For the past week I’ve been doing a lot of surfing with my iPad and, honestly, lack of Flash is not so bad. It’s not as bad as trying to surf with Netscape / Mozilla under Linux in the, say, late 90′s / early 2000′s. Always loved those sites that were “optimized” for Internet Explorer. (Read: they used non standard HTML that wouldn’t work with anything else, or, horrors, ActiveX or, as I used to call it at the time, CaptiveX.)

My favorite moment back then: hitting a web site that lectured me that I needed to install Internet Explorer to view the site. I was. From an iPaq running – wait for it – Internet Explorer. Epic fail.

Of course back then browsing from a mobile device was a lot less than mainstream.

Which brings me to tonight’s amusing moment. Went to Ikea’s website and they had a big graphic saying I needed Flash to view that particular content and, not to worry, it was easy to install. Since I was on my iPad, by “easy” I guess they mean “impossible”. Oh well. Luckily I’m able to view much of the rest of the site… So far.

In recent months, I had thought about picking up an iPod Touch, mainly for the apps and mobile experience. Around Christmas, I had also considered a Kindle. Also, my MacBook Pro was starting to have seemingly age related issues, so I had been eyeing a net book of some kind.

When I first got my laptop, I was using it as a desktop replacement. But as time has worn on, it seems to get slower and slower. Recently, I had mainly been using it for web, notes, and email, and using a desktop for my work. As a result, a net book seemed adequate for what I needed.

When the iPad was announced, several people I know seemed underwhelmed. I on the other hand was quite excited. Here was an item that potentially could be used instead of 2 or 3 items on my wish list. Reading about the Kindle for Tablets software, and then Evernote’s plans for iPad made it even more compelling.

That left me with one remaining question and a dilemma. The question: would the onscreen keyboard be useable enough or would I have to get a hardware keyboard. (The iPhone keyboard kind of gets on my nerves, which is why I’ve stuck with my Android phone.). After reading a few reviews this week, I was happy to see that people thought the virtual keyboard was quite usable for more than casual use. Then it came down to a dilemma: get one now, or wait for the 3G model at the end of the month. Since I’ve got wifi access 95% of the places I go, and since I already have a portable 3G access point, I started thinking I would skip the internal 3G. And when I noticed that there is already one, and probably soon 2 4G networks in town, I started thinking the cost benefit wasn’t there. Not to mention I was getting impatient.

So last night I went to the Galleria. They were running low on iPads, and only had the 64G model. That was fine, as I had a lot of data to carry around and had planned on the 32G model anyway.

I didn’t open the box until 11 pm, and by the time I updated my laptop to the latest iTunes, downloaded music, photos, and a few free apps, it was 4 am by the time I went to bed.

But here I am In the afternoon and I haven’t cracked open my laptop yet this morning. Just have a few items to sort out. But otherwise I’ve surfing, listening to music, and now twittering (using AOL Lifestream) and posting to my blog (using the WordPress client) for the first time in months.

Google Latitude

Lawrence Marshall dealership closes (Hempstead TX)

Where Innovation Lives by @timoreilly

Selfish Adults ‘Damage Childhood’ via @MarkLittlewood via @timoreilly

Danger of being over- and under-qualified via @brooksbayne

AT&T cuts cable, cell data down (in Texas); I know my mom & wife had issues with their iPhones… w00t!

Mashup of Houston data via @marc1919

Info on RSS-Data via @davewiner (from 2003); relevant to open data(bases)?

No new deals via @reasonmag

TED-related links:

DBpedia vs Freebase (Tim Berners Lee was promoting the former) via @timoreilly; his presentation

Science data: Google vs Amazon (via @timoreilly again)

Knowledge is Power Program (college prep schools focused on underserved communities)

Then last spring, I got a lot busier. I didn’t sleep as regularly. I stopped all walking. (Which had already tapered off around the time our daughter was born.) I started eating a lot more poorly.

So here I am, at the beginning of 2009, almost 20 pounds heavier than I was a year ago. Ugh! I’m not getting any younger, and I’m feeling the weight, even though I’m not nearly as heavy as I was 4 years ago. So, in commemoration of Groundhog Day, I’m starting a new stage of healthfulness. Like before, my goal is slow & steady. Eating right, a little activity. Nothing drastic. Just consistency. Every day.

