I’ve got a lot of little projects cooking right now, and today is my day to play catch-up. Before I give you a rundown of today’s schedule and the varied projects I’m juggling, let me give you a peek at my weekend.
Yesterday I took the day off — not such a bad idea considering it was Saturday. In the morning, Lynn and I took a hellacious ride on our mountain bikes. Hellacious not because of the technical difficulty of the ride, but because of the hill we climbed to get back home: one mile uphill at about a 7% grade is enough to make anyone’s calves just about burst. It was also my first time out with my new biking shoes that click into the pedals. And yes, I fell over, not once, but twice. I’m really looking forward to my first endo on Meadows.
After one of Lynn’s wonderful veggie wraps for lunch, I headed to the Apple Store in Irvine for an iPhone workshop. This is the more basic of the two workshops the store gives on iPhones, so I didn’t expect much, but I was curious to see if there was some hidden features I haven’t stumbled across.
There were about ten people attending, as the 20-something Apple employee gave his tour. As expected, it was pretty basic. Most of the attendees were about 15-20 years older than me (and I’m no spring chick), and were really struggling with the most basic concepts. I did, however, learn a couple of new things.
First, when viewing wide-screen videos, you can double-tap the video to fill the screen. This should come in handy, especially when I’ve watching them on my TV through the A/V cables.
He also shared a great website specifically for iPhone users. AppMarks.com is optimized for display on the iPhone, and even looks much like the iPhone springboard, with links to a number of handy iPhone web apps.
Next, I learned how you can search for nearby businesses when using the map application. Simply search for a business — say Starbucks — and all the mega-corp’s nearest coffee houses will be sprinkled across your map with push-pins.
Finally, I learned how to easily type special characters like ñ, í, and ¿ — especially handy since my Spanish 2 class starts up this Tuesday. You simply hold down the key for a moment and you are presented with other variations.
I would not recommend this workshop to your average person. This is for your mom who isn’t sure how to use a mouse. There is an advanced class next weekend. If time permits, I’ll see if its any juicier.
After the workshop, I caught the end of the Packers-Seahawks game in Green Bay. When I left for the workshop, the game had just started, and the field was dry. When I got back, it was the third quarter and there was about four inches of snow on the field. Awesome for the unpredictable nature of football in snow, and for the fact that Green Bay won.
Although I really don’t like the Patriots, I watched that game, too. They handily beat Jacksonville, but that was no surprise.
Finally, I hooked up the Xbox 360 and practiced my Guitar Hero licks until Lynn got home. It was fun to just play for a change. Something I probably need to do a little more often.
Now, what’s on the docket for today?
Well, there is football, although I will be working on my laptop. I’ll post a list of the projects next.
A couple years ago I helped build this site for researchers at Yale studying the effectiveness of various “get out the vote” efforts. Scott Beauchamp (a colleague from my Winfire days) dropped me a note yesterday saying the site was linked in a couple of places from a great article on Slate discussing the contrasting responses from McCain’s well-known robo-calls and Obama’s extensive use of text messages. 
