It will come as little surprise to many of you that I pretty much sleep with my Handspring/Palm Treo, 
having gone through many versions including the 300, 600, and most recently, the 650. Well, I’m leaving all that behind. After having the thing cease to accept or send SMS messages (critical for 911 pages from work), and absolute refusal to sync with my office PC despite soft, hard and other resets – not to mention the email client I had to leave running at work 24/7 to push email to the device which would constantly die and need to be restarted – usually when I was on an extended business trip – I’d had enough. I am now the proud papa of a new Verizon XV6700, their version of the HTC/Audiovox Windows Mobile Smartphone. The most compelling features? Enterprise support at Turner – they have enabled mobile ActiveSync from our Exchange web email access application, so I can get mail, calendar, tasks and my contacts on this device without running something on a desktop client. Pure Joy, that. The device is much faster than my old Treo, the screen is huge, and the near-3G speeds from Verizon’s EV-DO network is a pleasure for web use. And it includes built-in Wi-Fi support, so when I am near a hotspot, I can get even faster performance. Now if the battery lasted longer than about eight hours of typical use, I’d be much happier – I’m looking at the extended life battery right now as my first accessory. I’m hoping that that soon-to-be-in-my-hands MacBook Pro with the Core 2 Duo ‘inside’ as Intel likes to say will make a nice companion for this new phone – courtesy of Boot Camp and Parallels. Woohoo!
In NYC – x2
I was in New York last week for a long series of meetings over three days, and I’m back for a quick set of meetings today. First for the IAB’s Ad Operations committee, then for the MRC Internet Council (pictures from IAB dinner are here). That was followed by vendor meetings for the next two days. And boy was I tired by the time I got home. I did manage to hang with some old friends from SI.com and have a nice dinner one evening. I’m back again this week for a quick trip – spending some more quality time with CNN Digital ad sales. I can’t wait to get home and forget about travel for a few weeks – I hope work allows me to stay put for a while. Photo above taken while I was waiting to meet folks at the Time-Life Building.
First Day of School
Sammy had his first day of pre-school this week and he loved it. It’s a small class of 10-12 kids, 2 teachers and a parent-helper. To make for a smooth transition this week, parents have been invited to participate for the first hour or so. It didn’t take long for Sam to get in the swing of things. It was so cute to watch these toddlers sit at their little table and eat a snack. Sam didn’t understand that you take more from the big tray and not your neighbor’s plate, but we’ll work on that. Overall, I know he’ll love it and so does Mom!
What a Hike
In traditional Admonsters fashion, Tuesday afternoon was an 
outdoor excursion for the attendees. We had a choice of mountain biking (called ‘more strenuous’) and hiking (allegedly ‘less strenuous’). I picked the less strenuous option. Well, unlike what I’d expected, we began our hike right at the hotel and headed up to the Mt. Sanitas loop trail, which – for the record – is listed as strenuous on ProTrails.com, dammit. There were two groups – one taking a slower ‘smell the flowers’ pace, the other heading some 1,400 feet up with almost 900′ of elevation change in less than one mile. Well, I had great plans to head to the top with all my photo gear in tow. The first 1/2 mile kicked my butt, however, and I had to pause for about 15 minutes to get my head clear – the altitude was just too much for yours truly. I wasn’t the only one, and we had a jolly group of six taking it quite easy on the shorter path in the valley below Sanitas, which was still a 3 mile hike all told with some tough elevation changes. After returning to the hotel, I made a big mistake of taking a warm bath and shower, which seems to have totally overheated my system, giving me the chills and putting a damper on my plans to join tonight’s dinner at the Flagstaff House restaurant. I’d been there a few years ago, but felt it better to skip this time. Oh well – a couple of advils and a nice meal of pasta from room service, and I feel much better, thankfully. Check out the updated Admonsters XV gallery with images from the hike. And next time, someone remind me not to carry 15 pounds of camera gear on this type of hike.