Hello from Hawaii. Actually I am not is Hawaii as I type this, but I should be in Hawaii when it posts.
Today is out 10 year anniversary. It’s crazy that we have been married 10 years already, but even crazier when I think about how long I have known my wife. She was 13, and I was 16 when we first met in 1991. We met about a year after my Mom moved the family from a small northern Minnesota town, to a small town in central Minnesota. She was the cute little neighbor girl that I wanted to go out with from day one. She felt the same about me.
We were both to shy to ask each other out. We became good friends and hung out a lot, but it took five years before we actually started dating. After she graduated high school she took a month trip to Poland to be a teaching assistant with one of her teachers. When she was there she missed me more than her boyfriend. That’s when she knew.
It was probably a day or two after she got back when one of our mutual friends just said, “You know you two like each other, just go out.”
So that day she broke it off with her boyfriend, and I broke it off with the girlfriend I had then, and that was it. My girlfriend and her boyfriend we actually kind of expecting it. It was like everybody else knew we were meant to be before we did. That was in 1996.
We then dated until we were both done with college, and finally got married in 2000. So while she has been my wife for 10 years, she has been my best friend for 19. That’s well over half my life.
We are all packed and ready to head off to the airport on our way to Hawaii. We got the Wife’s cousin staying here to keep and eye on the house, and keep the pets fed. It should be a fun time, but a week is going to be a long time to be away from home. I like being at home.
It’s crazy the amount of technology two people need to take with them on vacation. We have:
- Camera
- 4 disposable water cameras for snorkeling
- Kodak Zi8 video camera
- Two laptops
- 4 iPods (The wife and I each have a touch for apps and internet and another one for music)
- 2 Blackberries
- My iPad
- Our GPS
- and a rented MiFi to share internet to all our devices
It’s going to be a long plane ride, but with my iPad and Audiobooks I have more than enough to keep me busy. In fact I really wouldn’t mind a longer flight. The Wife is another story. I am sure she will be bored out of her mind.
The thing I will probably miss is Twitter. I may find time to post from time to time, but I wont be able to read and keep up with it. Normally I keep up with my Twitter stream during my waking hours pretty easily. It’s going to bug me a bit not being on top of everything, and knowing what’s going on, but I guess that’s what a vacation is for; to get away from it all — or at least most — of it for a while.
My blog will probably be a little quiet for the week. I might use Posterous to post some pictures if I have time, but I plan on being pretty busy just having fun.
I have been a huge podcast listener since first discovering podcasting in October of 2004. Those were some exciting times. While I was never a creator, I enjoyed watching all the shows grow and become very popular. People were making shows for the fun of it — to be part of a community. I was tempted to create some kind of show, but I was spending too much time enjoying everybody else to have time to create anything myself.
Times have really changed. A lot of podcasts are making money now, and people are doing it full time. That’s great for the people involved, but sad when business comes before the shows.
This week three of the podcasts I listen to are no more. CNET’s Gadgetts, TWiT’s Maxwell’s House, and Geek Brief are all no more.
I will miss Gadgetts, but I am sure I will still hear from everybody on other CNET podcasts that I listen to. Cali Lews has had some personal and what sounds like business issues with Mevio, but it looks like she is moving over to Revision3 with a new show called Geek Beat, which looks to be very similar to Geek Brief, so I won’t be missing much there.
The one guy I am really going to miss is Ray Maxwell. He is like the grandfather I never had. He has so many great stories from his life. I was a little disappointed when TWiT wanted him to focus his show to aviation only. I enjoyed his many other topics better, but now that I look back, I think they were hoping that having a specific topic would draw advertisers.
He said he is going to appear on other TWiT shows from time to time, but you know how that goes. Who really knows how often he will be on. I am hoping Dr. Kiki has him on Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour from time to time.
While it’s sad to see good shows go, I am sure they will be replaced by equally good shows. It has been quite amazing watching TWiT grow. I have listened to damn near every show the network has produced, and almost always have one of my three monitors on the live stream.
Podcasting has brought me so much education, and entertainment these past six years. It’s almost total replaced my TV viewing. I bet I only watch 5 hours of TV a week nowadays, and 2.5 hrs of that is Jeopardy. Thank you internet, and thank you podcast producers.
Our Hawaii vacation is getting closer and closer. Flights, hotels, car, and excursions are all paid for. I could add it all up, but I am kind of scared to know how much we spent. We have a pretty booked schedule. We wanted to see and do as much as possible while we are there.
I think we are going to have a pretty memorable 10 year anniversary. That day we are taking a helicopter tour over Kilauea volcano, and that evening we are heading to the top of Mauna Kea to do some star gazing. It should be a fun time. On our honeymoon we went to the top of Pikes Peak, and Mauna Kea is at a similar elevation. I’m not sure if there will be any snow up there this time of year, but I am kinda hoping I can throw a snowball in Hawaii.
Right now I am debating if I should just use the hotel’s wifi or rent a mifi for my internet access. The hotels charge $12 a day, but I can rent a mifi for $8 a day. I just wish I knew which one was faster. I am leaning towards the mifi since it’s cheaper, and it will give me internet access on the go too, including the airports that don’t have free wifi.
