YTB is giving away a cruise to our military personnel and their families! Available on a first come, first served basis — tell your military friends today! The cruise leaves on May 30, 2008 out of Miami, so act quickly.

Click here for details

Exit172 Travel is now up-and-running! If you typically book your travel on the web with highly advertised sites like Expedia, Orbitz, or Priceline, you also need to check out www.exit172travel.com. We offer competitive rates on flights, hotels, cars, cruises, golf packages, vacation packages, and “Extras” such as flowers and event tickets.

Don’t be afraid to book on my site… Exit172 Travel is powered by Travelocity and YTB Travel Network. YTB is a full-fledged travel agency backed by a 1,200 person call center and 24 hour customer service. In addition, our “Extras” are brought to you by industry leaders Flora2000 and TicketsNow.

Please let me know if you’re interested in owning your own online travel web site — I’d love to sponsor you. If you have 10 minutes, check out the video at the following link. It’ll give you a brief overview of what this is all about.

www.ytbpres2007.com

If it makes sense to you, let’s talk. Selling hot dogs (travel) is nice, but owning the hot dog cart (travel web site) is even better.

Technorati Tags: travel,flights,hotels,cars,cruises,golf packages,vacation packages,flowers,event tickets,web business,expedia,orbitz,travelocity,priceline, golf,concerts,theater,business opportunities

I love the start of the “New Year”. It’s like a clean slate… well, at least for a day or two until reality sets in… yup, everything you were involved with at the end of the previous year is still there (good and bad). If you’re one for resolutions, maybe that’ll keep you energized a little longer than most.

I have high hopes for 2008. At the beginning of 2007 I explored a concept/book called Asset-Based Thinking. In a nutshell, it teaches you to look at every situation differently, but to focus on the positive (asset-based) elements versus the negative (deficit-based) side. Sort of “the glass is half full” mindset. I still practice this frequently and it has helped me in many challenging situations.

In 2008 I’ve decided to start capitalizing on a few opportunities that have been dangling in front of me for some time… I will finally formalize my own part-time business. My new company, Exit172 LLC, will represent several ventures:

• Exit172 Travel — a 24×7 online travel agency powered by Travelocity and YTB Travel Network
• Exit172 Photography — my freelance photography endeavors
• Exit172 Technology Services — IT consulting & services for homes and small business

I’m excited to finally gather all of this under one umbrella. As Anthony Robbins and all the other motivational/self-help folks have taught me over the years, sometimes you need to go out and make things happen, instead of waiting for things to happen… life’s too short…

Ironically, one of my favorite pics from our “leaf peeping” weekend in Vermont doesn’t have any leaves in it.

I’ve had Verizon FiOS “Triple Play” (phone-data-tv) for a few months now and love it. At The Gym every morning I love watching MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. As I was programming my channel presets for my SlingBox client, I couldn’t find the channel number for MSNBC. I thought I was going crazy, but nope, it turns out that VERIZON FIOS TV DOES NOT OFFER MSNBC IN NORTHERN NJ. WTF?! Here’s the explanation from Wikipedia:

As a result of a carriage agreement, MSNBC is currently not available to Verizon Fios TV subscribers in Verizon’s Northern New Jersey grouping as well as areas in New York City. The reason for the lack of availability is an exclusive carriage agreement that MSNBC entered into with Cablevision, which services the areas in question. [8] The terms of the agreement (i.e. when the exclusive agreement expires) are unknown. The result of the agreement is that a competing content provider will be unable to offer MSNBC from where the broadcast originates. Also, as Verizon’s subscriptions rise, MSNBC will be increasingly unavailable in one of the largest markets in the United States unless viewers subscribe to a second provider (either Cablevision or one of the satellite TV providers).

Wow, what a disappointment.

Apple’s iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store is pretty cool. Immediately after updating my iPhone to firmware v1.1.1 I “clicked” on that little purple iTunes icon and presto, I was browsing an iPhone formatted version of the iTunes store. I gave it a try and purchased Matchbox 20’s “How Far We’ve Come” (which in hindsight was so fitting). It couldn’t have been easier… in seconds the song was on my iPhone and crankin’ away (great song BTW).

Yesterday I stopped in to the Hoboken Starbucks on Washington Street (yes, the one I affectionately refer to as the “AMD Hoboken Office”) and checked to see if the Starbucks iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store was live. The Starbucks feature wasn’t there yet, but I was still able to access the T-Mobile HotSpot for free and browse the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store on my iPhone. I went ahead and purchased an album (Pearl Jam Live at Lollapalooza 2007, for those keeping track). In less than 10 minutes 20 songs were on my iPhone and crankin’ away again. Wicked cool!

