Leaving L.A. (2/23/10)
This is the first blog post from the road!
Staging is complete. All the storage things are in the storage, and all the traveling things are in the trailer! The cable modem is returned, the post office is notified, and were ready to go by 1 pm. Of course, we realized that if we left, we’d immediately be hungry. So off we went to lunch. After a fine Jewish Deli lunch at Weilers, we came back, hooked up the trailer, and by 2:30, we were on the road.
It was destined to be a short travel day, since we left late, but as I told my father earlier this morning, I don’t care if I get ten miles down the road, I just want to start, so I’m not continuing to endlessly prepare.
Traffic was pretty bad, and it took from 2:30 to 4:30 to go 75 miles. We stopped in Ontario at an RV shop to buy a needed part, then traveled another seven miles to the Fontana Elks Lodge, which is really in Rialto.
We got a lovely dinner of burritos and taco salad at the Elks lodge, met Phyllis, the Exalted Ruler (President), as well as a bunch of lovely people. We did not remove the trailer from the truck, and we are snug in our rolling home with water, electricity and a dump station. Verizon Wireless brings us Internet. We haven’t put up the TV antenna.
Tomorrow, we’d like to travel about 185 miles to Blythe, CA, which is on the California/Arizona border. We shall see.
Time for a personal update
As most of the legions of my readers know, we’ve been docked in Van Nuys, California for the past two years, while I worked at Geni, Inc.
The job at Geni ended in mid January, so some choices needed to be made. One choice was to look for a job in the LA area close enough to commute from Van Nuys. Other was to look for something that could be done remotely.
I’m fortunate that two opportunities dropped into my lap just at the right time. One is a Voice Over IP project. The other is a web hosting managment position. Both have long term outlooks, and both can be done remotely.
So, the big news… we’re going back on the road.Full time RVing is a large topic, and I won’t fully explain it here, but suffice it to say that we will have a legal home base, or “domicile,” and will travel when and where we please, across this great country of ours.
There are myriad details to consider. I’ll enumerate some here.
- Mail forwarding: Done. If you didn’t get an email with our paper mail address, and you want to know, just send me a note.
- Drivers licenses and registrations: We’ll on our way to Livingston, Texas to change these things, as well as to register to vote. Livingston, TX is the home of the Escapees RV Club which provides mail forwarding, and other services for full timers. It’s also the basis for a social life on the road, complete with BOF groups on just about every topic. Highly recommended for those in this situation.
- Equipment: The truck got it’s pre-trip sevice yesterday, to the tune of only $600. The trailer could use some work, but it’s roadworthy, so off it goes.
- Organization: We cleaned out the large front storage hold yesterday. I took everything out and we vacuumed out the leaves and other junk. Picked out some things to sell, give away or throw away, and packed back in. Lots more room in there. We’re doing the same inside.
- Utilities: We’re putting our Netflix membership on hold for now. If we find that we have Wifi often enough, we’ll turn it back on so we can use the streaming features. I cancelled the cable Internet (takes two weeks leadtime!) and must call today to cancel the electricity. We don’t have a landline phone. I got a Cradlepoint router for my Verizon service, which was detailed in a previous post. We expect to be nicely connected, with the exception of Satellite TV.
- Medical: We’re visiting our various providers and making sure our prescriptions are up to date, our doctors are dialed in to the fact that we’re on an extended trip, and so forth.
The list goes on, but we’re pulling it together, and on March 1, 2010, we’ll be making like a full-term baby, and heading out.
Cradlepoint MBR900 Router
My Cradlepoint MBR900 router showed up today. It seems like a typical wifi router, with one extra feature. If you plug in your USB cellular data device, it’ll use it for a WAN source, and share it out to all connected users. (I figure that wifi security is a good thing in this mode :)
The device offers priority on the Ethernet WAN source with fallback to the Cellular source.
I’m using it now, with my netbook, to do this posting.
Sometime this weekend, I’ll substitute it for the “other” router, and see how it works in actual practice.
