Tag treo 650

Saturday morning I headed out relatively early to Home Depot to pick up some stuff.  One of the things I was looking for was a pole saw to assist in our pruning project.  In 39 years I never have used a pole saw.  I am embarrassed to say that when I saw them over the years they looked overly complicated with the ropes and stuff.  I didn’t really know how they worked.  Well I’m glad I overcame my fear of pole saws, they are a godsend when you have hundreds of branches to knock down that are 15 feet off the ground.

So we started on the pruning right after lunch.  Thankfully it was overcast, otherwise I may have melted into the ground.  We pruned and collected branches all afternoon.  We didn’t mess around with the tractor and the yard cart, the truck was used to dump the junk.  I bet we made at least a dozen trips out to the pit in the back.  It is incredible how much junk you can get off these trees.  Like I said before, the pole saw was awesome.  Instead of having to climb up a ladder and awkwardly and dangerously reach for high branches with a hand lopper, I could remain on terra firma and reach as high as any tree top.  The pole saw allows you to take down bigger branches with the saw part of it, for smaller, rounder branches like the seed branches, you can use the lopper.  The rope is used for the lopper. 

Even with my tool for branch removal, the job was extremely tedious.  My neck was cramping from looking up all the time.  I was constantly getting showered in tree debris, ants and other organic matter.  It seemed like no matter how many branches I removed from a tree, there was always one more dead or unsightly one to cut.  By the time we quit I had no gas left in the tank.  There were actually other trees we could have attended to in the back of the property but I called it as “good enough”.  I had no inkling that this pruning project would be so extensive.  We spent at least 8 hours in total pruning and I bet we could spend another 4 yet if we wanted to get EVERYTHING.  I weighed myself before taking a shower to wash the grime off me.  My dehydrated weight was 178 pounds, whoa.

Saturday night Ali and I sat down and watched Loose Change, 2nd Edition.  Some of the video clips I linked last week were from the Loose Change movie, there are two of them currently and there is another due to be released soon, Loose Change Final Cut.  I told Ali what it was about, she really didn’t know what to expect.  Like me, she never had looked into the 911 Conspiracy theories.  Wow that was some flick.  Some of the stuff they brought out was flabbergasting.  I misquoted last week when I said the guy took out a 3 million dollar insurance policy on building 7 and the rest of the WTC 6 weeks before the incident, it was 3.2 BILLION.  He was paid over 2 BILLION in his insurance settlement, although originally he tried to get over 7 BILLION..  Did you know that Marvin Bush was the head of security at the WTC up until 9/11?  Did you know there was an estimated 193 billion in gold housed in the WTC and only 200 million of it was recovered?  Did you know there were no documented 757 plane parts found at the Pentagon or the crash site in Pennsylvania? The video the government has told us contains Osama Bin Laden confessing to being behind 9/11 is an OBVIOUS fake.  It’s all documented for all to see, if you only take the time to look.

Here is the quote regarding the mission statement for the ultra-right wing neo-con group that included the likes of Dick Cheyney, Donald Rumsfeld and Jeb Bush among others.

September, 2000. The Project for a New American Century, a neo-conservative think tank whose members include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz, releases their report entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.”

In it, they declare that “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

There is just example after example of suspicious to down right criminal things that are exposed in this documentary.  I challenge ANYONE to watch this and not come away with serious doubt about the story that has been told to the American public. At the link listed above you can watch the documentary in it’s entirety for free.  Not that we need another reason to despise the Bush administration but this is truly unbelievable, even if only a fraction of it is true. Take the time and WATCH it.  Please post your comments after you see it.

After the movie Ali didn’t really know what to say.  Her dislike of the Bush administration was already so deep that piling on top of it is nearly impossible.  It’s almost like we are living in the Matrix, the government manipulates us to see what they want us to see, feel what they want us to feel, all to serve a truly sick master.

Hey the Eagles won.  They were setting things up to almost follow the Bears game plot exactly however they managed to come up with a defensive stop and then actually were effective with clock management and left the Vikings no time to come back.  They were doing a good job of letting the Vikes 3rd string QB look like Joe Montana for awhile. Hey it’s a win.

When I got Ali the Treo 750 phone, I was very proud of myself.  It addressed some of the complaints she had about her Treo 650, namely it’s poor reliability with synchronizing her outlook email, calendar and contacts.  The 750 does a fantastic job of this and actually does it in real time instead of just once an hour.  The IE browser in Windows Mobile is far better than what the Palm OS offers as well.  Windows Mobile just has more bells and whistles.  Well last night I was working on her phone trying to address a couple issues and Ali asks me if it would be possible for us to simply swap numbers between our phones.  (I still have a Treo 650)  I told her it couldn’t be done, although if we were willing to eat a ton of fees, I think it actually could be.  All the bells and whistles that I find so cool just seem to frustrate Ali.  She said she actually liked the 650 better…. what?????  Hearing that hurt since I thought I did a good job of addressing the problems Ali presented to me with her old phone.

