The first 24 hours

by Volker Weber

flagler beach

We finally arrived in Flagler Beach, and the place which Mac Guidera recommended is wonderful. Everything is just spanking new, we have a large living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. On the front porch there are rocking chairs, and we have a new pool that was just built last year. Two blocks to the east there is the beach and the head of the Flagler Beach pier. Thank you, Mac, this was one excellent recommendation.

Our place is a very small hotel and when we arrived here, there was an envelope attached to the front door with instructions how to get into our suite. We needed to punch a few numbers into a small box, but the door would not open. After half a dozen tries we found out that the numbers were not supposed to open the door, but rather the small box, which contained the keys. We failed this rather simple IQ test miserably. ;-)

Our place has a 5-port Netgear switch connected to the backbone of the hotel. I hooked up my Airport Extreme and now have wireless access to the net. There was a small obstacle though. Although the DHCP gave me an IP, I could not connect to the Internet. The setup was very basic, so I connected to the default router at 192.168.1.1 and was prompted for the login to a Linksys BEFSR41. In case you ever meet this device, the default username is blank and the password is admin. Bingo. The person who set up the router did not only not know how to secure the router, but he was also not very good at setting it up. I left the default password but fixed the configuration, and now we are connected.

One of the places we stopped by today was the Apple store at the Millenia (ok, it were two Apple stores, the other one being at the Florida Mall) but they did not have any of the new Macs. The MacBook is not supposed to ship before Febuary — and I am betting on the 59th of Febuary — but the Intel iMac was also not on display. Both stores were packed with customers, and Apple was happily selling iMac G5s and PowerBooks.

The flight from Frankfurt to Atlanta was very long. We were on an old 767-300 and had a strong headwind so it took more than 10 hours to get there. The flight was delayed almost an hour although we pushed back in Frankfurt on time. Atlanta had severe weather and we experienced the roughest landing ever. It was bumpy all the way down to the runway. This is not a nice experience, when the plane is thrown around and you hope the pilot makes it to the airport.

Since we were so late in Atlanta, the airport had only 30 minutes to transfer the luggage to our Orlando flight. We went as quickly as we could from concourse E to T02 which is accross the airport. We boarded the plane and they literally closed the door behind us. The luggage did not make it. Luckily it was on the next flight. We used that time to get our Chrysler Sebring GTC Convertible and picked up some groceries. When we returned 90 minutes later, the carrousel just started and I fetched the bags 10 minutes later while Ute was waiting with the car in front of the baggage claim.

Google Local Mobile on the Blackberry 7290 was of great help. I just entered "Publix near Orlando International Airport" and it gave me directions to a store 8 mls north of the airport. I entered the address into TomTom and the rest was routine.

It currently is sunny but quite cold. Shall be warming up over the next 3 days before the next cold front hits. Today there was not a single cloud out there and I almost got a sunburn in less than two hours. I always like the dry and cool air with bright skies behind the front. Shall be wearing my hat all day long tomorrow.

Conclusion: We are having a great time. Cheers.

Comments

Welcome back to the US, Volker. Can't wait to see you an Ute again.

Rest up, I have a feeling you're going to be very, very busy in a week or so :)

Rocky Oliver, 2006-01-15

jealous ;-(

Stefan Heinz, 2006-01-15

Wow, you managed to pass immigration and change terminals at Hartsfield in 30 minutes? Record run! Congrats! ;-) Enjoy Florida.

Heiko Hebig, 2006-01-15

No, the 30 minutes were from rechecking the bags behind customs to departure. We passed immigration in 15 minutes and had to wait another 15 minutes for the bags to arrive on the carrousel.

Volker Weber, 2006-01-15

So, in the U.S. of A. you can bring your rental car to the baggage claim? ;-)

Karsten W. Rohrbach, 2006-01-15

Yup. At least most airports in the US I know allow you to drive almost up to the exit door of the (domestic) baggage claim.

Stefan Rubner, 2006-01-15

I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Be sure to contact me if you have any questions.

Mac Guidera, 2006-01-16

Volker, the Apple store at the Mall at Millenia has one Intel iMac Core Duo on the right hand side (at least when we were there on Saturday)...

Enjoy your stay! See you @Lotusphere

Markus Dierker, 2006-01-17

Old vowe.net archive pages

I explain difficult concepts in simple ways. For free, and for money. Clue procurement and bullshit detection.

vowe

Paypal vowe