What is it about being a captive audience that makes people think you want to see more advertising? It used to be that the only things you would see before a movie were previews for other movies. This was considered acceptable because it was somewhat entertaining and informed the viewer of upcoming releases they may be interested in. Today, not only do you have 3-4 movie previews, but a run of product advertisements as well.

I’m currently on an airplane flying back from Florida. Just a short domestic hop. I was very surprised when I pull down the tray in front of me to see an ad for Splenda sweetner. It made me think of the TV ad where the airline passenger needs to insert a quarter to pull down the shade. How far away is this ad from becoming reality? But the outrage doesn’t stop there. The airlines know they have a captive audience and will try and exploit it to the maximum they can. The flight attendant (remember, they are there for your safety and are not your personal servants) read a Bank of America ad to us over the intercom. When did their role as being chief safety officer on board expand to include peddling credit cards?

In the day and age where Tivo’s and DVR’s are reaching the tipping point in popularity, mainly on their abilities to skip TV ads, advertisers just don’t get it. I don’t want to see advertisements. I listen to XM radio or my ipod so I don’t have to hear radio jingles. I install adblockers on my web-browsers for much the safe reason. 90% of the TV I watch is time-shifted to avoid seeing ads. I delete SPAM and Advertisements from my e-mail. Catalogues and junk mail go right into the garbage bin.

Advertisers take note: Flooding me with ads have an opposite effect. I become immune to them to the point where I don’t even see them. So if you want your advertising to be effective, don’t flood me with them. “Everything in moderation”.

Side Note: The back page of the New York times the guy in front of me is reading also talks about this. How ironic.

A further note. It’s now ben a full week since I wrote the above and have some more information o this topic, especially when related to travel. Apparently the TSA is going to allow advertising while you’re waiting in line get searched for exploding shoes and dangerous water. To take things a step further, they are going to allow companies to sponsor the trays you put your stuff in to go through thte X-ray machine. Now I can (in some sense) understand trading my eyes and getting something in return (like TV or Radio). But this is just pure greed to take advantage of captive people. It’s not like I can skip going through security. Same issue with paying $200 for an airline ticket and having to be subjected to ads. Greedy.

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I feel a little like Henry Thoreau, seeing as I am writing this post from the shores of Deep Creek Lake in Western Maryland. I have spent a vacation day to come out here and spend some time with my wife and mother-in-law who have been out here all week. Deep Creek Lake is nestled into the Appalachian Mountains far out into the panhandle of Western Maryland. In the winter, the trees on the slopes have been cleared to turn this area into a large skiing destination (Wisp, for example). In the summer, the weather is warm enough to make Deep Creek Lake a boating haven.

Seeing as how this is a boaters paradise, we thought we would share in the fun. So I strapped the kayak onto the roof of the car and drove it out here. Margaret and her mother have gone up and down the lake in it and seem to really be enjoying it. I’m hoping to take it for a spin with Margaret tomorrow.

This is very much a resort town, as there are bumper boats, go carts, mini-golf and whatever else you would expect from a summer resort town. And this includes no shortage of places to dine.

The girls, when not out on the water boating and swimming, have been relaxing in other ways. Watching movies, reading, needlepoint, and so on. I hope to partake in some of this relaxation tomorrow as well.

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Margaret is currently is in Switzerland for business, which means that I’m home alone (well I’ve got the animals to keep me company). But we still talk every day (sometimes more than once). So how do we do it without going broke? Read on for my traveling tips…

1. Get a “World Capable” cellphone.

Margaret and I both have “World Capable” cellphones. These are either tri-band or quad-band GSM phones (you need the 4th band if you are going to Japan). For US providers, this limits you to T-Mobile, Cingular, or some of AT&T Wireless. The easiest way to tell if you have a GSM phone or not is to look for the SIM card in the phone. This is the little card that the network uses to identify this phone as you. It also means that you can just move that card to another phone and this new phone is where all you calls will ring. GSM phones are the only phones that use this technology to identify the phones (CDMA and TDMA both have numbers in the phone that map to your phone number).

So you have a GSM phone. How do you know it will work while traveling internationally? Read the product packaging or do a Google search for it. You want to see that it lists 3 (or 4) frequencies that it works on. This means your phone should work throughout the world. Or you could ask your provider, but I find that can be hit or miss depending on how good the person you are talking to is.

NOTE: Make sure to contact your provider and activate “World” service before your trip or you won’t be talking to anyone.

With T-Mobile, it is around $1 a minute to make (or receive) a call while in Europe. Due to this cost, we only use it for emergency contact or work communications (which gets reimbursed by the company). Instead, we use SMS to send messages back and forth for only $0.05 a message (I think). It is handy because it doesn’t require access to a computer or Internet like e-mail, it is short, and the recipient doesn’t actually need to be there to get the message. We do chat with it a little bit, but its main use for us is in coordinating some other kind of communications.

