Pancake Breakfast And Blazing Fast Cable Internet

Let’s see, what did we do today?  All I know is the day began with Paulette getting up at 6am and she was out the door by 7am and on her way to Monica’s Quilt Shop in Palm Desert for an 8am super garage sale.  Kim went with her as well.  Getting up that early for any kind of sale or shopping is way out there!!

The Pancake Breakfasts at the Sands are my favourite

Maybe the quilting garage sale was good, I don’t know, but Paulette missed her first Pancake Breakfast of the year up at the clubhouse.  This is one of the really good and fun deals here at the Sands.  For only $4, you get all you can eat pancakes with scrambled eggs, sausage and coffee.  It’s a great spot to meet up with folks too.

Another beautiful day in Palm Springs

I sat down at a long table with Don (Kim) and soon found myself talking to a guy from Minnesota who had worked for IBM from the 60s right through to the 90’s.  Since I worked with IBM equipment and had a close working relationship with IBM, we enjoyed a great conversation talking about the ‘old days’ of 80 column punch cards!

I’m going to give the golf course a go next week

Speaking of computers, we made a giant leap forward in Internet speed and capacity yesterday. We’ve switched from our Verizon 5GB USB and Cradlepoint router setup to blazing fast broadband cable with Time Warner. The dreaded 5GB cap is gone and we now have unlimited Internet access with the same speed we have at home.

Note:  Judging from a few comments left this morning, I seem to have not explained this device very well.  It is, in fact, both a wired and wireless router.  The Arris modem/router is a combo device that does both so we have the speed of wired connections for our laptops plus the freedom, speed and always on WiFi network for our iPads and smartphones.

We now have lightning fast cable broadband Internet

The cost for the Internet broadband setup is only $35 a month.  They supplied the router/modem box free of charge as long as I return it when we leave.  After I got it setup and working, including our own secure WiFi network for our iPads, I suspended our Verizon mobile account which cost us $60 a month.  We’re using short network cables to connect our laptops to the router.

The barren desert out behind the Sands RV Resort

The other advantage of having a hi-speed setup is that I can now use my Apple TV gizmo as we no longer have any GB download limits.  I signed up for a U.S. Netflix account ($7.95 per month) and last night we watched a few movies including Seal Team Six: The Raid On Osama Bin Laden (note:  I got to pick the first movie to watch).

Sunday we’re planning to go on our first desert hike of this year.  We haven’t decided exactly where we’re going but Paulette and I are really looking forward to it.  If the muttzo’s knew they’d be pretty excited about it as well.  We all need to wear off some of the great food we’ve been enjoying since we arrived.

Have a great Sunday, and thanks again for visiting!