If I don’t post again on this topic, you can assume it worked out fine.
A link… to me!
I got linked to. I recently made some comments on another blog about changes in the LADOT CitiRide program, and when they were picked up by The Bus Bench, I found that Browne had linked my name with my blog.
Unfortunately, I never blogged about this, just commented elsewhere, so if you’re coming over here to see what I had to say, I don’t have anything posted. It’s too late now to post something, since Browne got it better than I did.
If your interest is in the CitiRide changes, please return to The Bus Bench posting since it’s pretty complete over there.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum
We’ve lived in the San Fernando Valley for 18 months now, and we recently had our attention called to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.
I’ve never been a fan of President Reagan. His politics and priorities didn’t line up with mine very well. The idea of going to his museum didn’t really resonate with me. Until I found out that they have SAM 27000 on static display. SAM 27000 was President Reagan’s Air Force One.
I found the museum to be an excellent way to spend the afternoon. The exhibits were varied and transcended partisan politics. The museum offers a look not only at the former President, but also at the events of his Presidency (and Governorship) and the nature of the office of President in general.
Some highlights for me included:
- A display of Chanukah Menorahs presented to President Reagan at various times.
- A display of gifts presented by foreign governments, ambassadors and heads of state.
- Civil defense items from the days of the cold war.
- Artifacts of the Reagan Governorship (having grown up elsewhere, my California history is a bit fuzzy)
- A full scale reproduction of the Oval Office, including the “Resolute Desk.”
There will be pictures. Sooner or later.
While out at the Presidential Library, I also found and logged the “Road to the Presidency” Geocache.
Ten Years Ago Today
I remember Y2K. The year before the century turned. 1999. For those of you less than 14 years old, this may not be a big blip in your consciousness. For anybody older than about 16 or 17, looking back from 2010, it certainly was.
I remember the all the hype and worry, all the noise and the hurry. We were all afraid that the world would end. A cosmic event, fueled by superstition? No, rather a very real concern that our computers would fail because they could not handle dates greater than 1999.
Thousands of retired and almost retired programmers got a last gasp and a great boost to their retirement income in doing Y2K conversion and certification. They needed people who could understand the older languages and systems, to document, fix and adjust them so they would work with four digit dates.
In 1990, people responded to the threat by scoffing, “Chicken Little!” By 1995, the industry knew it was real. Many millions of dollars were spent on conversion of software.
By 1997, survivalists were screaming that society and order would break down, as banks failed, electronic records of money were lost, savings wiped out. Milk not delivered. Power plants, telephone and the internet off line. Water and sewer to fail. A whole cascade of failures that would destroy anybody who hadn’t adjourned to rural Idaho.
My own experience was quite benign. In the summer of 1999, for reasons totally unrelated to Y2K, Roseann and I sold our Gold Wing motorcycle and purchased a truck and 5th wheel trailer. As fall approached, we started to think of a Christmas trip, and we settled on Arizona. We spent Christmas on the road, Christmas Week in Phoenix, and for New Years, we planned to be in the town of Why, Arizona, near Ajo. I was always fascinated by places back of beyond, and this seemed a good one.
It was then that I realized that I had removed myself almost pretty far from civilization for the Y2K event.
Now, Why isn’t much, and Ajo isn’t much more, but it’s certainly small-town. We had chosen a campground on the Tohano O’odham Indian Reservation, even housing a small casino.
On December 31, we made a dinner on the charcoal grill, then lit off a fireplace log. We sat outside and watched the sun go down and the stars come out, but went to bed long before midnight. Waking up on January 1, I went outside to have early morning coffee and enjoy the desert. Then I decided to drive down to the casino and see if the world had survived.
As I approached the casino, I saw electric light, a good sign, and a few stalwart gamblers feeding slot machines. I thought of San Jose, Silicon Valley and my employer, and for the first time in a week wondered how Y2K had gone for us. I was pretty sure we were going to be OK. We had spent enough on it.
