We left Kenosha on Friday night–technically it was Saturday morning, since we left after midnight. I slept from about 6pm Friday to around midnight, as Sandy and Kevin packed and got things ready. After I got up, we loaded the car and left. Socks was so confused, with everyone leaving him alone in the middle of the night.

The hardest part of the drive was that first night driving in the dark, getting sleepy mainly just because it was dark out. After the sun came up it was much easier to stay awake and see everything. Sandy even tried driving, once we hit a stretch of 200+ miles of straight road, and it worked out well, allowing me to get some much-needed rest. She did that a few more times on the trip down, which was a huge relief for me each time.

Kevin started collecting state pins for his hat along the way, so he’s got quite a few already. We stayed overnight at Travelodge in Amarillo, TX on Saturday night, and it was very comfortable. Then in the morning we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo before heading out on the rest of the drive to Phoenix. The Cadillac Ranch was unexpectedly ice-cold and out in the middle of a field, so we froze a bit, and had to make it only a short stop before hurrying back to the car to thaw out. Unfortunately we didn’t stay until the sun came all the way up, or we would have gotten some better photos than we did. The rest of the Sunday drive was nice, much less stressful than Saturday was, since the driving was only during the daylight hours.

The visit with Jay and his family was great. We ate good, played good, and just took it easy most of the time, when we weren’t preparing for, or going on, our little excursions in the area. We had planned to drive to Hollywood and LA this year, but it just didn’t work out this time, so we skipped it. Maybe next year. It’s still on our “to do” list. We want to see the walk of fame, the Hollywood sign, and a few other famous locales in that area, at the very least.

Did I mention the horses…er, I mean, their dogs? Jay has two of the largest dogs I’ve ever played with. Ozzie is a 12-year-old St. Bernard, and Duke is a 5-month-old Great Dane puppy! Duke (the puppy!) makes poops larger than Socks himself! Socks would be a light snack for him. And, appropriately, he makes the exact same sound as a Clydesdale when he walks across their hardwood floors! He’s very playful and friendly, but he certainly doesn’t realize his size and power and hasn’t learned to respect personal space yet. Ozzie, on the other hand, is a “gentle giant”, just chillin’ all the time and looking for a nice petting from anyone willing to pay attention to him. It was fun watching them wrestle and play tug-of-war together too.  There are some photos of them in here.

We went camping at Lake Pleasant Tuesday and Wednesday, and came back Thursday morning. That was very nice, the weather was excellent, and my only complaint was an upset stomach and diarrhea I picked up from something along the way. It passed in a couple days though, so all in all it was really nice.  There are a few Lake Pleasant photos in this miscellaneous album.

Monday 4/1 we went to Tombstone and The Thing. Just after leaving Tombstone, we had to stop at a border patrol checkpoint. Their dog sniffed our car, we were asked if we were all US Citizens, Sandy said hello to the nice doggy, and we were back on the road. The Thing was full of its usual weirdness, our in the middle of nowhere (Dragoon, AZ) but still has an excellent gift shop and a Dairy Queen, which we took full advantage of. Kevin, of course, had to collect his usual bag of rocks for his collection, and some other trinkets

Tuesday, 4/2, Jay drove us up South Mountain. This is another must-see every time someone new is with us. The view is not to be missed. Shell came with this time, and she isn’t too fond of heights. This was Sandy’s first visit, and I think she really liked it.

On the way back from South Mountain we went for lunch at Alice Cooperstown. This is a really cool restaurant located 2 blocks from Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. It’s a warehouse-style building filled with music memorabilia, and featuring a 2-foot hot dog called “The Big Unit”. I took several photos, but with my current diet, I didn’t have the guts to order The Big Unit. A couple other people did while we were there, and they make a big deal out of it. I didn’t manage to get the camera out in time, so I missed a photo of the actual thing. Maybe next time I’ll even order one myself. I could always split it with someone, or take some home.

