The one good thing about living on my own: the apartment stays sooo much cleaner…
PS to whoever keeps clicking all of the buttons: This post is not inspiring, creative or a great find. Please do not click the buttons just because they are there. If you must do that, find yourself an elevator in a tall building…
Yesterday I spent just shy of 12 hours on a train. Its normally an 8 hour drive from Canada to our home in New York. My bum still hurts.
This weekend was long. Some day I’m going to actually use my vacation time to vacation.
That day is not likely to come soon.
I really want to try this. Its like hyper-miling in your car, only cooler.
The guy in the cubicle behind me just farted. And not quietly either. He just let it rip.
Only babies and old people can get away with that.
Babies can get away with a lot of stuff that adults can’t. Nobody cheers for me when I finish my dinner.
July is not going to be a good month for me. Nic and Ben are home in Canada all this week, and I’m stuck in our apartment alone.
This morning the power went out and I had to shower in the dark, and dress by candle light.
I didn’t put my shirt on backward.
Nothing is working right at work. I had hoped that after going home for the weekend, I’d come back and it would magically work again.
I was wrong…
Transformers was a good movie. But the Citroen Transformer was better.
I have a recurring nightmare in which my high school calls me up, and informs me that there was an error… 10 years ago, and I have to repeat 11th grade.
I’m tired.
I often give our American friends a hard time about the differences between our new home, and the country I (mostly) grew up in. Truth is, we quite like it here — I’m not a huge fan of its current government, as is probably pretty obvious — but this is still a pretty great country, filled with pretty great people. Also, American employers pay so much better than their Canadian equivalents 
In honor of the independence of the United States of America I’m at work… I’m the only one here, but working today allows me to take Friday off, so its worth it. I figured though, that I could take a break and list some of the things that are awesome about living in the States — some things we wouldn’t enjoy if it weren’t for the passion, dreams and even blood of its founding fathers…
- We love U.S. healthcare. I haven’t seen SiCKO yet, and I plan to, because I’m not convinced that Capitalism is the right solution to every problem (the love of money being the root of all evil, and all that.) But I know for a fact that it works on health care. The concept of the patient being a customer means that you get treated better and more quickly than you ever would in a government funded healthcare system where you’re only a number. I imagine I’d have a completely different take on this if I were unemployed, or didn’t have healthcare, but the truth is, if you have a plan, this system works. We’ve had lots of opportunities to try it out in the past 18 months, and trust me, the hospitals in Canada pale in comparison to the treatment we get here.
- We love the American dream. It may have been diluted in the past century or so, but the fact remains that this is a place of opportunity, of entrepreneurship and of dreams. Its a place where if you work hard you have a good chance of succeeding. Its a place where you can dig into whatever you enjoy and find continuous challenge and reward. And while not everyone lives it, everyone understands it.
- We love that this is a Christian country. Sadly many Christians have forgotten what it means to live like Christ and spend more time spewing hatred and vitriol at their political opponents (Ann Coulter, I’m talking about you) than sharing God’s love with others. But nonetheless, there is no negative reaction to telling people you believe in God. I talk freely at work about going to church and being involved in ministry, and no one looks down on me or suggests that I’m wasting my time — more frequently I hear support and encouragement, sometimes from other Christians, sometimes from people who don’t profess it, but still respect it.
- We love that this is a beautiful country. We drive 30 minutes north on the highway from where we live and we’re in the Adirondack mountains, surrounded by trees as far as you can see, the landscape interrupted only by peaceful lakes. New York City is an amazingly full and bustling town, vibrant and alive and yes… polluted. But you travel 2 hours outside it, and you’re surrounded by healthy, beautiful country. We spent our Sunday afternoon on a beach on a lake enjoying a truly gorgeous day in a very beautiful and safe country, surrounded by good friends, and we were very content.
- We love the people here. We love that they share common ideals and a common hope. We love that they are free, that they are passionate about what they believe and that their country grants them the resources and the opportunity to pursue it. We love that they believe in the principles their country was founded on, even if sometimes their government loses track of those things, and that they’ll fight with all they have to keep those things alive. We love that they treasure their freedom and wish it for others, and that they’re willing to fight for those people too. Canada has plenty of good things about it, but I really believe that it lacks the shared vision that the USA has. I watched Transformers last night in theaters with 6 American friends — it was a very patriotic movie (although they did throw some wry social commentary in there at the end) and you could almost feel the solidarity in the theater. Everyone here treasures what they have — even when they’re politically opposed to each other, they all know what their freedom is worth, and that common theme is embedded in practically every American you meet, regardless of whatever other differences they have.
I’m very proud to be Canadian. Its great to know that my country has gifted me with a good education and reputation. But I’m also very proud to be working in a country like the States. That our countries share enough in common that free trade allows me to easily travel back and forth between two great homes, and explore my career and grow our family. But on July 4th, I’m particularly grateful for for our current home and all it stands for.
OK, I’m trying out a new plug-in for the blog. According to Google Analytics, we get an average of 110 visits a day, with each visitor saying at least long enough to read one or two posts. But comments? Not so much…
Now I’ve long maintained that this site doesn’t exist for comments — but it sure is nice to know if people enjoy or are intrigued by my babbling at all. I know I have a somewhat random assortment of topics — from baby news, to geek gadgets, to weekly updates, to faith related ponderings — and that not everyone visits the site for the same reasons. But I’d like to think that each of you find at least something interesting about the blog — or else, why do you keep coming?
