It's very nice but...

I'm talking about my shiny brand new IPhone. It's an amazing little device and I am in awe of the great things it can do. That's it in the picture above.
I've heard that there are over 100,000 applications available for it and I have already downloaded a bunch of them which are free.
I've discovered that I don't even need my GPS with me to go hunting for geocaches when I have my IPhone! I did pay $10 for the application from geocaching.com and this thing has become my GPS complete with access to the cache web pages.

BUT, I am having a very hard time getting used to typing on it. In fact, I am writing this from my desktop PC rather than the IPhone.
I'm not sure if anyone reading these blogs realizes this but almost all of them were done from my Blackberry Pearl. Here's a picture of it.


Many have a hard time believing this but I was able to blast out a blog, including attaching photos, so easily on my little Pearl.
I guess it was that I was used to Blackberry keys but I was faster with my thumbs than I am on this computer keyboard! I'm not kidding.

The biggest thing was that as long as I could feel the keys it usually worked out well. Usually.
The Pearl has two letters assigned to the keys which saved on space but was a pain in the butt at times. It has a feature where it looks at the keys you are typing and determines what letters you are typing and forms the word for you.
Usually that was just peachy except on the rare occasion that more than one word shares the same keys.
I can't count the times that I was typing "guys" and the screen came up with "hits". If I didn't catch it the sentence was ruined. (And perhaps people figured that I am quite physical at times?)
One place that words are typed quickly and the send button is pushed without proofreading is when I am Twittering. I'm certain that I "hit" the "guy" many times on Twitter.
Another interesting little blip was when I typed "lol" for "laugh out loud" the Blackberry took that to be the first three letters of "lollipop" and plopped that into the entry.
Hey, that's funny! Lollipop! Doesn't work.

Aside from that stuff though is the fact that I could compose volumes on those silly little keys. Because I could feel them.

In that IPhone picture up there do you see a keyboard? No, because it's not a physical keyboard but one that comes up on the screen when you need to type.
Like this:


I have been told that I will get used to this as I did with the tiny Pearl keys.
I sure hope so. It's been a week already since I got this from Rogers (I left Telus. I'll tell that story another time.) and I haven't felt good enough with it to do a whole blog like this one.
I have noticed that the IPhone is far smarter with decided my words for me. If I flub around and mess up letters in a word it thinks about the word that I must have intended and saves the day. That's cool.

Time will tell. I Hope that I just need more practice and one day I'll look back and wonder what I was worried about.

Until then my blogs may be here and there. But I'm still here.

Stay well,
Tim

I know this is cheating but it's interesting

I was just looking for a bookmark for a web site on my Blackberry and ran across one for a blog and personal site that I started a couple of years ago.
Obviously I forgot about it and didn't feel up to really getting into blogging further.
There are four blogs on there dated January 18, 2007, January 29, 2007, March 7, 2009 and March 11, 2007 and I'm going to post them here just for fun.
I guess that the January 18th blog is officially my very first blog ever. I don't THINK that I have any other orphan blogs out there but I'm not positive.
I mentioned cheating in the title since I don't really have to get creative for this. I just have to repost some ramblings from back then.
Forgive me for adding ramblings between them. I guess it's just trying to explain myself. :)
Let's do this.



January 18, 2007

Wow, my first blog entry ever

I apologize for not making this a sizzler of excitement and social commentary but it's the end of the day and frankly I'm tired. I didn't want to leave this blank today.
I'm in bed typing this on my Blackberry.
I'll finish it and watch more of "What Happened on the Moon pt 1" on my mp4 player until I can't keep my eyes open. It's a bunch of folks with some very interesting points who are claiming that the Apollo space program was not all we believe it was. Not sure how precise it all is but they make it sound convincing.
Why are the main folks in this thing British? Are they all jealous of the U.S.?
Why do people even look for all these things to shoot great achievements down? It was a great point in human history that we should all be proud of as humans, not Americans or Britons or Canadians. Leave it alone!
Maggie our little old girl cat is in her spot between my legs so that I can't roll over or even move while I type this.
Oh, I finally found that dang "Triple Play" multicache today after starting months ago. The lid was frozen shut.
Dang cold today but at least there was no wind. Only about -10 or so. It was much colder yesterday.
Boo has his first drum lesson finally tomorrow with the drummer with one arm. Should be interesting indeed. I'll be there.
Tiny had his first piano lesson the other night. So far so good.
Goodnight for now.