We also visited the Roosevelt Dam while we were there. It was really neat, and very well documented at the viewing areas on both sides of the dam. Then, after talking to a couple other travelers who came from the other direction, we decided to head back home by way of the Apache Trail. This is a long trail, about 40-50 miles, consisting mostly of graded dirt road (sometimes very thin, I might add–and very bumpy) winding around, up, and down a mountain range. It was a little scary at times, but we took it easy and enjoyed the ride. The views were spectacular, as you can see by the photos! I even took a few small videos. One one point, when Tyler was deep into his music and not paying attention, Jay made the van fishtail, on purpose, just enough to scare the crap out of Tyler and make him think we were out of control! His reaction was priceless. One additional note on the Roosevelt Dam and Apache Trail Photos, in case you look at them: You might notice that many of them are very clear and sharp, while others are very hazy and low-quality. The high-quality photos were the result of Jay’s awesome new 18 megapixel Sony camera! Wow, is that thing nice, even for quick panoramas! You can really tell the difference in quality between photos from that camera and the rest, which are from my phone, Sandy’s phone (which are both 8 megapixels), and Kevin’s phone (5 megapixels). I’ll definitely get a camera like Jay’s before our next trip, that’s for sure!

Wednesday, 4/3, was Lia’s birthday party at Chuck e Cheese. Ah, some things never change: Pizza, Animatronic Chuckie, a “live” visit from him every hour on the 30′s, the goofy and most-awful song parodies EVER, and games that hate to give up their tickets. Then it’s over to the ticket-eating machine to cash in and see what little $1.00 prizes the kids have earned.

I had also planned to take a few random “portal runs” using Ingress, but that didn’t happen either. Not knowing the area very well would make it very difficult, and no one seemed too keen on using a lot of gas just to get me AP points in Ingress so I could level up sooner. I seemed to be the only one there really into the game, so majority ruled and I set it aside. I did manage to hack a few choice portals and get a few nice keys during the regular stops on the trip though! I took screenshots of the dual portals at the Cadillac Ranch (both Resistance-owned) and the portal at Roosevelt Dam was wide open, so I acquired that one for myself. I even obtained a key for that one, and as I just checked it today, I am still the Owner, and it’s now a L6 portal, thanks to other Resistance members who must have leveled it up for me. Being only an L6 myself, I can’t level up a portal higher than L4 on my own. It wasn’t an easy task, even though it was an unoccupied portal when we arrived–the cellular reception there was very very weak, and I could only obtain a weak signal when I stood in certain specific spots at the lookout point, and even then it only stay connected for a very short time, just enough to place one or two resonators before getting disconnected again. Now I’m using remote recharge from home, whenever I get the chance, to keep it fully charged up.

Thursday, 4/4, at 6pm we left Jay’s for Mount Rushmore. I stayed up the night before, only taking a short nap in the middle of the night, so I could get a good sleep in just before leaving. I went to sleep between 9 and 10am Thursday and slept good until about 4:30pm. Then we ate, and headed out for South Dakota. Having a good sleep, I was able to comfortably drive clear through the night, until shortly after the sun came up. We were in Las Vegas, New Mexico when I decided I was too tired to continue, so Sandy took over once we got to road with no changes for several hundred miles. I slept a couple hours, then took over driving again the rest of the way into South Dakota. We stayed at a motel in Rapid City, SD, which is about 25-30 minutes from Mount Rushmore. It was dark when we arrived, so we spent the night there, then went to Mount Rushmore after breakfast in the morning. We had breakfast at the Colonial House in Rapid City, SD before Mt. Rushmore. It was a restaurant with Wizard of Oz theme. Very good food.

We ran across Castle Rock, Colorado on the way there too. This is something I hadn’t seen before – There was a gas station at the base of this huge, vertical mountain, with what looks like a very old stone castle or building atop it. I took a few shots while filling up at the gas station.

Mount Rushmore is an awesome sight. At first glance, when we were still approaching it, it looked very small. Then, as we got closer, things became bigger and clearer. There’s a very nice, official monument building there, including a huge viewing area, a stadium in front of it, a museum containing its entire history, and an enormous gift shop. It’s free to view, but you have to pay $11.00 to park your vehicle there.

Lastly, I must say, Wyoming is the most boring, flat state in the country. It’s empty. Lusk, Wyoming – Flat as a pancake, no humans seen for hours and hours. I’d hate to break down anywhere in that state, that’s for sure. A curious sight we did see (or “sights” I should say), was the billboards for The Firehouse Brewing Company, which is located in Rapid City, SD, where we stayed the night. These billboards, located along the highway all through South Dakota and in one or two other states as well, each have a completely real fire engine–usually a restored antique–all polished up and looking perfectly usable–next to them! Every single one, I swear, had an enormous real fire engine alongside it. At the first one I thought there was a fire at the billboard or something, not making the connection until we passed another one.

