Tech Talk Thursday #6

AT&T vs. Verizon

I want to put my two cents into this argument and share my feelings about AT&T. I think AT&T needs to get over the whining and get off their digital butts and get 3G in areas that aren’t currently covered by 3G.

I travel a lot and I do like the fast 3G data network but the Edge data is fast enough for me. I don’t stream video and mostly do light stuff. Sometimes I do like to be able to talk on the phone and access the Internet sometimes but not often. I also use a data card on my PowerBook G4 and it works great on Edge and 3G but I do prefer the 3G because it is much faster downloading podcast. Also, sometimes Edge just doesn’t want to work. I experience that on my iPhone too.

I have been with AT&T for over seven years. I started out with a Bellsouth phone then went to Cingular and now AT&T. I haven’t had a bit of problems with them and haven’t seen anything wrong with their customer service department either. I’m sorry for those of you who have but I don’t think I’m getting the royal treatment either.

App Review

LED Football

This app takes me back a long way. I remember playing this at my grandmother’s house because my uncle hand one of these games. I played it hours on end and never tired of it until the battery ran out. It’s the classic LED Football. I saw this game at Wal-Mart not long ago but for 99 cents for this app I’d rather save the $9.01 because this is as real as it gets.
You simply try to avoid the defense and when you score it makes the same sound it did way back when.

The only downside to this app is that if you receive a call while playing it just starts over because there is no way to save a game. Also, you only get to play one 15.0 period per game and the score reset to zero. You can either play a single player or two player game and level of difficulty can be easy or hard. The only difference I can tell from the easy and hard is that the time runs twice as fast and the “defense” move faster.

I know that I’ll be playing this game for a long time. I generally don’t play games on any platform because I really don’t have an interest and I also look at my iPhone as more of a production tool. I have a couple of other games that I enjoy playing on occasion on the iPhone but will save those for another time.

LED Football 2 is also available in the App Store along with LED Basketball but I haven’t played either of them.

That’s going to do me for this week. Hope you are having a great Thanksgiving and will see you again next week.

Trucker Tuesday #2

Welcome back for the second edition of Trucker Tuesday. In this edition I’m going to tell you a little about me and also share with you another one of my pet peeves I see in the trucking industry.

About Me

I’ve been trucking full time since May 2000 and stayed with the same company for almost seven years. I’ve been with my current company for almost three years now. I started out in trucking in July 1994 when I needed a job and my father-in-law started teaching me to drive. I didn’t have any problems except for backing. I think we all have that problem when we first start out. Backing is one of those things that really takes alot of practice. We drove team for about four months and then I made my first solo trip to Crossville, TN. It wasn’t good. I will spare you the details but, trust me, it just wasn’t good.

I continued to drive until October 1996 when I started working for a furniture company. I worked my way up and finally got an office job sitting in front of a computer. i actually was programming CNC equipment. I enjoyed it but it just wasn’t making the bills. I started driving team again with a company and enjoyed it for a while. I guess it always happens but the company started to believe that they owned us. We left when they told us to leave and came home when they told us to come home. In the beginning we were told me I’d be home most weekends. Those weekends started being few and the dispatchers made it even worse. I’ll save the rest for another Tuesday.

I finally had enough and started working my current job and I like it. It can be hard work sometimes but for a trucking job it’s good. I am home most weekends here and I don’t feel like the boss thinks he owns me. Home time comes and goes. I may be home for one nights this week but then the next time I’m home I may be home two or three.

Pet Peeve #2

Another one of my pet peeves is a driver stinking. I was in a Pilot in West Memphis, AR, one time and went past this guy and he was stinking to high heaven. He smelled like he hadn’t had a shower in a long time. After he left, the cashiers were spraying air freshener to cover the smell up.

I don’t understand why a driver would want to stink. They give you a free shower when you fuel up and you normally have five days to redeem the shower. I personally like to take a shower everyday but that isn’t always possible. I will get a shower every other day though.

For the Record

These pet peeves aren’t directed at any one person or company. They are just my feeling about what is happening in the trucking industry and maybe some of the things we as drivers can do to improve our image. Let’s face it, the public doesn’t see us the same way we see us. They think we are foul mouthed, dirty, speed demons ready for an accident to happen. A few bad apples ruin them all.

Thanks for dropping by and hope to see you again next Tuesday. Happy Thanksgiving!

National Diabetes Awareness Month

It was brought to my attention the other day that November is National Diabetes Awareness Month. You may wonder why I am bothering to write a post about diabetes. In September 2008 I was diagnosed with it and it really scared me. I knew I wasn’t sick and was along way from it but I also knew that I had to keep my sugar under control. My first A1C was 8.7. I went back in three months and it was down to 6.0. Six months later it was down to 5.8. I go back to have it checked again next month and hope to get a good report.

