The Continuation of Travel Troubles

OK, so I didn't get to this "tomorrow." I've been busy perfecting my human sloth imitation by using up a week of vacation time trying to watch as much of the massive TV backlog on the DVR as possible.

When we finally got to our destination T stop, there was construction in the terminal so the normal shuttle stop was disrupted. They had these two signs that seemed to clearly indicate the distinct drop-off and pick-up locations. So we logically loitered near the appropriate sign to catch the shuttle to the hotel.

We watched as the shuttle pulled up to the drop-off point and let some people out, then watched as it cruised right buy us without stopping. So, wile we waited another 15 minutes, I called the hotel and they confirmed that the shuttle we saw was the correct one. It wasn't actually the hotel's but for some reason at that time there was another company that was covering the route.

The next shuttle pulled up closer to the door, but between the signs. There was enough distance between it and us that we didn't start to walk over there. Instead we made sure we were right by the curb next to the sign. And, you may have guessed that the shuttle blew right by us again. We did try to wave them down but didn't get too aggressive about it. We were tired and crabby, so I called the hotel back and they said to call them again if the next one didn't stop. Instead, I looked up the shuttle company and called them directly. Both the hotel and the shuttle company mentioned the construction, but I explained that they had different locations clearly marked and that they weren't stopping at the pick-up point. It was clear that they hadn't seen the setup and didn't understand, but the shuttle dispatcher was going to look into it.

When the third shuttle came by and let people off in yet a different location, we still (stubbornly) waited by the pick-up sign, but when it got close we flagged them down rather aggressively. When the door opened and I asked if they were the one for the Marriott, the driver said in broken English "Marriott. Yes. Thanks." Sadly, there was no place to put luggage on this bus, so we each had to hog two seats. This was aggravated by the fact that while the hotel was in plain sight at the top of a prominent hilltop, we turned just in front of it and stopped at several medical clinics and gathered more passengers that we let off before finally winding our way up to the hotel.

L's dad had quite an adventure in his rental car, finding the hotel in the dark. Boston and suburbs are a great place to navigate at night with no GPS. Our waitress at a seafood restaurant in Plymouth commiserated (and she's from NYC!). Her and a friend accidentally drove to NH trying to get to Boston one night! I am glad A had the car, though. He drove us down to the tip of Cape Cod and back, and it was a very nice little trip.

We had a good time the rest of the weekend using the T to get around and doing the usual Boston sight-seeing on foot.

All was well, until we left and I realized I'd left my iPhone converter/cable at the hotel. A new one would have cost about $25, but I got my old one back for only $20 in FedEx shipping charges!

MAss Transit

So, we took a little trip to Bean Town and environs. I have a few iPhone snapshots on Flickr. Started out fine. Drove the 1 1/2 hours to the airport, put the car up in it's new home for four days. Then I thought I'd be clever and snap a picture of the sign to remind me of where I parked. While I was doing that I marched off for the terminal and didn't realize until we were through security that I wasn't wearing my jacket! That also meant I didn't have my earbuds for my planned podcast entertainment for the flight, or my morning dose of meds which were in a small vial in my jacket pocket. I had packed a backup jacket, tut it wasn't very effective against either wind or rain. So, back to the pic I snapped. I didn't realize until we got back and spent 30 minutes looking for the car that the one I took was of a sign just showing the parking lot and level, not the row we were in. Yes, I can be quite oblivious to my surroundings, as well as absent-minded. It's a sign of genious. Trust me.

The flight was ok. Once at Logan Airport, we tried to catch the express bus, but nearly got on the wrong one. After a long, cold wait, we were so exited we jumped at the first bus. We averted disaster because I didn't have enough cash for both tickets. We decided to take the T (The MBTA - the Boston subway/commuter train system). After lugging our suitcases aboard busy rush-hour trains (one extra stop do to selecting the wrong train!) we got to the station close to the hotel. Here's where the fun started.

Alas, I'm saving that story for tomorrow, because I'm tired (or lazy - opionions and diagnoses vary!).

Tune in for the continuing adventure....

Where am I?

Hint: Pilgrims. Rock. Severe street sign deficiency.

