I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Apple’s new iPad because I was absolutely convinced it would be a “must have” product for me. As I watched the Keynote event where Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad this past Wednesday, I was initially very impressed.

iPad's 9.56 inch high by 7.47 inch wide touch screen can be used in portrait or landscape orientation

The sleek design and giant touchpad screen had me salivating. Since I’m an avid reader, I’d intended to buy a Kindle before leaving on my next extended trip, which would eliminate the need to carry heavy books. With the iPad’s new iBook reader and built-in iBookshelf store I no longer need to buy a Kindle. I also appreciated the full size digital keyboard on the touchscreen, as well as the portable keyboard and docking station that makes data entry a breeze. As I would have expected of an Apple product, the iPad features total integration and syncing between iMail, iCalendar, iPhoto, Address Book, iTunes, and Notes, as well as supporting web browsing, video, YouTube, Google Maps, and Multimedia content such as full-length movies.

Docking station (right) and docking station with external keyboard (left)

One of the most impressive features of the iPad is its 3G connectivity. Apple has partnered with AT&T to provide 250 Mb of data transfer for $19.99 per month, or unlimited data for $29.99 per month. Best of all, this will NOT require a contract and users can cancel the 3G service at any time. Since I currently pay $60 per month for an Air Card, the iPad would save me $30 per month. I could also turn off the 3G Read the rest of this entry »

Since we’re all driving more and flying less, I want to pass along two very interesting safe driving tips that were emailed to me yesterday.

WEAR YOUR SUNGLASSES WHEN DRIVING IN A HEAVY RAIN: During a heavy downpour, visibility is bad, even with the wipers on high. Wearing your sunglasses will vastly improve visibility, even at night. The drops on the windshield will still be visible, but not the sheet of falling rain. It also helps to eliminate the “blindness” from the spray of passing semi’s, and the “kick up” if you are following a semi or car in the rain.

NEVER USE THE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN THE PAVEMENT IS WET OR ICY: Snow, ice, slush, or even rain can cause wheel-spin and hydroplaning. If the cruise control is on when the tires lose contact with the pavement, the car accelerates to a higher rate of speed and takes off like an airplane. Although cruise control can be disengaged by tapping the brake pedal, the extra reaction time Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t look now but the open road is calling. Faced with onerous security regulations, endless add-on fees, and uncomfortable planes that squeeze customers in like sardines, more and more travelers are opting for the highways rather than the skyways. Americans are rediscovering the joy of driving cross-country with the wind in their hair, the music cranked, and the freedom to check out quirky attractions that would forever have been overlooked from 30,000 feet in the air.

Traveling cross-country in someone eles's car - for free

This resurgent love affair is also revitalizing driveaway companies, services that match drivers with customers who want their cars delivered to distant destinations. Vehicles need to be moved for a variety of reasons, including corporate relocations, military transfers, and quite often in the case of snowbirds who want to have use of their own car at their winter home but don’t want to do the driving. Car owners pay Read the rest of this entry »

After a few housebound weeks in Illinois’ sub-freezing winter weather, a thirty-six degree day felt positively balmy. Although the weatherman called for yet another dreary, overcast day, no snow or freezing rain was forecast, so I seized the opportunity to visit the Morton Arboretum, a 1,700-acre park in the Chicago’s western suburbs.

Walking along the shores of a frozen lake at the Morton Arboretum

The Arboretum was established in 1922 by Joy Morton, who is best known as founder of the Morton Salt Company. Although Morton’s head was in the salt business, thanks to his father, J. Sterling Morton, who founded Arbor Day and served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Grover Cleveland, the younger Morton’s heart belonged to trees. “Plant Trees” was the Morton’s family motto. And plant they did, over many years creating a horticultural showcase on their private estate. At the age of 65, Morton began developing the property into an Arboretum, with the mission to “collect and study trees, shrubs, and other plants from around the world, to display them across naturally beautiful landscapes for people to study and enjoy, and to learn how to grow them in ways that enhance our environment.” Read the rest of this entry »

car ni val (kar nuh vuhl) noun

1. a season or festival of merrymaking before Lent
2. an instance of merrymaking, feasting, or masquerading
3. an instance of riotous excess
4. a traveling enterprise offering amusement
5. an organized program of entertainment or exhibition, as in a festival, traveling amusement show, rides, a program of sports, any merrymaking or revelry, etc.

How appropriate. I’m hosting this week’s Blogging Boomers Carnival and that got me wondering about the word “carnival” and how it related to what we do each week. Now, our group of Blogging Boomers aren’t known for riotous excess or masquerading (at least I don’t think so), but we are an enterprise that offers entertainment and amusement, not to mention worthwhile information. So, without further ado, let me preview what our boomers are talking about this week. My summaries are meant to whet your appetite – to read the full versions, click the links and visit each of the individual sites. Happy browsing!

In the U.S., 83,000 people wait on the official kidney-transplant list. But SoBabyBoomer tells us that just 16,500 people received a kidney transplant in 2008, while almost 5,000 died waiting for one.

“It’s Complicated” is an understatement when it comes to Sex with the Ex, here’s the Midlife Crisis Queen’s assessment of the new film and sex with the ex!

Almost every English-speaking person of a certain age has read or heard of “Love Story.” Erich Segal, the author of the blockbuster 1970 novel, died this week. Learn more at The Boomer Chronicles.

