Describing our cottage as “remote” may be an understatement. It’s located on Logan Lake, which is about 90 minutes up highway 400, and then another 60 minutes completely off-road. As you can see, it’s in the middle of nowhere.

There are only 15 cottages on the lake (most of which don’t have direct road access) and each is quite a distance from its immediate neighbor. There is also a horsepower restriction for all boats on the lake which prevents water skiing, wake boarding and the like. It’s quite and peaceful, and when you’re here, you feel like you’re all alone. This is, without a doubt, not Muskoka.

Because of the remoteness, most people think we’re roughing it up here. And while I suppose there is a hint of accuracy in that assumption, it’s really not the case. We are completely off the grid - this is true - but we’ve got solar power and propane to run everything. Water is pumped in from the lake, most lights are electric, the fridges are cooled by propane (counter intuitive, I know), and we have an old 3-watt analog cellphone for phone calls. We’ve made a conscious decision not to have a television (it takes away from the charm I suppose), so daily activities usually include reading, fishing, eating, drinking and sleeping. And to that list, we can now add surfing.

Thanks to Galaxy Boardband, we are now hooked up to the internet through a satellite connection. And connected to the satellite modem is an Airport Express, so the cottage is also blanketed with WiFi. I’m such a geek.

Satellite technology is definitely interesting. Obviously, I’m impressed that we can get “highspeed” access in such a remote location… but it’s not without a few quirks.

1. It’s not slow, but it’s not exactly fast. Once the connection is made, things download relatively quickly, but there’s a slight delay as when transmitting. Apparently it takes time to beam things into space. Who knew.
2. Maintaining a signal is temperamental. We’ve currently got the dish sitting on the ground, and that was a mistake. We’re going to build a concrete base for it soon, as I think the ground has settled since the installation, and even a small gust of wind sometimes disrupt the connection.
3. Because our lake is meant to feel as “rustic” as possible, we didn’t want a bright-gray satellite dish in open view. This obviously causes some issues, as the dish needs a clear line-of-sight to work. So, with a little research and a few dollars spent at the Bass Pro Shops, we found our solution. I painted it with special camo paint . And then covered it in a special camo netting. And if you ask me, it did the job well.

Painting the dish was surprisingly easy, and doing so will not affect the signal quality whatsoever. Anyone with satellite TV who might want to paint their dish, take note. There are a few things you may want to take into consideration.

1. You MUST use a non-metalic, flat-matte paint. Anything else will cause interference with the signal, and if you use a glossy paint, you’ll actually melt the reception lens (the thing attached at the end of the arm).
2. Use spray paint, and spray on light coats until you get the desired color. You want to preserve the smooth surface texture of the dish.
3. Cover the reception lens with something prior to painting to ensure no over-spray gets on it (I zip-tied a bag over it).

Keep that in mind, and you should be able to completely blend your dish into its surroundings. I mean seriously, can you see the dish from the lake?

Jess is currently asleep on the couch. It’s kind of her thing really. Around an hour after we eat, we usually find ourselves watching something on TV. Perhaps it’s something recorded on our PVR. Maybe a movie from NetFlix. On the odd occasion, it’s something live on TV. But it really doesn’t matter what it is, because whatever happens to be playing the TV is nothing but a lullaby for my wife. Gun fire, explosions, yelling, screaming, crying, simple dialog - it matters not, and it’ll put her to sleep. By my estimations, I’d say Jess sleeps an average of 10 hours a night. 7 in bed, and 3 on the couch. The funniest thing is when she wakes up. “Disoriented” is by no means an accurate description. She stumbles around, eyes glassed over, speaking in broken sentences - “I Sleep Now” - and has what I like to call “hair explosion”. And as if these words disturbed her current slumber, she literally just sat up, proclaimed something in what I think was english, took off her glasses, slumped back over and kicked a leg out from under the blanket.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way… I think it’s one of those things you come to love about a person the longer you’re with them.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I was reflecting.

Part 2 - The Cost of Living

In response to Drew’s comment, I thought I’d address the cost of living in California.

On the surface, I’d say it costs a lot less to live in Orange County when compared to Toronto. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re actually spending less - if anything, we’re spending more. So let me explain.

