Friday, July 17, 2009

My Google Voice account!

I'm in... I just replied to my invite and set-up my Google Voice account.

Welcome to Google Voice! Google Voice gives you a single phone number that rings all your phones, saves your voicemail online, and transcribes your voicemail to text. Other cool features include the ability to listen in on messages while they are being left and the ability to make low cost international calls. To start enjoying Google Voice, just give out your Google Voice number. You can record custom greetings for your favorite callers or block annoying callers by marking them as SPAM. Just click on the settings link at the top of your inbox.

Once it's open to everyone, you can join me!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Got the road trip blues?

On a recent road trip, I realized a lot has changed from similar trips I had taken just a few years ago. I couldn't put my finger on it until I was gearing up for another -- though much shorter -- road trip.

As I was doing my packing, I was downloading some new tunes to my Ipod and, then, it struck me. Portable music devices and video players are ruining the bonding experience that occurs when you have nothing to do than sing songs, play word association games or do other stupid things to pass the time on a long road trip.

On my last road trip, a friend was in the back watching TV shows, music videos and a movie on his Ipod Touch. I was riding shot-gun and spent my time snoozing, checking for Wi-Fi hot-spots during refeuling pit-stops and listing to tunes on my Ipod Touch (which I openly admit that I bought in a bout of jealousy after a friend of mine showed me his). The driver spent most of his time checking for traffic reports, scanning the dial every half hour for the nearest news and trafic radio station.

I will be leaving for the Pacific Ocean tomorrow and decided to burn a CD of my dad's favorite musice (well, at least the music I could stand to listen to). That way, we'll at least be listening to the same thing and -- who knows -- we might even do some father/son bonding along the way.

Tell us about your road trip blues...