My favorite place to shop, Amazon.com, has launched "Amazon Green" in an effort to make it easier to "buy green", I guess. I'm not exactly sure how "green" an Amazon Kindle is, but whatever... I'd be interested in trying some of the Seventh Generation stuff, but having to buy that in bulk makes it a bit risky if you find you hate the stuff.
I've uploaded the contents of Holly's digital camera to Flickr, if you're interested in seeing photos from our recent trip to Boston.
On Monday I started playing with VMWare's ESXi server, which is now a free product. Despite their colossal screw-up yesterday, I'm loving this product. I've tried several other server & client virtrualization products in the past, but this is the first server product I've really loved. Installation was simple, it took me maybe 10-15 minutes on my Dell R905 server, and performance has been fantastic. I'm sure I'll find something else to hate about it later, but so far, I'm questioning if I'll ever want any non-virtual servers again...
We're in Boston! I needed to come here for some training, but we came out a couple days early for some sightseeing. Having never taken Amtrak, we decided to try it, as it was also $200/person cheaper than flying. We brought our niece Bailey, who is 15, along for the ride as well (she was only half-price on Amtrak) so that she and Holly can do stuff while I'm at class.
We got up at 6 a.m. on Friday, packed the van, swung through the McDonald's drive-through for breakfast, and hit the road for the two hour drive to Mount Pleasant. We arrived without incident, but soon found our train was running three hours late from the guy who opened the (non-air-conditioned) station. We passed the word along to the rest of the passengers as they arrived, and we all waited together on the platform, as it was (slightly) cooler outside. After about two hours, I waited with the luggage as Holly and Bailey got lunch from McDonald's, which made it our second meal there of the day, but we had passed it a few blocks from the station and we didn't know where anything else was.
There was a "colorful" group of people we were waiting with, and we even got to watch some of their personal life stories dramas unfold in front of us as we waited. One was a serviceman, returning to base in New York. Let's just say it was pretty clear from his continuous cell phone calls to friends that the military has seriously reduced its standards due to the ongoing war. I wouldn't have trusted this guy with a powerwasher, much less a machine gun...
After much sweating, the train finally arrived, and we relaxed in the cool air and comfy seats for the four hours to Chicago. Or so we thought. After about 15 minutes they informed us that they were kicking us off in Galesburg, Illinois. We were originally supposed to take this train (6) to Chicago to catch train 48 to Albany, but train 48 was oversold. So, they decided to take the people from train 6 who were going to be on train 48 (about 15 of us) and remove us in Galesburg to take a charter bus all the way to Toledo, Ohio. That way, Amtrak could offload the passengers destined for the stops before Toledo, and have room for us once we got there.
So, we loaded on to a fairly nice charter bus, and made the 7 hour drive, with a stop at McDonald's somewhere in Indiana. For those keeping score, this wound up being our third meal at McDonald's in one day, which made us all want to throw up. Bailey didn't eat anything, Holly got some apple slices, and I sort of gagged down a Big 'n Tasty, which they don't even have on the menu in Iowa anymore. We loaded back on the bus, and managed to sleep a bit before getting to Toledo. We arrived around 1:00 a.m., but had to wait for our train to arrive at 4:15 a.m., when we resumed our journey as planned. We made it to Albany around 4:00 p.m. and quickly switched trains to the 448 to Boston. On this train, we had the bad luck to sit behind some of the worst parents in existence, as well as their horrible little children, but fortunately they got off at Springfield, so the final 2 hours were blissfully quiet. We got off in Back Bay, bought our passes for the Subway, and checked in to our hotel with enough time to shower before we crashed into bed.
I've got a couple items up for bid on eBay: 1.42Ghz 14" iBook New 8GB iPod Touch
Bid away!
Wow, first our catfood was hit by the amazing grocery shrink ray, and now our yogurt of choice... Even worse than the catfood shrink was the recipe change that left our picky kitties hungry until we found an "acceptable" substitute from Purina.
How long until a gallon of milk follows?
I'm selling my 1.83GHz Intel iMac. If you're interested, bid on it over at eBay.
I wish I'd taken the time for a helicopter ride over St. Petersburg when I was there in 2004. These shots do a great job at revealing the grand architecture of Russia's old capital.
Holly & I watched The Oscars last night, which were largely uneventful. Jon Stewart did a a decent job, but I don't think he (and his writers) had enough time to craft jokes, due to the recently-ended strike. Probably my favorite moment of the night was the duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova winning for "Falling Slowly" from Once. I rented this disc a few weeks ago from Netflix, and absolutely loved that song the first time I heard it. I went and found it on iTunes to buy shortly thereafter. I was ready to be mad when Marketa didn't have a chance to speak at the microphone, considering Glen had barely spoken for 10 seconds, so they should have had plenty of allotted time for her to say something. Major kudos to Jon Stewart for bringing her back out after the commercial to get her piece in. Note to the Academy: Stop playing people off who aren't rambling. Seriously, and if you are going to do it, bring in the music slowly. A few times they opened with a cymbal crash, which is rather rude, though I know it was because they were playing the theme to whatever movie the person was nominated for. Really, double the amount of time people have to give acceptance speeches, and I bet it wouldn't add 10 minutes to the show. Most of the time is spent presenting, in commercials, in retrospectives, and waiting for the recipients of the "little" awards to make their way up from the cheap seats in the back. They should have at least as long to speak as it takes to make the trek from their seat to the front.
I also couldn't help but notice how International the Oscars were this year. All four of the acting awards went to Europeans, as did almost everything else, though most of the roles they played were in American studio pictures. I've only seen one of the five Best Picture-nominated films this year, guess I've been slacking...
My sister is running a 5K in Phoenix tomorrow, to raise money for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, who work to find a cure for the cancer that our dad was diagnosed with two years ago. Please consider sponsoring her in this race, as the MMRF is a great charity, receiving a 4 star rating from Charity Navigator.
