Day: March 24, 2007

  • Escape from Prescott

    The grey weather continued again today and by the time we’d eaten, cleaned up and gotten packed, it was nearly lunchtime. We had to check out and, not wanting to leave computers and cameras alone in the car, we decided to have lunch and return home.

    We made another go at Kendall’s Famous Burgers & Ice Cream. Well, it was OK, I suppose. I tossed caution and insurance company warnings to the wind and asked for my burger to be medium-rare, despite the warnings that it would increase my chances of food-borne illness.

    I can only say, if my burger was medium-rare, the ordinary medium ones must be charcoal briquets. The meat was overdone, and therefore flavorless and the buns weren’t particularly fresh. It was just a run-of-mill, garden variety hamburger.

    We were considering going up into the woods and walking around a bit, despite everything being muddy, but, once again, as we left Kendall’s, the temperature was dropping rapidly, indicating another storm front was moving in.

    We just decided to go home.

    IMG_8237.JPG

    Prescott is an interesting little town. Perhaps it’s not so little anymore. The center of town is the only genuine Victorian settlement of any size that remains standing in Arizona and it’s charming. Unfortunately, what was once a small town in moderate climate, is now a sprawl incorporating Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley. Of the three, only Prescott has any charm. The other towns are sprawled out across the dull, empty plains surrounding Prescott.

    Meanwhile, the land in Prescott has become so desirable, many of the houses for sale were pushing a half a million dollars.

    There’s also a curious phenomena and one that does not bode well for Prescott. There were block watch and security system signs everywhere. Typically, I expect to only see that in neighborhoods that have problems with crime. Considering the look of many of the teenagers running around Prescott, I can imagine they’re a bit of problem.

    I guess I’ll have to start looking for a different town to retire to.

    Technorati Tags: , ,

  • Is there a lemon law for MacBooks?

    IMG_7412.JPG

    Long time readers of my blog may recall that my very first generation MacBook experienced every major problem being exhibited by MacBooks. Weird screen problems, sudden power offs, etc.

    Now, I’ve got a new one… my MacBook has never had as good battery life as my iBook did, but, I figured it was to be expected as it was smaller, had to drive fans and has a dual-core Intel processor. (Intel never having been known for power-efficiency.)

    With those strikes going against it, I didn’t expect that kind of battery life. Still, I never got anything particularly good. 2 hours of operation if I was lucky.

    In the last few weeks, that number has plummeted to about 1 hour, and the battery gauge doesn’t accurately reflect the run time. I did all the steps to re-calibrate the battery to no avail.

    For a couple weeks, it behaved normally, but with limited battery life. In the last week it has adopted a new symptom. It runs out without warning, and even the battery indicator on the battery itself appears to be wrong.

    On our way back from Prescott, since I was the passenger, I decided to give it a complete, documented test.

    Conditions:

    • Battery fully charged
    • Airport turned off
    • Bluetooth turned off
    • No programs started automatically
    • Energy settings set to: Better Energy Savings
    • Running one program only, Solitaire XL, continuous use

    Here’s how it worked:

    • Booted at 12:40, battery estimate 2:10, battery lights 5 LEDs
    • 13:44, system shutoff without warning. Battery estimate was about 1:50 remaining within 3 minutes of shutoff! Battery lights, 3 LEDs.
    • Booted at 13:45. Battery estimate 1:20, battery lights 3 LEDs
    • 13:48, system shutoff with no warning. Battery lights, 3 LEDs
    • 13:50, Power Up, Estimate 1:54, battery lights, 3 LEDs
    • 13:53, powered off, battery lights, 3 LEDs
    • 13:54, power up
    • 13:54, powered down before boot completed, battery lights now read 1 LED.

    I was actually surprised by how many times I could restart in. In the past (but with much less stringent observation) I had estimated that it was dropping off after approximately one hour. I would check the lights and have 3 LEDs. I would try to start the computer again and it would fail during startup. At this point, it would only show 1 LED.

    The question is, is the battery wonky, or is the computer’s energy management system busted. Either way, it’s time again for AppleCare.

    Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,

  • Still Raining in Prescott

    IMG_8187.JPG

    I’ll give high marks to the Spring Hill Marriott (perhaps I’ll explain why later) but among the good things, free wireless and a real complimentary breakfast, with sausage, eggs and waffles, not just bagels.

    After we consumed breakfast, it looked promising that, while still grey, the rain might have abated for the day. We headed out for a walk to get pictures of plum tree blossoms for Irene. Then we headed up a random street towards the top of a hill. When we got there, we found ourselves in Acker Park. We trudged around through the mud for quite a while and finally found ourselves on the south-side of the park. Because Irene had been pushing the stroller through the mud, an environment not friendly to strollers, we decided to circle around on the roads back to the north side and our hotel.

    That proved to be a rather circuitous route, but had the advantage of being all downhill. As we approached the hotel, the temperature began to drop considerably and the dark storm clouds began to roll into town again. I left the GPS in the car, but I used Google Earth upon return to calculate our walking distance. Michelle managed to walk the entire 4 miles, which is pretty good for a 4-year old.

    Thursday night after our lackluster dinner at the Fazoli’s next door, I’d searched for pizza places and discovered a highly recommended place called “Papa’s”. I dutifully noted the location and paid close attention to the lamentations of several people complaining that they were only open fives days a week (Tuesday-Saturday.)

    We hopped in the car as the weather continued to worsen and drove to Papa’s. Perhaps people should haven’t been complaining about the days they were open and should have been complaining about their hours. They weren’t open until 4:00PM. We’d have starved by then and the kids had been geared up for pizza. We returned to a small pizza place we passed along the way: Tastebud’s.

    I’ll be reviewing that over at Pizza Locust shortly.

    While we were in the restaurant, it really started to dump. Since we were all tired, we returned to the room and I took a nap.

    Dinner was almost an equal fiasco, I wasn’t going to get pizza twice in one day, so I knew Papa’s would have to keep for another trip. We headed out to exercise the kids some more and find food. Due to the obscene influx of people into Prescott over the last decade, all the “usual suspects” for family dining were here. I wanted a hamburger, so we finally drove back into the center of town to Kendall’s Famous Burgers & Ice Cream. We arrived just as they were closing.

    We drove around mostly aimlessly until I gave up and suggested Red Lobster. Irene was please to get seafood, and they’ve always got a New York Strip steak and a good caesar salad waiting for me.

    More pictures follow:
    (more…)

  • VisualHub Update

    VisualHub, a program I live and die by on my Mac has updated to a new version that encodes videos directly into the format needed for Apple TV.

    Guess it’s time to buy an Apple TV before March 31…

    Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,