Murphy Tried to Keep Me in Atlanta

I flew into Atlanta Tuesday night to attend meetings in Alpharetta the next several days. The last time I was here was for Dragon*Con last September.

After I landed, I went hunting for the car rental bus. No bus no more. I was surprised with ATL's new rail system to get to the car rental area. Very neat.

After three days of meetings and getting to know team members for a new project, we were all ready to finish up as early as possible on Friday. The Alpharetta office always talks about the bad downtown traffic that was between them and the airport.

Pics found in the Ladies Rest Room of Bucca diPeppo. I was told that the Gents had pics of little boys going.

Surprisingly, I got to the airport in an hour. I was wondering how long I was going to spent in Atlanta as the traffic signs were up about a slow down due to an event in downtown Atlanta. It was slow, but it kept moving.

I took advantage of the check-in kiosks at the car rental rail station while waiting for the next train that shows up every 90 seconds to 2 minutes. The kiosk gave me the option of taking the 4:15pm flight, but I decided to stick with my 5:30. When I got to the terminal, I was sad to see my 5:30 was delayed an hour. As I didn't want to spend more time at the airport, I decided to change to the 4:15.

When I got to the gate terminal, I checked the monitor again. Delta cancelled the 4:15 flight *argh* The line was long at customer service, but I got on it anyway. While waiting, I called my travel department to find out if I was still booked on my original flight. She said "Yes, and you're checked it". I got off the line, checked the monitors to find the gate for the 5:30 which is now taking off on time and headed to the gate.

As I was walking to the gate, I see these nifty machines around the terminal. If you miss your flight, scan your boarding pass and it will print a new boarding pass with your new flight. I decided to scan my cancelled boarding pass to see what it would give me. I hope it was the 5:30pm flight. Nope, it told me I was confirmed for a 8:15pm. I hunted for the boarding pass I printed at the car rental rail station and scanned that. Yep, Delta ensured I was only on one flight, and sadly, it was the 8:15pm. I even checked the website on my phone. When I changed to the 4:15, it cancelled my 5:30 seat. So much for the info from my travel department.

Now I need to spend time around the terminals until 8:15. I read the newspaper, did some sudoku, bought two pairs of earrings, had dinner and even finished watching The Book of Eli. There was Wifi but you need to pay for it. I miss Phoenix and Jacksonville airports. I could have used my phone as a modem, but I forgot to put the necessary software on my pc. Note to self, remember to put software on pcs.

With no status on Delta, I was awarded the furthest passenger seat from the cockpit. As I sometimes do when I board and I have the window seat, I start snoozing after I settled in and am bored with watching people board. I did hear this lady talking to her car service to inform them that we will arrive early and the flight attendant letting passengers know that one of the toilets was not flushing. I awoke a bit later to learn we're still on the ground. So much for arriving early. The mechanics are trying to fix the toilet. The captain comes on 15 minutes later to tell us to deplane -- take all belongings with you, we would like to fix the plane with no passengers on, hopefully the flight will not be cancelled. It is 9:15pm. To appease the passengers, Delta gave out $6.00 meal vouchers.

I'm hoping they fixed the plane or at least find us a different plane. I really want to get home tonight. I do know, if they can't fix the plane, they will need to provide accommodations as it's a mechanical difficulty and not Mother Nature. At 9:45pm, the Red Coat gave us good news that we got new equipment, and after cleaning and restocking, we will be boarding again. Yippee!!!

I don't know when we took off, but I did finally get home at 1:45am Saturday. 12 hours traveling. I bet all my teammates who lived further than me got home before I did.

Murphy tried, but failed. I'll see you, Atlanta, again in July, maybe. If not, definitely in September for Dragon*Con.

For anyone who travels with their dog, the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has a dog park.

Count Me In for the "No DRM" Camp

I never had problems with DRM (Digital Rights Management) ebooks.

I've been reading ebooks since 2005 when a co-worker showed me her Treo. I had a Sony Clie then, and they both had the same operating system -- Palm OS. 5 years of reading ebooks with no problem.

I started worrying when Palm decided to come out with a new operating system in 2009. Palm said new OS will still run old programs. This did not sound good. Hopefully, Palm or its software developers would come up with something better as I would not be changing my device for another year.

It's a year later. Palm is not doing good. It was being trounced by iPhone and new Android devices. Latest scoop, Palm has been acquired by HP. Who knows what's going to happen? No worries, I've jumped Palm ship. Instead of trusting Palm, I was hoping the owners of eReader and Mobipocket would come through with software on the Android platform. iPhone is not in my future because of carrier and poor NYC service area.

What really pushed me to not become a fan of DRM was the acquisition of an iPad last month. Yes, I wrote that I was not going to get one, but I have one. Since I had over 600 ebooks that were DRMed eReader (.pdb) and Mobipocket (.prc), I wanted the ability to read them on the iPad. I had to de-DRM the books in order to convert them into another format that could be used on the iPad.

After the iPad acquisition, I got a new phone -- an Android one. Mobipocket did not come through on Android. eReader did. Regardless of these two vendors, I was able to find a reader software that enabled me to read my DRM books -- iReader. I'll still be testing other software until I find one that I'm totally happy with.

