Tag Archives: networking

The Trouble with Treos

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Why my expensive new communications tool is going back to the Verizon store.

If you’ve been following this blog, you may know that I’m hoping to write my next two books at our off-the-grid “camp” on top of Howard Mesa. The place has solar panels that should generate enough electricity to power my computer equipment. But to work, I need an Internet connection — the one thing our place doesn’t have.

I explored my options. Satellite was too expensive. Wireless Internet available by pointing a specialized antenna at the top of Bill Williams Mountain wasn’t going to work because I was out of range. (The Internet guy drove up with test equipment last week to check.) That left the last option: a connection via a cell phone provider.

I’m a Verizon subscriber. I’ve been one for about six years now. Verizon has the best coverage in my area, with a nice strong signal in most places I go. I’m not a phone nut; I buy a new phone every 3 or so years. I’ve been using a Motorola flip phone for 3-1/2 years. No camera, no PDA, no Internet access, no fancy ring tones. It’s a phone, plain and simple. And it works well.

I went down to the Verizon store in the mall at Happy Valley Road in North Phoenix last Friday. (It’s a 41-mile drive from Wickenburg.) I walked in, got myself a sales person, and proceeded to tell her my needs: I need to be able to get any computer on the Internet from my cell phone. Somewhere along the line, I might have mentioned that I was thinking about a PDA. But I definitely told her I’d be connecting to a Macintosh.

Palm Treo 700pShe said the only PDA phone that would work with a Mac for syncing and Internet connection would be a Palm Treo 700p. She assured me that it would sync with my Mac using the included USB “tether.” I’d also be able to connect that tether to any computer with a USB port and, using that, get on the Internet. We talked plans and pricing and although it was going to cost me about $100/month to use the darn thing, Internet was unlimited. And the Treo has all kinds of cool features that would help make me more productive while on the road, including a keyboard for messaging, e-mail, Web browsing, and a camera. (Check out my TumbleLog for some photos I posted online from my phone on Thursday.)

So I bought it. And I bought the case, the Bluetooth headset, and the car charger to go with it.

I was incredibly busy on Friday night, all day Saturday, and on Sunday morning. But I still found time to set up tether and Bluetooth syncing. I didn’t find time to set up the Internet connection stuff for my PowerBook. But I just bundled all the hardware and software and manuals into my luggage and took it with me on my trip to California, figuring I’d have time to figure it out while there.

I didn’t have time until Thursday morning. And that’s when I realized that I didn’t have everything I needed to make it work. I needed software and it wasn’t on the Verizon Welcome disc.

So I used the Palm OS version of GoogleMaps on my phone (highly recommended) to find the Verizon store closest to Torrance Airport. And since we had about an hour and a half to kill, we drove over there. I brought my phone and the cables and the computer. And after some awkward confusion and two trips to the back room to consult with a hidden expert, the service person gave me the bad news: tethering did not work with Macs.

Of course, this is exactly the opposite of what I’d been told by the person who sold me the device. So who was I to believe?

Later on, I was able to get on the Internet and view the Web page with information about tethering. And it confirmed what the Torrance Verizon person had said.

Of course, I could still set up the computer to use dial up networking (DUN) with the cell phone. I was able to get the instructions to set up that from the Palm Web site, which I was able to view with the phone itself. I set it up and it worked. Then I realized that it might be using up my minutes — I only get 450 anytime minutes on my plan because I really don’t use my phone that much for chatting. So I called Verizon and asked. I was assured that the connection time to Verizon’s DUN system was included in my plan.

But DUN is about 1/3 to 1/2 the speed of the broadband connection I thought I was buying. And it can’t seem to hold a connection for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time. And this phone cost a small fortune. So I’m not a happy camper.

And I still haven’t confirmed that it will work at Howard Mesa.

At this point, it’s likely that I’ll be taking advantage of that 30-day trial period Verizon offers to return the phone. With luck, they’ll have something that works correctly with my Mac. Otherwise, I’ll just have them reactivate my old phone and forget about Internet access via cell phone, at least for a while.

[composed in a hotel room while on the road with ecto]

Four Steps to Get the Most Out of Twitter

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Some tips for taking the “yuk” out.

I first heard about Twitter a few months ago on either the MacBreak Weekly or TWiT (This Week in Tech) podcast. (Both highly recommended, by the way.) I immediately checked it out. At first, I thought it was kind of cool, but then I realized that it was nothing more than a gigantic, worldwide chat room. Everyone talking, few people talking to a specific other person, some people even talking in languages other than English (imagine that!), few people saying anything of interest.

