What a gorgeous weekend. Both days were that lovely, golden warm weather we get well into October. Saturday I went for my acupuncture treatment, then out over to the other side of town to spend the afternoon and evening with my family. It was a celebration for my brother's birthday the day before, and for Hanne passing the bar. Andrew's college roommate and his girlfriend also came over; Dan has the ability to work from wherever he wants, so the two of them trekked out here to spend 4-5 months living out here, and then plan to head down to Northern CA; somewhere north of SanFran. I think they're crazy for wanting to leave here -- but that area of California is absolutely gorgeous. I miss it sometimes.
Work has been busier lately, which is nice. It had gotten a tad slow there, for awhile, both for business, and, thusly emails or phones to answer. We recently launched a new four-lesson coaching course to go with new purchases of our initial meditation program, and that's been very popular. We rearranged our work schedule so that we're open from seven in the morning until six at night; I'm here (I'm on lunch at the moment!) from eight until four; I do like having more hours, but I'm usually dead and useless by four, anyway, so it's actually been nice getting off at that time.
It has taken some adjustment (having come to work at 8:30 for the last seven years), and, when I get home, I keep wanting to fall into the routine I had for arriving back around 5:30 -- like getting dinner together. It's been nice to have the extra time for writing or whatnot. However, with the new schedule, I now have an hour of phones to do during the 12:30 - 1:30 lunch shift (mine is from 11:30 - 12:30), and I've actually liked taking more calls than I used to do. Changes things up from doing emails and emails and more emails.
I haven't been waking up as early as I was, but 4:30-ish seems to be what my body's settled into...at least for now. That's okay with me; it gives me time to have a more leisurely morning before heading off to work. Been having really odd dreams lately, too. But I can't really recall them upon waking.
We did have kind of a wild and crazy summer -- long time to warm up, then BLAMMO right into a heat wave like we haven't had in 20 years (strange year for weather -- the blizzard back in Dec-Jan, then that weird heat...very annoying in a third-floor apartment!), and now we're into the Fall weather...but I find myself liking the change of seasons, even if we didn't have much of a summer. I kind of go into a kind of mental hibernation mode that's nice.
Not much to report on the vegetable end; the heat wave zapped pretty much everything. Next year I'm trying hanging tomatoes, however. And it should be easier, given heat waves like that are very rare (I get the radiant heat from the blacktop and cars below me; one day, the worst of the heat days, I checked the thermometer, and it said it was 115 out there on my terrace. Bleah.)
The other thing I've been doing lately is being much more mindful of how / what I eat. I have generally good eating habits, but, upon taking a long hard look, I realized I'd slipped into some bad habits and was lacking in certain areas. I've put on about 30ish pounds over the last year or so because of the decline in what / how I've been eating, as well as becoming more of a slug. So with the newly-improved regime of better eating and a daily 30-minute practice of yoga, I think I'll be seeing improvements. I've also been factoring in more walks. I've also decided to let my body lose the weight as it needs to; my other attempts, I realized, were more about trying to coerce myself into doing better and losing the weight, and even coerce my body into losing. Not the healthiest way to do it.
Well, that's all, folks, as Porky the Pig would say -- at least for now.
-- H
Monday, September 28, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Is This Really the Future of the Self Family? Waking Up at Ungodly Hours?
The headline is from a reply my brother sent to me yesterday, upon his receipt of my "Happy Birthday!" post on his Facebook wall when he saw the timestamp. I'd been awake since 2:35 that morning. My reply was "Could be...could very well be."
My dad and grandmother both have a tendency for waking up early in the morning -- and staying awake, usually -- and Andrew and I lately seem to both be waking up really early. My mother does the opposite -- she often doesn't go to bed until around 2:30 - 3:00 in the morning...sort of the opposite, but still similar.
