September Time

Well it is now autumn in the UK. Winds are picking up. Leaves falling everywhere. Temps dropping slightly, but not too bad. Maybe I'm just adjusted to it now. :)

This time of year from Oct to Christmas always seems a bit manic. Lots of new things with kids and school. Birthdays galore in November. Then we're back to the states for Christmas! Yeah! Hopefully we'll see some snow and get some skiing, sledding, snowmobiling, and ice skating in. Whew.

I have done no letterboxing at all since my last trip to Dartmoor. And haven't ventured out for geocaches for a while now. I'm not even sure I'll be the fall meet in Dartmoor this year. It gets dark so early around here in the winter - like 4pm - that it really hits into your available time.

As I've reported on one of my last few entries, I've gotten really involved with Second Life in my spare time. I thought it was initially like The Sims and mostly for 20yr olds. But there is the whole spectrum of people there from every walk of life finding their interests. I think I must be so drawn to it because I really love visual communications. Graphics and printing are my background so I'm just in my element with SL. I've decided to write more about my adventures there, but couldn't decide it I wanted to clog up this blog or not. I've finally decided to keep this blog as it, and create a new one. So, if you want to keep up with my Second Life, check out: ripleysaunders.blogspot.com

Finally, a website I've found to be enjoyable to read: www.darkroastedblend.com. No, its not about coffee. It just has the sort of 'bits and bobs' (as we say around here) I like. Check it out and see what you think.

Madonna!

After 20+ yrs of Madonna, I finally got to see her in concert. Yeah! A long trek with delays to Wembley Stadium in N London via Waterloo (remember what I said before, 'all trains lead to Waterloo') and we finally arrived - completely missing the opening act.. Whatever it was. We had good seats. Madonna was great. Obviously working out 12hrs a day by her looks. She sang, danced, played the guitar numerous times (does she REALLY play?), and chatted to the audience off and on. We were there nearly 2hrs. The only thing I didn't like was this trend with 40+ celebs - they feel the need to suddenly loudly voice all of their social, political, environmental, etc. beliefs. Many of her new songs were of this vein. Yawn. But other than that, a great show. And they had the roof open which was really great - even after all the rain we had, it stayed clear last night.

And, while waiting for her start, a scan around the stadium revealed a few notables: Fergie, Gweneth Paltrow, Kate Hudson and Penelope Cruz.

Good to see all the Americans in attendence. :)

Putting Your DVD Movies on Your iPhone

Time out for 'TeamKing's Technical Corner'. This episode reviews some software that allows you to put your DVDs on your iPhone to watch.

Since I already listen to my music, podcasts, downloaded TV shows, and one or two purchased movies on the iPhone, the next step was getting my own DVD collection on it. Obviously the memory can't handle tons of movies on these phones, but you can certainly put a few on there. I have about 3 or 4 on mine now along with a few hundred songs. It all fits.

Anyway, putting a movie on the iPhone requires some software to make all the conversions and get the correct file type. I've tried a few different programs. The problem is always the ease of use - most just seem to be a bit complicated. I hate software where I have to go to the manual or users guide to figure out or remember how to use it! Boo.

Finally, I ran across this software and it works like a charm. . .Aimersoft DVD Ripper. It costs $39 but you can use the trial copy which stamps the words 'Evaluation Copy' over the movie if you want to try it first. Since I have a Mac, I was glad to find it works with both PCs and Macs. The best part is that it is so easy to use.

Open up the program.
Insert your DVD movie into your computer. The program will automatically scan the disk.
Then it gives you a quick how to on the screen:
Check over the files on the DVD (this is where I like to delete anything but the movie!)
Check the Profile at the bottom reads: iPhone 3G Video MPEG (mp4)
Put in a title if you want.
Then click Convert.
Viola! The program copies the dvd to a mp4 file.

Now you have to get it to your phone.
If you have an iPhone, you must have iTunes. (No if, ands, or buts. Get iTunes.)
Open up iTunes and drag your file into the Movies folder.
That's it!

Now, next time you sync your phone, your movie file will transfer to your phone for you to watch under the iPod icon.

Enjoy!

New Fun & Games

Well, the end of summer is here at last. School starts back this week. I'm another year older. And we're starting year 2 of living in England. Whew.

Summer vacation was 2 wks of fun. We did Disneyland Paris for 4 days. Then back in the UK, we went to: Legoland, Chessington World of Adventure, Coral Reef in Bracknell, Drusillas Park, the London Eye, and the London Zoo. I think of this group, our fav was Chessington. It had the most rides which seems to be the biggest kick.

For my birthday, I got one of the new iPhone 3Gs. Yeah! I really loved my Palm, but this iPhone is cool. I just found some of the new geocaching applications for it, so once I'm up to speed I'll report back on that and let you know how it goes.

