Rodawakening's Blog

I've officially moved on from Blogspot. That's right folks, I'm pretty much done here. I've never really liked the inner workings of the site and there's no "app for that", I've been working on something else for the last week and today I've finally bit the bullet and decided to get a custom name for my blog. It's http://www.rodawakening.com, come on over, it's all nice and shiny.
To be continued...

I can feel the cold air on it's way, specially in my knees. LOL...not really! To me it's time to move the short sleeves shirts to the left side of the closet, move the ankle socks to the bottom drawers and pull out the heavy blankets and quilts. It also means that it's the beginning of hot cocoa season. I can hear the Rod-a-maniacs going wild. Hold on for a second, I've got something to say real quick:

To you know who,
Don't quit or close your blog. Suspend your activities to address your problem(s), then make a triumphant return. You may even think of some new ideas or strategies to aid you in reaching your full potential.

Ok, I was talking about Fall, hot cocoa, and Rod-a-maniacs. I did forget to mention brownies, as I've received a request on Sunday. I will respond by saying; I'll make them before spring. LOL! That's all for now.

Saturday I went to my first Phillies game at Citizen's Bank Park. I got to experience how the "upper crust" live it up in the suites. There's prepared food, drinks and two flat panel televisions. It had even has a private bathroom and a host. The place was really nice and I had a good time. Unfortunately the Phillies didn't so well against the Marlins they lost all three games this past weekend.

Sunday, I went to my friends house for a triple birthday party. As usual it was a good time. Great food, specially the "meat fritters". LOL!

Today was one of those days, where I should've stayed home and done nothing. I wasn't really productive as far as work goes. I did manage to get some things done, but not as much as I would've wanted. Oh well, I get to try again tomorrow. YAYYYY!

While I was floating the day by, I did research the new Iphone. It's new features are pretty good and the performance upgrades are definately appreciated. The one thing that makes it look bad is AT&T's performance. Apple has enabled MMS and tethering, but AT&T isn't ready for the consumer to utilize it yet. WTF? How long have you been in business? Here we have a product that you "support", with all these wonderful features, but the end user can't have them because the company that sold them the product hasn't gotten around to allowing access to the features of the device. I tell you it seems like the American Way is all about mediocracy. *cough* Chrysler, GM! Time to do laundry. See ya!

I'm a few days late on this, but I got my new computer. Again it's the HP dv4t laptop,


with that I also got an Ogio Metro backpack



and a sleeve that didn't not fit the dv4t, oh well 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

I've been able to get everything set up. Wi-Fi, my programs, and the all the accessories minus the sleeve. I'm really enjoying using it so far. Although typing seems to be a challenge right now. I still haven't figured out how to use the webcam yet, other than to turn it on and make silly faces...that were immediately deleted. LOL! Come to think of it. This is my first official entry with it. That's all I have to say right now. I have to wrap this up and give my desktop some love. Peace.

The first time I tried Thai food was last year at a restaurant named Coconut bay in Voorhees, NJ. It was really good and hot. Ate a pepper and didn't realize it kind of hot. Since then I haven't been back over because it's kind of, out of the way for me and trying to get the time to make it has been next to impossible lately.

I was driving home from work today and I had a taste for Chinese food (Yeah, I know Chinese and Thai aren't the same.), but I don't know of any good places in my neighborhood. That's when I called a friend of mine and he told me about a local restaurant. It's called Nooddi Thai Chef. They have two locations, this one was in Folsom, PA. That's a good thing for me because this one is local.

This dish is called. Cashew Nut. It has shrimp, chicken, bell peppers, mushrooms (hold please), pineapples, cashew nuts (that helps), and brown sauce. It was really good, even as take out. The place had a really cool look to it. The walls were painted with an ocean theme. There were sharks, clown fish and some others that I can't remember at the moment. The next time I go I will definately eat in. BTW, this is the before picture. LOL!

http://www.silversachet.blogspot.com/

The past few months have been a little painful for me, since Circuit City went out of business. It was my favorite electronics store. Their clearance sale was one of the worst I've ever seen, because the discounts were insulting. Since then I've been purchasing electronics from Costco, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart. Going to Best Buy was a pride swallowing experience because I had a bad experience on Black Friday 2007, that pissed me off to no end. Here's why; I made a purchase to pick-up in store at 5am that day. I get there at 1:30pm to pick-up my stuff. I went to the Customer Service area and handed them my print for pick-up. I'm told Customer Service is closed and they aren't doing in-store pick-up. What...are you serious! I just find this hard to believe, so I find a manager and tell him that, "I have an in store pick-up and is Customer Service really closed?" That SOB says, "Customer Service will be opened at 2:00pm". I smile and say thank you. Then I walked around the store to kill time. As I'm walking around I pick up all the items on my list to help speed up the process, when it's time for me to check-out. 2:00pm rolls around, I go back to Customer Service and again, I'm told that Customer Service is closed, they aren't doing in-store pick-up, and to come back tomorrow. So from that point until a few months ago, Best Buy was dead to me.