Originally, with eXpression, the barrier to commenting was too high. You had to create an account just to comment. I fixed that in eXpression, and later in WordPress, and we do get a few more comments now. But I know that there are lots of you lurkers out there, who read the blog regularly but don’t say anything. I also know that there are a few of you who comment just to say “cool” or something similar. So this new feature is aimed at these two groups of people.
If you read something and want to discuss it, or add your two cents, or disagree with it, please feel free to write lengthy comments! I am a fan of the written word, and as much as I like to read my own writing… other people’s is much more interesting.
But if you read something and enjoy it, or appreciate the effort that went in to it, or generally just want to encourage the author, and aren’t the type who likes to write long comments, check out the little strip of buttons at the bottom of each post. Each button can communicate to us what you think of the post. You don’t have to register, or put in your e-mail address. There’s no form to fill out, and no one knows who you are so you can still lurk away in anonymity. Just click a button to let us know you came by and found our stories and thoughts were worth reading.
Update: Please do not abuse the buttons!
So I was swayed by the screen. Like The Steve said, touching is believing, and it really is as beautiful as he promised. Sales of nearly all my cool, but less shiny-new gadgets, should about cover the cost of the iPhone itself, and the monthly plan is pretty close to what we’re paying now. With June being a 3 pay check month for us, Nicole grudgingly allowed me to cover the small difference from the bank account, and Friday evening I went home with a brand new baby iPhone — the smaller (4gb) one, of course, because alas, I have been whipped.
One review said the iPhone was 95% brilliant and 5% infuriating. That about sums it up for me. You can tell that they went back to the drawing board with every part of the UI, and did an amazing job of fixing how we interact with computers — they just completely forgot about that last 5%. The multi-touch screen is jaw-droppingly intuitive. If you want to scroll to the next photo, you just flick your finger. If you want to scale a picture or website down, you just pinch your fingers together. It works as advertised, and it just feels right.
There are some missing things, and some things that are frustrating. I haven’t had a lot of luck with the keyboard. Its OK for text messages, but when I had the chance to tap out an e-mail this morning, I opted for a real computer because I’m not a patient person. The predictive input is good only for dictionary words, so if you’re typing something technical, or if you’re trying to input an e-mail or web address, prepare to be disappointed.
Taken on my iPhone.
Click to enlarge.There’s definitely some software missing/busted. No IM client, a crappy camera program (although the camera itself isn’t horrible), you can’t send a text message to more than one person — and you can’t copy/paste so sending the same message 3 times drives you nuts. You can’t attach more than one photo to an e-mail, and you can’t upload a photo to a website for blogging or anything. YouTube is super cool on the iPhone, but not all of its content is there, so unless your video is really popular, you’re not gonna be watching it online.
Safari is also less-than-great. It renders websites beautifully, but actually reading a site, pinching and scrolling all the time gets tired. Its also pretty crashy, and frequently quits on me without warning.
Fortunately most of these issues can be addressed by software updates — the first of which is rumored to be coming in a week or so, and supposedly will include a version of iChat.
There are some hardware issues they could have addressed. The lack of hardware buttons seems elegant at first blush, but doesn’t take into account one-handed/in-car use. For example, the iPod feature is wondrous — especially Cover Flow — but skipping to the next song while driving, after the screen has gone to sleep, is annoying at best (touch the home button, slide to unlock the screen, find the next button.) All of the software could benefit from 2 “soft” buttons that could be re-mapped for the active application (a Shutter button for the camera would be way nicer than an on-screen button.) And I would prefer that the “home” button be used as a back button.
Nonetheless, the iPhone is a beautiful piece of kit. It does what Windows Mobile has been promising for the past 6 years, and it does it in such a thought-out way that anyone can pick it up and start using it. You don’t even have to think about how to do something — the features that are there are so intuitive that it just seems natural.
A note on the carrier: the Edge network is slow. They were rumored to have boosted the speed the day before the iPhone came out, and if thats true, I don’t want to know what it was like before! Its fine for e-mail and even for low-quality YouTube, but Google Maps is a little sluggish. Fortunately the phone seamlessly transitions over to WiFi when available, and that hugely improves its online performance. And Nic and I have never had any complaints about AT&T’s voice coverage (which is something we can’t say about our friends with Verizon).
Overall, I’m very pleased with the iPhone. 4Gb is a little small, compared to my 60GB iPod, but I’m disciplining my syncing and its working out OK. I have high hopes for future software updates, and I am totally confident that this is a game-changer in both Communications and UI design. Its the best cell phone I’ve ever used, the best portable e-mail reader ever made, and an outstanding portable media and computing device. Well worth selling all my other gear for!
I know I’m a day late, but I was celebrating on a beach yesterday afternoon, and busy being pulled behind a boat.
For those of you American’s who’s education on our great home is depressingly lacking, here’s some facts about Canada:
Well the full review is pending but right now I’m sitting around a fire in front of a beach at the end of a truly gorgeous day in New York. And I’m blogging on my iPhone. Life is good!
Discussion
