Background: Prior to our recent S.Africa / London trip we decided to get some sort of mp3/video player as a way to pass the long flight times. I looked at three main options, all with 30 Gb of space: the video iPod, the Archos 504, and the Creative Zen Vision W. The iPod is very nice, small and light, but I felt the screen was too small for movie viewing. There was also no easy way to charge the non-removable battery in-flight. Both the Archos and the Zen had a large screen and the option for a secondary battery. However, the Archos is a modular unit, which meant it didn’t come standard with a compact flash reader, while the Zen had the reader already built-in. Plus the Archos was more expensive… so we purchased the Zen.

Impressions
The good: The screen is quite enjoyable for watching movies, much better than the screens built into airline seats and comparable in quality to a laptop screen. However, by turning the brightness down we got nearly 5 hours of video use out of each battery, much better than my laptop. Organization of music, movies, pictures, etc, on the unit is relatively straightforward. The compact flash reader worked as advertised, allowing the transfer of files from our camera chip to the Zen for storage and viewing. Output to a TV screen is quite good – we were able to watch “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” in South Africa without problem.

The bad: Podcasts are a little difficult to find at times; for example, some are sent to the “Video” section. However, the worst feature is the clunky software used to transfer and transcode material. Slow, mysterious, and far too many individual applications is the best description. It is possible to use explorer, windows media, etc. for transfer, but none of them are great either. Certainly not as simplified as iTunes. And finding the correct video codec specs in other transcoding programs is a nightmare. Slysoft’s CloneDVDMobile was by far the best at transcoding movies.

Overall
You certainly wouldn’t want to jog with the Vision W, but it is quite handy as a portable video player, and a good size for plane travel. We are definitely glad we bought one.

About two weeks ago we had some unseasonably warm weather which allowed us to open the windows for a bit. Since Riesling is enamored with the the smells and sounds of “outside,” she was glued to the window for most of this time. I captured this video right after I opened the window. Basically, she’s interested in eating anything that contrasts from its background, including threads or bugs on the carpet, spots on the window, logos on my shirt, etc. In this case, she saw the knob that holds the screen in place and wanted to taste it. Badly.

*I actually took this video about two weeks ago, but I’ve been having trouble uploading it to YouTube. The first two or three seconds looks scratchy, but if you replay it, it’s fine.

The Bears are in the Superbowl. I could not be happier. :)

My pansy painting at the PSNC juried show!

Last night we went to see Fall Out Boy at Disco Rodeo in Raleigh. The show was good, but not great—the band had energy, but the crowd was somewhat flat, and the show lasted only ~ 1 hour. We wanted more! Nonetheless, we had a good time and managed to get the following pics:

This morning we woke up to about an inch of wet snow – the weather folks did warn us about a “wintery mix” but it seems the winter part arrived first. We’re expecting most of it to melt by this evening so we’ll just enjoy it while we’ve got it!

For the past two weeks it’s been rather warm here in NC so some plants are ready for spring, including the daffodils on the left and the winter daphne on the right. They got a rude shock this morning…

I was the student with the multicolor pens rendering careful and colorful illustrations in all my lab books throughout college. In fact, my lab grades always boosted my overall grade in the course. (Perhaps this is why I did so poorly in chemistry? No drawing? Nah!) I knew the material well enough but was always most at home sketching concepts and images in a realistic way.

Late last year I had to opportunity to complete a few illustrations for a biology professor at NC State University. I received word that the final revision was indeed the last, and now these and a few others have been posted in the brand new scientific illustration area of my other site.

I truly enjoy doing this type of work as it allows me to merge my love of science with my desire to create art. Both of these images were created from scratch in Illustrator CS2.

We took pup to the dog park yesterday and after much running around she managed to become quite muddy. We wrapped her in a sheet for the ride home and deposited her straight into the shower for a bath…

She attempted to escape, but thankfully stopped before tracking the mud into our bedroom!

Because I am getting over my sinus infection (I finally broke down and went to the doctor for antibiotics on Wednesday), I will be working on the photos from South Africa amidst all the football watching this weekend. :)

Categorized by region, but in no particular order…

Somerset West
Morgenster—lovely olive oil and wine tasting (three bordeaux style red blends).
Vergelegen—the wine tasting was impersonal with a la carte pricing but the beautiful estate and gardens made up for the lack of charm.
Wellington
Diemersfontein—the most delicious chocolate and coffee pinotage! The wine tasting room closed seven minutes before we arrived, but the service staff allowed us to hang out on the patio and order a few glasses of wine and enjoy the sunshine. This was by far the best pinotage of the trip.
Hex River Valley
De Doorns Co-op—mix of wines from the local wine growers, the best was an unusual Viognier/Shiraz blend from Auction Crossing.
Constantia
Groot Constantia—huge place, very touristy, but they have some decent wines and a good port.
Buitenverwachting—we tried a sauvignon blanc from here in NY before we left and when we asked about it, the woman had no idea what I was talking about. Regardless, we really liked the dessert wine. {see update below}
Darling
Groote Post—charming place, the best wine was the Old Man’s Blend red.
Ormonde Vineyards—nice sauvignon blanc, but we decided we aren’t big fans of bush vine grapes in general.
Darling Cellars—forgettable.
Cloof—nice shiraz and pinotage but the guy was rude and that can be a dealbreaker for us. {see update #2 below}
Worcester
Nuy—good wines, a very nice dessert wine, but the woman pouring seemed to have no knowledge or interest in the wines.
Stellenbosch
Spier—not impressed with the wine, but the buffet lunch at Moyo restaurant and cheetah exhibit were great.

Update: Because the internet is an amazing place, we just received an email from a US importer for the Buitenverwachting winery in response to this post. The wine we had in NY was the ‘Beyond’ sauvignon blanc and we liked it so much, we made sure to visit the winery on our trip. Apparently, the same wine is called Buiten Blanc in South Africa; it was renamed for distribution here because of the possible trouble pronouncing Buitenverwachting in the US. She also forwarded our comments to the winery, so they are aware of the alternate name. (Thanks Molly!)

Update #2: We also received an email from Cloof asking for more information about our “rude” host, so we let him know the exact date and time we visited the winery. Frankly, I feel the guy’s attitude directly stemmed from the fact that the winery closed at 4pm and he had little interest in helping us because we walked in at 3:40pm. My dad purchased some wines (simply because they were very good), but as soon as we walked out the door, it was shut and audibly locked behind us. I hope the man who contacted us looks into this matter and am glad he wrote asking for a follow-up.

We left NY Saturday night around 8p, and were in our own bed in NC by 6am Sunday morning. Leandra can do some amazing things when she drinks coffee :) Since the three of us are exhausted most of today has been a well-earned lazy football-watching day. Our trip was great, but its always nice to get back home afterwards!

More posts about South Africa and London to come later in the week…