tinkr.net

So I played with Bitstrips a bit.

So I am finally rested up enough to make a blog post about our vacation. Vacationing sure it tiring.

We had a great time, and lots of food, on the ship. The food wasn’t super good, but it wasn’t bad. There was tons of it. Anytime you wanted something to eat you could eat. I was also able to try a bunch of things for the first time. I actually had sushi for the first time. Sushi isn’t all that big in North Dakota. The sushi bar was only open for a couple hours a day, but it always seemed to be open when we walked buy. I tried a bunch of different kinds. I’m not really sure what any of it was, but it was all good. One of the ones I tried had caviar on it. I have never had caviar before. It didn’t really taste like much, just salty. I also tried escargot for the first time. It was amazingly good. I love trying different foods. I never seem to find anything I don’t like. Drinks are a different story. I don’t like most alcoholic drinks. One night on the ship they had a fancy get together to meet the captains, and they had free drinks. They were mostly fancy drinks, no beer. I tried a martini. It was nasty. My wife tried a cosmopolitan and that was even worse.

On the way to Grand Cayman the water and weather was nice. We sat out all day and enjoyed the sun. I burn easy, so I made sure I was keeping the sunscreen on. I managed not to get any color, and that it fine with me. The only color I ever seem to get is red anyway.

It Grand Cayman we did the Ray Runner Stingray City Snorkel Tour. It was awesome. We took these inflatable boats out into the water for what seemed like miles. The faster we got out there the more time we could spend out there, so we cruised. It was a fun and bumpy ride. Once out there we snorkeled for a bit and then went over to where the stingrays were at. It was the first time that I have ever been snorkeling. The water was amazing. So warm. So clean.

Our next stop was at Calica Mexico. There wasn’t much there. It was just an industrial port. They said cruise ships don’t stop there very often. It was just a short bus ride to Cancun though. We toured the Myan Ruins of Tulum. It was cool to learn more about the people there. Our tour guide was great. He was very informative and nice. I hope he makes good money. We gave him a good tip. I felt a little bad when I saw the houses that people live in down there. There were shops all over the place selling junk. Everything seemed pretty expensive. I am sure everything was expensive because everybody barters them down. I am not the kind of person that can do that. Those people need the money much more than I do, but we still didn’t buy anything. We did eat at this little shack next to Tulum. I was always told that “real” Mexican food wasn’t very good. I don’t know how americanized this food was, but it was amazing. I had fish tacos. It was my first time having fish tacos. There are no fish tacos in North Dakota either. Everybody there was super nice. I suppose they are super nice to Americans because they know we have money, but it was still nice.

On the way back the water was a little rougher. Our last day at sea was a rocking one, and it was cloudy out too. A lot of people were getting sick. It didn’t bother me much. It just got a little annoying. I am glad the whole cruise wasn’t like that.

Overall we had a great time. I’m Not sure if I would ever do a cruise again. I probably would. Vacationing gets tiring though. The last thing I want to think about when I get back is another vacation. The day we got back it was -16º out though. That was sure a shocker after spending a week in 85-90º weather.

I am back home.

Vacation was great.

I am sick.

I gotta go back to bed.

Well, it’s here. It will be a little quite here for a week. I don’t know what kind of internet connection I am going be getting on the cruise ship, so don’t expect much blogging from me. I might be on Twitter a little, but I wont be able to keep up on that either. International roaming on my phone is $2.50 a minute. I will be shutting off my phone and not even looking at it for a week.

In about an hour we are heading to my brothers house in Minneapolis. Tomorrow, we are heading to Tampa and staying at my Aunts for the night. Our cruise ship takes off Saturday morning.

I will be back next Thursday.

Take care Ya’ll!

I got my new haircut. It’s really short, but I like to get my moneys worth. It’s only hair. It grows back, and it grows fast.

So yesterday I took advantage of the newer lower iPod Shuffle pricing. I wanted a Shuffle because I wanted something smaller to either listen to some random music, or to listen to podcasts download on my laptop without having to mess with adding them to my iPod which is synced to my desktop.

The way podcasts are handled on the Shuffle and iTunes is messed up. First, podcasts in playlists don’t automatically sync. WFT? If music can sync why not Podcasts? Not syncing isn’t too bad though. You just have to drag and drop and they are there. The thing that drove me nuts is you can’t control the order the podcasts are played, and the default order is backwards. You have to listen to the newest stuff first. I, like most people, like to listen to podcasts in the order that they are released. Why would I want to hear today’s episodes if I haven’t heard yesterdays yet?

There were a few workarounds, but they all seemed like a pain in the ass to me. My workaround was to use a different podcatcher. It’s crazy how iTunes is totally dominating the podcatching market. I remember when there were tons of podcatchers, and they were all better than iTunes. I settled on NetNewsWire. NetNewsWire downloads my podcasts and drops them right into iTunes old school style. I can now sync my Shuffle to a playlist that contains my newest podcasts.

Why can’t this be done in iTunes? It would be so simple. Hasn’t anybody at Apple ever tried to listen to podcasts on a Shuffle?

I really need a haircut. I have been putting it off because it has been too cold to want to go anywhere, and the extra hair keeps my head warm too. We seem to be out of our deep freeze now, so today is haircut day.

The Action Design “Connect / Disconnect”

Add to My Profile | More Videos

So there is this somewhat big TV show called Dancing with the Stars. I don’t really get it. I saw it on once and it bored me to tears in thirty seconds. This season Penn Gillette is going to be on it. I am almost tempted to watch it. I am a huge fan of Penn. I love everything he does. His Showtime show Bullshit! is one of my favorites. He recently starting a little vlog on Crackle.com that I love too. The only reason I would want to go to Vegas would be to see his magic show. I am not sure I could stand watching Dancing with the Stars though. The only reason I would watch it would be to see how big Penn is. Teller isn’t a short guy. I hear he is 5’10” or so. Next to Penn, Teller looks three feet tall. I Might have to catch it once just to see how ginormous he looks dancing.

Today is a busy day in space news. First space shuttle Atlantis landed this morning. I usually try to watch shuttle takeoffs and landings, but I worked late last night and missed the landing this morning.

Second I am sure you all have heard about the US shooting down a spy satellite today. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy.com has a great little video about why we are shooting down the satellite.

Thirdly, there will be a total lunar eclipse tonight. This will be the last lunar eclipse until 2010. I will try to brave the cold tonight to see it. We will see.