I usually feel pretty rested. Yesterday I was kind of tired, but by Fridays I usually am, anyway. I can say that the fatigue I had, however, was far less than in other weeks and months, even after getting 8-9 hours of sleep. I'm a bit on the more-fatigued side this morning, but I'm wondering if that's more due to the fact I was wide awake at 4:35 (what is it with the :35 minute time with me? 3:35, 2:35, 4:35... or sometimes it's 3:23, 4:23, etc. Maybe I should have a numerologist take a gander? Ha!)
Anyway. I am more tired than I was yesterday, but as I started to say, I wonder if it's more because I didn't just get up when I first awoke at 4:35; I opted to go back into a doze, and I fell into a round of vivid, thick-feeling over-sleep dreams. I awoke at 5:23 -- there it is again -- and made myself get up. But I did feel rather groggy and worn out as I do when I (make myself) sleep longer than my body indicates it wants. I won't really be able to take a nap later, as I have a "human needlepoint" appointment (as Andrew calls my acupuncture appointments), and then I'm heading over to his and Hanne's (pronounced, as she says, "like banana) house for celebrations. It was his 30th (eeek!) birthday yesterday, and she passed the bar exam with flying colors. They also recently got engaged. Yippee!
I am wondering if this new time thing is actually progress; while I'm crashing around 8:15 in the evening or so (I prefer to go to bed when I'm tired, and not stretch it out and go to bed at a time that "seems" better), it appears these earlier times (at least for now) is what my body wants...before I'd go to bed then and sleep until 5-6 (or even 7) in the morning and still wake up tired. I was diagnosed last year with adrenal fatigue, which was the reason I was consistently tired, even with exercise (yoga, mostly -- or walks) and a good diet. So between my nutritionist, my superb acupuncturist (LaNai Mackey; she works at the Kwan Yin Center if any of you local peeps would like to have an appointment; the fee is anything from $45 to, I think $75 -- meaning it's up to you what you want to pay from the low to high end) and my Kaiser doctor, I got that under control. So...yeah. I'd like to see this as progress.
I was so tired there for awhile I even dropped yoga out of my life. I'd get home from work and want to just become a schlump of a potato on my couch. But in recent months I've begun working on a new book, I've gotten back into my beloved yoga (as I did I really wondered why I quit, given how good it makes me feel!), and I really started taking a hard look at my died and realized I'd kind of fallen off the wagon; it was okay / decent...but it was lacking in some areas. I also realized I really wanted to take better care of myself...had an epiphany that I hadn't wanted to for long months. Or I hadn't cared. Or both.
But I think I'm back up and running; though not literally. My left knee would commit mutiny and throw me overboard if I did. I'm just glad I'm feeling better!
Maybe I could do some writing in the morning, too....oh. That would be nice; especially with how quiet it is then. Wowsers. I see why it's recommended to do meditation or tai chi or qi gong and such at that hour. It's like the whole world -- at least in your timezone -- is still and breathing more fully.
Okee dokee. I think that's all for now; time to go switch my laundry.
-- H
My dad and grandmother both have a tendency for waking up early in the morning -- and staying awake, usually -- and Andrew and I lately seem to both be waking up really early. My mother does the opposite -- she often doesn't go to bed until around 2:30 - 3:00 in the morning...sort of the opposite, but still similar.
I usually feel pretty rested. Yesterday I was kind of tired, but by Fridays I usually am, anyway. I can say that the fatigue I had, however, was far less than in other weeks and months, even after getting 8-9 hours of sleep. I'm a bit on the more-fatigued side this morning, but I'm wondering if that's more due to the fact I was wide awake at 4:35 (what is it with the :35 minute time with me? 3:35, 2:35, 4:35... or sometimes it's 3:23, 4:23, etc. Maybe I should have a numerologist take a gander? Ha!)