All in all, it was a great vacation with no issues at all. Very pleasant! We’d like to thank Jay and Shell and their wonderful family–again–for allowing us to stay with them. Already, Kevin is already asking “What else is there that we can see and do there next year?” I told him “There’s a ton more, Kevin – the country is a big place…Google it!” I explained that I haven’t even begin to think about next year’s vacation, I’m still trying to sort through THIS year’s vacation photos and get them posted as soon as I can! At least he’s looking forward to it… He must have had a good time.

It wasn’t snowing when we started walking, but it was getting colder and the melted snow on the sidewalks was freezing into black patches of very smooth, dangerous ice. Socks was even losing his footing once in awhile, and that’s gotta say something when you have FOUR feet to work with! We easily made it all the way East to the last portal on the lake, then turned around and headed back. The winding path we took was getting more icy, so I decided to try another walkway back west, one which was completely straight, so it’s easier to navigate, and it didn’t look like it had any ice patches on it. This sidewalk is closer to the lake itself. So we headed back, hacking the same portals again on the return trip. As we did, it started snowing, covering parts of the sidewalk. I didn’t realize that the light snow had covered a patch of that smooth, black ice on this sidewalk, and my feet flew out from under me in an instant, and I slammed down hard, flat on my back, and my head hit the pavement hard. SMACK! I was conscious, lying on the sidewalk, looking up at the white sky, snow falling on my glasses.

The dog walked up to me and whimpered, unable to assist. Maybe I need a St. Bernard instead of a Chihuahua, I thought. My cell phone, in my pocket, was pinging every few seconds, indicating a nearby Ingress Portal, and announcing my speed and distance walked, courtesy of my Cardiotrainer app. So after gather my marbles–of which Jay says I have only a few of left–I tried getting up. Nothing. No movement from my arms or legs at all. I couldn’t even turn my head, I could only look around at the white sky, full of clouds. I just wondered what I could do next, without being able to move at all. I couldn’t do anything to even call or signal for help. It was really a terrifying couple of minutes. Then my fingers started to tingle and I was able to start moving them. The feeling gradually came back to my arms and legs over the next few minutes, and I crawled to my knees. Then I crawled a little on all fours until I was off the ice patch and on solid cement, and stood up. I was dizzy, shaky, and had a huge, pounding headache, but didn’t feel any blood on the back of my head. I had the hood of my parka up when I fell, so at least there was a little cushion when my head hit the pavement, but not much.

With my head pounding, my legs shaky, and socks ready to continue our walk, I started walking again, directly toward the car this time, avoiding the sidewalk altogether. (Even the snow and grass is softer to hit than that black ice on cement!) I passed a lady who was on the same sidewalk I just fell on, heading right for that spot where I fell. She said “Hi!”, then said “Be careful, watch for those black ice patches it’s VERY slippery!” I aid “Yeah, I found that out…I just fell right over there, YOU be careful” and continued walking toward the parking lot and my car. Once in the car, I pull down my hood and gathered my thoughts. Not sure of the actual damage, and wondering if I should go to the ER, I called Sandy and explained the situation. After agreeing that I could drive, she had me drive home and meet her there, then she drove me to the ER to get checked out.

My head was pounding with the biggest headache I’ve ever had, throbbing to the beat of my heart, I think, and both sides of my jaw hurt whenever to clenched my teeth together slightly. Not good, I figured. In the ER waiting room they put me in a wheelchair. As I waited there I saw a few floaters in my eyes, and a few fireflies. Another bad sign, I figured. Great. After a few minutes in the waiting room I was taken in to an ER room where they checked my out and asked all of the usual medical history and medication questions and details on what happened today.

Next was a trip down the hall to a CT scanner, then back to my ER room. Through all of this, however, amazingly, no one even actually looked at the back of my head. I could feel a huge goose egg there, and told them about it, but no one even asked to look. I guess the CT scan tells all, so they don’t need a real visual if there’s no blood…?