From It’s All About Aging: Everyone always gives lip service to how much they love their family, but if you don’t have a will, it’s just empty talk.

Do you want to live to 100? Find out what it takes over at Contemporary Retirement.

Do full lips make you look younger? A new study says so, but the Glam Gals don’t totally agree. Check out what they have to say at Fabulous after 40.

Ever wonder why you can’t understand what kids are saying these days? Check out Dude. I’m Just Sayin’ at the Writing Without Periods blog. Jenny’s talking about the changes that have taken place in slang since the good ol’ days.

If you are a Los Angeles parent with college-age kids, you’ll want to read about this particular casting call posted on Gen Plus.  And you might make a few dollars, to boot!

Vaboomer.com co-founder Virginia Cornue returned from a trip to Haiti only days before the earthquake.  Here is report of the calmness and compassion of Haitians coping with the disaster:

And last but certainly NOT least, according to Life Two, there may be no more perfect book for fixing your life than Gretchen Rubin’s new book “The Happiness Project.” Rubin spent a year as a one person focus group testing every possible way to increase personal happiness resulting in a fun, conversational tome that inspires, educates, and entertains. A more perfect post for a carnival would be hard to imagine.

Photo courtesy of JSmith Photo

Travel Insights 100, a panel of travel experts selected by UpTake.com (the travel search engine that helps travelers decide where to go, where to stay, or what to do) were recently asked to name the dumbest moments in travel during 2009.

The experts ranked the airlines as the dumbest industry, citing events such as ramping-up of all kinds of airline fees, the NWA Flight 188 pilots who overshot the Minneapolis airport during a landing approach because they weren’t paying attention, the ‘United breaks Guitars‘ fiasco, and TSA threatening travel bloggers. However airlines weren’t the only ones on the dumbness radar, as the following presentation shows:

They say all things come full circle. In September of 1969, I hopped aboard the Red Line of the EL and rode down the Dan Ryan Expressway for my first day at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The neighborhood around Roosevelt and Halstead Streets was not safe in those days. One block south was Maxwell Street, for years home to the world’s largest open-air market. By the time I arrived, foot traffic had been reduced to sullen gang members, panhandlers, and furtive drug dealers lurking in shadows between the neighborhood’s disintegrating, grime-covered buildings.

More than 50,000 bargain hunters descended upon Maxwell Street every Sunday during the heyday years

To the north, the university squatted across several blocks, a barren heap of concrete where saplings withered and stoned-out hippies lounged in the Student Union, strumming anti-war ballads on guitars. Barely seventeen at the time, it was more than I could handle; I dropped out before the end of the first semester, got a job, and never looked back. But last month, during my annual trip to visit my family over the holidays, I was invited to have lunch with a professor friend who teaches at the UIC. It had been more than 40 years since my last visit and I wasn’t sure I remembered how to get there, so I asked my Dad for directions.

“Halsted and Roosevelt? You mean down by Maxwell Street? You can’t go down there alone; it’s dangerous!”

I explained that, according to my friend, the neighborhood is now quite safe. Read the rest of this entry »

By now you have probably all seen this, especially since the artist has been on the talk show circuit, but on the off chance that you’ve been living in a cave, I offer the following video, produced by musician Dave Carroll.

While sitting on a United plane awaiting takeoff, Carroll saw luggage handlers tossing his guitar around the tarmac. He notified the flight attendants, all of whom were indifferent to his concerns. Upon arrival at his destination, Carroll’s worst fears were realized – the guitar was broken. Thus began a year-long fight with the airline, which repeatedly refused to reimburse Carroll for repairs. Disgusted, he recorded a song, “United Breaks Guitars,” and posted it to YouTube. To date, the video has been viewed by more than 7.4 million – yes, I said MILLION – people and the situation has become a public relations nightmare for United. Ya’ just gotta love social media! Give it a listen, it’s hysterical.

Some of my most enduring travel memories are inextricably linked with music. As I trekked a jungle trail connecting temples at the Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia, I happened upon a group of musicians performing traditional Khmer wedding songs. They sat or squatted on a crude raised wooden platform in front of exotic instruments, producing an ethereal sound that stopped me in my tracks. So mesmerized was I by the haunting melodies that I almost missed the crudely lettered sign explaining that the musicians were victims of land mines. Startled, I looked more closely and spotted three prosthetic legs propped up against the stage; at least two of the musicians were amputees and two were blind. I later learned that thousands of land mines still lie undiscovered in Cambodia and that hundreds suffer severe injuries or are killed in land mine accidents each year.

Victims of land mines play in the jungles of Angkor Wat, Cambodia

In an area of central India so remote that locals had never before seen a white person, the young women of the tribe fitted my fingers with tiny cymbals and pulled me into their circle. To traditional music played on hand-carved flutes and rudimentary stringed instruments, we stomped out rhythmic steps – two steps forward, one back – while tribal elders looked on, pointing and gesticulating, as if to say, “look, she’s doing it!”

Dancing with tribal women in central India

Throughout much of history, the only way to experience the diversity of world music was to travel, but in recent years technology has made it possible to sample music from around the globe without leaving home. The new primetime PBS series, Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders, will take us on a musical odyssey that reveals how music is transforming Read the rest of this entry »