Russellsphere

We’ve had a lovely time decompressing while Jennys Mom is looking after the kids – this is only our 3rd over night stay away from the kids in 7 years.

We arrived early in Charlotte; drove thru downtown; checked out South Park Mall (where we saw the lovely iPad – and our hotel) – we then drove to Northlake Mall to eat some Jack Daniels burgers; and hit the movies watching Inception. That was quite a film; won’t forget that one for a while! – and then drove back for some late night snacks and discussions about ‘Sugar Bears’ a very strange creature they were selling at the mall.

All in all a wonderful date – and looking forward to driving home tomorrow. I’ll be dropped off at work and Jenny will get back with the kids.

This gave us time to rest and recharge – and we enjoyed ourselves a great deal; but miss and love our kids and can’t wait to get back to them.

Now I’ve studied the weather data for Columbia, SC before – and this winter has sucked BAD – I didn’t move down here for this weather – I was expecting tropical paradise – and for the most part it is. But this winter has been nothing but; taking a look at tomorrow for example; yields the possibility of freezing rain for the entire day! How is my 90% dead Palm Tree going to react to that? Who knows – since no-one around here really comprehends what the cold is; cos it isn’t usually this cold.

At least its not as cold as Virginia – but sickeningly – ENGLAND has been warmer. Although I’m not sure how that is even remotely possible since – the latitude marks are approx 1500 miles in distance apart! – but yet that is how it is – how interesting; I’m sure Mum is loving that :-)

As you know we’ve been sick; Emily and Nick are slowly getting better; but Lola was struck today hard – spewing forth mountains of chocolate milk; its fun. Most fun.

We have a ‘spare’ PC that is kinda used as the Kids computer to surf Starfall.com and Nickjr.com – Starfall is a great one by the way. Its had various O.S’s on it; including Windows XP – which we’ve used the most. But it constantly gets attacked by Viruses; and installing the drivers are a pain.

Ubuntu has always been a great product; and I was eager to see how far it had come since my last visit to the O.S. last year. I dream of an O.S. that just installs all the drivers for you (hmm Mac O.S.!) – and you don’t have to worry.

Ubuntu 9.1 did particularly well – it has a slick interface and the kids use Firefox to interface with their online learning games.

This is a fun little program that you scan your games/movies etc – using the built in Mac iSight – and is just wildly clever; not sure youd really ever use it – but fun.

So the Google Phone finally came out today; Ive been monitoring the situation closely. I’m a little disappointed – the monthly price is a little high; and its not as revolutionary as I was hoping. However; I learned that I might get a special price for it; due to my T-Mobile contract expiring in 3 months. In any case; I was hoping for me. I’m not like; suicidal; closeish – it coulda been a lot better; there always my Blackberry – which is falling apart; and I managed to split it in two today; bet you can’t do that with a Nexus One.

Last month – a really; really clever marketing campaign was released against AT&T from Verizon disputing their 3G coverage. Whether true or not; the Ad campaigns always gave me a chuckle. Its pertinent to me; because in March I have one of the biggest decisions of my life coming up. – What Smartphone will I own next? Will I stick with Blackberry? – Perhaps the new Google Nexus One? Only time will tell.

In any case; the marketing campaign spawned one of my favorite Ads ever; it is SUPER clever; and i’ll be watching it over and over again :-)

Chrome is a fantastic web browser – and I am so pleased it is finally available for the Mac – there was a hack that could get you the older version – but this is more legit – and not buggy. It is a very fast browsing experience – and I’ll be converting all our Macs to Chrome – Jenny will have no say in the matter :-)