APPLE San Francisco

Dear Rich,

While you were in there reviewing for your BAR EXAM, I roamed the Market and Mission area of San Francisco on Sunday. What should I happen upon but The Apple Store, San Francisco! At the front door, I told the greeter I had a question about a problem I was having with I-Tunes. He directed me to the "Genius Bar" at the top of the steps on the second floor. I headed up that way.



But before I made it to the GENIUS BAR--a long service counter with blue-shirted Apple staff on one side and customers with appointments on the other side--my body gravitated as if by laser beam to the amphitheater straight ahead at the end of the room. A young unruly-looking kid (like the pictures I've seen of Steve Jobs at 17) was giving a lecture about the MacIntosh "desktop." I hovered near the back row a minute and then slid into an empty seat.


Well, it turns out that this is only one of two Apple stores in the United States that has an amphitheater that gives ongoing lectures about Mac and I-phone, I-pad, I-pod features continually... seven days a week, all day, drop-in style. I sat in on the rest of the first lecture, went to the Genius Bar afterward, and then drifted back for another lecture on "the newest I-phone features."

Though I don't have an I-phone, I know someone who does! This summary is for you, guy!

1- TEXTING - When your text message is BLUE it means your receiving it free because it's from another I-phone/I-pad user. If most of your friends and colleagues own I-phones, you can save about $7 by switching from the Unlimited Text charge.

2. CALENDARS - If the dot next to your appointments is blue, you have probably never synched you phone to your desktop. Get with it! You have the option of setting up separate calenders for work and home and gym classes...whatever.

WEEKLY CALENDAR - You can see the WEEK VIEW of your calendar by turning your I-phone on its side. It scrolls across over a 7 day period.

If you add ATTENDEES to your appointment meetings, and change the time, the I-phone will automatically send the change to their phones.

CAMERA - You can sort and file your pics into "albums." You can also SHARE them by pressing the arrow in the upper right corner. You can ROTATE, ENHANCE COLOR, FIX RED EYE, and CROP your pictures using the 4 icons on the bottom of the screen.

ZOOM CONTROL - They switched zoom control from a tap to a two finger pinch.

HDR - It means Hyperdynamic Range (barf). With it on, you HDR on it you ge two pictures with different lighting so you can choose the better of the two. Otherwise, you'll get duplicates of everything. He recommended only using it on non-moving subjects because it takes 3 images in succession. (I may have that wrong, otherwise why wouldn't you get three of everything...)

MAPS- You can do category searches like with your Garmin GPS, e.g.: Touch Maps. Touch Search. Touch again to get your keyboard. Type in PIZZA. Maps will drop little pins on the map showing the nearby pizza places. Just Touch the pin or press the Directions button to go there. Oh so cool!

LOCAL WEATHER - You can save weather screens for different locals but you can also turn on LOCAL WEATHER which shows the temp and forecast of wherever you are.

REMINDERS - The alarm for the reminders can be set to go off at a certain time or at a certain location, when you arrive or leave the location. E.g. "Remind me to water the plants when I get home." The location has to be an entry in your address book.

Well, that's what I did part of the day on Sunday. Fisherman's Wharf? Coit Tower? The Comic Book Museum? No... Apple San Francisco!

Later dude!

Mo

Mile High Denver

Last Friday I arrived back in California after going out to Iowa for the holidays. Mom and Curt are doing well. I spent the three weeks pretty much hanging out with them--watching TV, baking bread, talking. The number of bowl games has reached an all time ridiculous high. There were 35 college bowl games this year. Due to Curt and Mom's interest in the sport, I watched ALOT of football.

I also listened to a lot of political campaign ads since the caucuses were due to take place January 3. The Des Moines Register published a handy summary of all the Republican presidential candidates giving their age, education, background, and stand on several important issues. The paper itself has stated that it supports Mitt Romney.

While in Iowa, I printed off part of Stephen G. Bloom's article, "Observations from 20 Years of Iowa Life" for Curt and mom to read if they wanted to. It was brought to my attention right before I left for Iowa. I'm probably one of two or three people in all of Iowa that actually liked the article in the Atlantic. Based on the online comments, most Iowans seemed to feel Bloom was excessively harsh and even inaccurate in his description of the state and its residents.
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On the trip back to California, I visited the most interesting museum during my layover in Denver. It was called the Byers-Evans House Museum. The house was so named because it was owned by William N. Byers, the publisher of Denver's first newspaper, and then by William G. Evans, the oldest son of Colorado's 2nd territorial governor John Evans.

I really enjoyed the whirlwind tour the volunteer gave me. This house was built in 1883. It was two stories tall and quite expansive. I had explained to the young woman who opened up the museum house that my bus was leaving in an hour and I wouldn't be able attend the scheduled tour. She conferred with the volunteer who arrived about fifteen minutes later and they decided they would give me my own private tour and cover as much as they could in the time allowed. It was fantastic. The slight, middle-aged woman went into third gear and zipped through every room of that house speaking rapidly but quite coherently.



I think what drew me to the house/museum was the fact that a newspaperman, William N. Byers, owned it. Not just an ordinary newspaperman but a prominent newspaper publisher who had such a significant effect on the area. He drew people to the area by publishing stories about it. Interestingly, I found out later from an Internet search that William Byers lived in Iowa for a few years and in fact married the granddaughter of Governor Robert Lucas, Iowa's first territorial governor. After living in Iowa for about five years, he moved to California, then returned to live in territorial Nebraska and worked as a land surveyor. After that, he moved to Colorado.

Similarly, before finding his way out to Denver, the second owner, Mr. William G. Evans, also had connections to the Midwest. His father, John Evans, was one of the original founders of Northwestern University located in Evanston, Illinois. The city of Evanston was named after his dad. The son, however, was most famous for being instrumental in helping to establish a transportation tunnel, the Moffatt Tunnel, to facilitate train travel between Denver and Salt Lake City.

The stimulating tour in the cozy Byers-Evans House Museum was just what I needed after being on the bus for twelve hours. I returned to the Greyhound station invigorated.