Anyway. I am more tired than I was yesterday, but as I started to say, I wonder if it's more because I didn't just get up when I first awoke at 4:35; I opted to go back into a doze, and I fell into a round of vivid, thick-feeling over-sleep dreams. I awoke at 5:23 -- there it is again -- and made myself get up. But I did feel rather groggy and worn out as I do when I (make myself) sleep longer than my body indicates it wants. I won't really be able to take a nap later, as I have a "human needlepoint" appointment (as Andrew calls my acupuncture appointments), and then I'm heading over to his and Hanne's (pronounced, as she says, "like banana) house for celebrations. It was his 30th (eeek!) birthday yesterday, and she passed the bar exam with flying colors. They also recently got engaged. Yippee!
I am wondering if this new time thing is actually progress; while I'm crashing around 8:15 in the evening or so (I prefer to go to bed when I'm tired, and not stretch it out and go to bed at a time that "seems" better), it appears these earlier times (at least for now) is what my body wants...before I'd go to bed then and sleep until 5-6 (or even 7) in the morning and still wake up tired. I was diagnosed last year with adrenal fatigue, which was the reason I was consistently tired, even with exercise (yoga, mostly -- or walks) and a good diet. So between my nutritionist, my superb acupuncturist (LaNai Mackey; she works at the Kwan Yin Center if any of you local peeps would like to have an appointment; the fee is anything from $45 to, I think $75 -- meaning it's up to you what you want to pay from the low to high end) and my Kaiser doctor, I got that under control. So...yeah. I'd like to see this as progress.
I was so tired there for awhile I even dropped yoga out of my life. I'd get home from work and want to just become a schlump of a potato on my couch. But in recent months I've begun working on a new book, I've gotten back into my beloved yoga (as I did I really wondered why I quit, given how good it makes me feel!), and I really started taking a hard look at my died and realized I'd kind of fallen off the wagon; it was okay / decent...but it was lacking in some areas. I also realized I really wanted to take better care of myself...had an epiphany that I hadn't wanted to for long months. Or I hadn't cared. Or both.
But I think I'm back up and running; though not literally. My left knee would commit mutiny and throw me overboard if I did. I'm just glad I'm feeling better!
Maybe I could do some writing in the morning, too....oh. That would be nice; especially with how quiet it is then. Wowsers. I see why it's recommended to do meditation or tai chi or qi gong and such at that hour. It's like the whole world -- at least in your timezone -- is still and breathing more fully.
Okee dokee. I think that's all for now; time to go switch my laundry.
-- H
Thursday, September 24, 2009
I Think I'm Rising From the Depths of my iPhone Addiction
Well...sort of. Maybe. :-)
I've absolutely loved this, and I really think it's one of the best purchases I've made in a long time, even though Jane says I've become a sheep, following the herd. I'm okay with that, given it really is (to me at least) a handy tool. It also has the best reception I've ever had on any phone, even when I'm down a few bars. No dropped calls, no freezing, no funkitudery like my last cell phone kept having.
I did get a little app-happy. I've culled it down, however to useful ones (like a budget minder one and a grocery store list that allows me to group my lists into separate stores -- i.e. WinCo or Fred Meyer -- so it's not all on one long list; I did have to buy that one to get the full features, but it was worth the upgrade) as well as some fun ones...like the full version of Wolfenstein3D. That was worth $1.99. I also found a couple of really cool ones that allow you to mix together sounds (birds, ocean, thunderstorms, meditation music, and so on) -- and even music from the songs you've uploaded to the phone's iPod -- which has given me a lot of really nice combos for yoga in the mornings.
The phone does have a funny quirk to it, though. The Voice Dial feature is new on the 3Gs phones, and has a few bugs to work out. For instance, if I say, "Call Dad" the female Stephen Hawking voice will say, "Calling Asha Kamath." So I'll try again. "Call Dad." "Calling Pay My Bill." Sometimes it works right off the bat -- other times, in the fifty-'leven tries, I could have manually dialed the number twelve times over.
So it has moved from "new toy" status to "useful tool". (There's a joke lurking around in there, I know...like "kind of like my brother" -- [hee hee ha ha you're the best brother ever, Andrew!] -- but I'll let you guys come up with them).
