A Friendly Manatee!

This Manatee swam right up to our boat out in the intracoastal waterway in Englewood FL! I was started at first when his head popped out of the water, but I soon realized he was acting very friendly. He loved the attention and did not leave the side of the boat for a good 45 minutes! These must be the sweetest friendliest creatures in the ocean - and maybe on land too.

Sprint and Palm: Bad Service & Broken Phones

My 5 month old Palm Centro broke yesterday, stopped putting out any audio and the mic stopped working also. For some reason I CAN hear people when I put it on speakerphone - but it doesn't matter because they can't hear me.

So I went into the local Sprint store, where I was told that I could either pay them $55 for a refurbished Centro, or call the Palm Support line. The Sprint guy told me that Palm would overnight me a new phone. Wrong. He gave me a number to call for Palm, hoping to be rid of me...but alas, without a working phone I told him I had no way of calling unless he let me use his phone. So I called, and was told that it would be 5-7 business days IF it turned out that the phone was defective. I was also told I would have to pay $14.95 as a service phonecall charge if it turned out that the phone was not defective. I decided to think about my options and told them I'd call back. Oh, and by the way, Palm did not even have me down as the owner of the phone, they had some guy named "Robert" down as the owner. Only by passing the phone to the Sprint guy did they believe that it really was my phone and in my name with Sprint.

So I thought about my options, called a friend to make sure I could borrow a spare cell phone, and called Palm again. This time they had me do a hard reset and determined it was a defective phone so they would not pre-charge me the $14.95. Next hurdle - getting them to accept my UPS Store PMB (personal mail box) as a valid mailing address to which they would return the repaired phone. This took over an hour, most of that time with me on hold.

This is my 2nd very bad experience with a Palm smartphone. See my previous post on my busted Treo, which I wound up tossing as it was out of warranty. You'd think that if Sprint was partnering with Palm to sell these Centros, they'd come up with a better service option for broken devices, especially ones that are still under warranty. After all, there are banners up all over the Sprint store saying "Here's where you can get troubleshooting and repair services!!" - All I got was a phone number to call and a don't-let-the-door-hit-you-on-your-way-out.

So I'm wondering, should I give in to the iPhone madness? Yes I'd have to eat all kinds of early termination fees with Sprint, but if I knew I could walk into an Apple Store and get good, competent service and quick hassle-free replacement of a broken phone, I might be tempted. I'm discovering that Sprint has very poor customer service - even worse than Verizon Wireless, in my opinion. And I already knew that trying to get service out of Palm was like whacking your head up against a brick wall while paying for the privilege. Wait - what about the Gphone from Google? THAT might be a phone I can believe in! Oh, wait, Google doesn't even give out their phone number. But, if their Gphone is well-made and works as well as their search engine, maybe the mind-numbing customer support experience won't even be needed. I'm keeping my fingers crossed (but not holding my breath) for the Gphone!

Luis runs his first 5k race

Luis ran in the 2nd annual Rove the Cove 5k race in Auburndale Mass on June 21st, 2008. It was his first 5k race. He recently competed in the Special Olympics at Harvard Stadium where he ran the 800m event. He ran the 5k at a significantly slower pace, so I think he needs more long distance miles. I also want to get him on the back of a tandem bicycle. A tandem seems like a wonderful option for anyone for whom riding a bike alone would be too risky.

Venice Bike Routes

Tour de Venice (Florida) Bike Route
This ride goes by all the major beaches in Venice, as well as quaint Venice Ave's shops and restaurants and the bike path along the intracoastal waterway (they call it the Venetian Waterway).



Venice Fish Pier

Sharkey's to Manasota Key Loop Bike Route
This one starts and ends at Sharkey's Restaurant/Venice Fish Pier. It brings you down to the bottom of Manasota Key in Englewood, which is an extremely scenic canopy road with the Gulf on one side and the Bay on the other. It's 35 miles long.


Stump Pass

Boomboxes are cool.

Boomboxes are cool. That's really all there is to say about it

There are Lots of Cows in Southwest Florida!

It's true that there are a lot of cows in Florida. There are the expected orange groves but quite a lot of cattle as well. I saw hundreds of them over the course of a bike ride leaving from Myakka State Forest up into Manatee County and back. I think these cows are standing in the water to keep cool - temps were in the high 80's when I took these shot last week. Today temps stayed in the low 60's - way below normal. Tomorrow we'll be back up in cow-in-water territory.

Cows in Florida

It's true that there are a lot of cows in Florida. There are the expected orange groves but quite a lot of cattle as well. I saw hundreds of them over the course of a bike ride leaving from Myakka State Forest up into Manatee County and back. I think these cows are standing in the water to keep cool - temps were in the high 80's when I took this shot last week.