jordan and katelyn

last night, katelyn and i, along with friends lock and josh, revisited the 90s by attending Stone Temple Pilots’ reunion tour.  it was a pretty fantastic show.  watching those guys play through some of the best rock songs of the 90s was great.

there were some laughable bits as well, however.  there was an enormous video screen behind the band that was used to show what could loosely be referred to as experience-enhancing images.  i’ve been to hundreds of concerts and seen some pretty incredible light and video displays, but this was NOT one of them.  i made the comment to katelyn that it looked like the simplistic images swirling behind the band were most likely created around the last time they had a mainstream radio hit (1997 or so).  lockman thought it looked like they were just playing various screensavers from a Windows 95 machine.  josh speculated that there was one member of their road crew whose SOLE JOB was to ensure that the computer never came out of sleep mode.  “Remember, Gary:  if ANYONE bumps the mouse or strikes the keyboard… you’re FIRED!!”  “y-y-yes, sir, Mr Weiland.”

but, as simplistic as it was, i’m sure it was mesmerizing to the vast majority of the crowd, who were smoking pot with reckless abandon.  so, instead of indicting STP on their low-fi, utterly boring video, perhaps we should applaud them for knowing their audience and realizing that it would have been foolish for them to spend loads of money when all these potheads would appreciate are swirling colors and shifting images.

and speaking of the drug-doers at the show, Scott appeared to be one himself last night, forgetting the words to several songs and just sort of blubbering through the breaks with comments about interpreting and then misinterpreting, comments about america and references to STP as being the best MF-ing band ever.  I think he must have forgotten that, while they had several great radio hits and sold many albums, they didn’t really change rock so much as fell into popularity with a number of other groups similar in sound/content.

all in all, a great time when they were playing their radio hits.  once they delved into their album tracks, only the true fans sang along.  everyone else just sort of lost interest.  like me.

 i finally have in my hand the iphone 3g.  i got a call and text message from dave over at the at&t store yesterday that my phone had arrived.

first impressions/differences:
1.  it no longer has the irritating interference with a lot of speakers/phones that the previous version did.  i think this is due to the different data technology (or, more specifically, the 3g network).

2. the A-GPS is brilliant.  it pinpoints you on a map and will even follow as you move.  of course, it doesn’t work at our current house in east oceanside.  it sort of placed me in or around a park…

3. the much-anticipated app store is also great.  there are useful tools such as a movie showtimes app and an itunes remote control.  there are fun games such as scrabble and texas hold ‘em.  and there are useless apps that someone hopefully spent almost no time on such as a milk-drinking visualizer and a bouncing cow.

4. finally, the white plastic back is hot.  it doesn’t feel cheap like i thought it would.  it’s solid, smooth and almost pearlized.

so, the end of my journey comes only a few days after release and i’m pretty thrilled.  we are going to get katelyn one this week so she can experience it as well.

surprisingly, unlocked old iphones are still selling on ebay for $375-450… i don’t really know why.  i thought i’d be lucky to get rid of it for $50.  but because this is the case, as soon as the 2.0 software is jailbroken i will be upgrading, unlocking and throwing it out there with all the other ones – perhaps i’ll even make more than i paid for it.
and lastly, i wasn’t thrilled about your comment, chan.  why do you have to put these ideas in my head?  i was happy to believe that everyone there was polite and working their hardest to get me my phone.  oh well…

-j/g-

ps.  who else’s phone comes with a halo like that??  ha.

pps.  ignore the smudges on the apple logo.

10:30am - Welp, I’ve been defeated.  I decided to go with their direct fulfillment plan, which means I paid for my phone and they will call me when it arrives.  They’re quoting 7 days, but I’m hoping it’s much sooner.  And an open letter to Apple, while I’m at it:

Dear Apple,
Would you like to make more money?  Of course you would!  Then follow these simple steps:
1. Ensure that at the release of a product like the iphone, you have more of the higher model in stock than the lower model.
2. When people are looking to buy the sold-out lower model, push them for a sale to higher model for a scant $100 extra.
3. Either they will pay the upgrade charge or they will come back later and buy the lower.

PS. As I walked out of the store after paying for an iphone I didn’t have at the moment, the crowd started cheering as a FedEx truck rolled by.  Are you kidding me?!  Luckily for me, it just kept on rolling…

10:00am - well… UPS came and went. and DHL came and went. no sign of FedEx. and my laptop battery is running out… So I might just put my name on a list and see what happens. A failed experiment… but not the worst morning in the world.

