Since 2007, I have been writing a blog at http://jamesmcgillis.com. In order to reach more readers, I have selected the best of my blog articles and published them here. I hope that you enjoy...
For
the holiday season 2011, there were two computer tablets vying for
supremacy. They were the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble
Nook. Key issues, other than cost are that neither tablet has a 3G/4G
connection. That means you need a Wi-Fi connection to go online. Also,
the flat screen means that women with longer fingernails may have
difficulty when typing on the glass. Barnes & Noble is a book store
that needed to compete with Amazon’s Kindle or go out of business.
Amazon is an internet juggernaut, as Wal-Mart is to the brick &
mortar sector. Either tablet device will work, but I would spend some
unhurried time in a retail store demoing both devices prior to
purchase.
The
previous point is about the future. This is NOW and the iPad gets
strong reviews from anyone open-minded enough to spend some time with
it. Cost is high, for you are paying for cache’ as much as utility. Be
sure to figure the cost of exclusivity into your equation. The
top-of-line iPad has 3G
connectivity, so if you are willing to pay Apple's price, you can use
it almost anywhere. Availability of 4G is still so limited that it is a
virtual unknown, except in a few select blocks around a few select
clients in major cities. Has the 4G icon ever lit up on your mobile
telephone? If it even exists, neither has mine. By the way, Samsung is
also a strong player in the tablet computer market. Showing how strong a
competitor that they are, Samsung is now Apple’s #2 target for patent
litigation, second only to Google, itself.
As a tablet alternative, a small laptop (13-14 inch screen), or even an
“obsolete” netbook will give you the keyboard, the Wi-Fi and the option
for 3G/4G. If it were me, I’d be over at Fry’s looking for closeouts
on Sony Vaio S Series Intel I-7 laptops. Such a notebook is more
expensive than any tablet and you cannot hug it in bed, but it will
outperform the tablets on text and data related activities for years to
come. If you just want to watch movies in bed, get the iPad.
When I type, I like to hear my keys click when they hit bottom. To me a
touchy screen is a smudgy screen, so I’ll take a keyboard and a mouse
any day. My Android smart phone provides me plenty of touch-screen
interface time. On the other hand, I did just install MS Windows speech recognition software on my laptop, so soon I will be dictating these articles. Ha!
The Farmer and the Cowboy Should Be Friends (of the Environment)
In early October 2011, I made my annual fall
pilgrimage to Moab, Utah. Having lived there for three months in the
fall of 2005, I knew that October weather in Moab was unpredictable.
After the first cold front of the season blew in with me, I was
surprised at how quickly weather in the Spanish Valley returned to its default position, which is Indian summer.
On October 6, 2011, it was sunny in the valley, yet storm clouds still hung on the peaks of the La Sal Range. What better day could I find to visit Ken’s Lake, out on Poverty Flat, near the head of the Spanish Valley?
When I arrived, I saw a few campers in the
campground, yet on only one boat floating upon the lake. As I watched,
I could see the oarsman rowing his pontoon-style fishing boat towards
shore. Although I stood no further than thirty feet from where he
made landfall, the old angler never looked up or acknowledged my
presence.
Only when I asked him why the lake was so high
this year did he speak. He gave me a few matter-of-fact sentences,
telling me all that I needed to know. “It was a good snow year. There
was still snow on the north-facing slopes until August. The slower
snowmelt this year kept filling the lake, even as
irrigation water flowed from the dam. Still, it hasn’t rained much
lately and the lake is a lot lower than it was just a few weeks ago.”
After I thanked him for the information, he returned to his silent
mode, placed his boat on a small trailer and drove away without
another word.
After he departed, I marveled at the differences I
could see from just one year earlier, in October 2010. When I wrote
an article about that visit, I called it “Ken’s Puddle”,
which is what it looked like to me. At that time, I suggested that
farmers and others who shared in Ken’s Lake water might want to look
towards conservation of this resource, rather than exploitation. Did my
words and wishes have some positive effect on water levels in the
lake? On the other hand, did fewer regional dust storms this year keep more snow in the higher reaches of the La Sal Range watershed until later in the season?
Cynics
would say that those entitled to shares of Ken’s Lake Water took
every drop that they could get this year. Redemption came only when
Mother Nature replenished the water faster than the outfall pipe
carried it away to crops and cattle. I prefer to think that even those
who are“entitled”
are conserving more and using less of those sacred waters. By his
demeanor, I would guess that the lone angler I saw that day was a
longtime Moab rancher or farmer. By not drawing his full share of
Ken’s Lake water this year; did he help Ken’s Lake to remain one of
the few cold-water fisheries in Southeastern Utah?
