New Orleans to LAX is done and now we are on the plane ready to depart to Seoul, South Korea. More updates in the morning, or day, or whenever I wake up across the Pacific.
-Chris & Nicole
OLDER ARTICLES
Thursday, July 8th is the day of departure for Nicole and I on our Asian Adventure. We will be spending some time with family and seeing the sights of Asia for 16 days. Our plan is to arrive back in Mobile on July 24th.
From what I have heard there are great things like Bird Nest Soup to eat in the great motherland. I’m not sure if I’m up to eating stuff like that but I will have my new iPhone with me so I’ll be taking some video and possibly uploading it to the site.
One of the great aspects of this trip will be for us to get to see my extended family. Some I haven’t seen since I was about 5 years old and some I have never met before in my life. The culture shock is probably going to be one of the craziest things because neither I nor Nicole know any lick of Mandarin Chinese. The only thing I know is “NE-HOW” which means hello. What does comes in handy is the apps found on the iPad and iPhone that we have with us. They have great lines like, “I’ve been raped!” “Where is the closest strip club?” and “I’m drunk, I need a taxi.” I don’t think we will be using any of those lines though.
If you want to keep up with what we are doing stay tuned and I will hopefully be able to post some pictures on this site. Facebook is blocked in China, but that’s not gonna stop me. MCPSS thought they blocked me from Facebook too, but I got their number. If you wanna text me you can to my Google Voice number at 251-210-7018. I’ll be able to text back via email and stuff so try it out.
Keep Jesus first,
Chris
Here is my unrestricted iPhone 4 Review
Being an Apple fan I was anticipating the new iPhone 4 that was going to be released this past Thursday. Another reason was because my old 1st Generation iPhone was not working properly anymore. Because of new updates and larger applications the 1G iPhone was getting to be really sluggish….kind of like an old PC. I could handle that, but I could not handle when the bottom 1/4 of the touch screen quit responding. It is hard to call someone when you cannot push the Phone Icon. Need less to say I was getting really excited about the iPhone 4 coming out.
About two days before the Pre-Orders started for the iPhone 4 was when my 1G iPhone started this. So my plan was to get up early the morning of Pre-Orders and try and fight the bandwidth battle with about 600,000 others. I finally got through on the Apple website and confirmed my 32GB iPhone for shipment and arrival on the release date of June 24. The great thing about ordering from Apple is that sometimes you will get perks for doing so. The perk this time was receiving it a day early on June 23rd. This made me very happy because I didn’t have to fight all the updating on iTunes on the release date like I did when I received my 1G iPhone on release day.
Nicole called about 3:30p on the 23rd and told me my iPhone 4 had come in so I hurried home to find the greatest phone known to man (at this time). Back to the church I headed to set it up and play a little while before church started that night. To my amazement the iPhone 4 was everything and more than I expected. Here we go:
- Speed -
It has remarkable speed browsing through applications, internet over Wi-Fi & 3G, and multi-tasking. Not only with the applications, but it kept up with my “fast typing skills.” With movies there wasn’t a skip in the play, nor was there any shutter in the spotlight search. All in all the speed of the iPhone lightning fast.
- Display -
I have never seen anything so clear in my life. We have a 64GB iPad and the first thing I thought when we got that was, “wow, it’s so clear.” Honestly, the iPhone puts the iPad and anything else that I have seen to shame. The remarkable aspect is that it is so small, but so clear. I can tell that 3rd-party applications need to update their icons because they are pixelated on the screen compared to the stock iPhone icons. Movies and text are as fine as looking at a 240hz LED 1080p Television.
- Call Quality & FaceTime -
Coming from a 1st Gen iPhone the Call Quality is 10 times better. I can actually hear what people say now. When using the Speaker Phone I actually have to turn it down because it is so loud. I have only had 1 drop call so far, but the reason was on the other end and not mine. Facetime is also remarkable. The quality of the picture is just as good or better than a webcam except with no skipping. With the 2 cameras you can flip to either side of the phone while in the call to show the person you are talking to what you want.
