Gradually, though, it became painfully obvious that Windows Mobile was getting a bit dated. The number of apps available for it was limited at best, mainly because many required a touchscreen. I also found that many mobile websites didn’t much care for the shoddy browser that came with the phone. Alternatives like Skyfire, while functional, would often disconnect for no reason and prove only useful in absolute emergencies. While I was initially excited about all of the things I could now do that I couldn’t do before, I was now running into the frustrating wall of hardware and software limitations. It was time to swap out for something a bit more functional.

Being soured on Windows Mobile, I needed to look elsewhere. I already knew that Blackberries were right out. I had one about six years ago and didn’t much care for the way it worked at all. It also seemed like the application selection was running into the same limitations as Windows Mobile despite a very large user base. And the iPhone? As exciting as the initial announcement was, Apple has earned my ire over the years. I don’t want to deal with their insane application rejection behaviors (I would say policies, but that would imply consistency), I don’t want to deal with AT&T’s crappy and oversaturated data network, and I don’t want to suffer through an on-screen keyboard. Palm was also off of my list since it appears that company may not have long left in this world. WebOS is a pretty darn amazing platform, but the lagging sales make me think that Palm’s offering is too little, too late. I didn’t want to be bitten the same way we were by investing in Sandisk Sansa MP3 players.

Enter Google and Android. For those that don’t know, Android is what’s powering hot phones like the G1 and Motorola Droid. The open app store and easy-to-use SDK has lead to a lot of apps being available for it. The phones are also reasonably powerful and come with a lot of useful features. Once Sprint announced the Samsung Moment, I knew I had to have one. It had all of the hardware features of my old Q9c, but it also added WiFi and a large touchscreen. Once I heard it would be updated from Android 1.5 (Cupcake) to 2.1 (Elcair), I was sold.

Oddly enough, Shauna got kind of excited about the idea of a new phone too. Yes, my wife Shauna. No, she was not abducted by aliens, brainwashed by a cult in the jungles of South America, or the recipient of any blunt force trauma to the head. (For those of you not in on the joke, Shauna has used her phone so infrequently over the last several years that it often would have a dead battery for months at a go.) So two weeks ago, we jumped in the car and drove on down to the Sprint store to check this phone out. A few days later, we had them in our hot little hands and were excitedly grapping apps left and right and playing around with them to our heart’s content. Funny enough, the new plan we got on actually gives us triple the minutes of our old plan, adds unlimited texting, and gives Shauna unlimited data, yet we’re now paying less than we used to. Go figure.

Both of us love these things. I’m very excited to see Elcair rolled out sometime next month to unlock even more features. If you like Sprint’s data network (which, FYI, is the best as far as I’m concerned) and want an awesome smartphone, this is the way to go.

(I’ll be writing up my own review of the phone and what apps I think are must-haves later on. I’ve already rambled on enough.)

Let me take a moment to explain myself. Apple, for a long time, did a great job of driving the market in places it needed to go. The iMac, while often derided as a kiddie toy by hardcore PC users, brought a much-needed sense of style to a market dominated by the same old gray and beige boxes. The iPod single-handedly dislodged MP3 player as the word for a portable music device and became the de facto standard. iTunes defined what digital marketplaces are supposed to look like and function like. The iPhone created the concept of an easy-to-use repository of simple applications that anyone could create or download. All of these things are truly revolutionary changes to the way we use technology and we owe Apple a great big thanks for making it happen.

Lately, though, most of Apple’s products are more evolutionary than revolutionary. I don’t know if Steve Jobs has been losing his touch or if the cancer has forced him to delegate to the less capable, but none of the company’s PC products have really been more than a periodic refresh of the latest technology. The new generations of iPhones, while improved, haven’t really been compelling enough to entice everyone to upgrade ASAP. And the iPad? Aside from an unfortunate name that’s become the butt of far too many immature jokes, it’s really not much more than a really big iPhone. Apple’s biggest opportunity is in really putting something behind the Apple TV, yet they don’t seem to be willing to make that necessary investment and truly transform the emerging web video market with a subscription-based service and, heck, an extension of the app store. There’s more innovation on this set-top box from XMBC and Boxee than from Apple and that’s a big problem.