Live with diabetes can be difficult at times but it’s all about control. I’ve decided that 2010 is going to be my year and I’m going to keep a closer reign on my sugar. Even though it doesn’t go high and stay, sometimes I can feel the effects of it going high. I can also feel it when my sugar gets to low.

To find out more about diabetes including facts and myths about diabetes visit the American Diabetes Association’s website here.

Tech Talk Thursday #5

Welcome back for another edition of my Triple T that I stole from Rob a month ago. Today we are going to be talking about some of the streaming audio applications available on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

TuneWiki

TuneWiki is different that all of the other apps that I have because it will play songs from you music library and it will also play internet radio stations. What sets it apart is that it will go out and get the lyrics to the song that is playing. Some songs can’t be found but it displays the album art, artist, and album name. In the app you will find tons of genres of music. For example: blues, 80s, classic rock, reggae, and many more. The best part about this app is that it is FREE!

iheartradio

I really like this app, when it works. I know part of the problem is the area that I’m trying to stream the audio but sometimes I have to restart this app two or three times. Even though this app contains hundreds of stations around the country I like to listen to KFI out of Los Angeles and under Personalities I like the Elvis Duran Channel. This app is worth checking out for FREE too!

Here is a list of the other streaming audio apps I have on my iPhone:

Pandora
AOL Radio
Last.fm
Concert Vault
TWIT
Stitcher

That’s going to do me for this weeks Tech Talk Thursday. Be sure to check out Rob’s blog here, where he does a Triple T on Tuesday.

Trucker Tuesday #1

Welcome to the first of my weekly post about trucking. These post are not going be just the news that you can read in a trucking paper. I’m going to lay it out of how I see truckers and other things that are happening in the industry. You comments are welcome and I will approve all comments unless you use bad language or you intend to cause harm to some other party. Now on with this week’s edition of Trucker Tuesday.

Pet Peeve #1

I have lots of pet peeves that I see other drivers doing or not doing and the first one on my list is parking illegally when there is plenty of parking. I went into a Love’s in VA last week and the place was a mad house. Drivers parked along the curve, in front of the fuel islands. When I finally got around them I saw plenty of parking spaces. After I got fuel, I tried pulling around to park but the incoming traffic wouldn’t let me “break line”. While waiting there, I saw a driver pull up and then she tried going around all of the blocked traffic. I guess she was in a hurry.

Funny Thing Happened

After getting pulled into my parking space, I went inside to take a shower. I asked them to put my name on the list. I told her my name and she said I was already on there. I said, “That’s not me.” So I have her my last initial. I got out of the way and told the other driver waiting that there wass already a Jeremy on the list and he said, “That’s me.” We talked for couple minutes and they called him, “Jeremy #1″. I guess that makes me “Jeremy #2″.

Thanks for stopping

Thanks for stopping by and hope you will be next week for another edition of Trucker Tuesday.

Tech Talk Thursday #4

This week I’m gonna review two free applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

K-LOVE app (iTunes Link)

The K-LOVE app is just simply a radio app for K-LOVE. This station (or network) plays contemporary Christian music that is “Positive & Encouraging”. You just start the app and it starts playing.

My experience with the app hasn’t been all that good over Edge but over 3G and WI-FI it works perfect. Along with the main start up screen it also displays current contest, events, and an encouraging word from scripture.

This is my second most listened to audio app I have on my iPhone.

Pizza Hut app (iTunes Link)

Last week Pizza Hut announced it had made $1 million from this app. I’m in total shock. I don’t even have the app on my iPhone anymore because it only has carry out and delivery options. I’d like to be able to place my order before I get there and dine-in too. I’ve heard this option is available but I haven’t been able to find it. Can someone help me out?

The app is alright for it’s intended purpose but I don’t like it for the above reason. Same thing goes for the Domino’s mobile website but it is so much easier to order a pizza from Domino’s with the web interface than it is with the Pizza Hut app.

That’s going to do me for this week. Be sure to check back here next week for more reviews of some of my favorite apps and some of my not so favorite.

Review: Beauty Will Rise Album by Steven Curtis Chapman

I’ve listen to this album three times and all I can say about it is, “Wow!” This has got to be one of my favorite albums by any artist. It’s an amazing work of art.

Background of SCC

Back in May 2008 Steven Curtis Chapman lost one of his little girls in a tragic accident. What should have been a time of celebration turned quickly into a time of sadness.

Review

I can’t pick a favorite song from this album because I love them all. If you listen to the lyrics you quickly realize that SCC was grieving but also praising God. How someone can do this, I don’t know, but SCC found strength to somehow praise our awesome God.

