Notes from a Plane

Right, sitting on the plane from Orlando to Dallas, and totally unable to get to my rucksack and get a proper blogging device, of which I have many, you understand, because of all the big arse-bags people have put up in the overhead locker. Mine is squeezed in the back behind someone else's bag. Sigh. Still, we are actually lucky on this particular flight, because we have some amazing legroom, being in the first row of cattle class just behind First Class. Had to capitalise that, because they're so posh in there, they get a meal with a glass of wine, and actual metal flatware! This has been a bit of a thing for me, because since arriving in the US, we've succeeded in eating with metal cutlery just twice. Once at the Rainforest Cafe, and the second time at the Hard Rock Cafe after an exhausting day in Universal Studios.

Flatware concerns aside, the real drawback of sitting here is that we DON'T get a meal, and their food does smell pretty good.

Another thing to mention is that the TSA guys at Orlando are quite the nicest US TSA people I've encountered. Not only were they polite, they were actually helpful, which, after my experience at Chicago on the way into the country, was a very pleasant change.

Apparently there is wifi on the flight, but apart from finding the name of the access point, I've been unsuccessful in connecting. I know it's going to cost me money, but how cool would it be to be blogging at 32000 feet? Yeah - very cool! I'll let you know how that works out for me!

Hmmm. While I can buy 15 minutes for $1.95, it seems a whole load of hassle, because I have to create an account. I'll wait until we get to ground level, and I'll mail it from there. Sorry about the lack of cool!

Well, given that we're not going to be landing for another 40 minutes, I might as well tell you about some of the more exciting bits of the holiday.

Epcot - I don't know why, but I LOVE Epcot! For me it was the best Disney park. I don't know if I enjoyed the World Pavillions or the rides more. Despite my "Top Ten Orlando" book telling me that the Spaceship Earth ride was rather dated, I think, maybe, they they are rather dated! I gather the ride's been updated recently, and it was a spectacular, continuous loop telling a story of communication. Not only that, it was narrated by the deliciously dulcet-voiced Dame Judy Dench! It wasn't a rollercoaster by any means, but it was a beautifully set story, illustrated with delightful vignettes, as we spiralled up inside the iconic Epcot golf-ball. That was much more satisfying than expected.

My favourite ride, overall, was the "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" ride at Universal's Islands of Adventure! To get to the ride, you queue through the castle, the rooms in which are faithfully recreated from the castle in the movies.

Oh, before I continue, allow me to share with you that our Pilot just thanked us "for flying American Airlines as we fly across the greatest country on God's green earth!" I'll stop chuckling soon!

Back to the Harry Potter ride. As you wind through the castle, the strands of a story are woven, including moving paintings, Harry, Ron and Hermione appearing from beneath the cloak of invisibility and various other devices. And then you're strapped into a sort of church pew on a simulator for the ride, which includes both projections and animatronics, and is completely awesome! Oh, I forgot to mention that you have to wear 3-d glasses.

It uses the same technology as the Spiderman ride, which, I gather, took a long time and a LOT of money to develop. Still, I suppose having spent so much to develop it, you might as well get some mileage out of it.

Coming into land now. More later!

Seaworld and Animal Kingdom

We had to write off our first full day in Florida, as neither myself or the girls slept at all well that night, and thus in the morning were completely unable to function beyond a trip to the outlet mall - and even that was a bit of a bust, because we'd managed barely two hours before we all had to go home and rest.

In order to try to help with the time adjustment, we rudely chivvied the girls up after scant 1 hour of sleep, and forced them to have fun with us in Downtown Disney, where I experienced my first Rainforest Cafe. I'm sorry to say I was slightly less than overwhelmed, leaving me, probably, just about whelmed. They messed up our order, and left our main course sitting, drying out, while they worked out what else we wanted, so by the time the dish arrived, the ribs and steak were dry and tough.

