The Replacement

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My new "Visor" showed up today via Fed Ex.  It's still blue, not ice, but at least it came quickly.  It took me just a 5-minute synchronization with my work computer to be back to exactly the same point I was when I dropped my old one yesterday.  The computer loaded all of my programs, data, and settings, I was really impressed.  The moral of the story is, if you kill your Visor, at least have a current backup.

Disaster

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Maybe I should have purchased insurance for my Visor.  This site offers insurance policies for PDA's.  $4 a month to protect my $250 Visor? Yesterday I'd have said "no way", today, I'm thinking about it...

Iowa State is apparently going to offer a course all about the 2000 election.  It'll be an 8 week course next spring.  Too bad I'm not at ISU, I'd like to take it.  Maybe I can convince the PoliSci department head here to do the same thing.  I took Mansbach's International Security Policy course when I was at ISU, he's a great instructor, one of the best to be found in the University, in my opinion.  He'd be great for this course.  I've heard Schmidt's radio show a few times, and he seems like he'd be a good instructor too.

I've found one thing that my Handspring "Visor" can't do, it can't withstand a drop from five feet onto a hard floor.  The LCD screen is shattered, so I've called Handspring.  They're shipping me a new one, and I'll ship this one back to them, it'll cost me $85, so it's a costly lesson in Visor care.  How'd I do it?  I had just finished synchronizing the information on it with my computer, and was popping it back into my coat pocket.  Unfortunately the inside pocket of my coat was velcroed shut, and the Visor shot right out of my coat and onto the floor.  Hard.

I tried getting the Handspring rep to send me an "Ice" colored one as a replacement, as I'd rather have that than another blue one, she said that they normally didn't replace a product with something other than that exact model.  I pointed out that this was costing me $85, and that I wouldn't really do this on purpose just so I could have a different color.  She said she'd put a note on my order, but that she couldn't promise me anything.  I said that was good enough for me.

On a related note, the GPS module is now shipping for the "Visor".  Very cool, may have to save up to get myself one, it'd be nice to pull out my visor and see where I'm at on the map.

I posted my response to Doc Searls' bit about revolutions in software design.  Good question, Doc, I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think my answer is at least part of the picture...

Out and about in Omaha

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Rather than go to the bars, Thursday night we wound up at Harvey's Casino in Council Bluffs.  It's a riverboat, at least in the sense that it can be detached and float when legally necessary.  I didn't realize we were on a boat until someone told me, I'd wondered why it was so cramped...  Anyhow, I'm not a big-time gambler, I usually stick to the nickel machines, but I did come out $4.50 ahead when we left.

Yesterday morning, Jeremy and I went to the SAC Museum. You don't realize how big a B-52 Bomber is until you're standing underneath one.  The U-2, SR-71, and B-17 also were very impressive.  It's worth a visit if you're near Omaha, admission was $6 for adults, cheaper for children under 12, and free for children under 5. My biggest shock was that the snack bar is actually reasonably priced, I got a donut and a glass of milk for $1.50, not too shabby for a tourist-trap.

Later we ate at Old Chicago, they've got 110 differnt kinds of beer.  I, not looking at the menu, ordered a bottle of Woodchuck's Amber Apple Cider, which turned out to be $4.25, the most expensive thing on the menu!  I stuck to the English import Woodpecker Cider after that, only $3.50 for a draw, a bargain in comparison.