Twitter is a micro blogging tool. If you looked at 100 random blog posts from all over the blogoshere, how many of them do you think you’d like? This is the same. Look at 100 random tweets and you’re likely to find very few that are even worth the time it took to read them.

And they’re only up to 140 character long.

First Impressions

Miraz summed it up in a comment on yesterday’s “Reach Out and Meet Someone” post here:

I’m really interested by your previous post and comments here about Twitter. I’d noticed Twitter and found my first, and strong, reaction was Yuk!

The next time I looked was the other day when I thought I should include it in a book I’m writing for community groups. This time I looked and just felt old.

I see it as a monumental waste of time and a triviality, so I find your comments about feeling more connected to people particularly useful.

I felt exactly the same way. Yet people were talking about it and raving, in many cases. So I figured I was probably missing something and decided to give it a closer look.

You Need to Scrape Away the Bull

The main complaint about Twitter is: who really cares about what all these people are doing? What you had for breakfast isn’t very interesting. What you’re watching on TV isn’t interesting either. And why all the cryptic statements? Are you trying to be cool?

But if you could scrape away all the bull and concentrate on the content that may be of real interest to you, Twitter does have some value. I’ve gotten a glimpse of it. Not enough to convince me that it’s good, but enough to make me think that it might be.

Here’s what I did to reach this point. I recommend these steps to anyone who wants to give Twitter a real try.

Step 1: Create a Twitter Account

I’m not going to explain how to do this. You can go to Twitter and follow the instructions online to do it yourself.

I definitely recommend that you choose an appropriate image for your identity there. Something that gives people an idea of what you’re all about. For a while, mine was the same image I currently use for my Gravatar: my helicopter’s back end with hot air balloons in the background. Pretty but not very real. I’ve since switched it to my standard head shot, which I hope to get redone one of these days. Most Twitter users either use a photo or a cartoon for their images. My advice: don’t use established cartoon characters; one of these days, someone’s going to start suing.

While you’re in your account settings, be sure to create a one-line (they really mean about six-word) bio of yourself. It appears when someone goes to your Twitter page. Set your time zone, enter the full URL for your Web site or blog, and just provide the needed info. If you don’t want to be on the public timeline, there’s a box you can check. I wouldn’t check it unless you’re worried about stalkers or some other crazy thing. After all, there is a slight chance that you might impress someone reading the public timeline (whoever that might be) enough to make a new friend.

Step 2: Download and Install a Tweeting Tool

I cannot over emphasize the importance of this step. Sure, you can keep your Twitter home page open and refresh it once in a while to see what’s new. But there are better ways to get involved with Twitter.

For a while, I used a Dashboard widget to compose and send my tweets. This was convenient; press F12, fill in a form, press Return, and press F12 again to get back to work. This added my tweets to Twitter, but did not display the tweets of my friends.

TwitterificThen I discovered Twitterific. Frankly, I can’t imagine using Twitter without this little application. (Now calm down, folks. You can use the Comments link or form at the bottom of this post to tell me why your favorite Twitter tool is better.) It features a resizable window that captures and displays not only your tweets, but the tweets of all the Twitter users that you follow. There are a variety of notification options with and without sound. And, best of all, there’s a tiny form at the bottom of the window that you can use to enter your own tweets.

Twitterific has just one problem — and it doesn’t affect me at all: it requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Yes, it’s a Mac-only application. (I’m relying on the PC folks reading this to use the Comments link or form to tell us what they’re using. Let’s hope they don’t let us down.)

Twitter also works with instant messaging and I’m pretty sure you can use your IM client (iChat, MSN, AOL, etc.) to interact with Twitter. But since this article’s intention isn’t to explain all the different ways you can use Twitter, I’ll let you explore that option on your own.

And Twitter does work with text messaging on a cell phone. But if you enable and regularly use that feature, you really need to get a life.

Step 3: Find People to Follow

You don’t want to monitor the public timeline. Trust me: it’s a waste of time. You want to follow the tweets of a select group of people. People that you select.

