The Fall Mobile Social Travel Issue Rant

I had an Alien Fall Road Trip last week. Left on Thursday and visited:

HUMONGO

Humongo was gracious to allow me to visit them and I can't say enough about them, fun, smart, sharp, witty, energetic and a little dangerous. Darryl Ohrt the Prime Minister of Awesome gave me a tour of their fourth floor Penthouse spread in Danbury. Darryl took the group to lunch, where we broke some Tortilla Chips together.  We also did a traditional people's bartering ceremony. I did very well, I got some Humongo gear, a rare Plaid T-Shirt, and 2 homemade Brownies (made by @kdel713 ) in exchange for some Hudson Valley Cider Donuts, Hudson Valley Apples, and a jug of Hudson Valley Apple Cider. It was a huge Hudson Valley Branding effort and it seriously gave me pause to ponder of the tough negotiations over Manhattan Island. It was the Humongo buttons that sealed the deal. I was going to take the Cider Donuts out of the agreement but then the buttons increased the value enough to make a deal. Sadly I was not able to take the goats Darryl was offering.

If you need some awesome creative digital of any kind Humongo should be on your list! Trust me they are more than just Bobble Heads on a Killer Website.

Then drove to my sister's on Long Island. Friday I spent in NYC taking the train in. Saturday went Pumpkin Picking with my almost 7 year old nephew, attempted to go wine tasting, John Harvard's makes a great dry Stout, went to my nephew's soccer game, then drove back up to Albany stopping in James Baird State Park for some Fall Foliage hiking in a bright yellow Forest.

Mobile - Social Technology Notes:

Really sucks that you need a Satellite for Four Square. Often had a hard time in NYC when I had really tall buildings near by. And why don't you dump all the businesses in the phone book into your system. And it is kind of fun checking into places from the Parkway, kind of defeats the purpose of the 'game' but quite amusing seeing what I can check into, highlights: NY Times News Room, Council for Foreign Relations, Hell and Aunt Tooties.

Verizon you really need to pump service into the Subways and too often you did not have 3G service. Even above ground. No excuse to lack 3-G service in Manhattan! And the Droid2 battery life of about 4-5hours max means bringing my recharging cord with me. Talk about lame Motorola. No excuse to not have a full day or evenings battery life. Would of been great being able to read the news while on the 1.5 hr ride into Manhattan from Suffolk County but needed to conserve battery life.

That said GPS with Google Maps was pretty slick, though sometimes it tried sending me in the wrong direction! I also have an app with a Subway map, and was able to check what time Long Island Rail Road Trains were running at night. I left my Digital Camera home and got some great quality shots with the Droid2. But the photos were better in the Yellow Forest with my Olympus than with the Droid2. And the voice search/gps is amazing. Very rarely does it not understand what you say.

I decided Twitter is fun when traveling, but when Verizon wasn't 3G service uploading photos takes a long time. Sometimes had to kill the upload. Still way too many actions needed to upload a tweet.