Anyway, the CT came back ok, showing no damage, and the doctor explained that it was a jarring blow to the head, but it didn’t cause any unconsciousness and he didn’t see any of the symptoms or signs of any serious injury anywhere, so I should be ok after a few days of rest and some strong pain and muscle relaxer meds. The nurse said when I wake up tomorrow I will probably feel even worse than I do today, so there’s that to look forward to!

I asked the doctor, if there’s no damage, what caused the issue with my being conscious but unable to move at all for a few minutes. He had no explanation, he just said “it’s one of those mysteries of life we can’t explain. All we can go by is what the tests show, and they show no serious injury.”

This is probably where faith kicks in for most people. Had I not had faith in an all-powerful being watching over me and returning my ability to move again, would I have been left there on the pavement to freeze, or permanently paralyzed as a quadriplegic? I’ll never know. I try to keep an open mind on such things, but if there is one (or more) greater beings out there, then I thank them. Very much. I am home now, resting comfortably, with my family, happy once again, and recovering.

Counting the days now, to our annual Spring Break Arizona Road Trip! One more week!

As it turned out, I got paged at 3:45am this morning, on my day off, and as a result, probably assisted in saving a life. A neurosurgeon paged me. The page said “…having issues, needs your help NOW please!” I called him, he said he had a patient in the ER with a brain hemorrhage, and can’t login to see his images. I believe he was calling in from home or another location other than the hospital. I quickly reset his password and waited on the phone until he was able to get to the images he needed.

Awesome start to a day off–Now I get an extra hour to enjoy it even more! Have a nice one yourself!

This weekend we made a lot of progress in getting more “blue” on Kenosha’s Ingress map!  Before it was nearly all green, with the Enlightened consuming large chunks of area.  Last night we had a few large areas covered in blue, but this morning I see that most of our areas are back to simply links, so I’m afraid the Enlightened are becoming just that, and are working on re-acquiring their portals.  We have made great progress, however, and are working with a few other key Resistance allies in the area to build up our portals and hammer on the enemie’s as much as possible.

My daily walks really help our progress a great deal, allowing us to attack and gather from each portal we encounter, both on the way out and on the way back.  I’m only a few hundred points from level 3 now, and Kevin is well into level 2.  We are getting so addicted to the game, it’s ridiculous.

I can see this is unlike other games in popularity already though–we’ve already noticed others in real life playing it.  One guy with a tablet at a monument in downtown Kenosha was actually hacking the same portal as us.  Turned out he was on the other side–one of the “Enlightened” while we are on the “Resistance”.  He asked what side WE were on, but I “mistakenly” said I was also on the Enlightened.  We found several portals near the lake–almost all of the metal sculptures along the new lakefront contains a portal.  This not only gets you out and about, but also informs you about the monuments and public displays around you!  It’ll even show you a photo of the object containing the portal, it’s name, and more, a little like the “Field Trip” does.  In fact, FieldTrip was created by the same company.

This week I’ve been hacking the portals that are located between home and work, trying to gather what I can and weaken those of the enemy.  It’s slow, but effective.  This week I also found a wealth of information on the web, including the global Ingress Map, which details every found portal, who owns it and it’s makeup, a great instruction page, and even instructions on how to SUBMIT a site as a portal!  I’ll be submitting a few preferred sites of my own soon.  This game is great–too bad it’s still only in beta.  You can only get in by invite, so if you’re interested, please sign up as soon as possible on their website.  It took Kevin and I a couple months to get an invite, but Matt got his sooner by other means–he found someone else with an extra key.

So being able to instantly stream and play these ISOs on the TV to which my PS3 is on, is a big deal for me.  It makes all of these movies and special feature discs available at my fingertips, instead of having to go find the DVD and insert it into my PS3.  I played with the latest version of the application for a couple days, but found that the voices never synced up with the video–ISO movies always played with a too-fast video speed, and the audio was always 10-15 seconds behind the video.  There are a ton of tweaking options in this application, so I tweaked everything I could, but couldn’t get it to play ISOs properly.  It would stream every other type of video file from my PC without any problems, but ISOs were the key to my happiness.  This was very disappointing.  Meanwhile, Jay was having the same issues, so it wasn’t just me.  After some googling of the issue, I found others having the same problem–with the newest versions of the application.  A few users noted that the previous version that they had before this one would play ISOs perfectly.  Ah ha!  So I uninstalled and deleted the newest version, then installed an older (actually the oldest version online–version 1.04) and guess what?  They were right–ISOs now play perfectly!!