There are a few ways you can find people to follow:

  • Ask your friends, family members, and work associates if they have Twitter accounts. If they don’t, use the Invite form on your Twitter account to invite them. Be sure to use the extra note field to explain what this is all about. You might want to point them to an article about Twitter (like this one?) or a favorable review. The people you invite should be people that spend a lot of time in front of a computer connected to the Internet, so tweeting will be easy and convenient for them.
  • Track down the Twitter accounts of famous people you want to follow. Believe it or not, Barack Obama has a Twitter account. (I don’t follow him.) So does Stephen Colbert. (I do follow him.) Now, obviously, these people have better things to do with their time than send tweets out into the blogosphere, so their tweets are likely composed by their staff and have some kind of marketing value. Obama’s is strictly campaign stuff. Colbert’s is a bunch of typical Colbert-style one-liners. These are just examples. I’m sure plenty of celebs have Twitter accounts, if you’re into the celeb thing.
  • Check the blogs you follow. Quite a few bloggers have Twitter accounts. If you like the blogger’s blog, then you might like his tweets. I found a number of interesting people to follow this way.

Make these people your “Friends” — that’s Twitter’s term for the people you follow. Doing that is easy; just go to their Twitter timeline and click an Add link under Actions.

If someone makes you a friend, he’ll be listed under your followers. It’s always nice to add them as friends, too. It might give you insight as to why they added you. And you can always “Leave” them if you decide you don’t like their tweets.

Which brings up the next point. Once in a while, you’ll discover that you really don’t like the tweets of one of your “friends.” (I really feel a need to put that in quotes since the people you follow might not be real friends.) Just go to your Twitter page, view your list of friends. and click a Leave link under his name/icon. I did this just the other day when I decided that one of my “friends” was getting a bit too political for my taste. (No, I don’t want to sign your online petition, thank you.) Click of a link and I don’t have to hear from him anymore.

Step 4: Post Tweets

Even if you have no followers, you should make it a habit to post tweets on a somewhat regular basis. I’m not saying you need to do it daily or hourly or weekly or every ten minutes. I’m saying you should do it at least occasionally, when you have something to say.

I tend to tweet when I sit down to start a project or finish one up. This morning, I tweeted about going down to feed my horses and about a new article posted on my site. When this article is finished and posted, I’ll tweet about it and provide a link.

Be particular about the content of your tweets. Try to limit yourself to tweets that people might actually be interested in. Okay, you had eggs for breakfast. But don’t tweet about it unless you fetched those eggs out of a henhouse and the rooster tried to kill you or you cooked them in a microwave, causing them to explode all over the inside and start a fire. Okay, so that’s an exaggeration. But you know what I mean. Something interesting.

You can make all your tweets self-promotional, but I assure you that you’ll have very few followers — unless, of course, you’re famous and people want to read about your latest book, movie, radio show, interview, podcast, etc. I admit that my tweeting about articles as they are released has an element of self-promotion to it, but I’d like to think that some people might want to check out some of what I’m writing about. After all, if you were using Twitter, wouldn’t you be slightly interested in an article about it?

Remember, Twitter limits you to 140 characters per tweet. Don’t feel as if you have to fill them. It automatically converts long URLs to short ones (using tinyurl), so don’t worry about URLs taking up all your characters. Just keep it short and sweet.

As for writing style, Grammar Girl wrote an excellent style guide for tweets, “Grammar Girl’s Strunk & Twite: An Unofficial Twitter Style Guide.” Read it and use it. Please.

The Twitter Virus

I first read the phrase Twitter virus yesterday. At first, I thought it was some kind of real computer virus. But apparently, it refers to a person’s active involvement in Twitter — in other words, tweeting the moments of your day all day every day.

A certain amount of Twitter virus is vital to using Twitter and attracting and keeping followers. But if you’ve got it too bad — like a certain person I follow who tweeted from his cell phone about being stuck in traffic waiting at a railroad crossing this morning — you probably want to take a step back and think hard about your involvement.

While a tool like Twitterific makes participating in Twitter extremely easy, don’t get carried away. The people who follow you don’t need (or probably want) every detail of your life.

Try It

Twitter is also a social networking tool. I participate because I find it interesting to see what other people do and think throughout their day. I leave the Twitterific window open — I have a 20″ monitor, so there’s enough real estate for it — and peek at it once in a while. And then I tweet when I have something to say. It’s pretty effortless and it certainly doesn’t take much out of my day.

Now you know what I do with Twitter and how you can make it a worthwhile experiment. Don’t be shy. Try it. It’s all free and, if you don’t catch the virus, you can quit it at any time.

Reach Out and Meet Someone

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I remember what online community is all about.

