iDay!

Well, it's almost here. After weeks, months, years of waiting, the iPhone is only about 24 hours away! After 6 months of a slow build in anticipation, the last couple of weeks have seen a cascade of exciting new information about the thing. Details like new features, good rate plans, videos on features and how-to's... every day there's an exciting new revelation. For example:
- You don't have to go through a long in-store activation process as like you normally do with new cell service. You do it through iTunes.
- Apple has a page, updated nightly, where you can check iPhone availability at Apple retail stores. Who else does that for any product?!
- The first batch of official reviews have all been good; the thing's living up to the hype.

And just today...another testament to the greatness of Apple...at a company-wide meeting at their headquarters, His Steveness told employees that every employee who's worked there for at least a year, including part-timers...everybody...will get a free iPhone next month! And not just the 4gb one, but the 8gb one. Isn't that amazing?!

If you want to follow along as obsessively as I do, add TUAW and AppleInsider and iPhone Matters to your frequently-checked sites. And no, I'm not camping out in line to get one, like some people have been since Tuesday. I'm not even going to get one anytime soon. I like to wait awhile, to let any bugs get worked out. Still, I will go to a local AT&T store tomorrow to check it out and see the frenzy. For those of you with an Apple Store in town, go forth and partake in the madness, 6pm tomorrow!

Livestock!

I went down to the beach over the weekend. Going through Robertsdale on the way back, I noticed something I'd never seen before: the Robertsdale Livestock Auction! Right off 59, it's a brick front-building with a long open-air shed behind it full of pens for livestock. Something that caught my eye right away was a rooster wandering around the adjoining parking lot, so I got out of the car and discovered many more chickens of all ages milling about. Chickens in downtown Robertsdale! It's great to see things like that still around.

Aside from the poultry, there were also many cows (as seen above) which, in addition to just bein' purty, called to me with their mellifluous moos and satisfying scent.

Beach + Livestock = a Good Day in Baldwin County.


A Handsome Fellow

Potus Visit

Bush was in Mobile this afternoon. The article about it in this morning's paper began with a funny, telling sentence:

The president and first lady are scheduled to visit Mobile today in the first presidential visit in more than 30 years unrelated to weather damage.

June in Mobile

It's been a quiet couple of weeks here in Mobile, getting back to day-to-day life after the glory of Chile. I'm doing more interesting things at work now, more lawyerly things, so that's good.

And I've been drinking the shit out of mate, that South American tea-like elixir. It's so good! It gives you a boost, but a smoother one than coffee, and it's a bit of an appetite suppressant, so I don't have the urge to constantly graze that reading or writing legal stuff usually gives me. It has indeed partially supplanted coffee in my daily routine, and one day last week I even did not have coffee for a whole day! I cannot remember the last time I went a day without any coffee, but it had been years.

The benefits of the mate, combined with the slight weight loss that I achieved while in Chile (it's so much easier to eat better and be more active when you leave AL), inspired me to focus in fitness again, so in addition to cutting way back on calories, I've been running more. Soon I'll be a steed again.

That is, if I don't get waylaid by the new Waffle House going in across the street from my office! It's just off the intersection of Hillcrest & Grelot. A month ago, it was an empty lot; now, this new beacon of hope and goodness has popped up less than 100 yards from my workplace. I do believe I am the only one of us who can boast of this. It is surely the closest any of us has ever lived or worked to a WH, and it is glorious!

And one last thing about food... I had dinner with Randy, Michael, and Caleb (8 mos) last weekend. They're good. They're moving to Monterey, CA in a couple of weeks! I'm damn jealous.

Finally, speaking of better places: As if health care and public transportation aren't enough, here's yet another example of the little things that give Europe a higher quality of life than here: Supermarkets Offering Personal Scanners. At least they're beginning to be rolled out here. We'll see if they ever make it beyond high-end East Coast & West Coast stores. Of course, that's where I aim to get back to (or abroad), so why am I carping?

Pollos!

Another great thing about my trip to Chile is that it has enabled me get back to the original theme of this blog: chickens! I saw many chickens out in the countryside when we were down in Araucanía. Here are a couple of pulse-quickening shots...

Post-Chile

So I've been back from Chile for almost a week now, back to the grind. The trip was amazing, nine days of one surprise after the next. The only disappointment was that it was cloudy most of the time, so I never really got to see the southern stars. But it was neat to see the sun and moon cross the sky along a northerly route rather than a southerly one. And it was by far the farthest south I've ever been, reaching far enough (in the Villarrica area) to be farther south than the Australian mainland, roughly even with Tasmania. Oh yeah, I tested the water drain thing...it drained counterclockwise in my sink in Santiago, just as it does in my sink here in Mobile...so no Coriolis effect. As for weather, it was really chilly, being in late fall/early winter. And the leaves had turned! Used to be, when I thought of Latin American flora, I thought dense and green. But central Chile is at such a latitude that there are seasons like in the US, so there was a lot of colorful fall foliage, reminding me of New England at times. Some leafy parts of Santiago even looked like Brooklyn or the Upper West Side or something.

All in all, it was an incredible trip, with so many great sights and activities and people, especially considering that two days before the trip I didn't even know I was going there. This week I've been trying to edit the roughly 950 photos down to a manageable number to post online. They should be on Flickr soon. In the meantime, here's a shot of Julie and I in Pucón, on the shores of Lake Villarrica.

D-Day on XM

For everybody out there with XM Radio, check out this awesome show that's airing in a couple of days.

Relive the D-Day Invasion
June 6 at 12:41 AM-June 7 at 5:45 PM ET

The '40s - XM 4 brings history alive when it presents a 40-hour real-time re-creation of NBC Radio's coverage of the the massive Allied landing on the Normandy coast of France on June 6th, 1944.

Beginning with the first bulletin on that morning, which aired at 12:41 AM Eastern War Time (same as Eastern Daylight Time), The '40s - XM 4 will provide minute-by-minute coverage of the invasion for 40 hours as heard on the National Broadcasting Company's radio network.

Happy Birthday Jim!

Happy Birthday to One James Lakey! 31 years of Unchecked Fury!

Also, happy birthday to my mom Betsy and uncle David.
And I'm back from Chile...photos soon.