Future Stars of Cycling Race in the 24-Minutes of Moab
The 24-Hours of Moab off-road bicycle race was only four hours old, with twenty hours of racing yet to go. I was there, Behind the Rocks in
Moab, Utah on October 8, 2011. With so many families in attendance this
year, there was great interest in the kids’ races, better known as the
“24-Minutes of Moab”. Once I had the Moab24Live.com webcam working properly, it was a pleasure to stop and watch the future stars of the cycling sport.
As I said to promoter Laird Knight
after the event, “I have never seen so many kids have so much good,
clean fun in the dirt.” Having kids himself, Laird paid particular
attention to starting each race safely, but with some fun. Varying his
starting count from race to race, Laird allowed no false starts at all.
There were no reported injuries or off-course maneuvers, so his strategy
must have worked.
Each race featured a “Lemans Start”, similar to the 24-HOM start,
earlier that day. For the kids, there was a one-lap foot race and then a
multi-lap bicycle race around the vendor tents. If you take a minute
and view the video, you will see the athletes of the future racing like
the wind. Performing in front of cheering fans and family, what better
way is there for a kid to spend a fall afternoon in Moab?
As off-road mountain bike racing aficionados know,
Laird Knight, the race director and promoter of the 24-Hours of Moab may
have run his last Moab bicycle racing event. After seventeen successful
years conducting the 24-HOM,
Laird may be ready to absorb his 2011 losses and move on to other
events. This year, team entries at the fabled race fell by almost
one-third. Some blame the current economy. I believe otherwise.
In 2008, when I discovered the event, pro teams
abounded at 24HOM. Talking to old-timers, I discovered that Honda Motors
previewed their snazzy Element vehicle at the race in 2002. In 2008,
the race was dubbed the “Suzuki 24 Hours of Moab”, in honor of their sponsorship and participation in the success of the event. In 2009, Rebecca Tomaszewski and Dax Massey teamed up to win the Mixed Duo Championship, completing seventeen laps and placing 30th overall in the race. In 2010, Shimano, Specialized, Mavic and Baja Designs all had big booths at the venue. In 2011, Dale’s Pale Ale had their beer-bus parked in a prime location, but rumor has it that they paid no sponsorship fee for that honor.
Heading into 2011, sponsors and racers alike looked
at their calendars and said, “Maybe next year… There is always a ‘next
year’ at the 24-Hours of Moab”.
Now, only months later, a 2012 race is unlikely. Searching my race
photos from 2011, I found banners or booths sponsored by Baja Designs,
Camelbak, Ellsworth, IMBA, Nutro, Serfas, Specialized and Yakima.
Perhaps there were others, but suffice to say, in 2011 there was plenty
of safety fencing empty of advertising logos and signs. Sponsors, both
old and new can help offset costs at the event, but Laird has said that too few sponsors is not what would cause him to cancel the 2012 Moab event.
Laird recently said, "My
take on the team drop is simply the shift in demographics that is
taking place in the sport. Many former Moab racers are getting older,
having families and not riding as much, let alone racing. The economy
might be 10% or 15% but I think the demographic shift accounts for the
vast majority of the no-shows." While
that may be true, the number of needed participants in the race is not
all that large . An increase of 100-200 new riders in 2012 might tip
the scales in favor of staging the event. If I am interested enough
to attend the 24-HOM each October, how many others might be likewise
interested? Whether they write about it, post a YouTube video or
sponsor a race team (real or phantom), it would help. Sponsoring a
youth team would create new energy now and boost future-year attendance.
On October 8-9, 2011, where were most of the stars
of U.S. mountain bike racing? Finishing twenty-one grueling laps between
them, Colin Osborn, John & Pete Gaston and Len Zanni of the Honey
Stingers Bee Team were the only Men’s Pro Team in attendance. In 2010,
there were nine Men’s Pro teams and three
in the race. Honey Stinger Bee Team, Rebecca, Dax and all you other hot
pros; we need you now to express your interest in racing at the 2012
24_HOM.
Below is an animated GIF image of the 2011, and what may be the final sunset at the 24-Hours of Moab. Using our back-up webcam, MoabLive.com was able to capture thirty-five images at the venue. Our old Logitech “Cue ball Cam”
could not color-balance the darkness of the scoring tent and the
brightness of the setting sun. As the sequence begins, it is
midafternoon on Saturday, October 8, 2011. On frame 27, the disk of the
sun appears in the gap between the tent roof and the bluff to the
southwest. Over the following five frames, the sun, which appears dark
blue, shrinks until it sets Behind the Rocks.
