Tom's Unedited Rants

I haven't really posted much here. Ever. I signed up for Twitter a couple weeks ago & it's so easy to get out a quick note I think I'm going to do that instead. The link for my Twitter is here. Probably won't publish anything else here.

If you live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, you are probably aware that The Park at MOA, formerly Knott's Camp Snoopy, is now Nickelodeon Universe. With over $25 million in improvements there are, of course, ticket price hikes. All day wristbands and ride tickets are up 25%, but the price increase for an annual pass is 127%!!

If you are outraged by this price increase, which makes the annual pass price for Nickelodeon Universe the same as the much, much larger Disneyland & Disney World parks, here's who you can contact:

Nickelodeon Universe: 952-883-8555
Mall of America: 952-883-8800
Howard Smith, Senior Vice President, Nickelodeon Recreation: howard.smith@nick.com or 212-846-4826
Joanna Roses, Nickelodeon Public Relations: joanna.roses@nick.com or 212-846-7326

Please let them know that you would find a similar 25% increase for the annual pass, to $135, reasonable but that going to $250 like the much larger Disney parks is outrageous.

Here are some links:

Price comparisons of parks.
New Mall of America rides put an extra nick in your wallet.

I've meant to write something in here once a month, like the help column I started on MyMac.com last summer. Right now I just have too much going on, especially in the next two weeks. Katie was sick, we're painting half the inside of house, I have to trim our 8' lilacs, I still need to finish the taxes, I have to renew my Apple certifications, I need to start writing my AirPort Extreme (802.11n) review, I'm dealing with my mother's jewelry auctions, we have annual reviews at work, I have to take Benny to the vet today, Katie goes to the dentist tomorrow, I go to the doctor on Friday, I get the van's oil changed Monday morning, we have to decide what to do for Katie's day care over the summer, the phone line has been wonky (internet speed in the dumper) ever since we got a couple feet of snow... I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Fortunately there is no Planning Commission meeting next week. That was on one of the painting nights.

Superman		80%	You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.
Spider-Man		70%
Green Lantern		65%
Robin		63%
Batman		55%
The Flash		45%
Supergirl		43%
Hulk		40%
Catwoman		35%
Iron Man		30%
Wonder Woman		28%

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

The collective jaws of the technorati dropped to the floor at 9:43am PST. They're still there. The earth has moved. If the Apple iPhone is everything that was shown yesterday, Palm, Motorola, Samsung, et al, are all letting out a collective "uh oh." Probably Sprint, Verizon, Alltel, & T-Mobile too.

I'll probably never have an iPhone. I doubt I'll be able to use it on my $5/month Virgin Mobile plan, plus (since it would replace my iPod, phone, and Palm) I'd also have to be able to do my checkbook on it. It's definitely a glimpse of the future for the rest of us, though. Smartphones from all makers are about to change forever.

Scene: Sunday morning newspaper reading

Event: Benny running around the house like the crazed dog he sometimes is.

Offhand comment to my wife: "What's up his butt?"

Response from 6 year old daughter: "That's his tail, dad."

The Vikings have been so bad this year that I just haven't paid attention (been too busy to pay attention or blog too), which is a sad thing because this is the first season I've had my HDTV. Football looks pretty good in high def. I see new coach Brad Childress on the TV news. As the season has gone on, he's looked increasingly exasperated at the post game press conferences. Today the look on his face seemed to be one of a defeated man. Someone who maybe even looked like he was in over his head. Vikings management has done more to create fan apathy in the past 11 months than any time I can remember.

Maybe everything will be ok. Maybe this is just the year of tearing it all down before building it back up. Who knows? I'm certainly no football expert. I guess only time will tell.

Anyways, what does it really matter? In the big picture, who cares about the Vikings? There's certainly bigger fish to fry - in the world and at home.

Right now I am installing Norton SystemWorks 2006 on my home made PC, something I do annually with each year's upgrade and a free after rebates deal from a big box retailer. Doing the install from the CD was easy. I made sure to completely uninstall 2005 first since I had so much trouble installing it over 2004 last year. Removing 2005 with the uninstaller didn't work. I had to use Symantec's web based uninstaller of last resort, making me more glad I uninstalled Norton SystemWorks 2005 first.

Now it's installing the Norton SystemWorks 2006 updates. There are 25 MB of updates, 15.7 MB of which are virus definitions! I can't think of a single Mac anti-virus program that even approaches 15.7 MB. Not that I've bothered looking since that's an unneeded piece of software if you have a Mac...