I got my start in the online world back in 1984, when I bought my first computer. It was an Apple //c and I quickly began visiting bulletin board systems (BBSes) using my 300 baud modem. You could get away with 300 bps in those days — there were no graphics, no big downloads, no Flash or PDF or QuickTime files.

Back in those days I visited BBSes to participate in online discussions on what were called message boards: the precursor to today’s forums and blog comment features. Later, in 1989, when I bought my first Mac, I was quick to start my own BBS, The Electronic Pen. I kept it up and running for years, until the Web made BBSes archaic. Then I hopped on board Web 1.0 with a Web site — back in 1995 or so? — and have been a Web publisher ever since.

It Was about Meeting People

In exchanging comments and ideas on BBSes, I met a lot of people:

  • There was Tim, who ran a BBS out of the same office where he sold tombstones. (Really!) Tim was my age and a Mac user and he’s part of what made me so enthusiastic about Macs. He introduced me to Mark, a legally blind albino guy who worked as a graphic designer. (Really!) Mark couldn’t drive, so we’d take him out to dinner once in a while. He had all this high-tech computer equipment that he’d show off to us: things like CD-ROM writers, 20″ monitors, and high-end graphic software. (Remember, this was in the early 90s.) Although I lost touch with Mark, I still exchange e-mail with Tim, who married his high school sweetheart, fathered three boys, and got a job as an IT guy for some medical information company.
  • There was May, who ran a BBS for writers. She wanted to become a writer, but she couldn’t seem to get her foot in the door with any publisher. She even quit her day job to devote all her energy to writing. She wound up broke and depressed. She went back to work. Years later, she finally got some stories published. I don’t know what she’s doing now. She once called me an “overachiever,” which is something I’ll never forget. It made me feel as if I should be ashamed of my success.
  • There was Art, a computer programmer who knew everything — or thought he did. At thirty-something, he still lived at home with his parents. When I met him in person, I was very surprised to see that he was only about 4’10” tall. He bitched a lot about his employer and I wasn’t too surprised when he got canned. When he got 18 months pay in his severance package, I encouraged him to travel around a bit before getting back to work. He visited his brother in Seattle. “There’s snow on the Rockies,” he told me after his trip. “Art,” I replied, “there’s always snow on the Rockies.” Some people really need to get out more. We lost touch just a few years ago.
  • There was Bill, a copywriter. Here was a middle-aged man who wrote for a living. And he made a good living. He offered me advice (when I asked for it) and was amazed when I told him that I thought something I’d written “sounded good.” “That’s the point,” he said, obviously excited that I’d made the comment. “Good writing should sound good when it’s read out loud.” I learned a lot from him, but ironically, we lost touch soon after my first book was published.
  • There was Martin, a computer geek like me, but with an arty streak. He did design work and computer training for a local computer store. If my memory serves me right, he helped me get my foot in the door there and I worked for them for some time. I went to his wedding and, when I moved out to Arizona, he, his wife, and their new baby spent a day with us. When he set up his own consulting firm, he sent me a full complement of his high-class giveaways. I still use the logo-embroidered throw blanket when I sit on the sofa to watch television some evenings. I haven’t seen him in years, but he’s one of my LinkedIn contacts.

These are just some of the people who entered my world through the world of online communication. (And no, these aren’t their real names.) They were friends, despite our mutual shortcomings, and we socialized both online and off. In fact, I was better friends with these people than my college classmates.

What Changed

Somewhere along the line, things changed. I think it had something to do with switching from the two-way communication of BBSes to the one-sided Web sites of Web 1.0. Although I remained friends with this handful of people for some time, I didn’t meet anyone new.

And I didn’t miss meeting people.

After all, I was busy with work — writing books and articles, teaching computer courses for two different companies, writing course material. And then we moved to Arizona and I was busy with my new home, learning to fly, and exploring my surroundings. As my old BBS friendships faded away, new ones didn’t replace them. But I didn’t even notice the gap in my life.

Social Networking

Until yesterday, I never realized the value of social networking sites like LinkedIn, MyBlogLog, and Twitter. You see, I wasn’t in the market for new friends. I didn’t need any. I have friends around here, I have friends elsewhere.

