Sometimes Freebies aren’t Free

So I called in to a radio station the other day and won some stuff.  It was a nice surprise, and the package was impressive.  So far I’ve used three of the gift certificates, and I’ll talk about each one.  I’ve got a bunch left, so I have more blog fodder in the future.

The first item I used was a gift certificate to Roosters Men’s Grooming Center.  I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out this is a chain, like Cost Cutters, but for rich people instead of us normal folks.  Now I know women can spend upwards of a hundred bucks on a haircut, but I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than $20 for a haircut, usually more like $10 and often I cut it myself with clippers.  (And just keep your comments about how I look to yourself, mister!)

But I had the gift certificate, and I went and got the “Hot shave and a hair cut.”  Wow.  I see why men would pay for this.  Hot towels wrapped around my face, strange ointments rubbed into my skin, face massage, an incredibly close shave with a straight razor.  And a pretty good haircut too.  I liked it, obviously.  Don’t know that I can ever afford to get another, and I hope I tipped appropriately.

The next one was tickets to see Daybreakers at Hollywood 16.  Now, my preference for movie theaters in town is the Rave, but Hollywood isn’t horrible.  It desperately needs (another) face lift, but the movie was free, so why complain about the appearance.  Or the uncomfortable chairs.  And as to the movie?  Well, it was no Zombieland, but it was fun.  I probably laughed at scenes the director would be disappointed about, but it kept me entertained.

Daybreakers is about Vampires that have taken over the world.  Humans are raised like cattle, but are running out.  The blood supply is dwindling, and the vampires are turning into some sort of savage beasts.  But then Ethan Hawke saves them all.  The end.

The last gift card I used was to Dolce at Bridgestreet.  It was a $100 gift card, and we managed to burn about $79 of it.  Now overall I was not impressed with Dolce.  We made reservations, but it wasn’t needed.  The place was pretty dead for 7:30 on a Friday night.  The table we were given was a wobbly as a crack addict needing a hit.  I honestly wished I’d brought my usually present multi-tool so I could have climbed under it and fixed it.  The restaurant itself was pretty, but confusing.  The expensive look was “balanced” by the wait staff wearing wife beaters.  And the manager came by in a button down that didn’t fit and jeans too tight for his large size.  Now I’m the last person to make fun of the large boned among us, but this guy looked like he would be taking out the trash instead of taking care of us.

Then there was the food.  We had the “Handmade Caprese Tower” for an appetizer, and it was fine.  Not $8 fine, but we weren’t paying so we didn’t care.  The wife had the Lobster Ravioli, and it was okay.  Not $19 okay, but we weren’t paying so we didn’t care.  The wife also had a “Limon Drop” and it tasted like it was mixed by a blind mixologist with no fingers.  I had the filet, and it was pretty darn good, cooked to still mooing perfection.  But really, a good cut of meat barely cooked and I’m happy.  The dessert was the apparently famous chocolate cake, but I’d had better from Publix, regardless of whatever prize it recently won that we were told about both at ordering and receiving the cake.

Then came the bill.  After ordering $79 of food and drinks, we got a bill for $20.  That was the sales tax and the “gratuity” that they picked for us.  It irks me anytime someone “picks” my level of tipping, but that’s another story.  What I don’t get is why the $100 gift certificate didn’t cover both.  There was $21 left on it, but apparently it doesn’t count.  And the only person really screwed in the deal was the waitress.  She was very nice and attentive.  I had ever intention of leaving $20 on the table for her time serving us.  I recognized that I was getting her time and food free, and that wasn’t fair to her, and after seeing how empty the place was I was frankly worried that she wouldn’t have enough gas money to get home.  So instead of adding their “forced” gratuity (and really, is that a gratuity?) to the gift certificate, they charged me.  I left the $20 and the waitress got $14.  If they management had been stand up people, she would have cleared $34 instead.

So that was my Dolce experience.  And It wasn’t a very strong one.  I’m sure there are plenty of richer people who will fawn all over the place because it’s expensive.  But if I’m dropping $80 on dinner for two at Bridgestreet, I’ll walk a bit farther and go to Conners.  Or just across the walkway, to the new steakhouse across from Dolce.  Or better yet, not drive all the way out there and eat at any of the hundreds of places I have to pass on my way to Bridgestreet.

Still to go from the Prize Pack:

$50 of Lawlers BBQ
$45 of Popeye’s Chicken
A two night stay at the Marriott
Another Movie pass
and some Botanical Gardens passes… but being members we’re looking for someone else to give these too.  Interested?

Let’s End The Race To Space

As everyone in Huntsville knows, the President has decided to shut down the Constellation program.  The reviews are mixed as to the why, and really… all the tea party conservatives screaming about it are being pretty hypocritical.  I mean, they will gather together complaining about raising taxes to give people health insurance, but complain about cutting a billion dollar program?

That said, just like the paranoid who might be right about the people out to get him, these hypocrites are right to be concerned.  The plan essentially takes America out of the space game, handing it over to either private sector, if we are lucky, or the Chinese, if we are not.  We no longer will be the dominate space faring nation, instead hitching rides on space taxis that have yet to be developed.

It’s that “yet to be developed” that has me worried.  NASA went the private route once before, hoping private industry could come up with a cargo transport to end our reliance on Russia to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.  It never launched a rocket.  These were cargo ships, not manned vessels, who’s complexity increases dramatically.