More Garbage

More ways to turn it into energy, that is. I saw this on Discovery Channel a while back, but forgot to include it in my previous ramblings about renewable energy:

Hotter-than-sun Plasma-Arc Vaporizes Garbage

This I saw on a podcast I was watching on my iPhone:*

Gasification of Construction Waste

* Speaking of podcasts, or webcasts, or netcasts, if you prefer. In case I didn't have enough trouble keeping up with movies, TV, and reading, since I'm now carrying around a pocket computer all the time, I have vastly advanced my short attention span syndrome. If I have to wait for something for five minutes I have to spend the time looking things up, watching a podcast, etc. Well, at least I'll never be bored....

Forclosure Follies

A little blog-to-blog action tonight. I saw this today and just had to link to it - what the heck, that's what makes this whole interweb thing go. Not only does this story illustrate just how screwed up the whole housing bubble was, it also shows the sheer gluttonous waste that is life in modern America.

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/10/foreclosure-alley.html

I want to head out to CA with a U-Haul. Of course I could probably do the same thing here in CO, and numerous other places.

Little Lit

If you ever feel you need to read more classical literature but just don't have the time, I'm here to help.

1st order of laziness: Classical Comics. All the great works in graphic novel format! I may seriously read some of these.

Then we have Squashed. Bite sized condensations that make the old Reader's Digest Condensed books seem tediously long. If you want to bone up on philosophy, there's a page devoted to that, too.

Still too much? How about reducing the great works down to a size that makes Cliff's Notes seem like novels? Try the Book a Minute site. OK, this one's a bit facetious, but quite fun. ;-)

There. I've done all I can to try to enlighten you. I do what I can. No need to thank me. Really.

Kindle Shmindle - Sony 700 Coming Soon

L wanted to give a preview of the hot newcomer on the electronic reading circuit, so I'm letting her take over with a continuation of the eReader guest blog. Maybe I'll let her handle the continuing battle against the evils of Amazon.com, too! There's definitely more to come on that score. :-> But, without further ado:

Review of Sony Reader 700

For full info go to : http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665562069

Sony has put out a new Reader that comes out in the middle of November. Its much improved and competes much more with the Amazon Kindle and is actually a superior device if you don't care about the wireless.

It isn't wireless. Sony plans in the future to offer wireless but wants it to connect to more e-book retailers than just the Sony store so it is taking them some time to work all that out. Some of the key features of this new reader are that it is a touch screen. It comes with a stylus but you can use you fingers to turn pages. It can be formatted to turn pages forward and and back on both the left and right sides by a swipe of the finger. Also a swipe and hold will rapidly turn pages if you would like to jump through many pages of the book fast. It has a iPhone-like keyboard for word search and annotation and text can be highlighted and saved . There are 2 additional font sizes . And one of the really neat features also is that it has front side lighting. It can store over 320 books plus more with a SD or memory stick card. It has ways to have book collections so you can easily find a book you want based on genre or whatever you decide. It even show little pictures of the books cover when searching for the book.

Along with this new reader, they a revamping the Sony ebook store to make navigation easier and it will be in conjunction with Borders. They promise by years end that the number of titles in the store will double making it pretty equavelent to the Kindle store. Kindle will still have more titles but from what I have seen they have a lot of self-publishing titles or classics with 5 different versions that they seem to count to be pad the numbers. Nothing wrong with self-publishing but its not what most people are looking for when they are searching for a book to read.

The design is really nice too. Probably the nicest looking ebook reader I have seen yet.

PRS-700BC

Very stylish and simple look that doesn't have a lot to detract from the written word and is an improvement over their current model by eliminating the numbered buttons along the right side.

PRS-500

On an online forum, a few people have seen these at Sony stores and most report that the fingerprints are not noticeable when reading which was my biggest concern. I will still clean it every day but that's me!

It retails for a little bit more than the kindle but it seems to be a superior device in both looks and design. Content should really be very on par with kindle plus Sony allows for purchase at any retailer that sells adobe or epub books plus if you have access to the public libraries that rent ebooks you can gets lots of ebooks for free which you can not do on the kindle.

I have been reading ebooks from the library mostly and I keep track of what it would cost if I bought them and I have saved over $100 just in the past 2 months so it doesn't take long for the device to pay for itself.