Also visible in the five sun-slides is a bubble of new energy light,
emanating from the sun’s corona. Behind the Rocks, new energy flowed to
the racers on the course, the scorekeepers, fans and the sponsors in
attendance. For a moment, all who were present at the race were of one
family, and bathed in new energy. Through the lens of a failing webcam,
we can see that new energy showering from the sun. Although rarely documented, plasma-flow events are “real”, meaning that charged particles may strike the Earth
in any given location. Present that day, but undetected in the bright
light was the 2011 Draconid Meteor Outburst. Less than two hours after
the race start, our unknown neighbors in the western sky were lobbing as
many as 680 meteorites per hour into the Earth’s atmosphere. If I am
not mistaken, stardust fell widely Behind the Rocks near Moab that day
and night.
Naysayers will tell you that the 24_HOM is an
unmitigated disaster, carving up and destroying a fragile desert
environment. Before racing started there in the 1990s, the history of
the place included the overgrazing of cattle for almost a century. In addition, four-wheel drive or social roads
carved up the high plateau. By connecting several existing desert
tracks, Granny Gear Productions created a racecourse that has stood the
test of time. Yes, someracers
ignore or misinterpret the course markers. Few racers, however, wish to
exchange the singletrack for an uncertain fate in the sagebrush. Those
who go off course, do so mainly at night, when fatigue or poor lighting
take their toll.
Environmentalist that I am, I believe that Moab’s annual gathering of gearheads and their greater family is too precious to let fade into the western sunset.
If you care about the 24-Hours of Moab in any positive way, now is the
time to take action. Rebecca & Dax, Honey Stinger Bee Team and all
you other racers, your fans are waiting to hear that you will be in Moab
on October 6-7, 2012. Only if you respond, will there be yet another
sunset at the 24-Hours of Moab.
It is time for me to publish
these thoughts and let this story go. The outcome notwithstanding, I
will be there, Behind the Rocks at sundown on Saturday, October 6, 2012
beaming a live webcast of the sunset to the world. I only hope that the
madcap mayhem of a 24-hour bike race will be going on all around me.
Until then, I will see you at Moab24Live.com. Happy trails.
Seventeen Years of Classic Off-Road Bike Racing - Is the 24-Hours of Moab Gone Forever?
Sweeping across the roof of my coach, the rain
sounded like brushes on a snare drum. Slow to awaken, I realized that I
was in Moab, Utah on Saturday, October 8, 2011. As the rain became a
steady drone in my consciousness, I thought about the upcoming 24-Hours
of Moab (24HOM) off-road bike race, scheduled to start at noon that day.
My plan was to create a twenty-four hour internet webcam feed at the race venue, Behind the Rocks. Heavy rainfall could make that task difficult, if not impossible.
By
nine that morning, after traversing several miles of Moab mud, I
arrived at the race venue. Under light rain and a threatening sky, I
unpacked computers, cables and cameras. Using onsite generator power and
a wireless internet connection provided by race promoter Granny Gear
Productions, I was soon up and running. Then, a new obstacle arose. For
reasons unknown, there was no response from the MoabLive.com servers,
collocated in Los Angeles, California. For the next hour, our file
transfer protocol (FTP) requests went unanswered. Without cooperation
from our servers, there would be no “live feed” that day by Moab Live.
By 11 AM, the rain had stopped and the Moab Live
servers began accepting FTP requests. Then, every three seconds, like
clockwork, our ancient Dell Windows-XP computer began firing out a new .JPG image
to the world. Was anybody watching? Just before race-start at noon on
Saturday, the servers again went dark. Rather than fretting about events
that I could not control, I headed out to photograph the Le Mans style,
running start of the 24 Hours of Moab 2011.
If
you have not yet seen it, this may have been your last chance to do so,
but more about that later. At noon, a blast from the race gun was so
loud that it echoed off the redrocks, half a mile away. Before that echo
had returned, hundreds of self-designed athletes began a two-hundred yard foot race.
Their goal was to run clockwise around the most famous bush in all of
off-road racing, and then back to their bikes, waiting in the racks.
Like a lightning bolt of new energy, that lone juniper was point-focus
for racer and spectator alike. All had come to experience the universal adrenaline-pump known to the cognoscenti as the 24-HOM.