Let’s face it, the private space race is a dismal failure.  Yea, you got a couple of groups firing satellites into space using old missiles, but no one but Virgin even attempting manned flights, and the Virgin concept is sub-orbital not heavy lifting to to the ISS.

I love space.  I love NASA.  When I watched Crippen and Young fly into space on Columbia for the first time, I was convinced that the Shuttle was the future.  Cheap access to earth orbit.  Building space stations and then space ships in earth orbit, heading to the Moon.  As a naive fifth grader, I was sure that the Shuttle ended the space race, and that my first job interview would be on the Moon.

Then the shuttle turned out to be a economic flop.  It wasn’t cheap to fly, not significantly cheaper than the old rockets.  It was reusable, and lifted quite a bit, but it wasn’t cheap.  And didn’t get cheaper.  We didn’t start building a space station for years later, and then with the nightmare of “international” agreements that meant we paid for it, and we repaired the shoddy work of other countries.

Follow on shuttle programs were underfunded, and even Clinton never spent his “peace dividend” money on space.  I’m not a naive fifth grader any more and today I have serious doubts that my children will get a chance to see the Moon from it’s surface.   So maybe it IS time to move from NASA to private industry.  Even if private industry will be starting from essentially the ground floor.

How much worse could they do?  We’ve already given the Moon to China, so we might as well aim for Mars…  I suppose.  I mean, why not?  Let NASA get back to research, then pimp our tax dollars out to the highest bidder in the private sector.  It’s as valid an idea as the last six years of sliding budgets and sliding time tables of Constellation.

But something about an America that buys space on taxis to get into orbit bothers me.  In my core.  Maybe I’m too much of a space geek, since I got excited to learn that the Russian’s cheated on their race to space and the first “man in space” broke the agreed upon rules.  So the idea that it may not be America that is the first to Mars, but some international corporation, is annoying.

Maybe I’m just bummed.  Maybe I’m cranky.  Maybe I can’t see past the dust cloud that was Constellation to see the glory of what is to come.  But I’ll give Obama this…  He really shook up this town.

5 Years Ago Today

Five years ago today, I was getting ready for work.  I needed to drop my son off at daycare yet, and hadn’t made it out the door, when the phone rang.  It was Mimi, and the news was that the baby was on the way.  This caused little excitement, because the baby had been on the way once a week for the past month.

So I asked how sure Mimi was, and this time the water broke.  That’s a pretty sure sign that the baby REALLY was coming (or so I’m told) so we kicked it into high gear.

The son got dropped off at Nana’s, we headed to the hospital.  On the way, employers were called.  Arrangement had been in place, and as we rushed to the hospital, we activated them.

Once at the hospital, we rushed to the proper floor… asked about the birth mother…  and she WAS NOT THERE!

In a panic, we called Mimi.  Where was she?  Did she need a ride?  Did we need to go get her?  I had a vision of the birth mother stuck at her apartment giving birth RIGHT NOW and no one was there.  Mimi made some calls and assured us that wasn’t the case.  She was on her way.

Hours later, days from the way it felt, the birth mother arrived, and all sorts of things went haywire.  We gave the hospital our paperwork, showing we were the legal guardians of the baby as soon as it arrived.  The social worker refused to take the paperwork, saying she didn’t need it.  We were angry, but as long as we could be there for the birth, we didn’t want to rock the boat.

But it quickly became annoying.  Nurses would ask the birth mother what she was naming the baby.  She’s politely point to my wife and say “Ask the mother.”  Nurses openly scoffed at us, ignored us, and refused to accept us as in any way legitimately part of this baby’s family.

We tried to give the social worker the paperwork.  Again.  The court order, telling the hospital to treat us like the parents.  They refused to even read it.

Babies come the way babies do.  We were given the baby and a room next door to the delivery to meet with family.  I wasn’t in the room for the delivery, which trust me I’m fine with, and didn’t know at the time but the birth mother had problems.  She was bleeding and they couldn’t stop it.  Because the birth mother gave us the baby, and we took it next door, the nurses were reluctant but fine with it.  Not because the baby was ours, but because the birth mother approved.

For the next hour, while they worked on the birth mother, we thought things were better.  We got to hold our baby, we got to show our baby off to people who came by to check on us.  It ended abruptly.

We were taken upstairs to the maternity ward, but we were not given the nifty armbands that let us get the baby.  We weren’t given the room we had arranged for.  We weren’t given access at all, the baby was taken and slipped behind the glass, and we were banned from its life.

Again the birth mother came to our rescue, instructing the nurses to give my wife an armband, and let my wife do the first bath.  All our access to the child that was legally ours was granted us only at the insistence of the birth mother, who the hospital continually pushed to not allow us access.

When the birth mother, who didn’t understand what was going on, told them emphatically no.  That we were the parents, and our medical wishes were the ones that mattered, the hospital took it upon themselves to act.  Ignoring our paperwork again, the head nurse of the hospital maternity ward called us into a private meeting.  The purpose, to throw us out.  To educate us on the “law” and how we had no right to be there.  None.

Now one of the reasons we took the legal tactic we did was because my wife wanted to attempt to breast feed.  She’d been on hormones and using a pump and was ready.  Now the hospital was kicking us out, ruining that chance and that experience for my wife.  I was NOT happy.

