All things geek in my life
Well we weren’t there today but this just shows why I am glad we bought the Smart car. Maybe we can get a group this large one day in Phoenix. 133 cars going down Lombard St in San Francisco on August 17th. It’s fun to drive, fun to own, and fun to hang out with other Smart owners.
I spent the weekend upgrading the radio in the Smart. Nothing like working in the garage when it is 112 outside. My fan really helped. Well not really. Go to the Smart page to see more. It was lots of fun to tear the car apart. Wish I could have had a few friends help me but who would want to work under these conditions. Met a local Chandler police officer patrolling our neighborhood. She has a Smart and an Element as well. Go figure. Bet she will keep an extra eye on our house now. 
Now the little car has a BIG radio. Pimp my ride
Well I escaped last week to Germany. Got back this past Monday. The reason for the trip was to pay a visit to Berlin, a city I haven’t been to since 1996, and watch some Europe 2008 Soccer! Weather was great. I arrived a week ago today and was able to see Germany beat Portugal in the quarter finals. Great time in Weimar. We then went to Berlin on Friday eve where I stayed the rest of the time. My friends Albert and Tina took very good care of me. We were able to stay at Tina’s mothers flat so no expensive hotel bill. Berlin is fun and it is nice to see all of the changes. I will have to go back again and spend a bit more time there with Annette. Pictures are on our Flickr site. Enjoy.
Global Roaming Note:
I primarily used my Blauworld.de sim card since it is only about 15 cents per minute to call the US. However, both the Celtrek Global Sim and my OneSim cards worked well. I used the Celtrek for cheaper inbound calls and then returned with Blau. Yes, overly complex but this was for testing purposes. Again I used MyGlobalTalk to forward the calls from a local Phoenix number to whichever sim card I preferred. I really think this is the best possible solution for people. Get a local number and then decide where you want it to connect to. It could be your hotel if need be. Easy to change online.
Just bought a TomTom 920 GPS from Costco, $299.00 (Good deal) Now it’s time to learn everything about it. Two great features are using Google Maps and creating your own POI (Points of Interest) databases. For now I will just show you my POI example. This will let you download all of the Arizona Federal Credit Unions into your TomTom device. I will also add how to use Google Maps with TomTom.
So click the button if you want to download these locations.
This is a promising device. The RedFly Mobile Companion gives you a laptop size keyboard and screen to use with your smartphone. Estimated retail price is $500.00.
A lengthly review is available here: BostonPocketPC.com
The company web site is here: Celio Corp
Well guess what. We bought a Smart car! Yeah probably a silly idea but what the heck. Unless you are Shirley Maclaine you only live once! We participated in the $99 reservation program last year. In December we were able to configure the car we wanted. It arrived in AZ when we were on our trip. Of course I am learning everything about the car and what gadgets I can add. First gadget is something called the ScanGauge II. Great device which tells you all sorts of stuff about your car. The main feature is it can show you how to improve your driving patterns to save gas. Visit www.scangauge.com for more information. Believe it or not a tall guy like me, 6′ 4″, can fit just fine. To see all of our pics including ones from our recent trip to Europe visit our Flickr site.
So much for updating our blog while we were traveling. We are headed home tomorrow from Zurich. Had a blast in Croatia. We went to Split and then Dubrovnik. I will update this thing sometime soon. You MUST visit Croatia. It rules! Pictures will be on Flickr this week. Our standby flights all worked out. No problems getting to Croatia or getting back to Switzerland. Flights looked better in Zurich so here we are. Weather has been great. So that’s it from evil Starbucks in Zurich. $6.00 for a cup of coffee so you can get 30 min of free internet. At least it was a big cup and now I have a great caffeine fix. Hard to find in Europe. McDonalds also has free 30 min wifi if you can handle the food or at least buy a drink. This is in Switzerland. Not sure about elsewhere.
See ya!
Ok so here’s our journey so far. PHX-EWR (Newark) EWR-GVA (Geneva) Spent 2 hours there. GVA-Vienna on Austrian almost made the flight from Vienna to Split, Croatia but only 1 seat available. Now we are waiting for the last flight of the day. Otherwise we will get to see Vienna. Not such a bad thing. We flight Austrian Arrow (Express) operated by Tyrolean. 50 seat CRJ with 2 flight attendants and a hot meal. So hopefully we make it to Split today. We are dead tired. Been up for more than 24 hours. Didn’t sleep on the flight from Newark. For some reason small kids were allowed in 1st class. Thought this was a no no and they were screaming the majority of the flight. If I had paid a full fare ticket for 1st class I would have been pissed! Sorry Continental that is a disservice to your customers. Maybe they just change the rule because it used to be you had to be around 12-13 to ride 1st class. I.E. no screaming 3 year olds. Enough of that rant… Will update when we can. If we make it to Split and the hotel we have chosen we will be happy. The hotel has WiFi yipee…. Adios
I am working on a reference document to help sort through all of the options if you want to use your mobile phone while traveling out of the US. There are many. It really depends on how often you travel out of the country and how many calls you anticipate on making.
One company to consider is CelTrek - Affordable worldwide mobile service. You get a US phone number with low inbound rates and free inbound text messages. There are many others. Based on extensive research my guide discusses some of the best.
MyGlobalTalk.Com offers s great service. MGT allows people to call a US phone number, you choose it, and have it forwarded to any number around the globe. Rates are very reasonable. So if you change sim cards often this is a very viable solution. Give everyone this single number and you choose where it rings to!
Take a look at the rough draft of my guide: Global Connections
This guide also discusses the use of VOIP technology with a laptop and callback services. Both of which can save your large sums of money when trying to call back to the USA.
