Cell Phone Saga Update

You may recall that back in the beginning of August, we went to a wedding in St. Louis, and Micah made a name for himself by microwaving our cell phones (nickname of his alter ego, courtesy of his Uncle Terry:  "Chef Micah-wave").  So since then Bob's been using the boys' phone, friends of ours gave us their old phone to replace the boys' phone (thanks again, Steve and Jenny!!), and I've kept using mine, which has limped along.  It definitely was no longer "smart" in the sense that pretty much all it could easily do was make and receive calls, and even then I never used my contact list, because it was impossible to back out of it.  So I kept it on "dialer" and only dialed numbers I knew, LOL.  And I never checked messages either!  But I could make calls, and the boys and Bob could call me (pretty much the only people who call me on my cell, LOL), so things were good.

The funny thing is that I really wasn't happy with the phone since we got it back in March (it was a Droid Bionic).  I had problems from the get-go when it wouldn't access the internet, even on the vaunted "4G network" of Verizon.  Also it would randomly turn itself onto airplane mode frequently, and I would have no idea, so I would miss calls because I wouldn't think to check that my phone was actually in the mood to receive calls.  Sometimes I would be unable to access my voicemail for weeks at a time.  And it would start taking longer and longer to answer.  Eventually the delay would be about 10 seconds, so people would hang up, while I was frantically saying, "Hello!  Hello . . .  hello? . . . HELLO!! . . . "  Soooo annoying.  I would take it in to Costco, and the nice guy in the cell phone booth would take out stuff and put stuff back in, reset everything to factory settings, etc., and things would be normal for a few days before it would gradually go back to its old tricks. I also dropped it out of the diaper bag while getting out of the big van back in May, and the top left corner of the screen was all cracked--again, the touchscreen kept working, but it certainly looked worse for wear after only a few months!

I have to say, microwaving cured all the technical problems!!  The phone never ONCE turned itself onto airplane mode during August and September!  I guess it considered itself warned, LOL.  I do have to add that while I don't really recommend microwaving as a fix for whatever ails your cell phone processor, Micah would be glad to volunteer to do the microwaving, should you choose that route.

Anyhow, the problem was that we still had to pay for a smartphone each month, even though we didn't actually have a "smart" phone.  The solution we came up with was to get a new phone and add an extra line.  We bought another cheap dump phone off Amazon to actually take the new number, and we decided to get . . . an iphone, since everyone we know with one really loves it. 

Bob went to the Verizon store at 6:00 on Friday (second person there--he could have slept even later, although people did start trickling into line after him, and by 8:00 there was a good-sized line).  So he walked out with an iphone 5 (Nathan:  "YOU got an IPHONE 5?!  We never get anything new!!").  The phone wasn't activated until yesterday, and then, in slightly ominous fashion, the activation didn't work right, so I couldn't call anyone or connect to the network . . .  We took it back to the Verizon store yesterday afternoon, and the nice lady there reset something and it started working.  I'm beginning to think the problem is me!!  Cell phones sense that I don't know what I'm doing, like a horse with a new rider, and proceed to cause mischief or something . . . 

So far, the phone seems nice.  I'm sure I am not the right person to fully appreciate all its so-called wonders, LOL.  It makes and receives calls (now, anyway), AND the "home" button works!!  So if anyone has any great suggestions for what this phone should be doing for me to make my life easier, please let me know!  I did enter a ton of things onto the calendar, so now hopefully I won't again make the mistake of scheduling an OB appointment for 1:00 at Bethesda on the same day where I had previously scheduled dentist appointments for 7 kids starting at 10:00, and an orthodontist appointment for Jonathan at 1:30.  Oops!  (OB appt. got moved, LOL.)

One thing we are hoping to use a lot is the camera.  Our camera broke at WSS, so we've been using our very old digital camera, the one we got before Anna was born.  It's kind of a pain to get the pictures off the camera onto the computer, though.  We're hoping that is easier with the pictures on the iphone.  It will be nice to not have to always remember to take a separate camera everywhere we want to take pictures, especially when the new baby comes (less than 10 weeks!!). 

So now we can really say we have joined the 21st century, I guess!