Prior to the meeting, I called my lawyer, who went into high gear.  I went into the meeting angry, but fully expecting to be kicked out of the hospital.  Once that had happened I was going to go to my lawyer and demand we file suit and sue the hospital into the stone age for denying my wife access to our child.  I sat in the meeting as the head nurse lectured us about how it was going to be, and how we had to leave, and not come back until the day the baby could go home.  And then ONLY if the birth mother wanted us to.

I glared.  I stammered.  I did deep breaths to hold in my temper.

And the phone rang.

The head nurse took the call, and the social worker picked up with the lecture about how it was GOING to be.  The nurse tried to stop her as she stammered “Yes sir” over and over again on the phone.  She almost frantically tried to silence the social worker who ignorantly and arrogantly prattled on about how she new the law, that our order wasn’t valid, and the courts clearly hadn’t written it.  That there was NO WAY we had any legal right to our child.

The head nurse finally managed to shut the social worker up and handed her the phone.  The head nurse sat silently, all but glaring at us as the social worker went through a similar “Yes sir” session on the phone.  We stared back at them.  No one talked.

The social worker hung up the phone and looked at the head nurse.  She shrugged, and looked at the table.  The head nurse took a deep sigh.  She informed us that they had no rooms currently available but that we would get the next one.  We could see our child at any time, simply ask the floor nurse.  We were welcome to stay in the room we were in now, and could have guests and the baby in that room until a regular room was available.  She then got up and walked out.

What happened to bring about the change is unclear.  Our lawyer faxed the order over to the lawyer for the hospital.  That lawyer read the order and wasn’t happy with the advice he’d earlier given the social worker.  He was pretty upset, as I understand it, that the social worker didn’t immediately fax the court order to him.

In the end, we got the baby and the room.  And we walked out of the hospital not owing them a dime.  Neither us, nor the insurance, got billed for that birth.  Nor did the birth mother or her medicad.  The entire bill just… vanished.  The social worker came by later to apologize.  We never say the head nurse again.  We did get called later by the hospital to join a committee to review their adoptive parent procedures.  We declined, we were far to angry still.

So that’s the exciting story in the middle of the happiest day of my life.  I’m still bitter at the hospital about that, but later learned that the law had changed and we were the first Huntsville couple and one of the first in Alabama to adopt under the new law that allowed us to have custody the second the baby was born.  Huntsville Hospital was completely caught off guard by us.

But in the end, we had a healthy baby girl.  The drama was forgotten and the joy of that new life was ours.

Happy Birthday, my little groundhog…

The iPad. How’d I do?

Alright, so I put myself out there and made my own predictions on Apple’s new tablet, the iPad.  Here’s how I did.

1. It will be under $900 dollars.  Most likely $799 and $899.
   1. I’m claiming correct on this one.  The iPad pricing is as follows:  $499 for the 16gig model and $599 for the 32gig and $699 for the 64 gig.  Adding 3G is another $130. The 16gig model is kinda small for what all it is designed to do, so really for the iPad I was envisioning, the pricing is $729 and $829.  Not bad, Mike.
2. It will have a 10″ screen that blows the iPhone screen away, which is saying something.
   1. Okay, it’s a 9.7 inch screen.  Which for all real purposes is a ten inch.  I’m claiming victory here.  It looks nice a big for a device without a keyboard.
3. It will be full of gesture driven technology.
   1. No brainer.  Okay so that one was easy, but seriously…  What Jobs showed on the stage makes this device look amazing.  Like using it would be absolutely natural… even more so than the iPhone.
4. It will run all of the iPhone/iPod touch apps out of the box.
   1. Bingo!  Nailed it!  In fact, it can run them one of two ways.  In native view mode, where the iPhone app looks just like on the iPhone in the center of the screen, or in double pixel mode so that the app fills the screen.  Both look great.
5. A new store will be developed to support it
   1. I’m not sure about this one.  It’s a 50-50.  The iTunes music store is “built in” so that just like the iPhone, the store is based on that.  But there is clearly going to be a app store and content just for the iPad.  So yes, a new store inside the old one.  Just like the iPhone.
6. New content agreements will be announced with the device, further expanding the store.
   1. Not only was content agreements announced, but displayed.  Books available via the iTunes store.  Newspapers, Major League Baseball.  More to come.
7. It will have wifi, cellular and bluetooth, but not be connected with a carrier like AT&T.
   1. Oops.  It will have WIFI.  It will have Cellular with G3.  It will have bluetooth.  But it will be only AT&T.  But the plan with AT&T is no contract and affordable.  $29.99 for unlimited.  $14.99 for limited.  50% here.
8. It probably won’t have a camera built in.
   1. It does not.  SCORE!  So this is the first portable computer from Apple in a while that can pass security at Army Bases.  And won’t freak out corporate security.
9. It will have an amazing battery that is hardwired into the unit like the iPhone, iPods and MacBook’s.
   1. Right again!  10 hours of active use, weeks on standby.  Outta the park!
10. It will revolutionize the way tablet computers will be used.
    1. I suppose this is yet to be discovered, but I’m thinking I’m right.  This raises the bar on how people will use the internet.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions.  For one, I haven’t read anything on handwriting recognition, and I had really hoped that the ability to do handwritten notes would be there.  Also, no mention of business apps.  I know that the Apple retail stores now have iPod Touch with credit card readers for point of sale.  This iPad could  become a fantastic point of sale machine that doubles as ad display and lots of other devices.

