apple juice

I recently posted to my facebook status: “my real life is getting in the way of my digital one,” and that’s not such a bad thing. So much is new since I last posted. It may be the longest gap in blog posting since apple juice’s inception back in the early oughts. Let me bring you up to date on one area of my life.

One of the original themes of the blog was my car, a beloved 2003 Golf TDI. Dear friends, Bogey is no longer with us. Yes, sadly on the commute to work two weeks ago, I was in a car accident. Luckily, I am fine. Bogey didn’t fare so well. I rear-ended a pickup and his bumper became entangled with my engine. (No, I was not on my phone, fiddling with the radio, picking my nose, etc. I checked my blind spot to change lanes and when I looked back, traffic was coming to a complete and utter stop in front of me.)

The car was declared a total loss by my insurance. Thus, the search began. I’d love to have just walked into the VW dealer and bought a new 2010 Jetta Sportwagen TDI. They are looking quite nice. However, it is a bit more money than I had to spend.

After driving a few gasoline fulled 1.8T Jetta Wagons, I decided that I simply had to find a diesel. I find explaining diesel cars like explaining Macintosh computers to people in the late 90s. Until you drive one, you just won’t understand.

Nothing was showing up in Minnesota, so I widened the search. Other metro areas were canvassed, the eastern seaboard was searched (thanks, Jean!). I was ready to hop on a plane to Denver to investigate one potential vehicle when I found a 2005 Jetta Wagon TDI in neighboring Iowa.

I have the car back in Mpls now, and I’m hoping this one picks up where my Golf left off. It has a slightly more powerful 100HP engine (whoa, triple digits!), and I’m guessing slightly lower highway mileage. It only 87,000 miles, and like my Golf, I’m hoping to achieve at least 200,000 miles with this car. I’ll get a picture up soon. It’s beige, but not in a bad way. Manual transmission, heated seats (key in Minnesota).

It’s so silly to become attached to things, I have to remind myself of that. However, cars become such a part of our lives, (what car did I drive wife and daughter home from the hospital in? The Golf) and you can’t help but weave their stories into yours. I’m hoping this new (old) Jetta weaves a few new stories into our lives.

Sidenote: If you know me at all, you know the nerd inside of me. I just signed up for a new site called Fuelly, that helps track your fuel usage. They have a simple mobile site accessible from your iPhones, Blackberries, Nokias, etc. Enter the odometer and fuel amount when you fill up. Easy as pie. See neato badge to the right. Join and we can be fuelly friends. Seriously, it’s like the new twitter and facebook rolled into one.

I love a break from work. It is a chance to sit, reflect and think about things.

One thing I’ve been meaning to do is donate to the wikimedia foundation. Just a little bit, (but every little bit counts).

Wikipedia has become a part of my daily life, I can’t think of a day that goes by where I don’t look something up on wikipedia. I want this kind of access to knowledge available to my kids, my students, and people around the world.

By the way, this was the past few days of wikipedia:

Yinz (A second person plural pronoun regional to Pittsburg)

Lady Gaga (I admit it, I like her music)

Scallion (Same as a green onion)

Two things to know – 330 million people read the wikipedia each month, and they are a non-profit with 35 employees.

Think about how much you use the wikipedia and consider a donation as well.

just wanted to share with the 2 people that follow me… i love abba.

I haven’t spoken much about my decision to purchase a Nokia smartphone a year ago… Mostly because it has been an unmitigated disaster.

That may be a bit strong. I do like the phone I purchased, an N85. (said through clenched teeth) It has a really good camera for a phone (5 megapixel). It multitasks for real (all those iPhone ads asking “can your phone do that?”, yes, my phone can do that). There is a wealth of free and open-source software for the phone.

However, it has failed miserably in other areas:

I’ve returned it to Nokia FOUR TIMES for a stupid crack below the directional button. Same exact spot, four times in one year. They finally replaced it for a new N85 (even though I pleaded in a letter to have them swap it for some other comparable model).

Nokia’s whole operating system ecosystem is a mess. They offer literally 3 different ways to check your email on the phone. All of them slightly different, (and from what I’ve found, slightly different on different models of phones).

Their Microsoft Exchange support is ridiculous: You can only have one calendar. It is 2009. I have more than one calendar.

Their newest features only show up on random models of phones. Facebook app? Only on two models. Instant messaging? Some other batch of phones. Etc.

I could go on, but despite all of this, I’m rooting for them to succeed. Competition in the mobile phone market is essential, otherwise we’ll be ruled by the networks, and who wants that?

If I were in charge:

• Wayyyyyyy less models. Try 8. I think they currently offer 8000.
• One OS. Maemo looks great, this new Symbian version sounds good, but you also have S60 (3rd and 5th Edition, (what happened to 4th edition? No idea)), S40, and probably others.
• Give away your services, such as Maps. Have you heard of Google? They offer these things for free.
• Get a visionary to lead the company. Sounds like your current guy is a bit of a bore. (See “Can Nokia Recapture Its Glory Days“) You do not need boring. You need vision, excitement and focus.

So, if you’re out looking for a smartphone, considering a Nokia… proceed at your own risk… but I wouldn’t bet against them finding their groove again.

My next phone? Undecided.

it sure was nice to see joe mauer win the MVP award.

front page picture on the strib? hugging his mom.

hometown hero. love it.

From Study: Internet use won’t cause social isolation | Digital Media – CNET News:

I found this interesting (and true, in our case):

“Frequent Web users are more likely to communicate with neighbors in person than those who don’t use the Web as often, Pew found. In fact, 61 percent of respondents said that they talk to a neighbor at least once per month. The study also found that bloggers are 72 percent ‘more likely to belong to a local voluntary association’ than those who don’t blog.”

(Via Marginal Revolution.)