MovingPictures

Photo of the Day - Willie Hobbs...

Willie Hobbs, beryllium victim...

Photo of the Day - Happy Birthday...

Mary Baker watches her great grandson Austin Baker, of Richmond, VA, as he chows down on her 100th birthday cake at the party at the Glendale Assisted living Center.

Photo of the Day - Waiting for Dinner...

A young child heads out to the playground as Ryan Murphy, 12, of Fort Wayne, IN, watches the older kids play a game of basketball in the recreation area of the Jennings Recreation Center Kids Cafe in Fort Wayne, IN. Murphy waits for dinner to be served shortly after five in the evening while he plays pool. "I come here alot because there is nothing to do after school, this place is the only activity. Lots of my friends come here also". The center is a place neighborhood kids can come to play with friends during the day and get extra meals that their families might not be able to afford.

Photo of the Day - A Tribute to Hurricane Alex...

A photo from Hurricane Floyd, Jack Kennedy Hodgkin, a native of Florida is hit by a wave in the city of Palm Beach Shore, Florida. Hodgkin has been a resident of Palm Beach Shore for 10 years now and says he loves hurricanes and weather.

New iPhone in Hand, In and Out in 35 Minutes...

I must say I timed it right today as my son Noah and I ventured to the Crocker Park Apple store in Cleveland. I was one of the luck people to get a reservation on the 15th through the Apple website, just before it crashed and shut down the pre-order business for Apple and ATT. My plan was to head to the store and get there about 11:15 a.m., figuring the 7:00 a.m. morning rush would be gone and the lunch crowd would not be there yet. Well...at least I was right about the noon lunch crowd not being there yet. First, we were lucky and got a parking spot just a few stores down from the Apple store, my parking luck strikes again. As Noah and I walked up to the store, we saw hundreds of people lined up waiting for their turn to enter the store in search of their new phones, congratulations to Steve Jobs for doing it again. 

We asked a store employee where to go if you had a confirmed reservation to pick up a phone, and she pointed in the direction of the line, which wrapped around the building. I asked "that line" and pointed to the multitude of people hovering in the shade. She replied "no" this line and pointed to a little string of six people, to the left of the big line, thankfully this was the reservation line. We quickly took our place in line and started to chat with others expressing their thanks that they too, had reserved a phone over the internet. The two lines merged as we got closer to the front door of the store. We started to chat with some of the people and found that they had gotten in line at about midnight last night, it was now almost 12 hours later. I had promised my old iPhone 3 to my son to use as an iPod touch, he was playing with it in line and was video taped by a local Cleveland TV station. I asked for the phone back and figured I would use the camera for its last official act for me. I snapped a few photos of people in the lines. At this point in time, it was our turn to visit the Disneyland for gadget freaks, the Apple store.

I was greeted by an employee and was given my phone in just a few minutes and then sent to another table for activation, meantime Noah was playing with all the Apple products and was having a good old time. I was done and we left the store, in just about 35 minutes, not a bad day. Now home to sync it and figure out all the new functions.

The line outside the Apple store in Cleveland.

A couple of Apple fans that have waited in line for 12 hours.

Sirius - XM Merger Finally Complete...

Friday evening the FCC finally got off their asses and did their civic duty and voted 3-2, agreeing that Sirius-XM merger would not be a monopoly of choices for mobile entertainment in the in-car entertainment market after 17 months of screwing around. The Department of Justice (DOJ) approved the merger over three months ago, The National Association of Broadcasters tried to buy off Senators and Congressmen to influence the FCC, and to stop the merger. Frankly, if the terrestrial broadcasters had something worth listening to, they would not to have to worry about the merger. This merger of two satellite radio stations took twice as long as the Exxon-Mobile merger of two oil companies which affects each and every person in this country, and we now have $4.00 gas. Maybe the government should have paid a little more attention to this merger and not the Sirius-XM merger, which will NOT affect over 280 million people in the United States if you do not subscribe. I think this will be a great thing for subscribers, I travel alot and Sirius is the best thing ever invented! So go out today and get yourself a Sirius radio and enjoy...