Props to the state of Iowa for having free wi-fi at evey “modern” rest stop. We’re about 200 miles outside of St. Paul, MN. I figure I’ll post my earlier post I did on the airplane back from Boston too. Read on if you’re interested. See you all in MN.
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Well, I’m on the plane in between Boston and DC. I can’t sleep, don’t want to read, so I might as well write a blog entry right?
The Training:
My training is over (obviously) and I’m overall pretty satisfied with the course. For those of you who haven’t been following along.. My work (NPH) decided to send me to training regarding the OS X (Mac) operating system. The official title of the course is something like “Mac 105 Supporting OS X 10.4 for the Windows administrator”. The course sits a little above “novice” understanding of what OS X is and how it works.
As I mentioned before I was pretty satisfied with the course. I really like the instructor. She was really knowledgable and not the typical “die-hard” Mac person you’d expect. Actually she dissed OS X on a couple different occasions.
A lot of people are curious on my opionions on Macs. As it stands now, here is my opinion. Before my training I was telling Amy that I was a little “afraid” of what training might do to me. I was scared that I’d come back mac-fanatic. But here’s how I feel about Macs (because we all judge a person by the type of computer they use).
I have always respected Macs. Actually OS X is about the product from the Apple Corp. that I haven’t dissed. Even in highschool I was responsible with maintaining several Macs in the computer lab. The reason I respect OS X so much is not because of the pretty interface (GUI). No, no, no, actually quite the opposite. It’s because of the platform it rest on. OS X is based on the Unix/BSD operating system. A very secure and very stable platform. Apple saw the how great the Unix operating system was and just put a fancy/pretty face in front of it. Rather than create their own platform (like Microsoft did) they made some tweaks and called it their own. Apple’s kind of lazy like that. But it also makes them smart. They see something that works and then incourporate it.
There you have it. The short version is this; I like Mac’s because of the platform they’re built on. (Same reason I like Linux too) While I still prefer the interface of Windows, I wish it had more of a Unix platform behind it.
Boston:
This wasn’t my first time in Boston. But it was the first time that I was “on my own” in the city. The previous time I was in Boston was on a missions trip under parental supervision. It’s probably been 10+ years since I was last there.
Overall I liked the city. I do not think I could live there though. The city sends out a “dirty” vibe to me. I think my expectations are warped because of my squeaky clean suburb background. Looking around I don’t think the city was physically dirty, more than any other city. It just gave off that vibe. I also found nearly everyone is depressed in Boston. I asked Bobby about this, he agrees that he would definetly describe the city as unhappy. It’s probably because nobody looks anyone in the eye or says hello to you on the street. I found it very difficult to “turn off” my behaviour of saying hello to everyone I pass. I tried it a couple times but nobody responded. Sad, really.
I saw a lot of sites. Some your typical tourist destinations (the peer) others were places I just wanted to see (Harvard, Berkley School of Music). I got lots of good pictures, I’ll post them later. Props to Bobby for taking me around the city. And for being my accomplice through many adventures (like sneaking into several card-access only buildings at Harvard, all so I could take some pictures).
There you have it. That was my week. Now for Amy and I it’s time for some vacation. We’re headed up Omaha, NE and St. Paul, MN, in hopes of hugging a penguin. Don’t you worry, I’ll be taking my computer (It’ll be good having my own computer back, I’ve been using this tiny 12” Powerbook for a week now). So I’ll try posting while I’m on the road, pending internet access.
I’m writing you from our first of many hotel rooms on our vacation. We’re in Omaha!! So today I’ve been to Massachusetts, DC, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska. Not to shabby I must say. While I was on the plane ride back from Boston, I wrote a post about my training that I’ll be postinng sometime tomorrow possibly. Tomorrow we go to the Omaha Zoo. Penguins here we come!!
Well my flight leaves in a couple hours. Actually I should be headed out the door right now. But I thought I’d you all know, I’m leaving. I’ll try to update while I’m on the road.