The trouble is, our friends around here are either 20 to 30 years older than we are (remember, Wickenburg is a retirement community) or, if they’re younger, they’re transient, passing through Wickenburg on their way to someplace where they’re not always the youngest person in a restaurant or supermarket. (Okay, so that’s an exaggeration. There are usually a few people younger than me in the supermarket, and some of them are even customers.) We lost two friends our age just last month when he got a better job in Michigan and they just packed up and left. Other friends have been bailing out regularly: one couple to Colorado, one to San Diego, one to New Mexico.

Mike and I aren’t movers. We like to stay in one place a good, long time. But with the way things in Wickenburg are going, I’m ready to bail out. We’ve been here 10 years — that’s longer than most of our friends (in any age group).

So I’m starting to think about new friends who live someplace other than Wickenburg.

Yesterday, I read “How to Use MyBlogLog to Succesfully Build Massive Blog or Website Traffic.” I’d signed up for MyBlogLog back in January, but never did anything with my membership. I had some time, so I went through the instructions in the article. And I started finding blogs for people who write about the same kinds of things I write about. People with similar thoughts and ideas and concerns. And I began to realize that I could make friends online again. Perhaps even good friends.

Now if you’re reading this and actively participate in social networking sites, you’re probably thinking that I must be some kind of moron. Of course that’s what social networking sites are for.

Hoof PickWell, have you ever seen a hoof pick? There’s a picture of one right here. You use it to scrape horse poop and mud and rocks from the bottom of a horse’s foot. It’s standard equipment for everyone who rides a horse — a responsible rider wouldn’t even consider getting into the saddle unless the horse’s feet had been checked and scraped. But if I didn’t tell you this and you’d never needed one and someone handed one to you, would you know what it was for?

That was me with social networking Web sites. I couldn’t understand the purpose.

Now I do.

(Duh.)

Build Community Through Participation

Yesterday, I also realized that what’s holding back my blog from reaching the next level (whatever that is) is the sporadic participation of visitors.

Sometimes I’ll write a post, hundreds of people will read it, and a bunch of people will post comments with other viewpoints about what I’ve said. This adds substance to the blog and makes it more valuable not only to visitors, but to me. I learn by starting a conversation and reading what others add to it. (I love to learn.)

Most times, however, I’ll write a post and even though many people will read it, no one will post comments to it. Which makes me wonder whether I “got it right” or if anyone cared about what I said. Are these posts a waste of time? Are they useless bandwidth suckers? Why did Post A get a lot of response while Post B, with a similar topic, generate “dead air”?

I may never know.

But the one thing I do know is that I want more participation here. And since I want it here, I’m sure other bloggers want it on their sites. So I’m actively trying to add something to a comment string — sometimes even starting a comment string — when I have something to add. Even if what I have to say is just a quick note to thank the blogger or give him/her my support on that issue. (Whatever that’s worth.)

Twitter Really Is More than Just a Waste of Time

Yesterday was also the day that I realized that Twitter is a lot more interesting if you’re monitoring the tweets of people you know and/or care about. I realized this as I started adding “friends” to my Twitter account — the same people whose blogs I was beginning to monitor. When you follow the tweets of a select group of people, you learn more about them and the things they do. Like me, some of these people publish tweets about the major work-related things they do throughout the day. Or about ideas that have just gone through their heads. Or about life’s frustrations.

And I think that Twitter can be a great way to help decide whether I want to take another step toward a real friendship with someone. A person’s tweets reveal not only what he/she is doing or thinking, but his/her personality. I could never pursue a friendship with someone who composed tweets like AOL chat room IMs. Or a person who took him/herself too seriously. Or someone who used Twitter solely to market a product or service.

So I’m going to be more active in the blogging world, both in my blog and on other people’s it will be interesting to see what new friends I can make.

More on Twitter

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Frivolous and a waste of time, but kind of cool, too.

According to Wikipedia, Twitter is

a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) via SMS, instant messaging, the Twitter website, or an application such as Twitterrific.

Some More Details

Here’s how it works.

You join Twitter by signing up for a free membership.

You can then use the Twitter Web site, an application such as Twitterific (Mac OS only; there must be something out there for Windows users), a Dashboard Widget such as Twitterlex or Twidget (Mac OS only), SMS, or instant messaging to compose a 140-character-or-less mini blog post — referred to as a tweet — and post it to the Twitter service.

Your tweet goes into the Twitter public timeline (shown below), a constantly updated listing of recent tweets that changes so frequently, you probably won’t see your tweet appear because by the time you refresh the page, 20 or 30 other Twitter users have posted their tweets, thus pushing yours off the page. Much of what does appear is pretty boring. Some of it is clearly promotional or self-promotional. Some of it is in languages other than English.) And, of course, there’s the usual low-level chat mentality of posting nonsense apparently in an effort to fill bandwidth with inane chatter.

