Brett Terpstratravel page - Brett Terpstra

On my way to Macworld ’11

Brett — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:12:23 +0000

I’m sitting at the airport on free wifi right now, getting ready to embark on a trip from Minnesota to California for Macworld. If anyone is headed out there, I’d love to meet you. TUAW will be holding a meetup at some point, I think, so watch @tuaw_mwsf for that. I can also be reached on Twitter at @ttscoff, or contact me through the contact form here. I look forward to seeing some new faces and meeting up with old friends!

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at On my way to Macworld ’11

Home from Punta Cana

Brett — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 01:26:15 +0000

We made it home from our vacation to Punta Cana late this afternoon. The vacation was amazing, and I made new friends and put some faces (and amazing personalities) with names I already knew. A great time was had by all. The trip home, US Customs, canceled flights and fleabag hotels I could have lived without, but I’m home safe and looking forward to getting back to work, coding on my various projects, and catching up on all of the TUAW news I missed!

My Drobo wasn’t happy to see me, unfortunately, so now I get to try to figure out how to get back a couple terrabytes of data. Good times. Everything else is awesome, though, and a big thanks to our friend Jon Clark for house-sitting and leaving the place better than he found it!

p.s. If anyone has any tips for dealing with a Drobo that lights up everything (full bar across the bottom and a red light on every drive bay) as soon as you plug it in and never attempts to boot, please let me know.

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Home from Punta Cana

Homeward, eventually

Brett — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:44:12 +0000

In Punta Cana, when they let us know that there was no way we were going to make it through customs in time for our connecting flight, they promised us a hotel room and a cab. We got to Miami, made it through customs and finally got to a ticketing counter to collect our hotel room. They shook their heads at our naiveté.

We received the usual “Distress Voucher” and headed out to the shuttle area. Meanwhile, I looked up Airport Regency Hotel in Miami on Yelp.com to see what we were getting into. I read 4 or 5 reviews and rapidly decided it would be worth the extra money to do anything other than spend the night at this hotel. Unfortunately every hotel we called was completely booked. So, after waiting for 30 minutes, we resigned ourselves to getting on the Regency shuttle when it showed up. Here’s what I will be copying and pasting into my Yelp review when I get a chance:

It didn’t look so bad on the outside, nor in the lobby, but the room immediately confirmed my gut instinct. The lights were aging compact fluorescents; the ones with the sickly green cast to them. That didn’t help the rest of the room look better, from the torn comforter spilling its inner contents to the janky little tv that I doubt would have worked if we had tried. The smell of vomit pervaded the sleeping area, and the smell of urine was less than pleasant in the bathroom.

Pulling back the ragged top layer of the bed revealed a stained second cover with somebody else’s hair on it. Yes, that kind of hair. I immediately began to itch, which may have been psychosomatic, but my wife and I agreed that this may not have been a step up from sleeping on an airport bench after all. The fact that we really only had four hours until we headed back to the airport made it somewhat more bearable, and I reluctantly slid between what appeared to be recently washed sheets.

I slept hard, and only woke up once due to the sound of loud music from below and airplanes from above. I will give them this: after a week in a Dominican Republic hotel room with only one grounded outlet and one two-prong outlet, the electrical situation was at least up to code. All of my devices were charged in the morning, for which I am grateful. See? I always find something nice to say.

The happy ending to the story is that the shuttle driver was friendly in the morning (4 a.m.) and I didn’t get into any swearing matches with the surly ticket counter folk back at the airport. We’re on a plane right now, headed for Dallas, Texas. I don’t know why we’re going to Texas, but we will supposedly be back to our home in the waist-deep snow by this afternoon. Four more hours in the air and two on the ground, and then we can relax… and sleep. Then–based on what I’ve heard–shovel.

I really do hate traveling.

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Homeward, eventually

Miami, Dallas and home

Brett — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:16:46 +0000

Aditi and I are at the airport in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Wifi is a little spotty, but I’m going to see if I can get this posted from my iPad. Our flight to Miami was delayed enough that we’re going to miss the last connecting flight that would have gotten us any closer to home than Florida. We get an extra night of vacation, I guess, courtesy of American Airlines.

I had a great week in the DR and made some great new friends. We’re a little crabby about the travel kinks, but I look forward to posting some video/photos of our awesome vacation soon!

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Miami, Dallas and home

Big Nerd Ranchero

Brett — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:42:43 +0000

I’m sitting at the airport in Minneapolis, waiting for a flight to Atlanta. I’m headed for Big Nerd Ranch for a week-long crash course in iPhone programming. I’ve done a little, but I think it will be a great way to start from the basics and fill in all of the holes in my knowledge. The thing is, I’m a little torn about the circumstances; Big Nerd Ranch is paying for this trip and providing a week of classes in order for me to review the facilities for The Unofficial Apple Weblog, where I’m a blogger. There’s nothing innately wrong with the situation, it’s essentially the same as receiving an NFR license for software to review, except for I can’t give away the license at the end, and it’s worth a whole lot more.

I want to maintain my “journalistic integrity,” but I’m not sure how this will turn out in the end. Big Nerd Ranch is pretty legendary, and I feel like it would be a waste to decline the invitation. I also feel like there are plenty of developers and would-be devs who would love to have a look at the offerings. I just don’t want to be pegged as providing reviews in exchange for anything. I’ve always been good about paying for software I’ve reviewed and continued using, returning review hardware (or buying it, in the case of the ViDock). I don’t want this to be a black mark on my integrity.

This is the plan, then: I’ll be letting the ranch speak for itself. I’ll be shooting video and doing interviews with the personalities involved, including Aaron Hillegass, which I’m pretty psyched about. I won’t be adding a lot of commentary or expressing my own opinions about the experience. If something’s great, it should come through as great without much help from me. I’ve noticed that people only question your integrity if you say positive things… but I doubt I’ll have much negative input in this case.

As I said, this is an opportunity I just couldn’t bear to pass up. It’s exciting and very generous of Big Nerd Ranch. What will be, will be, I guess.

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Big Nerd Ranchero