by Michael Sheehan on January 19, 2012
in auto, Cast of Dads, Consumer Electronics, Family, Ford, Gadgets, General, Hardware, Opinion, Review, Sony, video
A few months ago, Sony and Ford Motors invited the Cast of Dads out to the East Coast to participate in a variety of events, one of them was driving a 2011 Ford Explorer (note, link is for the 2012 model) from Boston to NYC. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the event, and boy was I jealous. Part of my envy came from the fact that I couldn’t drive the Ford Explorer (you can read more about the excursion over at the Cast of Dads). Luckily, over the 2011 holidays, I did have the pleasure of getting behind the wheel of the 2011 Ford Explorer for a road trip to and from Los Angeles from the San Francisco Bay Area.
I’m pretty familiar with Ford and their push to enable technology behind the wheel. I have test driven the Ford Flex and the Lincoln MKX (which is essentially quite similar to the Ford Edge). But being able to experience the Explorer first hand was pretty important to me since it has been a long running model for Ford since 1990.
Image source: Wikipedia.com
Well, we are already in 2012 now, so how does the 2011 Ford Explorer stack up? Pretty darn well. It has plenty of technology to make a gadget-drooling dad happy as I barreled down the super boring stretch of the I-5. (If you haven’t driving the I-5 ever, you definitely aren’t in for any type of treat. It’s really boring and at times your auto is filled with the lovely stench of cow manure as you pass the cattle farms – you can also almost take a nap without turning the wheel as the I-5 seems to stretch on indefinitely.)
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Here is the weekly round-up of some posts that I did over at Babble.com in the Dadding Section:
I sit in a darkened cafe. About a block away, packs of people are streaming into the San Francisco Opera House as part of a holiday tradition that goes back decades. Dressed up with kids in tow, they are off to see the San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker. I have seen the Nutcracker ever since I was a small child. It was an event that symbolized the holidays for me. Now, it has a different meaning altogether for me, and this year, there has been a car that has really made the difference for me and my family – the 2012 Nissan Quest.
A few weeks ago, I was given the 2012 Nissan Quest to drive for 2 weeks as part of an outreach program to bloggers around the country. We were ask to essentially embark on a “Holiday Quest” and we have been tagging our social activities with the hashtag #HolidayQuest. Nissan kindly donated not only the Quest for two week, but they also are donating $500 to a charity of our choice and provided us with $500 “holiday money” to help us take that hard edge off of the holiday season. And a few days ago, Nissan gave out 5 prizes of $1000 to some lucky Twitterers who participated in a Nissan Quest TweetUp!
For our family, the Quest became our transportation of choice, and boy did we have a lot of driving to do. When I checked the odometer at the end of my 2 weeks, it seems that we have gone almost 1000 miles just around the San Francisco Bay Area and most of the driving has been to holiday-related activities.
We used the Quest to go to holiday piano recitals as well as holiday dances for my younger two daughters. But probably most of the mileage has come from the back and forth from our home to San Francisco Ballet – the reason being, my oldest daughter, who is 12, is performing two roles in the SF Ballet’s Nutcracker, that of a dragonfly and also, the main role of Clara. Clara is the girl in the Nutcracker who receives the toy nutcracker and then has a dream sequence that spans the rest of the performance.
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As I mentioned earlier, I’m now doing a daily article on Babble.com’s new “Dadding” site. Since I feel that there is actually some of my better humorous content over there, I thought it would make sense to share the content with my HighTechDad readers.
I’m going to start these regular weekly recaps with a full monthly summary of all of my posts. From here forward, it will most likely just be a weekly recap. Below is a list from newest to oldest. If there are any that you particularly like, let me know and be sure to share them on Facebook, Twitter or Google+!
Here are the article titles and a quick summary:
I’m Giving My Kids “Nothing” for Christmas!
The best gift or present that you can give this Holiday Season is Nothing!
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