And here's the kicker - halfway through those 25 MB of updates it quit & had to be started over. FROM THE BEGINNING! Ah, Windows...

Being a sports fan is fun, but there's something that people do that tends to annoy me a little. They talk like they are officially associated with the team in some capacity. "We need to do..." "I think we can win it all!"

My wife will tell you I can get wrapped up in sports as much as anybody, and so can she when one of our local teams is doing very well as the Minnesota Twins are currently (that's what's on our TV every night), but I always say they when I'm talking about a team, not we. I'm not on a team, I don't own a team, and I don't work for a team, so we just doesn't apply.

It doesn't bother me. It's just a comical type of annoying how people can get so wrapped up in their favorite team that they feel like they are part of it & say "we". It's funny. Sports is fun, and the word fan has its roots in the word fanatic.

I don't like politics. I've dipped my toe in politics at the local & state levels. I was naive. I was idealistic. In the end I got burned. Why? I was all about doing the right thing.

They want people who are all about winning the next election. To heck with the average citizen. "Do the best, right thing" doesn't sit well with party insiders or the old boys club. They get power hungry. All they want to do is appease the electorate as little as possible to win as much as possible. Most of them don't want the average citizen involved in the party. I sure found that out. Just try to say or follow anything other than the party line & you will be squashed like a bug. The best of them wonder why voter turnout is so low.

The insiders seem to want low turnout. Turn out the faithful & just enough regular folks to win. Play to the popular ideas, even if misguided, in election years. They will try to get laws passed, knowing that they are a bad idea, trampling on the Constitution, just because it's a popular idea that could win votes. Current examples of this are the efforts in Congress to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning & other forms of desecration, & the efforts to try to set a deadline to bring the troops home from Iraq.

This is what reminds me of how much dyed in the wool Democrats & Republicans irritate me. Don't get me wrong. I think flag burning is very disrespectful, but I find restricting freedom of speech repulsive. I may disagree with your point of view, but I respect your right to it. Even if you're a Jew hating, racist Nazi skinhead or an American hating jihadi. Just don't hurt anyone & you'll be left alone.

The fact that politics has become so annoying to most Americans has allowed the political fanatics, a minority in this country, to take it over. Hopefully the rest of us will wake up one of these days. Then maybe we'll kick the power hungry liars out & make this country a true democracy instead of an aristocratic, plutocratic oligarchy.

It kills me whenever I hear people say or news reports that state that songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store can only be played on an iPod. This is just not true! You have to jump through a couple hoops, but here's how to do it:

1. Burn purchased songs to an audio CD using iTunes.

2. Reimport them into iTunes as mp3.

3. Put on any digital music player.

By default, iTunes imports as AAC. You can change this to mp3 in the Advanced section of the iTunes preferences. It's that simple.

Boot Camp. VMWare, Parallels.  I get it now.  I understand more of what was behind Apple's switch from PowerPC to Intel last year.

With a PowerPC Mac you have Mac OS X and the ability to run older (Mac OS 9 compatible) programs in Classic mode.  With an Intel Mac you have Mac OS X and the ability to run Windows programs, either starting your Mac with Windows XP or using virtualization software.  The Trojan Horse has entered the gates of Troy.  Now what?  Only time will tell.

Yesterday Miss Emily, the preschool teacher, got a little break at story time. Katie read to the other kids! She said they were all sitting around her while she read stories. This is nothing new in our house because Katie is constantly reading books, but at preschool this is kind of a big deal because the other kids can't read like Katie. The preschool teachers are pretty amazed by how smart she is. Her kindergarten teachers are going to be blown away. I just wish she was a little less shy.

The Minnesota Twins have been trying to get a new baseball stadium for over a decade.  A plan that's been on the table for over a year now that would fund the stadium with a teeny tiny county wide sales tax will probably be going before the legislature for the second consecutive year.  It's only 2¢ on a $20 purchase.  That's not even enough to merit being called pocket change, and it STILL didn't pass last year!  What the heck?!

It doesn't help that we have a wishy washy Governor, Tim Pawlenty, who simply refuses to provide leadership on this issue.  C'mon Gov, show some kohones!  Do you want to be known as the Governor who let Major League Baseball get away?  Did no one learn the lesson taught when the North Stars moved to Dallas?  It cost a LOT more to get the Xcel Energy Center built & get the Minnesota Wild than it would have cost to keep the Minnesota North Stars.  With the sorry state that MLB is in, if the Twins leave there will probably NEVER be another team in this town.