It should be a great vacation. I am really looking forward to learning a lot about Hawaii. Neither the Wife or I really like to relax on vacations. We like to get out and see and learn as much as possible. That’s what we consider fun. We can relax all we want on our couch when we get back.
There is a new study that shows having caffeine in the morning doesn’t give a pick-me-up to people that regularly drink it. Your morning coffee just calms your caffeine addiction.
I totally believe it.
I like to have my coffee in the morning, but it never makes me feel more awake, and I can easily go without it. Sometime during the day I need to get my caffeine in or I will have a headache the next day though. Some days when I am too busy for coffee in the morning, I just make a latte before bed. I can sleep no problem, and when I wake up… no headache. I have my caffeine addiction down to a science. I rarely ever get headaches. I probably should cut back on my caffeine intake, but I don’t think it’s as bad for you as sugar and alcohol which I try to limit when possible.
Here in Fargo we are no strangers to floods. It’s pretty much a yearly thing for us, but we always know it’s coming so we have time to build our dikes. Down in Nashville it was a different story.
Ben Folds lives in the Nashville area and has taken a few pictures and had them featured on nationalgeographic.com. From my experience these pictures come no where near showing how disastrous the flood really was. I’m sure the people of Nashville our coming together to rebuild the damage, just as we do in Fargo.
So the Wife and I have been talking about spending our 10 year wedding anniversary in Hawaii for over a year now. This week we finally starting booking it. We have been fortunate enough to have been able to take a vacation every year that we have been married so far. Most of them have been pretty affordable. We always try to get the most out of our money on vacations.
Hawaii will be a different story. There will be nothing cheap about this vacation, but I guess you only have one 10 year anniversary. We did have enough miles built up on our credit card to get one of our hotel stays for free. That’s not too bad since it’s $120 a night for four nights. We want to see as much as possible for the week we are spending there, so we are spending four days on Oahu, and four days on the Big Island.
On Oahu we will be staying in Honolulu right on Waikiki beach. Our only plan so far is to visit Pearl Harbor, and get our beach time in. Neither of us are big fans of beaches, so we won’t be spending much time on the beaches.
On the Big Island we are staying in Hilo, which I hear doesn’t have great beaches, but that’s fine with us. It’s closer to the volcanoes, which we plan on spending a day at. I talked the wife out of spending extra money on ocean side rooms, and use that money on something funner like a helicopter ride, so we are planning that. I also would like to spend an evening star gazing on Mauna Kea.
There is so much to do, and so much we want to do. It’s going to be tough to narrow it down. It will be a usual non-relaxing vacation for us. Neither of us like to sit around and do nothing. We always want to see and do as much as possible. We can relax when we get home.
So our Dog Kingslie has been having a hard time sleeping though the night, and every time she gets up she has to pee. Most of the time I hear her and get up with her, but many time I haven’t and she goes on the floor. It has be getting worse and worse, so we took a urine sample to the vet on her yearly visit the other day.
They did a urinalysis and discovered crystals in her urine, so we needed to have an x-ray taken to make sure she doesn’t have any bladder stones. If stones were found she would need to have surgery. Luckily she didn’t have any stones.
After a $350 vet bill we learned that she has a problem controlling the pH of her urine causing crystals to settle out. It sounds like it’s not that big of deal since it’s controllable by diet, but requires a specific kind of food that is only available from the vet. It’s a little spendy, a 5 lb back was $18, and will be a pain having to drive to the vet to get it. We will know a little more in two weeks after her next visit, but it sounds like she will have to be on this food permanently. At least she is a little dog, and doesn’t eat all that much I guess.
I am really loving my iPad. I am actually posting this from my iPad. The iPad is my first experience with an ebook reader. I really like the reading experience. It’s probably more of an ebook thing than it is an iPad thing, but I find it much more comfortable reading ebooks over paper books. I have always found it uncomfortable holding books open and having to adjust your grip depending on where in the book you are at.
The iPad may be a little on the heavy side, but it works great sitting in your lap. It’s always in the same position and just a tap to turn the page. I am sure the experience is the same with a Kindle, or any other ebook reader. I don’t ever want to go back to paper books. Too bad I have a pretty big stack of books to get through before I am totally digital.
I have been blogging off and on, but mostly on, for almost 10 years now. I started shortly after we got broadband in July of 2000. I however was not good at preserving my archives. I switched from so many services and really didn’t care to bring along my old posts. Sometimes I wish I could read them, but part of me is kinda glad I can’t.
In 2000 I started with Blogger. It was simple and easy, but bugged me because it didn’t have commenting at that time. From there I went to a free host (they were plentiful before the dot-com bubble burst), and used desktop software to manage my blog. That worked for a while, but wasn’t ideal, so then I finally broke down and paid for hosting.
The first blogging software that I used was Greymatter. I used it for a while, but then everybody seemed to be using Movable Type, so I switched. I was probably on Movable Type longer than other the other services before combined. Then in 2004 TypePad started placing greater restrictions on its use without paying for it, so I switched to WordPress, and have been on WordPress ever since. A couple different domains, and hosts, and here I am, still tinkering around on the net, hence the name tinkr.net.
