Travelstart France Blog

I use a tool called "Google Blog Search" to alert me whenever someone uses a photograph of mine from my Flickr site; where I am known as 'The Marmot'. This is a recent occurrence.

The gist of this post, I am told, is that seeing my photograph reminded the author of a great meal the he had in Marrakech (or Marrakesh, as I know it). The post describes the restaurant and notes that it is owned by a group of women.

This photo is of a home cooked meal made by my late wife, and as about as far from Morocco as one can get. Both this dish, and the cooking vessel in which it is traditionally prepared are called Tagine. Susan actually used a Dutch oven as basically a tagine is a slow-cooked stew braised at low temperatures, resulting in tender meat with aromatic vegetables and sauce.

Flor de Succulent

Flor de Succulent
Originally uploaded by The Marmot

Proof of Concept

The other day I was sitting in a seeming endless meeting. It was apparent early on that I would neither have anything to contribute nor to learn as it was a rehash of ground that was covered last week and will be gone over again the next as well. Therefore my mind began to wander and I began to reflect up the virtues of my recently acquired iPod touch.

Now, I receive a lot of grief from those who know me for having a tendency to collect too many gadgets, and that may be true. I actually got this iPod for free for purchasing a MacBook that I really could get by without. Truth be told, I probably did not need another iPod either as my third generation nano was only a couple of months old, but (in a pain medication induced haze) the deal seemed just too good to pass up.

Overall, it was a foolish deal, but I am glad to have the iPod touch. Its ability to surf the web and send email from any Wi-Fi hot spot will pretty much allow me to leave the notebook at home when I travel to conferences and the like. It also holds a bunch of photos, which got me to thinking (tying this back to the first paragraph) – ‘If Flickr can be updated from a phone, why not from an iPod?’ So I tried it and sure enough it works.

Ain’t technology grand?