Whatever else, this is the beginning of the redefinition of portable computing.  I’m not convinced yet that Apple hit it out of the park, but it is a standing triple.  And if the rest of the computing world does like they did with the iTunes music store and the iPhone/iPod touch…  Apple will be stealing home.

BTW, my final score?  9 out of 10.  Not bad.

Predictions on the line

I could change my predictions, but I’m not.  Tomorrow we’ll all learn IF Apple introduces a tablet device.  I’m sticking with all ten of my predictions.  We’ll see how that works out…

I don’t expect it to be the first thing introduced.  I expect it will be a famous Steve Jobs, “And one more thing…”

Apple’s Tablet

I decided to get in on the hype and talk a bit about Apple’s rumored upcoming tablet.  I have absolutely no inside information on what the tablet is, if it is really coming, or anything else.  But I have a few ideas about the tablet, and am going to make a few predictions.

I’ve read a good deal about how the new tablet is going to be an iPhone on steroids, and frankly I don’t buy it.  While plenty of people, myself included, have nearly replaced there generic computer needs with an iPhone, such as simple web browsing, email and social networking, the iPhone isn’t a computer replacement.  Not even close.  The tablet has to be something more.

It’s going to be big.  No, not Cinema display big, but no one is going to replace the small, sleek iPhone with a ten inch screen version, no matter how much beefier the OS.  Nor will such a large device replace an iPod.  The iPhone is of a size to make the need for both an iPod and an phone, and I use it this way.  So, in a sense, the iPhone is already an iPod on steroids, so the idea that the tablet is an iPhone on steroids is unlikely to me.

It’s not just going to be an e-reader of some sort.  Amazon has the book market sewn up.  I’d be more likely to believe it will work with Kindle, or have a Kindle app, like the iPhone.  But if it is an e-content device, it will be something new.  More than just a book/newspaper replacement.

It’s going to be cheap, at least in terms of Apple pricing structure.  From everything I’ve seen, this is not going to be a full on computer, so it won’t be competing with the MacBook line.  It’s going to be “something different.”

And that’s what I think is important to remember.  Apple didn’t invent the portable music player, they invented a whole new market niche with the iPod.  They didn’t invent the simplistic computer, but they revolutionized it with the iMac.  And we all know they didn’t invent the cell phone, but they sure changed the game with the iPhone.  So whatever the tablet from Apple is, it won’t be something already out there.   It will define a new market.

With that said, here are my predictions.

1. It will be under $900 dollars.  Most likely $799 and $899.
2. It will have a 10″ screen that blows the iPhone screen away, which is saying something.
3. It will be full of gesture driven technology.
4. It will run all of the iPhone/iPod touch apps out of the box.
5. A new store will be developed to support it.
6. New content agreements will be announced with the device, further expanding the store.
7. It will have wifi, cellular and bluetooth, but not be connected with a carrier like AT&T.
8. It probably won’t have a camera built in.
9. It will have an amazing battery that is hardwired into the unit like the iPhone, iPods and MacBook’s.
10. It will revolutionize the way tablet computers will be used.

And finally, and most importantly, it will “just work.”

I have one fear.  While the iPhone was an amazing device from the gate, it really wasn’t “finished” till the iPhone 3G with OS 3.0 came about.  Prior to that, the phone was crippled.  I hope that Apple doesn’t repeat that with the tablet, and releases a “finished” product.  No one else has anything nearly as revolutionary coming down the pipe.  Everyone is too busy playing catch up with the iPhone.  So the time is ripe for Apple to introduce a new game-changing device.

Here’s to hoping.  I’ll revisit this after the announcement and see how well I did.

Sleeping with the Fishes

This will be old news to those of you who follow me on Twitter.  And if you don’t follow me on twitter, or FaceBook, you really should.  Cause, you know…  I’m all Web 2.o like that.

So this is my post about the trip I took this past weekend to the Tennessee Aquarium. I have a soft spot in my heart for this Aquarium, and it means I may be biased toward it, but I’m clearly not the only one.  The Aquarium is continually rated one of the top Aquariums in the country, and is currently rated as the very best. So while my sentimentality is purely emotional, it’s good to know I’m emotionally attached to the best.

The Tennessee Aquarium is in Chattanooga, TN right on the Tennessee River.  Opened in 1992, the Aquarium initially showcased the river flora and fauna of the Tennessee River, making it unique in not relying on fancy and flashy ocean fish to bring in tourists.  The centerpiece is the massive “Nickajack Lake” tank showing the fish of the large lake downstream from Chattanooga.  It’s a beautiful tank with giant catfish, paddlefish and other fish found in that natural resource.

In 2005 they added a new building that was dedicated to tropical fish, including another massive tank for sharks and sea turtles and the like.  Not quite as big as the whole “River” building, the “Ocean” building is nonetheless an excellent example of bringing people to nature.  It houses a beautiful butterfly house (although I personally think the one at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens is better), a sting ray petting pool (with stingers removed, of course) and penguins.

