The new toy

Traveling all the time as I do, it is sometimes difficult to stay connected to the world. I do get tons of free copies of the USATODAY (I've never bought one), but I need more. I have carried an older laptop with me in the past, but that one is dead. It was also heavy and cumbersome, and more of a pain than it was worth. For the past year I've carried a small PDA with wifi. Surprisingly I was able to do quite a bit more than you might expect from such a small device.

Recently, however, my job has brought a new requirement. All of our training is being moved to an online format, requiring a little more than a PDA has to offer. I still didn't want to carry a big laptop around, but I needed the performance of a normal computer for web access and online training seminars. Enter the Dell Inspiron Mini-9, I'm typing with the tiny keyboard as we speak. I've been playing with mini for 5 days now, and I'm impressed. For what I need, its perfect, and perfectly sized. And it was the same price as that used beat up old laptop I had before. Now if I can keep it away from the wife and kids...

I am not going to Montreal

I have some training to do for my company, and in the recent past, this particular training has been done in Montreal. I was actually looking forward to it. I was going to have a little time off to walk around, see the sites, etc. Not a lot, but a little. Really, I was kindof getting excited.

I looked at my training schedule last week, and alas, not Montreal. St. Louis. I've been to St. Louis. I've worked there, lived there, traveled there. Been there, done that. It's not Montreal.

So in the spirit of positive thinking, I will pronounce St. Louis with the thickest french-canadian accent I can manage, and then laugh-grunt that deep nasal french laugh three times. Maybe it'll help.