Just as Audible screwed up their audiobook app on me in their latest version, PS3 Media Server’s latest version messed up ISO streaming.  So right now, my ISO images are streaming perfectly, and I’m very happy with it, though it is a very old version of the application.  Hopefully someone will determine what went wrong and correct it in a future version.  I will be glad to upgrade it to the latest version, once this issue is resolved, but for now I’m perfectly happy staying right where I am.  This is awesome!  I also found out, during my googling, that this may be the ONLY application that can actually perform this function!  I’d be perfectly willing to pay for a full-blown feature-rich commercial application that did this, if I could find one!

By the way, PS3 Media Server works with more than just the PS3.  It will stream to any DLNA-compliant network device, and is available for many operating systems, including Windows, Linux and Mac.  And it’s a completely free, open-source project.  Here’s the link: http://www.ps3mediaserver.org

The Wii-U comes with a huge “GamePad” controller, which is much like a small tablet combined with a Wii controller.  It has a decent-sized touchscreen–at least it’s bigger than the Nintendo DS screen–and feels very comfortable in the hands.  It’s nice and light, with nice finger grooves in the right places underneath and a stick on both the left and right sides.  Many games allow their gameplay to run on either the Gamepad screen or the TV screen, and some allow both simultaneously.  Unfortunately this doesn’t apply to all games–and doesn’t apply to the old Wii games at all–but hopefully this will change in the near future with an update.  Being able to play on just the gamepad–even if you can only go up to 40 feet away from the console–is HUGE for our household.  To Kevin, it means being able to still play the console games he wants when he has time, while we can still watch the TV shows we want.  If Nintendo adds this feature into the classic Wii software, I think this feature alone could justify its price for a lot of families!

The good ole “Mii” universe is alive and well on the Wii-U, and there are always hundreds, if not thousands, of other users visiting our system and posting comments about all of the games.  We even see posts from others as we finish levels of some of the games, and I’m always wondering if the comments are actually directed toward OUR game or just generic comments… Can other users watch our gameplay?? Can we watch theirs?? I haven’t found this out yet.

For the old Wii games, there’s a “Wii” option provided as a separate app, which takes you to the classic “Wii Menu” and provides the exact same interface as the old Wii system.  In fact, you have to put down the Gamepad and pick up a standard Wii controller to play any of the Wii games and use the Wii menu interface.  We did the “Wii system transfer” before completely taking our old Wii out of service, and that was pretty flawless, once we got it going.  This was a lengthy process though, probably because we had accumulated a lot of game save data, Mii’s, and games from the Wii Store over the years.  The process is fully animated once you start it, and kind of plays out like a little cartoon, with “Pikmin” characters (from what Kevin says they are) carrying your data through the old Wii systems, out to a rocket ship and loading them up for the transfer.  One little pikmin character almost gets left behind, ala “E.T”, but they realize it before blastoff, and re-open the ship’s bay door and let him in at the last second.  Once the data is saved to your SD card, the ship takes off and your’re ready to insert it into the Wii-U, switch to that system and continue the process where the ship then lands and the pikmin unload the data into the new system and setup the icons.  It’s an amusing little cartoon, but pretty monotonous if you have a lot of data like we did.

The Wii-U also has “TVii”, which I originally thought would be a streaming TV service from Nintendo, but unfortunately it’s not.  All it is, is a “remote” for your existing TV and cable box.  You select your TV remote by answering a few simple questions based on whether the TV responds to the signals the Wii-U sends, and it sets up the remote for it.  This is definitely the simplest “universal remote control” setup I’ve ever seen, by far.  Totally painless.  Then it does the same for your cable box and cable provider.  Once that’s done you can completely control your cable box and TV with just the GamePad, replacing your two remotes.  Unfortunately, WE have much more than that to control, including our stereo, PS3, X-Box, etc., and the Wii-U doesn’t go any further than the two devices.  If someone could just make a 15-device universal remote app for the Wii-U, I’d gladly pay for it…that would be bliss!