This trip to the Aquarium was a Cub Scout trip where we planned to spend the night in the Aquarium.  The program is called “Sleep in the Deep” but I prefer calling it “Sleeping with the Fishes.”

My boy and I met up with the Pack and headed over to Chattanooga Saturday afternoon.  We arrived right at 5:30 and went into the Aquarium for the evening.  From the moment we arrived until we were shown out the next morning at 9am, the staffers at the Aquarium kept us moving and gave us a most enjoyable tour, letting us do and see things most tourists never get the chance of doing or seeing.

Our guide, Miss Jill, kept us moving and well informed for our entire stay.  She was great with the kids, and answered the adult’s stupid questions (and the kid’s incredibly intelligent questions) with skill and care.  She took us first to the penguins, which had already gone to bed.  This was my first surprise of the evening, my boy wanted to know if they had any Macaroni Penguins.  Trying not to laugh, I told him to ask Miss Jill.  Half because I didn’t want to laugh at my son and half because I wanted to see how Miss Jill handled silly questions from six year old boys.

Imagine my surprise when not only did Miss Jill not laugh, but told him they had 11 adult Macaroni Penguins and a baby one.  Really?  Macaroni Penguins?  Really?  Yup.  There really are Macaroni Penguins, and they are quite pretty.  I asked my boy how he knew about them, and he answered (predictably) “Diego saved one.”  Score one for Noggin (or Nick Jr. or whatever it’s called now).

From the Penguins we went to the top of the Ocean tank.  Not the top tourist level, the actual, behind-the-scenes top, where the divers go down to clean and the caretakers feed the fish.  Along the way we saw a real Shark Cage that had been used in filming some documentary or another.  It even had “real battle damage” from a great white shark.  The boy, who loves sharks, thought that was cool and impressed Miss Jill by announcing “That’s a shark cage.  It was invented by Rodney Fox after he survived being attacked by a Great White.”  For your information, that’s 100% accurate!  That’s my boy!  Definitely smarter than his dad.  

After visiting the top of the tank, we went up to the stingray petting pool and the butterfly house for a while, until a great 3D IMAX movie and then dinner.

This would be my one complaint of the night.  The Aquarium is spread out over about 10 buildings.  The “River” and “Ocean” buildings are right next to each other and the IMAX theater is across the street a bit.  It was cold.  Real cold.  Dinner wasn’t till 8pm or so.  And to GET to the theater with all those hungry scouts they marched us through the cold and right by two FABULOUS restaurants.  Oh the cold!  Oh the smells!  They nearly had a revolt!

But we managed to make it to the theater and enjoy the movie.  And dinner of Pizza.  And the cold walk back to the Aquarium.  And then… all the fun of the rest of the night.  Seeing the kitchens where they fix all the food (including meal worms and rats). Petting Sturgeon (Side note, the Tennessee Aquarium is actively raising and releasing sturgeon into the Tennessee River, reintroducing a species that had gone extinct!!).  Petting snakes (NO THANK YOU!) and then, after a full evening it was time for bed.

Now our bedroom was perhaps the COOLEST PLACE EVER to lay out a sleeping bag for a night.  At the bottom of the Ocean building is a cave like structure UNDER the big tank.  We were surrounded by water and fish and sharks and just about any other cool sea creature your can imagine.  Sharks glided by us all night long.  Sea turtles played over our heads.  And while it was dark, their ghostly shapes kept us company all night long.  When the tank lights came on at 6am, we were greeted by amazing scenes of trigger fish and tuna swimming by.  It was fantastic.

So if you have a group going to Sleep in the Deep… or Sleep with the Fishes, I can’t recommend it enough.  It is a fabulous trips and you get to see behind the scenes at one of the truly great places in the Southeast.  Heck, I can’t recommend the Aquarium high enough, and just visit if you can.

On a final note, I have to share a video, because it just was the highlight of the trip.  I’ve been going to the Aquarium since 1992.  And since then, they’ve had river otters.  And all I’ve ever seen is the otters sleeping.  Maybe one of them take a quick dip, before going back to sleep.  But this time, we got to feed the critters.  And they are as cute and fun as you’d expect.  So here’s a parting video of the fun we had feeding the otters.

Avatar- a review

I went and finally saw Avatar, James Cameron’s first film since the phenomenally successful Titanic (a movie I’m proud to say I’ve never seen).  After seeing it, I’m so fundamentally conflicted over it that I don’t even know where to start to write a review.  And yet, at the same time, I’m moved beyond reasoning to NOT write about it.

So, as I prefer to do, I’m going to start with the Good, because there is plenty to crow about in this movie.  For those people who don’t think this movie changes the game in movie making, you’re blind.  This has got to be one of the most spectacularly told and created films ever.  It radically changes the boundaries of what a good movie is, and what a good movie is not.  The tech-minded Cameron has earth-shatteringly changed moviemaking with this beautiful epic that movies of the future will have to come to grips with the new expectation of movie goers.  It really is that radical.

First off, if you haven’t seen it yet don’t waste your time seeing it in anything but 3D.  The film is a 3D masterpiece, and the attention to detail intrigued me more than anything else in the film.  This wasn’t 3D for the “gee whiz” factor, I can only recall one scene with the “in your face” pointy thing at your nose.  And instead of being gratuitous, it was almost a “you’re expecting it so here it is” kind of moment.  For the rest of the movie, the 3D was there to further the story.  And it did.

