This afternoon we watched the fourth installment of the Die Hard film series.

It definitely lived up to it heritage, and we enjoyed the casting of Justin Long (the "Mac" in the current Apple Macintosh advertising campaign) as Bruce Willis' counterpoint.

The action was non-stop and the effects were amazing.  Surely worth the time and rental fee for over two hours of entertainment.  Yippee-ki-yay!

Jeanie and I thoroughly enjoyed this latest DVD from Pixar and Walt Disney.  We also really enjoyed the two shorts that were included as extras.

Rotten Tomatoes' consensus and synopsis hit the mark and I wholeheartedly agree with their 96% rating.

This is definitely one movie for which I could go for seconds.

I ordered a couple of these from Woot a few weeks ago.

Overall, I have to say I am disappointed.

On the plus side, the unit did charge quickly, and I had no problems pairing it either with the Blackberry or with my Lenovo T60P.  Well, I had no problems with the T60P once I had uninstalled the Bluetooth driver and installed the latest version - but I attribute that to the OS build that was supplied with the system when I received it, not with the headset.  As a hint, after you remove the old Bluetooth driver and reboot, you must press Function+F5 to get the system to activate the Bluetooth so the system will complete the rest of the installation.  As with many devices, you must cancel the Microsoft default driver installation, and manually run the updated driver installer.  You must be VERY patient with the new driver installation, as it installs a number of services / sub devices which take quite a while but don't provide progress bars to let you know that something is going on in the background.

Price was good - $6.95 each plus $5 shipping.  But, I guess you get what you pay for.

Shipping took a ridiculously long time.  Woot appeared to get the product out of their warehouse in a reasonable amount of time, but then the box just languished with the shipper.  All told, it took fourteen days to arrive.  Granted, I ordered it shortly before Christmas, so there was the Christmas rush, plus the New Year holiday, but still... I could tell from the tracking information that the box was just sitting in a "sortation" center.  In looking at the Woot forum entry for this item, it appears I was not alone.

Good thing I ordered two, as the first one broke within two days.

The earpiece isn't horrible, but it isn't comfortable either.  Without the ear stablizer hook, the unit wouldn't stay on my head, as the ear plug is quite large.  Because it doesn't fit snugly in my ear, there is some background noise which makes it difficult for me to hear, even with the volume on both the unit and the Blackberry turned up to maximum.

As an experiment, I tried to see if the earpiece from my Jabra headset would fit on the integrated ear piece.  It did, which helped both with the volume and the comfort.  I don't know if putting the Jabra earpiece on had any effect on the unit breaking, so I am not taking a chance with the other one, but if it did, that speaks to the overall (lack of) quality of the item in my opinion.

Another big issue is the constantly blinking blue led embedded into the headset.  During the day, it makes you look even more dorkish that you already do wearing a bluetooth headset.  At night, the light is bright enough to be downright distracting / annoying.

This is my second bad experience with Soyo.  When I built my first PC from components, I purchased a Soyo motherboard.  I had problems with it from day one, although I did finally get it working for the most part, only to have it die a year or so later (post warranty) due to faulty capacitors.

Even at $12 total, I would not recommend this headset.

PS. A few days after I wrote this (but before I got around to publishing it) I sent a note to Woot asking what my options were.  In part, I said:

I have taken a look at the Soyo web site (http://www.soyogroup.com) to see about getting warranty service.  Unforunately, Soyo appears to charge $5 for warranty service.  This seems quite unreasonable for a product for which I only paid $7.99 and which only worked for two days!  Not to mention, I will have to pay to ship it to them.  I have also read that generally speaking, Soyo warranty service leaves much to be desired.  I know my previous experience with Soyo was less than satisfactory – in fact I really struggled with whether to partake in this Woot because of that.  Guess I’m a slow learner.

I almost immediately received an automated response which in part read:

Your email to Woot Member Services has been received. This is an automated reply.

Your request has been assigned Case # XYZ.

As you might expect, we receive a fairly large volume of emails. This reply is sent from our case assignment system to indicate your position in the queue has been reserved. Our staff works Monday through Friday during normal business hours in an effort to keep response times under 1 business day. However, in recent peak times we have fallen behind-we thank you in advance for your patience as we work to improve our efficiency. Please be confident that we will respond and resolve your issue.

We have made recent moves to increase staff, cross-train for interdepartmental assistance, and improve case handling automation to serve all members better in the near future. For information on job openings in the Dallas area, visit: http://www.woot.com/Jobs.aspx

Thank you for your support,

Member Services

I found this to be pretty cool.  Quick response, set my expectations, and did some recruiting all at once.

I found it even cooler when a couple of days later, I received an email from Woot customer service apologizing for my difficulties and informing me that a replacement unit would be sent out to me at no charge within a few days.  I still haven't received a shipping notification much less the replacement unit, but I am hopeful.

