Found it on sale at buy.com via bensbargains.net
Shipped and arrived within 2 days - free shipping too!
It's a nice upgrade from my Logitech VX Revolution (the notebook version). I found it pretty annoying to have to change batteries every month or so.
I never have and will always refuse to install any kind of firmware (unless I couldn't find a way around it). The mouse out of the package works but some of the cool buttons (the search button and the thumb wheel) are rendered useless.
Found two pages on the interweb for a better alternative than the Logitech software:
Logitech MX Revolution + OS X Leopard
Getting Logitech’s MX Revolution to Play Nice with Mac OSX
They both pointed at a driver called SteerMouse - which I promptly downloaded and installed.
After the restart I mapped the thumbwheel to activate Expose when I scroll down and show desktop when I scroll up (two things I use pretty often - saves me the energy of moving the mouse to the corners)
Pretty cool: clicking on the scroll wheel toggles the free flow scrolling and micro precision scrolling
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Egypt - Day 4: The Luxor Roundabout
It was pretty dark out and we didn't get to see where we were riding through until the sun came up:
The train arrived crazy early. We thought we were getting good at haggling - talked the taxi down to LE20 from LE40. "We wuz robbed" - the ride was about 4 minutes and probably should have been LE10. We got dropped off at the Old Winter Garden. The front desk at there sent us down to the New Winter Garden (down side stairs then long hall way). Our room was not ready yet (obviously) I asked the clerk to hook us up with a driver to tour around the west bank - he made a few calls and got us one at 8:00AM (it was about 7AM then).
Gim passed out in the lobby when I went to get coffee:
Driving through the countryside:
First stop: Valley of the Kings
Lots of kings were buried here in tombs within this huge valley. The most famous one is Tutankhamen (King Tut) - whose tomb we didn't go to because of the extra cost AND we already saw the content in the museum. The temperature is around 90s to 100 and the sun was blazing by the time we got here.
Entrances were built for tourism. All the tombs are accessed via stair ways like this. Inside the tomb: hot, humid; years and years of built up tourist body odor. Being down there made the outside 100 degree air feel cool.
Here's what it looks like inside:
Funny story: there's a "guardian" sitting inside each level of each tomb. They're there to make sure everything is OK and no one is taking pictures. Me being the rebel that I am took videos. At the second tomb we went to, one of the guardians crept up behind me and snatched my camera. I begged and pleaded to get my camera back. He kept telling me in that if he told the tourist police upstairs/outside, it'll cost LE1000 to get my camera back. After following him in circles walking around, I finally realized that he wanted some money. I slipped a folded LE100 bill in my palm, held it up so he can see it and shook his hand. He was avoiding my hand until the room was cleared. I got my camera back and learned two lessons: don't get caught and bribe your way out.
Second stop: Deir el-Bahri (Temple of Hatshepsut)
Giant temple, massive tourists, blazing sun
Third stop: Alabaster Factory
There are tons of these along the way. The tour guides / drivers get a cut of the sale somehow. The prices are OK and you get a little show of how everything is made. We didn't get much because we knew we can probably get it cheaper at the market in Cairo.
Fourth stop: Colossi of Memnon
Just two gigantic statues here. There's a platform kind of deal where most of the tourists take pictures. There are also stairs going down to where the statues are. Most people didn't bother going down and up to the statues. No I says George! It smelled like dog shit down there.
It was about 12:30-1PM. We got some food and went back to the hotel.
Our room was ready by then and they told us to go through the back door to get to where our room is. So... we got bumped from the poshy victorian style Old Winter Palace to the hotelish New Winter Palace to the motelish Winter Palace Pavillion.
BTW, the place insisted that they didn't get their money from Travelocity.com and didn't believe the printout I showed them saying I did. I reluctantly gave them my credit card and they charged it. The rate they charged me was cheaper than what I paid via Travelocity. I'm still trying to get my money back from Travelocity.
