Some may not have even noticed that I was out of the "office" for the past week or so, but others might have noticed my slow response to e-mails and comments was even slower last week. So I thought I'd shed a little light sun on the story for you.
About 11 days ago I left with my wife to vacation in Florida and catch a short (read much-less-expensive) cruise.
While the goal was to get away from it all, I still managed to stay sort-of connected. I did some pre-cruise blogging over the weekend (all blog posts last week were auto-posted in advance) from our deck and the B&B's beach at Key Largo.
Keen eyes will notice the laptop still has XP powering it. Looking forward to our work moving to Windows 7 at some point next year.
Next it was time to board the ship, but the timing just happened to be when the Apple WWDC keynote was going on so I checked my ubertwitter (for blackberry) app religiously to keep updated on the Apple WDC news - of which I was mostly disappointed in other than the nice price-drop on the old iPhones.
After heading out to sea I chose to not pay the premium for WiFi access on the ship and instead just enjoy being disconnected from the internets.
So during the Cruise we mostly relied on our iPod's (Shelly has the iPod Classic and I have the iPod Touch) and Shelly's Kindle 2 for our technology needs. You'll note in the photo below, Shelly has become very comfortable with bringing the Kindle 2 with her - even to the beach. A simple plastic baggie is a nice protector for the moments you might be worried about the elements, but the Kindle 2 performed admirably in and out of the sun just like the traditional paperback.
(Yes that's our cruise ship off in the distance - and Shelly's gadgets on her beach chair)
When the ship stopped at Key West I had one more chance to catch up on some e-mails and real news during the trip. Unfortunately though my Blackberry was so full of e-mails it seriously buzzed with new notifications for over an hour (yes I was too lazy to shut off the notifications) until it ran out of battery before the day was over.
On the way back we had plenty (more than we really wanted really) time in the airport so rather then deal with the poor WiFi service in the two airports I was in I used my trusty AT&T USB 3G along with the laptop to begin catching up on the techie news I follow.
We also both carried compact cameras - mine is a Panasonic TZ5 which I dearly love and Shelly's is a small Sony. I left the handheld GPS at home this time as our ports weren't anything too exciting and Shelly always gives me a very hard time about the "bag-o-gadgets-and-wires" I always carry with me. Since returning home I've been working hard to get caught up on the goings on for GeekTonic and at work.
