Orlando Grab Bag

So, I’m in Orlando … hmm, Orlando. The land of magic, fun, and all around interestingness (?) … I finally have a little bandwidth for the moment. I am standing in the Apple Podcast Suite just wrapping up a nice interview with James Hilton and Lynne Johnson from the University of Michigan … we spent the better part of 40 minutes talking about their use of iTunes in their School of Dentistry. Really interesting stuff. Later in the day I’ll be hanging out with some folks from Ohio State about teaching and learning with technology. Should be cool — but what is it with me and the Big Ten schools. The U Mich people gave me a little grief about the football game last weekend, but not on tape. At any rate, here is the feed that will pump out all the Apple ADCE Podcasts.

I spent the first several days down here with my wife and little girl, Madeline … we went to the Disney kingdom. We hit the Animal Kingdom and Epcot on day one and then did the Magic Kingdom and back to Epcot on day 2. Here’s the deal, that Disney stuff is expensive but it does grab the attention of a 4 year old. The thing we noticed is how the folks at Disney allow you to purchase adult beverages in Animal Kingdom and Epcot but not the Magic Kingdom — hence the 2 trips to Epcot. If you’ve been there then you know all about the countries … we like Great Britain. And we spent a lot of time there drinking pints of Stella while Madeline slept on day two. I can’t tell you much easier the whole Disney experience is with a buzz. Here’s the evidence, when you go to the Magic Kingdom (no adult beverages allowed) you notice how all the parents will lose their shit on their kids at least once or twice. It is actually funny to hear everyone going nuts in different languages … see we are all the same down deep. By the time we got to Epcot, Madeline was sleeping and it was straight to the pub for a few pints … that made it all much easier.

Mixing work with vacation can be a drag, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Several things left this week here with Apple and then it is back home and back to reality. At any rate its been fun. Oh, by the way … I got to see and hold one of the new iPods — you know with video. It is an amazing device … a lot cooler that I thought it would be. One huge disappointment is that you cannot do ratings on videos. That is just lame — imagine how easily you can use those 5 stars to assess student work on the fly. If you are going to give us new features, don’t take away old ones! I want that back in. Ok, that’s it. I’ll be back later this week or over the weekend. Later … back to spending money in the land of Disney.

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