Or maybe I’ll start wishing people Happy Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious…  (Seen way too much Mary Poppins recently.)

Oh wait, that’s the ingredient list.

But I’m intrigued. Mechanically separated turkey? That sounds deliciously… gruesome. Do they mechanically separate the turkey while it’s still alive? Because that would be so cool. Kind of like a horcrux in Harry Potter. You could only make one by killing a person. This is the same thing. Except substitute turkey for a person, and instead of a magical object that contains part of your soul, you have a meat product that we feed to children. Otherwise, same thing.

I wonder… maybe bologna does have magical powers… I’ll have to check that out.

I caught “Fred” (not his real name; “John” was his real name) in what I believed to be a factual lapse, so I put him on notice.

“Liar liar pants on fire.”

“No they’re not,” intoned Fred. Notice how clever he was, ignoring the lying bit & going right to the second part of the idiom.

“It’s an expression. You’re still a liar.”

“Well, it’s a very stupid expression. My pants are clearly not on fire. You just did it so you could rhyme, and as a pathetic attempt at conformity by using an old, tired saw. Why couldn’t you pick another word besides “fire”.”

“Ok”, I said, starting to get inspired. “What do you expect me to say? You have a large spare tire?” (He was a bit chubby.) “You’re a member of the Vienna Boy’s Choir? That’s kind of a stretch, in more ways than one, and breaks the cadence. How about ‘it’s so dire?’ That’s a little better. What else rhymes? Mire? Pyre? Sire? Wire? Gyre? Shire? I think I’ll stick with fire.”

“Well, it still doesn’t make sense.”

So I set his pants on fire. He never questioned my choice of idiom ever again…

I was looking at some other editors to use for development instead of Emacs.  (I’ve also toyed with the idea of going back to developing inside an IDE, like Eclipse.)  Scary thoughts just popped in my head.  I haven’t used an IDE regularly since 1995.  And as far as replacing Emacs, I’ve officially given up on that thought for good.  I’ve been using Emacs for 22 years now.  22!  Getting close to 1/4 century, man!  I should just tweak it more & be done with it.  (What’s making me realize how scary that is, one of my former coworkers was 2 or so when I started using Emacs…)

Ouch!  Pass me the ibuprofen & let me ice my wrists again…

The problem I got in to with blogging, and many many other things, I guess, is I get in this state where I feel like I’m too busy to put anything down. I mean, I don’t feel like I can do a new post justice. So I don’t bother. Or I’ll create a number of new posts, all drafts. Or, I will keep up with it, but end up giving it up because it becomes too much of a timesink.

Anyhow, my twitter account has been filling the gap. It allows me to put down random thoughts, links, etc without all that editing or worry about composing. That’s not strictly right: sometimes I go through a couple of edit cycles to fit things in the 140 character limit. Then again, brevity is not a bad thing.

Since it’s been a while since I created a full fledged post, I figured I could put down what I’ve been up to over the past month or so.

Starting on August 25th, Heather, her sister, Beatrix, and I flew to New York for the US Open. (Before we left, Heather’s sister moved her stuff out of our spare bedroom, getting ready to stay at her own place when we got back.)

Since Bea was too young, really, to watch tennis (and stay quiet), I babysat while Heather went to the tennis matches. (I like tennis, but not enough to sit through as much as she did.) I spent a lot of time with Bea, often in Flushing Meadows – Corona park, which was fun. We all got to see a lot of world class tennis (plus quite a few celebrities). We were pretty much booked the whole time, although Heather & Holly went to the Today show on Labor Day. I went in to work one morning as well.

Our friends Jackie & Paul were visiting, and arrived the day before we got back. The day we got back, one of our AC units failed. We got that all fixed, and the next weekend we traveled to Austin to attend the Austin City Limits Music Festival. I really enjoyed it, but sitting in the Texas heat for 3 days (with 60,000 friends) was quite draining.

When we got back, Heather, Beatrix, and I all came down with colds. We’ve finally shaken them.

Now you’ll have to pardon me while I go curl up in a ball and take a nice long nap.