I’ve never been to a movie that so immersed you into the story.  From minor reflection in windshields to stunning computer generated graphics, the result was simply amazing.  Unlike some of the “nature” films using 3D, I never felt like I was in a 3D movie.  Instead, I felt like I was in the story.  That’s not a “techie” thing, for which Cameron deserves accolades.  Instead of telling a story to the 3D medium, Cameron told a 3D story.

And I mentioned the computer graphics, this is the first movie where I didn’t think while watching that “hey, those are some amazing CGI effects.”  Even though I knew there weren’t 10 foot tall blue actors, the movie worked and I believed it completely.   These blue aliens were totally organic and I bought them as a real being completely.  The alien creatures, while odd looking, stayed believable.  Even the eight legged “horses.”

The actors themselves, even the thinly written ones (and there were plenty of thinly written ones) did a superb job.  Again, I never thought “hey, Sigourney Weaver is pretty good in this.”  The entire time I saw “Grace,” the exobotanist who was a dedicated scientist trying to do the right thing.  If anything, there just wasn’t a need to “suspend” my disbelief.  The movie was done so well, I just believed.

That’s not to say that all was rosy in this movie.  It isn’t.  I really suspect that Cameron has gotten so big that no one has the guts to pull him aside and say, “Really?  James, is that REALLY what you mean?  Let’s think that through.”

For starters, there is the planet.  Pandora.  Really James?  Pandora?  I mean, what are the chances that the planet which landing on it makes things go all to hell would really just happen to be named after the lady that opened the box that brought all evil into our world?  Well, if you’ve seen Cameron work before, subtly was never his strong suit.

And the mineral in contention, the reason that humans are even on this Pandora’s Box in the first place, is some currently unknown mineral called “unobtainium.”  That’s about as original a name as…  well I can’t think of anything unoriginal enough to complete the analogy.  It is, quite possibly, the single dumbest motivator ever put into a movie.

I have a theories as to how this happened.  Unobtainium is a well known plot device to science fiction writers, of which Cameron is clearly one.  It is any “thing” that can not or currently does not exist that is needed to further the plot.  Wolverine’s Adamantium skeleton is an unobtainium.  Star Trek’s dilithium crystals are also an unobtainium.  Cameron needed a reason for the humans to attack the natives on Pandora.  That reason is an unobtainium, as the plot device is known.  In early drafts, Cameron may really have used unobtainium, with the intention of naming the mineral at some later date.  Then, instead of changing it, he thought it a great joke to leave it as unobtainium.  Well, I think the joke was flat.

Normally, unobtainium is unimportant to the motivation of the characters and is designed to move the plot beyond some critical problem of the real world that would prevent the made up world from functioning.  The fact that Wolverine has Adamantium blades is less important to his motivation than the fact that he has the blades at all.  Wolverine needed indestructible blades that shot out of his hands.  Adamantium, the unobtainium, explains how they can be indestructible.  Likewise, Star Trek needed a massive energy source so they could, you know, trek among the stars.  Enter dilithium.

But in Avatar, unobtanium is both a plot device AND the motivator behind the entire movie.  Had unobtanium not been on the planet, human would never have attacked the natives.  So it was more than a convenient plot device, it was the primary motivator of the entire film.

And yet, Cameron never treated it as anything other than classical unobtainium.  He never gives us a feel for why it is important.  Other than profit, which is really a weak motivator for such a grand scale.  Why was it profitable?  Did it cure cancer?  Does it solve some fundamental need for all mankind?  We aren’t told why some mineral is so valuable that common, everyday people are willing to kill an entire race to attain it.

Moving beyond these poor choices in nomenclature, the corporate pigs and military psychos are just poorly written and, I believe, show a general misunderstanding of the military.  I know by touching on this subject I risk being branded as a “right winger” nut, and trust me, I’ve read some truly horrible reviews that seemed to completely miss the boat on this.

It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last time, that some Hollywood hot shot thinks he knows more about the military than he does.  Colonel Miles Quaritch is a typical Hollywood version of a military man who bares no resemblance to a real Marine Colonel.  He’s some sort of political joke who is written paper thin.  Had Quaritch been real, he’d never reach the rank of Colonel in the Marines, nor would his men followed him so blindly.

That’s something Hollywood hasn’t figured out.  There has been a fundamental shift in the way our military is trained today.  We no longer expect our military to be mindless grunts who do what they are told.  We expect our military to be thinkers, to take the initiative, and to examine their situations and surroundings.  There is a reason for this.  We are putting more and more high tech equipment into the hands of soldiers than ever before.  We are doing more with less personnel, so those individual soldiers need to be able to out think our adversaries.

So here we have a group of highly trained military people, all using advanced technology that takes serious training and thought, and every one of them follows blindly?  Unlikely.

Not only that, but while visually stunning, there is no way that a well trained military man would devise the simplistic and dangerous military strategy used in the movie.  Again, this isn’t the first movie to completely miss the whole military “way,” but no modern military is going to attack like this poorly written “Colonel” does.   The attack on the native’s home tree was completely unbelievable.

