car into the hotel parking so I don’t need to deal with driving/parking any more today, then I’ll see if I can hook up early with some of the people I’m meeting later on. I had planned on being in town hours and hours ago but yesterdays delays resulted in my not getting enough sleep and flooding delays encouraged me to do some shopping in Michigan City before getting too close to Chicago in hopes flooding would die down..

So I spent some time on Drummond Island (in Michigan just off the east side of the upper peninsula) a few weeks ago. You can see a better perspective of where this is by checking out this map. Note the solid line that zig-zags around it, that’s the Canadian international border. You have to take a ferry (from DeTour on the Michigan Upper Peninsula side) to get over to the island, it was great both times, didn’t have to wait for the next ferry (only once and hour) although we just made the ferry and I had to part at a 45 degree angle to fit! But at least I didn’t have to wait an extra hour. Since there is only one ferry you only have to pay to go there, there ride back is free.

I’ve been there before but only when it was very cold. It was beautiful weather the whole time, it was great to bicycle around. The stars were so clear and I had an excellent view of the Perseids Meteor shower.

The internet access was lacking though. They offer hi-speed free wireless at the chamber of commerce but the DSL was down for the whole weekend, , I was starting to get the shakes!!! FYI, the Chamber of Commerce is kind of the Visitor’s Center and is located at “The Four Corners”, everyone knows that’s the intersection with both the blinking red-light and a stop sign Plus, while I was there I got to hang out at the Northwood which is where everyone hangs out in all the Jill Traynor Mystery books. I had actually started re-reading New America (Book 4) while I was on the island.

So it’s a very relaxed atmosphere there, which is good as long as you want to relax. That’s all that I wanted to do so it was perfect, well, except for the internet being broken that was a problem for me (they did fix it sometime the morning I left) but not so much for most people….

My AppleTV is awesome! An “iPod for your TV” is a accurate description. I ran the software update (painless!) and it gave me YouTube videos and fixed “enhanced podcasts”.

It mirrors one of your computer’s iTunes just like an iPod does (and allows you exceptions) and will stream from any other computers running iTunes (platform independent) and I don’t think there is a limit. I can’t believe how fast it pulls hi-res movie previews from Apple down to the unit, it’s very very fast. It’s actually much faster than pulling down YouTube videos (many which are low-res).

It really streams full-scren video from other computers really efficiently. Very rarely does it need a moment to catch up. It has no problem with steaming audio. It almost makes no sense to download podcasts, I bet you could stream them live if you had a way to just get the RSS feeds onto the AppleTV.

With “enhanced podcasts” it now properly advances the embedded images to follow along with the audio. The problem is that it just shows them to the side like the album artwork, some images are much larger so it really cheats you by scaling them down. Since you don’t use the up/down keys on the remote during this process “up” would be a great way to enlarge the images.

I have the same image size concern when viewing slideshows with the “Ken Burns effect”, sometimes I want to view the whole image. Once again this would be another great use for the up button. The down button could be used for viewing filenames, date, time and other info about the images. Actually, this would be a good use for the down button while viewing videos or audio.

A few more features (like on the TiVo) like weather, movie listings and maybe Flickr photo viewing and it’d be even better…What I don’t like is that it only lets you sync with one computer. I’d like to sync music with one, videos with another and podcasts with another (not so sure if I care about the latter).

What I need:
1) A way to automatically convert videos and stick them into iTunes for me (so when I drop/download a file to a folder, it starts processing for me). I could probably do this via Mac or Windows….

2) A way to play other file formats on the AppleTV, such as AVI and DiVX files. I think I can hack it to do that but I’m not sure if I want to take it apart yet.

