This morning, I went to the Novi Apple Store and spoke to a technician, bypassing AT&T completely (from whom I ordered the phone on launch day).  I explained my problems, how I more or less hated the iPhone 4 and its unreliability made the phone unusable for anything other than novelty.

Karl, my tech, seemed to understand my story completely.  He ran a few diagnostics on my iPhone 4, saw my problem, and quickly offered to swap out my phone for another.  I agreed.  Truthfully, it was the only solution I was willing to accept, as I have tried a ton of other quasi-solutions that are posted all over the web.

Curiously, the phone he gave me was something he called an 'engineering' phone, one he claims has been tested very thoroughly to ensure it's a error-free device.  It came out of a hard-shelled black plastic/composite box, and Karl said each of them ship in two other padded boxes to ensure safe travels.  In his words, it's a 'known-quantity' unit.  If I have problems with this, they'll likely be a result of the AT&T network, software or a drop on the other end of the call, but ostensibly not because of this particular iPhone 4 unit.  These phones, he told me, more or less eliminate hardware issues from a diagnostic equation.  At the very least, they represent a clean hardware slate.

(The new phone also is likely a product of a later manufacturing build; i.e. it's not a day-one launch unit.  Could Apple have been tweaked in manufacturing since pre-launch?  Possible, but who knows?)

I've no idea yet if this phone will wind up being an improvement, but I'll say this: Apple has always taken care of me as a customer.  Would Motorola do the same thing?  Could they?  One might argue that a Motorola Droid X wouldn't be dropping the calls like an iPhone, so support wouldn't be necessary.  Perhaps.  But that's missing the point.  When I've needed support from Apple, I've gotten it.  Every time.

So, we'll see how this goes.  If the problem persists, I'm afraid it'll be time to move away from the iPhone and AT&T.

On any given day, I drop 2-4 calls on my iPhone 4 with AT&T service.  Today, on the way into the office, I dropped 5.  The phone was resting in my car's center console, so I can't even blame the Death Grip/Antennagate fiasco.

I can just say there's something inherently wrong with the iPhone 4 -- at least the very early production units I and a few friends received on launch day.

My mobile phone is my only phone.  It needs to work.  And I have reached my breaking point.  The iPhone 4 is the worst 'phone' I've ever used, and AT&T won't do a thing about it.  'Get a case,' they say, completely ignoring the fact that I don't touch my handset when I'm in the car.  (I use Bluetooth.)  Regardless, they'll do nothing -- not even a clean exchange of my iPhone 4 for another.  Apple just tells me to deal with AT&T, because I ordered it through them.

This past weekend, I spent some quality time at a Verizon dealer with the Droid X.  What shocked me was my immediate impression: for the first time ever, Android has become a true competitor to the iPhone.  This is a watershed moment: all previous Android versions were clunky and slow and felt built with baling wire and duct tape.  Android 2.1, running on the Droid X, was nice.  Very nice.  Not as polished as iOS, and the hardware wasn't up to Jobs/Ive snuff, but it was quite nice unto itself.  Put another way: it wasn't shit as some would have you believe.  And Android 2.2 (Froyo), announced at the 2010 Google I/O, is right around the corner.

I'm very seriously thinking of moving off AT&T/iPhone to Verizon/Droid X.  I'm an ardent Google user anyway -- cue up the lock-in drums and Skynet fears -- and the integration with Gmail, Google Calendar, Gtalk, Maps and other Google-based services is compelling.

I'm looking for real-world stories of those who have made a similar move.  Are you happy with the Android OS?  Do you have a Droid X specifically?

Any and all comments welcome.  Do share.

I'm not much on raving about new places to eat, but I just had arguably the best lunch I've had in years.

The Plymouth Coffee Bean (aka The Bean), a humble coffee shop in downtown Plymouth, just started offering crépes of all sorts.  To my knowledge, they are the best crépes in Michigan, and they're better than the fancy, foofy gourmet crépes I had while skiing in Colorado a few years back.  Come to think of it, they're the best I've ever had.

Simply put: they are awesome, full-stop.  If you live in Michigan and are anywhere near (and by near I mean anywhere within a 30 minute drive) Plymouth, you need to make the drive to The Bean.  It's more than worth your time.

So what are my recommendations?

For lunch, try the bean burger, pepperjack, hummus, tomato, onion and spinach crépe.  For dessert -- and you have to get dessert -- get the chocolate chip, peanut butter and banana.  Trust me on these.  Each crépe is big enough to be a meal unto itself, but you'd be cheating yourself if you went there and didn't at least try one of the dessert crépes.

If my recommendations don't sound like your thing, no worries: you can choose whatever ingredients you want from their picklist, and they cook it right in front of you.  As simple or foody as you like -- you create it, they make it.

I can't recommend them enough.  It's hard to find crépes period, but it's nigh impossible to find truly excellent ones.  I just had one for lunch, and already I'm wishing I got one to go for a box dinner.  Serious.