Lately, I've been crashing around 8:30 in the evening, which has then caused me to wake up -- fully -- around 4:30. I've discovered that if I doze past that, I end up really groggy and I have those uber-weird dreams I call "oversleep dreams." So I've been getting up and beginning my day, and I have to say I really like having a lazier morning...but I still find I can't quite get out of the house on time. After coming to work at 8:30 am for the last seven years, the mental shift to 8:00 am has been sticky. But I can say it's been really nice to wake up feeling fully-rested and on my own, and not have to do the snooze alarm tango.
If you look up in the address bar of your window, you'll now see, on the right side of the box, a little orange square. Blogger now allows for RSS feeds, which means you will be automatically updated when I have a new post...which means I don't have to email everyone all the time. (I realize most of you reading this know what this is, but there may be a few that don't). By subscribing (you'll get two choices: Atom or RSS; you want RSS), it will also create a little manila folder with the orange stripes. You can place it on your browser tool bar, or in your bookmarks. If you click on it, then links to my posts will be in there. The top one will always be the newest one.
I can't say I'll update more often...but I think I might trying that. Because then I won't do the marathon War and Peace posts and can shave them down to...oh -- Anna Karenina. Who knows? With practice, I might be able to sum it all up in a limerick or -- for a more classy way -- a haiku.
That is all.
-- H
I've absolutely loved this, and I really think it's one of the best purchases I've made in a long time, even though Jane says I've become a sheep, following the herd. I'm okay with that, given it really is (to me at least) a handy tool. It also has the best reception I've ever had on any phone, even when I'm down a few bars. No dropped calls, no freezing, no funkitudery like my last cell phone kept having.
I did get a little app-happy. I've culled it down, however to useful ones (like a budget minder one and a grocery store list that allows me to group my lists into separate stores -- i.e. WinCo or Fred Meyer -- so it's not all on one long list; I did have to buy that one to get the full features, but it was worth the upgrade) as well as some fun ones...like the full version of Wolfenstein3D. That was worth $1.99. I also found a couple of really cool ones that allow you to mix together sounds (birds, ocean, thunderstorms, meditation music, and so on) -- and even music from the songs you've uploaded to the phone's iPod -- which has given me a lot of really nice combos for yoga in the mornings.
The phone does have a funny quirk to it, though. The Voice Dial feature is new on the 3Gs phones, and has a few bugs to work out. For instance, if I say, "Call Dad" the female Stephen Hawking voice will say, "Calling Asha Kamath." So I'll try again. "Call Dad." "Calling Pay My Bill." Sometimes it works right off the bat -- other times, in the fifty-'leven tries, I could have manually dialed the number twelve times over.
So it has moved from "new toy" status to "useful tool". (There's a joke lurking around in there, I know...like "kind of like my brother" -- [hee hee ha ha you're the best brother ever, Andrew!] -- but I'll let you guys come up with them).
Lately, I've been crashing around 8:30 in the evening, which has then caused me to wake up -- fully -- around 4:30. I've discovered that if I doze past that, I end up really groggy and I have those uber-weird dreams I call "oversleep dreams." So I've been getting up and beginning my day, and I have to say I really like having a lazier morning...but I still find I can't quite get out of the house on time. After coming to work at 8:30 am for the last seven years, the mental shift to 8:00 am has been sticky. But I can say it's been really nice to wake up feeling fully-rested and on my own, and not have to do the snooze alarm tango.
If you look up in the address bar of your window, you'll now see, on the right side of the box, a little orange square. Blogger now allows for RSS feeds, which means you will be automatically updated when I have a new post...which means I don't have to email everyone all the time. (I realize most of you reading this know what this is, but there may be a few that don't). By subscribing (you'll get two choices: Atom or RSS; you want RSS), it will also create a little manila folder with the orange stripes. You can place it on your browser tool bar, or in your bookmarks. If you click on it, then links to my posts will be in there. The top one will always be the newest one.