Furthermore, it showed a total disregard for the men and women under the command of Quaritch.  Which later, becomes a key plot point.  How could a man who rose to the rank of Colonel in the Marines care so little for his comrades in arms that at a key moment of battle he would abandon his men?  Apparently Cameron is unaware that the Marine’s have a motto.  Semper Fidelis.  It means “Always Faithful.”   Abandoning your men for the sake of personal revenge is not what Semper Fi means.  How could a Marine Colonel spend the years and years in the Corps, rising through the ranks, and fail to remember that?  How could he possibly inspire men to committee acts of such aggression as killing women, children and babies and not be loyal to them?

Since these things are so common in Hollywood, why does it upset me in this particular film?  Well because the story could have been so much richer if it had taken them into account.  Instead of a mindless killing machine, Quaritch could have been conflicted over the need for unobtainium and the end results.  He could have shown the restraint true leaders would have shown, not the megalomaniac tendencies of a serial killer.

There were other “problems” with the story, which when you got right down too it was full of holes and problems.  The natives were “perfect.”  The idea of a “nobel savage” was portrayed with stereotypical accuracy.  The “profit at the cost of everything” corporate leadership.  A lead scientist that couldn’t figure out how to explain her great discovery to her financial backers.  All of this was just paper thin writing.

Does the good of this movie outweigh the bad?  I’m not sure.  It is too close to tell.  Maybe I’m too demanding of my storytellers, since I’m often disappointed with the plot of most movies.  Maybe I expect too much from my movie going experience.  There is no doubt that the movie was a triumph in many ways.  I guess my biggest disappointment is that a movie so dedicated to so much of the details visually would ignore so many of the details realistically.

And in the end, “Unobtainium…  Really James?  Did you mean that?”

Apple Comes To The Rescue

I don’t know if this is a “Apple” thing, or just a human thing.  But I can’t imagine being in a “Microsoft” store and having the same thing happen.

The day after Christmas I went to the Apple Store.  I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket, and wanted to use it.  I took my 6 year old son with me, and he headed straight to the little table in front of the Genius Bar where Apple had set up a couple of iMacs with games.   My son seemed happy, so I started looking over the software and other low end items I could afford with the card.

It should be said that the place was fairly packed with people spending their Christmas money on iPods, iPhones and accessories.  I couldn’t find any must have item on the software wall, and was moving to the iPhone accessories…  but my son wasn’t at the computer.  I looked around the best I could and he wasn’t in the store.  I’m about to freak out, when I go up to the Genius Bar and had them page him.

No luck.  Now I’m pretty upset, and I head out front where it was a bit quieter and called the wife to get her to come down to the store and help.  As soon as I’m out front, a group of about 10-15 people joined me.  All had their iPhones out.  ”Send me a picture,” the first one said.  ”I’ll help you look.”

You read that right.  10-15 people I did not know stepped outside, all wanting me to text or mail or bluetooth them a picture of my son, and they were all ready to go looking for my son around the outdoor mall.  I pulled up a recent photo and was getting numbers to text the picture too, when one of the women asked “Is that him?” and pointed down the way.

There was my son returning from the other end of the mall.  He saw me and ran and grabbed me.

Seems he couldn’t find me and thought I’d left.  He knew his mom was down on the other end, and thought I’d gone down there to her.  But he couldn’t find the store she was in, and was coming back to the Apple store to try and me.

These strangers and their iPhones were ready to come to my aid and find my missing son.  I was moved beyond words.  I’m sure they think that I’m an ungrateful git for not saying more, but the relief was overwhelming.  Needless to say I had a long talk with my son explaining that I would never leave a store without him, and that instead of leaving himself he should have gotten help in the store.  He understands that now.  (In fact, he’s done that in the past, but I think the loud crowd scared him and he felt “safer” out of the store.)

So while I was EXTREMELY nervous for a while, it all turned out great and I saw just how wonderful iPhone users can be.

I do want to stress something, though.  At no time did I think my son had been “taken.”  I didn’t feel the need to rush and grab a cop, or call them, at that time.  I was worried, more worried that he’d fallen in the lake at the mall or stepped into traffic, than that he had been abducted.  For one thing, he’d scream bloody murder, and for another that just so rarely happens.  My fear was finding him before he got so scared or worried that he got hurt.

In fact, he was nicely calm, and taking care of himself.  While he made a “bad” decision, I’m ever so happy he made a decision and acted on it, instead of being unsure of what to do.  Yes, it meant he wandered the length of an outdoor mall all by himself, but he acted.  He made a plan and went with it.  Find Mom.  Can’t find Mom, go back to where Dad was.  Overall, not a bad plan.  Just not the best.

And I got the chance to see how many people still give a damn.  And that was worth the worry.

The “New” Mac

Well, for those who hadn’t heard…  A friend accidently spilled hot tea on my Mac.  Killed it dead.  But they sent it off for repair and it came back.  Here’s the skinny.

It got sent off on Friday.  It came back today.  Only a look at the timeline didn’t make sense.  It arrived into the repair facility on Monday at 8pm or so.  It left the repair facility, which is in Memphis, at 10pm.  That’s two hours from check in to packaged and shipped out.

I found it hard to believe that in two hours they managed to completely gut my MacBook Pro and replace everything inside, including cloning the hard drive.  According to the repair form, everything was to be replaced.  Everything.  Logic Board, Drives, Display, memory, fan, speaker, everything.