Sixty-three year old Ray Alters of Team Curly
watched as his son, Steve Alters ran in honor of his brother, taken by
death in a pedestrian-car accident eighteen months ago. Father Ray would
go on later to take his fallen son’s place for two laps of exciting
action. With assist from a cane that supported his immobilized left leg,
fifty-four year old, separately-abled Frank Garduno completed the run.
Understandably, he was last to mount up and ride.
Over the next twenty-four hours, Frank completed three 14.93 mile laps,
averaging six hours and twenty minutes per lap. With a course elevation
between 5,000 and 5,774 feet, Garduno gained 4,080 feet in elevation,
all powered by hope, heart and one good leg.
At the morning prerace meeting, Race Director, Laird Knight spoke the words that no one interested in off-road bicycle racing
wanted to hear. Registration numbers were down for 2011, resulting in a
$50,000 shortfall at the bottom line. Without a quick addition of
sponsorship revenue, this would likely be the seventeenth and final 24-Hours of Moab. At Behind the Rocks, stunned silence hung in the cold, damp air. Then, with a shift of energy
that lasted for the next full day, Laird Knight encouraged everyone to
go out, have fun and to ride this race as if it were his or her last
one.
Outside of a few U.S. mountain biking enclaves, like Santa Cruz, Californiaand the Front Range in Colorado,
traditional U.S. media has largely ignored the sport. Skateboarding
gets more live airtime. Soon, I was heartened to see British TV
presenter and adventurer Ben Fogle, with his BBC Worldwide. All weekend, they taped footage for a segment of their upcoming, “A Year of Adventures”
reality series. Ironically, the Moab segment will not air until after
the decision to keep or cancel the 24-Hours of Moab 2012. What the
mountain biking sport and the 24-Hours of Moab need is immediate
sponsorship by a U.S. television network or other caring sponsor.
Although the BBC focus as mainly on Fogle, their upcoming episode might
go down in history as the only mass-market television presentation of
this fabled event. Either way, everyone knew that this race was history –
in the making.
While I ruminated on the economic pressures
surrounding this classic race, the gun sounded and the race was on.
Spencer Lacy, lead racer on the “Rise of the Penguins” team was first to
complete the run and mount his bike. He was
also first to veer off course, coming almost wiping out the BBC
soundman. Maybe that mad penguin atop Spencer's helmet wanted some
attention. With physical disaster averted, the Moab-style nuclear dust storm
created by one thousand feet pounding the desert ebbed, flowed and then
vanished. With their own Ben Fogle already on the course, the BBC team
finished their scene with tight focus on photogenic Men’s Solo Rider
Nick Ybarra. Famous for winning slow races, Nick exhibited perfect form
as he entered the first of his nine laps around the fourteen-mile
course. The smile on Nick’s face seemed to say, “Look, Mom, I’m on TV”.
Nick’s mother will be proud to know that he did not say. “Look, Ma, no
hands!”
In October 2012, what the world needs is a live video-feed from the 24-Hours of Moab. With our limited resources, all that Moab Live could do this year is provide a proof-of-concept, employing a live webcam at race central.
From noon until one PM Saturday, I felt like a high school audio-visual
monitor who could not get his 16-millimeter film projector to work.
During that break, I snapped a picture of then second-place, but eventual Men's Solo winner, Andy Jacques Maynes
as he entered the scoring tent. After an hour of racing, the Moab Live
internet servers must have heard our plea. Around that time, our servers
came back on-line and then stayed up for the remainder of the race.Our
thanks go out to Mark Williams of TheHostPros.com.
His all-night effort got Moab24Live.com webcam feed online again. Such
are the unsung heroes and volunteers who make the 24-Hours of Moab the
unique event that it is.
On Sunday morning, after eighteen hours of racing,
the Granny Gear wireless connection failed, leaving our webcam offline
for over an hour. Checking status on my new LG Thrill smart phone from
AT&T, I saw four-bars lit up on the signal indicator. Turning on its
Wi-Fi hotspot function, I reconnected to the Moab Live servers. From
then until the end of the race, my cobbled-together wireless connection
provided an uninterrupted webcam feed at Moab24Live.com.
After
the race was over, the whole experience left me pondering the subject
of macroeconomics. If I can put together a live internet broadcast for
less than two hundred dollars, why cannot ESPN.com, GoDaddy.com or
FoxSports.com fork over $100K for broadcast rights. That is all the
money it would take to keep this original, classic race where it should
be, Behind the Rocks at Moab, Utah in October 2012.