He talked about the things that he remembers doing with his little girl and what he wants to do with her when he gets to heaven. As I listened to the songs I didn’t know if I should be crying or rejoicing. This album is probably best listened to alone but also great to share with someone you know that has lost someone close.

It’s well worth the $9.99 from iTunes and I don’t regret buying it. Here’s a link to the album.

Childhood Memories #1

Today I’m starting a new kind of blog post. It will be a monthy

Now that the 2009 baseball season is over with and my least favorite team won the World Series, it kind of takes me back to 1987. That was the year that I started collecting baseball cards. It really wasn’t an early age to start collecting cards because I turned 16 years old that year.

I remember exactly how it all started. I went to Shopezy (those not familiar with Walnut, MS…it’s a grocery store) and bought a pack of baseball cards for forty cents. I had earned the money by mowing a church yard. I opened the pack and looked through them. I didn’t know any of the players but I didn’t show them to some friends that lived down the road. I found out that one of them had been collecting cards for a long time and we looked at some of the cards they he had collected over the years.

During that summer, we traded cards that we had two of for one that we didn’t have. I also got to go to my first card show that year and that was exciting. I watched baseball whenever I could and started keeping up with the teams and decided that year that the St Louis Cardinals were going to be my favorite. I don’t know the reason I chose them, I just know that I did.

That year’s World Series was played between the Cardinals and the Twins. The Twins ended up winning but I didn’t care. I had the baseball cards and that was all that mattered. I loved keeping up with my favorite players (Will Clark was one because he played for Mississippi State).

The following two or three years, I continued to buy and collect baseball cards until I had a pretty good collection and could almost tell you the name of every player and what team he played on. For some reason I lost interest in collecting cards but my love for baseball didn’t. To this day, I still like watching those Cardinals play ball and got to go and see them play against the Mets back in 2005 with my best friend and our boys.

I still have those baseball cards, mostly in plastic sheets. I don’t know how how many I have but I hope one day to give them to my son so he can enjoy them. I like to flip through the pages sometimes and remember watching the players play on the field.

Tech Talk Thursday #3

Call Congress App

How many times have you been watching the news and saw something that Congress was voting on and thought, “I ought to get online and look up my senator’s phone number and give them a call.”? I know I have and have even called and was kindly thanked for calling and sent a letter from my senator thanking for calling and expressing my opinion on the matter.

Those days of having to look for the number are over. All you need now is the Call Congress app (iTune link). This is a pretty straight forward application for the iPhone. The app gets your GPS location and displays the two senators for the state and the representative for the district. You can also manually select your state. Along with the names of the senators and representative you will find the direct phone number to them. You select the one you want to call and your phone dials the number. How easy could it get? The best part about this app is that it’s free.

So the next time you want to complain about what your congressperson is voting for or against, just whip out the trusty iPhone and start Call Congress and you’ll instantly be in contact with them.

Why I Quit Trucker Talk w/Hojo & KatDaddy

In January 2007, my best friend and I decided that we were going to start a new podcast on Talkshoe. We started out doing the show two nights a week and then went to four nights. We had some good times and called it quit for a little while. Since then, several things have happened and we really wanted to do this show but never could get any participation.

We had done all we thought we could do to get people involved. We gave out the number during the show, tweeted about it, and even did a newspaper article. Nothing seemed to work.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to call it quits again for the third time. This was our final time to quit because we won’t be starting the show again. I have come the the conclusion of why we couldn’t get any real participation.

The following are my words and are not necessarily the opinion of KatDaddy. I did not tell him I was writing this so if you’d like his scoop, you’ll have to ask him.

The reason I don’t think anybody would call in is because we didn’t cuss on our show. On time we had a guy that dropped the F bomb and we edited that show (which is the only show that was edited) to take it out. I have listened to some of the other trucker’s podcast and cussing is something that some of them like to do. I don’t have a problem with you cussing on your podcast but I do have a problem with you cussing on my podcast. It’s was our show and we didn’t want that kind of talk on our show. We didn’t want our kids listening to our show ten or twenty years from now and thinking, “Man, Daddy cussed alot back then.” We don’t normally talk like that and we wanted to be real.

We even asked people to email us topics that they wanted us to talk about but we couldn’t even get an email. I think in the time that we did the show we got three emails. We even did a drawing for our 50th show and gave away a couple of bags of beef jerky that we advertised and the all you had to do was send us a postcard with your name and address. We got ONE CARD!

With all of that being said, Trucker Talk is gone and won’t be back. We ended up recording 139 episodes. You can still download 136 because three were lost. To find our archives just visit Talkshoe and search for show number 12566 or click here for a direct line to the show.