I’ll be a couple of days hiking Haleakala National Park, Maui.
Month: October 2009
here comes Movember …
Movember (a portmanteau of the words ‘Moustache’ and ‘November’) is an annual month-long event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November. …
I learned about the month long holiday from shaving from Bede Campbell.
Some Movember fund-raisers are dedicated to fighting Prostate Cancer. It’s for a good cause, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Windows 7 is COOL
OK, Apple is the Evil Empire. … I can live with that.
But Microsoft cool? … I never thought I’d live to see the day.
Windows 7 Outlasts Snow Leopard in Reader Vote
Microsoft always loses these kinds of polls on the internet as the Apple fan boys are disproportionately vocal online.
… I’m going to have to try Windows 7.
fire in Maui
Driving in the middle of my first night I saw a huge fire in the distance, not far from the aiport.
Could it be a LIVE VOLCANO?
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I never did hear on the news what was happening there. A controlled burn?
no rent-a-car in Maui
For the first week on Earth’s most popular island I did have a rent-a-car.
But I gave it up for my second week.
Why?
Normally I feel it’s essential to have your own wheels when traveling in the U.S.A., but (hopefully) Maui is different. They have a pretty good public transportation system called Maui Bus. And I’ll be several days this week on foot in the middle of a volcano in Haleakala National Park.
The cost of a rent-a-car is about double what I paid only 2yrs-ago. Over $50/day … plus fuel. The agent at Dollar insisted I buy the $13/day extra insurance. INSISTED.
Fuel is US$3.24 / American gallon. But I had to pay $4.39 in distant Hana. (Don’t you wish you owned that service station, the only one on that side of the island.)
The average holiday maker in Maui spends $171/day. … My target budget is about $40. Ha. So far I’ve spent at least $70/day despite sleeping in a tent.
Yesterday I moved into the Banana Bungalow hostel. Nice.
They offer “free” tours each day. Have a great kitchen. Free WiFi.
The location is in historic (rundown) Wailuku town, the administrative centre of the Island. Low rent. There are no suitcase tourists here. We mingle with locals, a racially diverse crowd of Asian, European and Pacific Island descent.
It will be a different Maui experience. I won’t be able to stop and gawk anywhere as I did with the car. Tooling all over the island. The highlight of Maui so far has been the motor touring, actually.
Having a rent-a-car was a worry though, in the States. I don’t trust insurance companies to deliver if I did have a major problem. They’ve been devaluing the payoff for claims in recent years. And I don’t really understand the specifics of …
Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) or Loss Damage Waiver (LDW)
Personal Accident Insurance (PAI)
Additional Liability Insurance (ALI)
Personal Effects Coverage (PEC)
Do YOU have confidence you’re actually covered when you rent a car?
is the internet ruining writing?
Rockin’ links to research out of Stanford:
… today’s students are writing much more than previous generations, and in a profoundly different way. Consider these findings:
An amazing 62 percent of student writing is outside of school. That’s a giant paradigm shift from the pre-Internet age, when almost all writing was for the classroom. Not only are students writing more, they’re writing things they truly care about and want others to read. And they’re writing in a lively, competitive and very public marketplace (text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) that hones their rhetorical skills and teaches them how to influence their audience. Trunk’s loveably brazen conclusion: “So everyone can just shut up about how no one can write anymore.”
details – For Your Approval – Another reason employee communication is changing for good
Perhaps it’s the mobile phone that’s ruining writing.
Alan Alda autobiography
Alphonso Joseph D’Abruzzo is well known as Hawkeye Pierce from the old TV Show M.A.S.H.
I’d heard good reviews of his autobiography, published 2005. And finally listened to an abridged audio version with Alda reading.
Alan Alda’s autobiography travels a path less taken. Instead of a sensationalist, name-dropping page-turner, Alda writes about his life as a memory play, an exercise in recollecting his childhood, his parents (dad Robert was a veteran on stage, film, and vaudeville), and his career. You want to know about Alda’s most famous work, the eleven years on M*A*S*H? You have exactly 16 pages to do so, and guess what: It’s one of the least entertaining parts of the book. …
Really, who else would name his memoir after an unfortunate trip to the taxidermist? The year the book was published during a revival for the 69-year-old; he was nominated for an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony in the same year.
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I’ve Learned
He was the prototype starving actor who financed his lousy career by inventing “systems” to win at the horse track.
Very interesting and engaging.
I loved his story of the morning of the Academy Awards … (He had been nominated for his supporting role as Senator Ralph Owen Brewster in Martin Scorsese’s film The Aviator.) … While at the grocery store he was mistaken for an elderly shop clerk.
Alan Alda is a likable actor. And an entertaining writer. Highly recommended for one and all.
His second autobiographical book, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, looks to be less appealing.
downloading library audio books
Yup.
I finally did it.
Downloaded an audio book from my local public library website. And transferred it from a Mac to my iPod.
For years audio books have been available. But I found it impossible to download them to an Apple computer.
The Calgary Public Library opted to partner with a company called OverDrive, Inc. . (boo, hiss)
I doubt there’s a more complicated, difficult way to download an audio book than the disaster called Overdrive Media Console. You must choose from downloads in 12 different formats!
Complicated, or what?
In the mean time iTunes, Amazon and Audible downloads are one click from any computer. Dead simple.
… OverDrive has faced criticism from some libraries and library patrons for its use of digital rights management protection technology from Microsoft on the audiobooks it distributes. This form of content protection prevents Apple Mac and iPod users from using digital audiobooks from their library’s download website on their Apple devices.
In March 2008, OverDrive announced that it would distribute a collection of around 3,000 audiobooks in the MP3 format. These audiobooks will be compatible with most digital audio players including the iPod.
On November 19, 2008, OverDrive also released the OverDrive Media Console for Mac, which allows Mac owners to download and listen to MP3 audiobooks from their library on a home computer. …
They’ve done everything they can to keep their downloads off the #1 listening device in the world. Especially if you use an Apple computer.
I’ve yet another reason to hate digital rights management protection technology from Microsoft.
Libraries … If you don’t want me to “borrow” audio books, no problem. But don’t pretend you offer this service, then make the process so difficult borrowers want to kill themselves.
My advice. Dump OverDrive, Inc.
There’s no “fixing” that mess.
Rick McCharles 