Bed & Breakfast stay...

On our vacation, we found that some plans from friends changed and we were in need of a place to stay.  Between Buffalo, New York, and Bangor, Maine (long drive if we went direct), we started looking for Marriott hotels, as we’re paying for the hotels through points I’ve earned with my travels on the business side of life.  Well, there weren’t many choices.  Remembering back to a business meeting I had in New York, I stayed in a rather quaint Bed and Breakfast in Summit, New Jersey, and found that the Bed & Breakfast industry up here seems to fill the gaps where hotels lack.

Suggesting this idea to Stephanie, she got right to work researching the different options that were available to us.  Several that we looked at were nice looking, but that’s about it.  They offered the traditional B & B style of a customized bedroom, with usually a continental breakfast.  After searching for a bit, Steph found one that looked a little different.  Reading the reviews, she found that the Kenburn Orchards Bed and Breakfast offered more than just a place to sleep with a quick bite and then off you go!

The Kenburn Orchards Bed and Breakfast was one of the few that had a king size bed (which made me happy!), and a full breakfast in the morning.  Looking at the reviews, we found that Susan and Larry not only offer a warm welcome when you arrive, they are wonderful people with a definite love for their business. 

Our experience there was one that we’ll never forget.  We arrived mid-week, and were the only ones staying there at the time.  Susan and Larry were very open about how they loved to entertain, and by reading the reviews on their service, we found that it was all genuine.  What they’re known for, besides comfortable rooms, is their breakfast.  We were blown away by the quality and amount of food they served!  Most of their food is from their own garden, and they truly live the organic lifestyle, which is good for their environment as well as for our benefit. 

Breakfast started with fresh granola, choice of juice, coffee, and a rhubarb casserole*.  This was followed by fresh strawberries covered in real whipped cream.  After this, we were brought out a raspberry clafouti, which we had never heard of before.  I would like to say that this was completely beyond our expectations, and they went the extra mile with us.  Based on the reviews of their service, I would be led to think that this is how they treat everyone that stays in their home. 

One note that I would add as a footnote here, when travelling to this lovely escape, I would recommend getting with Larry at the B&B to get the proper GPS coordinates for their location, as most GPS manufacturers have incorrectly listed them in the database.  Larry has been good about emailing the companies with the corrections, and they should be making the necessary changes, but if you don’t have an updated map, I would recommend this as the tip of the day for getting there.  You won’t be sorry!

Vacation so far....

Well, we’re almost a week into the vacation, and we’ve been able to accomplish the following:

• Visiting with friends in Cincinatti


• Dinner with good friends, Rod & Megan Trent in Cincinatti


• Brian was able to attend the Dayton Hamvention


• We were able to see (briefly) Niagara Falls


• Driving across the New York Thruway to visit with a friend of Stephanie’s


• Stay at a B&B where we had the most awesome breakfast, and met the most wonderful hosts!


• Drive to Bangor, Maine through some of the most beautiful terrain in the USA

Anyway, with all of the driving, it doesn’t feel like we’ve accomplished much, but just being in awe of everything we’ve seen so far is amazing in and of itself.

The Niagara Falls piece was pretty good, although the temperature was in the high 40’s (f) and extremely windy, so it made for some quick walking, and unfortunately we weren’t able to take the “Maid in the Mist” tour or the tour under the falls.  The common theme we found with all of the paid tours is that you’re guaranteed to be soaked, no matter how much rain gear you have (they do provide some for you)!  At those temperatures, we unanimously voted to come back at a different time when the weather is a little more appealing.  Nontheless, the sight of the falls was gorgeous!

Driving across New York was mostly uneventful.  However, thinking back, it’s nice to see the state in its beauty, rather than as how most people know it (only by New York City, the concrete jungle!).  New York – upstate – is a really beautiful part of the country and I would encourage anyone to take a trip up there.

I’ll save the B&B update for later, as that’s a blog posting in and of itself!

Driving to Bangor was a good long drive, and there were plenty of our nations finest out there!  Believe me, we did the speed limit pretty much the entire way, as the farther north we got, the busier they looked!  Anyway, suffice it to say, last night we spent the night at the Fairfield Inn here in Bangor, and woke up this morning, had breakfast and were about to head to the Acadia National Forest, but were stopped when we saw that today’s weather up here calls for rain.  Oh well, we’ll have to find some other things to do today to get us through.  We pretty much don’t want to hang around in the hotel all day, thats for sure!