I got a call this morning and was told the new machine should be delivered today.  So I started tracking it.  When I found out how little time was spent at the repair facility, I figured something was wrong.  Don’t get me wrong, a talented tech could get it done pretty darn quick.  But two hours from check in to check out?  Come on.  That’s insane.

So I left my Father-in-law to sign for the delivery as I ran errands.  But I downloaded the FedEx app to my iPhone to track it.  At 3:45 I noticed that the package had not been delivered, but returned to the distribution facility because no one answered the door.  Don’t know if my father-in-law fell asleep or what, but there is no way the driver rang the bell and he didn’t hear it.  So I imagine the driver knocked, waited a split second, and hurried on with all his other deliveries.

So I called and found out where I could pick it up.  I rushed out there (If you’re wondering, it’s out in Madison) during rush hour traffic to get the thing.  I have SOOOO missed my Mac.  I needed it back.

I picked up the box, rushed back to the car and opened it straight away.  And the first thing I noticed is there was no way it was my Mac.  Dread filled me.  It was NOT my Macintosh.  How’d I know?

Two things.  My son dropped a flashlight on the top.  Small dent, little scratch, but no damage to the insides.  The dent wasn’t there.  Okay, they did say they were replacing the screen, maybe they just replaced the whole thing, cover and all.  Makes sense.  So I flipped it over to where the serial number was etched onto the bottom.  My mac had a 6 inch scratch, a serious deep one, across the bottom where I slid it someplace once.  I hated it, but hey, it didn’t effect the operation at all so what do you do.

The scratch is gone.

So there is no way that this is my mac.  They shipped me the wrong unit.

But wait…  the serial number matches.  That’s right, my Mac’s serial number is on this Mac’s case.  Missing scratches and dents and all.

So I check the battery meter, and it’s got a full charge.  So I open it up and fire it up.  Bong.  That lovely Mac sound.  Then up pops MY user log in screen.  Mine.  With the two accounts set up on it.  So I log into my account, and presto.  There’s all my stuff.

All of it.

Just like it was prior to the “Tea Incident of 2009.”

Except the screen is pristine.  The keyboard is immaculate.  There is still tape on the footies.  THIS IS A BRAND SPANKING NEW MAC.  Wow!

So It’s like the day I bought it.  Beautiful.  Pristine.  A Mac.  Oh how lovely!  It’s perfect… only with ALL MY STUFF ALREADY ON IT.

I’m happy.

Here’s what I figure happened.  They ripped the old hard drive out and sent the rest to recycle.  They grabbed a blank MacBook Pro, and they cloned my drive onto it.  They knew my configuration, they already had it.  So pulling in a new blank MacBook was easy.  Clone my drive, power it down, box it up and ship it back.  Probably took the tech longer to pull the old drive out than to clone the new drive.  Heck, maybe they put the old drive in.  Doesn’t matter.

Apple tends to know how to treat customers.  I’m happy, heck I’m blogging about it ain’t I?

Now, about the “dark days” between Friday and now, when I got back on my Mac.

I kind friend (Thanks Russ!) lent me a laptop he wasn’t using.  It was a top of the line Lenovo ThinkPad.  Really sweet machine.  Loaded with bells and whistles.  And Windows Vista.

Now this isn’t an anti-windows post.  Windows is fine, really.  Vista even was stable and usable.  But it just wasn’t my Mac.  I had to think to much to accomplish anything.  But I have to say, for a PC laptop, this one was well thought out.

First, the keyboard was awesome.  Had I not spent months getting used to this silly mac keyboard, with the miles of space between each key and the very short throw each key has, I’d have fallen in love with that keyboard.  It was like an old IBM keyboard, with nice clicks and full sized keys.  I loved that keyboard.  Except…

It wasn’t backlit like my Mac.  Didn’t realize how much I used that.  Now it did have an interesting feature to make up for it.  It had a little light right next to the camera at the top of the screen that was angled to shine right on the keys.  It was okay, as far as it went.  In a truly dark setting, like I tend to compute in, instead of helping the shadows from your hands obscured the keys.  Now I’m a touch typist usually, but I do glance down more than occasionally to check my fingers.  That bothered me.  I really began to miss my Mac Keyboard, with all it’s other shortcomings.

And the applications on that thing.  Even with installing firefox (I’m happy to say I never once fired up IE) all it did was make me miss my Safari.  Yea, I could have installed Safari on it, but somehow I don’t think it would have been the same.  I just missed the feel of my Mac.  I’m sure it is a comfort thing, as I’m sure that I could have gotten used to and even learned to enjoy the PC.

Even with the larger screen (The Lenovo was a 15 inch, I’m happily on my 13 inch now) I just missed my Mac.  It’s the perfect size.  Small enough to be really truly portable, large enough to be comfortable.  And the trackpad!  So large and useful, and with the finger gestures built in.  Not to mention iLife, my apps, and my videos…

So yea, I guess I’m sold on Macs.  It would be almost impossible to send me back to the PC world.  Not impossible, since I happen to know there is a 10.1″ netbook under the tree with Windows 7 on it I’ll be taking care of, but while my wife will be happy on her netbook, I’ll stick to my Mac.

To each his (or her) own, I say.  If you love your PC, and it does what you want…  more power to you.  Me, I’m so much more productive with my Mac.