While we're at it, let's get Gopher football back on campus.  Both the Twins & Gophers are deserving.  The Vikings are too, if only because they are the most popular team in the state, but three stadiums may be too much to swallow at once.  Maybe not, if all the development that surrounds the Northern Lights proposal in Blaine can help support the project.

I've known a few people who have worked for Northwest Airlines, which may not be around much longer if the pilots walk out this week. From my perspective, the biggest obstacle facing Northwest has been the near complete disdain the employees have for the airline. How can the pilots trust management during negotiations? I've never known a single person who was happy working there. It certainly didn't help that the mechanics union sold their members up the river. One guy I know was a mechanic. He voted not to strike and he's still out of a job. I never understood why he didn't cross the picket line until I heard the "Don't talk to that guy. He was a scab 25 years ago." story. I thought a union was supposed to support its members, not create a hostile workplace. It sucks. A great guy gets screwed by his union & his employer.

What the pilots & the airline need to realize now is if they don't come to an agreement and the pilots strike, it's over. They all lose their jobs. Top to bottom. Everyone. Both sides are far apart. Both sides need to feed, clothes, & house their families. Both sides need to swallow their pride & meet in the middle, as painful as that will be. Like Larry The Cable Guy would say, "Git 'er done!" A frightening number of people depend on it.

Pardon me while I get on my soapbox...

About two months ago, I began having trouble with my internet dialup. Slow speeds, failed connections, and dropped connections. I noticed a buzzing noise on my line & wasn't able to isolate it to something in the house like one of the phones, so I had the phone company come out to take a look.

The phone repair guy comes out and confirms that the line outside is generating a buzz, finding a couple of interesting things. One of the previous owners of my house put a cement slab patio in, partially encasing the phone line where it came out of the ground to go into the house. The line apparently was damaged during the patio install and patched up with electrical tape. Also, according to the repair guy, the lime in the cement slowly started rotting the phone line. The repair guy also said water ran out of it when he peeled back the tape (yikes!) and he was amazed that it worked at all. A couple weeks later I had a brand new line buried in my back yard.

The first day with the new line went well, but it turned out to be a good day and I was still having the same troubles to a lesser degree. I checked for the buzz again and it was still there. This past Friday I realized that I had forgotten that a phone line is also connected to my satellite TV box. Pulled it out, checked for a buzz, and it was gone! I was home free! No more internet troubles!

Not so fast... Couldn't get it to stay connected Saturday. Couldn't get it to stay connected Sunday. Same problem on all 3 of my ISP's numbers. Called my ISP this morning. They hadn't had any issues over the weekend. "Couldn't possibly" be a problem on their end. It "had to be" a problem on my end. But the same problem with multiple modems, multiple computers, multiple jacks, AND the test jack outside the house? Gee, dunno but it's "not on our end."

So I signed up for a trial account with a different ISP. Made the first connection to them over 2 1/2 hours ago. It's still up. Great speed. Rock solid. 25% less per month, too. Haven't had a connection like this since September. Two buzz fixes & an ISP switch & it's back the way it was. I hope.

Thanksgiving is next week? For the first time ever, we have barely begun our holiday shopping yet. Busy with Katie at preschool and at home. Busy with Benny training. Busy helping my mom out. Busy with everyday chores. Busy busy busy.

Halloween is unusual at our house. Katie wants to get into her costume, then she doesn't, then she does. And god forbid we actually go trick or treating! It's funny. I know it sounds like I'm bashing my daughter, but every kid has their funny quirks. We can only go to Grandma's house down the street. That's it. Nowhere else. That's ok, because she doesn't eat candy anyway & I don't need any more than I already eat.

This year wasn't as eventful as last year when we took Katie to Camp Snoopy & she got 3rd place in the costume contest with her cute witch outfit. She was JoJo from JoJo's Circus on Disney Channel this year. Just went to Grandma's house & came back. And Thanksgiving is a week from today already? I love my little girl.

