Laptop LCD Screens & Traveling

We do a good amount of traveling for our business and that requires traveling with our laptops. Traveling puts additional stress on the computer – especially the laptop LCD screens. When we're in the office, we're able to better care for our computers, but in and out of airports, hotels and business meetings – there is less time to care for the LCD screens and other fragile parts of the laptop.

Also while traveling; our laptops are at the mercy of the friends and colleagues that we're visiting. And, even with the best intentions when others use our laptops they may not be as careful as we'd like. This is part of our business and we need to plan accordingly.

The better quality the LCD screens of the laptop seem to be, the more want to touch the screen. There are some products that can be used to clean the screens, but they never are fully the same as before the fingerprints. We are fortunate that we can use our laptops as a business deduction and any repairs or replacements are part of doing business.

Our next trip – Singer Island, Florida - is rapidly approaching and we'll take the necessary precautions to care for our laptop LCD screens and other essential components that can easily be damaged.

Holiday Inn Grantville

I recently had to stay at the Grantville, PA Holiday Inn when my son's hockey team participated in the Hershey Jr Bears Post Season Hockey tournament. See the post on the Reading Jr Royals Hockey blog for details of the hockey tournament and my evaluation of the end of season tournament.
I say I had to stay there because in the tournament rules(which were really bogus) the team had to stay at a selected hotel, and if team members where found to be staying at another hotel, they would be kicked out of the tournament...sound like BS to you too?
So begrudgingly, I told the coaches' wife to make the reservations for Saturday night only. Since this was the end of the 2006-2007 hockey season for my son, it would be kind of like the end of season party.
The Holiday Inn in Grantville has both and indoor pool and outdoor pool, a game room, banquet facilities, a bar, and a restaurant. It is also located within 10 miles of the Hershey attractions as well as within a mile of Penn National Race track and a new casino.
The hotel as it turns out is a fine hotel for families with kids. My son and two of his team mates who staid with us had a splendid time. I on the other hand, had a terrible night due primarily to the uncomfortable bed. In addition to the substandard bed, the room did come with what they called "High Speed Internet", which consisted of a cable that was long enough to only allow my lap top to be used on the bed. Sadly, had I been staying here for an extended time, this limitation would have really annoyed me.
My overall rating for the Grantville, PA Holiday Inn would be 2.5 stars out of 5. It is an ok hotel to stay if you have kids, and you don't mind a mattress that offers weak support. Two things to improve the hotel that I would suggest...in room wireless and memory foam mattresses.

Singer Island - Our Next Trip

Its been a while since Lizzie and I have gotten away, I believe our last trip was our Atlantic City Getaway.

Whats been happening?

• We are in the middle of buying a house, and we are also selling our current house, so there is quite a bit of time involved with these transactions.
• Our Online Marketing Business has been growing by leaps and bounds, and requests for proposals, and actual new accounts require a lot of the time that we would usually be using for travel. (this is temporary)
• Other family obligations(not temporary)
  

Our next Trip

Lizzie and I will be traveling to Singer Island West Palm Beach, Fl at the beginning of April for a short little trip. We have an appointment to watch one of those time share sales meetings at the Marriott Ocean Pointe Resort. Other than going to the Time Share presentation, Lizzie and I are planning on doing little more than hanging out. This trip will be primarily R&R, but some blogging will occur as well of course.

In preparation for the trip, I will be doing some research which will include:

• Where to eat on Singer Island
• What to do on Singer Island
• Surf spots on Singer Island
• Cheese Cake on Singer island
• Good desserts on Singer island
• Other places to stay on Singer Island
• The History of Singer Island

If you have been to Singer Island or any of the communities in close proximity to it, please leave a comment and let me know. Feel free to leave links to any related sites or blog posts as well.

Updates:
I just found a groovy post about places to eat on Singer Island on Chowhound(love the name).

Do You Use Hotel Glasses and Cups?

I was on Matt Charron's blog, and watched this video. I had heard about this sometime ago, but had never seen a video about the hotel industry's practice of not actually washing the room glasses. I'll have to remember to bring a travel size dish soap when staying at a hotel.

Pretty gross huh.
Do you drink out of hotel room glasses?

Luggage - Lost Luggage

I just made a video about my red Ricardo rolling suitcase that has been lost by the Philadelphia airport(PHL) two times. The first time they lost my bag was when we were coming back from Las Vegas, and the second was when we went to New Orleans recently.

Has PHL or another airport lost one of your bags? Leave a comment and tell us how the airlines treated you and your lost luggage.

