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I've finished watching Mad Men, Season 1 (Netflixed it). I seem to be missing something. It's a good show, but I don't think I'd call it great. Does it pick up in season two and three at all? Do you have to be older than 31 to really get it? The stereotyping is pretty heavy and the character development, outside of about two people, is incredibly thin. As I watch the season one "behind the scenes" video, all anyone's talking about is the writing. The writing. The writing! Meh.

Again, not saying it's trash, but it's no Entourage - and it's sure as heck no West Wing - either. It's just good.

By the way, the official announcement is here, in case you were wondering about the previous post.

The highlights:

• Nine hole round support - this has been our most requested feature since 1.0 shipped.
• Graphing of almost all starts - the graphing system allows you to graph and compare up to three stats at once.
• Markers - Markers can be set for any date and can be used as the starting date for your stats. They also appear on the graphs so that you can see how we'll you've played since you bought the new drive, took a lesson, or for any other reason that you choose.
• Per hole notes - you can now keep a note for each hole to help track what happened when you played.

Release date? Two weeks, give or take.

Got a UI problem in Scorecard that I'm not entirely certain how to solve. Perhaps someone out there can help.

Big screenshot after the jump.

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I've never found it terribly difficult to get back into the swing of things after a break.

Perhaps the biggest problem is answering all the "how was your vacation" questions? Then again, those are greatly diminished by having a blog, and is perhaps one of the best reasons to have one. 🙂

Does this mean that this will no longer be possible (web.me.com/iacas) or is it just talking about "homepage.mac.com"?

If you've been wondering where I've been for the past week, the answer is spelled M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E.

Yeah, we took a one-week family vacation to Disney World. I didn't pre-announce it here on my blog for obvious reasons, and I didn't post "I'm in Disney World" for the same reasons, but I did write a post each day, and I'm going to work on finalizing those and posting them. They'll all be back-dated, but I'm posting them today.

I approved any moderated comments and caught up (~70%) on email. My feeds in Cyndicate will have to wait until tomorrow.

Today we were let into Epcot an hour early so that we could make our way back to "Norway," where that morning's breakfast with the princesses would take place.

The princesses came around rather quickly, so we finished up and walked leisurely to Test Track. Carey obtained some fast passes (for 9:30) and we were first in line before Epcot had even officially opened. A wave of people came rushing towards us minutes later, but we were in the first row of the first car of the first ride that morning - a unique, bizarre experience.

We went on the ride inside the Epcot dome, used our Fast Passes to ride Test Track for the third time, and then sampled (again) the sodas from around the world before heading out. The guides I mentioned before also schedule your Fast Passes, and we made ample use of them throughout the trip. Carey told me only 10-15% of people ever use a Fast Pass, so that's the one tip I'll pass on to you even if you don't get the guide book: use the Fast Pass feature.

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My feet and legs have stopped complaining. Though I was never in even a moderate amount of pain, I did notice mild discomfort from all the walking we were doing. They've given up complaining even a little at this point.

I will use this otherwise waste-of-a-post to point out that Carey did a great thing in buying the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World prior to our trip. Along with the accompanying website, touringplans.com, we were able to see everything in Walt Disney World that we wanted to see and with minimal fuss and bother.

Some days we had finished our "morning" plan - going on/in 15-20 rides and attractions - in two hours! The longest we waited to ride any attraction was 30 minutes for the packed (to us) Toy Story ride, but we'd gone to Hollywood Studios on a lark that night and didn't have a plan.

The site lets you build a plan for all sorts of setups: parents riding adult rides with small children, children of mixed ages (i.e. how do you accommodate a 6-year-old and a 16-year-old on the same trip), etc. We always chose the "Dumbo Do Or Die" plans, which is the plan you choose when the trip is 100% about your kid getting on as many rides as possible without a care for anything else.

Some people may not like to have their whole day planned out like the book and site helps you to do, but then again, the 15 minutes we waited for Soarin' was one of the longer waits we had all week. Another family waited 2½ hours. Spontaneity's great sometimes, but at Disney World, not so much.

I don't really care to share anything here about today's activities, so instead I'll talk about the camera setup I took to Disney World.

Carey had mandated that I not take either of my 5Ds, the lenses, etc. I'd bought a new camera bag partly for Disney World (more so for my yearly trip to a golf tournament in Columbus, OH), and obviously I'm quite comfortable with the capabilities of the 5Ds and the images I can create with them, so instead I took only the G10.