I can't say I'll update more often...but I think I might trying that. Because then I won't do the marathon War and Peace posts and can shave them down to...oh -- Anna Karenina. Who knows? With practice, I might be able to sum it all up in a limerick or -- for a more classy way -- a haiku.
That is all.
-- H
Sunday, September 06, 2009
I Drank the Kool-Aid...
...And crossed over to the Dark Side (shiiiiiiiiiii...poohhhhh...shiiiiiiiii...poohhh....)
My current cell phone has been acting whacky for awhile, now -- i.e. dropping calls for no reason when I have bars up the wazoo and off and into forever; freezing, not ringing when a call comes in, then alerting me to a voice mail...no, that wasn't what happened with you, Mom [sorry!] that was total and complete PEBKAK [Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair]; showing that I have, again, bars up the wazoo, yet it tells me that there's "No Network", and so on. Actually, it used to do that when I first got it, though less frequently...but enough to make me go out and buy a whole new phone after only having that one about five or six months.
I loved the replacement; it was a tiny little thing. A "Zoolander" phone as my brother Andrew and my friend Jen called it. It was also referred to as my little spy phone; it was -- still is, really -- the world's smallest camera phone. Folded open it was about the length of a credit card and a quarter more; closed, half that, not including the little 3/4 inch antenna.
It was a fairly basic phone (fine for me, since I just used it to make and receive calls; plus it has to be fairly basic to be that tiny), but it kept giving me a heart attack when it would either get loose from its pocket in my purse or I'd simply drop it in because I couldn't find it right away. I was then beset with a rollicking F-15 loop-de-loop of panic as I'd think, "Oh, my God! My cell phone's gone!" I'd, of course, find it...but I got really tired of the cell-phone-and-purse equivalent of a Jack-in-the-Box.
So I went back to my other phone a little while after moving into my new place. One of the other reasons I got the 007 / Zoolander phone was that it got crappy reception at best. I'm sure the position of my apartment (second floor, in a shaded area) had something to do with it, as my little phone sometimes -- though not at all as much -- had trouble.
It was a more heart-friendly phone to switch back to, but I was gradually reminded why I replaced it. Then it began getting worse. Oh -- the other thing it would do was constantly chime with it's little ding! noise it makes when you plug it in to charge. It would sit there on my table going ding!....ding....ding!....ding! -- sometimes for several minutes or more. Pulling out the charger cord and reinserting it would sometimes clear that error...but not always. And then it would stop.
I thought I could stretch that particular phone out farther, but its technological legs began getting more and more spindly. I knew I could go back to 007, but I really didn't feel like having the accompanying panic attacks again. I've been a "free agent" with AT&T for the last year or so, waiting for the right replacement phone to come along. I always intended to stay with them, but the standard free phones were unappealing, as were the ones that ended up around $40 or so / less with a rebate. I just didn't want another rinky-dink phone that would be, as someone put it, the "cell phone equivalent of a disposable camera".
Yes, if something happens to it, you can get a refurbished model -- but sometimes you still have to pay for that, too, so you end up getting the same crappy phone again with the same crappy problems. I know someone who had to replace theirs three times in one year to a tune of about $150 -- and that was in addition to the original amount he spent when he got it (a more expensive one with a rebate).
So, on Thursday, I woke up with a decision made in my head (well, I think actually I made it the day before, and began making it after a conversation with Andrew about different models). It was one I've been hemming and hawing about, balancing out want over need, etc. for quite some time now. Well, really ever since Andrew drank the Kool-Aid and crossed over to the Dark Side (shiiiiiiiiiii...poohhhhh...shiiiiiiiii...poohhh....), and probably for the last four or five months or so.
I spent my lunch break getting this (drum roll, please / fan fare taa daaaa!) (Andrew -- that's "tahhhh dahhhh", by the way):
I have an iPhone! It was a serious chunk o' change to plunk down at the moment, but I really just could not bear the idea of another two-year contract with a disposable cell phone. I looked at this as an investment my psychological well-being and happiness. I (heart) my new phone.