I decided to call in and ask how things were going. I went to the pay phone — no cellular service out there — and dialed the toll free number. The phone system answered and I put in the extension of the computer room. An engineer answered the phone and sounded normal. I asked how things were and was told, “hang on, they really want to talk to you.” Oh Sh*t!
Well, like the rest of Y2K, it turned out to be a bust. Some Javascript on the home page of the web site (that displayed the date) was failing on old browsers. The computer room people HAD those old browsers and were freaking out. Other than that — a non-event.
It turns out that Y2K proved the old adage of the six Ps. That Proper Planning will Prevent Piss Poor Performance.
My Droid Apps (as of now)
I thought I’d list some Android apps that have made me happy….
- Astro – a file manager. Poke around your Droid
- Bank of America – Do online banking.
- Better keyboard – an alternate popup keyboard. This was about three bucks. I think the keyboard it offers is a bit easier to use than the stock one.
- CB Blackjack – One needs a blackjack game. In this one, the dealer has big boobs.
- ConnectBot – An SSH client. If you don’t know what that is, you don’t need it. This uses up battery power, big time.
- Countdown Alarm – great for bar-b-que
- GoogleSkyMap – downloaded it, but haven’t played with it much
- gTasks – Sync and use the Google Apps task list
- HandyCalc – I weent looking for something better than the four-banger that comes with the Droid, but I haven’t put much work into this. It says it does Hex. That’s all that really matters to me.
- Hi AIM – An AIM Instant Messaging client.
- Note Everything – This will get a post of it’s own. Highly recommended.
- Solitaire – This is an essential. Unlike blackjack, there are no boobs, big or otherwise, in this app.
- Vegas Pool Shark – Shoot pool. No boobs.
- wpToGo – Wordpress posts. Works with my blog. Not using it now.
- ZipViewer – Needed to unzip a zip file so I went looking and found this one. Used it all of once, but I’ll bet it comes in handy.
So far, that’s all, folks.
Comments on the Droid
Well, nobody ever said writing text on the Droid would be easy, and it’s not, so back to the desktop for this post.
On Friday Nov 6, I was third on line at the Verizon Store in Panorama City to buy my Motorola Droid. I’ve been asked what I think, and all I can say is “yes, this is the Droid I was looking for.”
So far, I’ve managed to duplicate almost all the Palm functionality I’ve grown to use over the past (OMG) 13 years. Yes, I just realized that I got my first Palm Organizer in 1996. I’ve had a Palm Pilot, Palm Pilot Pro, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Palm Tungsten T, Tungsten C, Treo 600, 650, 700 and 755. It should be noted that I didn’t have to pay for all of these. I got the V, VII, TT, TC and 600 from my employment at Palm between 2000 and 2005. I bought the 650 and 700 from Verizon and got the 755 from Asurion when I dropped the 700 in the can. (Yes, that’s what I said.)
For the past few years, I’ve been wondering what’s next. When iPhone came out for AT&T, I didn’t really like certain aspects of it, and it was becoming pretty obvious that PalmOS was getting pretty long in the tooth. Palm Pre was a welcome surprise, but I wasn’t switching to Sprint, and then the initial reports were not really encouraging. Friends were starting to make Android noises, and I wasn’t really listening, but as the Droid release date came closer, I started to pay attention. So what’s that you say?
- Open platform?
- Multitasking?
- Sync with Google Apps?
- Program in Java?
- EVDO rev A plus Wifi?
- GPS?
Then I saw the photos of the car dock and the bedside dock. That’s is. I was sold. If the phone would do all that and be stable and solid, I was willing to part with PalmOS.
In my next post, I’ll review my application list, and how I addressed the various apps that I used in my Treo.
New post from Droid!
I upgraded my phone to a Motorola Droid. This is a post from the Droid Wordpress app.
The Succah is Up!
It was touch and go for a while, but we got the Succah set up on Friday, Erev Succos. Here are photos.
(use the back button after viewing each photo.)
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