I still won't say overall that this was a great purchasing experience, but Woot's handling of my email left me feeling much less negative.  I might be a bit more careful as to what I order (I was quite pleased with my other purchase from Woot) but I am fairly confident that I will do business with them again.

For the moment, I plan to stick with my old school wired Jabra headset for use with my Blackberry, and plan to use the Soyo headset for Skype / OneSuite IP telephony with my laptop, where I am likely to be in quieter environments (where the lack of volume shouldn't be as big an issue) and where I would appreciate not being tethered to the laptop by a wired headset.  Plus, if I use the Bluetooth headset, the purchase won't be totally for naught, and I won't have to buy an adapter to use my Jabra headset with the standard two jack (separate headphone and microphone) PC audio connections or continue to suffer with the uncomfortable cheapo headset/microphone I purchased in The Netherlands.

Last weekend was nice...

Saturday:

Jeanie spent a quiet day at home resting after a tiring week dealing with my mother.

I started the day by going to the monthly CAP squadron meeting.  Fortunately, there was no special training or events scheduled, so it was only an hour.

I Went home, changed, then went back on the island to donate blood.

In the evening, we watched the entire four hour presidential candidate debate which we both found very interesting and entertaining.

Sunday:

I Went to the Sunday coffee at the airport and spent a couple of hours chatting with the regulars. There was a relatively small crowd, but I found the time very enjoyable.

I came home and Jeanie fixed a yummy scrambled egg and cheese in a flat bread sandwich.

We took Cali and headed off to the beach for a forty minute walk.  We got to watch the para-motor pilots flying around which we always enjoy.  The weather was a bit brisk, but not too bad.  We then went to Center street and walked around for a while.  It was nice only having Cali, as unlike Diego, she is friendly with strangers and doesn't embarrass us.  We then went to the Dairy Queen, where Jeanie and I both ordered a double dipped cone.  Much to Cali's delight, the nice girls in the drive-in window gave her a small cup of DQ.  We drove onto the beach at the end of Sadler and ate our ice cream while we listened to the band playing at Sliders.  We then headed home, where Diego got to share some of Cali's DQ.

Since the weather was nice and my night currency was getting close to expiring, I decided to go do my three take-offs and landings.  I got to the airport a little after sunset, and by the time I had finished preflighting the aircraft, completing my CAP paperwork, getting my flight release, etc. I was good to go for my three trips around the circuit.  Technically, I had to only do two night landings, as I had just done a night landing less than a week ago, but I couldn't figure out how to do the three night take-offs but only do two night landings <grin>.  I was very pleased with my flying.  I performed one short field take-off and two normal take-offs.  Since the last time I had done night currency circuits, I had been high on all of my approaches, I decided to extend the downwind leg more than seemed "right."  This worked out well, as I was able to intercept the PAPI and fly the glideslope out at a much more comfortable distance and altitude, which allowed me to fly a much more stabilized approach.  For all three landings I used "normal" technique, but for the first two, I still ended up with reasonably short landing distances and reasonably smooth touch downs.  For the last landing, I allowed the roll-out to be relatively long so I could practice keeping the nose wheel off the ground as long as possible.  This worked out well, as it allowed me to get to a convenient turn-off point on the runway without having to do a lot of extra taxiing.

Jeanie and I both found the movie to be generally enjoyable.  I don't think either of us would watch it again, and we probably could have found a better way to use the time and money, but it was a pleasant enough diversion.

The special effects were quite amazing and we both thoroughly enjoyed watching another installment of  Johnny Depp's great characterization of Jack Sparrow.  I had been fortunate enough to catch a piece on television about how the CGI special effects for the vortex sea battle had been produced which made that scene that much more interesting to me.

I think for sequel movies such as this, the DVD should include a "previously on" extra similar to what is typically done as a lead-in for serialized television shows, as I find it hard to remember who all of the characters are, what all of the plot elements were that got us to where we are, etc.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 45%, and that seems about right to me.

I was very disappointed with this Robin Williams vehicle.  It was a waste of time and money.  Rather than being light and funny, it was dull and irritating.

I don't think Jeanie was much more impressed.

Read the Rotten Tomatoes reviews here.

Jeanie and I started off the new year by taking a day trip to Cedar Key...

We headed off to the airport around 0930 and were wheels up at 1053.