Check out my picture set on Luxor, Egypt
The train arrived crazy early. We thought we were getting good at haggling - talked the taxi down to LE20 from LE40. "We wuz robbed" - the ride was about 4 minutes and probably should have been LE10. We got dropped off at the Old Winter Garden. The front desk at there sent us down to the New Winter Garden (down side stairs then long hall way). Our room was not ready yet (obviously) I asked the clerk to hook us up with a driver to tour around the west bank - he made a few calls and got us one at 8:00AM (it was about 7AM then).
Gim passed out in the lobby when I went to get coffee:
Driving through the countryside:
First stop: Valley of the Kings
Lots of kings were buried here in tombs within this huge valley. The most famous one is Tutankhamen (King Tut) - whose tomb we didn't go to because of the extra cost AND we already saw the content in the museum. The temperature is around 90s to 100 and the sun was blazing by the time we got here.
Entrances were built for tourism. All the tombs are accessed via stair ways like this. Inside the tomb: hot, humid; years and years of built up tourist body odor. Being down there made the outside 100 degree air feel cool.
Here's what it looks like inside:
Funny story: there's a "guardian" sitting inside each level of each tomb. They're there to make sure everything is OK and no one is taking pictures. Me being the rebel that I am took videos. At the second tomb we went to, one of the guardians crept up behind me and snatched my camera. I begged and pleaded to get my camera back. He kept telling me in that if he told the tourist police upstairs/outside, it'll cost LE1000 to get my camera back. After following him in circles walking around, I finally realized that he wanted some money. I slipped a folded LE100 bill in my palm, held it up so he can see it and shook his hand. He was avoiding my hand until the room was cleared. I got my camera back and learned two lessons: don't get caught and bribe your way out.
Second stop: Deir el-Bahri (Temple of Hatshepsut)
Giant temple, massive tourists, blazing sun
Third stop: Alabaster Factory
There are tons of these along the way. The tour guides / drivers get a cut of the sale somehow. The prices are OK and you get a little show of how everything is made. We didn't get much because we knew we can probably get it cheaper at the market in Cairo.
Fourth stop: Colossi of Memnon
Just two gigantic statues here. There's a platform kind of deal where most of the tourists take pictures. There are also stairs going down to where the statues are. Most people didn't bother going down and up to the statues. No I says George! It smelled like dog shit down there.
It was about 12:30-1PM. We got some food and went back to the hotel.
Our room was ready by then and they told us to go through the back door to get to where our room is. So... we got bumped from the poshy victorian style Old Winter Palace to the hotelish New Winter Palace to the motelish Winter Palace Pavillion.
BTW, the place insisted that they didn't get their money from Travelocity.com and didn't believe the printout I showed them saying I did. I reluctantly gave them my credit card and they charged it. The rate they charged me was cheaper than what I paid via Travelocity. I'm still trying to get my money back from Travelocity.
Check out my picture set on Luxor, Egypt
Friday, May 16, 2008
Karma?
it's a known fact: parking in new york city is cutthroat.
it's gotten worst since gas prices have sky rocketed. it now cost more to drive around aimlessly looking for a spot that's not on the street cleaning side the next day. parking on the alternate day street cleaning side means car-sitting for 1.5 hours in the morning.
less know fact: people drive away mostly at the quarters of the hour. i've studied this (while waiting in the car for a spot).
yesterday: at around 10:01PM, after i sat around for 7 minutes, i decided to go around the block. when i made a circle around 23rd and got back to my block on 24th, i saw a car leaving. i put the pedal to the floor and raced up the block to each it. i saw a guy running to his car. i chuckled and said haha not fast enough. as i'm grabbing my bag from the trunk, after i parked, the trunk door comes down and chops me on my right tempo.
still hurts.
it's gotten worst since gas prices have sky rocketed. it now cost more to drive around aimlessly looking for a spot that's not on the street cleaning side the next day. parking on the alternate day street cleaning side means car-sitting for 1.5 hours in the morning.
less know fact: people drive away mostly at the quarters of the hour. i've studied this (while waiting in the car for a spot).
yesterday: at around 10:01PM, after i sat around for 7 minutes, i decided to go around the block. when i made a circle around 23rd and got back to my block on 24th, i saw a car leaving. i put the pedal to the floor and raced up the block to each it. i saw a guy running to his car. i chuckled and said haha not fast enough. as i'm grabbing my bag from the trunk, after i parked, the trunk door comes down and chops me on my right tempo.
still hurts.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Egypt - Day 3: Day at the Museum + Night on the Train
Egyptian Museum in Cairo - most of the stuff found in the tombs are in here.
