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1/4/2009 My best Christmas present: MSI Wind laptopHey everyone,
Mine also came with the 6-cell extended battery and 802.11n WiFi card, which are both nice upgrades. The 6-cell provides about 5.5 hours of work time, although you can get more or less depending upon brightness, power saving options, or if WiFi/Bluetooth is on. It doesn’t have an optical drive, but I got a slim external USB powered DVD burner for only $60. I rarely use an optical drive tho, since almost everything is digital or can be made digital. I even got a high speed USB memory stick so I can install Windows/etc faster than CD/DVD. The best thing of all? The price: currently $370 with free shipping and no taxes [except in NY I think]. I got mine for almost $390 all-in, which was currently the lowest price before Christmas. Most of the cheap models don’t have a bigger hard disk drive, faster wireless, Bluetooth, or the 6-cell extended battery. This one in particular is made for the Canadian market, but the only difference is the keyboard, since it has a couple extra keys added for French users. As a result, the enter key is bigger while others are smaller; some people like it, some people don’t. I’m just glad to finally have a laptop that’s really portable, which is what a laptop is suppose to be. Plus with most other laptops running at least $500 or $1000, this one offers a great package for a low price. As a result, both me, my Mom, Peyton and James have one of these laptops [James got the 3-cell version tho, he wants a 6-cell battery]. Actually, James is responsible for all this Wind madness, since he told me about finding a netbook for school. If you’re looking for a laptop, I definitely recommend checking out similar netbooks, although the differences can be big, so be sure to check reviews and specs. One other laptop I was looking at quite closely was the Samsung NC-10. @Matthew PS—For all you Mac OS X lovers out there, it can run it too, with very little modifications now. I’m running Vista and XP now, want to add SUSE, 7 and maybe OSX to the boot menu too. 12/19/2008 Tracking my package in the skyThis is so cool! I had a package sent to my parent’s address and it was upgraded to next-day air on UPS. I checked flightaware.com and I’m able to see the planes it flew on! First it left on one of these two flights [click image for link to source]: UPS917, a Boeing 757-200 (twin-jet) (B752/Q) And then flew on this plane: UPS618, a Boeing 757-200 (twin-jet) (B752/Q) I’m going to say it left on the first one since the second was scheduled to leave earlier than it was scanned for departure, plus it’s the same type of plane that ended up going to Decatur. I don’t know how UPS operates, but they may have certain palates that they know are going to continue on to another destination and just put them in the back of plane.
If you click on the images, you can see the flight data from FlightAware, and clicking on track log under status will even tell you the ground speed, altitude, and which air traffic control facility the flight was under control from. If you want to see the flights for your airport, find the airport code online [Wikipedia is a good source], and then enter it on FlightAware or FlightStats. FlightExplorer is also a cool web site, since you can see the planned route as well as actual, although it is a little more difficult to use and only carries data within the last two days. As you can see, last night we had some nasty weather, some of it was snow, other parts of it was freezing rain and sleet – yuck! Thank heavens it was at night, because the last storm we had occurred during evening rush hour. Even thought it had less precipitation, the timing affected everything and Chicagoland’s interstates came to a halt. I had taken a screenshot of Live Search Maps traffic showing complete blackout, literally, of almost all the roads, but I lost the image. Over 200 flights were cancelled at O’Hare, 50 at Midway, with Midway closing for a few hours Southwest Airlines had to divert many flights. They definitely didn’t want a reoccurrence of flight 1248. @Matthew 12/16/2008 Cold in ChicagoWow was it cold today, I just couldn’t stay warm. I actually didn’t want to go outside today, but my roommate Peyton wanted to go out to eat and see a movie. I’ve been trying to eat more at home since my latest annual physical shows my cholesterol is a tad high, but Peyton has been a bad influence. I must admit Chicago does have some great restaurants, but