That's what most of Texas can feel like, but for now I'm in Dalhart, TX. With a population of only 7,300 people, there isn't much to see and do and this town merely acted as a pass-through point for us to just fill up on gas and make sure we're on the right path: north on Highway 87. I did give the Verizon aircard another test, but wasn't surprised when I found I was still on roaming dialup speeds (will post screenshot later).
All the gadgets are holding up well for the most part, altough it looks like I forgot to replace the batteries in my Canon Powershot, as it died. A quick double A replacement, and I was back on my way. My Nokia 6265i still won't place calls although I paid for 200 roaming minutes for this trip. Following the instructions from the automated Cricket service yielded no success, and I got tired of waiting on hold for a Cricket rep. Alas, at least our Motorola RAZR on the T-Mobile works (even if we're on Cingular's roaming network). Our next stop should be Raton, NM just 20 miles south of the Colorado border. See you there!
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
WiFi...At Last!
I've finally made it to the 21st century and arrived at a local McDonalds here in Plainview, TX which just happens to serve free wireless internet. I'm no longer handicapped with sub-dialup speeds, but alas it is but for a moment as I will be jumping back on the road heading up to Amarillo next. Only another 110 miles to go, and maybe this Verizon card will get better coverage.
Again, no need for pictures, not much to see out here in the grassroots area of Texas. I'll take a few shots of the border as we cross into New Mexico through Texline, the windiest city in the country. New Mexico can be a lot more beautiful in my opinion than the panhandle of Texas, with plenty of picturesque stone formations and enticing views of the surrounding landscape. So far the weather has been on our side with plenty of sunshine, leaving all the rain behind in San Antonio. Despite the chance for rain up through Amarillo into New Mexico today, I'm confident we'll have a smooth ride until we arrive in Colorado Springs. Weather.com states we're in for more rain than sun for most of our trip but I'm hoping it doesn't hold up.
I forgot to mention, I purchased a 200W power inverter to power the laptop and other gizmos I brought, with my truck's DC power. I figured since this laptop's battery life rates at about 4.5 hours and the trip will be at least 3 times that, something had to be done. It's held up pretty well so far with one AC plug and a car adapter port to plug in other devices, and a handy switch to turn the device off or on. It's footprint is very small, no bigger than about 2 decks of playing cards and includes a little fan to keep the device cool. It was a bargain at less than $35, too!
Since my truck doesn't include a modern CD player, let alone a cassette player (not even an 8-track? nope.), I decided to use my trusty Sandisk Sansa e250r mp3 player to keep me awake on those monotonous Texas roads. I d/l'ed about 150 songs onto it before I left, so that should at least keep me busy. Texas radio just plain sucks once you get in the panhandle, unless you absolutely love country music then you'll feel right at home (there's only so much Rascall Flatts one can listen to.)
Onto Amarillo ... "Amarillo by mornin', Amarillo's where I'll be"
Again, no need for pictures, not much to see out here in the grassroots area of Texas. I'll take a few shots of the border as we cross into New Mexico through Texline, the windiest city in the country. New Mexico can be a lot more beautiful in my opinion than the panhandle of Texas, with plenty of picturesque stone formations and enticing views of the surrounding landscape. So far the weather has been on our side with plenty of sunshine, leaving all the rain behind in San Antonio. Despite the chance for rain up through Amarillo into New Mexico today, I'm confident we'll have a smooth ride until we arrive in Colorado Springs. Weather.com states we're in for more rain than sun for most of our trip but I'm hoping it doesn't hold up.
I forgot to mention, I purchased a 200W power inverter to power the laptop and other gizmos I brought, with my truck's DC power. I figured since this laptop's battery life rates at about 4.5 hours and the trip will be at least 3 times that, something had to be done. It's held up pretty well so far with one AC plug and a car adapter port to plug in other devices, and a handy switch to turn the device off or on. It's footprint is very small, no bigger than about 2 decks of playing cards and includes a little fan to keep the device cool. It was a bargain at less than $35, too!
Since my truck doesn't include a modern CD player, let alone a cassette player (not even an 8-track? nope.), I decided to use my trusty Sandisk Sansa e250r mp3 player to keep me awake on those monotonous Texas roads. I d/l'ed about 150 songs onto it before I left, so that should at least keep me busy. Texas radio just plain sucks once you get in the panhandle, unless you absolutely love country music then you'll feel right at home (there's only so much Rascall Flatts one can listen to.)
Onto Amarillo ... "Amarillo by mornin', Amarillo's where I'll be"
Tumbleweeds and Cows, Oh My!