Various statues outside. Chock full of tourists.
LE 50 to get in.
Candid shot of the inside. Like most of the sites - no photo.
Lots of statues, coffins, etc. from the various dynasties. It's pretty cool to see how things, especially the designs and material evolved throughout the years.
There were even some Roman inspired ones!
Royal Mummies Exhibit
LE 100 extra to see the mummies. We ran out of cash and had to go to the ATM at the Hilton near the museum to get money. There are about 10 mummies of various Pharaohs in glass cases in a dimly lit room. Most of them had only their heads to shoulders exposed. The rest of the body was wrapped. A few was totally wrapped.
The one I really wanted to see was the pharaoh that was mummified on the battlefield - with a gash on the head and a broken wrist (last in the video)
Sleeping train to Luxor
Train leaves from the Giza station at 8:10PM. After a crazy but fun taxi ride through the city of Giza (which is a lot more modern than Cairo), we arrived at the station. The train was 30 minutes late. A couple of second class train passed by, it looked horrible to be in it: no light, windows open.
The dinner they served us was horrible. Dried, over cooked, etc. They had a notice telling us that there's belly dancing at the Club Cart after dinner. We went after dinner - no dancer. Big surprise. Got myself a Johnny Black. The guy poured me 3 cap full. LE 50 for 3 caps. When I ordered a second one, the same guy insisted on pouring for me again, telling the bartender who came later to step aside. I think he made a mistake pouring so little the first time and had to continue the charade.
The steward woke us up around 4:30AM for a breakfast of bread, bread and bread (3 different kinds) with jam, butter and cheese.
The train arrived at Luxor at around 6:30AM.
Check out my picture set on Cairo, Egypt
Various statues outside. Chock full of tourists.
LE 50 to get in.
Candid shot of the inside. Like most of the sites - no photo.
Lots of statues, coffins, etc. from the various dynasties. It's pretty cool to see how things, especially the designs and material evolved throughout the years.
There were even some Roman inspired ones!
Royal Mummies Exhibit
LE 100 extra to see the mummies. We ran out of cash and had to go to the ATM at the Hilton near the museum to get money. There are about 10 mummies of various Pharaohs in glass cases in a dimly lit room. Most of them had only their heads to shoulders exposed. The rest of the body was wrapped. A few was totally wrapped.
The one I really wanted to see was the pharaoh that was mummified on the battlefield - with a gash on the head and a broken wrist (last in the video)
Sleeping train to Luxor
Train leaves from the Giza station at 8:10PM. After a crazy but fun taxi ride through the city of Giza (which is a lot more modern than Cairo), we arrived at the station. The train was 30 minutes late. A couple of second class train passed by, it looked horrible to be in it: no light, windows open.
The dinner they served us was horrible. Dried, over cooked, etc. They had a notice telling us that there's belly dancing at the Club Cart after dinner. We went after dinner - no dancer. Big surprise. Got myself a Johnny Black. The guy poured me 3 cap full. LE 50 for 3 caps. When I ordered a second one, the same guy insisted on pouring for me again, telling the bartender who came later to step aside. I think he made a mistake pouring so little the first time and had to continue the charade.
The steward woke us up around 4:30AM for a breakfast of bread, bread and bread (3 different kinds) with jam, butter and cheese.
The train arrived at Luxor at around 6:30AM.
Check out my picture set on Cairo, Egypt
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Egypt - Food: Part 4: Street Food
Kushari
More at the food blog: Egypt - Food: Part 4: Street Food
I guess this could be called their fast food: kushari, fool, falafel and shawarma.
Egypt - Day 2: Part 2: Saqqara, Dashur, Memphis
These 3 cities illustrate the progression of pyramid building.
