Our 2012 Honda Pilot Twins Plus Newborn Car Seat Challenge

With our third child about a month away it was time to prepare for three kids under 2 in our new 2012 Honda Pilot. We specifically bought the Pilot because it could hold four car seats, 3 in the back seat and one in the way back. We used Chicco's Keyfit 30 carseat and base for Otto and Zachary, but recently they graduated up to a pair of the forward facing Britax Decathlon. When I went to try configuring the back seat with the two Britax and the Chicco there simply wasn't enough room.

The configuration we were shooting for was Passenger Side - [Britax] [Britax] [Chicco] - Driver's Side.  The base of the Britax was too high and too wide for the Chicco to securely fit. If you loosened up the anchors maybe they'd fit but we all know that's not acceptable from a safety perspective.

After doing some online research we found the Diono RadianR100 Convertible Car Seat who's base was lower to the seat which should make getting the twins in easier as well as it is about 17 inches wide vs the 19 inch wide base on the Britax.  I just installed all three seats today and thankfully there was plenty of room.

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Waze should partner up with the Hampton Jitney

I was first introduced to Waze on a business trip to the West Coast by an Israeli co-worker who swore by it. In general I'm not a fan of using my iPhone as an in-car GPS because multi-use usually equates to mutually exclusive use. You also usually need to get some device to hold the iPhone to prevent you from crashing your car and let's face it- most iPhone apps are buggy. If I'm driving I tend to like the reliability my Garmin nüvi 3790LMT  provides - it never crashes or starts ringing with a phone call; although my Garmin once did connect via Bluetooth to someone else's cell phone in a nearby car along the highway.

But my constant desire to optimize my driving allowed me to overcome this multi-use phobia.
For instance, I hate sitting in traffic especially due to imperfect information, so I found a holder for my iPhone on Amazon, Amzer Swiveling Air Vent Mount for iPhone 4.  I decided to run a parallel test; I'd drive around with both my Garmin and Waze giving their optimal routes using their traffic data.  Notwithstanding the annoyance of having two sets of directions blaring out, I can report the following results.

In a couple of instances Waze beat out the Garmin by reporting major accidents much sooner than the Garmin.  A few times the Garmin knew a better route than the Waze, but over time Waze's traffic data improved significantly but it's still not perfect.

My current challenge is how to get better traffic data along the roads to the fabled Hamptons, where My Big Redneck Vacation was filmed. My wife and I drive out on a regular basis and the summer traffic can be excruciating. My Garmin with traffic data unfortunately doesn't have coverage for Route 27.  While it would be great to watch Waze users grow organically, why not accelerate it and improve the real time traffic data?

The Hampton Jitney is one of three mass transit options from the city out east. Their schedule during most of the day is one bus per hour in each direction- sometimes more frequently. They would be a perfect partner to submit traffic data to Waze. On trips I'll hear the Jitney driver calling in to headquarters or other drivers trying to figure out traffic conditions. The buses have free wifi and I'd bet that the drivers have smart phones. Either way you could equip each bus attendant or driver with a Waze-supported device and have all those buses feed the network.

A Waze-Hampton Jitney partnership could give the bus icons a custom logo, just like they do for advertisers. Jitney would get some free promotion and they would also benefit with data for themselves and those who are driving from Montauk to Manhattan. Or why not strike a deal with Greyhound and other bus companies to feed data in all over the US?

In contrast, on my last visit to Israel I used Waze as my GPS and it was amazing to see the market penetration. Normally you drive down a road in  the New York metro area and you'll see an occasional Wazer driver; in Tel Aviv the entire road was covered with Wazers. All of them were feeding in that always important traffic and speed trap data to the Waze community.

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iPhone 4 circular reference wifi tethering bug in ios5?

I think this screenshot captures the essence. That's my phone thinking it can tether with itself.

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Giving up Crackberry for iMeth

This past Monday I handed in my Blackberry.  I was carrying two devices: a Blackberry for work and an  iPhone for personal use. I needed to simplify; one less device to forget going through airport security, one less charger. So I started testing out my work email on my iPad which worked well, then started testing out the iPhone on the exchange server.

My crackberry addiction goes all the way back to my early Advertising.com days after the bubble burst and there was a flood of used blackberries on eBay for sale. A couple of us picked up the 950 models and we were off to the races. After upgrading through various models I definitely think it is the superior corporate email device, and still remains so in my mind.

We all know the iPhone apps are what set the devices apart.   While I would take a real keyboard and Blackberry exchange integration over the iPhone, the Blackberry apps simply don't compare. Whether I'm checking my flights on my Delta app or listening to something out of my iTunes library it's a simple setup and easy to use.

Carrying two devices that emitted radio waves also seemed like something I should try to avoid. I do carry a charger for the iPhone where ever I go to make sure I don't go dark.  I have to say it's nice to be down one device.

Full disclosure:  my idea for iMeth came from the latest Roger Waters Tour.

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It's the end of my 10 year affair with TiVo

It's been a long affair with my TiVo, starting 9/5/2000. After purchasing a Series One box in September of 2000, I was addicted. The functionality, the ability to get a season pass, being able to efficiently consume my favorite shows and skip commercials - I was hooked.

They are the pioneers and even with all the miss-steps, they are still here today. In the past month I started to question whether I should upgrade my TiVo or succumb to Cablevision's own cheaper DVR service. There were pros and cons to weigh, including all of the offers TiVo was dangling in front of me to upgrade, discounts on the Premiere box, etc.

With my current Series II setup, I was missing HD quality recording and with a nice 42" LCD I was missing out. I started to notice it more and more when I watched live sports at friends' homes. It also drove me crazy to have all the different remote controls and not being able to leverage the IO features easily.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I started looking into seriously switching in mid-November and started checking out the Optimum options. Cablevision offers a HD DVR for about $11 a month with no box to buy. I was paying TiVo $14.95 a month and would need to buy a new box and then rent a cable card from Cablevision.

In the end I called Cablevision and ordered the box.  It came via FedEx and I returned my old box. Easy and simple.

Now I'm on the phone with TiVo to cancel my service and I must say they made quite an effort to save me.  The rep put me on hold for 2-3 minutes while they  "processed" my cancellation. I'm sure it's scientifically designed to be the optimal process to create dumper's remorse. Holding was essentially listening to an infomercial for TiVo Premiere.

On comes my rep, who said he talked to his manager and because I'm such a great customer I was then offered a Premiere box for $99.99 plus my normal monthly fee. He also tried to give me a free month of service through December which would allow me to stay eligible for all the upgrade offers if I changed my mind about the Optimum DVR.

Am I pining away for my TiVo?


TiVo clearly is the best TV/DVR OS (operating system) out there. The remote is well designed, making it simple to navigate and drive your viewing pleasure. The discovery system, TiVo suggested recordings based on your likes (thumbs up), or dislikes (thumbs down) found many a TV show I never would have found. Southern Fried Stings is a recent example. I'm going to ignore the On-Demand streaming features because almost any device (game console, computer) you connect has them now.

The Optimum DVR has the basic functions of TiVo, but with some key limitations. The season pass functionality only allows you to look seven days out. If the show isn't on within the next seven days no luck recording it. There isn't any discovery functionality either, so it's now my responsibility to find new shows. The remote is a standard cable remote, but the UI isn't as smooth or well laid out as TiVo's. One nice feature is an iPhone app that let's you schedule or delete shows remotely.

Yes, I miss the TiVo operating system, but I'm disappointed that they never became the TV operating system for the masses. I would happily pay a couple bucks more a month for a TiVo software upgrade on my Optimum rented box. It's nice to reduce the number of boxes under my television.

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