Shout out for our accommodation at Thompson Rivers University.
Not only is the best University residence I’ve ever seen, it’s one of the best University hotels.
I score it 10 / 10.
Yesterday I rode up the elevator chatting with coach Wally Buono. The B.C. Lions football team has just arrived for Training Camp.
… I’m loving the University, too.
Disappointed in the latest update of the aluminum laptops, I’m still recommending the white bottom-of-the-line as the “best buy”.
It’s now been updated, too. 10hr battery life is sweet.
Apple MacBook – $999
For casual users the iPad might be the better buy. It’s outselling the Apple laptops in the USA.
The iPad has problems, still, a first generation product. It’s difficult, for example, to get photos from your camera into the iPad.
Update: the MacWorld review
From Dave Adlard, by email:
“One life, One flag, One mile.”
Sometimes it is an amazing experience to be involved – even in a small way – with a person and a project bigger than yourself. …
I want to let you know that Mike Ehredt of Driggs, Idaho is well under way on his run across America on Saturday to honor fallen soldiers in Iraq. He will run solo pushing a baby stroller filled with his supplies and camping stuff. His website is www.projectamericarun.com
Anyway, last Wednesday, returning from some errands, I saw Mike running north on Hwy 95, only a few miles from my house, so I quickly changed into running gear, and ran down to the highway and back up the road a mile or so to where he was chugging along.
I introduced myself (and I’d brought cold pink lemonade!) and we started heading north on 95 toward Sandpoint, chatting about mutual friends (he knows all of the adventure racers and ultra-runners, being a top level athlete himself), until we got to the first mile marker – mile 445 – where he handed me a flag with an attached yellow ribbon with the name, rank, hometown and age of a serviceman who had died in Iraq, and I got to insert it in the mile marker post.
After a silent and quick salute, we were off again, and he handed me another flag to carry to the next marker, and the next, for the next five miles, where his host family was waiting to host him for the night.
We said our farewells, and I turned back and ran the 8 miles back home, feeling at once uplifted, daunted and motivated by the enormity of his task:
His plan is to run 30 miles per day – EVERYDAY – taking every 3rd Saturday off (he’ll only run 6 miles or so that day) – for SIX MONTHS!
Continue reading “running across America for fallen soldiers”
Trader Joe’s is a privately held chain of specialty grocery stores headquartered in Monrovia, California. As of April 2010, Trader Joe’s had a total of 340 stores. Approximately half of its stores are in California, with the heaviest concentration in Southern California, but the company also has locations in 24 other states and Washington, D.C. …
I first learned of the store as a supplier of “TWO BUCK CHUCK”. … Charles Shaw for $2. Who cares what it tastes like at that price.
In 2010 Charles Shaw will cost you $3, unless it’s on sale.
… Products sold include gourmet foods, organic foods, vegetarian food, unusual frozen foods, imported foods, domestic and imported wine and beer (where local law permits), “alternative” food items, and basics like bread, cereal, eggs, dairy, coffee and produce. …
I ended up buying vegetables, specialty granola, specialty craisens. And more.
… The May 2009 issue of Consumer Reports ranked Trader Joe’s the second-best supermarket chain in the nation, after Wegmans. …
I’d best be checking out Wegman’s.
home page – TraderJoes.com
First time ever, for me.
Fantastic. Why don’t the Canadian ferries offer wifi?
I’m on the Puyallup, Edmonds-Kingston in Washington State.
The Coho Ferry Port Angeles to Victoria, B.C. now has wifi, as well. Nice.
May 15th. …
Should be safe to start back up to the Great White North.
I’m going to miss the dry, sunny “snowbird” days of the American southwest.
On this long driving trip I’ve used only my iTouch as car stereo. Works great.
I should be in Kamloops by May 24th for the Canadian Gymnastics Championships.
I laughed aloud at the incredulous poor management of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.
Signage says that 40% of the Navajo Nation lives under the poverty line. What do the entrance fees for that park go to? Not road improvement. Not campground improvement. Not signage … aside from the poverty sign.
The same day I traveled to camp at Navajo National Monument.
… it preserves three of the most intact cliff dwellings of the ancestral puebloan people (Hisatsinom).
The Navajo people who live here today call these ancient ones Anasazi. The monument is high on the Shonto plateau, overlooking the Tsegi Canyon system in the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona. …
Rangers guide visitors on free tours of the Keet Seel and Betatakin (Bitátʼahkin in Navajo) cliff dwellings. …
Superb. That attraction is perfectly managed. Congratulations.
It’s run by the National Park Service, but with mostly Navajo employees, by the looks of things.
One example of the government doing a better job than non-government managers.
Corrino is the 3rd in the prequel trilogy of books leading up to the original novel, Dune.
I enjoyed it so much that I’ll continue with the audio version of the master work, itself.
I see a huge future film epic something like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, the acting and story more important than special effects.
Paramount, I expect, wants to make another Avatar 3D, but … you know, … in the desert.
Chase Palmer has been hired to write director Pierre Morel’s (Taken, From Paris With Love) version of Dune at Paramount. According to THR, Palmer will be working with Morel to stick close to the original source material, which is the 1965 classic book by Frank Herbert. As most of you know, David Lynch took a crack at Dune back in 1984 at Universal.
It’s important to note while Palmer has been hired to write the script, that doesn’t mean Dune is moving in front of the cameras anytime soon. With what has to be a huge budget and complicated source material to adapt, many have tried to get Dune off the ground with little success (Peter Berg). Just because a hot director wants to make the film, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It’s going to take a lot of happy studio executives and some big name stars to get this thing rolling. More as we hear it.
Prelude to Dune is a prequel trilogy of novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, set in Frank Herbert’s Dune universe.
The series takes place in the years leading up to the events in the original novel Dune.
* Dune: House Atreides (1999)
* Dune: House Harkonnen (2000)
* Dune: House Corrino (2001)
I’ve just finished the second, Harkonnen, as an audio book read by the masterful Scott Brick.
It’s superb, though not as good as Atreides. There are a few questionable plot points.
Highly recommended to any fan of Dune. I can hardly wait for Corrino.
I stopped by Steve Job’s place in Palo Alto … to check out the iPad, in person.
• much more impressive hands-on than in the videos
• screen is very responsive
• sound surprisingly good
• many apps don’t rotate the screen from the inferior page view to the superior horizontal view
• it’s heavy (1.5lbs) … needs to be about .75lbs, ideally
As everyone should have known all along, this thing will be a huge hit. Perhaps 7 million sales in the first year. Better devices will have problems competing. (As the Zune has problems competing with the iPod.)
I’ll never buy one myself, but it’s perfect for millions and millions of casual users, worldwide. Much better than a phone, by comparison.
Rick McCharles 