It's so sad what's happened to those poor folks who didn't have the means to leave New Orleans last weekend. So many of them are dead, so many of them are still stuck in their homes waiting to be saved. And shockingly, so many of them are stubborn & won't leave! That's unbelievable. It amazes me to see video of these people sitting on the 2nd story of their homes, the 1st story filled with water to the ceiling, and they refuse to leave when rescue comes. Don't they understand how unsanitary it is?

My first impulse is to go down there to help. I wish I could be on a boat, going house to house to rescue people. I've had dreams about doing just that at night. I wish I could, but I can't because my family needs me here. It's too far away from Minnesota & I can't afford to skip work for a few weeks. Texans amaze me. When the chips are down, they always seem to be the ones who are quickest to help & do the most. They can be big talkers, but they sure can back it up. If we lived in Texas I'd definitely be helping too. It would be a lot closer & easier.

We gave money to the Red Cross, but it feels a bit inadequate. As time goes on we need to keep giving, keep helping these people. This is the first time a major American city has been destroyed since the Civil War. The scope of damage done by this hurricane is on a level not seen since Galveston, Texas in 1900. That hurricane killed over 8000 people. It looks like this will easily be the second deadliest hurricane ever to hit the USA, exceeding the 2500 plus who perished in south Florida in 1928. Most of the dead ended up that way simply because they were unable or unwilling to leave New Orleans. What I've seen on TV is unimaginable, but it's real. I can't turn it off.

My step dad is dying of cancer, our dog nipped Katie's nose, Katie starts preschool next week (which will likely result in her having a cow for awhile because of shyness & separation), & work has been crazy for both my wife & I all summer. And then there's "that other thing" that makes all of the above look like nothing. If I wrote about that my wife would have my hide. If you're family, you know what I'm referring to.

Even with all that, I've got lots of blessings to count. And I'm glad I don't live in New Orleans. Those poor people! Please help them out.

Boy, it sure has been busy in our house lately. I've been working some late nights & long hours because we have too much to do, and that makes more for Darlene to do (and she always has too much on her plate anyway). We got a dog (Benny, a one year old beagle who has quite a story of his own) on July 9th, much to the shock (not surprise - we warned her) of our dog fearing daughter & that's made life more interesting for all of us. On top of that I got a new PowerBook G4, I'll soon be getting the iMac ready to give to my mom, & new neighbors are finally moving into the vacant house next door.

Of all these things of course, Benny is what's keeping us the busiest. He's a timid little guy, which after all he's been through doesn't surprise me. Benny was picked up by animal control officers in Daviess County, Kentucky on May 13th. I wish I knew if he was abandoned or what, but we don't know that. After spending a couple weeks in the local animal shelter & not being adopted, he was saved by a woman who runs a dog rescue in southern Indiana, just across the Kentucky border. Beagles are plentiful in Kentucky & Indiana and not in high demand, so there wasn't much hope for him being adopted there & she sent him up to a local dog rescue here in Minnesota after he got a full exam (clean bill of health - he came with his exam papers) & all his shots. After a few weeks with the local rescue folks they brought him to one of their weekly adoptions at a local Petco store, where we found him & gave him a home.

Darlene & I think he's the coolest, but Katie so far isn't too happy that he's around. Katie never had a problem with Riley, our wheaten terrier who we unfortunately had to put to sleep a year & a half ago, but sometime after that she became afraid of dogs. Why, we're not sure, because she's never been hurt by a dog. As many dogs as there are in our family it's something we need to tackle & we thought quiet little Benny would be easy for Katie to get accustomed to.

So far it's been kind of tough. Katie's in the dog house because she hasn't treated him very well. Benny doesn't seem to like her very much, and I don't blame the poor little guy. He keeps his distance because she's had a tendency to yell at him when he comes near her ("Go!" or "You can't come in here!"), but if he's laying quietly in some corner it seems like she forgets he's there. It's probably a mix of being afraid & some jealousy. She gets a little funny when we pay attention to him.

Sometimes she's ok with him. They romped in the backyard last night, Katie holding his tie cable & proclaiming "I captured you!" like Roo & Lumpy in Pooh's Heffalump Movie. He was also happy to smell the flowers she brought to him & she thought that was fun. We've also decided that she's going to be the one who gives him treats in an effort to get him to warm up to her more. She gets a kick out of that, but so far he's not too thrilled about approaching her.

Benny discovered that rabbits like to hang out in & pass through our back yard. He saw one out the patio door & just stared at it & whined a bit, wagging his tail. When I let him out, he was in his glory. He sniffed excitedly around the whole yard for over a half hour. Beagles, after all, are all about rabbits & their noses. After he came in it was very difficult to keep him away from the door & he cried a bit after he was put to bed.