Then I went app-crazy. There are little software programs -- applications -- you can download. Some I got were games, some just plain goofy (nearly everything I got was free), some fun (ohhhh....like the military jet app where it has multiple pictures of all the jets the US Armed Forces use; classified first by branch, then by type and gives all the specs of each one and what it does); Google Earth; a planet and star tracker; the full dictionary.com and thesaurus it offers (American Heritage wanted $24.99 for only the dictionary!); NPR; PDXBus; Wickipedia; and, the best of all, one where your iPhone can sound like a lightsaber as you swing it around. Among other things, that is.
(That was -- ahem -- the first one I downloaded....so no I'm not a geek or anything kthxbye).
But the ones I really wanted (the others were just ones I happened across as I browsed the apps) were the little apps for budgeting, tracking your spending / cash. I realize it's kind of ironic that you have to buy a (spendy) phone to manage your budget...but it fit in just fine into mine. There's also one where I can log into my Chase account and do stuff from there, just like if I were on a "regular" computer. That means I no longer have to carry around my check register to mark off my debit card purchases, because the current info will be literally at my fingertips. I also found another (free!) app for a grocery list-maker. It has tens of thousands of items you can plug in, plus with the ability to write your own in and stick it in the correct category.
And...ha ha...the Family Guy app I downloaded had me in hysterics last night; there's little games, plus the ability to string together a bunch of scene clips, as well as watch ones that other people have strung together. I keep forgetting how much I really like that show.
The other thing about the phone I've been really wanting for awhile is the GPS feature; this phone also has a compass in it (Army Ranger / Navy Seal accurate, yo!) that's integrated with the map / GPS system so the map turns with you as you drive so you'll always be oriented in the right way.
You just have to make sure you, um, turn that feature on, 'cause then you like -- you know -- still have to drive up and down the street eighty billion times to figure out where the pesky little red dot is that's marking your destination.
Well -- you do if you're me, I guess.
It also has a little note pad and a voice recorder, both of which I really like. I've been working on a new book for the last few months, and I can either just speak a note about it or type it in using the QWERTY keyboard (which you use essentially by hunting and pecking with your thumbs...something that's taking some getting used to for me, as I'm not a hunt-and-pecker. I'm discovering I have to watch my thumbs as I type, not the screen as I habitually do).
Oh, and the weather feature is nice, too -- as is the traffic-showing feature of the map. The map is also the same thing you can pull up in Google Maps, so I can get directions and have a satellite image of the surroundings to follow. Makes, say -- finding a landmark easy to look for.
I'm very happy with this purchase. No buyer's remorse at all. I even found an alarm clock app I like so I can get rid of my stupid, clunky LCD clock that has the world's weakest radio tuner in it. Instead of music I wake up to mostly crackling static. I just have to use my wall charger for my phone at night...which is okay. Besides -- that puts my phone in my room, whereas before, it charged out in my living room. If anyone called in the middle of the night (nobody ever has, but you never know), I wouldn't know until the morning.
Oh -- my garden. Well -- with the crazy hot, cool, warm, cold, warm, HOTTER THAN A FRYING PAN, back to cool weather...things went kaput. Some flowers did just fine, others not so much. Both attempts at beans went south. The tomato and bell pepper plant kept putting out flowers, which then got fried. My jasmine and plants loved the weather; the bamboo, however -- in one pot at least -- sorta didn't really like it.
I discovered that it's the radiant heat coming up from the blacktop and the cars that singed everything. Though during that run of terribly hot days, it got to be an oven out there. One day I came home and it was 115 degrees out on my terrace. Bleah.
The pepper and tomato plants are putting out decent flowers now; it's a good thing we have long, warm falls. This may be a year of failure. Oh well.
So -- yes. As I've pretty much decided on a MacBook next spring (Holy Cats it's a slick thing; Andrew has one and what sold me was the battery life on them -- many hours, even with browsing), I'm now officially another minion of Steve Jobs.
