September 2013

August 2013 -- 2013 -- October 2013

September 22, 2013


The trips to China and Germany were both quite successful, and I also finally got my French long stay visa! That was the key document we were waiting for before getting to start booking flights and housing, so it's been a very busy last few days. There's a lot to consider when moving out of the country!

As part of that, I've discovered if you ever want to cancel a service but not deal with them trying to talk you out of it, just tell them you're moving out of the country. Then they cancel service straight away and without the hassle. It's nice.

I also got Kara a new laptop, since her old one died and she'll need one in Europe. It's a Acer S7 with an Intel i7-4500U, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, 1920x1080 touch screen, only weighs 2.8 pounds, and is under half an inch thick. Kara loves it so far, and because it uses Haswell, it gets about 8 hours of battery life. If you're looking for a great ultrabook, I highly recommend it.

Speaking of technology, I also got to test drive a Tesla S in Houston, which was awesome! I'd love to buy one of those if I could afford it, and while I was pretty familiar with the car (and got to ride in my neighbors a few months back), the most surprising thing was that even at freeway speeds you still get that instantaneous acceleration, so passing is trivial. And they're also working on getting their cars to be (mostly) autonomous within 3 years. That's something I've long felt is completely possible now, which I really wish was available when driving through the middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma on the way to Missouri. All the technology needed for freeway and highway driving already exists, since it's all just staying in your lane and not hitting the car in front of you. I really look forward to the day when kids express shock that you had to stay awake and alert for that 13 hour drive to Grandmas. It also makes me wonder how this would affect air travel, since if you don't have to pay attention to the road, a 5 hour roadtrip isn't that bad after you think about how much time you'd waste getting to the airport early, flying, and picking up the rental car.

The next few weeks will be very busy to prepare for the move so I don't know how much I'd update, but the next one might be from Paris!

August 2013 -- 2013 -- October 2013