It has been a while since the last “travel week” has appeared on this blog. For this week I’ll bring you along on my trip to Toronto in August of 2007. Since MLB spring training is now well underway, we’ll start things off with some pictures from a Blue Jays-Orioles game I went to.

The above picture was were Frank Thomas stood at the beginning of the day, 508 home runs.

Up walks the Big Hurt to the plate and he promptly connects with one for my camera. (Thanks Frank!)

After circling the bases his home run count must be updated.

Will Frank be back this season? It doesn’t look promising. He will likely retire with 521 home runs. Back in the early to mid-1990s it seemed like he would be the greatest hitter ever. He would hit around .350, walk over a hundred times, and hit about 40 home runs year in and year out. Injuries and prolonged slumps took their toll after those seven or eight glory years. His career totals aren’t as spectacular as they were projected to be after the 1997 season, but he still had a few amazing years every now and again in the past decade. I’m glad he saved one for 2006 when he played for my A’s.

Posted on March 9th, 2009 under Other. Tags: baseball, canada. Comments Off on Toronto week

In my ongoing efforts to liquidate my possessions that aren’t coming with me to Japan in a few months, I’m selling the camera that has taken most of the pictures you see on this blog.

The condition of this camera is like new. There are no scratches, it functions perfectly, and it includes everything you’d receive if buying it new (except software as a more recent version can be downloaded for free here). I’m also throwing in a Gear camera bag ($20 value) for free. The Canon S3 will be shipped in its original box.

The retail price is $499.99. Take it and the camera bag off my hands for $200 plus postage. For more specs see this page.

Posted on February 27th, 2009 under Other. Tags: accessories, travel related goods. Comments: 2

Let’s put this one in the “travel accessories” category.

Today my fourth mp3 player arrived in the mail. My first was an RCA Lyra RD1090A. It worked great, still does, but it is a bit bulky and requires an armband or a pocket. The on-board memory is meager at 256MB, but you can insert SD cards which is really nice. The problem is that the RCA unit has problems reading my cards larger than 2GB.

My second mp3 player was a 1GB Apple iPod shuffle. I loved the size of my first shuffle and the ease with which I could just clip it on. I could have lived with the shuffle forever were it not for the storage capacity issue–1GB is not nearly enough if you listen to lots of music. Apple recently came out with a 2GB version, but for $69 I passed. I would pay $69 for an 8GB iPod shuffle–not for a 2GB shuffle.

I sold my 1GB shuffle and purchased my third mp3 player, a 4GB generic shuffle on ebay for $36 a few months ago. My third mp3 player was horrible, defective even, so I returned it.

Today, the following package arrived:

I purchased it from mall.hk for a mere $17.47 which included free shipping. Here are the pros and cons:

Pros:
– Price!
– 4GB of storage (vs. iPod shuffle with a max capacity of only half or a fourth as much)
– Transfer speed (between 1.6 and 2MB per second–the last generic shuffle I had transferred files at 200-400k per second)
– Headphones actually work well (unlike the ones I received with my third mp3 player which were complete garbage)
– Wall charger included (iPod shuffle doesn’t even include a wall charger)

Cons:
– Although it looks like a shuffle, it doesn’t shuffle (randomize) the songs; songs are played in the order copied–I got around this somewhat by copying the songs randomly so I won’t have to hear the same artist’s songs back to back
– Shipping takes forever from mall.hk; the mp3 player pictured above took an entire month to arrive
– Picture on mall.hk is of a real iPod shuffle; as you can see from these photos the button layout on this knock-off version is different
– Unit is slightly thicker than a real iPod shuffle (not a big deal)
– When unit is turned on, first song is always played, followed by song #2, etc. This is a big pain in the ass I’m hoping the company can send me some software to fix.

I will comment on battery life once I’ve drained it a couple of times. Right now I’m somewhat happy with this purchase. Unfortunately, I’ve already filled up all 4 GB. It won’t be too long before I’m longing for an 8GB shuffle.

48 hours later update: I found a work around for the first song always being played on startup problem. I don’t turn the unit off. Instead I just hit pause. The battery doesn’t appear to be used when the pause is on and it starts right were it left off when I hit pause again hours or days later. The battery has not been used up so far. I’ve listened to probably 3 hours of music and had it on pause for another 24 hours+ so the battery life appears to be good.

With the workaround and at least decent battery, so far, I have to up my review from “somewhat happy” to “happy.”

Posted on February 20th, 2009 under Other. Tags: recommendations, reviews, travel related goods. Comments: 73

Tomorrow we will return to things Japanese. I still have another half dozen or so decent pictures of Seattle that I may resurrect at some point in the future, but for now we’ll give Seattle a rest.

Today’s photograph is of the Space Needle as reflected in the Experience Music Project exterior. The blue building on the right is the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.

Posted on February 1st, 2009 under Other. Tags: buildings, museums, seattle. Comments Off on Last glimpse of Seattle

From across the street of the Gates Foundation parking garage you can see this view. Included is a artsy wall of sorts (on the right), Experience Music Project (lower left), the Space Needle (of course), and if you look really closely (it’s easier to see if you click on the image) you can even see the planet Venus in the sky. Of course, Venus isn’t there every evening. I got lucky.

Posted on January 31st, 2009 under Other. Tags: buildings, museums, seattle. Comments Off on Venus Space Needle