You have to love technology today. My Blackberry can take video, pictures, and play MP3′s. Plus, unlike my iPhone, my calls don’t drop. Granted I’ve only had the phone 2 days, but I’m very impressed so far.

This video is taken from my Blackberry while taxiing out to the runway at Detroit’s DTW airport. Sadly, we didn’t take off for another 3 hours.

No much to report on a very busy mid-week. We received a big snowfall last night, which found myself prepping Yeni’s car for work this morning. Can’t say I’m enjoying the though of repeating that action for the next several months. It was c-o-l-d, cold. Oh, and snowy. Last time I was near that much snow, Mom made me a cup of cocoa with little marshmallows — of course they were real marshmallows added to the cup… not the pre-mixed yucky ones.

Things of interest today:

• This mom from Gainesville has to get some sort of Mother of the Year award.
• Blogged to VoIP Tech Chat (was short and sweet)
• Helped move my cousin’s site to a new host
• Looking at switching to Verizon very, very soon.

And that’s the news that’s fit to print. Oh, I also changed the design of this site around a little.

Screen capture from Freds iPhone

We know that I love Zippo lighters. If the economy was based on Zippo lighters, I’d be a rich man — but alas… that’s discussion for another rant. Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah… Zippo lighters.

Well, my new favorite iPhone app is the “Zippo Lighter” program. What does it do? It’s a virtual zippo lighter. You choose the lighter you want and using the iPhone’s motion detection you flick the lighter open. Light it as normal, and when done, flick it closed.

The distinctive Zippo sound? Yes, it’s there.

When you tilt the lit Zippo, the flame responds. Very fun to play with if you’re a zippo fan like me.

Quick Tip — To take a screen shot from your iPhone, simultaneously press and release the home and sleep buttons.

So, the iphone rocks in that I can update this site and facebook while driving. But as a phone? Horrible.

I’m dropping calls left and right. So much so that I wish AT&T had a custom call failed sound.

So I’m headed back to Ann Arbor — and this time I’m taking the truck. So the negatives are obvious… First the Harley gives me great joy and incredible gas mileage. Then there’s the smell factor, becuase the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky smell amazing from the seat of the Harley.

But then there’s the other side of the story. The truck gets horrid mileage, True. But, the truck has space to load with boxes. And I can talk on the phone and drive. AND… thanks to the new plugin, I can even blog from the road.

So the plan… at least one blog post per state.

Let’s see how it goes. The goal is to leave Saturday morning at 6:00 am. Ugh.

Was time for a change. Plus now I can post from anywhere using the iPhone. Like the gas station.

So I’m flying the trip from Hell this weekend to visit my cousins in Eugene, OR. Will be great to see them, and to get there I will fly from Gainesville to Charlotte… Charlotte to Phoenix… Phoenix to Eugene… then Eugene to Las Vegas… Las Vegas to Charlotte… and Charlotte to Gainesville.

I’m on leg one and when I landed in Charlotte, the power went out. So, after about 10 minutes all the computers came back on and 60 minutes later the air has yet to return. It’s a full flight, so I pitty the person who gets to sit next to Mr. Sweaty Fred.

I did download a movie to the iPhone so hopefully the next flight may seem a little better. Oh, the shirt? In honor of my good friend and fellow Voip Tech Chat buddy, Patrick. (By the way, new podcast was posted this week)

So I haven’t been sleeping well. No real reason that I can tell… happens time to time… we all have it now and then. So, I know the one thing that always makes me really happy is to get on the bike and just go. So Sunday I put on the leather vest, grabbed the camera, filled the thermos with some water, and headed out on the bike to — nowhere.

Didn’t have a plan at all… just started going south. I love riding like that. Especially on a great day — and Sunday was a beautiful day. Big white clouds, bright sun, low 80′s… was just a great day.

So, I headed south and when I hit south of Ocala, turned around and started back north again… taking 441 back to Gainesville. Of all the times I’ve ridden the bike (or even pedalled one) I had actually never stopped and walked on the Paynes Prairie  lookout… so I stopped off, snapped a couple of pictures and then got a call.

The positive of using the iphone is that it’s great music on the bike. I love my headset (when it’s not trying to kill me) and it just sounds great on the road. The negative of course, is you know when the phone rings. So I answer it and it’s someone wanting to see the house… and well… long story short (for once), my stress-free day was no longer.

I headed home and then went to Whataburger for dinner — where I ate wayyyy too much and am still feeling the burger this morning

Now, I’m back at work and getting ready for the flight to Michigan on Friday. Although after the ride on Sunday, I’ve decided that the next time I go to Ann Arbor, I’ll have to ride it.

Sure it will take like 7000 hours, but it will cost maybe 100 bucks in gas and I can’t imagine how great I’ll feel after riding that long.

Gotta love the Harley.