Jared’s Blog

Not long after I wrote my first entry about Jamaica, things took a turn for the better. Justin and I found the rest of our group and we spent the night swilling drinks and talking about our adventures so far. I had one of those surreal moments later in the night. We were sitting on Hank and Laura’s balcony, it was about 1 in the morning, and there’s people partying in the pool. That was it, but it felt so unreal, especially since the day we left Minnesota, we had gotten about 6″ of snow and it wasn’t above 20 degrees. My mood definitely was a little brighter on the walk back to my bungalow.

I’m sort of having a problem with staff’s hospitality. The thing is, even though I’m at an all-inclusive resort, I still don’t think anyone should have to take my bags around or hold the door for me. I think part of it comes down to me not feeling like the hotel employees are being real (read honest). I want to experience Jamaican culture, not some Americanized resort atmosphere. I get the impression that the only Americans these people ever see or meet are wealthy snobs and so that is what their idea of America is. Unfortunately, they are somewhat correct. I’ve made every effort to thank the staff and be pleasant with them so that hopefully, they can at least see that I’m not just another lazy American.

The only plans for today are to sit by the pool or lie on the beach. Laura was telling us last night how she wants everyone to go on this tour/hike of Dunn’s Rivers Falls. I’m told we get a tour of the area, get to hike up the falls, and then we go snorkeling. It finishes with a shopping excursion in Ocho Rios. I’m not sure if I’ll go yet because it costs $77.

Really, I have found it. Let me explain. Today started with me waking up at 3:30AM, on purpose. I was pretty excited. It’s not every day you get to leave the country, for me this would only be my second excursion outside the good ole US of A. My only other trips have been to Canada, which were fun, but not quite on the level of a Jamaican vacation. So after flying for 8 hours, and a 2 hour bus trek across the Jamaican coastline, I arrived at Sandals resort. Just what I thought I’d been waiting for all day (or the last 3 months for that matter). As soon as I got here, I realized I was in for a long week.

I agreed to come to Jamaica for my friends, Laura and Hank. “What could be more fun than celebrating a wedding in Jamaica?”, I thought. My initial idea, I guess, was that I never go on vacation and this might as well be the time. It all sounded good before I got here.

It’s no secret that Sandals is a couples resort and it’s also not much of a secret that I’m a single guy (at least I don’t think so). On top of that, my buddy Justin, who is my roommate for this week, is a guy. For the record, neither of us is gay, and so that means we end up in awkward situations for the rest of our trip. And if things couldn’t get much worse, every other person here that I know is with their spouse/girlfriend. Even Justin has a girlfriend back home. I don’t even know what kind of spare wheel that makes me.

Just some of my experiences so far. After settling in, Justin and I set out to find some place to eat and pretty much just sat down at the first place we found. Of course the table was set with adjacent place settings. Let’s not forget the single king size bed in our room, or when one of the hotel staff asked where my “partner” was. As I sit here on our balcony writing, there’s some kind of beach party going on, but hell if I’m going to show up all alone. I can only imagine what the next few days is going to bring.

As I said to begin with, I’m in hell and it looks like paradise. Maybe the rest of the week won’t be so awkward, but I won’t be holding my breathe. The best I can hope is that by tomorrow I can meet up with the rest of my friends and try to have a good time.

I always love big Apple events. They never do things quietly. Leading up to MacWorld every year there are rumors flying like crazy. Everyone is waiting with bated breath for what will come off of Steve’s lips. iPhone rumors have been flying for over a year and now it’s here.

This thing does it all. It’s an iPod, it’s a cell phone, it’s a camera. The thing has a wide touchscreen that automatically knows whether it should be in landscape or portrait mode. It runs OS X, so you can have real applications like Mail and Safari, not neutered ones. It has wifi, bluetooth, and EDGE: It’s always connected. It’s got a 5 hour battery life while doing video, photos, surfing, calls and 16 hours of just audio. It’s got 8GB (or 4GB) of storage. This thing is fricken amazing.

The problem; it cost’s $600 for the 8GB version and $500 for the 4GB version (prices with a 2 year contract) and you can only get it on Cingular. And not until June! Steve, you had me up to that.

The iPhone, it really does sound great, but I think they took a huge gamble by going exclusively with Cingular. People don’t like to be locked down like that. I predict they work something out with the other carriers within a year.

My big question after the MacWorld keynote was that’s it? I really want to see a large iPod like the iPhone. Touchscreen iPod with wifi and bluetooth? You could get rid of that big dock connector on the bottom and just add a charging port which could be mini-USB 2.0. Ahh…what could be.

If you didn’t notice Apple’s stock (APPL) took a 7+ points (roughly 8.5%) hike today. Damn! If I’d only had a spare $10k yesterday!

For the holidays, my very generous employer gave me a few gifts. One of these gifts was a gift card to Caribou Coffee. I’m not really much of a coffee drinker, let alone a hot beverage drinker. As far as hot drinks go, I would probably prefer a tea. However, I figured I could find some use for the gift card. I don’t know when it started, but one day a couple weeks ago someone in my office was going to Caribou, and so I opted to go with. That was my undoing. This week I’ve gone there 3 times, same with last week. My drink of choice: the Iced Latte. Mmmmm!

It kills me because this is exactly what retailers want to happen with gift cards. You get a gift card and even if you weren’t really predisposed to shopping at that particular store, you go in to spend your gift card. One of two things happens. Either you buy more than the value of the gift card or you find something you like and continue shopping there after spending the value of your gift card. The average amount spent when using a gift card is 140% of the gift card value.

I’m now just another one of those yupie suckers who spend $3 a day on a coffee drink. Someone shoot me.

Another year has gone by. 2006 brought many a good fortune for me and those around me. The best thing to happen to me last year occurred in May. One day while sitting through the drudgery of phone support at Target, it came to mind that I hadn’t checked Craigslist for new jobs in a few weeks and so began looking around. By mid-June, I was hired at TheHoneymoon and I couldn’t be happier. It’s funny how things worked out so well and how it happened so fast.

With the upgrade in job, it has afforded me the opportunity to get a new computer and many toys. While I didn’t personally buy it, I finally got the Mac I’ve been wanting for awhile now.

I also moved across town to Saint Louis Park, but it looks as though we’ll be moving once our lease is up at the end of April.

This year also saw my family relocating once again. This time to Minneapolis. I’m glad to have them around, now we just need to get Dad all moved out and into a new job so he can spend less time working.

With so many good things that happened last year, it’s hard to imagine what could be better this year. I’ll certainly be getting things off to a good start by heading to Jamaica in a couple weeks.