Wow. The guys were just beginning their music lessons back then.
How far they've come since then.
It was nice to read the part about Maggie the cat. I miss that little lady...


Here's the next one:


January 29, 2007

Too long between posts

It's amazing how easy it is for time to go zipping by as we get older.
I really had intentions of doing this more often but we get busy. Before you know it a week goes by.
The lads are both doing very well in their music lessons now.
Drummer lad surprised the instructor with how good he is. We already knew he can solo with ease but how is he with tempo?
Last Wednesday the teacher dude started into the whole 4 beats to a measure, 1/4 notes, 1/2 notes, 1/8 notes etc. and stressed the drummer is the band's clock and keeps time.
The lad got it and now solos with a rhythm. Amazing.
The piano man lad is also doing great. I've watched his hand and finger styles and it looks pretty darn good to me.
He is playing tunes and has a very good ear for it.
If a note is off he corrects it immediately.
I was sitting in the living room listening to him play in his room the other day and he was just playing around making up cool little tunes of his own.
A lot of talent in these guys.
It must have something to do with the headphones on mommy's tummy when she was pregnant and the classical music all night in their room when they were babies.
And also the constant Rush and Johnny Cash in the car with me.
Anyhoo, this weekend - Feb 2, is the launch of all the new geocaches planted for the 2007 Maritime Challenge.
We did really well around here but it looks like Nova Scotia has also gone nuts so we may get beaten again. Maybe. We'll see.
Sportsman has offered to take me out Saturday at 7:00 a.m. on his snowmobile to be first to find on his new series between here and Hanwell Road.
He knew I wouldn't be able to do them myself without a sled. What a guy.
His new hides are the only ones I don't know in advance. Almost every other local cacher was sending me their hide info so I could warn them of possible conflicts.
I took myself out of the FTF running for all of those.
However, I didn't get Sporty's cache info and his are fair game. Saturday should be good.
Zeeya



I have to tell you about that drumming teacher I mentioned in there, Boo's first teacher.
I felt bad for the guy because Boo continually practices and learns things on his own. He always has. He has a natural talent for that. The teacher had to stop teaching Boo. He said that Boo was developing faster than he could really teach him.
That teacher used to come to our home for the lessons. I think it was last lesson he did that he came down the stairs as Boo was grooving and said to us "Oh wow man, I was going to teach him that." He had already taught himself!
Occasionally I hear the TV in the basement with a DVD with Rush and the drummer Neil Peart or another drum related DVD playing.
I hear the TV play, then nothing as he walks to the drum room, then I hear Boo playing away on his drum kit trying to play what he's just watched.
Then back to the TV to watch again. And on he goes.
He does that with Youtube videos as well.
It's very cool to listen to.
Tiny has a knack for making little tunes up. He amazes me. Not all are instant classics but some are really good!
One thing that I love is how he changes the sound of the piano to suit the song he is playing.
For example, he knows to use a harpsichord sound for a medieval piece. Or a tinnier sound for something Spanish sounding. Do you know what I mean?
Both guys still go for lessons and they are doing very well.
Both have incredible teachers.
We can talk more about that another time.


There is also a lot of my jabbering about geocaching in there. Someone who doesn't follow or care about it would really have a boring time. Sorry about that.
I see that I intended that blog to be more of a personal diary than a column style as this one often is.


Are you still with me?
I know that if Charles has made it this far he's going nuts!
He hates when I carry on. Actually I could probably say all kinds of stuff about him right here and he'll never even know about it! :)


I think I'll do another blog post for the last two posts of that old blog.
You're welcome.

Stay well,
Tim