I did the full 30 minutes this morning, followed by 150 sit-ups and 30 bicycles.

I’ll probably also work some push-ups, tricep curls, and shoulder lifts in the coming weeks.  One of the biggest problems I face every year is upper back, shoulder, and neck tightness and soreness.  The additional upper body exercises will hopefully alleviate that this year.

So now a quick review of our last couple days’ activities, and some more pictures.

Yesterday we drove into downtown Ft Myers to visit the Edison and Ford Estates.  Personally, from a historical point of view, it was fascinating.  I never knew much about Thomas Edison, but I came away with a great appreciation for his genious.  The time that he lived in must have been very exciting.  Similar to how the Internet has sparked such amazing creativity, the dawn of harnessed electricity was a period of amazing discoveries and inventions that today we take completely for granted.

The laboratory below was used for the search for a domestic source of natural rubber.  It is in the exact condition it was left when the operation was shut down.  All of the equipment is original and untouched.  The pier was built by Edison to get building materials for the estate, since the river is so shallow, the pier originally was built to the center of the river.  Finally, the phonograph, Edison’s personal favorite of his inventions.

Today, we were treated to a boat ride on the Caloosahatchee river, by  a friend of Peggy’s parents who lives in Cape Coral.  Kieth took us down the river, out to the gulf, and back to a place we visited several days ago – Sanibel Island.  The kids got a chance to do some more fishing, and at one point we came across a good-sized school of dolphins.  Peggy got a chance to do some more shelling at Sanibel.

We saw some interesting wildlife:

The kids did some fishing, we got some shrimp and minnows and just let them cast them off of the beach for awhile.  They didn’t catch anything, but had a lot of fun.

The brochures tell you that the entire island is formed from sea shells.  Looking at the picture below, it’s not hard to believe.

Peggy and the kids spent all day picking through the billions of small sea shells washed up all along the beach.  At the end of the day, they looked like lobsters, but happy little lobsters.  We’re going to spend the day tomorrow in the house recovering and healing.

After a much needed sleep in a real bed, and a hot cup of coffee, we departed Macon about 8am.  We drove straight through, with stretching and refeuling breaks, and arrived in Lehigh Acres, FL by about 5:30pm.

It was a great trip, the kids were really well-behaved.  The RAV4 was a very comfortable vehicle for the four of us.

On Sunday, we found a nice LCMS church in Lehigh, spent the early afternoon swimming in the pool at the house, and then in the late afternoon packed up the car for a short swim at Fort Myer’s Beach.  The beach was about a half-hour away, so not real close, but not a terrible drive either.  The traffic was horrible on the beach, but being Sunday, we’re hoping it will be a little lighter for the rest of the week.  We’ll see.

It sounds like today we are going to drive out to Sanibel Island where there will be lots of stuff for the kids to do – shelling, fishing, swimming.

Here’s some pictures from the trip.  We forgot to take the camera to the beach yesterday, so no Gulf pictures.  We’ll get some this afternoon, though.

I’ve been listening to classical radio on last.fm a lot lately because, frankly, classical music is the best programming background noise. One song that really gets played too frequently is Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copeland.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome song — I’m not complaining.

Having heard this song so many times over the past weeks or months, I had convinced myself that I remembered it as the theme song from the Star Trek Voyager TV series.  Well, today I heard the song again and curiosity or nostalgia overcame me, so I jumped on over to YouTube to watch the theme. WRONG!!  Not the same song at all.  In fact, after suppressing my disappointment (embarrassment) in my own poor memory, I discovered that the composer is actually Jerry Goldmith, who has composed songs and scores for many memorable television shows and movies.  If you’re done listening to “Fanfare”, you can listen to the Voyager Theme if you want:

I was informed of this service in a comment (presumably by the owner) on one of my posts back in January.  The hordit service is promoted as free, unlimited storage, for all of your files and bookmarks.