I wonder if there's an app for that?
-- H
P.S. The 3G(how fast the phone browses / downloads from the Internet) is smokin' fast!
My current cell phone has been acting whacky for awhile, now -- i.e. dropping calls for no reason when I have bars up the wazoo and off and into forever; freezing, not ringing when a call comes in, then alerting me to a voice mail...no, that wasn't what happened with you, Mom [sorry!] that was total and complete PEBKAK [Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair]; showing that I have, again, bars up the wazoo, yet it tells me that there's "No Network", and so on. Actually, it used to do that when I first got it, though less frequently...but enough to make me go out and buy a whole new phone after only having that one about five or six months.
I loved the replacement; it was a tiny little thing. A "Zoolander" phone as my brother Andrew and my friend Jen called it. It was also referred to as my little spy phone; it was -- still is, really -- the world's smallest camera phone. Folded open it was about the length of a credit card and a quarter more; closed, half that, not including the little 3/4 inch antenna.
It was a fairly basic phone (fine for me, since I just used it to make and receive calls; plus it has to be fairly basic to be that tiny), but it kept giving me a heart attack when it would either get loose from its pocket in my purse or I'd simply drop it in because I couldn't find it right away. I was then beset with a rollicking F-15 loop-de-loop of panic as I'd think, "Oh, my God! My cell phone's gone!" I'd, of course, find it...but I got really tired of the cell-phone-and-purse equivalent of a Jack-in-the-Box.
So I went back to my other phone a little while after moving into my new place. One of the other reasons I got the 007 / Zoolander phone was that it got crappy reception at best. I'm sure the position of my apartment (second floor, in a shaded area) had something to do with it, as my little phone sometimes -- though not at all as much -- had trouble.
It was a more heart-friendly phone to switch back to, but I was gradually reminded why I replaced it. Then it began getting worse. Oh -- the other thing it would do was constantly chime with it's little ding! noise it makes when you plug it in to charge. It would sit there on my table going ding!....ding....ding!....ding! -- sometimes for several minutes or more. Pulling out the charger cord and reinserting it would sometimes clear that error...but not always. And then it would stop.
I thought I could stretch that particular phone out farther, but its technological legs began getting more and more spindly. I knew I could go back to 007, but I really didn't feel like having the accompanying panic attacks again. I've been a "free agent" with AT&T for the last year or so, waiting for the right replacement phone to come along. I always intended to stay with them, but the standard free phones were unappealing, as were the ones that ended up around $40 or so / less with a rebate. I just didn't want another rinky-dink phone that would be, as someone put it, the "cell phone equivalent of a disposable camera".
Yes, if something happens to it, you can get a refurbished model -- but sometimes you still have to pay for that, too, so you end up getting the same crappy phone again with the same crappy problems. I know someone who had to replace theirs three times in one year to a tune of about $150 -- and that was in addition to the original amount he spent when he got it (a more expensive one with a rebate).
So, on Thursday, I woke up with a decision made in my head (well, I think actually I made it the day before, and began making it after a conversation with Andrew about different models). It was one I've been hemming and hawing about, balancing out want over need, etc. for quite some time now. Well, really ever since Andrew drank the Kool-Aid and crossed over to the Dark Side (shiiiiiiiiiii...poohhhhh...shiiiiiiiii...poohhh....), and probably for the last four or five months or so.
I spent my lunch break getting this (drum roll, please / fan fare taa daaaa!) (Andrew -- that's "tahhhh dahhhh", by the way):
I have an iPhone! It was a serious chunk o' change to plunk down at the moment, but I really just could not bear the idea of another two-year contract with a disposable cell phone. I looked at this as an investment my psychological well-being and happiness. I (heart) my new phone.