Other apps included with the Wii-U are Netflix and HuluPlus, which both work great.  I’m currently using both services and comparing them.  Using the Wii-U interface, Netflix easily outshines HuluPlus, in my opinion.  In the Netflix app the interface on the Gamepad screen matches the TV interface, so you can use either one to select a movie or TV show and watch it on either the TV or the GamePad. Excellent!  But in HuluPlus on the GamePad, it only shows you the currently-selected option, very large, in the middle of the GamePad screen.  You have to look at the TV to scroll and select what you’re looking for.  Unless you memorize the layout of the menus, you can’t use just the GamePad to find a movie or TV show to watch, so it’s rather limited.  I’m guessing Hulu will fix this in an update though.  In comparing the Netflix and Hulu services themselves, it’s pretty much a draw.  They both offer little of the same content.  They seem to each have their own contracts for the content they offer, and both have good solid YV series offerings and movies.  It’s a tough split.  One minus on Hulu is the fact that its TV shows include “limited commercial interruptions” throughout its TV shows.  Sometimes this seems like a bit much, with hour-long TV shows sometimes having numerous 3-commercial breaks.  And there’s no fast-forwarding through the commercials either–you’re stuck with them.  I did find, several times, when I did several fast-forwards and rewinds to rewatch a part of an episode, that it can get confused and then lets you fast-forward through commercials, but then thinks a later section of the actual TV show is the commercial block!  Then later it seemed to realize it was messed up, and when I went to fast-forward or rewind the show it reset it back to the beginning again.  Pretty irritating, but it didn’t happen often and I couldn’t repeat the glitch at will.  Most of the time it worked fine.  Both Netflix and HuluPlus also have an autoplay feature for TV series playing, so you can seamlessly watch a series without manually having to start each episode.  But since HuluPlus has a commercial block before every episode and after, you have to site through a huge block of commercials (usually 6) between each episode.  A big PLUS with Hulu, however, is with current TV series playing.  Hulu gives you the current episodes of TV shows, while Netflix only provides you with previous seasons, only releasing new seasons of a show long after the next season is airing or long after the series is completed.  I guess you have to weigh the value of this with whether you watch a lot of currently-airing series’ or not.  Both services are $7.99 a month, so it makes me wonder if Hulu is worth it for all the ads when Netflix is ad-free.  But, like I said, there are enough differences between the two services to warrant having both of them, for those who can afford it and are avid movie and TV buffs.

But back to the Wii-U: The Wii-U store currently offers a very small selection, but that’s just because it’s new.  They haven’t added any of the classic Wii games to the store yet, so only Wii-U games are there at the moment.  When they finally get the games from the old Wii store into the new one, there will be a much better selection.  And it’d be even more awesome if they also add all of their classic “boxed” Wii games as digital downloads as well!  They would certainly make a fortune, especially on those hard-to-find classics.  I know they can do it–they already offer most of their new “boxed” Wii-U games as digital downloads, and the classic Wii games are much smaller in size, I’m sure.

We played a bit of Mario & Nintendoland for the Wii-U as well as a couple of the new downloadable Wii-U games that were on sale this week in the Wii-U store, and what does Kevin come back to the most?…. wait for it…. a cheap download called “Little Inferno”!  This game is just plain “WRONG”.  It teaches kids how to burn their toys.  It’s aimed at older teens, obviously, and always warns you not to play with fire, but it provides you with a safe environment to do so, allowing you to burn everything from all kinds of toys imaginable, to batteries, to a school bus full of screaming children, or an angry elf (yes, Jay–an Angry Elf) who has a belt of dynamite strapped around his waist.  It’s totally wrong, but I must admit it’s very addicting to but everything and see the way each item responds to a flame.  How this game got past the Nintendo approval process I have no idea–I guess it’s a good test of the parental controls on the Wii-U–you can block your kids from playing it if you want.  But, if they gotta play with fire, I guess doing it on the Wii-U is tons better than anywhere else!

I think Nintento has a great start here.  As long as they get busy with updating and keeping on top of the issues in a timely manner, this will turn out to be an awesome Wii system.  The GamePad features alone can make it almost as useful as a full tablet, if they make the right improvements.  We’ll see what happens.