And so on to our first actual theme park: Seaworld.
You can probably imagine the sort of park I was expecting, can't you? Loads of tanks of fish swimming around, with little helpful labels telling us a fair bit about the fish, and incidentally, some rides thrown in to keep the kids amused. Well, the latter was certainly true, although I disliked Manta because the position you're in for the ride is rather uncomfortable, leaving you craning your neck to see where you're going all the way through. I'm rather pleased it wasn't just me who didn't like it, as Lottie deemed it "Meh", while Lizzy and Ian felt pretty much the same as I did. So we raced over to Krakken, another water-themed ride. Which was EXCELLENT! This was a very exciting ride, a bit like Colossus back in Thorpe Park, but without the neck jerking as you go round. And since we'd deposited our goodies in a locker for the duration of the ride (for which we had to pay two shiny, American quarters), we thought we might as well leave them there while we queued for the Atlantis ride, which is a log flume. And a very good one, if I may say!

And those are the rides at Seaworld. Back to the education part.

Having covered the education part, let's get on to the shows. These were good, but rather over-produced, and a bit cheesy, although I really enjoyed Shamu and Shamu Rocks (yes, we stayed for the evening show). We went to see the Sealion and Otter show, where neither of the sealions were in the mood for performing, although the show was funny. Actually, I'm not sure the unwillingness to perform didn't actually enhance the show somewhat!

OK - that was mean. There IS a small educational element going on in the park, but it's VERY much overshadowed by a creeping commercialism which is rather frustrating. This conversation, between a woman and a park worker did actually happen, leaving me wishing there was actually MORE educational content in the park.The park worker was showing a Hawaiian Goose...

Womain: Why are they in danger of being extinct? Is it because of the volcano?
Park Worker: No, it's because of humans.
Woman: What? Are they eating them?
Park Worker (with no small exasperation): It's the pollution!

The promised (still on the internet, you understand) Penguin Encounter didn't happen, although a whole area of park was given up to a "coming soon" development called Antarctica. Which is nice - if you happen to be coming back in July :(

Seaworld was OK. Not brilliant, although Krakken was a great ride. The park was let down by the number of missed opportunities for education.


Day 2 - Disney's Animal Kingdom!

Staying on Disney property does have its moments. One of which is access to the bus system to take you from your hotel to each park. You can get a bus pretty much every 20 minutes, and during your ride you're fed information about the park you're about to visit. And so it was that I found out about their latest ride at Animal Kingdom, Expedition Everest!

I know all the blurb is going to go on about an "exciting, runaway train ride through the peaks of the Himalayas", but actually they'd be pretty much correct! It starts off pretty sedately, and since you're not completely strapped in, you know there are no loop the loops, so assumptions are made about how fast you're going to be going. The ride is brilliant, as you start out up a small incline, and round a fairly low-level spiral, before heading up a much higher incline, through the temple of the Yeti! Expecting a fairly standard ride as you whoosh downwards, it's a surprise to find that your rail tracks have been bent out of shape, and there are some very large claw marks in the "snow" by the side of the track... The train, having paused for long enough for you to make out these things, starts rolling backwards, quicker and quicker, until it goes inside the mountain, where, again, you pause...

A silhouette of a yeti tearing up the tracks is shown, accompanied by some jolting in the train (and roaring, before you plunge downwards, out of the mountain (and have your picture taken, screaming like a girl), and finish the ride partly in the dark of the mountain, partly in the blazing sunlight.

After that, the Kali River Rapids seems quite tame by comparison. Which it is, if you're one of the lucky ones who end up mildly damp at the end of the ride.

We took a walk through the Maharajah's temple, a beautifully "ruined" temple housing tigers, fruit bats and other Asian wildlife. The temple ruins were beautifully done, and looked really realistic.

A little lunch in the Yak and Yeti restaurant sustained us for the next part of the adventure, into Africa.

The next ride wasn't a white knuckle affair, but a savannah safari, in a large jeep. This was really interesting, as there were many creatures roaming, including giraffes, elephants and a small herd of wildebeest. We even saw the top of a lion's head!

Over to Dinoland, where we discovered two very fun rides, although neither of them was in any way white-knuckle. The first, with a wait time of barely 10 minutes, was called Dinosaur, a ride telling how a (slightly) mad scientist wants to send us back in time (in a time travelling jeep) to the Cretaceous period and bring back an Iguanadon. The ride is part on a moving platform, but it does travel round a cunningly set up circuit, stopping to identify dinosaurs en route, all the while spinning the yarn of the mad scientist trying to make sure we get out before the meteor which destroyed 90% of life on earth hits. This ride is REALLY fun, with enough sudden dinosaurs to make you jump, and rather good story thrown in, too!

