Vacation

Yesterday was my last day at work before going on vacation. It's hard to believe I won't have to work for 3 entire weeks. Work has been really crazy because of the manning. We don't have nearly enough people. My boss has hired 2 new subs that he hopes will complete training by the time I get back. 2 new people would be a big help. Working 6 days a week, week after week really wears you out.

In regards to my vacation, it's hard to believe I'll be in Ireland in a few days. I've looked forward to going for months. It should be an awesome trip that will create memories that will last a long time. My Ireland trip won't be the end of my adventures as I plan to see my Dad in Michigan once I get back from Ireland. I haven't seen him in a year and a half so I owe him a visit. I'm planning some special things while I'm there like visiting Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum. I remember seeing the museum as a kid. It was impressive. Also, I look forward to enjoying some White Castle hamburgers. My Dad calls them gut busters. I think their fun because you can stack them.

So my readers, stay tuned for some hopefully interesting posts over the next 3 weeks. I plan to see and do a lot of new and cool things. Cheers all!

Surprise

May of last year, I decided to buy myself a new Dell laptop. I couldn't extend the warranty anymore on the Dell laptop I owned and, I was concerned that it would eventually kick the bucket and possibly cost me a number of files I wanted to keep. When I received my laptop, I found out the Dell salesperson was mistaken about me being able to use my old Sprint cellular modem. It wouldn't fit into the card slot the laptop has as its made for cards with 28 pins and my card has 54. I looked into the various cellular modems Sprint offered and the U300 stood out. It was their latest and greatest. It was the wave of the future and offered the technology that Sprint would be going to eventually. I liked that as that meant I wouldn't have to buy another modem in the future. The biggest plus for the U300 was it offered WiFi like connection speeds in markets where the Sprint cellular system had been upgraded. The sounded really cool and, the modem uses a USB port. I decided to buy it.

Once I received the modem, I promptly installed the software as the manual said. It was then that I ran into problems. There was clearly some kind of problem. I contacted Sprint and, they tried to help me solve the connection problem with the new modem. I ended up going to the Sprint store in Laurel where they tried to help me to no avail. It turned out the WiFi like technology in the modem had a major conflict with the WiFi technology in my laptop. The conflict was preventing the modem from connecting to the Internet.

My old laptop didn't come with WiFi. When WiFi became more widely available, I decided to try it and bought a card that would enable me to connect to it. The necessary software came with the card and, both worked really well. I was seriously impressed with the connection speeds I was able to get. It turned out the fact my old laptop didn't have WiFi built in was a blessing as I was able to uninstall the software enabling my new U300 modem to work. Unfortunately, the WiFi was built-in on my laptop. I decided to keep on using the old laptop and figured I'd take the modem and new laptop to Best Buy's computer wizards sometime and get them to fix the problem. I suspected they would have to disable the built-in WiFi.

Around Christmas 2009, Sprint came out with a major upgrade for the U300 software. I downloaded the software to disc which turned out to be a very good move. I hadn't taken my laptop to Best Buy yet and, I planned to install the upgrade on my laptop though I didn't think the upgrade would make any difference so I didn't install it immediately. Forward to this month, my trip to Ireland is coming up and, the trip would be an excellent time to take the new laptop and modem to Best Buy to get them to fix the problem. Why? Because I won't be able to access the Internet on my laptop there so I'll be leaving it behind. I figured 2 weeks would be plenty of time for them to fix the problem. In anticipation of taking the laptop to Best Buy, I installed the upgrade. To my total surprise, my new (now 1 year old) laptop promptly connected to the Internet! Apparently, Sprint did find a way to make the WiFi technology in their new modem compatible with existing WiFi. The upgrade gives the U300 user the choice of connecting to a WiFi network or connecting to Sprint's network. It even locates the closest WiFi signals and shows how strong their coming in so the user can presumably pick the best WiFi signal. I hope to test the WiFi part of the software some time. I remember Serotonin saying Panera offers free WiFi access. I've been meaning to try out one of their restaurants and, that would give me a chance to see how well the WiFi works. We'll see on that. For now, I'm finally getting to use my super duper speed machine laptop and access the Internet. It may be just in time too as my old laptop is showing signs that it may be going just as I feared it would. Cheers all!

