Ups and Downs of the week.

iPods – Ok, I drank the Kool-Aid. But my new iPod Nano is very cool.

Windows 7  – So far, so good. There are a few nits to pick, but mostly it seems fast and stable.

Weather – What January thaw? The promised warmer temps never happened. We haven’t seen the sun in a week or more. And this weekend it’s supposed to rain heavily and then turn to snow. Ugh.

Ups and Downs of the week.

Marco Scutaro – Welcome to the Red Sox, Marco.

  Patriots – What an embarrassment against New Orleans.

 Positano – Another webcam with awesome images.

New Laptop – Dell Latitude Z600. It’s light as a magazine but has a 16″ screen. So far, pretty impressive. I’m liking Windows 7, too.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Malwarebytes – Great little program for ferreting out deeply hidden malware on your PC.

 Patriots – Shaping up nicely. We’ll see how they do against Indy this weekend.

 Ramsau – The webcam is still kicking out awesome images.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Dockers Stain Defender pants – Now this is technology at its best. This past Monday a waiter spilled a full glass of Diet Coke in my lap. I stood up and brushed off the DC like it was crumbs. The pants were clean and dry immediately after the spill. No stains, no wetness. The waiter was far more relieved than I.

 Dad – Back in the hospital again. Short stay this time for some blood and a mild case of pneumonia. He should be home when I get there next weekend.

 Red Sox – Clay Buchholz looked great tonight as they beat the Blue Jays. Lugo has been released finally and Lowrie and Lowell are back. All is good.

  Walter Cronkite died today – Ok, he lived a long life that most of us can only dream about. Still, he was the last of the news folks you could really trust.

Baby Deer - Mama brought them by for some seed and peanuts, but they were more interested in Mama’s milk. She was having none of it, though, much to their chagrin.

I love my toys. This one is among the coolest. It’s a Verizon Mifi 2200 portable EV-DO router. Just fire it up and 5 devices can connect wirelessly to Verizon’s EV-DO broadband network. I used it at home tonight with my EEE-PC to watch the Red Sox game on MLB.com. The game streamed fine. Once you set up the intial connection via USB, all subsequent connections are via wifi. As this device is usually right near the laptop, the laptop connects to it automatically. I just open up the EEE-PC and it’s already connected to the Mifi and out to the internet. This thing is about the size of a credit card and about 4 or 5 credit cards thick. It has a 4-hour battery life and can be plugged in and charged either to a wall socket or via USB to a laptop. Wireless access to it is controlled via WPA, with the WPA code stamped on the bottom of the router. Monthly fee for unlimited (really 5GB) data is $60. You can also buy lesser data accounts or a 24-hour for $15 option. It’s made for traveling and it eliminates the danger of snapping off a wifi PCMCIA card or USB dongle from your laptop. This is perfect for the family on vacation. Everyone gets to surf.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Red Sox – Looking much better again. They swept the Yankmees and won game one against TB tonight at Fenway.

  Celtics/Bruins – Both teams struggling. Both lost tonight.

 New Toy – ASUS EEE-PC 10.1 inch mini-laptop. Intel Atom processor, 2GB RAM, 160GB hard drive. 9.5 hours (claimed) battery life. Just under 3-lbs. Right about $350. Nice color on the screen (picture doesn’t do it justice). Got it running MLB.com’s player with the Sox game on.

 Weather – Some nice days this week. Sunny and warm. Perfect weather to go topless. (The car, not me.)

  Virus/malware writers – Scum of the earth.

 Dad – Went home today with the advisors from the nursing home to check for possible issues with the apartment vis-à-vis his home recuperation. Everything looked good. He’s slated to go home for good this coming Tuesday.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 FIA - The governing body of Formula One finally makes a good decision and lets the results of the season so far stand as they are and allows the diffuser design used by three of the teams. In years past they would have caved in to pressure from Ferrari and the other teams. 

  Red Sox – Their bullpen is looking great and the offense is showing some signs of life, but they’re still in the basement and unable to get clutch hits. UPDATE: They’ve won 4 in a row now and are back at .500. Tampa Bay is in the basement and the Sox are moving up. What a difference a couple of days can make.

 Weather – Mid-70s today. Finally got to drive all the way home with the top down. Spring is here at last.

  Run-flat tires – Good in theory, lousy in practice.

 Dad – Still making progress.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 MLB.com – Despite technical difficulties on Opening Day (inexcusable), the picture quality this year is awesome, although the delay of nearly a minute makes it difficult to read posts on Sawxheads.com without reading spoilers. And the Nexdef app really ramps up the CPU usage. 

  Red Sox – Not a promising start to the season.

  Weather – Supposed to be cracking into the 60’s this coming week.

  Weather- It was in the 40’s today. It’s April, for Pete’s sake!!!!

 Dad – The man is a born fighter. So hard to gain that last bit of confidence and strength, though. Still, he’s toughing it out and will prevail, I’m sure. 

 Ramsau – I know I post about this a lot, but this has to be one of the most awe-inspiring webcams on the internet.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Formula One is back – Opening race from Melbourne, Australia. This season brings so many changes to the cars that the whole field may be shuffled. We’ll know after the race on Sunday who the front runners this year will be. UPDATE: Great race. Kudos to Brawn GP.

  Winter is back – We’re forecast to get 2-4 inches of snow Saturday night. Ugh. UPDATE: We only saw flurries. Sometimes it’s good when the weather seers are wrong. 🙂

  Spring Break – Nice having everyone gone for a week.

  1st Level Tech Support – How can you explain a DNS problem to a support tech who doesn’t know what DNS is? Only GoDaddy does it right.

 Dad – Still making impressive progress. He’s in a  nursing facility now, but it’s much more comfortable than the rehab hospital and they’re being more aggressive with his rehab, which is also good.

  Prehistoric Road Maintenance II – Didn’t take long for a rock to find my fender.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Baseball is back – Ok, just spring training games, but the pennant race will soon be underway.

  Google’s Latitude – Sign up to have Google track your every move? Um, no thanks.

 USF1 – The U.S. will finally have a Formula One team again. It won’t hit the track until 2010, but at least we’ll be back in the game.

  Mileage tax – Yet another idiotic idea. If folks who drive more already pay more in gas taxes, why start a new, expensive system that will also be prone to abuse and misuse? The stupidity of some of our elected officials cannot be overstated.

 Dad – He’s on solid food now and has no feeding tube or IV stint. He’s walking more and spending most of his day out of bed. I’m thinking he’ll be home by the end of March. It’s been a long, long road.

  Patriots – They traded Mike Vrabel today. Probably *the* clutch situation player on the Pats and now he’s gone. Someone please explain.