9:25am - So it’s been almost two hours. Had to put my laptop away as the line was moving and we were standing up. As I got close to the entrance, we started to hear that they are completely out of 16GB phones at this location. They were expecting a shipment yesterday that is now supposed to come in this morning… so should I wait? or bounce and come back later this weekend? Not sure. I feel like I should get in to work, but I also feel like I have invested enough time to not want to just walk away…

Everyone just cheered because a UPS truck pulled up. Unfortunately, they were saying the iphones are coming via fedex or DHL. I dunno.

PS. the guy who was selling his spot got $80 for it. Good for him.

7:45am - Someone ahead of me in line is selling his position in line. Cash only. No thanks. He’s only about 12 people up.

7:30am - My coworker just pointed out that white phones are for women or men with woman hands. I do fall into one of those categories. It was funny, though, because I never equated a white iphone with women. I just thought it looked cool, more like my favorite old ipod, different from most of my friends’ phones, etc. Then last night, I was cruising Gizmodo and reading all the iphone posts when one about the white iphone being the reject color…

“It looks like, at least in Australia, nobody wants the white iPhone. People in line in Sydney who are pretty far back are being told that they may have to go with a white 16GB model, as they’re quickly running out of black. Ruh roh, it looks like nobody wants to get stuck with a white iPhone! How pissed will you be if you wait in line for a couple of hours only to be stuck with a choice between a white iPhone or no iPhone at all? I know personally, I want nothing to do with an ivory-white cellphone. That there’s a lady’s color.”

Read the entire post here.

I still want it.

7:20am – It’s getting really hot. The back of this store faces the rising sun. Where’d the clouds go?!

7:10am – Original reports on the internet this week were that there were not many white iphones at the stores. One rumor was that there were none in the UK. I was getting worried that I wouldn’t be able to get one. Fortunately, this nice gentleman below confirmed that there will be, in fact, white ones inside. I would have hated to have waited so long only to find out that there were no white ones at launch….

7.00am - I ran into my friend Byron and his girlfriend. He’s about 5 people ahead of me in line. Since I arrived 15 minutes ago, about 20 more people have joined the line. I should have got here at 6a.

Someone behind me just counted everyone and said I’m about at the 50-person mark. I assume they’ll have all hands on deck, but I still don’t really know how long this will take…

6:45am – so i am currently sitting on a bird-dropping littered sidewalk behind the AT&T store in Vista, CA, with dozens of strangers. And we all have the same purpose: to be among the first (on the west coast) to acquire the new iPhone 3G being released by Apple this morning. It is 6.45am now and the doors should open around 8am.

I waffled about whether to come or not. I don’t know whether it will be worth my time, but it’s definitely an experience – just like the time we went to the midnight release of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Sort of pointless, but definitely a fun time. Although, I was with Katelyn and Lock that night. Today I’m just by myself. E was going to join me, but a) early mornings aren’t his thing, and b) they are requiring activation in store and he was thinking of using it on his T-Mobile network. Pictures to come…

about two weeks ago, we closed escrow on a house in Oceanside in the Fire Mountain neighborhood. We are pretty excited as our current house doesn’t have much of a yard for wyatt. we have some work to do, including bumping out the back wall, landscaping, replacing the floor, replacing the kitchen, installing a bar and crafting a luxurious master bath. all this work is going to put our move in date in the late summer. but, that’s okay. it will be a fun project.

see the picture below. and dear internet freaks: please don’t track this house down. thanks.

-j/g-

Ok, so it isn’t very rural where we live, but I am on a jury in Vista.  Can’t discuss the case much, but it is a criminal case involving a traffic collision.

The more interesting bit is that I know one of the witnesses very well.  Apparently the defense attorney doesn’t find that to be a problem.  Even more interestingly (to me, at least), I was released from my last jury duty because I knew one of the witnesses.  Small world?  How cliche…

I do, however, want to send out a warning to all current and potential criminals:  do you want this deciding your fate?

like answer:  probably not.

ps. we bought a house last night.  let’s see if we can make it through escrow this time. wink.

-j/g-

as our hundreds of devoted readers have undoubtedly noticed, we missed a day in our blog.  you may cease with the emails and well-intentioned phone calls: we know.  and we will fix that today…

yesterday, on a whim, decided to wait in a looong line in the rain and whipping wind outside the musee d’orsay.  it took what seemed like forever.  but, finally we gained admittance and were allowed to peruse the impressionist art.  the museum, as you likely know, is housed in an old train station.  see photo below.

last night, we attempted a trip to the department stores and only then realized we had about 20 minutes before they closed. again. 7pm?! on a saturday evening?!  the h??  so, we hoofed it back to the hotel, thinking that a good dinner place would be just around the corner.  well, it wasn’t.  by the time we ended up at a place within spitting distance of our hotel, we were soaked and irritated.

today was le jour de chateau versailles.  i LOVE versailles.  especially the gardens.  see several photos below.  it had warmed to a balmy 45 degrees (maybe) once our train pulled in so we decided to walk the gardens before touring the palace.  i took k to all my favorite haunts, including the hamlet, the grand trianon and the apollo basin.  we then toured the palace, marveling at the decor in an era of decadence.

all in all, a good day.  tomorrow is our last day in paris and we are excited to come home, but sad to be leaving such a beautiful city.