Therein lies the real issue. When a company can’t come up with any more game-changing products or ways of doing business, it tried to jealously guard its existing products and business models by any means necessary. This inevitably turns into a game of legislating or litigating success. Telecom companies are notorious for getting all kinds of regulatory special favors; their last Christmas present, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, has cost us all around $300B and growing. Now Apple, by deciding to sue HTC, has started down the same slow death spiral that so many failed companies before it have gone down.

What this is really about is Steve Jobs and his enormous ego. Google managed to out-iPhone the iPhone with the Android platform and the Nexus One handset. Apple hasn’t been beaten at its own game in quite some time, especially not with a flagship product, so this is serious egg on their face. Now, instead of realizing that they have ceded the market lead through relative inaction and only minor product updates, they want to try and stamp out the competition for doing it better. (Kind of ironic since CEO Jobs said that stealing ideas is a good thing.) Apple has admitted, in so many words, that it’s out of good ideas. That’s the sure sign it’s as good as dead.

Right now, the plan is to fly out the Saturday or Sunday before to give Liam a chance to recover from a long day of flying. We’ll be in Boston for about a week after the surgery while he recovers, then we’re going to head down to the DC area to stay with Shauna’s brother Bill. I’m probably going to fly back home not long after that and Shauna will stay with Liam until his followup 2-3 weeks later. The reason I may be coming back early is our dogs. They’ll be twitchy enough after two weeks of us being gone and really need to have someone around the house on a somewhat consistent basis. If you want to volunteer to watch them, please let us know. This doesn’t mean just to come over and feed them twice a day, but also to hang out for a bit and give the dogs some socialization. I certainly wouldn’t mind being able to stay with Shauna and Liam for the entire time.

Sunday night I found myself in possession of a butternut squash and in need of a side dish to go with a roast and mashed potatoes. The squash had been sitting on top of our fridge for the better part of a month (yes, they have amazing shelf life) and was just begging to be cooked. I ad-libbed the entire process, but it worked out pretty well.

Ingredients

• One Butternut Squash (may only be available in the winter months)
• Two strips of bacon, diced
• Half of a yellow or white onion, diced
• 2 cups chicken stock or broth
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Cut the squash in half lengthwise. (Yes, it will be a bit challenging. Deal.) Scoop out the seeds and strings, then wrap in plastic wrap and microwave on high for 10-12 minutes.
2. When the squash is done, remove the plastic wrap and place it cut side down on a cutting board. Using a knife, carefully peel the skin from the flesh, taking as little of the meat as possible. This may be tricky while the squash is both hot and squishy, so grab an oven mitt for your non-cutting hand as needed. Once peeled, cut the squash into quarter inch cubes.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the bacon and cook until very crispy. Add the onion and cook until soft and translucent. Add the squash and chicken broth, stirring to break up the chunks. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the squash has the consistency of mashed potatoes. Serve hot.

For those of you who are unaware, butternut squash is a sweet squash with a relatively high sugar content. This only intensifies as it ripens, so use immediately for a milder dish or, like we did, let it sit around for a bit to up the flavor. You can also cut the sweetness a bit with about ¼ tsp. nutmeg. I though it went well with roast and mashed potatoes, though you could also use this as a starch substitute.

You see, his normal nap time is between 10AM and 11AM and he usually goes down for about an hour and a half to two hours. You don’t have to be a math major to figure out that this doesn’t jive too well with a church meeting block from 11AM to 2PM. We used to be able to take him into the hall and get him to nap between blocks, but he’s outgrown the carrier and has gotten a bit pickier about where he naps.

The last time we took him to church, we had to leave before the end of sacrament meeting because he was acting up so much. The problem with sticking it out with him is that we’re basically just trying to keep Liam from freaking out and distracting everyone else in the room. One of us is always with him in the hallway trying to get him to doze just a little bit with very limited success. So what do we do about the crazy kid?