Now on to the reason for this post. Circuit City is back! But wait! It's not the same...the layout, it's not nearly as nice as it was before. It's looks familiar to another site. Oh no! The "new" Circuit City is now owned by Systemax. *Dun, dun, duuunnn* It's the same company who bought CompUSA. Basically Systemax buys the once great stores, resurrects them, and jacks up the prices. Since the return of CompUSA, I haven't bought anything from them, because a quick search for the same product will reveal that you'll pay more money there. So far I'm seeing the same thing for Bizarro Circuit City (Superman reference try and keep up). Hopefully things will get better for us technofiles. Maybe Wal-Mart will step-up? Hmmmm!

So maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But my point is I saw Star Trek last night and it was great. Great story, full of action, well used humor, and flawless special effects. I'm not going to be a spoiler by mentioning anything about it. It is a must see for anyone looking for a great action movie. Live long and prosper.

I'm not what you'd call an avid photographer, but when the opportunity occurs. I do like to take pictures. The Iphone takes a pretty decent picture for a phone, but it has no flash and it's only 2MP. I have a Canon S3IS, which is a great camera. It takes clear sharp pictures and it records video, but it's kind of large and if I don't have a backpack I have to carry it everywhere. When you're somewhere like an autoshow it can be annoying because you're trying to get in and out of cars, with a camera, bag, and whatever posters you've picked up along the way. So I needed something in between, something that was small enough to fit in my pocket, powerful enough to take a really clear picture, and records video. I've been researching small cameras by different companies such as Canon (obviously), Nikon, Casio, and Sony. Over the weekend I purchased a new digital camera. *drumroll* The winner is...the Casio EX-S10. It's a 10mp ultra-compact point and shoot. It's super small, takes great pictures and video. Unlike the Canon I have, the Casio video files can be dragged and dropped into Itunes. Yeah, it's that simple. That's important to a person with 4 video capabable Ipods. I've tooled around with it for the past couple days and I really like it. I've even posted one of the videos on Youtube. I highly recommend this camera to anyone looking for the above mentioned features, plus it has so many more that I haven't listed. The only negative thing I have to say is that it feels so small in my hands that I'm always afraid I'm going to drop it. But then again I'm used to taking pictures with a tank.

Here's the newbie (this picture was taken by the Canon S3IS):

Not a bad picture for a 3 year old dinosaur.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chjXWrJba9U

I know...I have issues.

Elsie and I had plans to see the new Star Trek movie. She met up with me around 10:20am, then we were off to the theater. We got there around 10:40am, just to find out the showings were sold out until 4:00pm. WTF! Nothing's open yet and we weren't going to wait for the 4pm showing. We were both hungry, so we decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory for brunch.

The food, service, and pricing were excellent! See Lis. You should've came to see Star Trek with us. Oh well maybe next time. BTW. How was your Western Omelette Ramen? LOL!

This has been a really busy week, both mentally and physically. I've been working really hard at work, trying to wrap up a few projects. I've also been trying to figure out which laptop I want to buy, as well as, helping my friend make her laptop purchase too. I had a Toastmasters' meeting on Wednesday night and that went well. I'll explain what Toastmasters is in a later post. Two of my favorite TV shows had season finales this week also. Lost was great, Smallville really sucked. I'm going to take it easy tonight, maybe go out and get a few shirts and shorts for the summer.

I really can't wait until next Friday, because I'm going to order my laptop. Since Monday is Memorial Day, I took Friday and Tuesday off to make a long weekend. Which reminds me, I have to get an idea of what I'm going to make. I have my annual Memorial Day Cookout. I already know I have to get some Pepsi. Maybe I can get some input from the Rodamaniacs. Until next time...

I haven't figured out if I can post all multiple things at the same time without creating a new entry. I had to combine three posts to make this one.

Last night I was searching for templates to freshen up my blog. I saw a few that were promising, but when I installed them, they were really confusing on how to tie all the links and pictures together. I'm okay with the current one even though it needs some tweaking and I haven't finished with the tab links. That's all for now, I have to get dressed for work and get my iced coffee.

Yes folks, I'm still here. I'll give a quick recap of what's been going on. I did get the Iphone 3G (November 2008). In my opinion it's the best mobile phone in the market. It does however has its negatives, such as no MMS, can't forward SMS, and can't cut and paste text. From what I've read those issues will be addressed in the release of the 3.0 OS, scheduled to arrive when the next Iphone comes out this summer.

I've put the motorcycle purchase on hold for now, but I still plan on getting it. I haven't rode one since last summer, so I'll be taking the safety class again when I'm ready to buy. As of now I'm still sticking with a Suzuki GSX650F. I still want either the Hayabusa or B-King when I'm more experienced.

That's all for now. Maybe I'll be back tomorrow?