Todd's Blog

My cell phone died the other day. I plugged it into the charger and left it on the shelf. A couple of hours later, I noticed that it only had one bar, and wasn't recharging. I tried plugging the charger into another wall jack; no dice. Then I tried putting the sidekick on my car charger; still no luck. That phone is D.E.D. dead. Actually, it's not quite the tragedy that it might sound. The phone itself is about 2 years old. And more importantly, since I'm going to Iraq again next month I was only going to be using the sidekick for a short time anyway (hoping the next version of the "myTouch" will be out by the time I get back next spring). Anyway, it's obviously not worth fixing the sidekick. And the warranty has long since expired ... although I am technically still eligible to use the warranty since I have (stupidly) been paying for insurance since I've had the phone (I'll do another post soon about what a dumb idea cell phone insurance is

Let's face it, taking a trip to Hawaii can be expensive. So while you're visiting paradise, doesn't it make sense to take advantage of some of the easier ways to save a few bucks? The Aloha Stadium flea market has always been one of our favorite places to shop. It's centrally located for those who live on Oahu. And just an easy car or bus ride for tourists staying in Waikiki. It's open every Saturday and Sunday (when there's not a football game), and on Wednesdays. The vendors are usually there pretty early in the morning, so if you can get there by about 8am, you can beat the heat later on in the day. The swap meet closes at around 3pm every day, but some vendors start packing around 1:30 or 2 ... especially if it's slow ... sometimes a good opportunity to barter the prices even lower. There are a wide variety of things that you can get from aloha stadium flea market including: fresh fruit, art, souvenirs, beach towels, clothes, and even such unique it

... and it didn't kill me ! Actually, it was kind of hard for the first week or so. The only way I could get online was when my t-mobile sidekick occasionally decided to get a good enough data connection. (definitely not while inside my dorm room). But really, since I was so busy during the long days, by the time I got back to my room, I was usually ready for bed anyway. That being said, I did find a few things interesting ... While I was offline, not only did I survive, but my "web presence" actually didn't fair too badly either. Average daily visitors to this blog has actually increased over the past 60 days, despite the fact that they last update took place well over a month ago. Not only that, but even my twitter count (while relatively modest at just over 700) looks to have held it's own ... very surprising given the fact that I didn't follow anybody new, and only posted a grand total of 4 tweets during the time I was gone. The main "take away&qu