We spent this past weekend over at Disney as we continue to take full advantage of our annual passes this year. In our continued attempt to check out as many of the resorts as possible, this time we stayed at the Carribean Beach. It was a very nice hotel but due to our short stay and the bad weather we really didn’t get to take advantage of the various amenities (like the pools).
Independence Day Weekend in Cleveland (again!)
The summer vacations continue: although we just saw the Ohio family two weeks ago in Naples this past July 4th weekend we were back in Cleveland (like last year) for my niece’s baptism.
We flew up on the 4th and spent the afternoon picnicking with family before the evening’s fireworks festivities.
We spent Friday at Cedar Point, the best roller coaster amusement park in the world (in my opinion). I hadn’t been there in about 10 years and was looking forward to riding every coaster in the park with my daughter. It rained on and off most of the day, which put a damper (no pun intended) on most of our plans, but eventually the weather cleared up and we managed to hit every ride we wanted to. I had spent the extra cash on a FastLane pass to make sure my daughter and I could get on every coaster (expecting long lines due to the holiday weekend) but I really only had to use it for GateKeeper (the newest coaster at the park) and Top Thrill Dragster (which I went on by myself, and it was fantastic!).
On Saturday, we grabbed lunch at the West Side Market (great falafel from Maha’s) downtown before heading over to Progressive Jacob’s Field to watch the Indians lose (unfortunately) to the Detroit Tigers.
Sunday morning started with mass, followed by my niece’s baptism, and then a barbecue/picnic at a local park to celebrate. After bidding farewell to the family in the late afternoon, we had dinner and “play time” at Dave & Buster’s, someplace else we hadn’t been to in a long time. We had an early flight Monday morning and were back home in time for lunch, another fun holiday weekend in the books.
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- GateKeeper, from parking lot
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- view from the skyride
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- sunset from inside Mean Streak
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- Top Thrill Dragster
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- West Side Market
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- panoramic of Progressive Field
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- view of the Flats
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- Sunday Night Mario Kart at D&B
Family vacation in Naples
It’s summer, and that means summer vacation! We just spent the last week with my immediate family in beautiful Naples, FL.
Everyone started flying in on Tuesday and we drove down from the Tampa Bay Area to Naples that evening. My brother had procured a four bedroom vacation home on a golf course (a perk of his company) where we were all staying together. We spent the first day relaxing around the house, bike riding, barbecuing, swimming in the pool, and we also got to meet my new niece for the first time.
We didn’t spend the entire vacation in the house (although we could have!). We spent one morning at Barefoot Beach, played Safari Mini Golf in Bonita Springs, had dinner at Cafe Luna in downtown Naples and checked out Thursdays on Third, went shopping for souvenirs at Tin City, drove to Miami for a day, and even saw dolphins at the Naples Pier (although sunset was a bust).
Overall, it was a nice, relaxing vacation week with family … and we’re going to see everyone again up in Ohio in two weeks.
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- grillin’ out
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- watch out for turtles!
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- Barefoot Beach
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- 5th Avenue
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- Third Avenue South
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- Safari Mini Golf
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- dolphin at Naples Pier
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- fire in Alligator Alley
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- Tin City
WIJFR: The Mongoliad: Book Three
The shadow of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II hangs over the shattered Holy Roman Church as the cardinals remain deadlocked, unable to choose a new pope. Only the Binders and a mad priest have a hope of uniting the Church against the invading Mongol host. An untested band of young warriors stands against the dissolute Khan, fighting for glory and freedom in the Khan’s sadistic circus of swords, and the brave band of Shield-Brethren who set out to stop the Mongol threat single-handedly race against their nemesis before he can raise the entire empire against them. Veteran knight Feronantus, haunted by his life in exile, leads the dwindling company of Shield-Brethren to their final battle, molding them into a team that will outlast him. No good hero lives forever. Or fights alone.
I’ve finally finished “The Mongoliad: Book Three“, the collaborative effort by Neal Stephenson, Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, Mark Teppo, and Cooper Moo, and (what I thought was) the last book of the Foreworld Saga. At the end of my last post I was hoping that the myriad of storylines of “The Mongoliad” would start to come together. In some ways I was rewarded, but in others left wanting.
Star Wars Weekend at Disney 2013
The last time we went over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekends it was the 30th anniversary of “The Empire Strikes Back.” How appropriate, then, that we were back among the Star Wars faithful this Saturday (also Geek Pride Day and Towel Day) celebrating the 30th anniversary of “Return of the Jedi” (which was released on May 25, 1983).
The park was packed, which we expected, but it’s always fun to see all the Star Wars t-shirts and costumes people wear for the festival weekends. With the acquisition of LucasFilm by Disney last year (and the planned new movies), I expected a lot more “Disneyfication” of the franchise and thus wasn’t surprised at the sheer amount of merchandise and Disney/Star Wars swag available at Darth’s Mall and around the entire park.
The parade/motorcade was pretty much exactly the same: a long phalanx of characters from all of the movies with a health sprinkling of their Disney counterparts (Jedi Mickey, Darth Goofy, Chip & Dale as “chipwoks,” etc.). The special guests were Warwick Davis (Wicket the Ewok), Ray Park (Darth Maul), James Arnold Taylor (the voice of Obi Wan in Clone Wars), Ashley Eckstein (the voice of Ahsoka Tano in Clone Wars), and Jim Cummings (voice of Hondo Ohnaka in Clone Wars). We didn’t see nearly as many wandering characters as last time but my daughter did get to give a Wookie a high-five after the motorcade.