And for even more fun & games, I've really gotten into Second Life. (If you haven't tried this before, you should definately give it a go. This is where many future games, socials, and business will head - into the virtual world. Doesn't cost anything to start. But you will spend some money on all the extras down the road - only if you want - like clothes and such.) I'm really enjoying it - have found and/or tried: scuba diving, skydiving, golf, horseback riding, yacht/sailing, cars, pubs, searching for the Loch Ness Monster, skiing, skating, flying helicopters & planes, RPGs of various sorts like Harry Potter/Hogwarts, finding worlds withing this world like mermaids, elfs, gors, etc., and visiting cities from around the world and then going to 'Washington' to discuss politics. Oh, and driving around on my chopper. lol. I mean, it is endless! A neat way to meet people, or just wander about on your own exploring which is more my speed. And celebs are slowly getting into the action - U2, Aerosmith, tons of new bands, and various politicians and others all have been there.

I've tried finding both a letterbox and a geocache in Second Life. More about that in another post.

So. . .its all fun and games for TeamKing - as always. Anything fun happening your way? Let me know if you have any comments on iPhone or SL. Would love to hear from you!

Reap What We Sow Commentary

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning. . .

Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a crïeche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Disneyland Paris: the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

We originally were planning to do our summer vacation in Germany this year. It started off from 2 wks down to 1 wk. Then, after researching the area and what to do, we suddenly felt there just wasn't enough for the kids - at least at their ages. So, we put that plan away for another time, and decided we all really wanted to go to Disneyland. Off we went for 3 1/2 days.

The Good:
Getting there was really easy. In Italy all roads may lead to Rome, but I like to say in England all trains lead to Waterloo. We took a train from our house into London Waterloo. They used to have the train service going from there into Disney, but the direct EuroStar train goes from the newer St. Pancreas station now. Take the Underground Tube from Waterloo to get there, or like us, get a taxi. From St. Pancreas, its a direct shot. You get off right at the station in France right next to the parks (Disneyland and Disney Studios). We didn't go into Paris but I heard someone say its about 1/2 hour away.

I decided that staying at the Disneyland Hotel (the one at the park) was the way to go. It was too and I definately recommend. Yes, you can save money staying down the road. Same as you would if you went to Orlando. But as this was our kids first experience with any Disney park, we wanted the whole effect. A friend later told me that they had stayed at a nearby hotel and although the hotel was very nice, waiting for the shuttle back and forth and standing in more lines was a drag.

The best part about the hotel was meeting the characters. Every breakfast, lunch, & dinner they were there. The kids were SO excited. Coming out the elevator and running into Tigger or such gave them the biggest thrill. Any everyone was walking around with their autograph books (I think this item must be in the top 5 sellers at the park) meeting Mickey or whoever, getting signatures, and photos. It was a special quark of staying in the hotel and it was worth it. At dinner, the characters came right up to you at the tables. Capt Hook sat down with us and 'harassed' us at one dinner. It was fun.





The temps. No more ridiculous heat! Sweating it out in Orlando is a necessary evil. Not in Paris. Temps were great and really comfortable. I don't recall ever being at a Disney park when we weren't all hot and sweaty the whole time! Yeah!

In my mind, I wasn't sure what to expect of the parks. 'EuroDisney' always made me think of the poor cousin of DisneyWorld Orlando. But it wasn't. Not sure if it was smaller or not. Couldn't recall all from Orlando. But all the rides I remembered where there - Space Mountain, Peter Pan, Its a Small World, and so on. They are celebrating their 15 year anniversary this year so everything seemed in great shape and identical to its Florida relative (have never been to the California parks so can't compare there). It was good old Disney in just a different environment.

The Bad:
Smoking. I'm pretty sure I don't recall smoking being allowed in Orlando anywhere, but since France is such a big smoking country, it was allowed. I would notice it most when sitting out to eat. Inevitably we would be next to some smokers. Yuck.

Where are the characters? I seem to recall seeing more characters walking around at Orlando. Now its been a quite a few years since I've been so maybe things have changed or maybe I've glorified them in my head. But we didn't see any many characters out and about here. They would pop up at scheduled times at scheduled places, but these lines just seemed ridiculously long. We rarely got any signatures at the actual parks - thank God for the hotel.

Everything in French. I went to a small school system when I was young and it didn't have French as a language option. I sure could have used it this week. Most shows were in French and even the names of the attractions would be listed in French.

Service. In general, I have found customer service lacking in most everywhere I've been outside of the states. Not that people are mean or anything, there just seems to be no sense of urgency. And that normally combines with not enough workers. Disney was the same. Long lines could have easily been improved with a few more people working and working a bit faster. Leisurely strolls around the seats to check you on the rides was almost comical at times.