Medical Hair Restoration Clinic Closes

When I visited the Medical Hair Restoration clinic in Chevy Chase, Maryland this month, Dr. Varona said the clinic would be moving to new offices not far from their present location. It turns out that wasn't the actual situation. The company Medical Hair Restoration was bought by the company Aderans in 2007. Aderans also owns the company Bosley which also specializes in hair restoration. This year, Aderans decided to combine the 2 companies in order to get various efficiencies and streamline their operations. Example: instead of having a Medical Hair Restoration clinic and a Bosley clinic the Washington D.C. area, they would have just one clinic. Also, Aderan decided to go with the Bosley brand though I confess I never heard of that brand. I guess they thought it had better recognition. Anyway, all Medical Hair Restoration clinics will be closing the end of this month and, their patients will be moved to the closest Bosley clinics. I'm saddened that the Medical Hair Restoration clinics will be closing as I've been very pleased with them. I know nothing of the Bosley clinics though I'll find out next year at the latest when I have to get my Propecia prescription renewed. That's when I will meet my new doctor Dr. Peter Morse. I may take a trip to the Bosley clinic later this year to get some of their shampoo which supposedly helps remove DHT. DHT is the hormone that causes hair loss. The shampoo might be helpful plus, I'd like to see their offices so I know where to get my prescription renewed. We'll see. That's all for this update.

Marine War Memorial

This is a photo I took of the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial next to Arlington National Cemetary. The memorial is a statue version of the famous Joseph Rosenthal photo of marines and a navy medic raising the flag at Iwo Jima during World War II. I got to see this great memorial for the first time during the Historic U.S. East tour I took with Globus last July. Due to the low light of my first visit, I didn't take any pictures of the memorial then. On November 1, 2009, I returned to Arlington so I could take some pictures of this memorial and visit the famous Tomb of the Unknowns which we didn't have time to see during the tour. This photo was taken then. Due to the cloudy conditions of the time, I did use Corel Photo Album 7 to lighten the picture to the one you see. I think it improved the picture. Concerning the memorial itself, I found it very impressive and moving. It is definitely worth seeing. Also, it is a fitting tribute to all Marines. Semper Fi to any Marine readers I might have. Cheers all!

Prescription Renewal

This past Monday, I made me yearly trip to the Medical Hair Restoration Clinic in Chevy Chase, Maryland. I needed to see Dr. Jonathon Ballon to get my Propecia prescription renewed. Propecia is a hormonal drug which blocks a certain male hormone that affects the hair follicles on men's heads. By blocking the release of a certain hormone (I don't remember its name), the hair follicles stay active and, men taking the drug are able to stop going bald as in my case. According to the folks at the clinic, the drug is 90% effective of those who take it. The drug does have one potential bad side effect in that in 1 of 250 cases, the man taking the drug will lose the ability to perform sexually. However, if that happens, I think you can take another drug (Viagra?) for that.

Anyway, I called the clinic for an appointment and found out Dr. Ballon is no longer with Medical Hair Restoration. I don't know why he left though I was saddened to hear he did. He was a very nice doctor and easy to work with. Dr. Christopher Varona has taken over for him at the clinic. Dr. Varona was kind enough to fit me into his schedule. My appointment was at 2 p.m. though I showed up early. I left early to make sure I made my appointment. I wasn't sure how long it would take me to reach the clinic. You can never be too sure about traffic in Washington D.C. and its outskirts. I played it safe and arrived early.