At this point we discovered one of the silliest rides in Disney, the Primeval Whirl, reminding me of nothing so much as a VERY old fashioned roller-coaster I remember doing at a park in Sydney. And I only mention it because it's also one of the most fun rides we did!

I'll move onto Magic Kingdom and Epcot as soon as I can...

The Adventure Begins

It was a pleasure to fly out of Heathrow Terminal 5 for the start of our holiday.

We arrived in VERY good time, due to my mate Paul worrying that there’d be loads of traffic, but actually, about 20 minutes after we left the house, we arrived at Heathrow and started trying to check in. To my annoyance, 2 minutes after leaving the house, the strap of my my chosen (read “large”) handbag snapped like a tightrope wire, leaving me with a largely useless bag. However, airports are nothing if not opportunities to spend money, and so I was able to find a very nice replacement scant minutes after we’d checked in our bags.

And so we decided we’d get through security as quickly as possible, and pressing on, collecting our clear, plastic pouches into which we could slip the toothpaste, handcream and other liquids we’d insisted we couldn’t do without. Our trepidation grew as we were funnelled into the main security area. Expecting every moment to be stopped and shot (I know, we’re still in London at this point), we carefully placed everything into little trays, and watching our belongings disappear into the bowels of the scanning machine, stepped towards the metal detector...

And that was it. Lottie suffered a quick pat down, which had to be done in front of me, we didn’t have to remove our shoes, and our stuff was returned without question or investigation. In addition to which the security people were, to a person, helpful and informative, which was a completely different story from those in the US. But I race ahead where baby steps are needed.

After security, we stopped for breakfast, and spying a Wagamama, decided to have breakfast there – apparently that’s the only branch of the chain which serves breakfast.

The flight was not quite 8 hours long, and I had a massive dilemma. I SO wanted to watch some of the movies available on board, but I found myself unable to sleep through movies I hadn’t watched before, and I wanted to sleep so that I wouldn’t feel too jet-lagged on arrival in the US. I suspect I couldn’t sleep through previously unwatched movies because I didn’t actually want to miss anything, a suspicion confirmed when I managed to sleep quite successfully through much of “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows!”

And so we arrived in Chicago. And this is where security really kicked in. I do wonder just who they think they’re actually deterring. There’s the immigration paper you have to fill in on arrival, asking such questions as, “Do you have any seeds you are importing into the United States of America?” and many others. The sort of questions to which you have to answer “No”, or risk not being able to come into the country. Except that you’d have to be some kind of simpleton to answer “Yes” to any of the questions, because it’s very clear that such an answer would result in expulsion from the country. Do they really believe that anyone actually doing these things will answer Yes? I’m pretty convinced that most terrorists are substantially cleverer than that. Really, correct me if I’m wrong!

I was, initially, delighted by the security officer dealing with our line, as he was SUCH a spectacular stereotype. He was a slightly portly gentleman of a certain age, with what has to be, no question, THE best brush cut hair do I’ve ever seen!! Unfortunately this delight soured as people were delayed beyond what seemed reasonable, and people who’s English was somewhat less than perfect were treated to hand gestures – which may not have been a problem had the people in question been looking at our security guard at the time. The turnaround time of two hours had seemed rather generous, until one realised that we had to go through this, pick up the bags, recheck them and make it across the airport to another terminal to board our onward flight. We ended up running, gasping, onto the next flight.

This flight wasn’t anything like as nice as the trip over from the UK, but the stewards were just as lovely, and were able to provide me with a fair facsimile of a cup of tea for the flight!

We were delighted to arrive at Orlando airport and before we’d managed to find baggage claim, were collected ourselves!

The adventure continues as soon as I can...

eBooks as Presents.

I'm not a rich person. I'm not on the breadline, you understand, but one finds oneself becoming habitually cautious with money, and any holiday NOT a cheapo camping trip to France is regarded with suspicion because it could be expensive.


My boyfriend, however, is not badly off. Obviously this is GREAT, as long as I don't mind being labelled a gold-digger, so most of the time I try to pay my way as best I can.