I want to go back to my weight when I was living in corn and beans, LOL! I saw two movies tonight, Milk and Slumdog Millionaire. Both were very good, I was a little disappointed in Milk since the previews made it look more than amazing, but I still enjoyed the history. There were parts of the film where I felt bored, they were all short lived, but there were times where the director just showed life and there was no active dialogue or action. Slumdog Millionaire started out very strange and confusing. I really didn’t remember the synopsis since I originally was going to see it downtown at a free pre-open screening. One the movie started going tho, it was really interesting and captured my interest. All I can say is I’m quite thankful for living in the United States. Anyway, I’m off to bed, a little too late, but my sleep schedule has been off. I’ve always been a night person, but 4 am is way too late even for my standards. I’ve been trying to re-engage my online life, as some of you may have noticed since I’ve been so MIA in the past. Once I moved to Chicago I found it too difficult to keep up online, sorry if anyone felt abandoned. I still cherish my online friends and enjoy catching up. @Matthew 2/4/2008 New e-mail alias!Hello world, I am back home this week for Illinois' General Primary Election on Tuesday. I forgot to register in Chicago, so I took the train on Wednesday to vote and also participate in the election as an election judge. Also known as elections inspector, elections officer or poll worker, basically I'm the person who hands out the ballots. I have to be at the polling place by 5 am and I probably won't get back home until 9 or 10 pm.
I will be returning to Chicago on Thursday evening, and I can't wait to get back. I've been busy pretty much everyday helping do things for my parents or friends. My parents and I all got new Samsung BlackJack's because of an antenna issue, and they've all been upgraded to Windows Mobile 6, yay! I'll be happy to relax once I get back to Chicago. @Matthew 12/25/2007 Merry Christmas!It's been an exhausting day for me, but I wanted to make a quick post to let you all know what I've been up to. I hope everyone has a had a wonderful Christmas!
I went to a 11 pm Christmas Eve service at Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago, near the Hancock building and Water Tower Place. It's such a beautiful church, they have a wonderful brass group play along with this huge organ, usually on the last verse at the very least. On Saturday I went to their concert, where they were the main attraction, although they played with the organ sometimes too.
This morning I took the Amtrak train down to Champaign, where Marcus picked me up, and then we both got my mother's Mom. She just recently moved into an Alzheimer care unit since she has gotten worse, especially last winter we were worried about her safety living alone. She seemed to be in good spirits today, and overall she seems to be improving; I'm sure living alone for so long had taken it's toll.
Marcus moved to Champaign earlier this week, he lives in a fairly new and nice section 8 housing complex. He lives with one roommate, and qualifies for 60% housing, where he gets a 40% discount on the rent. We had lunch with my mother's oldest sister, who does Christmas almost every year. Afterwards, we went home to open our own gifts, and then Marcus went back to get grandma and take her back home since it was on the way to his apartment.
Dad wants me to help him completely makeover the house, since Marcus is gone. They have completely changed everything, except my bedroom, the bathrooms and the laundry room, haha. Well, maybe the garage too, hehe. He's shuffled around furniture, the TVs, and pretty much everything else. Last time I was down here I helped him hook up his new TV since Marcus got a new one, but now that Marcus is gone and took his TV with him, he's going to have to hook it all back up all over again. Lots of fun! Plus he wants to redo the wiring for the Internet and computers, which will be a challenge since it's all routed through the crawl space.
On Wednesday I'm going to get my haircut and see my doctor for a physical. I still haven't taken the time to find an inexpensive, but nice hair stylist in Chicago. So when I come down, I almost always get my haircut. She's a nice lady who now works from her own home, so I'm glad I can help her with my haircut money instead of some big corporation.
I'm leaving for Chicago on the 30th, the morning train.