Basically, we’ve decided we have to go to church in shifts. I take a week, she takes a week, the other stays home with the kid to make sure he gets his nap. If he wakes up in time, we join the other at church. And I hope he grows out of it sometime soon.

Conan is seriously a class act. He’s been funnier than ever these last couple of weeks and leaving on such a high note is a high road that not too many other people would take. It felt more like a retirement speech than anything else and reminded me of Johnny Carson’s last show (which, yes, I watched when it originally aired).

This whole botched debacle is going to end up with a big list of winners and a short list of losers.

WINNER: Jimmy Kimmel. Seriously, after doing a hilarious impersonation of Jay Leno, he then goes on The Jay Leno Show and makes an absolute mockery of the host, delivering some scathing zingers that have so far gained nearly a million views on YouTube. He then followed up with a mock Ken Burns documentary, The Late Night War, that was side-splitting. It doesn’t look like he’s going to stop that too soon either. Those kinds of bits have no doubt attracted viewers who a few weeks ago would have said “Jimmy who?”

WINNER: David Letterman. Letterman enjoyed some huge ratings advantages over The Tonight Show thanks to the weak lead-in from Leno, a position he hasn’t enjoyed for well over a decade. He’s also gotten some good digs in at Jay and kicked some of the old Late Night War back into action.

WINNER: Conan O’Brien. Yes, I know. He lost The Tonight Show and, unlike Jay, can’t go back to his old slot, and is off the air until at least September, all after having relocated to LA from New York less than a year prior. He did, however, score a sweet severance package (reportedly a solid $33M) as well as $12M in severance for his staff. (Word on the street is that he dropped some of his own money in to push that severance up for everyone.) So, basically, he and his staff are getting a 7-month paid vacation. Conan also picked up immense popularity, dominating Twitter with #teamconan and #imwithcoco posts with the “I’m With COCO” Facebook page now over 678K fans and growing. (For comparison, Stephen Colbert’s Facebook page for his show has under 437K fans.) Conan has a lot of support and respect that he gets to cash in and a lot of money with which to bankroll it.

LOSER: Jay Leno. The classy thing to do would have been to insist that NBC can him to keep his arrangement with Conan to take over Tonight. As Kimmel said, you’ve got $800M dollars, you can afford to bow out. He’s taken most of the flak for this mess from Letterman, Kimmel, Ferguson, and pretty much the entire Internet while clinging to his “the network made me do it, I’m a victim too” narrative. I expect Leno’s ratings to tank upon his return from that ill will.

LOSERS: Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly. If Leno comes back and rating still suck, you can guess who’s going to end up with an even worse late-night lead-in audience. The only saving grace for both of these guys is that Conan refused the lame-brain stunt to put Leno before The Tonight Show, pushing Fallon and Daly into a ratings black hole.

WINNER: Craig Ferguson. If Letterman dominates the ratings, Ferguson may steal the title back from Fallon for his time slot. He hasn’t made a lot of commentary on the Leno/Conan spat, but he doesn’t need to.

WINNER: TV viewers. This whole thing has provided some great material for weeks and I’ve personally been enjoying the crap out of it. I’m also excited to see where Conan goes because whatever it is, you can be sure he’ll be able to call the shots on where it gets taped and what he can do. It’s a shame that he probably won’t be able to take along some of his characters (Triumph bits always cracked me up), but he’s creative enough to come up with some new stuff. Twitter Tracker and Conando were his A game, proving there’s still a well of originality left to be tapped.

Look, guys, I know you can’t help but screw up, but you’ve pretty much put the icing on the cake now. It’s not very surprising, though. You made Heroes suck for two seasons after a mind-blowing premier and making “save the cheerleader” a popular meme, ABC stole Scrubs right out from under you and ended up with an amazing season 8 finale, and you just about canceled The Office, now one of your most popular shows, until someone clued you in about a little thing called iTunes. Heck, all any of the people I know can talk about is Chuck and you seem hell-bent on sending that one into the garbage can as well.