2. Use a 1010- dial around service.

One I’ve established that Margaret is in a location to receive a land-line call (like in her hotel room), I can then give her a call. Since a lot of the 1010 services charge a connection fee, the “going to be there” step is vital since it costs $0.50 to find out that she isn’t there. I use 1010-345 ($0.04 to Switzerland), but you can compare other 1010 phone rates for your destination country. It is a lot of buttons to press to make the call (1010-345-011-42-22-xxxxxxxx), but it makes a big difference over the default rates you phone company charges (I think it is actually cheaper to use my cell phone at $1/minute than just make a call from my home phone…).

3. Use Skype

This is where I got really cheap. While I did use the 1010 number to call her once when having computer problems, most of the time I call her using Skype. You can’t beat the rates. It works out to be about $0.02 a minute to call and you have to buy $12.33 chunks (all their rates are in Euros…). Even with the conversion rate where it is, $12 gets you about 10 hours of talk time. And it has other benefits. I can call her from work without having to worry about billing the call back to the company or any other such nonsense. And that is key to working with the timezones (I can call her at night when it is only3:00 EDT).

But not all is perfect with Skype. It is a VOIP service and suffers from all the troubles that VOIP providers have (and some that places like Vonagedon’t have). Most of the difficulties I experienced with it were setup problems. The wireless on my kitchen computer was flaky, which made it hard to call from there (it would drop out every once in a while). The upstairs computer has a nice Soundblaster card in it, which was a real pain to get to work right. I think this second problem I had is going to be the thing that costs Skype the most. Due to the proprietary nature of their product, they don’t have any hardware products out yet so you can’t use your regular phone with it. Vonage uses standard protocols, so companies like Linksys have hardware products that work with it.

The call itself sounded great. There is a little bit of a delay, but I don’t think it is any worse than a cell-to-cell call or any other kind of international call. It is a little strange to put this headset on to call my wife, but I get used to it (since it goes over the head, I have both hands free which in some ways is better than a traditional phone).

That’s all the long distance communications tips I have for now. If you have any to add, add a comment down below!

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Margaret and I were looking for something exciting to do this weekend, so we decided to try tubing down the Potomac. We have previously done tubing on the Delaware (when we both lived in Philadelphia) and had a bunch of fun. From what we remember, it was a leisurely ride down the Delaware, over some small rocks that bump your butt, and maybe some sunburn.

So I did some quick research on tubing outfits in the DC area and decided to go with Butts Tubes (BTI) in Harper’s Ferry, VA, about 45 minutes from our house (I would expect it to be about 90 minutes from downtown). There were a few other companies that offered tubing in that area, but Butts was the only one that offered whitewater tubing. Being (moderately) daring people, that is what we wanted to do.

Not being in any kind of hurry on Sunday, we got up (without an alarm) and went. Turned out that the time we left was an idea time, as we got to Harper’s Ferry at about 10:30. There was no line, so we went right up and paid our fee. Turns out that BTI has a deal that makes it cheaper before 11, so we were able to take advantage of that as well.

We then went and waited for a whitewater bus to take us out to the river. Didn’t take long, maybe 10 minutes (it wasn’t very crowded). We were lucky enough to already own REALLY nice PFD’s, so we brought ours. It was nice as ours have a bit more room in the arm area to move your arm around and also has a nice collection of pockets to stow things in. If you don’t have a PFD, BTI is more than happy to provide one. On our way to the drop-off point, the bus driver pointed out the pick-up point, about 2 minutes away from BTI’s HQ. After 10 minutes, we arrived at the drop-off point where we were met my a National Park Service Ranger (Hello Mister Park Ranger!). He was basically there to explain to us where we are allowed to go in, make sure we all had on PFD’s, and had no alcohol. After the 60 second spiel, we were off to the river.

The water was warm, as was the air so it was actually pretty nice to get into the water. This is when I started having problems. Turns out I have a big butt, and it wouldn’t fit into the tube all that well. Basically, I had to hold myself upright the entire time, or else lie down flat across the tube. When we were paying for our adventure, we splurged on the nicer tubes with handles. In retrospect, we may have been better off with the simple back tubes, as they seemed to provide more butt room. All in all not the most comfortable ride (but if you have a smaller butt, this may not be a problem), but we made do with it.

The ride is described as class I, II, and III rapids. I wasn’t that impressed with the rapids as first, as they just seemed to be little bumps. But there were some big ones, and I promise you that about 90 minutes in there are at least 2 class III rapids that were pretty awesome!

We had paid our dues to BTI (and through them, to the NPS), but I hadn’t yet paid my dues to the river gods. While trying to paddle over to help Margaret (who got knocked off her tube on one of the rapids), I cut my had on one of the rocks in the water. It hurt quite a bit, but not enough to take me off the water. So I ended up making a blood sacrifice to the river gods, and they seemed appeased. Margaret’s sacrifice was a little different than mine, as she sacrificed a hat to the river gods and they weren’t as happy with her sacrifice so they kept knocking her off her tube. But we both made it through.