It’ll be neat when the Starbucks iTunes functionality gets enabled in NJ (I’ll check it out in NYC this week anyways). I always seem to like one of the songs playing in Starbucks and not know what/who it is. Pretty soon I won’t need to ask someone and will be able to purchase it on the spot. Some smart people at Apple and Starbucks… maybe I should finally jump in on those stocks.

Epcot Sunset

Originally uploaded by kw2dio.

Palm Beach Sunrise (The Breakers Hotel)

I must be dreaming. Coachella here I come!

L.A. Times: Rage Against the Machine will reunite for Coachella

It reached 70.7 degrees this afternoon in Woodcliff Lake. Hard to believe it’s January. Even harder to believe that I didn’t go for a ride on my bike!

I would actually prefer to see temps in the 20’s and see some snow. I haven’t even sparked up any of our fireplaces yet. However, I’m sure old man winter will be coming around soon.

It took me over 2.5 hours to get home from NYC today… @#$% Traffic was bumper-to-bumper from Hoboken all the way to Rochelle Park. The reason? The Sopranos were filming an episode at the South City Grill on Route 17 and EVERYONE was rubber-necking. Of course I took a turn when I finally drove by and saw Tony Sirico, a.k.a. Paulie Walnuts, walking around (you could see that hair a mile away). It’s always neat to see them filming an episode in the area. At least I got to see one of the cast members this time (yes, they film on Route 17 a lot).

I decided to start a photo gallery in my Smugmug of some of my cycling rides (at least the scenic ones). I figured I’d start with my longest ride to date — 52 miles. For some of the trips with a lot of photos, I’ll probably continue creating separate galleries. Here are the links:

Cycling Photo Journal
Cycling Photo Journal RSS Feed
Ithaca Gallery
New York City Gallery

The pic above is actually an image from Google Earth. I exported my route from MotionBased (as captured via my Garmin Edge 305 GPS). Gotta love Google Earth!

I had a great time this past weekend in upstate New York (in and around Ithaca). Went camping, cycling, hiking, and attended the NASCAR race at Watkins Glen.

Here are some pics from our 36 mile ride through the hills (over 2,600 feet in total elevation) and some light hiking through Robert H. Treman State Park. The hills on this ride really kicked my butt… the grade for one hill at Cornell University was 23.8%… steep! Ithaca and the Finger Lakes region is simply beautiful. I’ll definitely be back. Thanks for the great tour Darren!

Ithaca Cycling & Hiking

More cycling and exercise details here (be sure to export and view any of my rides in Google Earth… wild stuff!):

Dio’s Exercise Log
Dio’s MotionBased Digest

Here are my pictures from ‘AMD at The Glen’. Ironically, I took a bunch of pictures of Kevin Harvick’s car BEFORE the race (he won). Who knew?!

AMD at The Glen

I was dangerously close to this blog being marked as “stale“. Over one week without an update on my main page! Shame on me. FWIW, I update my EVDO and Exercise pages pretty frequently.

Anyway, blame it on work and travel. I spent a few days in Manhattan at the SIA Technology Management Conference and the weekend in Montreal at the Canadian Grand Prix. Pictures coming soon on my Smugmug. Fun stuff!

Oh yeah, I’m freakin’ out due to the limited cycling last week (only 8.58 miles!). Even if I was in NJ, the weather wasn’t agreeing with any outdoor activities. Hmmm, I almost thought I could post a non-cycling related entry on my blog…

As planned, I finished reading The Da Vinci Code before the movie is released on May 19th. Once again, Dan Brown did not fail to deliver. As with all of his novels I’ve read, The Da Vinci Code kept me engaged and was a great read… very thought provoking. It’s no wonder he’s sold over 40 million copies.

As you’ve probably heard, this book has been very controversial since it challenges traditional teachings of the Catholic Church. I won’t go into all the details (there’s no shortage of that discussion in the media and on the web), but I intend to research the claims raised in the book. Although Dan Brown mentions at the beginning that “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate”, I’d still like to dig-in deeper and see for myself.

In a previous post I mentioned I read Angels & Demons (the prelude to The Da Vinci Code) as an ebook. I also read The Da Vinci Code as an ebook on my Cingular 8125 Pocket PC phone, which worked out well. However, after finishing this ebook I ran out and purchased the Special Illustrated Edition hardcover. I plan to read the book again and refer to the artwork, symbols, and photographs along the way.

I’m also looking forward to the movie (directed by Ron Howard) coming in May. The trailer and cast look pretty good (Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen).

BTW, I took the panoramic photograph above during a visit to the Louvre in Paris in September 2000. Click on the thumbnail for a full-size version. I can’t wait to visit again in the future.