I’ve now been living with an iPhone 4 for a month.  I’m sure few would be surprised for me to call it a great smartphone.  As I said in my previous post, the screen is the outstanding feature.  I am truly amazed at this “Retina display”.  I actually carry 2 iPhones (work-issued and personal).  My work phone is an iPhone 3GS.  So, I’m reading each on a daily basis.  When they were both 3GS I was a happy camper (except for having to carry 2 phones).  Now, every time I check e-mail on the 3GS I’m reminded how poor the screen is in comparison to the 4.  The difference is striking.  I’m a gadget freak, so I would have picked up this new version anyway, but the screen itself is totally worth the upgrade.  In fact, it almost makes me disappointed in the the iPad 3G, which is nearly as new.  I know — totally different beast.

(more…)

Well, it’s been 8 years, but I finally logged another 2.6 hours of time flying. On Saturday I got to do a little cross-country flight to Gaston’s White River Resort in Lakeview, AR. A few weeks back, I got an e-mail newsletter from CubCrafters listing that their network of dealers will be hosting “Demo Days” throughout the month of June. These are demo sessions across the country promoting LSA and CubCrafters’ Carbon Cub SS. I’ve not seen many LSA, and the Carbon Cub SS is a development I’ve followed, so I took a list of Demo Days events and looked where the closest one might be — it was in Lakeview, AR. That was just close enough to entice me, but still too far. It’s a 4.5 hour drive and at this point I’d have to do the visit in a day trip. That’s just not happening, so I decided to look into air-taxi as I’d seen one advertised before by Downtown Aviation. It wasn’t going to be cheap, so I actively recruited other aviation buffs to join me and help defray costs. I only had one taker, but every bit helps. Downtown Aviation was willing to structure the flight as a training flight to help save us some money. I really appreciate that. So, come Saturday, we loaded up in a Cessna 182 and made a cross-country training flight out to Lakeview and it was a blast.

(more…)

I waited in line to get the iPhone 4 today and came away successful. I don’t yet know if this is a great new phone, but it has an amazing screen. I am blown away by the clarity. It’s like going from an SDTV to an HDTV. Text looks like it’s back-lit print — just amazing.

The purchasing experience was great too. Note that today is the second day of their availability. My working theory was that there would be some reservations that weren’t picked up on day one and those go in the available-to-walk-ins pool. I was sure others would be thinking the same way. I’m not totally nuts, though, so I got in line at 7am (for a scheduled 8am early opening). I was about number 20 in line. I talked to the folks around me and it seems everyone had been there the day before. It sounds like that had been a real zoo. It took about 30 minutes for me to get inside once the doors opened. I spent another 30 minutes getting and activating the 2 I was after. Not too bad. Now what do I do with 2 iPhone 3GS?

I watched my first Red Bull Air Race in HD yesterday, and it was over the air (OTA) for free on Fox! It’s one of the few things I missed from having cable, but even there I didn’t get it in HD. I’d discovered that the World Cup was on ABC and was pulling it up on the big screen for Grandpa and I flipped past the air race. Whoa. I quickly pressed the record button. After the World Cup game was over (it was Brazil vs the Ivory Coast), I went back to the recording. Very cool. I hope there are more. It was truly awesome.

It should go without saying — grab the right lens. We went to the Memphis Exotic Italian Car Show today and I just grabbed my camera on the way out. I only have 2 lenses and I figured that the one already installed would be “good enough”. Well, that was a big mistake. It wound up being my 50 – 200 lens, which is fine, but a bit too much zoom on an APS-C sized sensor like I’ve got. I kept finding myself trying to step back in places I couldn’t. It was really frustrating. Neat cars, nice show, a little small, especially for $10/person, but nice place to take Grandpa on Father’s Day. There are truely some cool cars in town.

Angels & Demons was something of a letdown.  I wasn’t expecting it, but I should have.  Never read a book and then watch a movie with big expectations.  I really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code (the movie, I didn’t read the book) and I thought this would be no different.  Ron Howard really knows what he’s doing and that leads to very high expectations.  So, having read (well, listened, it was an audio book over a lot of road miles) Dan Brown’s book, the movie felt like it was cut short.  In addition, the changes made to the story for the movie adaptation just seemed wrong.  So, it’s hard to judge the film on its own merits.  I keep comparing it to the book.  Maybe if I give it some more time.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa was a worthy sequel.  I wouldn’t say it was better than the original, but certainly not worse.  Parts of the story felt forced, but necessary to pull everything critical together.  Despite the forced nature of some of the story, the writing was good.  The voice actors and animation were as well.  In fact, viewing this in HD was a treat; there were many cuts where the scene was almost 3D.  That was cool.  I seem to have a lot of CG films and I think I might pick up the Madagascar pair in Blu-ray when I get to actually buying HD media.  Rentals will have to do for now, though.

Up was an interesting little film.  I guess I had some expectations, because this one surprised me.   I really didn’t think I had any, because I didn’t know anything about it other than that it was computer animated.  Well, the first 5 or 10 minutes was a complete surprise.  I almost couldn’t believe what was happening.  I don’t want to spoil it for anyone that hasn’t seen the film, but I was just confused.  I guess it was required to give enough back story for the rest of the film, but it makes me feel like there could have been some other way to do it without stretching the film out too long.  So you get past that and into the main story itself — it’s alright.  Nothing too special.  It’s certainly a unique subject matter for a kids film, but it works alright.  I’d recently seen a factoid that there were only 2 animated Disney features that included both parents together and neither dies.  This maintains the status quo.  I don’t get the happy Hollywood ending out of it, though.  It’s just not there.  Anyway, I put the story at about a 5.  The computer graphics and voice acting were superb.  The quality and thematic styling of the animation was really outstanding.  I really feel watching it in HD gave some benefit to the content.  Overall, I’m glad I passed on seeing it in the theater, but renting it was alright.

I didn’t know what to expect with the Watchmen movie.  All I’d heard was complaints about the in-your-face nature of a certain blue character’s anatomy.  I didn’t think it was that bad, but I could see how it might bug some people.  Then again, it shouldn’t bug anyone in the target audience.  In fact anyone that complains about that should also be piping up about some other scenes as well (of which I heard no piping before).  Personally, I don’t think I liked the movie, but I could see this becoming a cult favorite.  There is nothing in particular I can say was bad about the movie.  The casting, writing, cinematography, acting, make-up (except for the scenes of old Miss Jupiter, that was obvious costuming), and story were all well done.  It just wasn’t for me.  I think it has something to do with the styling cues and thematic continuity of the film that I didn’t like.  Don’t let that dissuade you.  While I don’t recommend the movie, it’s not for being a bad movie.  Watch it yourself and decide.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was a name and series milking movie.  Really, that’s the way to look at it.  I certainly enjoyed (and own) the first two movies in the series, but I doubt I’ll by this third.  In fact, I think the second movie was better than the first.  This third, however, didn’t stand up to my muster.  It’s not a bad movie, but more in line with something I’d expect as a made for TV movie or Saturday morning cartoon series.  There’s a lot of predictable dialog, and guessable plot lines.  There are certainly some redeeming jokes and gags, a couple new well developed characters, and a nice twist to the saber-tooth squirrel acorn chase.  It’s probably good as purely a kids movie (which is obviously its target market), but the previous films appeal to a more broad audience.  The voice actors did their job, the animators did their job.  The picture in HD was quite good.  It was the story and to some extent the dialog that were the let-down.