Of course we rode the new Star Tours, which had a relatively short standby line (we got through in 15 minutes!). We missed out on a photo opportunity with R2D2 and C3PO again (they were hidden in Darth’s Mall and by the time we got there we had little time before we had to leave and the line was very long) but did wait in line for a photo opp with a clone trooper and Darth Goofy with storm trooper Donald. In Darth’s Mall they had a LEGO-by-numbers exhibit where you could put together a tiny square of colored LEGOs and then add it to the larger mosaic creating the different “Return of the Jedi” movie posters … pretty cool.
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- Boba Fett showing off his prize
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- clone trooper
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- Force-pushing some storm troopers
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- taking on Vader
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- RoTJ LEGO mosaics
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- Darth’s Mall (inside)
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- Darth’s Mall (outside)
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- Warwick Davis
Release of the Raring Ringtail
Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) was officially released today, although I was able to download and upgrade my server from Quantal last night, avoiding the rush.
Upgrading to the latest Ubuntu server release is really becoming a non-event for me, which is great news especially since support for non-LTS releases has been cut to 9 months. Starting with 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) I have had pretty much no issues to deal with after an upgrade. Just run ‘do-release-upgrade -d’ from the command-line and sit back and wait. Then clean up a few config files to re-apply customizations, reboot, and you’re done.
Since I run just the basic server software (no GUI) I can’t comment on the latest Ubuntu as a client desktop, but check out this article on PCWorld.com for more details.
Next up in October: Saucy Salamander. Saucy!
WIJFR: The Mongoliad: Book Two
The Shield Brethren, an order of warrior monks, search for a way to overthrow the horde, even as the invaders take its members hostage. Forced to fight in the Mongols’ Circus of Swords, Haakon must prove his mettle or lose his life in the ring. His bravery may impress the enemy, but freedom remains a distant dream. Father Rodrigo receives a prophecy from God and believes it’s his mission to deliver the message to Rome. Though a peaceful man, he resigns himself to take up arms in the name of his Lord. Joining his fight to save Christendom are the hunter Ferenc, orphan Ocyrhoe, healer Raphael, and alchemist Yasper, each searching for his place in history.
Today I finished “The Mongoliad: Book Two“, a collaborative effort by Neal Stephenson, Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, Mark Teppo, and Cooper Moo. This second part of the Foreworld Saga picks up immediately from Book One (which makes sense since it was originally one long online serial story that was later split into three parts for publication).
Using my iPhone with Toyota’s Display Audio system
A few weeks ago I traded in my trusty old 2003 Toyota Highlander (174,000 miles) for a new 2013 SE model. In addition to all the automotive and mechanical advances in a 10-years’ newer SUV, I finally have built-in Bluetooth and iPod integration! (I know, welcome to 2008, right? 😉 ). Toyota’s Display Audio system has a lot of cool features, but as with any “new” technology, it’s not without its share of end-user frustration.
Continue reading ‘Using my iPhone with Toyota’s Display Audio system’ »
Farewell Google Reader, hello Feedly
Why does Google keep killing the stuff I actually use? First iGoogle and now last week they announced they will be shutting down Google Reader on July 1st.
I immediately went on a quest to find a decent replacement. After trying out a few alternatives like The Old Reader and NewsBlur, I got a recommendation from a friend to try Feedly. I wasn’t the only one making the switch as the site supposedly gained 500,000 new users in the days after the Google announcement.
It’s been a week and I have to say I like Feedly the best out of the others I tried. It’ll take a little while longer to completely adjust my Google Reader usage habits to Feedly, but at least the initial setup was pretty easy as Feedly uses Google Reader in the background (they claim to have a backup plan in place (called Normandy) to switch to their own engine once Reader is shut down). Check out the comparison screenshots in the gallery at the end of this post to see my Feedly in action. It even has a free iOS companion app (I don’t normally do a lot of RSS reading on my mobile device, but it’s nice to have just in case).
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- Google Reader
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- Feedly on the web
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- Feedly on the iPhone
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- Feedly on the iPhone (landscape)
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- Feedly on the iPhone
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- Feedly on the iPad
WIJFR: The Mongoliad: Book One
It is the spring of 1241. The Mongol takeover of Europe is almost complete. The hordes commanded by the sons of Genghis Khan have swept out of their immense grassy plains and ravaged Russia, Poland, and Hungary … and now seem poised to sweep west to Paris and south to Rome. King and Pope and peasant alike face a bleak future – until a small band of warriors, inheritors of a millennium-old secret tradition, conceive of a desperate plan to kill the Khan of Khans. Their leader, an elder of the order of warrior monks, will lead his elite group on a perilous journey into the East. They will be guided by an elusive and sharp-witted young woman, who believes the master’s plan is insane. But this small band is the West’s last, best hope to turn back the floodtide of the Mongol Empire.
I received “The Mongoliad: Book One” (by Neal Stephenson, Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, E.D. deBirmingham, Mark Teppo, and Cooper Moo … whew!) as a Christmas gift and finally got around to reading it.
“The Mongoliad” apparently started as a social media experiment, a serialized subscription service by Stephenson and his fellow co-authors. Each chapter was published online with related materials (graphics, etc.) and encouraged community discussions. When the story was complete, the “definitive” text was then published in three volumes in the traditional way.