It’s Utah’s biggest mountain biking event… 24-Hours of Moab.
Not only is it a mountain bike endurance race, but also a gathering of
gear heads, a vibrant tent city among the red rock, party central with
drinks, food and music, and a chance to say goodbye to another summer of
pedaling among Utah’s stunning scenery.
2011 marks the 17th year of the 24-Hours of Moab,
and once again, thousands of racers from around the world put fat tires
to the slickrock and singletrack outside Utah’s mountain biking Mecca in
a remote venue twelve miles south of town. Again in 2011, an expanded
field limit of 550 teams and solo riders will surely ramp-up the
competition a few more notches.
It is all happening again on October 8 & 9, 2011. This year, Moab Live, through its Moab24Live.com
website will feature at least one live webcam during the entire race.
Our webcam position will be in the scoring tent at race-central, Behind
the Rocks near Moab, Utah. Race promoter, Granny Gear Productions, will
feature our live webcam on their Real Time Race Results webpage.
From noon, Saturday, October 8, until noon Sunday,
October 9, 2011, watch as up to 1000 racers check in and out at the end
of each grueling lap. Day and night, we will be there bringing you the
best in Moab Live entertainment. Be sure to join us for the race at Moab24Live.com.
More than any other
decade, the 1970s were fertile times for innovation in the genre known
as rock and roll. A great deal of what we remember as happening in the
1960s actually happened in the early 1970s. The history of 1970s rock
events, especially concert dates and lineups are often incomplete or
garbled. For instance, I remember seeing Linda Ronstadt opening for
Neil Young at the Long Beach Arena in the early 1970s. Although I
Googled each performer and the venue, I could not find definitive documentation regarding that magical night. The best I can say is that it happened sometime between 1970 and 1972.
Arriving late at the
arena that night, Linda Ronstadt had already taken the stage. When I
say that Linda had, “taken the stage”, it was as if she owned it. As we
entered the far end of the arena, a beautiful sound echoed down the
concrete tunnel that led us to our seats. Already, the First Lady of
Rock had captured the house. As she sang "Desperado", her clear voice extended out, reverberating off the back wall and then harmoniously to our ears.
Just as startling and
beautiful as Linda and her voice was the sound of her band. From their
acoustic backing of Linda’s ballads to their all-out rocking solos,
they had the inevitable sound of greatness. Every note and every
backing vocal sounded just right. They knew it and we all knew it.
Later in her set, Linda announced her backing band as, “The Eagles”.
Author's note: In June 2014, I received the following comment from
Ms. JG Wilcox, who also attended one of Linda Ronstadt's Long Beach
Arena concerts in 1972. As you will see, her experience was different
than mine.
Jim - thank you
for your memories! Regarding Linda opening for Neil at the Long Beach
Arena? Am not sure how many nights they were booked, but my memory of
the concert I attended (at age 13) was that Ms. Ronstadt - of whom I
was/am a HUGE fan - was pretty tipsy and got booed off the stage. Then,
Neil Young - of whom I was/am a HUGE fan - came on and the audience was
impossibly rude, shouting out requests even as he played. He got angry,
brought out Crosby and Nash, played Cinnamon Girl, and walked off the
stage! Sounds like your experience was better than mine. I just remember
sitting on the curb outside the Arena waiting for my mom to come and
pick up my friend Sally and me...the parking lot was empty when she
arrived because the concert had been so short! It was the summer of '72.
And not long after that, the Eagles entered my world as well. Thanks
again, Jim!
"Desperado"
That night was the
start of my love for the Eagles unique style, which blends rock,
country rock and folk rock. With a string of hit singles and six
albums, the Eagles songs fit perfectly with my life’s events. Their
breakup paralleled the breakup of my first marriage. From “Life in the Fast Lane” until “After the Thrill Is Gone”, my personal experiences paralleled the lyrics of the Eagles’ songs.
Years later, after buying two of the forty-two million copies of The Eagles Greatest Hits
album sold worldwide, I yearned for new music from a group that broke
up in 1984. Between then and their reunion in 1994, we heard plenty of
solo efforts by various band members, but rarely did those songs
resonate like the Eagles songs of old. When the Eagles resumed recording
and touring in the mid-1990s, I listened again for new songs from the
Eagles.