He's a happy, fun little guy. He's always excited when we come in a room & the thump of his tail against something has gotten to be a common sound over the past week & a half. I just wish we didn't have to struggle with Katie's attitude toward him. Maybe this wasn't the greatest idea, but we think we just need to stick with it. It's only been 9 days.

Boy was I wrong. I guess that's why I don't have a rumor site. It's been widely known, but Apple never admitted it until now, that there were a few Pentium 4 Macs hidden inside Apple running their own version of Mac OS X. This is the machine Steve Jobs used for his demo for Apple's developers on June 6th. Now that will eventually become reality for the rest of us.

This is pure speculation. I have no secret sources. I'm just guessing based on what Apple has & hasn't done in the past few months. I think Apple is going to completely revamp their laptop product line in the next few weeks. Here's how I came to that conclusion:

The iMac G5, Power Mac G5, and even the lowly eMac were all recently updated to include 8.5 GB dual layer DVD burners.

Not even the fanciest PowerBook G4 has a dual layer DVD burner.

The last time the PowerBook G4 had an update that wasn't just a speed bump was September 2003.

The last time the iBook G4 was updated at all was October 2004. It's overdue. It usually gets updated every 6 months.

Apple pretty much can't update the iBook without updating the PowerBooks too because they're already very close in speed & features.

The rumor sites are eerily quiet. When the Mac mini was released in January the rumor sites knew all about it in December, much to the annoyance of Apple who probably managed to stop the leaks. Remember, no one saw the original iMac coming. That was a total surprise. Would new PowerBooks be PowerBook G5s? Maybe, or maybe a dual core G4. Steve Jobs June 6th keynote at Apple's developer conference could see a rabbit pulled out of Apple's hat. I hope so.

After a couple years of $10 here, $50 there, I finally have enough money saved up for a new iBook. Lately, Apple has updated everything in its product line except for the iBook. The last iBook update was October 2004. I'm pretty much ready to buy, but I don't want the current model.

Recently, Apple released Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. The current iBook doesn't support all of Tiger's features, most notably Core Image. Why on earth would I buy a computer that doesn't support all the features of the OS? C'mon Apple. Update the iBook.

(Hmm... This one really was a rant.)

I have a Virgin Mobile cell phone, and I'm part of their growing untapped word of mouth market. Other than the ones I've seen while shopping at Target, I don't think I've ever seen a Virgin Mobile TV ad. I think they usually play on MTV & other such channels that I don't watch because, as a 42 year old dad, I'm not in Virgin Mobile's youthful target demographic.

I first discovered Virgin Mobile because my father in law asked me to look into pay as you go cell phones for him. Most of the ones I found you had to buy time every 30-60 days or so, there were extra roaming & long distance charges, and you lost unused minutes if you didn't use them within a certain period after buying them. Virgin Mobile was different.

Their pricing structure is far simpler, there's no long distance or roaming, & unused minutes stay in your account as long as it is active & never expire. The other pay as you go cell providers were much more complicated, & could possibly be as expensive per month as the minimum $25 contract cell plans. With Virgin Mobile I pay $20 every 90 days, which works out to under $7 per month!

After my father in law got his I got mine, then my best friend ditched his contract plan for a Virgin Mobile phone, then he got Virgin Mobile phones for his mom & sister, then my mom got one, then a friend of hers got one, then my sister in law got one... You just can't argue with under $7 a month.

I understand why Virgin Mobile doesn't target us with their ads, after all a 74 year old grandpa doesn't fit their image, but word gets around. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Virgin Mobile is the best deal in pay as you go cellular. Now I want that camera phone they have!

I've been had by the corporate diaper propaganda machine, bilked for a few hundred dollars over the past couple years. If you have a toddler who's in need of potty training, keep this in mind: Pull Ups & Easy Ups are a scam! They're diapers by another name! They're so absorbent, the kid doesn't feel it when they pee their pants! Of course that doesn't help when potty training.

We had to resort to some hardcore potty training. Bye bye Pull Ups & Goodnights, hello Hello Kitty undies. At times I felt like Sgt. Hulka. "You will not pee in your pants, recruit!" "What's that I see on the floor, recruit? A puddle? Now drop & give me 20 Brawny sheets!"