I guess I should know better after you fumbled your late-night lineup almost 18 years ago. The Tonight Show was run by a living legend, Johnny Carson. I remember staying up until entirely irresponsible hours on Friday nights and all during the summer just to catch his hilarious sketches and monologues. Meanwhile, David Letterman was being just as funny in the time slot right after and would have been a natural fit. Even Johnny Carson thought Letterman would be the  best replacement. But no, you instead get that giant sack of unfunny chin, Jay Leno, to take over, losing Letterman to CBS in the process. About the only saving grace is that you had the good sense to grab Conan O’Brien and gave him a few seasons to find his own.

It almost looked like you were on the way to making some good choices. You put O’Brien in charge of The Tonight Show and he’s been on fire. A week doesn’t go by that some major website doesn’t link his sketches. He’s an Internet sensation in an age when that means something. All the same, you had to counter that good idea with the lame-brain idea that Leno should have his own prime time show, and we know how that’s been working out for you. You should have just sent that horse to the glue factory.

Now you realize that keeping The Chin on staff wasn’t a terribly good idea, but you’re about to “fix” that mistake by making an even bigger one. I mean, you’re seriously going to not only let him keep a show, but slap your best decision in the face to do it? Do you remember at all what happened when you did that to Letterman, or is your memory just that short?

You’re about to take your best late-night asset and chase him off to another network, splitting that coveted late night audience even further. NBC, pull your collective heads out of your collective rear ends and realize you’re about to goof up big time yet again.

You suck, Yahoo. No wonder you’re becoming so irrelevant.

Liam was a great traveler. Considering that we were more-or-less asking him to sit still in cars and planes for 12+ hours, he was barely fussy at all. I guess those long road trips to California conditioned him to that kind of activity. It still took him a day to bounce back from it all, but we were not that family with the screaming baby right behind you.

It was kind of a bittersweet visit with my grandmother, though. My mom recently moved back to start caring for her because she was concerned about her mental health. After a week, I can see why. She would forget that she’d recently told us a story just minutes prior, sometimes recanting the same anecdote several times a day. (Apparently this is a early sign of dementia.) I noticed that she was also having trouble moving around, often hunched over by the end of the day, yet she refuses to consider a wheelchair. I really enjoyed seeing her and spending time with her, but I fear she may not be around long.  I made sure to get pictures and video so that Liam will get a chance to remember his grand grandma if he doesn’t get a chance to see her again.

Ingredients

• Bones from one turkey, picked clean of as much meat as possible
• 2 cups diced or shredded turkey
• 4 carrots
• 8 ribs of celery
• 1 onions
• 1 package egg noodles, cooked
• ½ tsp ground marjoram
• ½ tsp ground thyme leaves (you may have to grind them yourself)
• ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp kosher salt (use table salt if you must; I’m a salt snob these days)

Directions

1. Quarter the onion and slice up 2 carrots and 4 ribs of celery. Add the bones and other assorted turkey bits to a large 8-quart or larger stock pot with the cut vegetables, herbs, spices, and salt. Add water to cover. You want the total volume to be 7-8 quarts. Place over medium-low heat, covered, for at least 8 hours, preferably more. This may be a good application for your slow cooker. You’ll know the finished product is done when the liquid looks like melted gelatin.
2. Using a mesh strainer or colander, strain the mixture into another container. If you want to make the broth very clear, line the strainer with cheesecloth first and squeeze out all of the liquid. Discard the solids.
3. Put the finished stock back in the pot. Slice up the remaining vegetables and add to the soup with the diced turkey. Simmer over medium-low heat for about ten minutes so that the vegetables are cooked but still firm. Add the egg noodles and serve immediately.

You know you’ve made the soup correctly if it turned into what looks like a Jell-O mold when you store it in the fridge. That’s the goodness you’ve extracted from the bones and what makes this soup so lip-smacking good.