Never again will Steve Jobs grace the stage at Macworld

Ahhhh, Macworld.  It’s been like a post-Christmas Christmas for all us Appleholics out there.

Once upon a time, there were TWO Macworlds, and Steve Jobs’ keynote could be seen live!  I remember calling feeds here at CNN to find out where I could see it, and there was usually a group of us sending IMs back and forth ooohing and ahhhing over our glorious Leader’s every proclamation.  Then after the keynote ended we’d continue to IM back and forth about all the things we wanted (pizza box iMac!!) that we didn’t see, and arguing about why (or why not) Jobs was a genius.

All that changed several years ago – Apple pulled out of the Boston/New York Macworld, and it died.  No more live keynotes – we fanboys glued ourselves to the live reports on various gadget blogs by people actually in attendance.

Now even that will end.  And I have to think it’s going to be hard for Macworld to continue.  Which makes me wonder about trade shows in general.

Clearly Apple wants the stage to themselves, and I’m sure we’ll be just as excited about whatever new gadget, feature or upgrade the Leader sees fit to dole out to his salivating minions, but I can’t help but mourn Macworld’s passage.

I’ve never been to the actual show, and now I doubt I’ll ever get to go.  I’m a little sad at the end of this era, and wonder if the new era will have any of that Christmas-morning excitement I used to get before a Jobs keynote.

I wonder how January’s Macworld will go down.  I picture the crowd of Apple fans, a few of them teary-eyed, holding their cell phones aloft and swaying back and forth while singing some ballad after the last Apple-hosted keynote.  More likely it will be a shuffling of chairs by people hurriedly going off to the next event.

– CodyMcCloy, CNN.com

Well… here we are. We made it back to Atlanta in (mostly) one piece after a two-week journey I’ll never forget. This morning my colleague Brian Hardy and I did a little recap video interview with CNN.com Live which you can see here.  We also have an iPhone review (it never left my side) that we’ll put up a little later.

I have a lot of cables to untangle.

Four-thousand miles later — and many gallons of bio and regular diesel — I  would call this road trip a success.  It wasn’t perfect — but we talked to a lot of people, saw a lot of things and learned a good deal about biodiesel fuel and long-distance travel.

Now I have about two tons of gear to sort through and put back in its rightful place (versus the various bags, bins and cubbies I stuffed it into).

Oh yeah — and the sleeping — there will be lots of sleeping.

Thanks for followin’ us…

– Cody McCloy, signing off

After two long, soul-wrenching weeks we’re finally about to head home. This trip has been amazing.

Our Scout sits Friday in front of The Lyceum at Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi.

I’ve met people I hope to become long-term friends with. I also reconnected with some old friends, including Jenna from the National Biodiesel Board, who used to be my producer back in my KOMU-TV days at the University of Missouri.

All in all I would mark the trip a success. What do you think?

Now we’re arranging to get five gallons of bio before making the trip back to Atlanta. There, I plan to take a two-day nap after we wrap it all up during a CNN.com Live broadcast on Monday. We’ll take a look at what lessons we learned from our trip and some of the lighthearted moments.
– Cody

As we approached exit 211 off I-55 near Coffeeville, Mississippi, we saw a billboard for a “Bio Willie” station — the biofuel store chain started by musician Willie Nelson.

We didn’t see Willie Nelson nor did we see an open Bio Willie biofuel store.

We’d heard that it had closed, but the giant billboard looked practically brand new.

Alas, as we rounded the curve it became obvious that “Bio Willie” had indeed shut down — its shelves were clearly empty and its pumps were dark. There was still a ton of signage proclaiming the brand name. Odd and sad.

Note to “S Callahan” who asked in our comments what kind of money are we spending on biodiesel in comparison to typical gasoline:

We filled up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with B20.

Since we’ve mostly been buying blends, the prices have been quite close to what you might pay for gasoline. “Bio” might’ve even been a touch higher in some places we’ve stopped.

Remember, demand sets price, and there’s a huge demand for all fuels right now. The only way biodiesel would be cheaper was if no one wanted it.

Hope that answers your question!

–Cody

As we blog, at this moment, we’re pushing the 1978 Scout past Alexandria, Louisiana, en route to New Orleans.

I probably shouldn’t take pictures of Brian while I’m driving.

This is our sixth state on our California-to-Georgia road trip. We’re trying to burn eco-friendly biodiesel fuel as much as possible. Our previous stop in the Dallas-Fort Worth area wasn’t showing us any biodiesel love.

We stopped at a Love’s outside Dallas, but they had none. We tried another place that was closed permanently. The only other option that we found was an Air Force base outside Shreveport, Louisiana, and that place didn’t sell biodiesel to retail customers. We’re going to try to get some in New Orleans.

Btw, check out our new photo gallery with pix from California, Nevada, our nightmare in Arizona, and New Mexico.

As for today’s weather and comfort level, it’s cloudy, cooler and much more humid compared to Tuesday.

It was actually tolerable enough to sleep in the car. (No, I was NOT driving at the time!)

I’d rather be steamed than baked!