I had planned our route to go from Fernandina Beach (55J) to Mayport (NRB) to NAS JAX (NIP) to Cecil (VQQ) then direct to the George T. Lewis Airport on Cedar Key (CDK).  I did this to avoid the JAX Class C airspace and the TFR over the Jacksonville Stadium and the restricted areas south of Cecil.  It turned out that the restricted areas were cold, so I could have gone direct from NIP to CDK, but I elected to stick with my VFR flight plan as filed.  The flight over was lovely.  The sky was clear and visibility was great at our cruising altitude of 4500 feet.  We did have a brisk headwind of approximately 20 knots which reduced our ground speed to about 85-90 knots.  The 129 knot trip took about 1:30 including pattern time.  I don't know why, but it seems every time we fly to an airport next to the ocean for one of these adventures, I am faced with a direct cross wind for landing.  This was no exception.  The combination of the slightly gusty 10 knot cross wind and 2,355 foot runway created some challenge for me, but we managed to land and get stopped (comfortably, without extreme braking) before the end of the runway on our first try, although it did take a small bounce or two to keep the wheels firmly planted on the runway.

I had read on Adventure Pilot.com  that if I made an inbound approach call on the CTAF (122.9), that more than likely Judy, of Judy's Cedar Key Airport Taxi, (Cell: 352-949-2127, Home: 352-543-5406, P.O. Box 326, Cedar Key, FL 32625) would respond back to ask if we would like a ride.  I did, she did, and I said we would.

By the time we landed, Judy was sitting on the ramp waiting for us.  The two mile or less ride from the airport to "town" was quick and reasonably priced at $10 total ($5 per person), and Judy was friendly and informative.

Judy drove us to Dock street, where Jeanie and I checked out the menus of the various restaurants.  We ended up selecting Frog's Landing Restaurant (420 Dock Street, Cedar Key, FL 32625, 352-543-9243).  We thoroughly enjoyed our selection.  The ambiance was nice, with a Florida Keys decor and Jimmy Buffet / Island type background music.  The food was wonderful.  Jeanie started with a cup of "Frog's Thick and Creamy Crab Bisque" which was delightful - true to its name, with loads of tender crab meat.  I had a cup of their soup of the day - a hearty gumbo which was also quite good.  For our entree, Jeanie and I split an order of Deviled Crab (2) and Fried Shrimp (6) with fries and slaw.  Ordering deviled crab can be a bit of a crap shoot since sometimes it is more devil than crab, but in this case, it was definitely more crab than devil.  The crab and shrimp were cooked just right, the fries were hot and crispy, and the coleslaw was light and creamy.

After lunch, we took a walking tour of the island.  The streets on the main portion of the island are laid out in a grid and logically named.  The east-west streets are numbered 1-8 starting at the south, and the north-south streets are lettered A-G starting at the east.  We ended up walking the length of Dock, 1st, 2nd (which appears to be the "main drag" and 3rd streets.  This gave us an opportunity to see many of the restaurants on the island, as well as to visit a number of shops, a grocery store and the city park with its tiny (we believe man-made) sand beach.  The island is small, and appears to be best suited either for a day trip such as ours, or if you're planning to stay a night or two, to those who want either a very laid back quiet vacation, or are avid fishermen or nature lovers.

As an experiment, we took Jeanie's new Garmin Nuvi 650 with us as we walked around Cedar Key.  I also played with the four different GPS/Mapping applications I have loaded on my Blackberry.  We were surprised and disappointed at the performance of the Garmin as a pedestrian GPS.  While it is wonderful in the car, we found it to be inadequate while walking around.  The main issues were that we couldn't find a zoom level that gave us enough of an overview while maintaining reasonable detail, and we couldn't scroll the map to display what we wanted to see.  On the other hand, the Blackberry worked surprising well.  Both the Garmin and the Blackberry had difficulty locating the GPS satellites.  I don't really understand why, as we were out in the open when we started trying to use them.  Both did eventually lock on (mostly).  The worst performer on the Blackberry was the Blackberry native mapping program.  It never did manage to get the GPS active.  Nav4All worked okay.  amAze GPS worked quite well, even noting some points of interest without having to go into POI search mode (which is good since its POI search is weak).  It did struggle a bit to maintain the lock on the GPS satellites and when it lost them, in terms of best overall functionality, I'd have to give the prize to Google Maps.  I believe that Google Maps supplements it's GPS guidance with guidance based on triangulation from cell phone towers.  It seemed to have the best control over map size and location, along with an uncanny ability to determine our location and direction of travel.  The one downside to using the Blackberry as a GPS device is that doing so gobbles up the battery.

