riding the technology wave

Hello everyone. A couple of very interesting things have happened this week. My Trekker Breeze arrived and is now charged up for use. Unfortunately, the weather and GPS gods haven't been all that kind right off the bat. I haven't yet gotten the high GPS coverage which would let me feel confident making important landmarks such as the location of home. Once the landmarks are set accurately, I think lower GPS coverage will still give me enough confidence to explore knowing that the Breeze at least knows precisely where I actually want to go. I think the snow in the air might have screwed it up over the past couple of days when I've tried it. Even under that limitation, it still was able to figure out which street I was on eventually. Clearly, I have a lot of experimentation ahead of me with the Breeze.

Dad and I took a brief trip to Futureshop one morning. It's been quite a while since we've done that sort of thing and it was fun. I finally got to feel a few of these netbooks and get a tangible idea of what they're all about. Even the 8.9-inch keyboards feel a lot more comfortable than I initially expected. Given that I'll be using my netbook more extensively and for longer stretches than most average people, I think a ten-inch model is a good investment. In particular, I'm going to try and get an Asus EEEPC 1000H. It seems to be the best option from my purspective. The power management will be completely accessible, it has the new N wifi capability built in, the keyboard is roomy, the battery life is excellent and it even has good built-in speakers. For gaming, I expect I'll still need to carry my XT1 speakers due to the distance between the built-in ones unless they've somehow dealt with that problem as well. That's worth a little extra cash considering I'll be using it over at least the next four years or so barring catastrophy. It's also one of the easiest units to upgrade or replace batteries, hard drive, etc. I'm counting on getting a good deal after Christmas online. The EEEPC 1000H isn't sold anywhere we could reasonably drive to unfortunately.

I'm all ready to enjoy some nifty holidays this year. Janene's going to be with her parents. I would certainly have enjoyed having her here with us on Christmas but she very much wants to spend some time with her parents. We'll be alternating between families when it comes to Christmas after we're married so when you look at it, this is probably the most fair way to spend our last Christmas before that starts. She'll be back to join me for New Year's Eve which I'm going to host here at my parents' house. I keenly look forward to that. Meanwhile, I have a lot more to look forward to. Unless fate is unusually cruel, this should include talking with Janene via telephone hearing her fully rested and healthy this time. She needs time off that she doesn't have to spend recovering from illness like what happened last year. She works so hard and deserves the kind of restorative enjoyment which comes with having time and the energy to put it to good use. Things are winding down much better this year for her.