Dr. Varona reviewed my medical file and could see the Propecia was working. As I still have too much hair to need transplants (thankfully considering what that costs), all I needed was to take Propecia. He wrote me a new prescription and gave me 2 weeks worth of free samples which was really nice of him (it saved me $42). As he wasn't going to make any money off my visit, I bought some of the hair vitamins the clinic sells so I could repay him for seeing me. According to Dr. Varona, the REVVup supplement WON'T cause new hair growth but, it WILL make the hair you have healthier. We'll see. The clinic was offering a special where the vitamins were a 1/3 off which was nice.

Dr. Varona informed me that the clinic would be moving from its current location 5454 Wisconsin Avenue to a new location close by. He didn't tell me why they were moving. As long as my Garmin GPS can find the new location, I wasn't concerned. My GPS was real handy in finding the clinic.

So, I'm set for another year as far as Propecia is concerned. I found Dr. Varona very nice and look forward to meeting him again next year. That's all for this post. Cheers all!

New Digital Camcorder

I found out from Sony's website that they had a store in Annapolis Mall. I was considering buying a Sony digital camcorder but, I wanted to be able to talk with someone who was knowledgeable about the things before I bought one. I had questions like how long would the battery last? How much recording time would I get with each model? How good was the sound quality? It can be difficult to find such answers on a website. Also, I simply like dealing with a real face for something like this. Buying a camcorder was a serious purchase and, I didn't want to get it wrong.

When I walked into the Sony store, I asked where the camcorders. I was directed to a specific counter and a salesperson named Adam came over to help me. It turned out he knew his stuff. He was able to answer my questions about the different models. Also, he was able to tell me about a special financing deal Sony was offering if you bought something that cost over $299. You wouldn't pay any interest as long as you paid the item off in 12 months. Adam figured out what my payments would be for the camera, long life battery and accidental damage plan. They came out to $168 a month. I could afford that and, I shouldn't have any problem paying the camera off.

After considering all cameras and options, I went with a Sony 240 gigabyte hard drive high definition handycam. The camera offers a number of advantages. The huge hard drive means I can record up to 29 hours of high resolution video. The camera has very good low light capability. The microphone features surround sound (I believe) but if that isn't sufficient, the camera has jacks where you can connect an external microphone. The camera offers both a viewfinder and LCD for recording and, the LCD enables to play back immediately whatever you record. You can take still photos with the camera so you wouldn't need to carry 2 cameras with you on a trip. The camera is light weight wise. One really pleasant surprise that Sony offers is 1 hour of free instruction in how to use the camera. What I would do in that case is call for a training appointment and show up for it. One of their trained staff would actually teach me how to use my new camcorder. I was really pleased with this. This would ensure I know how to use my camcorder before I go on my Ireland trip where I don't want to mess up recording the various things I'll get to see.

So far, I'm pretty pleased with my purchase. Once I got home, I started charging the battery that came with the camera and the long life battery. Some time this week, I plan to take it outside and start trying to record some stuff. I might record something on my TMAX. I would be nice to able to show my Dad my bike. We'll see. Stay tuned for updates on this. Cheers all!

Journey's Edge Digital Weather Station Review

It's said you get what you pay for. I was reminded of this axiom after I got what I thought was a deal on a Journey's Edge Digital Desktop Weather Station. A seller on Ebay was offering the item for $8 including shipping. The item is supposed to give a 1 day weather forecast as well as serve as a clock and alarm clock. As I carry mail for the U. S. Postal Service, it is important to me to know what the weather is going to do so I can be prepared for it. A weather station for $8 sounded like a great deal. It turned out to be a great dud. It seems the unit is stuck on partly cloudy. It has shown partly cloudy for the last 3 weeks even when there wasn't a cloud in the sky or when it was pouring down rain. After I noticed this problem, I did a little research on the Internet and found out this was a common problem with this gadget. I could return the unit for another one BUT, considering what it cost me, I don't think it's worth the hassle. I did learn my lesson from this gadget and subsequently bought a Bushnell 5 day weather forecast unit which I'll blog about another time. For now, I'd definitely wouldn't recommend buying the Journey's Edge Digital Desktop Weather Station. In my opinion, this thing is a big time piece of cheap junk. Cheers all!