ScottMcLeod.com

The green 4GB iPod Mini I ordered from Apple's online store arrived the other day. I was waffling over whether to spend the $325 CDN on the Mini or order Apple's new smaller capacity iPod Shuffle, which does not include an LCD, but a few things decided me on the Mini.

Apple just reduced the price of the Mini to $250, a price I felt more comfortable spending. At twice the price of the Shuffle but with eight times the capacity and an LCD I felt the Mini was the better deal. The big name electronic stores are sold out of the Minis except for the pink model and Apple was offering free shipping, perhaps for a limited time, so I ordered it online. The Mini has more features that make the experience of listening to music more enjoyable, and that's ultimately what it comes down to.

I finally resolved to buy some sort of MP3 player after having to endure 30 minutes of noisy breathing and grunting from the schmuck on the treadmill next to me at the gym one night. He had on his music and probably wasn't aware of how much noise he was making. I took a look around and noted more people had personal music players than not and said to myself, "That's it! I'm getting an iPod."

For those not aware, I was born in Bermuda and lived there until I was 14 before my family moved to Canada. Growing up on an isolated island (North Carolina, the nearest landfall, was over 700 miles away) only 20 miles long and 2 miles wide made for a very different experience than those who grew up in Canada. I was always amazed whenever we'd visit Canada or the States by the open spaces and long stretches of highway that are non-existent in Bermuda. I feel fortunate to have grown up in a tourist haven where I experienced different cultures (British, Portuguese, Canadian/American, Caribbean) and played in a variety of sports I wouldn't have otherwise.

I don't think much about Bermuda anymore; it's been almost nine years since we moved here. But it's still close to my heart. Today I came across two news items, one good, one bad, concerning Bermuda that I wanted to share.

Found via Bermuda's national newspaper, The Royal Gazette, the first item concerns a beach I lived one minute from and spent hundreds of hours at swimming, body surfing and running around as a child. The Travel Channel will be airing a feature on the world's top ten beaches and Horseshoe Bay is one of them, where they consider it "Best Postcard Beach." (See picture.) If only we had left when I was a few years older!

Bermuda's tourism industry, so vital to the island's economy, has struggled in recent years and led to several hotel closures. The slump began in 1996 with the brutal murder of an attractive 17 year-old female Canadian tourist. The trials of the two men responsible were botched by the Crown and one received a 5-year conviction for being an accessory while the other got off on a technicality. Understandably the family was furious and launched a campaign to boycott Bermuda. The entire affair was covered extensively by Canadian newspapers, with a large photo of her printed every story, and the negative publicity no doubt caused a drop in Canadian tourists. The increased apprehension towards flying and travel after 9/11 further contributed to the slump. Hopefully the feature will spark interest.

The other news item is a fallout of the slumping tourism industry mentioned above. Trimingham's, a Bermudian department store founded in 1842, announced that it will be closing its doors for the first time in 163 years at the end of July. Located on unquestionably the most prime real estate in Bermuda's capital city of Hamilton, the store is uniquely Bermudian and part of the experience of visiting the island. I was stunned when I first heard the news as Trimingham's seemed secure and successful with seven locations across the island. If Trimingham's struggled enough to close shop then certainly the smaller stores are also struggling.

This is a clear indication of the extent to which the tourism industry has declined and I can only hope it improves before more hotels and stores close and Bermuda's culture is threatened.

Update: I haven't found the motivation to post.

Until now!

I'm just over halfway through my fifth work term and thought I'd share the courses I will be taking in my upcoming 4A study term. It's hard to believe we've made it through first, second and third year already. I still remember 1A pretty well.

But with only two study terms and one work term remaining the end is definitely in sight. I've enjoyed each school term more than the last and will be genuinely sad when it comes to an end, feelings in no small part due to my classmates. A unique experience of Engineering is that our class has moved forward taking the same core courses each term and have come to know each other quite well. Next term is the first where we branch off according to our interests. I hope to see familiar faces in my courses.

With Paul's urging here are the classes I am fairly certain to be taking next term:

ECE 411 - Digital Communications
ECE 431 - Radio Frequency Microelectronics
ECE 438 - Digital Integrated Circuits
CLAS 225 - Classical Mythology

Our fourth year design project is our fifth course. I'm considering taking a fourth technical elective in place of the non-technical mythology elective. However that coupled with the design project would make the term quite heavy. I'm also not sure what course I'd take in place of the elective.

An unintended consequence I suppose of selecting all my courses for the first time is that they won't all be scheduled in blocks. Instead I will have multi-hour gaps every day. Can't be helped.

Of course none of this makes much sense to this site's casual readers.

(Casual readers?!)