So I’ve certainly been catching up on sleep the last few days, I think I’ve had about 23 hours since Friday evening. This is excellent since I really haven’t been sleeping all that well these days. I haven’t gotten much accomplished this weekend but that’s okay…

What I did get accomplished was that I went out to the cemetery where my grandparents and great-grandparents (Mom’s side) are buried today. I usually get out there a few times a year (sprint/fall) just to clean up and edge where the grass is growing over the stones, but it’s been so crazy lately (life and the weather) I’m getting out much later than usual. It’s been raining/drizzling all day but it pretty much stopped when I got out there so that worked out nice.

I need to take Mom with me some time because I always come up with questions about dates, middle initials or something else about family history that I don’t know the answer to…

It’s been extra cRaZy lately:

It’s a great sunny day out!!! I’ve got to run around to all the buildings in the school district for work today and it’s just perfect for those kinds of errands. I’m not sure what the rest of the weekend will be like but today is awesome! I wish I had solar panels on my head to store up the sunshine for the cloudy days…

So some different things got me thinking about Roswell: Quite often Grey’s Anatomy does since Katherine Heigl was one of the stars. So that started me thinking about the TV series Roswell and I started surfing around stumbled along THE video clip (to set this clip up, you need to know that Max and Liz didn’t know each other well but secretly had crushes, two men get in an argument in the Crashdown Cafe, a gun goes off, Liz falls to the ground and Max runs to her side) where it all started . It was a great series but it only made it three seasons, which is actually pretty good for sci-fi.

And then I remembered that the Roswell UFO Festival is this summer (as always) but this year is 60 years since the aliens crashed there. The biggest coverup since well, since anything else. This is the reason as to why they always dismiss UFO sightings as ‘weather balloons’ because that’s what they accused the Air Force guy of doing, of confusing a weather balloon with a spaceship…

I’m really thinking of going to the festival this summer, has ever anyone gone? Any tips? Anything from someone whose been there but not during a festival? Maybe a not-to-miss place (museum or restaurant)? Or an alien-theme hotel or maybe just a good but cheap hotel?

So after talking about the wonderful weather this morning, this afternoon the last few hours of daylight were the cloudiest I’ve ever seen while I was in Costa Rica. I actually thought it might storm. It was still gorgeous (and the lack of sun did make it more comfortable), I just thought it was weird after I mentioned it this morning.

I never mention the weather her because it’s always beautiful in Costa Rica. It’s always warn, hot or very hot (sometimes too hot). It strangely cloudy for a little more than an hour late yesterday afternoon but otherwise it’s always sunny (they’re might be clouds but the sun always wins!).

A side note regarding the heat – Mark and I both like it cold in the room, we had it a little too cold yesterday and we had condensation on the outside of our hotel room windows (we check the other rooms and we were the only one). So we raised to temperature a little to avoid suspicion…

I just haven’t been in the mood to blog lately. I’ve had stuff to say but just not motivated to put it all down on (digital) paper. Just been kinda “blah” lately. I think part of it’s the darn weather: it’s just been swinging from cloudy and crummy to nice and sunny. I’ve been loving the nice days but just haven’t gotten used to the cloudy ones. Now, it’s not that I like the cloudy ones but with the darn daylight savings change and the weird weather I just haven’t adapted yet.

Now we’ve had these great weather days, I don’t think I’ve every had the top down in the car as late as mid-November before but we just had those crazy nice days a few weeks ago! That usually makes me pretty perky. It’s just been strange lately. Everything else in life is great I’ve just been kinda run down.

My arm has been bugging me (I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before) and it might be interfering with my sleep a little bit and bugging me a bit during the day (which probably cuts down on my recreational computer use), it might have a little to do with keeping me a little off kilter (I just had new x-rays today and have an appointment with a specialist next month). And the more I think about it my eyes have been bugging me a little more lately, I’ve got an appointment for that next week and I know that’ll result in glasses (I don’t currently have them). So the more I right here and think about it maybe it’s all these little things adding up.