The Twitter Public Timeline

So, in short, Twitter enables you to broadcast, to the world, what you’re doing at that very moment or, if you’re not doing anything worth talking about, whatever message you want to broadcast. But very few people are likely to see it, so it’s a lot like shouting out of a helicopter window while flying over the Pacific Ocean — pretty much a waste of communication effort.

Follow the Tweets of your Friends

TwitterificFortunately, there is a way to weed out the stuff you don’t want to see and to concentrate on the stuff you do want to see. Just create a network of “friends” and people you “follow.” As you find other Twitter members you’re interested in, you add them as friends. Then, when you view your Twitter home page or use an application like Twitterific (shown here) to keep up to date, you only see the tweets from the people you care about.

My only problem is, either the people I care about don’t use Twitter or, if they do, I don’t know their Twitter User IDs so I can’t add them as friends. This is probably because I’m not hip — a situation I’m quite used to, since I’ve been dealing with it my entire life.

Put Your Tweets on Your Blog or Site

Twitter BadgeA cool feature of Twitter is the ability to add a Twitter badge to your Web site or blog. You can see my Twitter badge (if it’s still online when you read this) in the navigation bar on the Home page of my Web site. Here’s a screen shot of it, just in case I removed it. (I’m so fickle about features on my site.)

You can modify the color of the badge, but not much else. I think the badge is too big for the 140 characters allowed, given the microscopic font size. I was unable to tweak it for the appearance I wanted. What’s nice is that it includes a link to my Twitter page for people who care about me to follow me. I don’t think anyone has yet. That doesn’t surprise me, given that I’m not hip.

By the way, adding the badge to your site is pretty easy. Follow the link to Badges, set options as desired, then copy the resulting code and paste it into your site or blog where you want it to appear. It automatically shows your most recent tweet when the page is loaded.

Similar Services

I first heard about Twitter on the TWiT (no relation) podcast. (TWiT is short for This Week in Tech and it’s hosted by Leo Laporte. Since raving about it on a show, Leo has since switched to rival service Jaiku. I don’t know anything about Jaiku (yet) and am too busy today to explore it. But you can expect an article about it in the future.

Who knows? It might be a better solution for folks with hipness deficiencies.

Looking for other Twitters

If you’re a regular reader of this blog and maintain a Twit account, I welcome you to promote it in the comments for this site. I’ll check out your tweets and may add you to my list of “friends.” (Whoo-hoo!)

Would also be interested in reading your impressions of the Twitter service or competing services. Use the Comments link.

Sedona Update

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Good news for pilots flying into Sedona.

I did a Sedona charter today. It was a birthday gift for one of my passengers. His girlfriend had me fly the two of them up to Sedona where they went on a Jeep tour with the Pink Jeep Tour company there. Then I flew them back to Wickenburg.

Both flights were great — smooth and uneventful. I flew the helicopter from Wickenburg to downtown Prescott, then skirted around the south end of Prescott’s airspace over Prescott Valley, crossed over Mingus Mountain at the 89A pass, flew past Jerome, then toured the red rocks north of there all the way into Sedona. Although I expected the flight back to be hot and bumpy, I was very pleased to be wrong. Bumpier and hotter than the trip out — yes. But not too bumpy or hot to enjoy. We flew from Sedona past the south end of Cottonwood, over the tail end of Mingus Mountain, over the weird mountain town of Crown King, and straight into Wickenburg. Total flight time: 1.7 hours.

The good news for pilots flying into Sedona is this:

First, the restaurant, which was supposed to close for good in May (this month) is remaining open. So you can still get breakfast or lunch or dinner on that wonderful shady patio or indoors — with red rock views either way. I had lunch there today while waiting for my passengers and really enjoyed a nice, leisurely meal in the shade, with a cool, comfortably breeze keeping me feeling refreshed.

Second, the terminal now has wireless Internet access. So if you show up with a laptop or other computing device that uses wireless networking, you can hop on the net, do your e-mail, or surf to your heart’s content. That’s a nice thing when you find yourself waiting a few hours for your passengers.

It was a nice day out — the first flight since my surgery — and it felt good to be in the sky again. I had great passengers and I think they really enjoyed themselves.

Sedona is still my favorite charter.