@Matthew 11/19/2007 I am a travel agent god! - 65% off airfareWoo-hoo, I just booked a flight for Peyton at 65% off the retail price!! I didn't even think it would work, I was trying $115 to see the counter-bids I would get. However, the price was accepted on United non-stop service from Chicago O'Hare to Greenville/Spartanburg, SC. The retail price for those same flights are $397.30, for both non-stop American [$381 base] or United [$354.43 base]. The lowest fare is out of Milwaukee on Delta with a connection through Atlanta or Cincinnati for $193.60 [$158 base fare].
@Matthew 11/18/2007 Visiting family in Arkansas.
It will be nice to have everyone back together again, which hasn't happened in a very long time. I was going to take the train myself, but the train ticket was $139.40 [after 15% disability discount], and I found a airline ticket for $156 [plus taxes]. Peyton was coming back from Roanoke on the 16th, so I thought it would be perfect if I could find a ticket that leaves after he arrives. He was coming in at 10:44 AM, and I found a 12:05 PM departure, which was the latest flight I could find at the lowest price. So I drove his vehicle to O'Hare, parked it nearby in hourly parking, so that he could easily get it and drive back. That way we wouldn't be wasting twice the amount of gas if we flew on two separate days. The blue line train that goes from O'Hare to downtown is under construction, so they are running a shuttle between two different stations. Although it's not that terribly inconvenient, it is a pain when there's luggage in tow. So this was a great solution for both of us. Below is my itinerary:
I was very impressed with Northwest's web site. They even have an itinerary link that constantly displays any updates to the itinerary, including flight status, and the link instantly transfers to the mobile site if browsing on a mobile phone. Although the reservation system is finicky just like any other airline web site, the web site is still filled with tons of information. Also, under their "Customers First" program, you can make any changes to your reservation for free until the end of the next day [11:59 PM]. Additionally, since I said I have a disability, I was able to choose any premium seat for free without a premium frequent flier account. I was able to choose a bulkhead seat, and unlike most airlines that have a hard bulkhead behind first class sets, Northwest only had a top curtain on my plane. It was awesome, almost as much foot room as a exit row! I was a bit disappointed there was no pretzels or cookies with the drink, but they did have trail mix and Pringles for $2. On my second flight, the flight attendant even asked me if I would like anything more to drink, which I thought was nice. I got a club soda for my stomach, which was a tad upset, but I think it just made things worse. I was told club soda was better than 7up or the like, but I don't agree, at least for my stomach. Well, looks like tonight we'll be heading over to see my other uncle, Rodney. I hope we do something fun, because Chuck and Monica have been busy doing household stuff. I always use visitors as an excuse to go do something fun, but I guess there's not much to do here other than the Wal~Mart Museum, lol. @Matthew 11/7/2007 San Fran at $136.80 round-trip, holy cow Batman!
I about fell over in my chair this morning when I read the newest "Ding" from Southwest:
I have never seen such a long distance California flight for that price! Florida maybe, but no way California. That is simply amazing, I love Southwest! I'm assuming this fare is so low because SWA recently restarted service to San Francisco, having utilized Oakland's airport solely for a while now. There are still a lot of people who want to fly to SFO that think SWA still only services OAK, so the planes could be leaving fairly empty. Southwest doesn't use any travel agent site like Orbitz for their bookings, so they're entirely reliant on self-advertisement. A sample itinerary:
This price expires at 7 PM CDT, so if you want, book soon. I always recommend people who have flexible travel plans to also check out Priceline's bidding system and Hotwire's no-name cheap flights. @Matthew 11/6/2007 My first eBay listing!