We ate at a place called Saqqara Nest before arriving at the Saqqara site. This place was extra special and a tourist / tour guide favorite because it is clean. There's a government health inspector in the kitchen (Maghdi kept telling us that.) More about it here:
Food In Egypt - Part 2: Standard Fare et al
Food In Egypt - Part 1: Bread and Salad
Saqqara - Large city of tombs. It's cool to see that they're still excavating.
Highlight: Step Pyramid
Dashur - Black Pyramid, Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid
Black Pyramid - we can only see this from a distance, not quite a pyramid yet.
Bent Pyramid - they deemed this unsafe and closed it to tourists a couple of years ago. they were still playing with the angles and decided they had to make it less steep half way.
Red Pyramid - the one that was built before the pyramids at giza. this is the one we went inside of. check out the path of stairs leading up to the tiny entrance in the middle.
Climbing the outside of the pyramid. I fast forwarded the first part because it's pretty boring, the 2nd half shows you how tiny the entrance to the inside is. Yes, that IS me running out of breath after climbing those stairs. Of course, the 'guardian' disregards the giant "No Photo" sign for some 'bakesh'
On the way down the long, dark and narrow pathway and the chambers inside the pyramid. Not much inside as I had expected due to grave robbers back in ancient times. Even if there were stuff in there, it'd probably be sitting in the museum.
Now we know why the locals gave us that reaction when we said we want to go in. Your knees AND back need to be bent the whole way down. I'm sure glad we didn't go in Giza, where there's a lot more people and you can't go at your own speed. We blazed down that hatch. Coming back up, not so much... my knees started to hurt and buckle.
It disgusted me to find garbage inside the pyramid. How hard is it to bring the empty water bottles back up with you!?
Memphis - bunch of statues. We had about 10 minutes to look at everything because they close at 4PM and we got there at 3:45PM.
The other Sphinx
Statue of Ramsis II and a 'guardian' looking for bakesh.
Check out my picture set on Cairo, Egypt
We ate at a place called Saqqara Nest before arriving at the Saqqara site. This place was extra special and a tourist / tour guide favorite because it is clean. There's a government health inspector in the kitchen (Maghdi kept telling us that.) More about it here:
Food In Egypt - Part 2: Standard Fare et al
Food In Egypt - Part 1: Bread and Salad
Saqqara - Large city of tombs. It's cool to see that they're still excavating.
Highlight: Step Pyramid
Dashur - Black Pyramid, Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid
Black Pyramid - we can only see this from a distance, not quite a pyramid yet.
Bent Pyramid - they deemed this unsafe and closed it to tourists a couple of years ago. they were still playing with the angles and decided they had to make it less steep half way.
Red Pyramid - the one that was built before the pyramids at giza. this is the one we went inside of. check out the path of stairs leading up to the tiny entrance in the middle.
Climbing the outside of the pyramid. I fast forwarded the first part because it's pretty boring, the 2nd half shows you how tiny the entrance to the inside is. Yes, that IS me running out of breath after climbing those stairs. Of course, the 'guardian' disregards the giant "No Photo" sign for some 'bakesh'
On the way down the long, dark and narrow pathway and the chambers inside the pyramid. Not much inside as I had expected due to grave robbers back in ancient times. Even if there were stuff in there, it'd probably be sitting in the museum.
Now we know why the locals gave us that reaction when we said we want to go in. Your knees AND back need to be bent the whole way down. I'm sure glad we didn't go in Giza, where there's a lot more people and you can't go at your own speed. We blazed down that hatch. Coming back up, not so much... my knees started to hurt and buckle.
It disgusted me to find garbage inside the pyramid. How hard is it to bring the empty water bottles back up with you!?
Memphis - bunch of statues. We had about 10 minutes to look at everything because they close at 4PM and we got there at 3:45PM.
The other Sphinx
Statue of Ramsis II and a 'guardian' looking for bakesh.
Check out my picture set on Cairo, Egypt
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Egypt - Day 2: Part 1: Giza
Our driver Maghdi picked us up promptly at 8AM. He actually got to the hotel earlier but waited for us to eat breakfast. Breakfast wasn't bad: coffee, cereal, eggs, sausages, yogurt, bread, croissants, juices...
Maghdi says "I'm going to take you four places - Giza, Saqqara, Dashur and Memphis".
