It’s Nerdtastic

Have you ever been to an Apple Store? Not online but an actual real life, in person store? If you haven’t, you should. It’s an experience.

We have one that’s really rather close to us at the Fashion Valley mall here in San Diego. We stroll in whenever we’re having a meal at the Cheesecake Factory or if we’re at the mall browsing.

So, the last time we were in, we were actually at the mall because I needed some software for my laptop and the Mister wanted to get a Magic Mouse for his laptop. We pick out our purchases and stand in line behind a computer terminal manned by an Apple employee. While we’re waiting patiently, another employee walks up and asks us if we need help. We told him that we were just waiting to check out. He replies, “Oh. I can help you with that.” Then, he takes out what looks like a modified iPhone, uses it to scan the software and the mouse and tells us our total. I think, at this point, both of our mouths were hanging open we were so impressed with this technology. The Mister, still somewhat stupefied, pulls out his wallet and hands over his credit card. The man from the future, err, the Apple employee, takes the card and swipes it down the side of his iPhone/portable checkout terminal then asks, “Do you want a printed receipt or do you want me to e-mail one to you?” He had been able to get the Mister’s e-mail address because the credit card he used to pay is the one that’s associated with his online Apple account. Sheesh! Being the environmentally conscience people that we are (we really just wanted to continue this futuristic experience) the Mister had him e-mail the receipt. As we walked out of the store, purchses in hand, the Mister’s phone beeped alerting him to an incoming e-mail. It was his Apple receipt.

It was awesome.

Kitchen Gadgetry

The Mister and I made a run to the grocery store last night for a few groceries. Our cupboards are really bare. We haven’t gone grocery shopping since before we went to the Outer Banks, lol. I wish I could figure out why I hate grocery shopping so much.

While we were in the store, we walked past the refrigerator section of coffee creamers. All the pretty bottles!! Outside of a caramel frappacino from Starbucks, I’m not a big coffee drinker. I prefer green or white teas. I’ve tried regular brewed flavored coffees and find them too bitter. For some reason though, I had gotten it into my head that I wanted to try the flavored coffee creamers. We bought a caramel apple flavor and a cinnamon bun flavor and a bag of Green Mountain coffee. Side note:

My Favorite Things From Vermont:

1. Cabot Cheese
2. Vermont Teddy Bears
3. Green Mountain Coffee

We have a coffee maker for guests but the vacation house had this really neat coffee maker that we wanted to get. Considering that our coffee maker gets used about once a year, this is really just indulging our love of kitchen gadgets. This is what we were after:

This is what we got:

I love it!!! It’s so cute sitting on my counter. It brews a cup of coffee in three minutes. We also got one of these to go with it:

When you register your brewer online, Keurig gives you two free boxes of K-Cups when you buy two boxes plus 10% off your total purchase and free shipping. So, we ordered a variety box of Green Mountain flavored coffees, a box of the Doughnut House Collection by Green Mountain in the Chocolate Glazed Doughnut flavor, a box of hot chocolate for the girls, and a variety box of Gloria Jean’s teas. It was a really good deal and I’ll be able to fill up my carousel. We also bought a reusable filter so that we can use other coffee that doesn’t come in a K-Cup and for loose teas. I love oolong tea thanks to Jennifer.

It’s silly how much I like this thing, lol. I also can’t wait to organize our K-Cups on the carousel. I think I need a life, hehehe.

Another Day of Firsts

Today was the first time the oldest child was allowed to wear makeup to school. Nothing too dramatic. Luckily for me, she seems to lean more towards the conservative side rather than the clown school side. She’s also the same way when it comes to her clothes. I’m keeping all my appendages crossed that she stays this way. I consider myself really lucky that I don’t have to fight with her about how she dresses and stuff.

Today was the first day that I’ve ever homeschooled a child. It went really well. Way better than her first day of school last year when she came home crying. We covered reading, spelling, math, and science today. I had a lot of misgivings about this undertaking but I honestly and truly think it’s the best thing for her. It’s only the first day so there’s still obstacles to overcome but we can’t do any worse at educating the youngest than public schools have done. This I know without a doubt.

Today was the first time that I’ve ever smashed a cell phone into a bazillion pieces. Well, to be more precise, a Marine Corps six ton did the job but either way, my BlackBerry is still dust in the road. I’d rather not say how it happened because I come off really bad in this story so don’t ask, heheh. I got REALLY lucky in that my line was eligible for Verizon’s new every two so I have a brand new BlackBerry Storm and I LOVE it. I’m sad that all of my contacts, saved e-mails, and pictures on my other phone are lost, but I have a new gadget so I’ll survive the loss.

Today is the first day that I’ve ever had the Uh Huh Hers on my iPod. I just downloaded their Common Reaction album from iTunes and I have to say that I think I’ll really love it. It reminds me a lot of the 80’s electronic pop kind of music. It’s also very much chic music too. They sound great and I love the  upbeat-ness to all their songs. It’s gonna sound pretty great at top volume in my car tomorrow, heheh.

Today was the first time I’ve ever run over two curbs in one outing. I don’t know what was wrong with me but those curbs kept jumping out in my way.

Now, I’m off to bed. Today is NOT the first time that I’ve ever hated getting up at 6:30 in the morning making it so I have to go to bed early at night just to get through the day. I’m so not a morning person.

Did I Mention

That I got an iPod Touch for Christmas? I so very much love it. It’s my third iPod and my favorite by far. It goes everywhere with me including to bed because I use it for an alarm clock, heheh. I use it so much that I’m barely at my computer anymore except for work and to plug it in to charge it. You all are probably aware of my gadget addiction by now and my iPod will feed it for some time to come. Well, at least until a new version comes out, lol.

What I like about it is that I can check my e-mail, Twitter, read books, surf the net, check the weather, play games on it, watch videos on it,  and many other things. I’m not sure if there’s anything that it doesn’t do aside from the phone functions that you would get with an iPhone should you be able to stand having AT&T for your service provider.

The only, and I mean only, tiny thing about my new iPod that isn’t quite as nice as my old one is that it’s not compatible with the iPod harness that came with my car. It’ll still play music through the stereo and I can use my stereo controls to play my music but it won’t charge it like it will older iPods. This means for long trips that we will need to bring our iPod charger for the car. No biggie. I can deal with it.

If you don’t have one and are in the market for an MP3 player, I highly recommend an iPod Touch.

Wild

It’s been a wild couple of days with the weather around here. Wednesday, the county dismissed schools early because of the wind. I thought it was kind of silly and it totally messed with my work day but what can ya do. Then this morning, they had a two hour delay because of the weather. It’s totally ridiculous if you ask me. They dismissed school early yesterday because of some wind and today the wind is worse and we also have flooding and heavy rain but they only delayed school for two hours. It doesn’t make any sense to me although I greatly enjoyed being able to sleep in two hours this morning. I’m telling ya though, if they dismiss early again today I might scream. Check out this picture I took this morning of one of my neighbors’ houses:

That’s more damage than anyone in my neighborhood got when Hannah rolled through and this isn’t even a tropical system.

Well, there ya go. Two posts in one day to make up for my lack of updates this week. And btw, that picture was taken with my new cell phone, heheh. I got a new LG Voyager and I LOVE it. It’s very neato and has many cool features. I think it’s LG’s answer to the iPhone but I’m not sure. It does have a touch screen with menus you scroll with your finger. It also has mobile TV but I don’t have that activated. I might do that if I travel somewhere though. Anyway just had to blog about my latest gadget fix.