Once we made it back to BTI, we realized how lucky we were to get there early. The line for Credit Cards was about 10 people deep, and the cash lines was at least 20. Mental note for next time: arrive early, preferable before 11. BTI has a nice deal, you pay your fee and you can ride all day. They even recommend taking one trip, coming back to BTI and having a little lunch, and then heading back to the water. We could have done that option, but we were tired and didn’t want to make any more sacrifices.

Even with the difficulties we encountered, I would probably do it again. Or maybe we’ll do whitewater rafting next time…

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Slashdot has a link to anarticle that indicates that Panera Bread is the largets provider of free WiFi in the US. I thought it was funny because I didn’t even know that Panera provided free Wifi! But the one in near us does, so maybe I’ll keep that in mind when traveling in the future…

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You are all just going to have to live with the onslaught of Disney related posts. Having just gotten back, I still have Mickey on the brain…

We went to Disney World to celebrate Margaret’s 30th birthday. Let me tell you, Disney really knows how to make your birthday feel special. And the best part is the price: free!

As you enter each of the parks, stop by Guest Services and tell them it is your birthday. They should give you a pin to put on letting everyone know that it is your birthday. Keep in mind that each of the parks (except MGM) has their own unique button, so make sure to collect them all. We were even told that Downtown Disney has their own button, but our feet hurt to much to find out where to get it from.

So now that you have this button on, what does it get you? Each Cast Member is supposed to greet you with a Happy Birthday! And sometimes you even get special treatment (we got put in the first car for Test Track at Epcot and we also got to ride with the driver on the monorail…). Our experience was that Epcot Cast Members were the most observant, as that is where Margaret got the most birthday greetings. At the other end, the Magic Kingdom was the worst where it seemed that nobody noticed her pin. Margaret thinks it was because it was hard to see on her shirt, but I think it is because the Magic Kingdom Cast Members were more frazzled than the Epcot ones.

Also, make sure that you talk to Goofy on your birthday! 8-224-2144 from any resort phone or just ask at Guest Services for them to connect you. Or for a surprise, tell the front desk at your resort and Goofy will call your room!

This one isn’t free, but the overall cost is pretty cheap. Get an autograph book and have all the characters sign it. Margaret collected 40 signatures and many birthday wishes. The only cost was to purchase the book and pen and you get a lifelong keepsake to remind you of the trip.

We utilized all the above tips on our recent trip to WDW and it made for a birthday that Margaret will never forget.

Birthday Tips gotten from wdwinfo.com

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So Disney was pushing this really cool toy to all their visitors: Pal Mickey. The basic premise is that he is a stuffed Mickey Doll, with a computer of some sort on the inside. He does the basic speaking doll thing: You squeeze him and he says stuff. But he can also do some more advanced things like play a game with you, give you some trivia, or my favorite, give you up-to-date park information.

While it is really designed for kids, I could see it being useful for adults as well. For example, I would have loved to have Pal Mickey with me on my recent trip. He could have told me when different characters are showing up for signings (so my wife could collect more autographs) and could have also told me when the wait on rides are low. Not to mention playing games with him while I’m waiting in line for 25 minutes for Space Mountain (our longest wait of the trip…).

I stopped at one of the stores on Main Street and picked him and played with him for about 30 seconds. My impressions from that 30 seconds of exposure:

• He is really hard. Not something that you would really want to snuggle up with.
• He can speak Spanish. Surprised me to squeeze him and hear a Hispanic Mickey telling me something.
  

The drawbacks to Pal Mickey: it really is designed for kids, especially in its “doll” packaging. While I think I could have gotten over carrying a Mickey Mouse doll all over Disney World, I’m not sure that all of the adults out there would agree. And he is a bit pricey (about $60). Maybe there is some way they could make the packaging (and some of the content) more suitable for adults, and also cut down the price. At $30, I would have had one, even if the packaging was nothing more than just a pager to wear on my belt.

The attached link is a detailed report from AllEars.Com on Pal Mickey. The best highlight: He surprised us when we got off of the front row of Tower of Terror by saying it was scary and asking if we could sit in the back row the next time.

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We pushed our Disney photos out to the website last night. We were able to get these done so quickly this time because we took Margaret’s iBook with us on the trip. Every night Margaret would pull the day’s photos into iPhoto and go through them, keeping good ones, cropping them to make them look better, etc. Finally, she would have a slide show prepared for me that would show me the day’s photos.

So last night we did scanned in some photos and also imported the last days worth of photos. I then used iPhotoToGallery to export the Disney pictures out to the website. It worked like a charm!

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Margaret and I made it back from Disney without a hitch. Everything was wonderful, and they did an excellent job making Margaret feel special on her 30th birthday.

I’m not going to write much here about the trip, as we hope to have a trip report (much like our France one) up in a few days. I would also expect our photos to go on-line within a day or two (check back here for an announcement!). I also saw some cool applications of technology at Disney, but I should have enough to say about those to give them all their own entry.

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