On December 31, 1999,
I attended the Eagles Millennium Concert at the Staples Center in Los
Angeles, California. In a repeat of my first Eagles experience the
early 1970s, we arrived at our seats after the concert had begun. This
time, a bomb-scare, not traffic, delayed our entry into the arena.
While thousands waited outside, security took their time checking every
ticket and “wanding” every attendee. Once again, Linda Ronstadt was on
stage, her voice often lost in a crowd that was milling around or
trying to find their seats. On any other night, the promoters would have
waited for at least half the audience to be inside before starting the
show. By the time Jackson Browne arrived onstage, things settled down,
but from our $145 seats at the far end of the stadium, most of the
music that night seemed vacant and distant.
When they finally
took the stage, the new Eagles sang just like the old Eagles, but a
chorus of numbskulls sitting behind us insisted on singing along to
every word of every song. As midnight approached, the songs seemed out
of order, and then the music ceased altogether. Inaudible to most of us
in the arena, Glenn Frey gave his Millennium New Year’s Eve salute to
the world on live TV. By the time that the Eagles got back to their
music, but the thrill was gone.
To be sure, the
Eagles in their 1994-to-present incarnation have written and produced
some great music. In recent concerts, the Eagles pay homage their old
fans by singing some of their early songs. Like the rest of us,
however, the Eagles have moved beyond the ethos and the pathos of the
1970s. Just as they have moved on in their lives and with their music,
they hope that we will move right along with them. With $450 concert tickets now the norm, that is not likely.
That is where the Eagles tribute Band, “The Long Run” comes in. Taking their inspiration from the title track of the Eagles final pre-breakup album, “TLR”
takes us back to yesteryear when country rock ruled top-40 AM radio.
Having attended several of The Long Run’s concerts in recent years,
Carrie and I were thrilled to hear that they would again play live at
the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center in Southern California.
A former church, the
Cultural Arts Center splits its four hundred seats between the main
floor and a balcony. Having last seen TLR at this intimate theater on a
rainy night in December 2010, we bought our tickets early for their
September 9, 2011 show. Upon arrival, we were pleased with our seats,
which were in the third row of the orchestra. Although TLR did not sell
out their two nights in Simi Valley, the many fans in attendance were
not disappointed with their show.
In an email update a week later, TLR wrote, “First,a special thank you to all who joined us at theSimi Valley Cultural Arts Center this past weekend. Both nights you gave us one of the warmest receptions we'vehad anywhere and we shared an energy that far outweighed the capacity of the theater. Friday night felt like playingat
the Nokia and Saturday night felt like the Greek! We still don't know
what they served y'all at intermission but we're gonna find out and
then stipulate in ourcontract that it's served at every show.”
As The Long Run
played all of our old Eagles favorites, we remembered why we love live
music. It is not so that we can make some corporate ticket agency rich.
It is not because we like fighting crowds and overcoming bomb scares
to watch a show. It is because there are still performers out there
like the members of TLR who love the same music that we do. At the end
of the accompanying “The New Kid in Town” video, you can hear Carrie say, “They’re so good”, and she means it.
In true bootleg tradition, that night I also recorded videos of "Hotel California", “Desperado”
and the Jackson Browne classic, “Take it Easy”. The cheapskates at
Warner Chappell Music must have thought that TLR sounded too much like
the Eagles, so they blocked two my YouTube videos on "copyright
grounds". Although TLR’s big sound overpowered the tiny microphone from
time to time, you can still hear that authentic Eagles sound echo off
the back wall of the Cultural Arts Center. Next time I hear that The
Long Run is playing anywhere near my town, I will purchase tickets as
soon as I can. The Long Run’s version of the “Eagles Experience” is so
good that we hope to be there when they “Take It to the Limit”, one more time.
The
previous point is about the future. This is NOW and the iPad gets
strong reviews from anyone open-minded enough to spend some time with
it. Cost is high, for you are paying for cache’ as much as utility. Be
sure to figure the cost of exclusivity into your equation. The
top-of-line iPad has 3G
connectivity, so if you are willing to pay Apple's price, you can use
it almost anywhere. Availability of 4G is still so limited that it is a
virtual unknown, except in a few select blocks around a few select
clients in major cities. Has the 4G icon ever lit up on your mobile
telephone? If it even exists, neither has mine. By the way, Samsung is
also a strong player in the tablet computer market. Showing how strong a
competitor that they are, Samsung is now Apple’s #2 target for patent
litigation, second only to Google, itself.
Email James McGillis
Also visible in the five sun-slides is a bubble of 
That is where the 