Tags: luggage

Lucy of Margate

On Saturday morning of our Atlantic City trip, after breakfast at Annette's, Lizzie mentioned that there is a huge elephant in Margate, NJ. So we had to head just a little south to Margate to see Lucy the Elephant, which happens to be a National Historic Landmark. To say Lucy is big is an understatement. Thankfully she is not a real elephant, because she would be as big as a dinosaur if she was alive. Perhaps this summer I'll have the chance to visit her and take a video of inside Lucy.

Lucy is currently closed, but reopens in April. For more information about Lucy, see their site LucytheElephant.org.

Atlantic City NJ - Flagship Fantasea

Our trip to Atlantic City made for a good getaway last weekend, that was much needed. It has been quite a while since we got away, so this little vacation was much appreciated.
With the assistance of my Garmin Nuvi GPS, we got to the Flagship with out any problems. I really am amazed at how easily I got used to using the Nuvi in our travels. But that is another post.

Flagship Fantasea Resort

Our room was on the 30th floor and it faced the Marina. The picture above was taken from our balcony on Friday night.
The room had what they said was a queen sized bed, and a queen sized sleeper sofa in a separate living area which included a kitchen with a sink, microwave, 2 burner stove top, and refrigerator.
The hotel also has a swimming pool, game room, lounge, restaurant, fitness center, business center, and activity center for young children. Even though Lizzie and I did not use all of the facilities of the Flagship Fantasea, we would still recommend staying there for both families and couples.





The Viddler Video was recorded Saturday night and Sunday morning of our Atlantic City trip.
To read about the places we ate while in AC, check out TheGrubhounds Atlantic City Dinning post.

What places in Atlantic City would you recommend?

Atlantic City NJ

Atlantic City NJ is going to be the destination we will be traveling to next, and as it turns out, that will be this coming weekend. Lizzie has been working way too hard, and this weekend seems like the perfect time to get away.

Bellagio Casino not in Atlantic City, but one of my favorite casinos.

So Lizzie went on Hotels.com looking for a decent place to stay. Last time we were in AC, the place we had was easily the worst hotel of 2006. I won't give the name out, but suffice it to say, it earned its one star rating.

This time Lizzie has made reservations for the Flagship Fantasy Resort, which is a 3.5 star Atlantic City hotel, which does not have a casino, but is on the boardwalk and within walking distance(I will let you know for sure) of the major Atlantic City boardwalk casinos such as Trump, Caesars, and others.

We have arranged to have a room with a queen bed and a queen sofa bed as well, since my brother may be joining us tomorrow evening.

I'll have to send Tripit our Atlantic City travel plans to see if there are any activities that we may be interested in doing.

Travel Organizer: Tripit.com

From TechCrunch, Travel Organizer Tripit Goes Social talks about a Tripit.com, which is a site that enables travelers to organize and access their itinerary from anywhere. Since the site made it onto Michael Arrignton's list of Sites I could not live with out, it must be a pretty good resource that Lizzie and I will have to attempt to utilize in future travels.

No matter where you make your reservations, you enter your travel info into the site, and it allows you to access your itinerary from anywhere. It also gives you informations such as weather, restaurants, maps, and events. It also can be insinc with other sites that you use such as Google maps, Flickr, Facebook, and your email. Tripit also lets you compare your travel plans with those of other users. So if some of your contacts use it, you can see when your paths may cross.
I like the idea of being able to access your travel plans from anywhere. This also means we could let family members have access to our travel plans so they will know all the whens and wheres of our travel plans.

Strangest Travel Stories of 2007

I have yet to do my 2007 wrap up post, but I will eventually get to it, as I think it is important to do those types of yearly review posts on a yearly basis. Lizzie's Top Ten list of last year seemed to go over well, so I will be doing that again as well.

This post is just a short little post to let everyone know about the article The Strangest Travel Stories of 2007 from TheIndpendentTraveler.com. Twelve of the strangest travel related stories for the past year are briefly reviewed by Ed Hewit the Features Editor at the Independent Traveler.

My favorite three stories from the list are:

1. The Miniskirt Menace
2. But They'll Force You to Wear a Blanket
3. Congressman Looses Luggage- I can relate to this, but certainly would not go balistic like this guy.
   

Eve's Lunch is Open

Eve's Lunch is now open at their new location of 310 East Johnson Highway in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Eve's Lunch as I last posted was relocating to the newer Norristown location, way back towards the beginning of summer 2007. Finally just after the New Year they are re-opened serving those delicious zeps. Check out the Eve's Lunch post I did on Thegrubhound, and watch the Eve's Lunch Viddler video as well.