Although that’s all just a sign of getting older, right? Now that’s depressing…

So it was a great day outside today. I’m up visiting relatives in Lake Leelanau and the weather has been mediocre but today it was just great! I went bike riding with my uncle on some path and then I ran around and went to a winery (Leelanau Cellars) I like.

Then I drove around a bit and got some lunch and ice cream. And then I just drove around and enjoyed the scenery with the top down. It’s been semi-rainy and mostly cloudy since Friday. So it’s been a pleasure today!

Actually, I don’t know any thing about wine (or wineries) and never go but when I find a wine I like I write it down. On my last visit here we stopped by a Leelanau Cellars winery and when we got there I looked at my list it turns out oen of the few names I had written down was actually from that winery. So I liked the bottles from last year so I went back. Unfortunately the one I liked I forgot to write the name down

This is the story of how I saved $11.95 a month on my cable. I alos mention how to get cable for about $12 a month (depeding on your company) and how I only pay $28.85 for cable internet. It’s kind of a long story, but you could save some bucks on your cable or internet so it’s worth the read if you want to try to save some money. If not, just be happy that I saved money

So while I like watching TV, movies and music in home theater style (105 inches baby!) I also try not to blow too much money doing it. It’s those recurring bills that kill your budget, that’s the stuf that people don’t notice (that and interest) but really adds up. I generally have econo-basic cable, it’s $12.00 a month it gets me the first 23(?) channels on my cable system and doesn’t require a cable box (which makes the integration with TiVo seamless). Generally when you get internet through your cable you end up getting a few extra channels since the filter that stops you from getting the other channels also stops the internet so they loosen it up a little.

So last year they were doing some promos and I saw I could try digital cable pretty cheap, well it turns out digital cable just gets me more stations (in the 100-199 range) but doesn’t make my other stations better so I returned that box. But while I was there I found out I could get a HD digital box for $5 plus $5.95 a month (and I know they promised this price for 2 years). This got me my normal networks, the above digital range, pbs, 2 espn channels, 2 inHD channels (which was a plus older movies, some documentaries and some IMAX movies in HD) and a science channel (maybe TNT too) in HD (my TV isn’t HD so this was more like DVD quality for these channels). The downside is the TiVo reacts a little slower when connected via a cable box.

Well, the two year promotion just ended (after 1 year) and now they want the $5 plus $11.95. So I call and give her the quiz (and I’m ruthless but not an ass) I finally determine the $11.95 is really for the 100-199 digital range (the only channel I even know was there was a weather station) and a few of the HD channels so I dumped it. It really amazes my how they can’t give you a definitive list of the channels that will go away (or are included). I just checked and I lost the 100-199 range, maybe one of the HD ESPN channels, the inHD channels, the science channel and that’s about it (mostly stuff I don’t watch). So it really turns out that I lost $75 last year since I didn’t need that part of the cable, but at least I now know I’m not missing out.

This goes with my money motto of “It never hurts to ask!”

My mother just told me a similar story when they raised her bill last month (I’ve been teaching her my motto) she found out she wasn’t watching some of the blocks of programming she was paying for. She dumped those and also got them to add a promo for her package for a year. I couldn’t get them to add me a promo but since I’ve got such a limited package it’s kinda hard (how do you promote your cheapest package).

Forgetting all of the above, I also get a $15 discount for the Internet for having the $12 cable package (since I’m a customer) so keep that in mind if you want satellite but still want internet cable, it’s cheaper to have the TV with the internet than not. Many cable companies are this way, they just don’t advertise the econo-limited-basic option (sometimes you really have to quiz and twist their arm for this limited option). Plus every so often I’ll call them and tell them I’ll leave if I don’t get a better price on the internet since I can get DSL cheaper, I know that cable internet is generally faster, but I can live without the speed. Right now I’m getting an extra $15 a month off my internet (usually I only get $10, I got lucky with that one) so I really only pay $28.95 for my high speed internet (which is really a lot when you look at all the $14-$20 DSL promotions out there).

