As a baby boomer, we love to travel. Furthermore, we love technology that helps to make our travel more convenient, pleasurable, and less chaotic.
With the recent launching of The Roaming Boomers, we realized that we were going to be away from home more, and that the benefits of today’s smart phones might be a real advantage for us.
We began to do a little homework, and decided to purchase a Motorola Droid using Verizon’s 3G network.
One of the many benefits of this decision was the free inclusion of Google Maps Navigation with voice guidance.
Let me share with you how we were able to use this on our recent trip to Hawaii:
we are in Hilo, Hawaii, and we need to get to a particular restaurant. We know the name of the restaurant, but that’s it.
I activate the Google Voice Search on my phone and speak the name of the restaurant into my phone.
In a few seconds we are presented with a Google search result showing the address, and phone number of our restaurant.
But wait! I don’t have to call for directions as there is a “get directions” button right next to the Google listing.
I hit the “get directions” button, and whammo!, the phone switches to Google Maps Navigation, identifies my location by satellite, and begins to direct me on my way with voice activated, turn by turn instructions.
Holy techno-wonder Batman! This is cool! I now have a voice activated GPS device with me at all times.
I may never have to ask for directions again!
Do you understand what this means to the male species?
As more and more baby boomers start to retire, and travel the world, I suspect the desire to learn another language might become more prominent.
I have certainly felt this desire, and when I contacted the kind folks at RosettaStone, they were kind enough to offer The Roaming Boomers a trial subscription of their TOTALE system, so that we might try it and share our results with you.
When we returned from our Hawaii trip, I found the bright yellow RosettaStone TOTALE box at my front door. As I began to explore, I learned that the whole TOTALE system is online, and that my yellow box contained only a headset microphone, and audio CDs for practice on the go.
When I logged-in to the RosettaStone TOTALE website, I found that their system is divided into three different sections:
The RosettaStone Course – this is where I can learn to speak, read, listen and write in their award-winning program.
The RosettaStone Studio – here I can practice online in their live online sessions with a native-speaking Studio Coach.
The RosettaStone World – here I can play games and practice speaking with other learners and native speakers in their online community.
Not being shy, I decided to jump right in and try out Level 1, Unit 1: Language Basics. What surprised me right off the bat was that there was no introduction about what we might be doing in this course. It was immediately sink or swim. Albeit, the waters were only ankle deep. RosettaStone calls this their Dynamic Immersion® method.
The on-line course presented me with Spanish text, audible renderings of the text, and beautifully presented photography to represent each of the phrases. Although I can’t speak a lick of Spanish, I was soon speaking some very basic phrases, matching the phrases with corresponding photographs, and even found myself able to match a Spanish spoken phrase, with no text, to its proper photograph.
My first course was divided up into five sections:
Pronunciation – I scored 95%
Vocabulary – I scored 96%
Grammar – I scored 93%
Reading – I scored 96%
Writing – I scored 92%
In just a short 30 minute lesson, I found myself able to properly pronounce a few basic phrases, and am off and running to speak a new language.
I must confess, my wife is already growing weary of me looking at her and proclaiming, “La mujar bebe” (the woman drinks) in my most sexy voice.
I will be posting a few more posts about my use of RosettaStone’s TOTALE language learning system over the coming weeks and months.
On Saturday, we hiked the Go John Trail in Maricopa County’s Cave Creek Regional Park. The Cave Creek Regional Park is located just off the Carefree Highway (the one that Gordon Lightfoot sang about) in Cave Creek, Arizona, which is just north of Scottsdale.
The Go John Trail is a 5.8 mile long loop, rated “moderate”, and will give you some great exercise with it’s 1,250 ft of accumulated elevation gain (AEG).
If you hike the Go John Trail in a clockwise manner, your hike will start right off with a nice heart-pounding climb up beautifully manicured switchbacks. At the top of the saddle there is a bench to catch your breath, and admire the long-range views south across the valley below.
We were hiking the trail on Easter weekend, and we found the trail buzzing with people enjoying the beautiful 70º weather by hiking, biking, and riding horseback.
Arizonan’s love the desert after a wet winter because the desert will literally come alive with green grasses, and desert flora like you have never before witnessed. There was one spot, which you can see in the video below, that was literally ablaze with the Sonoran desert’s beautiful yellow brittlebush.
In a few months, there will be no trace of green on these trails save the towering Saguaro, because of our dry fore-summer season.
On the back side of this loop trail lies our favorite portion, as people generally trend towards the shorter trails. If you challenge yourself just a little bit with this trail, you will be rewarded with a peaceful quiet, interrupted only by the chirping of quail, doves, cactus wren, and will likely enjoy a plethora of small lizards zipping across the trail in front of you.
Make sure to bring a lunch with you, as about 3/4’s of the way, after you climb about 500 feet up a granite boulder strewn path, you will again be rewarded with long range southerly views of the valley, and a most wonderful place to enjoy your lunch in the cool breeze that blows through the pass.
Another favorite part of this trail is what I call quartz hill. Just before you reach your final climb, and make your descent back to the parking lot, you will be presented with a hill that is completely strewn with quartz. It looks like a giant walked about with his hands full of quartz, and scattered them all over the ground, like a farmer might spread chicken feed. It is stunning to look about and see all the quartz glistening in the sun.
It is likely that we have hiked this trail 20 times, and I am very confident that if you choose to do some hiking, when you visit the Valley of the Sun, that you too will enjoy a jaunt on The Go John Trail.
One last thing, I beg you, please made certain that each of you have at least two liters of water for this hike.
The arid Sonoran desert can be very unforgiving, and you will find yourself with severe dehydration without a proper supply of water. Promise? Come on, raise your hand and promise me that you will bring lots of water with you.
One of the lodging options that we explored, while on the Big Island of Hawaii, was a vacation home rental right on the ocean.
As it turned out, we had wonderful friends who were renting just such a home on the ocean, and they kindly invited us to spend some time with them.
Bob & Karen Schroeder, owners of Mayberry Homes in Lansing, Michigan, annually make a 6-8 week pilgrimage to the Big Island of Hawaii. We have watched them, as they have essentially become annual residents of the island, transition from the island’s world class resorts to the privacy of a vacation home rental.
As Karen explained, “when you make a prolonged stay on the Big Island of Hawaii, you will find yourself longing for the privacy of a personal residence, and a vacation home rental through Vacation Rental by Owner (VRBO) just makes perfect sense”.
During our stay with Bob & Karen, we enjoyed taking trips to the Waimea farmers market to bring back lots of goodies to cook in the kitchen. We also enjoyed watching the whales breaching off the deck, spinner dolphins playing in the bay, amazing starlit nights, and a good bottle of wine as we watched the sun set on the horizon.
The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) has just reported their statistics for 2009.
Here are a few of their statistics:
The number of passengers was down 5.3%.
The number of flights was down 6.6%.
The #1 US airline was Southwest with over 101 million passengers.
The #1 US airport was Atlanta with over 42 million passengers.
Most airlines were down last year. Southwest was steady, where JetBlue and SkyWest both grew by 2.5%. However, Southwest has 5 times the number of passengers of JetBlue and SkyWest.
Here’s the question of the day: With the industry down 5%, how did passenger leader Southwest produce industry bucking results?