That Verizon iPad May Suck More Than You Suspect

I’ve noticed that when I travel, my fancy Verizon Wireless LTE iPad has trouble getting a signal. I don’t travel often so I attributed this to bad luck. But the last time it happened I posted this on Twitter:

I got a reply from one of my followers that my PRL might be out of date, and fixing that when I got back in a Verizon zone would probably help things out. Later, when back home, I tried his suggestion and found that the PRL did not update. I queried him and he told me he’d double check things. A few days later he replied:

https://twitter.com/JaymesRS/status/278196382005862400

https://twitter.com/JaymesRS/status/278196708540817408

This guy seems to know what he’s talking about and frankly, that stinks. You want the good Verizon service? Sign up for a monthly plan, sucker. Unfortunately for me, our family has AT&T iPhones.

29 October 2013 update:

https://twitter.com/JaymesRS/status/395290020593926144

I still think they should make this more clear. I now have the AT&T Mobile Share plan, so I’ll be getting an AT&T iPad regardless.

11 Foot 8

Welcome to the new home of the world’s most popular canopener bridge. Since 2008 I have recorded dozens of trucks challenging the low-down meanest train trestle in America.

These videos are mesmerizing. 11 FOOT 8

11foot8.com

It’s A Decorated Trunk, Charlie Brown!

My wife volunteered us at the last minute to be one of the trunks at her church’s Trunk Or Treat event. This is a big deal in our area, since it’s a big church and there are a lot of cars involved. People from all over come to get huge gobs of candy.

So here’s what Terry threw together in what seemed like minutes to me. I was at work and not involved in the design or creation of the trunk decorations.

Trunk Or Treat

Nice, isn’t it? My wife drew those pictures. She can just whip that stuff out–it’s pretty cool.

Hundreds of kids marched by. Terry has the total count, but I think we gave out something like 800 pieces of candy. I noticed two interesting things related to our trunk:

  1. Lots of kids love The Peanuts. There were many kids who exclaimed things like, “Snoopy!” as they walked by. There were even two kids dressed as Charlie Brown! I would have guessed that the popularity of The Peanuts would be greatly diminished these days, but that certainly didn’t seem to be the case.

  2. I heard many comments of, “that’s on TV tonight.” I’ve personally lived for a long time now where I have no idea what time or channel anything comes on (other than perhaps a Chiefs game). We don’t have cable and never watch anything (other than maybe a Chiefs game) live over the air. I’m so used to this that it was a little jarring to hear so many people talk about being tied to a specific day, time, and channel to watch something. I know as a kid many, many years ago I’d get excited when a Peanuts special was coming up, and I would be sure to have my butt parked in place so I didn’t miss it. But these days? Nearly everyone seems to have a DVR, not to mention all these specials are easily obtainable on DVD or as a streaming video. Yet still there are clearly large numbers of people who were going to sit down yesterday evening to watch It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown live, at the appointed time, with commercial breaks. (I can’t stand commercials.)