It might sound cheap, but I like to think of it as frugal. We’re not talking about saving $10-$30 one time, we’re talking about saving this much money a month for the rest of your life! You can do similar bargaining with your phone and cell phone bills. If you can save $10-$15 a bill just by changing or updating your plan that’s $360-$540 a year (that’s an round trip-airline flight!).

Here’s more info from my other Comcast dealings from the past.

So I haven’t been blogging lately, but I did do a new background. Since it’s almost August it was really time to get rid o the 4th of July theme. I liked the bright colors so I tried again. I’ve been SO hot the last few days I thought the bright sunny layout was appropriate. I’m nowhere near as happy with the sun layout but I’ll stick with it for now. I got the background image from
aPerfectWorld.com

I’ll try to catch up on some blogging soon…

I don’t really have to add anything to clarify that do I?!?

Actually, I just looked at the highs and lows today and they’re only in the high 80′s. But it sure feels hotter than those 90′s days this weekend. I just noticed on Weather Bug (at school) the Hi and lo for today were both at 3:41 AM and PM respectively

I finally hooked up my Oregon Scientific Weather Station and I really like it. It’s got a remote sensor for outside and shows the humidity and temp for both inside and outside (or I guess you could put the sensor inside somewhere else in the house if you wanted). It shows the moon phase and sets itself via the atomic clock. The instructions read as if the atomic clock sends out a signal constantly (I thought it was a once a day thing). I know it took awhile (overnight) for mine to get the signal (and then I had to go set the time zone). It even makes a weather forecast based on the barometer and the humidity and temp. It’s a nifty little device and it’s well worth the money I spent on it.

It’s got an alarm clock and backlit display built into it too. Plus it shows if the temp, pressure and humidity are rising, steady or lowering. You can calibrate it for closer readings based on your altitude too. I think I paid more for just the little temp/humidity sensor I bought a few years ago.

FYI – It starting saying it’s got a connection with the Atomic Clock, I’m not sure how/why…

I am not looking forward to the next week around here at all…

So the weather was great again today. Lots of sunshine. Not too hot. Great day.

I got my Christmas invitations mail out. Why? Because the family has been having Christmas too early lately and I want it closer to Christmas. So I’m formally inviting the family or when I want to have it this year. So I sent out Christmas-ish invites (glitter was on them and now it’s everywhere) and a map with directions for those who don’t remember where I am. I’m probably at the opposite end of the map than everyone else, but I’m right off the expressways (I-75, I-96, I-94, M-39) so I’m probably a shorter drive because of the time. Plus this is one of the items on my 101 in 1001 list, having it is, not just the inviting…

Plus, I took the sports-coat with the permanent ink into the cleaners the other day and I went to pick it up today and they got the stain out! I wish I had taken the shirt in too, I think it’s already in the trash. I should look up their name so I can give them credit (they’re on the south side of Ford, just west of Dearborn city hall).

Oh yeah one bad thing, Mark spilled a big cup of coffee all over my living room floor but I think most of that is cleaned up. Right now, I think parts are cleaner than before it spilled, but I’d rather have it looking a little bleached than brown. I won’t know for sure until it dries later…

So I’ve set up another blog called My Trip To Egypt appropriately URLed with http://mytriptoegypt.com/

This new blog is only for posts related to my Egypt trip. Don’t worry, all the Egypt posts will all show up here, I’m just showing them the Egypt category from here (so they don’t see my other posts). When I give them (co-workers/family) a vacation web site I don’t want them getting more than they bargained for…

You may want to poke your head over there, I’ll be showing the local time and weather and who knows what other fun gizmos I’ll find for the margins of the pages (any suggestions?). As of now it’s got the pre-Egypt messages I’ve posted here over the past year but it’ll have more later.