Should I get Lizzie a Laptop Backpack?

Lizzie, much like any woman, is difficult to buy a gift that she will really adore. She has been saying she wants a new laptop bag, and I thought this meant a laptop backpack, since they seem so practical for traveling.

But she just IM'd me four bags from Luggageonline that she has in mind. Not one of them is a computer backpack, and Luggageonline has a slew of laptop backpacks for her to choose.

Below are all of the bags she has picked out, which as you can tell, are all designer briefcases.

Kenneth Cole Laptop Briefcase

McKlein Ladies Breifcase

Kenneth Cole Ladies Briefcase Collection Leather Flapover Computer Tote

Lodis Audrey Collection Large Tote Brief

So those are the bags she has picked out. Which one should I get her? I have no clue. I myself am still partial to the laptop backpacks like these:

Piel Leather Goods Slim Computer Backpack

McKlein Leather Backpack Briefcase

After looking at her selection and my selection, I realize the bags I selected were a bit too practical and masculine. So I guess I better chose a computer briefcase as opposed to a computer backpack.

Which Would You Choose?

Tags: bags, laptop backpack, computer bag

Ireland: Cliffs of Moher

cliffs of moher
Originally uploaded by carrie227

Pictures like this one make me want to visit Ireland. Lizzie has wanted to visit Ireland for some time, since one of her life long friends has deep roots in Ireland. She also says that everyone she has talked to that has either lived their or visited have raved how beautiful it is.

Because of places like Ireland, Lizzie and I will be obtaining our passports this year. It will now be a written goal to be obtained in the first part of 2008. We actually printed the forms in 2007, but have not gotten them. 2008 will be the year for us to get our passports.

Have you been to Ireland?

Anyway, we both would like to visit Ireland. If you have been there, what places do you think we should visit?

New Orleans Weekend

New Orleans is a great town that two years later is still recovering from Katrina. Well over half of the population as of yet has not returned, and it will be years until the recovery will be anywhere near complete.

We arrived in New Orleans on Saturday, without our luggage. This makes it the second time I lost my red Riccardo bag, the first time being when Southwest Airlines lost it when we flew in to PHL from Los Vegas. This time however, it was US Air in Philadelphia's mistake. After waiting in a line for almost half an hour, we took a taxi to LePavillion Hotel, checked into hour luxurious room, and hot footed it down to the French Quarter for some grub.
I am not going to go into detail about the food we ate, but will be blogging about the New Orleans food on The Grub Hound.
Restaurants we visited included:

Acme Oyster House

Bourbon House Restaurant

Mr.B's Bistro
LePavillion Crystal Room
Beignets at Cafe Du Monde

What we Did Besides Eat

• Walked around the French Quarter especially Bourbon Street.
• Checked out some art galleries.
• Did a tour of New Orleans with Cajun Encounters.
• Took the Free Ferry to Algiers.
• Lost money at Harrahs Casino.
• Shopped for souvenirs.
  
• Relaxed in our LePavillion Room.
• Took lots of pictures which can be seen in my New Orleans Picture set.
• Used LePavillions in room Wifi to write several short blog posts and check email.
  

I plan on doing a few more posts about our New Orleans vacation, but for now,
read the previous New Orleans post in addition to this one.

Sun Set on Lake Pontchartrain

Sun Set on Lake Pontchartrain
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton

The highlight of our trip to New Orleans was the Cajun Encounters Katrina tour we took.
We cruised through New Orleans and saw the different types of architecture, visited the City of the Dead, stopped at the New Orleans Botanical Garden, then went through the part of New Orleans were the levy first gave out during Katrina. Passing through this area, we were led to Lake Pontchartrain, were this photo was taken.
We also were able to see several of the new Pumping Stations and one of the new gates which are designed to prevent the lake from flowing back into the city, which is what happened during Katrina.

The tour then went back through the garden district and ended up back at our hotel by about 7pm.
We highly recommend the tour, but suggest taking the earlier tour rather than the afternoon tour because of visibility towards the end of the tour, which nevertheless was very informative as well.

Check out our New Orleans Pics on Flickr.

VW Bus Bike

vw genius
Originally uploaded by Baby Skinz

I just saw this and had to post about it.
Lizzie has been a fan of the VW Bus for quite a long time and one day hopes to cruise around in one. I don't think this is what she has in mind though, since it doesn't have a sink...lol

Going to NOLA for the weekend!