When I first looked at the site two months ago, there was no mention of any cost at all.  However, when you look at the website today, you are greeted with a “FREE 90 DAY TRIAL” logo.  So obviously there must be some cost.  But what?  The front page clearly states “it’s convenient, secure, and easy … plus, it’s free,” and if you look at the FAQ, for the question “How much does it cost?” the answer is “Nothing. Nada. Zilch.”

I signed up anyway.

Within a couple minutes I got my confirmation email.  I activated my account and was in the process of uploading a couple photos when I received another email from hordit:

PLEASE NOTE: Effectively immediately we have switched to a subscription model.  You have a free 90-day trial of all that Hordit has to offer after which you will need to subscribe.

Information will be sent to you as this your trial period comes to an end.

Welcome to Hordit.com – a place where you can store virtually anything!  But did you know there is so much more to Hordit?

Familiarize yourself with Hordit’s features with our tutorial videos here:

http://www.hordit.com/tutorials

We have browser toolbars for IE and Firefox that make interacting with your information and your groups and friends so simple even grandma could figure it out.  Log into your account and download the toolbars here:

http://www.hordit.com/tools

Stay informed about the site on our blog here:

http://blog.hordit.com

- Team Hordit

That’s what I suspected, but still no mention of what the cost is.  Obviously, I am very leery of uploading all of my data to a “free” service that is going to turn around and charge me to get it back in 90 days.  If I knew what the subscription cost was going to be, I could at least make an informed decision of how much time and effort I should put into uploading files during the trial.  I basically made the decision right then and there that any cost was too much for me.  I’d prefer to retain possession of my own files, and hard drives are cheap.  I replied to the email basically saying “thanks, but no thanks,” and suggested that the “bait and switch” style of the registration process was a little bit too sneaky for me.

To their credit, I got another email within 20 minutes:

Not bait and switch.  We’re in the process of updating the site
content/functionality.

The sub cost was messaged 6 weeks ago as $5/mo or $50/yr.

We’ve since ajdusted to $4/mo or $40/yr.

Matt

Wait.  “We’re in the process of updating the site…” followed by “The sub cost was messaged 6 weeks ago.”  If they were really interested in “updating the site”, it wouldn’t take them six weeks to do it.  I suspect the reason they dropped from $5 to $4 is because people don’t generally like getting baited with a free service only to find out 90 days later that they’re going to get charged for it.  And they’re going to keep having trouble getting subscribers if they don’t come clean and clearly state what the fees are up front.  My reply to Matt pretty much sums it up:

Six weeks is plenty of time to get your site updated with the subscription cost, or at least to insert the details of the subscription in the canned email that goes out to new registrants.  I appreciate that you were quick to respond with the details below as soon as I questioned it, but I imagine you’d lose a lot of people who wouldn’t bother to question it – just decide that it’s not worth their time.

If you believe you have a service that is worth $4/mo, then tell people up front what it’s going to cost.  Don’t try to trick them into signing up, thinking it’s going to be free, then hit them with a subscription once they’ve spent hours and hours uploading their files.  I’m sure many people would think $40/year is a bargain for the service you offer, but by hiding those details, you cast suspicion upon yourself and turn away potential customers.

Just some friendly advice, I hope that you can take it to heart.  Good luck with your service.

Eric

If you’re interested in online file storage or backup solutions, I came across this list of free services.  I suppose there’s no guarantee that any of them won’t hit you with a subscription cost after 90 days either.  By the way, I do not endorse the use of any of the services on that list.  Don’t come crying to me if you get burned.  I would be curious to hear how people feel about these types of online storage services though.  Personally, I prefer to back up my files to DVD (several copies for the critical stuff) and take my chances.  I have a real hard time trusting someone else with my files.

UPDATE: By the way, I just got another reply from Matt:

It’s not an intentional act of deceit and – agree we need to get the
changes in place sooner.  Long story.