At first, she just peed her pants like always, then within a couple days she started running into the bathroom. Sometimes she didn't make it & needed consoling, but now she runs in when she needs to, does her business, and a drain on my bank account is gone.

Part of my Dec. 5th Consumer Reports post below mentions this misstatement by the magazine: "(An Apple) computer costs more than a similarly featured Windows PC." Today I read an article entitled "Should Apple join the other PC companies in pretending to sell a sub-$500 computer?" on billpalmer.net. This is a great article that goes into detail about how PC companies cut corners so badly to fight to get a machine that's $499. These things can barely be called a computer, and need quite a few upgrades right out of the box to be useable. Of course the upgrades cost money, so the $499 thing goes right out the window.

The cover of the December 2004 issue of Consumer Reports had a sub headline that caught my eye: "Unspectacular results for Intel's new processors. Plus 59,940 reasons to reconsider Macs." Could it be? Did Consumer Reports have an article about computers that didn't say something stupidly negative about a Mac, such as "they don't have floppy drives"?

The answer, my friends, is yes. But they still aren't getting their facts straight.

Apple has led Consumer Reports ratings for tech support & overall reliability for several years now ("Apple Computer has actually raised its support satisfaction for desktop computers over the past three years to levels way above all competitors, while offering the most reliable desktop hardware."), so it's still a bit puzzling that they so easily make misstatements about Macs, their features & how they work.

One example near the beginning of the article is how CR says there are about 60,000 viruses for Windows PCs & only 60 Mac viruses, but fails to mention that NONE of those 60 will run in Mac OS X. Pretty big omission if you ask me. They do correctly note the veritable non-existance of spyware on the Mac, however.

Another misstatement made is this: "(An Apple) computer costs more than a similarly featured Windows PC." Looking at their own comparison chart, the only PC that comes with a display that even compares to the iMac G5 17" widescreen is the Sony Vaio VGC-RA910G Media Center PC, which costs almost $200 MORE than the iMac. They also fail to mention the extra anti-virus & internet security software that you must buy to protect your PC. That right there pretty much wipes out the price advantage (ignoring features) that the "Windows Workhorse" computers have over the iMac G5 & the "Windows Budget" computers have over the eMac. Taking features into account, it's even better for Apple. The iMac G5 has a better display & doesn't have the cable clutter of the PCs, & the eMac has a larger display, no cable clutter, and FireWire (IEEE 1394).

Overall it was nice to see that Consumer Reports has finally stopped harping on Apple for the lack of a floppy drive, but they still make statements without backing them up: "Mac users also have fewer choices in software". How many word processors do you need, for pete's sake?! For a better analysis of the article, read Adam Engst's TidBITS:
Consumer Reports Almost Gets It.

Minnesota Nice is a myth. I know. I live in Minnesota. That's not to say that Minnesotans are rude or mean. As a whole, we're just a bit haughty & full of ourselves as compared to people in other places. We tend to look down on folks from Wisconsin, Iowa, & the Dakotas as if we are somehow superior to them. We have more culture, more sports teams. We're just better. It's a crock. We're not better than everyone else & Minnesota Nice was created (or at least embellished if not created) by a bunch of tourism & convention marketing yahoos. It even made the cover of Time magazine in 1975.

Here's a good example. Go into a sports grill in Minnesota wearing a Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt & you generally will be politely ignored. Go into a sports grill in Madison, Wisconsin wearing a Gophers sweatshirt after the football team got pounded 51-17 by a supposedly inferior Michigan State team and you will be welcomed with open arms to help cheer the Badgers on to victory and remain undefeated in an exciting nail biter over Purdue.

There are lots of very nice people in Minnesota, as nice as anywhere I've been, but to generalize, the nicest, most polite, friendliest groups of people I have met have been elsewhere - Wisconsin, Iowa, Florida, Texas, Missouri, California, Nevada. But nothing tops Japan for polite, friendly people. That's altogether a different country and a different discussion.

Hmm. Blogging. I've always wanted to try it, being a somewhat opinionated person, but I don't like to do all the tweaking I'd have to do in an HTML editor to put it on my own web site. My wife thinks I write too many Letters to the Editor, but I'll give it a go, and maybe, if I find enough to say, I'll link it to my web site. That's what I need to do, but I think I need to play with it some first. Kinda pointless if I don't use it. I'll see how it goes...