Phone Impressions

I've had the Blackberry for a few days now, and here are some thoughts on it.

I really like that Blackberry includes a headset with the Pearl. Also, the battery charger and I/O device is simply a powered USB mini-B cable. No special adapters, cradles, any of that stuff - this phone can charge from a computer or through the included powered cable.

The Pearl is slimmer than the other Blackberries, and is comfy to hold in either hand. Instead of a scroll wheel mounted on the side, the Pearl has a small rollerball in the middle. This makes it as easy to use right handed or left handed, another plus. Screen and sound quality are fine.

Unlike the other Blackberries, the Pearl doesn't have a separate key for each letter. Instead, the QWERTY style keyboard is distributed across the number pad and an extra column on either side. The text entry is predictive (RIM calls this SureType) or tap (hit a key to cycle through the letters), where the default for text entry is predictive but it toggles to tap for passwords. If you prefer tap all the time, you can set that.

I found the predictive entry works well to figure out what you are trying to type. As you enter text, various alternatives show up which you can select with the rollerball (i.e. you help steer towards the correct choice).

I configured mine to check my yahoo and gmail accounts, but not hotmail. That's because hotmail turned into my catch-all address over the years, and now I get so much junk there, even through the spam filter, it is too noisy to check regulary.

When mail arrives, it is copied to the Pearl. After I'm done, I can save the mail, delete it on the handheld, or delete on both the handheld and online. So this is handy in that I can treat the mail that shows up on the phone separately.

How do I like getting email on the phone? So far I really like it. Obviously it is difficult to compose lengthy responses on the device, and emails with elaborate formats don't display properly, but it is very convenient to have access without a computer.

I can also surf the web, but so far I've stuck with reading news off Google using their mobile app. I need to search for a good game because sometimes I want to kill some time!

Cuban Dinner

I took my parents to Oasis, a Cuban restaurant in Longwood. It is across the street from Thai Delight, which I was excited to find out re-opens on February 6th, not the 9th like I originally thought. This is great because I'll have a chance to take my folks there!

Anyway, at the Cuban restaurant Dad and I had ropa vieja, a beef, tomato, and pepper dish, along with rice and plantains. Mom had fajitas, in a portion so large we took half home. I also had tres leches for dessert, which was delicious and probably some humungous number of calories... oh well. ;)

Oasis has live entertainment on the weekends - maybe only on Saturday since that is the only time I've been on the weekend. The previous time it was a xylophone player, and this time it was two guys on a variety of acoustic guitars. One of them switched around from a 10 or 12 stringed guitar (5 or 6 double strings) to a tiny guitar he said he bought in Machu Pichu, Peru. They played flamenco-style music and it was great entertainment.

New Phone

I'm a bit of a gadget freak and had a comparatively primitive phone for the last four years. For the past few weeks some friends in the biking club expressed utter shock in learning that the guy with the GPS heart rate monitor and so forth didn't even have a phone with a camera. The horror! ;)

Three of them happened to own the same model - the Blackberry 8700. This phone always looked a bit awkward to me, because it is so wide. But it includes a mini keyboard which is great for typing messages. Two of them (both named Jennifer) own their own business and the third (Greg) is a traveling consultant, so having such a phone makes sense. Diana, a friend in the running club, frequently sends text messages instead of calls so typing a response with the tap method takes a long time.

Through their relentless efforts I started to shop around for an upgrade. I looked at websites, read reviews, and finally decided to get the Blackberry Pearl, which is thinner than the 8700, but includes a camera.

So I have a new toy and will be fiddling around with it all weekend.

Parents Arrival

My parents arrived earlier this morning, for a visit. The weather is certainly much nicer for a late January visit than it ever was when I lived in the Seattle area!

They are easy to entertain especially since I recorded a few shows off HD Discovery for them, mostly travel shows about different cities or countries. HD Discovery also runs a lot of animal shows, and while my parents do love animals (they have pet birds and dogs) they aren't so much into snakes and spiders.

Despite that, Mom seems to enjoy watching shows about snakes and spiders. She'll cringe while watching four men search a swamp for an anaconda, and then heave the 20 foot long snake up for measurement. Or wince when a spider expert digs around a nest and pulls up a huge tarantula. I offer to change the channel but she wants to keep watching anyway. ;)

Rice Alumni Group

There is a small Rice Alumni group in Central Florida, and I get an occasional email about a gathering. Last time it was to attend a football game vs. the University of Central Florida Golden Knights, but I couldn't make it since I was out of town. Tonight's meeting was at Houlihan's before a basketball game.

There were a dozen of us, although a few were parents of students. They count as far as an alumni group. ;) I won a raffle and came away with a Rice Baseball t-shirt!

As far as the game... well I didn't actually make it. Earlier in the week, I called over to the UCF athletic department, but they said they didn't sell tickets and I should check the website or buy general admission tickets at the arena. It didn't make sense but now that I think about it, what they probably meant was they weren't setup to sell tickets over the phone - I'm sure they sell tickets in person. Anyway, I checked the website but the only options were to purchase a season pass. Hm... I didn't want to buy a season pass just for one basketball game, so I decided to get general admission, as did everyone else at the alumni group (except one lady who is a Rice Alum and also on the faculty at UCF).

After we finished dinner, we split up and drove over to UCF, where I found a nightmare line. Large construction in front of the current UCF arena closed the normal entrance, so only the sides were open. The normal ticket counter was also closed and temporarily housed in a tiny two-person booth, and the line was literally 500 people or more. I waited there until the game started, glanced at the line and calculated at the current pace, I wouldn't get in until after halftime.

So I decided to laze out and skip the game. I'm not sure if the others made it. That was fine, at least I made it to the alumni dinner/happy hour beforehand!

Four Things About Me

I received this questionnaire in email:

Four place I have lived:
1. Houston, TX
2. Seattle, WA
3. Silver Spring, MD
4. Frankfurt, Germany

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. 24
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. Medium
4. CSI

Four websites I visit when I'm online:
1. my.yahoo.com
2. xtri.com
3. bloglines.com - this one counts for about 40 other sites
4. BBC News

Four favorite foods:
1. any Thai curry dish (panang, red/green/yellow, massaman, etc.)
2. Kung Pao chicken
3. Chicken Vindaloo
4. Lasagna

Four favorite places I have been:
1. New Zealand
2. Lake Tahoe
3. Angel Falls
4. hm... gotta think about this more

Four places I'd rather be right now:
1. taking it easy at home
2. indoor skydiving at SkyVenture
3. ski trip with friends
4. visiting friends

Tri Club

The Lake Mary YMCA is starting a triathlon training club. Actually there are two: one for women training for Danskin (this started last year and is continuing), and one for others (men and non-Danskin women). The organizational meeting was tonight and I attended.

The club is planning to charge $150 for the year, which I initially balked at. But, they are planning to have coached swim workouts (and maybe bike and run as well, I'm not sure) and after thinking about it, that is a good deal!

So I signed up and I guess they'll get back to me sometime before the group starts up in February.