FYI – I don’t generally give people my blog address, I don’t advertise it to family and friends, I generally don’t even mention it to co-workers. If they want to find it I’m sure that they can (it’d take about 2 seconds if they googled me) and I’m okay with that (but I’m not giving them direct links to the personal blog). But with my trip coming up I’ll want to share those entries and photos so I’ll give them the address to that site.

You might get a few more posts than they do, if anything that I want to blog that I might feel is not appropriate or more personal for co-workers and/or family it’s only going to get posted here. It’s not like I often (ever?) post things that are inappropriate but that site is for specific vacation information so that’s what they’ll see.

I’m not sure if comments will work there, I’m trying to decide if it’s worth the extra work to rig it so they can comment there and not get bounced back here. So if you want to comment (and please do!) you’ll probably have to comment from here. I’ll copy that theme over to here as the trip nears.

I had my day planned and I had to rearrange the whole day. So instead of cleaning, running errands and other boring stuff I had to do something else.

This means I got to go rollerblading and drive around in the car with the top down!!! It was 60+ most of the day so I’m really enjoying this (I didn’t say I was complaining, just that it was promised). It’ll probably rain later (or sooner) since they’re still forecasting it (tomorrow too) but maybe they’ll be wrong again and it’ll get up to 70!!!

Okay, she didn’t actually disappoint me because I didn’t actually see her. It’s the fact that she rescheduled and I didn’t get to see her was the disappointing part. She was supposed to be in Ann Arbor tonight at the Michigan Theatre, I didn’t have tickets but there were seats available and I usually do pretty good picking some up at the last minute. I’m not sure when the show got bumped to the 20th (not one-hundred-percent sure I can make that one, but I’ll try). Since I really enjoyed the Liz Phair iTunes Originals album I picked up the other day I thought I’d pull out my Aimee Mann iTunes Originals album I had never really appreciated them before Liz’s so I’ll have to check out the few others I’ve purchased (and didn’t purchase).

I first saw Aimee Mann in concert (and started listening to here) at the Lilith Fair test tour, this was the tour when Sarah McLachlan took some other female artists out with her to show the concert promoters that people would come. I think it was Aimee, Sarah, Lisa Loeb, Patti Smith and Paula Cole. It was a nice concert in that it wasn’t a madhouse with all these bands playing on all these difference stages, but (if I recall correctly) it seems the performances were cut a little short due to having five headliners….

On other disappointments today:

So I since that didn’t happen I figured that I always enjoy Battlestar Galactica so let’s watch that, but I really thought this week’s was a little slow

The thing about Galactica is I never rush to see it but it’s always SO good I never understand why I waited to watch it…

Actually I had a pretty good day today, I’m not moping, I’m just whining because I was just listening to her and thinking about it so I started typing…

So TiVo rolled out (started rolling out) their new features in the music, photos and more section. These new features I think will pave the way for what you have to look forward to from your home entertainment center. They now have (without you having to install anything on your home computer) movie listings, traffic, weather, photos (Yahoo!), streaming Internet audio (Live 365), games (yes, I said games) and you can listen to podcasts. This is very cool stuff! I especially like SameGame, it’s a fun game you’ll just have to try. This all assumes you have your TiVo hooked up to the network (and not the phone).

So the weather and movies (you can purchase tickets on-line too). Are tied to your My Yahoo! account (or you can put in your zip manually). The photos are also tied to your Yahoo account. You can view photos of others on-line but you have to type in their Yahoo name. My Yahoo Photos name is “garylapointe”, try it if you get a chance I’ve got photos of a trip to Costa Rica and a few from when a family of ducks was wandering around the high school.

Typing text for the with the remote is awful (can I hook up a USB keyboard yet?) they need to work on that, it always seems as if I need the farthest letter (and you can’t go off the right of the screen and come back on the left). Please fix this…

The podcasts are cool but it just seems to be streaming it. No decent way to build a playlist. They only have a list of 30 or so podcasts that you can add to your favorites. You can specify any podcast but as I criticized “the typing” above it’s even more awful for the typing of podcast addresses.

