So as a lot of you (all 3 of you who read this site) might know, in a few months I’m taking off to South America for some backpacking goodness! Totally stoked about that… Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how badly I want to get away from here and out into the unknown again. I’m hoping to pick up a bit of Spanish beforehand (something more than “una cerveza por favor”), and I’m also hoping to take some video footage of the trip and put together a sort of compilation/demo reel as well. I’ve been learning to make use of the video features of the 7D on and off for a few months and I have to say that it’s pretty amazing to see the results of even the worst (but aspiring) videographers. There’s so much potential in the DSLR platform as a video tool. I’m sure things will just get more impressive as the technology matures.
Another thing I’m hoping to do is be able to post some pics and trip updates while I’m away. With the WordPress iPhone app and a little Geotagging plugin, you should be able to see exactly (within some margin of error) where I’m posting from by clicking the little Geotag pin icon at the bottom of any geotagged posts.
Here is an avocado.
So it’s Thursday evening and I’m sitting on my couch catching up on Top Gear. I’ll likely be doing some iteration of the same thing until September. Why? Because that’s pretty much all i can do: no climbing, no volleyball, no working out. Basically I’ve been told that I can’t have any fun the next month or so.
Rewind about 10 days, and you’d find me lying in a hospital bed in Vancouver having just been wheeled out of the OR where I had my appendix removed… (of course, superbly timed immediately before I was planning on heading out to Squamish for some epic climbing with some epic people). Apart from being bummed out and sidelined from the fun stuff for the what’s left of summer, I have to say it’s pretty damn great to be Canadian. Diagnosis from 4 different doctors, ultrasound, surgury and a day in recovery. Total bill… $0!
Today… 10 days post-op, I’m back in Toronto and everything seems to be healing up nicely. The scar doesn’t look like it’ll be that bad (I hear chicks dig scars anyway), and it no longer feels like the world is going to end every time i sneeze. phew. my only pressing concern now is a moderately sized lump of scar tissue that seems to be forming in the tissue layer under the incision site. It basically feels like a giant knot. I’ve been told that’s pretty normal and with a bit of encouragement (kind words, dinners out, and the occasional massage) it will soften up and will eventually be unnoticable. I’ve also been told that whatever is left of my appendix is likely sitting in a bio-waste lab somewhere in Vancouver, and will continue to for the next 5 years. They apparently keep that stuff for legal reasons. How crazy is that?!?
When Apple introduced the iPod and later the iPhone, the slogan “Think Different” became less iconic and more ironic. Everyone and their mother had an Apple product, and it wasn’t because of any technological marvel, but more-so fantastic marketing coupled with a simple, dumbed down, but user-friendly interface.
I’ve given in to the hype. Not because I’m in love with Apple products or because I think the iPhone is the greatest thing ever, but because I needed a new phone, and the new iPhone seemingly fit the bill. This is my first Apple product, and I still think Win7 is one of the best operating systems around (Microsoft takes too much crap from Apple fanboys who have no idea how to use Linux, but brag about how OSX is based on it). That being said, I have to say that apart from a few annoyances, this thing is pretty impresive. In fact I’m composing this post entirely on my iPhone with the (so far, so good) WordPress app. The keyboard is great once you get used to the fact that it’s going to autocorrect all your frequent fat finger typos. But please Apple… please put an email push/fetch scheduler in the OS. Nobody wants to be woken up to viagra spam in the middle of the night, nor does anyone want to manually turn off email fetch every night. RIM offers it, Windows Mobile offers it, I’ll guess that Android probably does. Why cant you? This seems like a very simple feature oversight for what should be a mature product.
Hopefully this nice little app will give me a bit more incentive to blog more, but its pretty doubtful.
On a somewhat related note, I’m back from Vancouver, minus an appendix! More to come later…