-j,k/g-

today, all our louvre dreams came true.  after a failed attempt at seeing sainte chapelle (the driving rain and gale-force winds deterred us from standing in the long, un-moving line), we saw notre dame (see proof below) and then ambled toward le louvre.

(interjection): on the way to the louvre, we took a small detour at the chanel flagship store.  katelyn was determined to buy something and couldn’t find anything she REALLY wanted so i almost ended up with a pair of chanel sunglasses.  but, we decided to save our monies for poorly-made souvenirs.  none of you will receive them, however, because we decided not to buy those and to instead feed ourselves at these extraordinary prices.  dear u.s. dollar: please get stronger. love, jordan.

ok, on to the louvre.  we spent a bit of the afternoon there, seeing venus de milo (see pic), winged victory, the coronation of napoleon, the diminutive mona lisa and our new fav, la jeune martyre by delaroche, before leaving for a break.  it was very crowded and food was needed.  we reconvened there this evening and spent the last few hours before closing enjoying the french sculpture and the recently opened Babylon exhibit.  see photo below.  and don’t worry.  katelyn made sure to let EVERYone know that they had misspelled Babylon.  those crazy french!

on the way back to our hotel, we found a nice little restaurant off the beaten path where we were, nevertheless, surrounded by americans. oh well.  the duck was good.  until tomorrow, friends…

-j,k/g-

today? today we struck out. twice.

the early afternoon plan was to take the metro to the arc de triomphe and go to the top before walking the champs-elysees. we got the the arc and saw a sign that civil servants were striking today so we could not climb to the top. le damn. oh well. we would still get to walk the champs and look for the store katelyn wanted to find (chanel flagship store. hello, coco.). but it was not there. the closest we got was the louis vuitton store where we found amazing necklaces for 12,500E and swim trunks for 340E. oh well.

we decided then to go to the musee du louvre where we would spend the evening hours viewing the mona lisa and enjoying samothrace. but, we got there only to realize that it had closed 40 minutes prior to our arrival. le damn (again).

instead, we walked back toward our hotel and found a litte cafe where we enjoyed confit de conard (duck) and an unnamed fish along with a creme brulee and a red wine. excellent. so i guess you could say we were one for three tonight. between the cafe and our hotel, we stumbled upon a little enclave where we found neon lights that didn’t appear to serve any purpose other than to look sweet. see below. i still want to know what they are hiding.

also below is a photo of the front of our hotel. enjoy. love.

-j,k/g-

so this is our first official update from paris as it took a little time to procure the internets. don’t worry, however. we have plenty of internets and know where to get more if necessary. that is my chief concern.

in the time since we last shared, we have ridden in first class from san diego to dallas (not that nice) and business class from dallas to paris (much nicer). at one point, the stewardess (yes, i know that term is out. i still like it.) asked if she could refill my wine. i said, yes, please, and whispered to katelyn that i was going to make sure we got our money’s worth on this flight. she laughed and said i could drink 10 bottles of their wine and i still wouldn’t be taking advantage of them. true. well put, wife.

in paris, we made our way to our hotel, which is located near musee d’orsay and just over the seine from the louvre and the jardin des tuileries, if any of you are familiar. beautiful area. the weather has been pretty cold, however, putting a bit of a damper on outdoor activities.

last night, we went to the top of le tour eiffel (pictued below). there were several lines and it was frigid and windy. but the view from the top is always worth it. today we’re headed on a little walk of the champs-elysees and up the arc de triomphe. more from there later.

also, thanks for reminding me, i need to work on my NCAA picks before we leave… sorry, k. au revoir!

we are in the airport waiting for our flight to depart for paris via dallas/ft worth. we had an interesting night in san diego’s Ivy Hotel. unfortunately it ended on a sour note as the phones were out this morning so our wake up call didn’t happen, the front desk took a half hour to find a bag that lockman had dropped off (containing, importantly, my laptop charger and katelyn’s passport) and the cab we were going to have the front desk arrange wasn’t ready because of the phone system (for real, no one has cell phones?!).

all in all, we have had a great time over the past 24 hours and look forward to telling you more about it from paris. until then, au revoir e à bientôt.

-j,k/g-