Well, it looks like I'm still stuck on sub-dialup speeds on this verizon wireless aircard, here in Lubbock, TX. I'm attempting a speedtest on speakeasy.net again, hoping this time it'll complete before timing out. At least I can use notepad until I get into the next city with Verizon broadband access towers. We'll be approaching the halfway point on our trip pretty soon and it looks like we're making pretty good time: 400 miles in just over 6 hours. I've only had to fill up the gas in my Ford Ranger once so far...not bad seeing I only get 24 miles to the gallon. Nothing much to report on as I'm between a Town & Country gas station and a Double Discount liquour store: true signs of a Texan town, yeehaw! Now all we need is a few tumbleweeds and some cows (oh wait, I spot those too!)
Next post should be from Amarillo...I hope I can get some faster speed out of the networks up there in George Strait country, see ya then!
PS. That speed test just completed: I'm on a whopping 45kbps connection! Watch out now.
Next post should be from Amarillo...I hope I can get some faster speed out of the networks up there in George Strait country, see ya then!
PS. That speed test just completed: I'm on a whopping 45kbps connection! Watch out now.
Colorado, Here We Come!!!
We're off on our expedition; Road Trip 2007 has begun! We've made it to San Marcos from San Antonio in roughly 3 hours...not bad, but we're still behind schedule if we're to arrive between 5-7pm tonight. Nothing much to blog about here, just a bunch of cars and restaurants and a university and that's about it. No need for pictures...but that should change soon as the scenery gets a bit more exciting (laughs). Unfortunately, this Verizon card is currently in roaming status so my speeds are worse than dialup...hence why I'm writing this blog post in notepad. :( Even my cell phone has no coverage out here (that's because it's on Cricket's network and even after paying for roaming minutes, I still can't make a call: useless I tell you, useless!).
I'm not surprised though, most parts of Texas are not technology friendly. Well, until next stop!
I'm not surprised though, most parts of Texas are not technology friendly. Well, until next stop!
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Road Trip 2007! Back on the Road Again
I'm back, after a long hiatus from blogging. I know I'm quite behind on the blogging scene so I'm using this next event as an excuse to jump back in! This event will be Convergence Daily's first ever Road Trip! We'll be trekking across the vastness that are the Texas open roads from San Antonio through Amarillo into the panhandle across into New Mexico heading north into Colorado and finally landing in beautiful Colorado Springs, CO! That's a total of about 2,000 miles roundtrip! While driving my new Ford Ranger on its 1st roadtrip as well, I'll be testing a variety of technology ranging from mp3 players to a laptop and writing about my experiences all here on Convergence Daily. A short list of hardware includes: Sandisk Sansa e250R mp3 player, Philips 7" Widescreen portable DVD player, Apple iPod 30GB video, Canon PowerShot A510 3.2 MP & Sony CyberShot 7.2 MP digital cameras, a DELL Latitude D600 laptop, Verizon Wireless USB720 Broadband Aircard (almost T1 speeds on the road!), iMation 2GB flash drive, Casio G-Shock solar-powered watch, a CompUSA USB bluetooth adapter, my trusty Nokia 6265i mobile phone on the Cricket network and a Motorola RAZR on T-Mobile's network.
I'll be putting all of this hardware and more through its paces while I spend most of my trip in Colorado Springs, CO visiting all of the sites and even climbing Pikes Peak which sits at over 14,000 ft above sea level, that's more than half the height of Mt Everest, the tallest mountain in the world! I depart for this trip on Wednesday, July 18th to Colorado Springs, CO and shall arrive back in San Antonio Lord-willing safe and sound on July 24th sometime in the late evening. My plan is to post photos I've taken during the trip to my Flickr account, any video to YouTube, and of course all editorial content here at Convergence Daily. I might even take a look at using Twitter to track special events like the Pike's Peak climb. I'm very excited about this trip and look forward to sharing it with you all and testing the flurry of technology we'll have at our fingertips for your reading enjoyment!
See you on the 18th for Convergence Daily's Road Trip 2007!
I'll be putting all of this hardware and more through its paces while I spend most of my trip in Colorado Springs, CO visiting all of the sites and even climbing Pikes Peak which sits at over 14,000 ft above sea level, that's more than half the height of Mt Everest, the tallest mountain in the world! I depart for this trip on Wednesday, July 18th to Colorado Springs, CO and shall arrive back in San Antonio Lord-willing safe and sound on July 24th sometime in the late evening. My plan is to post photos I've taken during the trip to my Flickr account, any video to YouTube, and of course all editorial content here at Convergence Daily. I might even take a look at using Twitter to track special events like the Pike's Peak climb. I'm very excited about this trip and look forward to sharing it with you all and testing the flurry of technology we'll have at our fingertips for your reading enjoyment!
See you on the 18th for Convergence Daily's Road Trip 2007!
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