There is definitely a little bit of a learning curve, but it’s not terribly more difficult to get up to speed than Facebook was.  With Facebook, there were SO many options and settings and things you could do, that it was a bit overwhelming at first, until you settled down and realized that most of it was just junk that you don’t need to worry about.  With chi.mp, the tools are fewer, if somewhat more difficult to understand.   But once you figure out and embrace the concept, it all makes sense.

So what’s the concept?

Ownership.  Chi.mp is no Facebook, and it’s no Twitter.  It’s not going to help you connect with people.  It’s about how you present yourself while (and after) you make those connections.  So the first thing I had to get out of my head was the expectation that my chi.mp account was going to replace my Facebook account.  I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that both accounts have their purpose and will need to work together.

A symbiotic relationship?

Here’s how I envision these two services working together for me.  The chi.mp account holds all of my content and personal information.  I have already removed most of this stuff from my Facebook account.  My Facebook account will simply be a pointer to my chi.mp account.  In this way, I can still use Facebook for the networking, and when connections come looking for information about me, they get referred to chi.mp.  And with chi.mp, I have much more control over how I present myself to different groups of contacts.  I can set up as many different groups as I want, and each and every content item can be published to any of those groups.  Sounds easy enough, but there’s a big hurdle at this point to be overcome.

The OpenID hurdle

Unlike Facebook, you don’t need a chi.mp account in order to see my content on chi.mp.  But you do need an OpenID.  An OpenID is like a passport — It certifies that you are whom you say you are, and you use your OpenID to log into supporting websites rather than a username and password.  You can get an OpenID from ClaimID and this page has a good explanation of how the login and authentication process works.  As you can see, the OpenID concept is pretty different from what most people are used to for logging into a website.  This is going to be the challenge for chi.mp (and for me as a content owner) – convincing my contacts to get an OpenID so that they can see my content.

Last.fm is a music streaming service.  It is most interesting (to me) as a music discovery service.  And it’s completely free.  To discover music, type an artist that interstests you into the “Listen to Last.fm Radio” search box.  The service will play random songs from that artist and any other artist with similar tags, many of which you’ve probably never heard.  You can also search by tag (alternative, rock, Celtic, 80s, classical, etc.)  Just type in a tag and sit back and listen.

Last.fm also keeps track of the types of music you listen to, and there is a social aspect to the service as well, but I don’t use that.  It just makes a very convenient radio when I find myself without my own music collection, or when I’m in the mood for something new.

Finally, in my search for ever-increasing control over my online persona (yeah, I’m still not over that facebook thing), I came across chi.mp today.  In light of facebook’s recent content ownership and terms of service controversy, this site interests me.  It is currently in closed beta, and available by invitation only, so if anyone’s got an invitation code, please share the love!

Some select quotes from their website…

“Chi.mp lets you own and define ‘digital you’ and to share different versions of ‘digital you’ with your selected contacts. More than a life-stream or an aggregator, chimp allows you to take control of how you share your self with the world.”

“With chi.mp, you own everything you put on your chi.mp site – your domain, your content, your contacts – everything. With chi.mp, you own your identity.”

“Your chi.mp site includes a granular privacy feature – Multiple Personas, allows you to create multiple versions of you for different visitors when they are on your site. You assign content and contacts to each Persona that you create – this allows you to control ‘who sees what’. For example, people you don’t know see ‘public you’, your boss sees ‘work you’, your close friends might see ‘crazy you’ and your family members see ‘family you’.”

That sounds great to me.

So I guess I’m over myself.  I apologize to all of those that I inadvertently snubbed by not accepting their friend requests.  If you really care, you’re welcome to request again, and the next time I’m on in a couple weeks or so, I will accept.  But please, please stop sending me invitations to play games or take quizzes — I’ve wasted enough time on that stuff and I’m not going to do it anymore.  Really.

By all means send me gifts and hugs and … (can you “reach out and slap” someone?  If not, why not?) … but don’t expect me to reciprocate.  I’d love to send all my friends a green beer on St. Patty’s day, but the chances of me actually being logged into facebook are, well, actually I wasn’t, so there you go.