The only thing that appears to significantly cost more is real estate. The market here is out of control. If I’m not mistaken, I believe the median price for a home in OC was somewhere in the neighborhood of $710,000 - that puts us at number 2 on the most expensive list. The coastline is more or less spoken for with every viable piece of land (and some not) under development, and it’s quickly moving further inland.

But if you can look past the real estate inflation, you’ll quickly see inexpensive underbelly. For example, I currently drive an Infiniti G35 Coupe 6MT which in the US retails for $37,650. In Canada, the same model will run you $51,972 - that’s about $7,000 difference once you do the conversion.

Some other examples would be the weekly necessities. We shop almost exclusively at Trader Joe’s for our groceries, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s by far the best and cheapest grocery stores around. Target is a favorite of Jess’ - I don’t have the deep-in-my-soul love for it like she does (but I much prefer it to Wal-Mart). Costco may be available in Canada, but down here you can buy massive bottles of vodka for a fraction of the cost… which has to count for something. Hell, even Starbucks will sell you a Grande Latte for less.

Taxes are obviously lower, but that was to be expected. Hydro, gas, water, etc. are all about the same I suppose. Internet and cable are competitive too (with the must-have-all-services-with-one-company bundle). We signed up for Vonage when we got here (in hopes of keeping our old number), which is much less than Bell was back home.

Looking at that, you’d think we’d be saving a ton down here. But that’s not the case. Being that this is California, my take on it was “enjoy it while we’ve got it”. And that’s what I set out to do. So I got the sports car. And the motorcycle. We rented a much larger place down here which costs more than our place in Toronto. We’ve done some traveling (admittedly, a good chunk was covered through work), and if we go out for dinner, we go out! - I think that’s our of our weaknesses really. We both enjoy a good meal.

In the grand scheme of things, I’d say the cost of living is more or less the same as Toronto when you work real estate into the equation. I suppose you could get away with paying less if you decided to live about 20 miles inland, somewhere along the 71 in Chino - but anyone who’s watched the OC knows that’s not the place to be when you’re living in Orange County. There’s a reason MTV picked Laguna Beach.

I’ve been a fan of John Gruber for quite some time. Mac Nerdery, Etc. - just my style.

In a recent article reflecting on the 2006 Macworld Expo, John spoke of the common argument that “PCs cost less than Macs”. While there is obviously some legitimacy to that statement (Macs usually are more expensive than PCs!), I think the majority of people simply don’t understand how superior OS X is, or appreciate how superior the hardware design is, or how superior the overall experience is - they look at the price tag, and then promptly purchase a virus + spyware + Windows ridden PC. My heart goes out to you.

Anyway, I digress. In a single sentence, John sums it up for everyone who doesn’t understand the premium a Mac bears:

PCs typically cost less than Macs because they’re pieces of crap, not because Intel CPUs are less expensive than IBM’s or Freescale’s.

Amen John. Amen.

Bah. I had to switch the site to the default theme because apparently my new styles are broken in Internet Explorer.

Being that I’m on a Mac, I wasn’t really able to test the site on IE. It’s tested on Safari and Firefox, and it works like a champ - but she’s as gimp as a one-legged chip in IE (gimp as a… did I just say that?) In any event, I need to go back and continue my tweaking until she works in IE. In the meantime, you get to enjoy the lovely default theme.

Thanks to everyone who gave me the heads up… I’ll get it back up and running as soon as I can.

Also, for those on a PC - do yourself a favor and download Firefox. Or better yet, get a Mac

Update
As you can see… everything is back to normal. For those of you unfortunate enough to be stuck using IE, everything should be in order as well. My apologies for the neglect.

Long nights, too much alcohol, a bit of gambling, and a lot of gadgets - Welcome to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Las Vegas was exactly as I expected - completely over the top. The whole city is geared around mass consumption; be it food, smoking, alcohol, sex, drugs, gambling or shopping. If you can spend money on it, it’s available. Each hotel is a completely self-contained oasis of adult entertainment; complete with a range or restaurants, shopping malls, performance theaters, casinos, roller-coasters, etc. The idea is that you stay there and never leave. Of course I didn’t stay put, and I ended up checking out a variety of them. I’d say my personal favorite was The Venetian - it was the only one I walked into and actually said “holy shit”… A technical form of measurement indeed.