The G10 - with which I'd spent no time getting familiar - performed admirably, but I still wish I had been able to bring my cameras. It may have taken a day to understand what to bring and what not to bring, but if I was going to Disney World now, with what I know now, I'd bring:

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The Epcot light show is one of the few things I remember from my visit to Disney World when I was six years old.

Back then, the light show was more about lights than fireworks. I remember lasers playing a heavy role, drawing things in the sky and flashing about through most of the show. The modern Epcot light show is more about fireworks than lasers - which is fine, I suppose.

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I'm not going to list what we did every day, but today started in the Magic Kingdom and was the location for something which had the potential not to ruin our vacation, but to put a serious dent in the enjoyment.

Carey'd misplaced her card, so we waited for her to get a new one (the old one was just turned around backwards in her wallet). We watched the opening ceremonies from outside the gates, and when we went inside, Carey picked up a small blue Mickey-shaped metallic piece of confetti. We put it in the stroller.

We then walked quickly straight for Dumbo - a ride Carey's guide said to ride first and then ride again if possible before the lines got too long. We rode the carousel. We rode the Pooh ride. Then we parked our stroller and went in two or three shows and rides (Peter Pan, the Philharmagic show, and perhaps another one or two).

Carey saw the stroller prior to us riding It's a Small World. When we came out of Small World, Carey said "wait here, I'll be right back." Five minutes later I see her waving, so we walk down to find that our stroller had been stolen. The person who stole the stroller had apparently taken my large Titleist umbrella out of the stroller before stealing it because the worker mentioned that he'd just found an umbrella lying on the ground moments before Carey showed up to get our stroller.

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1) Depart Clearwater, FL at 5:00am to drive to Disney World. Epcot opens at 8, and we have to pre-check-in to the hotel (Pop Century, a Disney resort).
2) Epcot - Soarin', Test Track, Crush Live Show, Pops, etc.
3) Le Cellier for lunch
4) Afternoon nap
4) Hollywood Studios - Fantasmic, Toy Story
5) Late dinner at hotel

Soarin' was eh. The technology was fine and worked well, but there were no transitions between the different "flights." One moment you were flying high (and kind of slowly) over mountains, and then instantly you were speeding along over a white-water river in a canyon.

Test Track was great - we'd ride it on our last day twice. Fantasmic, Toy Story (a 3D virtual shooting game/ride), both great. The Crush live show is pretty interesting from a software perspective - it's really just a 3D game running with some custom pre-built moves, but it's incredible for kids who aren't aware of the technology yet…

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Does Georgia have a factory that produces orange traffic barrels? I ask because Carey, Jill (Carey's mom), and I all swear we saw more traffic barrels in Georgia while stuck in traffic at 1am than we've ever seen anywhere else. We may have seen a million of them - they were spaced every 5-10 feet instead of the more normal 50-100 feet. Is the governor's brother the CEO of a barrel-making company or something?

Anyway, after arriving at 7am, and sleeping for all of 2½ hours, Carey and I went off to take the Touareg in for the service I mentioned in the previous post. Given our interest in the CR-V While there, we checked out the Honda dealership next door. A few thoughts on the models we checked out:

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We're off to Disney World, with a one-day layover in Clearwater to visit Carey's grandmother.

The drive down was uneventful except for two three things.

The first gas station at which we refilled took 20 minutes to dispense 18 gallons of fuel. We'd already eaten in a restaurant (well, if Burger King counts as a restaurant), so the added penalty of waiting 20 minutes for gas was more than a pain. I've never seen a gas pump so slow. I even tried re-setting it a few times.

Then the traffic in Georgia became an issue. At 1am, three lanes became one so that about six workers could "work" on about 100 feet of road. Traffic was at a near standstill for five miles if "near standstill == 5 miles in 90 minutes."

Needless to say, our GPS estimated arrival time of 3:30am turned into 7:00am by the end of the drive. My mother-in-law drove the last four hours, at least.

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A few pieces of news regarding Scorecard 2.0:

1) Beta Testing
Begins shortly. Today, tomorrow, or early next week. Private to start, and then once we believe there are no data loss bugs, publicly.

2) Upgrades
$14.95 - half price - for all Scorecard 1.x owners.

3) Free Upgrades
Free for anyone who purchased Scorecard 1.x in calendar year 2009!