A couple of weeks ago, my wife asked me if I would take a white water kayaking class with a friend of mine. Turns out, his wife wanted to surprise him with a 2 day class for Father’s Day hosted by White Water Learning Center of Georgia but he needed somebody to go with him. I’ve spent a dozen + years on the water in small boats but never had a chance to do any white water kayaking so I agreed.
This one came directly from a friend and fellow iPhone user I met in Columbus, Ohio last weekend. At the moment, AT&T doesn’t officially support tethering. They have a seperate 3G USB adapter product that costs an extra $60/month. However, with the latest 3.0 OS release, somebody over at BenM.at figured out a way to modify the default carrier profile to enable the feature (already built into the new OS).
It doesn’t require jailbreaking or a funky SIM/Service hack, it’s 100% reversable and on U.S. carriers, doesn’t seem to affect IMs. You can turn it on/off via a config interface under Settings -> General -> Network -> Internet Tethering. It supports both USB and BlueTooth connections (after pairing with your laptop, look for a new network adapter).
Of course at some point, I’m sure AT&T will try to squash this hack. We already pay for “unlimited” data service via the iPhone interface so I assume that as long as people keep their tethering usage to a minimum, not much will happen until AT&T figures out how to trap and charge people for the service.
Sunday 7/19/09
Trip: 6.36 miles
Elevation: 3003ft (max) 1975ft (min) ~1194ft (total accent)
Time: 3h 15m
Temperature: 75 F
Wind: Light breeze
Conditions: Clear, no precipitation, low humidity
Pack Weight: ~31lbs (Madeline in her carry pack)
Summary:
The Little River Trail is just one of about 40 or so easy, single day hiking trails located in the northern section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Mel and I were in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. for a friend’s wedding and decided on spending our final afternoon hiking. A quick conversation with a Ranger at the north entrance welcome center and we were off for Elkmont and the Little River Trail. The Little River Trail is well groomed and graded (more like a narrow gravel road) and follows the Little River for several miles. Roughly 2.4 miles up the trail is the Cucumber Gap trail head. This trail takes a more aggressive climb back towards the Elkmont camping area via the back side of Burnt Mountain but makes for a great ~5 mile loop. Perfect hiking weather and great views of the Little River made for a nice day hike with the family.
It’s official. Mel-High class of 1990 will meet for our 20 year reunion on June 25th – 26th, 2010.
I’m getting old.
Not much new to report, just trying to get re-acclimated to the oppressive heat during the Georgia Summer while watching Maddie grow up.
After several weeks of holding herself up, she final starting taking hesitant steps on her own. Everyday, she gets a little more confident and walks a little bit further. I have a feeling it won’t be long before she’s running around full speed.
http://thetobers.net/videos/madeline_walking.flv