We told him we want to ride camels. He said "No problem!" and drive us to the area of staples near the pyramids (about 1 hour). There were a lot of staples there but Maghdi had his contacts. We also told him that we want to go into the great pyramid. He replied "Why? you bend and walk down a long passage and there's nothing there! - we'll go to the one on Dashur, it's part of the ticket, no pay extra".
After some slight haggling, we were on camels with a guide name Hassan and a camel boy name Ali. Hassan is more like a tour guide. Ali leads the camels on foot.
Note: What we should have done with haggling is to do it BEFORE we got on the camels. Also, we should have told them that we'll pay 1/3 of the price he offered, not 1/2.
Riding camel is an experience! They tell you to lean back while it gets on it's legs or sits. That didn't really sink in until my camel first got up and I felt like I was going to fall off. The front legs extends first, then the back legs. So when only two legs are extended, you are sitting on a slant, way off balance. On top of that, camels are pretty tall.
Hassan asked us to give him LE 50 each for admission tickets. While we waited for the tickets, Gim's camel kept trying to wipe its head on my leg. It was pretty gross. It took many attempts before he actually got me... but he got me.
After riding in the desert for a bit, we came to the pyramids. Surprisingly, there weren't that many people in this part of the site. It was fenced off and can only be accessible via camels or horses. A lot of the time, it felt like we were the only ones there. There are also views that you can't get from the other side (where the tour buses would drop people off). I highly recommend doing the camel tour (but of course, haggle and pay less). We told Hassan we want to go into the pyramid. He pretty much gave us the same reply as Maghdi and told us to go to Dashur. There must be a reason why the locals say this...
"You happy? I'm happy." and "High Ho Silver!" are the memorable quotes from Mr. Hassan. He took us to good spots for photos and made us pose. The spots were nice but the poses were mostly corny (above).
The guide books did say that you can't climb the pyramids. There was also a reason why Hassan kept giving all the tourist police around "hand shakes". We both got to climb the Pyramid of Khefre (the 2nd biggest one, with dome on top). These things are MASSIVE! I'm still in awe of how these were built so long ago and are still standing.
To see the Sphinx, we had to cross over to the tourist area. It's not as close to the pyramids as I thought. Hassan's story / description of it was way off. I learned from the audio lectures that this was NOT the "face of man, body of lion, head of woman" that Hassan described it as.
I'm glad I didn't get to see the Pizza Hut and McDonald's near the sphinx I heard so much about. Sad note: dropped my nice Ray Bans in front of the Sphinx (the pair of sunglasses I picked up in Amsterdam 5 years ago).
Mr. Hassan and I in front of the staples after the pyramids. He loves America, especially the money and super especially the tip he shook us down for.
Us in the desert to the pyramids
Check out my picture set on Cairo, Egypt
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Egypt - Day 1: Cairo
We arranged with our hotel in Cairo, Hotel Longchamps, to pick us up at the airport. I was sure glad to see the driver (his name sounds like Armor All) with the sign when we came out of the gates. He told us that he stood there for 3 hours because no one told him about the delay. I Email them about our delay before the plane took off; maybe they don't check Email often or Armor All wanted to shake us down. Either way, I'm just glad he's there. Armor All works full time at the airport (he showed us his Egypt Air badge) and part time for the hotel as a tour guide / driver. He asked us the the while lines on the road is for in our country, we told him it's for lanes. He replied to that by saying the white lines in his country is for decoration only. I thought he was joking until he made his own lane by squeezing between a bus and another car. Then I noticed that everyone else was doing that. We gave him a full LE 100 (Egyptian Pound; $1 USD to LE 5.5) - LE 60 plus LE 40 tip I guess.
The hotel was located on the island called Zamalek. This is more residential and most of the ex-pats live there. It's less noisy than the hotels in downtown. It's about 5-10 minutes cab ride from downtown, depending on traffic. I highly recommend finding hotels in this area - also highly recommend Hotel Longchamps.
When we got to the hotel, we told them to get us a driver to bring us to the Giza Pyramids (this was recommended by the books and Sarah). It end up being LE 180 for the day - 4 sites. Not too bad of a rate. Our driver will pick us up at 8AM. The hotel offers free breakfast buffet.