–Cody

Our cross-country road trip using biodiesel fuel motors on toward New Orleans, Louisiana.

Brian Hardy and I rest after broadcasting Wednesday on CNN.com Live.

After we over-nighted in Fort Worth, Texas, we’ll see if it really takes eight-and-a-half hours to drive to the Big Easy — as those “directions Web sites” suggest.

We’re hoping to visit New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward on Thursday to see how it’s doing nearly three years after residents were hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. Because we lost so much time due to mechanical troubles in Arizona, it looks like we’ll have to cancel our planned visit to Natchez, Mississippi.

I have to tell you that Tuesday was one of the longest drives of our trip so far – we drove about 500 miles in one day. It also was one of the hottest. With no air conditioning in our 1978 Scout, I felt like a piece of fish in an oven. I was just roasting. My skin was dry and cracking and basically I pleaded with my co-pilot Brian Hardy to stop at a convenience store so we could stand in the a/c for about ten minutes.

– Cody

You know those directions Web sites — and the travel times they give you about how long it takes to drive somewhere? They lie!

In Winslow, Arizona, Cody McCloy and co-pilot Brian Hardy visit a statue honoring the Eagles song “Take It Easy.”

Or at least they do when — like us — you’re driving a 30-year-old vehicle, with no air conditioning and it’s 100+ degrees. In addition, that’s if you drive without stopping. Who drives straight for 8 hours? Not me that’s for sure — as we make our way from California to Georgia. I have to eat and other such things.

Also you have to fuel your car. And because we’re attempting to fuel our 1978 International Harvester Scout on as much biodiesel as possible — these fill-up stops aren’t always quick and easy.

Today for instance, we first hit the road around 8:30 a.m. — which meant we should have arrived in Roswell, New Mexico, around 6ish. Nuh uh — we got here at 9 p.m.

We had reserved a camping spot at Bottomless Lakes State Park (which sounded divine — power, a shelter, what more could a boy and his gadgets want?) Well that was a bust. The park locks its gates at 9. We thought we might make it anyway — but a GPS-led wrong turn later and that was all a ship in the mist glimpsed but never touched.

I must say Roswell is bigger than I’d imagined it, and kinda cool.

The strip leading downtown has many old department stores which are now leading new lives, and a fair bit of neon. Also some of the street lights have alien eye stickers stuck on them.

Yeah, I like this place.

So no camping — and there seems to be a run on hotels. So neither did I get to stay in the one with the awesome neon sign. Instead it’s a big corpprate box place — by far the nicest place we’ve paid to stay this trip. Call me what you will for wanting a little character.

Okay — time to put down the blogging pen and take up the editing pen. I have a lot to do before going to bed (and crew call is at 5ish tomorrow) including finding some food, editing and uploading some video and pictures.

Till tomorrow

– Cody

The Scout is out! After two days of tinkering, we managed to coax our 1978 International Harvester Scout into making the two-and-a-half hour drive from Grand Canyon West to Kingman, Arizona. Here in Kingman, we have better access to auto parts suppliers and mechanics.

This is the latest development in a fuel-filter saga that started Friday — delaying our attempt to drive the Scout from California to Georgia using only biodiesel fuel.

Here’s how we got the vehicle out of “no man’s land” at Grand Canyon West: We temporarily bypassed the fuel tank and rigged a new fuel supply line to a fuel can in the back of the Scout.

But we burned through a ton of fuel during the limp to Kingman. And what’s worse, before we can continue our biofuel road trip, we have to figure out how to repair the fuel filter clogging problem. We have to find someone to help us clean out the fuel tank — which should be an interesting chore on a Sunday.

Because of this delay our schedule will have to be shuffled. We’ll keep you posted on what’s going to happen as soon as we know for sure ourselves.

– Cody

I just got off the Grand Canyon West Skywalk and I have to tell you that it’s breathtaking and amazing. It’s difficult to put into words but it’s truly a unique experience. I plan to post a photo later to give you an idea what it’s like to walk out on a see-through glass platform that extends 65 feet over a 4,000-plus-foot drop to the canyon floor! Yikes!

The Skywalk hangs out about 65 feet off the canyon rim.

Our 1978 Scout truck is giving us mechanical problems for the first time since we began our journey five days ago. It appears to be a problem with a clogged fuel filter, which is a common glitch when running on biofuel — especially in an older vehicle — as we’re doing. Kind maintenance people here at the Skywalk have offered their expertise on the problem.

I wanna give a shout out to a previous poster, Nic “Scoutman” Hawker, who offered us advice on keeping Scout engines cool. Please send us some contact info, Nic. We’ll be in touch.

And last night, in another challenging development, we followed some dubious directions en route to the Skywalk. Those directions took us on a two-hour unintentional detour down a 56-mile dirt road. We made it here OK, but as you can imagine, that was, um, fairly interesting.

So far, we’ve trucked some 1,200 miles and purchased about 40 gallons of biofuel since departing San Francisco toward our final destination in Atlanta.

Internet access via cell is very spotty here. Hope to send more info/pics soon.

Thanks for followin’ along with us!

– Cody