I suppose the highlight of each night was dinner. I honestly never considered the culinary options in Vegas - I just assumed you ate foot-long hot dogs while wondering from casino to casino. Oh, how wrong I was. My culinary adventures unfolded as such:

1. Bouchon at The Venetian on Wednesday
2. Postrio at The Venetian on Thrusday
3. SW Steakhouse on Friday at the Wynn
4. Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House on Saturday at the MGM.

Beyond the excesses of Vegas itself, I spent the rest of my time at CES. For those who aren’t aware, CES is the Consumer Electronics Show that takes place every year in which 150,000 people descend upon Las Vegas. TVs, cellphones, mobile video players, mp3 players, videogame consoles, DVD players and car stereos. Microsoft, Sony, Motorola, Intel, Samsung and Pioneer. It’s a geek paradise. Every gadget from every company in the electronics space was there - with the exception of Apple. We have to wait until tomorrow morning to see what new stuff they’ve got for us.

I suppose I should have expected this, but I just spent 5 days in Las Vegas taking in everything the electronics industry has to offer, and all I really want to do is sit at my desk tomorrow morning and watch the webcast following Steve Job’s Keynote

This post really doesn’t have much to do with California*, which is what this blog was intended to talk about I suppose, but I’m going to chat about it nonetheless.

As I’m sure most of you already know, I’m a pretty big fan of Apple Computer… so it shouldn’t come as surprise that I was waiting patiently in front of my computer at 10:00 this morning to see what new products they were releasing their One More Thing… event. After spending some time to digest what was released, I have to admit I have mixed feelings.

First, they announced new iMacs. These are sweet - built in iSight cameras, thinner profiles, faster and cheaper. Beyond the hardware upgrades, they’ve also included a new piece of software called Front Row. Front Row looks pretty solid, but I’m at a loss to understand why it only comes bundled with these new iMacs, and not as a self-standing product sold separately.

Front Row is Apple’s first step into the “Media PC” market… well, maybe more of a baby step really. There are a number of other Media PC’s available on the market, the majority of which have vastly more options than Front Row. Sure, the iMac comes with a slick little remote control for you to navigate Front Row from afar, but my initial reaction was “where’s the TV-in option?” - I mean, anyone who’s going to consume anything from the couch is going to want broadcast content, and not just their movies made in iMovie… But then I got to thinking, and this may very well be the first sign of a significant change that I’ve been hoping would happen sometime soon. My guess is that the traditional TV model (pay cable company, channel surf thereafter) is on it’s way out, and a new “on-demand” model is on it’s way in. It’s still far off, but I think it’s only a matter of time before I can plug a Mac Mini into my TV, select the any episode of Lost in the guide and have it stream over the internet.

Anyway, I regress… the iMac release today is definitely a solid revision… not that I’d ever buy one personally.

Next up, the iPod. Announced today is an all new iPod capable of playing video. Sure, it’s thinner, and has a wider screen and comes in black, and no longer supports Firewire, and has the same software upgrades as the iPod Nano - but the main selling feature is it’s ability to play video. But one has to stop and ask themselves why? There has been a lot of hype about an iPod that plays video, but I personally don’t understand why the average person would want one. With a 2.5-inch screen, it simply can’t be the best viewing experience. And beyond the physical size of the viewing area, what about content? What exactly are you watching? Sure, there will be a group of techie geeks such as myself who will find a way to DVDs and TV shows on their iPods**, but most people won’t. They’ll need to be supplied that content in some easy to consume manner. Which leads us to the last announcement today.

After the iMac and the iPod was iTunes 6. 6? Wasn’t version 5 release, oh, 1 month ago? What’s so new that iTunes deserved a full point release? You guessed it - video. But it’s not exactly what you’re thinking… it’s music videos, and video Podcasts, and movie trailers, and short films (6 from Pixar to be precise). Now, there are TV shows available for purchase - a total of 5 shows in total, each for a $1.99 download. But with 5 shows (about 25 episodes in total), why even bother? Especially since they videos are downloaded in a laughable 320 × 240 resolution. And why are TV shows available for sale in the iTunes MUSIC Store? It just doesn’t make much sense. Either Apple needed a reason to justify the video playback abilities, or this is the a tiny baby step towards the new model I spoke about above. In any event, you’ve got yourself an iPod that can play video, but nothing that you really want to watch.

At least not yet.

*Well, technically it is… I mean, Apple is based in California.
**Umm, I guess this is where I make the political statement: “Downloading movies and TV off of BitTorrent is illegal”.