I’ve just set Stephanie up to post here as well, and she’s looking forward to writing some information about our trip from her perspective.  So, with that, I’ll sign with this blog posting for now, and work to give proper praise to the B&B we stayed at!

Brian

Vacation!

Stephanie and I are on a  two week vacation that started Friday afternoon with us headed out to Ohio, where we visited some of Stephanie’s friends from a few years back that recently moved there, as well as I went to the Dayton Hamvention for a couple of days.  Several highlights that we’ve encountered so far are:

• Visiting the Cadora’s (Thanks Matt, Lisa and Alex for putting us up for a couple of days!)


• The Dayton Hamvention (that one was mine!)


• Dinner with Rod & Megan Trent – this was a true blessing!  Stephanie was able to meet some people that I highly regard as good friends.  We both had a wonderful time, and I’m glad to know that Megan had no issues with the seafood that was mistakenly served to her!

Today, we’re in Buffalo, NY and are about to head out to visit some vineyards as well as see about looking into the Niagara Falls options we have.  Although the weather doesn’t look to good right now, we’re optimistic that we’ll still have a good time.

Stephanie and I are both well rested (we slept until we were finished!), and ready to take on the day.

We’ll post more later!

Windows Vista

I’ve about had it with Windows Vista.  I’ve had nothing but problems with it since my company migrated over to it last year when it came out.  As a Microsoft Consultant, I’m more or less bound to be running the “latest and greatest” in everything from Microsoft, but in this case, I can’t say that it’s the “greatest”. 

Maybe the “latest” flop from Microsoft. 

As an example, today I left my home office to go do some network testing at a local coffee shop.  The testing is for remote connectivity back to my corporate office to show the obstacles of dealing with an international company (as the remote country).  Anyway, I put my computer in “standby” thinking that when I get to the coffee shop, I’ll just push the power button, and resume where I left off.  Not necessarily the case (and it’s not the first time, either).  It appears that one of Microsofts most touted features of Vista is “quick restore from sleep or hibernate” with almost immediate functionality.  In this case, it was 25 minutes and two reboots later before I was able to even bring up task manager to see what was going on!  All I could see coming out of standby is a black screen, after powering down, powering back up and logging in, I got to my desktop ok, but it was unusable for so long that I gave up, rebooted again.  After the second reboot, it was ok to use (first things first, get connected, and blog about this problem!).

If I could switch back to Windows XP and get away with it, I would have done so quite a while back.  However, as it’s not the case, and my company will only provide a 32 bit version of Vista, perhaps the 64 bit version would be more stable?  May try it, but who knows…..

Anyway, off to the network testing now…

 

Flying around

Have you ever wondered how the 'On Time Departure' rate that you hear about on the news for airlines is calculated?

I have become convinced that based on the past year or two of flying in and out of Atlanta that Delta's on-time departure issues are not necessarily the whole faultof the airline, but the fault of the smaller airlines that fly under their name.

For example, the last two times I have flown, I have flown with the same subsidiary, and both times, flights all over the concourse were delayed. By doing a simple flight status check, they were all from two of Delta's commuter partners.

If you can call an international flight from Atlanta to 0canada a commuter trip, then Ok.

I sincerely wish that the executives at Delta would press these commuters to better streamline their business so that he larger airline can maintain its good name.

On another quick thought, if this Delta Northwest merger goes through, I certainly hope that all of the Delta employees fare well, as I have flown NWA recently, and the service was less than desirable.

That's about it for now as they are about to close the door and I have to power down.

Will catch up with you guys later!

Brian Tucker | Solutions Engineer | 1E |
Office: (678) 459-2112 | Mobile: (678) 938-0055
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brian.tucker@1e.com | www.1e.com

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AFC Championship

Can someone tell me who's winning? Comcast died today and didn't leave me anything but a message saying that the channel would be available soon. Anyway, I'd like to see the game....may have to go out to see New England and San Diego - if I can get there in time...

Oh well....what reliable service we have here....

Cisco Technologies ahead of the Game again!

I just got this link, and this is the way Telecommunications is headed. Telepresence sort of reminds us of Star Wars where the communications were through recorded or live holograms. Cisco has made it a reality!

Now That's Cool!