(If you're on Facebook, you can find The Bean's page here.)

Some pics snapped before they called security on me:

               

Click here to download:

found-the-best-crepes-in-michigan-phciyifnFiHmyDuJyhra.zip (13780 KB)

Derek Sivers shares a fable that I find particularly interesting.  I am reading Garth Stein's excellent The Art of Racing in the Rain right now, and I find parallels to the book in this fable.  I think both illustrate a piece of wisdom about life that is far too easy to ignore -- if you ever notice it at all.  Allow me to try to intermesh the two.

But first, the fable:

A farmer had only one horse.  One day, his horse ran away.

All the neighbors came by saying, “I'm so sorry. This is such bad news. You must be so upset.”   The man just said, “We'll see.”

A few days later, his horse came back with twenty wild horses.  The man and his son corraled all 21 horses.

All the neighbors came by saying, “Congratulations! This is such good news. You must be so happy!”   The man just said, “We'll see.”

One of the wild horses kicked the man's only son, breaking both his legs.

All the neighbors came by saying, “I'm so sorry. This is such bad news. You must be so upset.”   The man just said, “We'll see.”

The country went to war, and every able-bodied young man was drafted to fight. The war was terrible and killed every young man, but the farmer's son was spared, since his broken legs prevented him from being drafted.

All the neighbors came by saying, “Congratulations! This is such good news. You must be so happy!”   The man just said, “We'll see.”

In personal and professional pursuits, it's all to easy to overthink and lose yourself in the drama of the moment.  It's equally easy to look around you and make external things wholly responsible for whatever you're going through.

Next time, ask yourself: what have I done to put myself in this position?  How do I prepare for what's next?

Stein notes that a good race driver executes on his immediate situation, and then instantly looks down-track to the next turn, realizing that he needs to work towards a favorable outcome there, too.  Be in the moment, but always realize another moment is coming.

Don't go nuts with every victory, and don't beat yourself up for every loss.  Do what you can to stay centered.  It's hard as hell, but a fight worth fighting.

And for those moments when life seems out of control due to circumstances beyond your control?  What do you?  Do you fight, flee, celebrate or mourn?

We'll see.

Here are some quick test shots from my new Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D AF prime mounted to my D90 in manual mode.

These were taken with shutter between 1/500-1/640, f2.0-2.2, ISO 800, no fill flash. I could have reduced the ISO to around 400, but I wanted high sensitivity to capture as much motion as I could. I also could have upped the shutter for a few of the shots, but what the hey.

I'm tremendously impressed with this lens. For about $125, it's a quality (and underrated) piece of Nikkor glass, shunned by many in favor of the more expensive f/1.4 prime. It produces tack-sharp images (noticeably sharper than my 18-105mm and 55-200 VR DX glass), offers great low light performance, and is very fast to focus. I was told this is one of the hidden gems in Nikkor's modern lens lineup, and from everything I've seen so far, it's true.

This was introduced in 2002 to replace the classic Nikkor f/1.8 50mm prime that debuted in the mid-1980s. The main difference is compatibility with today's DSLRs and D-spec lenses. Other than that, from what I can tell, this lens is very close to original glass -- which is a good thing.

Standard caveat about primes: they're a fixed focal length, which means you can't simply twist the zoom ring to change subject composition. You have to get up and move your feet to compose the picture properly. Pain in the ass, yes, but in the process it makes you think about composition more than you ever probably did. That in itself is a strongly recommended exercise for novice photographers. The fact that you get a nice, affordable piece of glass along with it is a nice bonus.

RATING: 5/5 stars. Highly recommended.

             

Click here to download:

Quick_Test_Nikkor_50mm_f1.8_D_.zip (3123 KB)

I voted Republican in every election since this last one.  Since making that decision, I've been called a liberal (which I am not) more times than I can remember, both in jest and with venom.  I've been told I am a bleeding heart, someone who doesn't appreciate the value of personal achievement and hard work, and someone who believes government should be larger, not smaller.  I've been called far worse, epithets commenting on my perceived affinity for our current President's racial origin.  Basically, I've been told that I'm everything the modern GOP opposes, because as their problem-child poster-boy GWB says, you're either with them or against them.

I suppose, then, I'm against them, only now it's occurring to me as to why.  And this is on a true ideological level, not the level that makes such a decision easy.  Listening to Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin is too easy, and quite frankly unfair: anyone can use the bombastic morons as examples of why something is broken and stupid.  For more rational folks, it runs deeper than that.  It has to.  We're talking live-perspective framework value systems here, not who makes the best margarita.

For quite some time since making the egregious decision not to vote GOP in 2008, I've tried to explain to people that I'm a moderate, a centrist, but in today's polarized, polemic view of social and fiscal stances, moderates are looked at as Libertarian loonies and relegated to either irrelevance or Leper Island.  It's hard to fit in when you have to wear a red or blue label to do so.  And in my experience, most people who claim to also be moderates are anything but, and a quick five-minute conversation usually reveals the plumbing.