There’s a lot with the Live 365 streaming and you can subscribe to get more (not sure on the costs).

End results:

From Tuesday’s Tales.

How many news stories weren’t heard yesterday (and today) because of election “news”. I say “news” that way because most of it was speculation after speculation until all the counts are done. And then they spend all day today talking about how close it was and/or why those guesstimates weren’t correct or why person X didn’t end up winning.

It’s a colossal waste of time until the real counts are done (and it’s not like we have to wait weeks for the results). There is real news they could be telling us. There are people missing, there are wars and disasters. There might even be something nice that happened in the world that they can tell us about. Heck, I’d rather hear the weather or traffic report than election speculation.

If they really want to give me election information today. Tell me the winners and give me 5 minutes of the winning candidates telling me the first dozen things that they are actually going to do/fix/implement once they take office. Condolence speeches to the losers and congratulations to the winners aren’t telling me anything…

From the Friday Fiver.

So I drove 695.9 miles round trip for my travels up north. I’m a really slow traveler though, I stop every so often to shop/look/snack. The 280 mile trip up there took me about 350 miles and 28 hours to do it. Like I said I really like to take my time. You can see on the map (click to enlarge) my zig-zaggedy path (in red on the map). I went Dearborn to Sterling Heights (stopped to say HI to my Mom at work), to Troy (the Apple Store at the Somerset Collection), to Birch Run (the outlet mall) to a hotel near Cadilliac, then to Frankfort (furt?) to bicycle and shop at Gwen Frostic’s then up to Leeland and visit at Jim & Karen’s in Lake Leelanau for a few days. On the way back I went to Traverse City to bike and eat lunch, Mt. Pleasant to have dinner with Dawn and April, East Lansing for Cookie Dough Ice Cream and then back home. Lot’s of other little stops to shop and eat and we ran around a little while I was up there (that might be another post or two).

The weather was gorgeous the whole time I was there, I rode most of the trip with the top down on my car and it was an excellent ride. Night time was the only time it was too cool without a jacket, so I stopped driving (that’s when I stopped for the night). It was a great week to take a some days off to relax! Then I was at work for a nice short week of just Thursday and Friday (long days, but they went quick).

CNN says Rita becomes third most intense hurricane on record:

“Rita — the powerful Category 5 storm plowing across the Gulf of Mexico – has become the third most intense hurricane on record, according to National Hurricane Center data. Long lines of cars Wednesday headed out of coastal Texas towns and Houston — the fourth most populous city in the country. Evacuating parents were told to take photos of their children and to give them identification in case they get separated.”– CNN.com

Now that’s a nightmare, worrying about getting separated from your babies while during the storm, I can’t even imagine. What the heck is going on with the weather these days?!? I can barely remember any weather disasters compared to any of these hurricanes and tsunamis in the past year. I remember occasional hurricanes and tornados in my life, but it’s just been non-stop lately. They’re having to relocate the relocated people from Katrina. This is like Irwin Allen / Movie of the Week kinda stuff…

My thoughts go out to everyone who’s in this mess. The same for those worried about friends and family.

Tuesday night, the sheriff (from Louisiana) wrote a check for $2.5 million out of the department’s bank account — which only had $23,000 in it — to reserve 150 trailers for his staff.

I’m not sure how long NOAA will have this photo up (551k), but it’s amazing… They keep current events up for about 60 days, check out some of the archive.

Had a great day yesterday. Stopped at the Howell Outlet Mall, got the exact shoes I was looking for and some stuff I wasn’t looking for: shirts, sunglasses and some bowls. Weather was great until we got to EL then it was drizzly on and off

Got chinese (I love Charlie Kangs!) and ice cream and long islands and saw some friends we hadn’t seen in a while. Found an Egypt book on the discount rack at Barnes and Noble so I’ll be looking that over. Never did get those chicken wings I wanted though…