I tell ya, the BlackBerry Curve has to be my favorite, best cell phone I have ever owned.  Every so often, I try to convince my wife to to get a BlackBerry or other smartphone, but I don’t think it will ever happen.

Anyway, RIM debuted their new, long-awaited BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 at the Fall CTIA show Tuesday night.  Cool!

I’m working and attending meetings in New York City this week (Tuesday and Wednesday.)  It’s certainly been a long while since I was working in the downtown office.  Heck, so many different things going on in the city.  All the construction on the new subway/transit center near WTC, all the construction and security for the upcoming anniversary of the attacks in two days.  You can forget how vibrant the city can be.

I was all set to eat Chipotle steak fajita burrito today.  I haven’t eaten from Chipotle in months, and there are two in the downtown area.  I read how the burritos are nutritionally enough for two people, so I skipped breakfast and morning snacks, so I could balance the large meal.  However, it was pouring rain today, and not worth the walk to and from in the rain.  I ended up eating a chicken salad sandwich from the cafeteria downstairs.  I tell ya, when I fall from grace, I really fall from grace.  Better luck tomorrow.

I should check the weather.  How will I do that?  Why, with my iPod.  Now that the price has dropped, and more features have been added, I’ve bitten the bullet and upgraded to the v2.1 software for iPhone and iPod Touch.  I held off from January to August, but I finally cracked when I saw all the really cool apps in the App Store, and many gratis!  You can now supposedly view saved song lyrics.  Weather, Stocks, Maps, and all those apps for education, entertainment, etc, for the recently lowered price of $9.95. Done. I also installed iTunes 8 for the low, low price of free.  We’re synching at the moment.

Speaking of purchases, I have lost another phone holster.  I keep snapping off the belt clip piece when I get in the car.  I’m such an idiot.  I lost the original $30 one…..somewhere in the house, broke the $8 replacement 24 hours later in the car, and broke the $30 one from Manhattan in 72 hours.  My new plan is to purchase 2-3 of the $8 ones, and keep them on hand.

And move the seat in my car back a few inches.

Three funny photos that I found, and thought I should share. Vive le silly!

I want to tell some people this.

Strange instrument to bring

Ninjas are cool

I was surfing, and found this ad promoting Kerala tourism.  [Note: Kerala is a state in southern India, fairly conservative, and where my family originates.]  I was a little surprised.  A little risque, don’t you think? If it gets the seats filled on the next Air India flight, more power to them.  I don’t remember the backwaters being this sexy.

Wait, maybe I do. 

Kerala Tourism Ad

We’re back from Punta Cana, having celebrated our 5-year wedding anniversary a month early. We dropped off Lily with her grandparents Thursday night, and left Friday morning to catch our flight from JFK.  We spent five days and four nights at the Paradisus Punta Cana, an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic.  This was our first trip to D.R., but our second vacation at an all-inclusive resort (the first being our 2007 trip to Jamaica.)

We didn’t bring Lily as we have learned that taking an infant on a relaxing trip cancels each other out.  Too complicated to bring all their accouterments (e.g. diapers, wipes, portable crib.)  Too young for the tropics (e.g. direct sun, sand, heat.)  Too difficult to manage (e.g. warming milk, feedings during dinners, no sleep.)  It wasn’t an easy decision, but we figured it would be best that she stayed here.  In hindsight, I still think it worked out for the best.  Someone I know stated that we shouldn’t leave the baby behind — we should accept the responsibility since we decided to be parents.  My rebuttal was that this is coming from someone who hasn’t had to raise one or more kids of their own!

It was a fun trip. We spent a lot of time on the beautiful beach, the lagoon-style pool, resting and relaxing.  One night, Joshua stayed at the Kid Zone (awesome supervised play center for children) while we had a wonderfully romantic and adult dinner at Fuego, their latin restaurant.  It had to be my favorite night — it was like we were dating again, young and carefree.

The trip home was unfortunately long and tiresome.  While our trip to D.R. was a direct flight, our return trip involved traveling all day, including a 3-hour layover in Miami, and getting home by 2am.  In the end, it was still worth it.  On a geeky note, I declared it “Tolkien Weekend.”  I read The Silmarillion on the flights, on the beach, and night to unwind.  I used the portable DVD player we purchased back in November 2007 to watch all three Lord of the Ring movies, over the course of five days.  Oh, it was glorious.