Our house has been under construction for many, many months now, at least it seems as if it has. We went away to Canada two weeks ago at the request of the contractor so he could get in the house and resurface the hardwood floors. 99% of the entire project was to be completed by the time we returned from our trip.

Well it's now two weeks later and the floors still haven't been finished, the bathroom's not finished either AND we need to leave the house again. So we're making the best of the situation (any excuse to travel works for me!) and heading down to New Orleans, Louisiana!

We wanted to go to a place where we've never been, but we only have two nights and three days to take it all in. I went to NOLA about 20 years ago when I was in college, to visit a friend who attended Tulane University. It was a really quick trip and I only remember really loving New Orleans and thinking that I have to get back there some day. Well, 20 some years later and I'm going back! Unfortunately, this trip will be as brief as the first trip - but it's better than never going back. AND Adam has NEVER been there!

We're staying at Le Pavillion Hotel in the French Quarter. I have no idea what this hotel is like - I'd love to hear other people's opinion who've been there. We'll arrive on Saturday, November 3rd at noonish and fly home to Philly on Monday evening. Short and sweet.

I scheduled the trip on Last Minute Deals.com. I've never used that service before, but I looked around on other travel sites and I have to admit, being a last minute trip - their prices were fabulous! Hope the entire experience is positive!

Needless to say, I'm seriously excited about this trip and I'm sure Adam will have an abundance of photo opportunities!

See ya in NOLA!

Update: Here are the New Orleans trip posts.

• The first post I got to was Sun Set on Lake Pontchartrain.
• Here are the New Orleans Photos from the trip.

Thousand Islands : Red Horse Lake as a Mirror

Red Horse Lake as a Mirror
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton

Several weeks ago we had taken a short vacation in the Thousand Island region of Ontario. This was the view of Red Horse Lake early on Sunday morning. A short time later the wind picked up and the mirror was lost.
As it turned out Sunday was the best day we had in the Thousand Islands. After getting up, we headed out to take a cruise around Boldt Castle, which is actually in NY. I also got some photos from that as well.
Check out the rest of my Thousand Island pictures on Flickr.

CheeseCake Satisfies the urge to Travel

CheeseCake Galore
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton

Lizzie and I were thinking about taking an overnight trip to Atlantic City, but instead decided to just get some cheesecake at the CheeseCake Factory at the King of Prussia Mall. Click the link to see my review of the Cheesecake.
So you could say that Cheesecake prevented us from gambling. But in reality we probably would not have gone anyway, because it was Columbus Day weekend, and there were no decent places available.

Having been at home for a number of months now, Lizzie is taking the family to Red Horse Lake this coming weekend for a nice little getaway. We are not quite sure what we will do in Canada, but I am sure it will be very relaxing. But be sure to keep an eye out for some Canada posts about the trip.

Philadelphia Trips and Planning Others

Since our Maine Vacation in August, we have not been on any long trips, but have taken several shorter trips in the Philly area.

The first trip was on Labor Day, when Lizzie took the family to Brandywine Creek State Park in Delaware for a short day trip that involved a picnic and disc golf...An awesome park with two disc golf courses that wander through woods and fields.
Lizzie at the urging of her father who wanted to have a picnic, picked up some hoagies at the local pizza shop, and we headed out to the Delaware park at a little past 3pm on Labor Day.
While Lizzie and I played 9 holes of disc golf, the others hung out by the picnic tables and enjoyed the beauteous scenery of the park.

The other mini vacation we had was last weekend when Lizzie and I attended a wedding at the Cairnwood mansion of Bryn Athyn, PA which is a very upscale suburb of Philadelphia.
Both of these trips shall be written about more extensively in their own posts which shall be completed at a latter time.

Lizzie and I are also tentatively planning a trip to Las Vegas for the
BlogWorldExpo in Las Vegas which is going to be held on Nov 8-9 2007. Sounds like a great excuse to go to Vegas to me.



Another trip that is in the works is a trip to West Palm Beach, Singer Island Florida that involves seeing a time share presentation from Marriott that we got roped into when we attended the Learning Annex's April 2007 Real Estate and Wealth Expo in Philadelphia. "Roped in" maybe a little strong, because as Lizzie says, we could have said no, but for $250 for a 4 day 5 night stay in our choice of Marriott hotels, how could the travelers in us refuse.

Well that is about it for this quick update travel post. The two extensive write ups of our two Philadelphia trips mentioned above are in the works.

Update:Does not look like BlogWorld is going to happen for us, but I hope everyone who attends has a wonderful time.