Technology

A few words about the technology we brought with us. As the duly appointed Entertainment Director on our voyage, I made sure we were prepared with all the electronic comforts of home. We used a Christmas gift from my aunt to purchase a DVD player — one that plays not only DVDs, but also can read from a USB drive! Cool. So we not only brought along a few of our favorite DVDs, but I also loaded a few USB drives with music and video.

Several of the kids have cameras with SD cards, so I found a nifty card reader at MicroCenter that can read them. This makes it easy to upload pics to the web site.

The portable DVD player is useful in the car, but what if we want to watch a show in the hotel room? It sure would be nice to use the TV, so that’s what we’re doing. Televisions, of course, take a coaxial cable, but the DVD player has RCA ports for output. The solution: a VCR! I brought one along. 🙂 I run RCA cables from the DVD player to the VCR, then a coax cable to the TV. Presto, instant movie.

The VCR has an additional feature: recording any KU basketball games that may be on while we’re out experiencing history.

All this technology takes up space, so I have a gizmo bag, complete with cables, adapters, extension cords, CD players, headphones, more cables, batteries, and a microphone. A microphone, you ask? Yup. On trips like this, or even around town, we like to read aloud. I want to sit in the front passenger seat and read to the kiddies, but they can’t hear me in the back. So I rigged up a cheapo lapel microphone to connect to a battery-powered amplifier, and from there to a FM transmitter. We tune the car radio to the right channel, and voila! I can be heard throughout the entire car. My favorite part.

Right now we’re reading Peter and the Secret of Rundoon. Highly recommended, but it’s third in a series, so read them in order. We also have the latest Redwall book (we’ve read all of them), and another I’m trying out, the Alex Rider series. I’ve only read the first one; if anyone has read them and wants to share an opinion, please do.

This blog is running on a computer in my basement. For the one or two of you who care, it’s running WordPress on a fedora core 3 box — very old technology, but it’s working. It’s configured so that all our phones get a text message whenever anyone posts a comment — so we’re up to date while we’re out and about.

We’re off to the Virginia Aquarium tomorrow. Zane seems to have mostly recovered, so we think we’re up for a long day. Time for the Entertainment Director to head for bed. Thanks for joining us! It’s been a fun addition to the experience, being able to share with you all what we’re doing.