Best rides for us: Big Thunder Mountain and Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast. Ride that 'lost the plot' as they say around here in England was Crush's Coaster. A spinning coaster type ride on a turtle shell. In the complete dark. If you remember Finding Nemo, when they went in the EAC it was fast and bright and lots of turtles and such flying by. The ride could have brought that whole sense of going through a water tunnel for this attraction. The potential for an awesome experience was there, but they just put the whole thing in the dark. We found it a waste.

The Ugly:
Line Etiquette and Personal Space. We seem to have a different sense of waiting in line in the states. Probably since the way we drive is so organized. Rude people are everywhere but I don't remember having any issues with waiting in lines at Disney in the states. But many parts of the world seem to have a different way and the lines seemed a constant issue with me. First, they didn't do the ropes or lines width skinny enough. Instead of one or two person widths, it would branch out to 8-10ft widths half the time. This just constantly caused people to push past you - and they did. If there was a space, someone would get in it. And don't linger or move up too slowly. The people behind might go around you. There was a huge UK population there and those people weren't the offenders so thankfully the issue wasn't out of control. Just enough to be irritating. Along with the line etiquette I constantly found people standing too close to me. There nothing worse then being annoyed at having to be in a long line and then have the people around you crowding you. It's stifling. And I found my personal space being invaded a bit too much for my taste. I'm sure its just cultural differences, but it was obvious.

Finally, as stated above about the characters, we tried to meet some in the parks. One time my daughter was standing directly in front of Daisy Duck with her book and pen ready when the woman next to her gave Daisy a pen that wasn't working. As Daisy tried to get it to work and was shaking it, the woman suddenly snatched the pen out of my daughters hand and gave it to DD. Just grabbed it without asking or anything. As soon as the book was signed, my daughter grabbed the pen from DD and ran out crying. She is only young and this direct rudeness scared her. Interestingly, she took it out on DD and kept calling her 'that silly duck'. Not in a nice way. We didn't want her to be upset or scared of anyone, so we played along. No Daisy Duck fans here! lol.

Overall, it was a great time. The parks were 100% Disney. Everything worked and was clean. The hotel was great. Getting there easy. Getting around easy. I loved when we would be sitting to eat and you could see like all these families from around the world by you, all speaking different languages, all eating different things, all looking different, but still experiencing this same place together. We had a really fun time.

Night Caching

I have never cached or letterboxed at night, so when I ran across an event that featured geocaching at night, I signed up immediately. I had to give it a try.

So I went to this event last Saturday - Dusk 'til Dawn - held around the Chilterns in Oxfordshire. We were to start off at 11pm and end at 8am with breakfast at the pub where we were meeting. I thought I would give myself a little room and get there before 10:30pm. Good thing. It took me about an hour and a half and I ended up arriving right at 11pm. (this after the sat nav took me along some one lane 'cow paths' to this pub which must have been in the middle of nowhere. The only good thing about the drive was coming across a real live hedgehog crossing the road - my first time seeing a live one in the wild. lol.)

As I arrived the group was already out front and getting ready to leave. The plan was to do 3 loops of caches. The first was a special loop devised by the event planners. The other 2 were existing caches. After pictures, we headed out on the dark road and into the woods. When I say dark, I mean dark. The US looks so wasteful as we use street lights everywhere. Not in England. There are hardly any outside of bigger towns - at least that I've noticed. I was glad I remembered to bring not only my big flashlight with battery backups, but also my headlamp. Not sure when I actually bought this, but I was patting myself on the back for the purchase. It was perfect for this outing - bright enough to see clearly and kept my hands free. Quite a few of the people there had headlamps.

The first loop was full of creative caches - puzzle clues, reflective dots you had to find on trees in the woods (imagine finding one of these dots which were about the size of a penny or less). Tricky. The clues were fun and a few lead to some creative cache containers. I was thankful the cache owner was with us - even with 20-25 people, we had a hard time with the answers or finding some of them. And one container, which I think I heard was a fake rat, was gone. We figured some fox must have found that one. Poor thing.

I was completely worn out with this loop. Since I was late in getting there, I passed up getting some snacks and more drinks to take with me. My energy was draining. Up and down hills, across moonlit pastures (this was cool as it was a full moon night), etc. It took us just under 5hrs of walking to find 20 caches. (I should mention that I had already spent the day at the Farnborough Airshow walking all around there!)

After the first loop, about half of the group broke off to go home. I really wanted to stay, but I didn't have any more food or drinks on me and my toe was aching in my boot. Besides, I figured, I really thought the next loop - a ramble through the Chilterns - sounded like something that would be more fun in the daytime with the nice scenery all around. We missed all that in the woods. So I headed home arriving back at about 5:30am with the sun already fully up. I hit my pillow and was gone.

The event was really a great experience. I enjoyed myself and hope to do some more.