EMI to offer DRM-free music!

This is great news. I checked the dates of all the announcements I could find. They are all dated today, not April First like Google’s big announcement.

The deal with EMI is that they have offered to sell their entire catalog of digital music without DRM for 30 cents more than the normal price of $0.99. Besides losing the DRM (which keeps you from using your music on all of your digital music devices) you gain a higher quality song. They are doubling the bit rate of the song to 256 instead of 128.

Anyone who has purchased EMI music through the iTunes music store will be able to upgrade their music to this unbroken format for the $0.30 price difference. I realize that this is a 30% price increase and that I would never be excited about anything jumping in price that much, but this is a great step in the right direction.

I have previously posted about DRM and EMI’s talk of dropping it.

This is supposed to be available in May. I may start doing some purchasing then.

Vacationing in Mexico City

No, I am not vacationing there, but apparently my luggage is. I flew AeroCalifornia from Merida to Mexico last night. Then from Mexico to Tampico. I did not buy one ticket to get me from there to here. It was a couple hundred dollars cheaper to buy a round trip from Merida to Mexico and back. Then another round trip from Mexico to Tampico.

I was assured at the check in counter that my luggage would be transfered and that I would not need to claim it in Mexico. I had a feeling that it would not go well, but did not follow that up by checking in the baggage claim area in Mexico since that would have meant that I needed to leave the secure area and have to re-enter. I should have taken the time to do it though.

Fortunately I have arrived for the meeting a day early. There is nothing I have to be presentable for today. But it was also a great running day–cool and no responsibilities. But my shoes are in my suitcase.

The neat thing is that I am borrowing clothes from the missionary’s skinny teenage son and they fit. It is just that the look that fits a 17 year old kid does not look quite right on an almost 40 year old.

Happy April Fool’s Day

This morning when I was preaching for the church service I mentioned that today is called Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday). Our son leaned over to my wife and asked her what that meant. She explained that it was called Palm Sunday because when Jesus entered into Jerusalem the people believed he was the Christ as fortold in the Old Testament. He had come to be their king. They laid out palm leaves for him to enter the city as a king.

Our son thought for a minute and then leaned back to my wife and asked, “Then how did it come to be known as April Fool’s day?”

March Running Summary

I have not done a running summary in a couple of months. Mainly that is due to the fact that I ran, but had no big goals nor breakthroughs. March was a bit different however, therefore I am interested in a summary. You can always see my running progress at my running log. Sometimes I don’t always update it daily, but almost always on a weekly basis. Especially if I am traveling, I don’t always keep it updated daily.

I have run 124 miles so far this year. The month of March was 60 of those miles. Now you can see why I am a bit more excited about March. I ran as many miles that month as I did the two previous months combined. And, 22 of those 60 miles were in the last 7 days.

I ran 1 race. It was a 10K.

The week I ran 20+ miles was fun in that I got to run twice a day for a couple of those days. I also got to run with other people. Previous to that week, with the exception of races, I had only logged 4 miles while running with someone else. And that was over a year ago. It was enjoyable to hit the road with other people and get a chance to talk. We went at a much slower pace. It made me feel good to be the fastest runner in the group.

It was a good month for running. I just crossed over the 400 mile mark on my “new” shoes. I have logged more than 700 miles total since starting to run. I am not sure what I am going to do about shoes yet.

I had a brilliant idea on the shoe situation this last week, but I thought about it too late. I was surrounded by people who had nice shoes. I started asking around to see if anyone had my size and to see if they would sell me their shoes if they were in good shape. I could not find any shoes that fit the bill. Maybe if I had started earlier in the week then I would have found what I was looking for.

Have I ever explained the shoe situation? Fodder for a later post I guess.

How old are you?

This week we worked with a very pleasant man named Felipe. Felipe was one of our Spanish-Maya translators for the trip. He and I built a pretty good relationship through the week.

He has 5 children. The oldest studies in a seminary in the same town we live in, which is 2 hours from the village where he grew up. I think he said the oldest boy is around 25. The baby is in his early teens.

Felipe loves the Lord and dedicated this week to the work. I don’t know if he has been a part of this medical team in the past. He certainly jumped right in like he knew what he was doing.

Yesterday we were riding in the back of a truck headed back to the hotel for the last time to pick up our stuff and leave town. Felipe was with us. I asked him how old he was. His answer was classic.

“Something over 50, I think. Maybe 51 or 52.”