However, it becomes a problem when trying to buy presents. Like my father, my boyfriend is well enough off to be able to buy pretty much what he fancies, although he might balk at a Ferrari. From my point of view, this means that choosing presents is a serious challenge, resulting in a pair of slippers one year, and a leather shooting licence holder the next. And with the best will in the world these are mega-boring presents!


So this year, in time for his birthday, I decided that since he'd spoken of the Kindle client on his Android device, I would go to Amazon.co.uk and choose a good book. I'd have had an actual book delivered, except that I gather the postal service in Canada can be a bit slow. Definitely a good case for an e-book or two. Since I can't afford to spend a expensively, I need to spend imaginatively!


I'd noticed that some of the kids in school have started to read George RR Martin's book, A Game of Thrones. I suspect this may have something to do with the recent HBO series, but whatever the reason, I decided this was the book, and so I bimbled over to Amazon, and found the book. Yes, it's available as an ebook, and it's not that expensive, either - bonus! Unfortunately the Buy as Gift button has disappeared. I was sure that I remembered, from last year when trying to buy my brother a magazine subscription for his Kindle, that one could buy a book as a gift, but not a magazine sub. While I'd found this odd at the time, I bought him a gift certificate instead, telling him what I'd thought I might get for him. OK - I know you can buy ebooks as gifts in the US, so I pottered over to the US site - yes! There it is! 


Except that I get the message "We're sorry, we could not complete your gift purchase because your Kindle account is registered to Amazon.co.uk. Only Kindle accounts registered to Amazon.com are currently eligible to purchase Kindle Book gifts." when I try to add the ebook to my order!


All answers provided by Amazon staff go along the lines of "Buy a gift certificate - then they can choose exactly what they like!"


Right - I'll just go and buy my rich boyfriend a cheepass £5 gift certificate so he can go ahead and choose a book he wants. Yeah, right. So much for using my imagination and coming up with a REALLY nice present.


You know what? I'm not a bad person. I want to be able to purchase e-content. I adore that my LoveFilm subscription allows me to stream movies. I hate that it's not all the movies, but the choice isn't so bad, and at least it's increasing daily. I love that I can buy MP3 albums from various places, and I do so! I'm a regular purchaser from Fictionwise, and they don't care where I put my content. In fact, had Fictionwise had the book in question, I'd have bought it from there, and found a way to deliver it to the birthday boy. As it happens, in the end I had to sign up for an account on a site called hive.co.uk, and bought the book in epub format. The site sent me confirmation emails with download links which I promptly forwarded to the birthday boy, who was able to download the books to his device.


Here's the deal, though, Amazon. You're going to have to fix this present giving thing. I can't be the only person (and going by the fact that the aforementioned answer is in the FAQ, or Frequently Asked Questions, I'm not) who wants to buy eContent as a gift. Sure, if you've got the money, a gift certificate is a brilliant way to go. This is about on the same level as our grandmothers giving us M&S clothes back in the day. Remember we'd just take them straight back to the store, get our money back and promptly spend it all on sweets or junk magazines?


And it's not just eBooks, you know. What about buying an MP3 album for someone? A game? A movie?

Books and eBooks

There are many reasons I love eBooks. One of the biggest of those is that during my recent move, I didn't lose a single one of them. Neither did they end up stored in a damp shed, curling up at the edges. Nope, they stayed firmly on my device, and as anyone who knows me well will be aware, the first things set up in any new home are computers, internet and gadgets. Without these the house is not a home.

The recent addition to the devices, an eeePad (not an iPad, dear me no!) running Android, has access to a slew of applications (free and otherwise), and so within the first week or two I found Android versions of a few of my favourite apps, including one for FBReader, an ebook reader I rather like. I won't go into the other apps I bought, except to recommend Cut The Rope!

But one afternoon, sitting and drinking tea with my mum, she mentioned to me a book I might enjoy, Broadmoor Revealed, an historic account of the famous mental hospital. Since Broadmoor is rather close (you can hear the alarm tests from where we live, every Monday morning), I did, indeed, think it a book worth my time, and on finding that it was free, I hastened to download the Kindle reader app, and then the book itself. The book arrived in double quick time - after all, it's delivered wirelessly, I don't have to wait for the post, and I set about reading it.