When I first started blogging it seemed like you could read almost every blog out there. I felt like I knew the people behind the blogs I read. I was never good at leaving comments though, so a lot of them never knew much about me. Back then I would also blog about a lot more personal stuff. Nowadays, I feel my life is pretty boring. I blog when I have something to say, like this monster post, but for the most part I just post stuff that I find cool on the interwebs.
Many of my favorite blogger have dropped off the face of the internet. Some of them I have found on Twitter, but it seems like Twitter is keeping a lot of people away from their blog. I think I will always have a blog, but probably won’t always be blogging. I don’t ever want to drop on the face on the internet. I want a little place to call my own where someone can always find me at.
This past weekend was our annual family birthday get together since my Brother and I both have February birthdays. I love my family, but spending too much time with them drives me crazy. I get along fine with them as long as topics stay away from politics, religion, or anything medical related. Both my Mom and Brother think they are far smarter than me because they completed more college that I did. You can’t argue with them because they think they are always right, and they believe in some really wacky things.
My Brother is a chiropractor nutjob. He is pretty much against all medicines. He thinks adjustments, and supplements cure everything. Who knows how much money they spend on all the herbal crap that doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t bother me as much what they do to themselves since they are adults and can think for themselves. I worry more about their kid. They have a four month old and he has some sort of rash on his face that looks like eczema. They have been trying to cure it with crazy stuff like green tea and fish oils, and of course they aren’t doing anything for it. Hopefully my Sister-in-law can talk some sense into my Brother and bring him to a doctor, but she also believe in a lot of that crazy stuff.
I have done all I can to try and talk some sense into them. Maybe someday they will wake up and not think that “big pharma” is evil and all about making money, but until then I will just keep my mouth shut and shake my head.
Every year that I watch the Super Bowl I am always amazed at how many people care about the commercials. Why anyone would care about commercials bogles my mind. Don’t people use DVRs to fast forward the damn things? Who cares if they are new, or maybe funny. They are just trying to push products.
Another thing I don’t get is why so many big companies waste money on Super Bowl commercials. I have heard of Coke and budweiser before. Spending millions on a Super Bowl ad isn’t going to get me to by your product anymore. Unless you were a newish company, or launching a new product, why waste the money? I guess the advertising works for a lot of people. It doesn’t work for me though.
Actually advertising probably has a greater chance at turning me away from your product then onto it. 1 and 1 hosting is one company that I wont use because of obnoxiously large ads in computer magazine I read. Godaddy is another one. I am in the process of transferring all my domains away from them. They have stupid sexist commercials, and try to up-sell you on every purchase. Two things I can’t stand.
Then there was the whole Tim Tebow controversy. Honestly, if I never would have read about it I wouldn’t have even known. I wouldn’t even have known what it was about if they didn’t put up their website at the end. To me if anything, it was a pro-choice ad. His Mom had a choice and was glad she made the right one for herself. Big fricken deal. Focus on the Family must be rolling in the dough if they can afford a Super Bowl ad that doesn’t really push their agenda at all.
I really didn’t see too many of the commercials though. It was a great game and commercial time was peeing, and reading Twitter time for me.
I believe I mentioned that I am catching up on old episodes of Everest: Beyond the Limit on my Roku box. That show has really piqued my interest in Mount Everest. I think the people that climb it are crazy, but it’s pretty incredible that they can. I have added a bunch of other documentaries about Everest to watch on my Roku, and today I ran across a great presentation from Dr. Ken Kamler talking about his Everest disaster of 1996.
I hate arguing with people that don’t open up their mind and listen. It’s about as productive as talking to a wall and trying to convince it to move. It’s just a wast of time, and I get too worked up over it.
In the end I guess it’s ok if you disagree with me. I can’t force you to be right.
So Monday was the Wife’s Grandma’s funeral. Pretty much the whole family was there. It was a sad time, but also a nice bonding time. It was quite obvious that everybody cares a great deal for everybody in their family, despite not seeing them all that often.
Grandma picked out almost every detail of her funeral from the songs, and singer, right down to the casket color inside and out. That got me thinking about my death.
Do people really care about their own funeral?
I personally could care less. I don’t really care what they do with my body. I probably prefer to be cremated, just because I would take up less space that way. I am not religious, but if they want a religious funeral go ahead. The funeral is for them anyway. Once I am dead, I won’t know any better anyway. The only thing I really care about is not having a religious symbol on my headstone or urn. That lives on for an eternity, and I don’t want my name next to a religious symbol. Anything else you want to do for my funeral, go for it.
I kind of think of it like our wedding. The Wife and I didn’t need any wedding or vows to prove our love. We got married in a church for our families. Most of our families are Christian, so we pretty much did it for them. That may sound wrong to do, but I am a big fan of traditions. In my eyes, our wedding was more of a traditional thing rather than a religious thing. It’s sad that it’s so hard to avoid religion in our society. It’s wrong that I feel like an outcast for not being religious. Hopefully that starts to change as more people start questioning religion.
