Dad Finds A Turtle

Dad found a turtle hanging out in the backyard today. He made a little cage for it to stay until I could get home to see it. The turtle is now safely back at the creek next to my house.

Fireworks!

Last night was the first time I've specifically gone out to watch a fireworks show in several years. I forgot how much fun it can be! I went with some friends to view the show put on at Indian Hills. It seemed like a good time to test out the video recording capabilities of my iPhone 3GS, too. Other than having some trouble holding the phone still after 20 minutes, I think it turned out pretty well.

Chocolate?

I should be used to this by now, but I'm not. I walked into the kitchen at work this morning to find an empty chocolate wrapper and box sitting on the table. The garbage can is about 6 feet away. It's NOT THAT DIFFICULT to throw away your own trash!

iPhone 3G S Day

It's that time of year again. Yes, Apple released a new iPhone so I bought it. Fortunately this year I didn't have to deal with any lines since I pre-ordered from the AT&T store. As you can see from the above picture there was nobody knocking down the doors. I walked right in during lunch and picked mine up without a wait. I've heard of folks having to wait nearly 4 hours today at the nearby Apple Store, though.

My primary motivation in buying this year (like I really need much of a reason) is the upgrade to 32 GB of storage. What can I say? I like a lot of space. The CPU speed bump is nice, too. The device really does feel snappier in general. The 3G performance, however, is kind of disappointing (but in line with what I expected). Last year when I brought home my iPhone 3G on launch weekend, I was testing out at up to 1800 kbps transfers. Over the course of the year I observed performance gradually dropping until last week when I was lucky to see 500 to 800 kbps. With my new 3G S today I consistently saw 1000 - 1300 kbps again. I think it's going to be a constant battle between how many iPhones join the AT&T network and how fast they can add bandwidth.

I expect that next summer they should be releasing a 4G version. I'd really like to see a 64 GB storage option, too, but that might be pushing it. I'd settle for a multi-core CPU and real-world 4G speeds in the 3 to 5 mbps range. A new case design would also be welcomed. Sign me up.

Cheese Toast

I'm not the only one who loves Brick cheese. I brought back three bricks to share with the folks in the office. Grant has been making cheese toast in the mornings with it. We'll all be sad when the supply runs out.

Wind Farm

I was very surprised and pleased to come across the Mendota Hills Wind Farm today. This was my first time seeing a wind farm up close and personal. This is one of my ideal scenarios; the land under the turbines is still used for crops (producing all sorts of vegetarian delights, I'm sure) while the turbines produce clean energy. The sound of the facility was pretty cool, too. It was a sort of gentle "wooshing" sound. I recorded some video of the turbines in action, but I'll have to upload that later (maybe). We should be doing this everywhere!

Ladysmith Welcomes You!

We arrived in Ladysmith yesterday afternoon. On the way I observed that Wisconsin has both some of the smoothest and roughest roads ever, but at least everything is paved now. It rained the entire drive. Fortunately, the rain broke for a few minutes when we arrived at the cemetery. After paying our respects we drove through Ladysmith so Dad could do some sightseeing. Unfortunately a tornado that came through a few years back destroyed a lot of the old buildings that he could remember, including their old house in town. We then went to visit Aunt Irma at her farm. She seemed to be doing well and is planning to participate in a motorcycle ride in a few days.


The Voss farm is located just down County Road P from the cheese factory where Dad's family lived and worked when he was kid. The gas pump above was the pump they had there. I believe Uncle Fred moved it to his farm sometime after the old cheese factory stopped operating.