The original plan for day 1 was to go to the Egyptian Museum that day. But with the delay (arrived at around 1PM), we bumped to day 3. For the rest of day 1, we decided to get the admin stuff out of the way: currency exchange, cigar shop (Cubans!) and check out the Kahn El-Khalili bazaar.
There were 3 currency exchange places around the hotel. We went to the first one. Got pretty good rates $1 USD to LE 5.4. With a wad of Egyptian cash, we set out to explore.
First things first... must feed!
We came across a bunch of street food stand / holes in walls. We first went to a juice shop (more on this later at the food blog) and got ourselves a cup of sugarcane juice. Then we went to a snack shot and the owner made us "fool" sandwiches and gave me samples of "tamiya" - Egyptian falafel.
After not finding the phantom cigar shop at the Semiramis Intercontinental (b00! no Cubanos while riding camels), we decided to go to Kahn El-Khalili bazaar - one of the biggest and oldest in the world. The taxi dropped us off on the dead side of the street. Found a restaurant called "Gad" and got some grub: stuffed pigeons, mixed grill and salads (more on food blog - of course).
After dinner, we took an underground tunnel to cross the street to the main market area. The tunnel smelled like urine and had a couple of bums in it. We did a quick survey of the market
and decided to come back at the end of the trip to get souvenirs. As we were heading to hail a cab, a guy approached us telling us about the spice store we were in front of. He doesn't work there but wants to give us advice. He said he wasn't going to sell us anything and proceeded to drag us to a perfume store, a clothing store, a jewelery store and a gift shop. He really didn't try to sell us anything, just gave us prices of what we should pay. By the way, his name was Mohammed, nicked named "ola". I think he makes commission if we do buy from these stores. The price he gave was a lot cheaper than what we gathered prior. Mohammed must have been drunk or high because he kept forgetting things and kept mentioning it and even brought us back to the same stores. Well, he ended us buying us sugar cane juices and getting us a cheap cab ride home. Though he did take the cab with us and felt like if we didn't fight him off (in a nice way), he would have came up to our room with us.
The hotel was located on the island called Zamalek. This is more residential and most of the ex-pats live there. It's less noisy than the hotels in downtown. It's about 5-10 minutes cab ride from downtown, depending on traffic. I highly recommend finding hotels in this area - also highly recommend Hotel Longchamps.
When we got to the hotel, we told them to get us a driver to bring us to the Giza Pyramids (this was recommended by the books and Sarah). It end up being LE 180 for the day - 4 sites. Not too bad of a rate. Our driver will pick us up at 8AM. The hotel offers free breakfast buffet.
The original plan for day 1 was to go to the Egyptian Museum that day. But with the delay (arrived at around 1PM), we bumped to day 3. For the rest of day 1, we decided to get the admin stuff out of the way: currency exchange, cigar shop (Cubans!) and check out the Kahn El-Khalili bazaar.
There were 3 currency exchange places around the hotel. We went to the first one. Got pretty good rates $1 USD to LE 5.4. With a wad of Egyptian cash, we set out to explore.
First things first... must feed!
We came across a bunch of street food stand / holes in walls. We first went to a juice shop (more on this later at the food blog) and got ourselves a cup of sugarcane juice. Then we went to a snack shot and the owner made us "fool" sandwiches and gave me samples of "tamiya" - Egyptian falafel.
After not finding the phantom cigar shop at the Semiramis Intercontinental (b00! no Cubanos while riding camels), we decided to go to Kahn El-Khalili bazaar - one of the biggest and oldest in the world. The taxi dropped us off on the dead side of the street. Found a restaurant called "Gad" and got some grub: stuffed pigeons, mixed grill and salads (more on food blog - of course).