Peyton bought three laptops for Yerzhan to send to his home country of Kazakhstan. He went back on July 13, and e-mailed me shortly after he got back asking for my help purchasing some cheap, yet good laptops. I found some on sale at Best Buy, but we haven't heard from him in a while now. I don't know what's happened to him, I hope he's okay. Although there won't be much of a profit on these laptops, Peyton does need to be reimbursed, so he asked me to sell them ASAP. I tried my best to create the best listing as possible, answering some questions most people would have, and ease cautious buyers. eBay can be a little overwhelming, especially with certain sellers who are very vague on what they're really selling. I was pretty detailed, yet cautious myself since there are scammers out there. I am also going to try Craig's List, Windows Live Expo, and Pricegrabber to see what I can get. I'll let you know how it goes! What do you think of my listing? Anything that would stop you as a potential buyer? Thanks! PS--If you do want one of the laptops, please let me know! 10/27/2007 Heading back to Chicago!Last weekend, my parents came up for a quick trip to Chicago. I was able to Priceline a 4* hotel in O'Hare for $55/night [the Hyatt Regency]. It was a really nice hotel, and although they had to pay for parking, they were right next to the interstate so it was convenient. I've stayed at a number of Hyatt's myself, and I really love the brand. They offer a lot to travelers, including the ability to print your airline boarding pass at the hotel. Anyway, I decided on short notice to ride back with them since they were driving. Of course both of them really don't like driving in Chicago, especially my Dad, so I did all of the driving while they were in town and most of the way back home. Although they were working all week, I still had a good time. I saw James and Dena on Monday, we went out to eat and did some shopping. I called a number of my friends, but I guess they were all busy. Actually one had his phone temporarily turned off since he was a couple dollars over his spending limit. The poor guy is still on that nasty Sprint!! Yuck. This train trip has been superb so far. Sometimes the car has screaming kids or other annoying passengers, but tonight it's very quiet. The guy in front of me is watching DVDs without headphones, but at least it's not too loud [although the film must be rated R by how many times they're saying the F word]. I guess most people aren't looking at going to Chicago on a Saturday night. James and Dena wanted to go with me and take a day trip to Chicago, but all except the morning train was sold out going from Chicago to Champaign-Urbana tomorrow. Oh well, I told them we should do it in advance anyway since it can be expensive booking last second. I got a lot done this week, including grabbing some stuff from home I need. I wanted to grab some winter clothes too, but I think I'll do that another time. I should have brought all my summer clothes with me when I came down, but I didn't pack beforehand. Oh well, I have enough clothes as it is, but when I opened my closet at home I was surprised by how many I still have! Working at WalMart was a bad thing for me, I have way too many clothes, lol! I also fixed the computers at home, showed my parents how to send picture messages [MMS], and found out that AT&T roams onto T-mobile now. I think we have a new tower nearby, because I've noticed the phone hopping between towers a lot. It's caused some problems since our phones will sometimes do too much hopping and the call quality will degrade. It seems to affect my parents' phones more than mine for some reason tho. I showed my Dad how to force it onto T-mobile since they have only one tower and he can try out the call quality. I placed a number of calls today while on T-mobile and it seems to work well. I'm really considering about switching to T-mobile since they're cheaper and roam for free to AT&T if you get a headset with the 850 MHz band. Well, we just passed Gilman and are making excellent time. I think the train is so empty that the people getting on and off aren't slowing it down. I was running late myself getting to the train station. I was so concerned since ticketing can close down 5 minutes prior to departure, but I think that's for trains that are leaving the station, not going through it. I got my ticket with about 3 minutes to spare to scheduled departure, but based upon recent data, the train has even left Champaign-Urbana 5 minutes early. I was so worried I had my parents park and bring in the luggage while I got my ticket. The Illini Terminal is so nice, but their brand new QuikTrak machine still isn't working. Luckily the ticketing agent was really nice, although James says he's been nasty to him before. Thankfully the train was 10 minutes late, although the train status went from 2 minutes late to on-time after Mattoon. Phew! We're still expected to arrive into Chicago 11 minutes early [down from 22, then 19 mins after we stopped for freight twice]. I love the train! <3
@Matthew
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Travel Schedule for second half of 2007 and beyond.
Thanks for visiting!
Pedram Mobediwrote:
very cool live space. good luck! im gonna add you to my contacts ;)
Oct. 23
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I’ve been wanting to blog about this for a long time but have been so busy with the holidays and now getting ready for 
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