Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Last night in New Jersey, and as short as two weeks may sound, I'm glad to be going home tomorrow. Two weeks was enough.

In addition to basically my first week here spent at the resort, it's winter and it's cold. I have no access to a car here, no bicycle as my road bike was damaged the last time I visited, not that I would go out on bike in this cold. Public transportation is laughable. Parents are retired, so no alone time at the house to practice drums or make noise. And their internet is butt-slow.

On my last day here, I took my parents' car and went on a shopping spree spending almost $600. I got two sets of earbud headphones: Bose noise canceling and Monster noise isolating iSport Victory models.

I've been using Monster iSport Immersion earbuds for almost a year and they're probably on their last legs. I gave them a thumbs down because of poor construction and design. That model has been discontinued and replaced with the iSport Victory.

I was hesitant to go for Monster again because of the Immersion problems, but despite the problems they sounded incredible and I didn't know what else to get since the Bose are too expensive to be my daily active headphones. Fortunately, it seems the Victory model is better designed and possibly more robust. I'll wait until the Immersion dies before I really start using them.

Finally I got a Jawbone Mini Jambox, almost on a whim. I don't keep up with new products and technology at all, but I've heard about these portable, decent sound quality speakers, and I'm planning to use this on my nightstand to help get through insomnia.

I've been playing music during insomnia on my sound system across the room, and it's kinda too far away. I don't want to turn it up because I don't want to disturb neighbors. So the Mini Jambox is spoiling myself to be able to listen to music in good quality while I can't sleep.