After dinner, we took an underground tunnel to cross the street to the main market area. The tunnel smelled like urine and had a couple of bums in it. We did a quick survey of the market
and decided to come back at the end of the trip to get souvenirs. As we were heading to hail a cab, a guy approached us telling us about the spice store we were in front of. He doesn't work there but wants to give us advice. He said he wasn't going to sell us anything and proceeded to drag us to a perfume store, a clothing store, a jewelery store and a gift shop. He really didn't try to sell us anything, just gave us prices of what we should pay. By the way, his name was Mohammed, nicked named "ola". I think he makes commission if we do buy from these stores. The price he gave was a lot cheaper than what we gathered prior. Mohammed must have been drunk or high because he kept forgetting things and kept mentioning it and even brought us back to the same stores. Well, he ended us buying us sugar cane juices and getting us a cheap cab ride home. Though he did take the cab with us and felt like if we didn't fight him off (in a nice way), he would have came up to our room with us.
Egypt - Day 0: Minor Bump
It was way past boarding time and we weren't on the plane yet. The only explanation we got was "there's a security check". After an hour past the departure time, they announced that we're getting vouchers for food and refreshment.
Gim did some numbers and broke the vouchers down to at a delay of at least 2 more hours. We also noticed that the plane that was parked at the gate disappeared - they must do the "security check" away from the gates.
Around 2.5 hours, one $10 voucher that only works at the wok & roll, one long line and a box of disgusting fake Chinese food later, they opened a line to the shuttle. After that line, we got on one of the last shuttles - we decided to wait in the terminal instead of maybe the plane. The shuttle dropped us off in the middle of the airfield, next to our plane. Luggages were sprawled across the tarmac. We were told, 5 at a time, to look for our luggage, "finger it and wave". How hard could looking for 2 black duffle bags be in the dimly lit airfield? We got lucky and saw ours right away.
It wasn't just our flight that was on the tacmac with luggages sprawled out. There was Emirates air. Egyptian Air, Emirates Air... see a trend?
It'll be too easy to end the story here.
When we got on the plane, a middle age Egyptian couple try to scam Gim's seat (At check in, I asked for an aisle seat, Gim the one next to it.)
The wife was occupying 34F (Gim's seat). We triple checked the ticket and told her that she was in the wrong seat (this is the AC bus incident all over again.) She points to her husband who was sitting behind her and he kept insisting that there was a mistake and it was the correct seat. He insist that the airline double booked and they were both printed the same seat number (I mean.. seriously?! at this day and age, I highly doubt computers make mistakes like that.) We asked to see their ticket, they kept pointing in circles. We grabbed steward and the couple finally produced a ticket that was a seat over (both middle, non aisle seats). She got up and moved over. Seating problem over. Nope! They gave an extra effort to make up 3 different stories at 15 minute intervals to get us to give up our seats for non aisle seats that would seat us apart.
They ended up finding seats elsewhere and an elderly couple ended up next to us.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Tech: Wayne's hard drive crashed + Importance of Backup
Wayne has one of these here Lenovo ThinkPads. Which one? I'm not sure. It has a 15 inch screen and doesn't double as a heating pad like my MacBook Pro.
As much as I like to point at his blue screen and laugh while shaking my head once every 2 weeks, THIS IS NOT FUNNY. Like most paranoid tech (or used to be tech) people, I'm sure he constantly saves while typing. OS crashes are recoverable - if he's consistently hitting CTRL + S all the time (who doesn't right?), the most you'll lose is that couple of seconds / minutes of data. A Hard drive crash is another story. Data is a lot harder to recover.
That totally blows. Wayne is the shiny head of this outfit - lots of important data.
Time to upgrade to a Mac or XP (he was using Vista - and IMHO the hardware couldn't handle it).
This episode reminds me of the importance of back up. I should really be backing my data up more often. I do have that extra layer of protection because most of my important stuff sits in a repository somewhere else as well as several iterations across our servers (production, staging, devs, etc.). Even so, there are some files that are localized to this radiator of a laptop of mine.
Maybe it's time I upgrade to OS X Leopard + Time Machine?
Thursday, May 1, 2008
TickerHound Gets Reviewed on Mashable!
Financial Q&A Service TickerHound Launches
http://mashable.com/2008/0"Here’s what it comes down to. It’s really straightforward, actually. If you enjoy the question/answer concept popularized by Yahoo, among other online forces, TickerHound can act as a more pure, for focused engine for financial conversation."
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