And then I got thinking - I wonder what other books may be available for free. Which is a slippery slope if ever there was one! I was hooked. I went through their Top 100 free books, many of which I already own, being such items as Sherlock Holmes books, or Jane Austen books. But there were enough modern ones to keep me interested. More were downloaded.

At which point it all starts to turn pearshaped.

I started to look at the other books. You know, the ones which aren't free. Let's just say that it's waaaay too easy to purchase books now. One click, and it's in my library. ONE CLICK!!!

Now we come to the dilemma.

I want to purchase a book about the VLE I'm testing (that's Virtual Learning Environment), and the paper copy is priced at £24, while the Kindle version is priced at £14! That's a pretty big discount. But if I buy the book, it's attached solely to my device. I can't leave it with the school when I go.

And the question of the day - should I buy it and expense it, knowing I'll be keeping it if I ever leave? After all, I'll be saving them £10, and anyway, it'll be obsolete before long, won't it?

Toddlers and Sharks

I glanced across a copy of The Times this morning, idly turning the pages as I perused, looking for juicy tidbits of information. And so it was that I stumbled upon the article entitled, "Nanny state makes a meal of child food advice with 80-page guide."

I'd link to the page, but it's one of the articles requiring signing up and paying for the online copy, which I have yet to do, but suffice it to say that the article gently rebukes the apparent u-turn performed by David Cameron for his stance on "The Nanny State". Apparently the 80-page guide even goes into the correct size of plastic plates from which you should feed your toddler, and provides an actual-size diagram of said plate, along with pictures of the perfect plate. As if this isn't risible enough, the sentence "The guide also reminds us not to feed shark to toddlers" has to be the icing and cherry on top of this delicious cake!

After all, I doubt there's a mum in Britain who hasn't pondered, as she decides what to feed her hungry family, on the suitability of shark meat for the evening meal.

"Honey," I can imagine her calling. "What would you like for supper? There's beans on toast, spaghetti bolognaise, or shark terriyaki."

Either that, or it's a typo, and was meant to read, "The guide also reminds us not to feed toddlers to sharks."

Goodbye

We all know that we're a product of our upbringing, and that early influences (and even some later ones) have a huge impact on the way we grow up. I suppose it's inevitable that as we get older the icons who influenced us as youngsters will pass on. Whatever anyone else thinks of the person providing the influence, the fact is that this person has been there, has shown us something.

So today I have to say goodbye to Steve Jobs. Thanks for the start.

It was back in December 1982 that I got a job, my first "proper" job, working at The Institute of Aviation Medicine, a lodger unit at the old Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough. I will never forget my first 3 days, as I sat round in the reception area, waiting for someone to tell me what I was supposed to do. Although someone did show me into the bowels of their very old PDP-8 on the third day, nothing fired me up quite as much as when, less than a week into my job, I was given an Apple II computer and a manual on how to program it, and told I might be able to make something of it. In the new year they sent me on a beginners programming course, but because of the start I'd had in December, I was always a week or so ahead of what we were being taught in the class. This had nothing to do with being a swot, more that using this first PC I found myself fired up to create and improve.

That. Right there. That was the start of my current hobby, life passion, raison d'etre and career.

I remember the first time I saw the iPhone, and I wanted to own one with every fibre of my being - well, until I read the tech specs, that is. But I could quite see, where others (and other phone manufacturers) failed to see, why so many people wanted to have one, and why it was SO successful. It was beautiful. Quite simply the most beautiful phone I'd seen. And despite my continued lack of desire to own one, I've not seen a phone yet that can match the sheer beauty of the iPhone. And the iPad? It took EVERY ounce of strength I had to stop myself spending the capital from the sale of the Big House on an iPad before I'd even found a home in which to house it!

While I've said many times over the years that I'm no Apple Fanboi, much of this dislike has stemmed from the very real fear that if everyone had Apple computers, I'd be out of a job. I remember one single, solitary support call from an Apple user, back at the end of the last millennium, while working at the BP site. Oh, sure, they had Apples, just no one ever needed support on them. EVER! I'd really like to think they were just too embarrassed to ask, since they did bang on so about how completely reliable they were!

Goodbye, and thanks for a large part of my life.

;_;