Then I went app-crazy. There are little software programs -- applications -- you can download. Some I got were games, some just plain goofy (nearly everything I got was free), some fun (ohhhh....like the military jet app where it has multiple pictures of all the jets the US Armed Forces use; classified first by branch, then by type and gives all the specs of each one and what it does); Google Earth; a planet and star tracker; the full dictionary.com and thesaurus it offers (American Heritage wanted $24.99 for only the dictionary!); NPR; PDXBus; Wickipedia; and, the best of all, one where your iPhone can sound like a lightsaber as you swing it around. Among other things, that is.
(That was -- ahem -- the first one I downloaded....so no I'm not a geek or anything kthxbye).
But the ones I really wanted (the others were just ones I happened across as I browsed the apps) were the little apps for budgeting, tracking your spending / cash. I realize it's kind of ironic that you have to buy a (spendy) phone to manage your budget...but it fit in just fine into mine. There's also one where I can log into my Chase account and do stuff from there, just like if I were on a "regular" computer. That means I no longer have to carry around my check register to mark off my debit card purchases, because the current info will be literally at my fingertips. I also found another (free!) app for a grocery list-maker. It has tens of thousands of items you can plug in, plus with the ability to write your own in and stick it in the correct category.
And...ha ha...the Family Guy app I downloaded had me in hysterics last night; there's little games, plus the ability to string together a bunch of scene clips, as well as watch ones that other people have strung together. I keep forgetting how much I really like that show.
The other thing about the phone I've been really wanting for awhile is the GPS feature; this phone also has a compass in it (Army Ranger / Navy Seal accurate, yo!) that's integrated with the map / GPS system so the map turns with you as you drive so you'll always be oriented in the right way.
You just have to make sure you, um, turn that feature on, 'cause then you like -- you know -- still have to drive up and down the street eighty billion times to figure out where the pesky little red dot is that's marking your destination.
Well -- you do if you're me, I guess.
It also has a little note pad and a voice recorder, both of which I really like. I've been working on a new book for the last few months, and I can either just speak a note about it or type it in using the QWERTY keyboard (which you use essentially by hunting and pecking with your thumbs...something that's taking some getting used to for me, as I'm not a hunt-and-pecker. I'm discovering I have to watch my thumbs as I type, not the screen as I habitually do).
Oh, and the weather feature is nice, too -- as is the traffic-showing feature of the map. The map is also the same thing you can pull up in Google Maps, so I can get directions and have a satellite image of the surroundings to follow. Makes, say -- finding a landmark easy to look for.
I'm very happy with this purchase. No buyer's remorse at all. I even found an alarm clock app I like so I can get rid of my stupid, clunky LCD clock that has the world's weakest radio tuner in it. Instead of music I wake up to mostly crackling static. I just have to use my wall charger for my phone at night...which is okay. Besides -- that puts my phone in my room, whereas before, it charged out in my living room. If anyone called in the middle of the night (nobody ever has, but you never know), I wouldn't know until the morning.
Oh -- my garden. Well -- with the crazy hot, cool, warm, cold, warm, HOTTER THAN A FRYING PAN, back to cool weather...things went kaput. Some flowers did just fine, others not so much. Both attempts at beans went south. The tomato and bell pepper plant kept putting out flowers, which then got fried. My jasmine and plants loved the weather; the bamboo, however -- in one pot at least -- sorta didn't really like it.
I discovered that it's the radiant heat coming up from the blacktop and the cars that singed everything. Though during that run of terribly hot days, it got to be an oven out there. One day I came home and it was 115 degrees out on my terrace. Bleah.
The pepper and tomato plants are putting out decent flowers now; it's a good thing we have long, warm falls. This may be a year of failure. Oh well.
So -- yes. As I've pretty much decided on a MacBook next spring (Holy Cats it's a slick thing; Andrew has one and what sold me was the battery life on them -- many hours, even with browsing), I'm now officially another minion of Steve Jobs.
I wonder if there's an app for that?
-- H
P.S. The 3G(how fast the phone browses / downloads from the Internet) is smokin' fast!
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