So now I was on a mission.  I set it to “Always Pause”, threw on my winter coat, and hopped in the car for a ride around the neighborhood.  I turned setup Google Navigation to take me to work, started up my DSub music, then drove around the neighborhood while Google Navigation kept interrupting my song to give me directions.  It was FLAWLESS!  DSub paused every time when the Navigation started talking, and all is right with my (Android) world again!  So next I started up an Audible book and drove around some more… Bummer.  Audible isn’t working that way, and keeps playing now, blending the two voices of the book and the navigation into something very confusing (and potentially dangerous if I were relying on actual directions while driving).  So I came back home and send a support e-mail to Audible.  They responded very quickly to another question I had previously, so I am anxiously awaiting their response to this one.  Here’s what I wrote:

I listen to my audible books heavily on my Android phone during my daily commute, along with Google Navigation. I’ve been having a problem recently, however: The audible application no longer pauses when Google Navigation speaks–they both talk at once, which can sometimes make me miss a turn or direction unless I’m constantly watching the GPS directions on the screen.

After some research on the web, and finding other apps that still work ok and pause for the navigation, I have realized that it might be something that has changed in the Audible app.

I also found this explanation on Audible regarding a slightly different issue:

“We have received reports from users of the Audible for Android application, that the Audible application pauses at random. Upon further investigation, we have found that other applications may ‘steal’ the audio focus for no apparent reason when running in the background. The Audible for Android application respects audio focus requests to pause or stop playback. At the current time, the only means of resolution is to uninstall the offending application from your phone.”

To me, it seems like the Audible application used to respect the audio focus change, but now it no longer does. Can I get this ability back? Maybe if I uninstall and reinstall the app?? Or was something actually removed in the app so that it will no longer auto-pause like it used to?

Please let me know if there’s anything I, or Audible, can do to resolve this issue. I’m afraid I would no longer be able to safely listen to audiobooks in my car (with Audible) if this can’t be fixed, and I’d have to seek another alternative.

Thank you.

That’s it.  I’m pretty sure they took this ability out of their app, but we’ll see if there might be a way to correct it’s behavior and make it work.  It worked properly ever since I first subscribed to Audible and started listening to books in the car.  I’ll post the response I get.

UPDATE: 

Wow, Audible is quick. About an hour after sending that support message to them this evening, they responded. They gave me a $10 coupon for my trouble, apologized, and said there’s an update for the app, and I need to completely uninstall, delete the Audible folder, then install the updated version. So I did all of this, but was unable to completely remove the application, since it came pre-installed on my phone. I could only uninstall the updates. So I did that much and deleted the folder. Then ran Audible, signed in and downloaded a book. I played the book, then started Google Navigation. Sure enough, it worked great by pausing the book when driving directions were spoken, then resumed the book again right after. Next I installed the latest update from the app store and did it again. Crap! It went back to having the issue again by completely ignoring the driving directions and playing the book right through them. Back to the drawing board!

This definitely proves it’s something in the updated versions though, so it helps. I e-mailed support again, as a reply, so they have the entire history of the issue. I asked that, if they don’t want to have the auto-pause feature due to a lot of users having the “random pausing issue” they talk about on their help page, why not add it as an option that the user can toggle in the app’s settings? I’ll let you know what they say.

For now though, I’m back to listening to my books in the car–I just can’t update my Audible App beyond the version that came with my phone.

Then today I find out that Dropbox acquired Audiogalaxy!!  Now Audiogalaxy isn’t accepting any new accounts, and their “Mixes” subscription service is ending on 12/31/12.  Yikes!! They go on to say “previous users with accounts can continue to stream their music collections”… but for how long?!?!  Audiogalaxy is the best Android music streaming server I have ever found, and nothing compares to it!! I sure hope they eventually decide to keep streaming and start accepting new accounts again, even if it becomes branded as a Dropbox Music Streaming app–as long as they DON’T start requiring everyone to upload their music collection to Dropbox though–THAT would suck!  I have such a huge collection of music, it would cost me quite a bit of money each month for a dropbox account big enough to hold my entire music collection.  Hmmph.  Time to start looking for something better anyway, I guess.