I do believe in smaller government, but I don't believe privatization run amok or unregulated corporate GDP engines are the answer. 

I am smart enough to know free markets aren't always free.  I don't trust corporate interests as far as I can throw them.

I believe there is some form of climate change problem despite the actuaries flinging shit at one another over the data and its proclivity to be shared openly -- or not.  I do question exactly how much humanity's occupation of this planet is contributing to this.  My position in this debate is susceptible to the whims of new evidence, data and discoveries.

I think that overt consumerism and greed was the ballroom partner to predatory lending and loan schemes that securitized so many mortgages that made it impossible for banks to know who they owed and who owed them. 

I believe that Obama's fiscal policies are trending off course but he's inherited a hell of a mess and everyone seems OK with ignoring that. 

I believe that in order to affect meaningful change -- of which time and history will be the judge and jury -- there will be pain and gnashing of teeth and calls for military coups so that the superwealthy entrenched firmly in the beltway's ass can remain so.  I believe like everything that requires hardline change, difficult decisions have to be made, and difficult decisions, by definition, mean people get pissed off.  Anytime someone has to look out for the long-term welfare of a group people will be pissed.  That's leadership.

As I'm learning, in the two-node political spectrum we have today, I don't really fit in.  I've spent the last year watching all sorts of news channels and reading blogs of all stripes, and it finally occurred to me that maybe, during what I consider my political awakening, my old party moved away from me as much as or more than I moved away from it.

So it's apropos that today I come across The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan saying he's leaving the right.  His reasons are his reasons, and his claim that he's been resistant to partisanship and cliquery is certainly true, in my experience.  Nonetheless, his manifesto as to why he's leaving nicely crystallizes what I've been struggling with for quite some time.

So here goes.  I thank Mr. Sullivan for putting words to the thoughts and frustration I've been feeling lately, but at some point, you've got to look it in the eye and call it what it is.

Below is Sullivan's manifesto in its entirety.

I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.

I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.

I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government's minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.

I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.

I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.

I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.

I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.

I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.

I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.

Does this make me a "radical leftist" as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.

To paraphrase Reagan, I didn't leave the conservative movement. It left me.

And increasingly, I'm not alone.

One of the most entertaining games I have ever seen. Z gets a hat trick, Rafalski with two points and Getzlaf whines to the refs at least 30 times.

Good Saturday night in my book.

         

Click here to download:

Pics_Red_Wings_v._Ducks.zip (338 KB)

I've been having some recent email correspondence with Kit, an old grade-school friend with whom I've recently reconnected.  He's is, and always has been, a phenomenal artist.  Stumbling across him some 20+ years later through the magic of the Googletubes, I'm happy and thrilled to see his talent has afforded him a full-on art career.  But let me tell you a story about contrasts, embedded in which is all the proof you'll ever need that I'm a horrible artist.  Not that you asked or anything, but it's Friday, so just go along for the ride, bokay?

Four million years ago when I was in my early teens, I was envious that Kit could draw anything you wanted on command.  I’m not talking a simple line drawing, or some lame demonstration of perspective ("Look how these lines converge on the horizon!").  Oh no.  Kit could whip up something nearly photographic in under two minutes that would take me a solid month to try to match.  I’d say, “Hey Kit, draw a stapler,” and Kit would grab a pencil, looking utterly bored, and perfectly whip up a perfectly-shaded sketch of a perfect stapler that would fit into a design catalog.  To this day, people with this talent rank only slightly below ninjas to me.

I decided, upon seeing this a few times, that I wanted to be able to draw like that too.

Through sheer force of will and being what's known as an 'unrelenting pain in the ass,' I harangued my parents into art lessons, which were (a) expensive and (b) an utter waste of my and the instructor’s time.  I simply wasn’t good.  Turns out that in the business, what I had was called 'very little talent' mixed with 'the inability to realize it.'  My short art career – which led me to create some horrible colored pencil-on-textureboard drawing of a wolf’s head and some variety of retarded panther prowling on some sort of mesa or something – lasted about six weeks and cost my parents roughly $500.

I tell you this story because a few months ago, during a relatively boring meeting, I decided to try and draw a picture of a dog or wolf or hyena or something I had approximated in my mind.  The result was was so horribly bad – so laughably fucked – that it actually became funny in its horribleness.  It wasn’t something someone looks at and goes, “Wow, that’s a pretty bad mess, whatever that is,” but instead looks at, nearly chokes on coffee, and starts to laugh audibly.

Here:

What IS that?  It has three front paws, an optical-illusion grade pig snout, a one-dimensional mouth and eyes that are set in some sort of trench on the right side of its face.  Not to mention it looks like it’s been in Vegas for the weekend.

And so there you have it.  All the proof in the world that I am a horrible artist, wrapped nicely in one blog post.