Vacation and the Weather Forecasting Umbrella

"Barometer's my soup. I'm descended from a deckhand on a sloop."
--Jimmy Buffett

It's 8 AM on Sunday morning and I'm coming to you live from Port City Java in Southport, NC [Google Map].

This was the second store of a nationwide chain of coffee houses started in nearby Wilmington in the mid 1990's. To prove that Southport mixes this kind of new technology with the old world, consider The Ship's Chandler, a restaurant (that I'll no doubt visit this week) which is a block away and was built in 1792.

"You can stand under my umb(e)rella, ay, ay, ay, under my unb(e)rella, ay ay ay."
--Rhianna

In Weather and Gadget news today, CNET's Crave gadget blog says that the Ambient Weather Forecasting Umbrella is finally available. This device, which downloads weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com, pulses a blue light when rain is forecast, so you know whether or not you need to grab it on your way out the door. It's available on the Ambient Devices site, through Hammacher-Schlemmer, and probably soon through the AccuMall.

WEATHER FORECASTING UMBRELLA
(Courtesy Ambient Devices)

Port City Java is the only WIFI hotspot that I could find in Southport and Oak Island. I have some great pictures of the beach and the three massive thunderstorms that we came through on the way, but I've left my SD card reader at the beach house, so you'll have to wait until I return to this coffeehouse tomorrow or Tuesday.

I'm a little disappointed to report that it looks like the J-CAM Beach Cam won't be live this year as it was in 2005, but I will still let it snap pics all day and upload them each morning. Although Verizon has come a long way on Oak Island, and you can now get broadband wireless and Verizon Vcast video service on cell phones, their support for data transmission through laptops has actually gotten worse -- the medium-speed (50K) data transmission is still not available at our beach house and even the lowspeed (14.4K) has been discontinued. I'll see what I can do about getting some sort of live transmission from here at the coffeehouse the next time I'm in.

- WIFI Access
- Hank's Orange Cream Soda
- Raspberry White Chocolate Scone
- One Block From The Atlantic Ocean

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