Well one of the things I have been waiting for is the Windows Mobile 6 free upgrade to be released by ATT/Cingular for the 750.  It has even more cool features and would address a couple of the quirks Ali was complaining about.  There have been many rumors that it has been ready to release for months but ATT is sitting on it for some reason.  I have been patiently waiting for the official release although there has been an unofficial version of it floating around for a month or so.  Well last night after hearing Ali’s complaints, I lost my patience.

I downloaded and installed the unofficial version.  It went well.  I had the unit back up and working in about 20 minutes.  I am hoping the OS upgrade will make Ali feel better about the phone.  I still have some more tweaking to do.

The Treo 750 showed up at the door yesterday and I dug into it quickly. My initial impressions were positive, it looked cleaner (no external antenna), felt lighter and smaller in my hand. I threw it on the charger first as advised to get the battery up to full strength. You can see a comparison of the 650 versus the 750 below. (750 has no antenna)  Then I tried to activate it using the instructions included with the phone.  Of course they didn’t work although I didn’t really expect them to since I was porting Ali’s number from Verizon.

So I called up the activation line and was met by confusion.  they didn’t have the phone number in their system.  I was all ready for yet another customer service cluster F.  However I was pleasantly surprised.  I got transferred to a guy that was able to fix everything on the fly.  He was very polite and in about 10 to 15 minutes it was all worked out and the new phone was up and running.  Kudos to ATT/Cingular phone reps.

Once I was live on the air I started working on getting the device configured with my home Exchange 2003 environment.  It was easy to do.  That was one of the biggest pain’s with the Palm OS, getting it to sync properly with Outlook.  All the time sync attempts would fail or produce unexpected results such as duplicating events in the calendar and/or people in your contacts.  It was very annoying.

With Windows Mobile 5 this process is a dream in comparison.  Updating your Exchange back end is nearly instant with constant pushing and pulling going on.  Instead of a manual sync of mail that happened once an hour with the 650, all calendar updates and outgoing and incoming email happen as soon as they occur.  It works great. The Windows Mobile Internet Explorer also did a better job of displaying web pages than the odd Blazer browser that is used by the Palm OS. 

I spent a few hours digging through the OS, I never used Windows Mobile.  I have been a Palm user since the Palm III.  Even though I appreciated the Palm OS and was very familiar with it, I prefer the Palm version of Windows Mobile.  It just seems easier, more intuitive and more visually appealing.  At least so far, I am a fan.  Supposedly there will be a free upgrade to Windows Mobile 6 offered soon which will pile on even more features into the OS, adding to it’s appeal.  I look forward to it.  Playing with the 750 makes me want to check into the contract on my phone to see when it is up, I’m jealous.

Last night Ali got home late, she was at the hairdresser forever.  I have been bugging her forever to change up her hairstyle.  For awhile I was pressing her to get a perm.  She had one perm years ago and I really liked it.  However she kept putting me off and eventually the idea was ditched because supposedly it would be too severe on her hair.  Then I have been bugging her to cut it.  When I met her, her hair was about shoulder length and I liked it that way.  She has fought that as well.  She said that others have told her they like her hair long.  It annoyed me that she was less concerned with the opinion of her husband when it comes to her appearance.  

Anyway she finally caved and let her hairdresser cut it yesterday.  She pulled into the garage looking totally different.  Her hair lost 8 or 9 inches in length at least, was colored dark, much darker than I ever saw and was cut in a way that looked really good.  The color at first threw me for a loop as I typically like lighter hair but after a bit I adjusted to it and liked that as well.  Ali who was petrified to get it cut beforehand was thrilled with the end result.  I reasoned with her that a shorter hair cut is just better for her because her hair is thin, thin long hair just doesn’t hold up.  The rest of the night she was prancing around, she was so pleased with the outcome.  I guess I WAS right. 🙂

I realized this morning I forgot to update my 300 spreadsheet after Friday’s workout.  Luckily I remembered the numbers and did it this morning.  I missed out on doing it yesterday and the gym totally for that matter because I somehow forgot to pack shorts.

I caught episode two of Heroes last night.  It was still great.  The biggest disappointment was the “limited commercial interruptions” that we enjoyed during week one was replaced with UNLIMITED commercial interruptions.  It was f’ing insane, I didn’t count but I am pretty sure there were at least 10 commercial breaks.  That is such a turn off.

Speaking of TV, we are getting majorly backed up with stuff we can watch.  The stupid Dancing with the Stars triple header each week eats up way too much time.  I may bow out of the show already and just let Ali watch it if she wants. On the DVR we have episodes of Biggest Loser, Kitchen Nightmare’s, DWTS and probably an episode or two of ER.  On top of the Tivo programming I have a TON of movies at home to watch like Ocean’s 13, 1408, FF4 Rise of the Silver Surfer, Hitched, Die Hard 4 and Epic Movie, sheesh.

I plan on trying to update my blog software to the latest and greatest version so the blog could be unavailable during the day.

The blog has been updated without a hitch.  I love it when a plan comes together.