Ultimate geek gear, Eagles, W.E.

Last week I got the ultimate tech toy, a Treo 650 smartphone. Techincally I got it for Ali. Why, you ask? Because it is damn cool. Ali and I both have had Palm devices for years, when I lived up north, I used mine all the time, at my job down here I have much less need for it since I have access to all of my home data from the office anyway and I don’t leave the office very often. Ali uses hers to store a bunch of stuff related to her job as a dietitian. However the Treo is a whole new experience. It combines a cell phone with a PDA and a digital camera. It is always connected to the internet as well which allows her to do things like read and respond to her home email real time, surf the web and be productive during the 2 hours + a day we spend in the car.

The display on the Treo is top notch, it’s bright and very easy to read. The chiclet keyboard takes a bit of dexterity to manage, but after a short period of time I was able to punch out an email with reasonable speed. The internet performance is pretty impressive considering the form factor. The speed is probably around the same as a 56k modem, not bad and if you do optimizations like turning off graphics, things speed up quite a bit. As we were on the way to work today Ali checked her email, looked at the headlines on the Naples News site and looked at the local radar imagery to see if the rain we were driving through covered the entire area.

The Treo has literally thousands of 3rd party applications available for it which I haven’t even started to play with yet. It accepts SD cards which is used to hold data files, mp3’s and even movies. Yep, it makes a damn fine MP3 player and portable video rig as well. I can install clients that allow me to do things like remote control servers and workstations from the pda. This thing is truly techno-nirvana. I was going to originally see if I could upgrade my phone that I have with Cingular, but they said I had a bunch of time left on my contract so if I upgraded I would have to pay the full 500 dollar plus price which I scoffed at. I think it is foolish of them to turn away a customer that was willing to pay the much higher monthly fees required for data access but hey, their loss. I wound up getting the phone through Verizon Wireless and wound up paying less than half of what I would have through Cingular. I’m sure I’ll be reporting much more on the Treo in the future as I unlock more of what this little gem can do. Here is a good site that will tell you a whole lot more about it.

The Eagles lost again, pretty much assuring that without a stellar 6-0 finish, they are going to miss the playoffs. The game was ugly during the first half, very ugly. Mike McMahon looked terrified to make a mistake and the offense did basically nothing. In the second half Mike did better and had a spectacular run for a first down and dove over the pile for a touchdown later. I think the more he plays, the better he will be but unfortunately the Eagles don’t have time for him to learn on the job. Lito Sheppard is out for the year, which based on his play this year, may not be a bad thing, he has been Izel Jenkins this year, toasted on a regular basis. I never would have guessed pre-season that the Eagles would fall victim to the same curse as so many other Super Bowl teams, that is the SB team(s) miss the playoffs the following year. McNabb also got bit by the damn Madden football curse which seems to follow whomever is on the cover of the game for that year, look it up, whomever is on the cover has a serious injury that year, it is staggeringly consistent. Like I said before, I am ok with the Birds having a down year after so much success. It still stings to watch them fall game after game but I am trying to be realistic about it.

Fantasy football does strange things to the way you watch the game. Even though I was rooting for the Eagles hard core, Eli Manning and Amani Toomer are on my ff team. So as I cursed as Eli threw TD after TD, a small part of my mind was registering that it was adding up for my fantasy team. As a matter of fact, the strong performance of the those 2 Giants were a big part of me winning my game this week, over a hated rival no less. I started the season 0-6 and have come around to win 4 of my last 5 games.

The weekend was shortened because I had to come to work again on Saturday to reattempt the upgrades that went bad the week before. I got all the issues ironed out this time but still didn’t get out of the office till 1:30. Then when I got home I plowed right into house cleaning, so before I knew it, Saturday was basically spent. On Sunday we did a 2 mile prep run for our next running race which is at 7:30 am Thanksgiving morning. This race is going to be tough, it is a 4 miler. Ali was gung ho about this but doing 4 miles is a different animal from a 3 miler. I haven’t run 4 miles since I lived in Wernersville, I was probably right around 30 when I last did it. I think I can do it, but my feet and knee have been complaining a bit about my new running routine, I am hoping they will fall into line. Ali will be pushing into territory I never expected her to cross into at this point. It will be a big milestone if we both cross the finish line without going into a walk at some point.

The rest of the day on Sunday was spent doing some outside yard work and then watching football. During the day, the dark mood I sometimes feel, crept in. It is the mood where I feel discontent and stagnant. I feel like I don’t have a direction I am going and instead am standing still. I try to argue with myself saying that I am doing many things right, trying to expand my horizons by doing different things like traveling more, running, taking dance class with Ali and more. We have a nice home, are financially stable, have the family dog and all that jazz. Yet I feel blah. I think to myself that maybe we need to move to a different house, need to pick up yet another hobby or just need some sort of major event or change to lift this cloud I feel from time to time. I’ll be 38 in 3 weeks, that doesn’t help. My mom mentioned that when she was 38, I was 18 years old already, that simple statement gives me pause.