- HD Video @ 720p -
This is probably my favorite part of the phone. Being a video enthusiast I love that I can shoot High-Def Video with a phone. That means, I’ve got a decent camera where ever I go. My main concern was with how will the sound quality be, but I was impressed that it wasn’t that bad. It probably could be better if you could hookup a microphone to the mic port, but I am satisfied with what is there.
- Design -
Last but not least is the design of this masterpiece. Whomever decided to put glass on the front and back should get a raise. Probably the most appealing part is the cleanness of how it looks (without all the fingerprints.) It is rock solid with the Stainless Steel all the way around and really show off that Apple has put some thought into this one. I really just like holding it and showing it off, but I believe it is easier to hold than the older design.
If you read everything you can probably say that I am very excited about having this device as my phone. I am hoping that 3rd-Parties will make some worthy Multi-tasking applications so I can use this phone to it’s potential. If anyone reading has any questions please shoot them my way at christaylor@thectspot.com. I’ll try and answer any questions that are emailed.
Thanks for reading and make sure to keep Jesus Christ the Lord of your life,
Chris
Well, it looks like summer is going to be jam packed me Nicole and I. We have lots of things planned from trips to events to more trips to more events. Our main trip of the summer will be our trip to South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China (in that order.) We are hoping that it will be a very fun and educational trip for us. I did not add relaxing because we will not be relaxing much as we will only have about 16 days total to accomplish all the sites in all the countries we are visiting. By the way, I don’t think it is possible to do that in 16 months, but we are going to try it anyways.
Summer also adds time for Nicole to chill out. After 180 plus days of 6 and 7 year olds Nicole gets a little tired of working. FYI, this is not a rant on Nicole, but I am thankful and she is thankful to have a job that gives the summers off. She loves the beach and working in the yard. I would push the dislike button on both.
Nicole being off this summer also gives me someone to go to the Lighthouse Restaurant with, which is my favorite restaurant in the world. Party the reason why it is my favorite because it is like a family reunion every time you walk in there. Plus you get a full meal for $6.50. I’m not talking about just a sandwich and chips, I’m talking about Big ole glasses of Sweet Tea, big entree, some sides to go with it, and dessert. My stomach is growling as I type.
As my summer will be busy and sometimes a bit strenuous I pray that you can relax and soak in the summer rays next to a pool, shoreline, or dirty presley’s water. Come to think of it the shoreline may be a bit dirtier now with the oil and stuff.
Anyways, keep Christ first this summer.
Chris Taylor
Oh how I love Graduations….sike. Probably my favorite graduations are the public schools because of the time they are in and out of the Mitchell Center. This past Wednesday I had the opportunity to go to Bryant’s graduation. It was great because it lasted about an hour total and I was out of there and at Dreamland BBQ in about 10 minutes. The next graduation we had the opportunity to be a part of was Cottage Hill Christian Academy’s.
Usually the private school graduation services take a bit longer so Nicole and I planned on being a little late to this one. After some good eats at Beef-o-Brady’s we headed up to Cottage Hill Baptist Church for the service. We walked in and upstairs expecting to sit for a while for the service. A few mintues after we sat the Slideshow ended and names started to be called. The great thing was that we were there to see Nolan Brown walk and get his diploma and he was the 3rd student to be called. Once we finished cheering and the next name was called, Nicole and I headed out. We were so happy that we timed it almost perfectly.
Faith Academy is our last graduation to be a part of and it deems to be the longest one of all. A few years ago we made the mistake of going at the beginning of Johnny Ladnier’s graduation from Faith. Needless to say I was glad I had a phone with some games on it. Nicole continuously tells me that we are not going to show up until about 9:30, but we will probably be there a little earlier than that. This year is the largest graduation of students from our church from Faith Academy so we will probably stay at least for all their names.
As most of this post sounds negative, I am happy for all the students to be graduating and will be praying for their lives as they transision into adulthood. My prayer is that they will Live for Christ in this transision.
Always Love Christ the Risen Savior,
Chris Taylor
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