mere cat

Al Gagnon, Owner of Red’s Eats, Dies

Red’s Eats is a seafood shack in Wiscasset, Maine and the home of what is indisputably the most celebrated lobster roll in the world. I’ve certainly had my differences with Red’s Eats and their version of the lobster roll, but clearly Al Gagnon cared deeply about his lobster roll, and that’s all that matters. My deepest condolences to his family and friends.

BlogPhiladelphia Remembered

Last year on this day I was attending BlogPhiladelphia. Ah, memories. Based on the large turnout and general enthusiasm, I would have predicted that the event would be held annually, but apparently not. The conference was free, and I have to assume the sponsors just didn’t feel it was worth it. For the record, I would be willing to pay to go to such a conference in the future. Just sayin’. For example, I am looking forward to attending the Higher Education Web Symposium this week at Penn, and that’s definitely not free (but very reasonably priced I thought).

By the way, these pics don’t capture the energy and dynamism of the event at all. Rather, it was between sessions as people took a break and caught up with their lives online. I find pictures of people staring at laptops plenty interesting.

iPhone 3G

If I had known it would take over three hours to get an iPhone 3G, I never would have done it, but when we arrived at the Apple Store yesterday after work, the line just didn’t seem that crazy long. But we did it, and it was even kind of “fun.” It’s the first time I’ve ever been caught up in first-day frenzy.

Why did I get one? Funny you should ask. For one thing, my first cell phone was with AT&T, and the service was just so unusably bad, that I canceled after two weeks and went with Verizon. I have been very pleased with the Verizon network, which worked even in isolated locations where other providers failed (sometimes even switching to analog), but I was never thrilled with any of my (admittedly low-end) Verizon phones, because Verizon installs their own clumsy, proprietary software. Since I don’t use the phone that much anyway, the lame software wasn’t much of a hardship. Last month I finally found myself in a location where Verizon had no service of any kind and AT&T phones did (Point Reyes Station), so I had to admit that AT&T has come a long way since I was a customer.

Anne wanted an iPhone for a lot of good reasons besides it just being cool, and I convinced her to wait for the 3G. Since we would be busting up our family plan with Verizon, it was going to cost me more to stay with Verizon, so I made the switch, too. At least that’s how I am rationalizing it, since it is undeniably costing more for us to make the switch. I’ve never used any kind of smart phone before, and I have to admit having this much functionality in the palm of my hand is cool. Surprisingly, the iPhone’s voice quality is superior to my current Verizon phone (Motorola V325). It just sounds more like a “wired” phone. Whether that’s due to the phone’s hardware or the stability of the AT&T signal, it’s a welcome improvement. Plus I basically got an iPod for “free” (I never had one).

We joined the line (at the Suburban Square Ardmore Apple Store) about halfway down the side of the building just before 6:00 pm. When we turned the corner—our first milestone—I took these two pictures at around 7:15 pm.

Ooooh, another milestone in line. At the threshold of the Apple Store at 7:53 pm.

We reached the counter around 9:15. There were no glitches porting our two accounts; it just took a while (probably because they were using Newtons for data entry!). After that was finished, activation took only a few seconds and consisted simply of plugging each iPhone into iTunes briefly. We were on our way.

There was still a huge line when we left at around 9:30. The store was supposed to close at 11:00, so it seemed unlikely that everyone in line would get in. I hope no one was disappointed. We took our phones and our appetites to Teresa’s Next Door for a celebratory dinner. I had awesome grilled halibut and a Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel. Now that was something to celebrate.