Ended up back on Dock Street.  Jeanie was in the mood for a cup of coffee and something sweet.  We decided to try a different restaurant, just because.  We selected "Seabreeze On The Doc" (PO Box 520, Cedar Key, FL  32625).  Seabreeze is a two story establishment, with a bar on the ground floor and a restaurant on the second floor.  We elected to go up to the restaurant.  As with Frog's, the restaurant sits on pilings extending out into the bay.  Three sides of the dining area were floor to ceiling glass, which afforded just about everyone in the place a beautiful view.  We were seated next to the glass in the sunshine, which was fine with us as we were both a bit chilled.  We ended up splitting a scrumptious slice of Key Lime Pie.  The pie was just right, with that perfect blend of sweetness and tartness, complimented by the creaminess and sweetness of a fresh whipped cream topping.  The crust was a traditional graham cracker crumb crust, with just enough butter and sugar to hold it together, but not so much as to make it sticky or tough.

Even though from what I had read, the $10 taxi fare was "round trip," Jeanie and I decided to walk back to the airport so we could sight see a bit more.  I find that I notice so much more walking than I do riding.  I don't know if it is just an issue of the slower speed, or if I just pay more attention when walking.  As an aside, all told, we walked almost six miles during our visit.

Here are some photographs from the day: http://www.blogdom.org/gallery/view_album.php?page=2

For some more nice photos, check out Stuart Jewkes page here: http://www.pbase.com/stuwj/cedarkey

For our departure, we still had the direct cross wind, but the wind speed had increased.  Let's just say it was right at the limit of the demonstrated cross wind capability of the aircraft.  Even though the Cedar Key Visitor's Site (http://www.cedarkey.org) on its airport information section (http://www.cedarkey.org/island.html#airport) (gee, what a concept!) suggests departing on runway 5, I elected to use 23.  My logic was that given the strong cross wind, were I to drift away from the runway after lift-off, I'd rather drift over the open water than near houses, plus, the obstacles were lower and farther away using 23 than using 5.  I thought this was a better alternative, even if it meant taking off with the sun in my eyes and departing over open water.  I elected to perform a standard short field take-off.  As soon as I was airborne, I crabbed into the wind, and was able to maintain my heading on departure.  The sun was low on the horizon, and once we rotated and crabbed, it wasn't a factor.  We were fortunate in that right after we got into the plane, but before I started it, a Piper Cherokee came in for a landing.  I am not sure if the first approach was an intentional go-around, but I think it was.  I think the pilot chose to fly a low pass to get a feel for the conditions before committing to a landing.  His second approach was picture perfect, and he made an absolutely text book cross wind landing.  The fact that he was able to land with no apparent problems gave me more confidence that I would be able to take off without too much problem.

Although as best I could tell, my take-off was quite good (given the conditions if I do say so myself) I got a bit flustered.  The aircraft was always under control and I maintained proper airspeed, etc., but Jeanie said I was breathing pretty hard right after lift-off.  I definitely feel it was the most difficult take-off I have ever performed.  To top things off, shortly after take-off, Jeanie told me that my door wasn't closed.  It turned out that it was securely latched, but was not quite as tightly closed as normal - I guess I didn't slam it quite hard enough when I went to shut the door so there was a slight gap between the door and the seal.  Since it was secure, and given the conditions at Cedar Key, I elected to continue on.  Other than a very slight draft from the gap, there was no issue.

The old adage is "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" and I guess I kept to the principle.  I managed to handle the airplane, and get myself pointed in the right direction.  My communication left a bit to be desired.  On three different occasions, I either entered the proper frequency into the stand-by frequency but then forgot to press the flip-flop button before transmitting, or I entered the frequency into one radio, but forgot that I had the other radio active.  In each case (once on CTAF, twice with ATC) the people on the frequency were very friendly and gently advised me of my error.  My communication wasn't all bad.  Once I got on the right frequency, I did manage to communicate properly and effectively.  I even filed our return VFR flight plan over the radio (a first for me), and switched from ATC to FSS to get a check on winds aloft (also a first).

I flew the same route (except reversed) home.  Other than a very brief period of mild turbulence on the way home, the ride was smooth.  Now traveling north east, and given the increase in wind velocity, we now were helped by an almost thirty knot tail wind.  For a good portion of the return flight, we had a ground speed of 134 knots at 7,500 feet.  Wheels up for the return portion was around 1730, so we got to enjoy a beautiful sunset (1745) out of the rear window as well as some lovely night flying.  Night landings always make me tense.  I just don't fly them as well as I think I should.  As a reminder, Jeanie isn't too keen on landings - day or night.  It has something to do with the fact that she's had lots of take-offs in small airplanes, but relatively few landings (since she tended to get out along the way).  Given that I had my sweetie as a passenger, I attempted to exude confidence in my approach and landing so as to not increase her apprehension.  Fortunately, the wind was right down runway 31 (which, strangely enough, given that it is the instrument runway, does not have VASI or PAPI).  I don't know if it was my exuding, or just dumb luck, but I made the best night landing I have ever made.  It would have even qualified as a real nice day landing.  Total time back was about an hour and a quarter.

All in all, it was an absolutely wonderful way to start the new year.