2016 Fall September 24 Saturday

2016 Fall September 24 Saturday

74 degrees this morning.  No specific walk, but got about 5 miles in as noted herein.  

Good flight yesterday.  

I decided to use “Fall” rather than “Autumn” for no specific reason, except perhaps “Fall” is faster to type.  

Interesting day yesterday.  We are living the “Uber” transportation system while we are here.  (Lyft isn’t available here yet for some reason).   No parking worries, don’t have to worry about the safety of the car, etc. My only question is how much you tip someone on a one-mile ride!  Actually supposedly you don’t have to tip them but … 

The first day went well.  We decided we’d rather stay in a nicer hotel (not nice in the sense of pricer, but a hotel that wasn’t a box with no refrigerator etc. for $200 per night) a little further away and use the “savings” to just take an Uber car back and forth.  Actually the way it worked out we will save a considerable about of money, especially since a free breakfast and even water, coffee and some snacks are included!  

The only thing I will miss is not being about to run to the room for something etc., but it is is bad enough we can take an Uber car back for very little cost.

Actually, they have a free transit system here, once I learn the ropes I may be able to travel back and forth free and get some of my exercise while I am doing it.  

However, an Uber car taking you from front door to front door is sure nice, especially once the conference gets started and you are pressed for time.  

As I have noted, we were trying to buy Aliene an iPhone 7, but there was a 3 week or so wait.  By chance, I checked the Apple App, and noted that the Apple store about .6 miles from the hotel had one in stock just like she wanted!

I quickly walked to the Apple Store and got it.  (It replaced a 5 SI.).  It was the last one in the store!  They get random shipments.  The Apple store near our home told us to check each morning at 8:00 a.m. to see what was in stock.  I didn’t really plan to play that game (it isn’t THAT important), but I do randomly check and yesterday afternoon about 3:30 p.m., I noted the store appeared to have the iPhone in stock.

I was pleased that we were able to replace her iPhone so quickly.  (I played around with it some, and it is definitely worth the upgrade)  It is much faster (actually faster than my 3 year old MacBook Air, according to an article I read), and has some nice features.  Of course some of the features will take a while to get used too, like all Apple products.  

It was fun walking down to the Apple Store.  There is always so much energy in an Apple Store, especially after a new product comes out.  In addition, there was a “Art Fair” in the area which was very well attended, even at 4 p.m. in the afternoon.  

We went back for Aliene to buy a case for her new iPhone (I wasn’t about going to decided that) and it was just packed, a very successful Art Fair.  

The little bit of time we had to spend with “live tv” decided us we would cancel our cable service if we had to watch some of the junk which was on last night.  I was amazed at some of the junk that was on, since I almost never just randomly look at what is on tv. Even the news channels were basically just pandering along with “news” about “celebrities”, sports and other junk that was hardly news.   At least I don’t have to watch it, and there is plenty of other stuff to do.

I am a little relaxed about the conference.  Since I am paying for it myself (with the assistance of free registration, which means a lot, from the International City Managers Association) I am a bit relaxed about my attendance and won’t go to sessions I’m not interested in just because I feel guilty if I’m not attending sessions.

Of course, the conference is excellent and I have my days fully planned anyway!  Today I register etc. and some preliminary items, then tomorrow I have a full day, from approximately 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. (including travel!), ditto for Monday and Tuesday. 

That’s it for now, Saturday, September 24, 2016