Another ebook headache -- I've not been able to buy any books from my preferred vendor, Fictionwise. They are waiting for their distributor, Ingram, to iron out the agency-model pricing with the publishing houses. There goes the idea of acquiring books from a single place as I've not been able to buy a book for two months nor download some of my purchased books. In the meantime, I'm buying from other vendors. I still need to read and am no longer purchasing physical books.

Regardless, the books I buy belong to me. I do not want to be locked down on which device or format I'll be reading my books. Nor do I want a vendor to control where I get my books and where I can read them either. I'll be de-DRMing all my books so I can convert them into any format to read on any device I want.

This customer is QUEEN!

My new adventure is working with Calibre, library management software, to load and convert my ebooks that are constantly growing. I also need to figure out what device has what :)

Bon Jovi, I and 64,000+ Others

I got hooked on going to see Bon Jovi when I got free tickets to his HAVE A NICE DAY tour in 2006. This will be the third concert of his I've gone to. The second one was the free concert he did at Central Park last summer.

We headed to the new stadium as soon as Pointy got home. Lots got there before us as we wound up in Lot K when I wanted to be in A-E. As we walked to the stadium entrance, the skies decided to open up. Lucky, I made sure we had rain gear with us. It delayed the start of the concert as Meadowlands Stadium did not want anyone to get struck by lightning. In the meantime, Pointy and I ate our sandwich while we waited.

Lightning warnings passed, and they let Gavin DeGraw start his set at 7:20. Yes, it was still raining. Jon must have had an in with someone upstairs as it ended when Gavin's set was over. Jon and crew came out at 8:00.

Bon Jovi ended the concert with KEEPING THE FAITH and some great fireworks to end the song. I guess we made enough of an uproar for him to return to give us the last three songs. The show ended about 11:45pm.

Here's the set list:
BLOOD ON BLOOD - NEW JERSEY
WE WEREN’T BORN TO FOLLOW - THE CIRCLE
BAD NAME - SLIPPERY WHEN WET
WHOLE LOT OF LEAVIN' - LOST HIGHWAY
BORN TO BE MY BABY - NEW JERSEY
LOST HIGHWAY - LOST HIGHWAY
WE GOT IT GOING ON - LOST HIGHWAY
HAVE NICE DAY - HAVE A NICE DAY
WHEN WE WERE BEAUTIFUL - THE CIRCLE
SUPERMAN TONIGHT - THE CIRCLE
CAPTAIN CRASH - CRUSH
BAD MEDICINE W/ BAD CASE OF LOVIN YOU - NEW JERSEY
IT’S MY LIFE - CRUSH
LOVES THE ONLY RULE - THE CIRCLE
LAY YOUR HANDS ON ME - Cross Road
MAKE A MEMORY - LOST HIGHWAY
BED OF ROSES - KEEP THE FAITH
NEVER SAY GOODBYE - SLIPPERY WHEN WET
SOMETHING FOR THE PAIN - THESE DAYS
SATURDAY NIGHT - Cross Road
SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD - KEEP THE FAITH
WORK FOR THE WORKING MAN - THE CIRCLE
WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T GO HOME - HAVE A NICE DAY
KEEP THE FAITH - KEEP THE FAITH
ALWAYS - Cross Road
WANTED - Cross Road
LIVIN' ON A PRAYER - SLIPPERY WHEN WET

Observations:
* Poor deer got hit :( (It was still there the next day when I drove into the city.)
* Men really do go on the side of the road.
* Some tailgaters were taking up multiple parking spots.
* Males were coming out of the bushes. Guess they couldn't wait on the Porta-Johns lines.
* Why? Why did they have more Male checker lines than Female checker lines?
* I did not have to use the plastic bottle caps in my pocket.
* Pointy wonders why new toilets did not have sensors but the faucets did?
* The Droid Incredible has an amazing camera. The fuzzy pics were from Olympus camera which I forgot to fully charge. The rest of the pics are from the Incredible.

Judy, next time, remember to bring the extra poncho and possibly a towel to wipe the seats dry.

Here are the pics from Bon Jovi The Circle Tour concert if you interested.

New Phone, Current Plan - I WIN :D

I was scared. I thought I had to change my mobile plan.

I took the plunge and got the Droid Incredible. When I was completing the online "paperwork" to switch my phone, it told me I had to add a data plan. No data plan, no phone order. The thing is my current phone plan has the data part in it already. Was the company going to add an additional charge to my current plan. This would mean I would be charge for data access twice. Would it mean I would have to change my current phone plan, too?

The online chat rep came on and asked if "it" could help. I asked it my question and it said "Yes". I would need to change my plan as my current plan is no longer offered. Okay. I want the new phone so I'll change my phone plan, too. The online "paperwork" would not let me change my phone plan and phone at the same time. What numb skull thought of this great idea? I would need to submit two different orders.

Well, whatever numb skull it was, you have my gratitude.

I was going to submit another order to change my phone plan, but I was unsure whether I needed to do it immediately. I still had to wait for the ship of the Droid and my Palm Centro still needed the current plan. If I did submit the order, when would Verizon make the change? I hate bills that contain pro-rate charges.

I decided to wait until I got my new mobile bill. I did not get charged the extra data plan! I still have my current plan! Someone in the back office, or else smart programming, figured out my current plan has the data part in it and did not need another data plan added to my account.

Why am I so happy?

My current plan is cheaper than the new stuff. It would have cost me $10.00 more a month if I switched my plan.

New phone, current plan -- I WIN :D