Some (few) might have noticed my absence from this and other blogs . . . it’s been a hectic week but I figure I would post something to let people know I didn’t go off to Cancun or some other warm place (no, not hell).
First, we had a bit of snow (and single-digit temperatures) . . .
That might not look like much compared to Colorado<<link, but that’s more snow than we’ve seen in the two years here. Mind you, compared to the shoveling we used to do in Colorado, this was a breeze. Still, not something we’re happy about.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s nice, but where are the ‘Y’ Stories?”
Well, Bob, one writer has his done, one is working on his, and I’ve yet to start . . . but will probably write mine tomorrow.
You see, a few days ago Melisa’s phone suddenly decided it had enough and turned itself into a paperweight. Now, this wouldn’t be a big problem if we had a land-line, but we opted not to, so losing the use of one’s phone is a bit of a problem. I mean, I still have mine, but in our digital age, almost everything we do is tied to our phone numbers. Doctor, stores, utilities, and so on.
So, after spending half the day trying to revert the bricking process, I gave up and retrieved our older phones. After transferring the sim card and all the other stuff to it, I found out it wasn’t working. I mean, it was working, but not as a tool to make and receive phone calls and texts.
It turns out Verizon no longer supports 3G (our old phones are about eight years old). Now, I know they do because there are still devices that work on 3G carrier waves. What they actually mean is they no longer support switching a phone number to a 3G device. OK, so, new phone, right?
Wait, too many words without a photo . . . here’s an Epcot photo from one of the negatives I’ve photographed and processed . . .
Is that Kevin Bacon trying to hide behind the woman in the plaid shorts? He really is everywhere.
Anyway, there aren’t many deals right now on phones (as many holidays as we have, what are the odds this happened during a rare holiday lull?), plus many phones are not available at a moment’s notice. So, the decision was made to buy the cheapest “smartphone” available — $99 — and we switched Melisa’s number to it. That way, she was up and running within six hours of losing her Samsung S8.
Side Note: for the many hours her phone was not available, we forwarded her number to mine. However, places like health care providers and pharmacies now send texts with updates or notices, and those you can’t forward (or, at least, I couldn’t figure out how).
You know what you get when you buy a $99 smartphone? An appreciation for phones that cost a bit more. I mean, it’s usable but just barely. I almost bought a flip phone, but they cost as much or more.
So, on the second and third days, lots of hours were spent researching phones (something I had not planned on doing for at least a few more years . . . curse you, Samsung!)
I really wanted to switch to Apple (just to try it out) but without incentives them phones don’t make much sense. Plus, having no other Apple devices, backing stuff up, and transferring data is a bit clumsy (you have to use iTunes for the PC and that has a lot of issues; I know because I have an iTouch).
Side note: we will eventually try Apple, but for various (good) reasons, this wasn’t the time.
Hey, here’s another scanned negative from Epcot . . .
Anyway, after much research and lots of calls, I found a well-rated phone at a price I was willing to pay. It should be here tomorrow, but the SIM card for it won’t be here until Tuesday.
What about the $99 phone, you ask? Well, that will become our emergency backup phone for the next time one of our phones dies on us. 4GLTE should be around for a good long while despite the much-touted 5G making headway battling a bunch of idiots who fear it’s all a plot to control us.
Frankly, for our normal use, I don’t see the need for 5G in the near future since our phones are only for phone calls, texts, and email. Heck, 3G used to handle that just fine.
Anyway, that’s my (semi)quick update. Hope everyone has a nice weekend and that Texas gets warm again soon.
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Disperser Tracks 
I noticed it had been a few days since you posted last…but I figured you two were busy.
We were busy here, so I wasn’t around WP much until now.
Beautiful photos! I like the snow when I don’t have to shovel it or drive in it! Ha!
I see Kevin B in that 2nd Epcot photo, too…he’s wearing a yellow shirt and jeans this time around! Ha!
Sorry to hear Melisa’s phone turned itself into a paperweight.
Always a BIG chore to replace a phone and do all the stuff that has to be done to switch to a new one.
Ha…when I replaced my Silver Nokia 6030 the young man helping us purchase a “smartphone” called the other workers over to see my old phone. One kid exclaimed, “Oh, I’ve heard of these, but never seen one before!” I said, “Are you making fun of my dinosaur phone from The StoneAge?” They laughed, and said, “Yes!”
Darn kids! HA!
(((HUGS))) Happy Sunday!!! 🙂
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Nokia used to make phones? . . . wow . . .
Yes, I kid.
The sad part is that it used to be I changed phones because the technology outpaced them. I still have a couple of my Palm phones (and they still work) as well as the Droid HD Max (the 3G phone I mentioned).
These days, phones are not designed robustly enough to last much more than a few years (my Note II lasted almost four years and what I heard was surprise from people familiar with phones).
I hear Apple phones are more robustly made and that’s why I was looking at one.
I think what I will now do is trade is my phones every few years when they have trade-in deals. I had once worked out the break-even would be around four years. Meaning, if I kept the phone longer than four years, it was cheaper to buy it outright than trade it in early for a new newer phone.
But, that’s predicated on the phone lasting that long. And here’s the thing; we are very gentle on our phones. They are cased, and we don’t throw them around or keep them with keys and stuff.
The S8 that died looks pristine. Neither it nor my Note have any scratches on them (not even micro scratches). It would have been smarter for us to trade it in last year for a newer phone as we would have gotten a pretty good deal on a much newer phone and at the same time “lowered” the original cost of the phone. Live and learn (and I now am worried about the Note 8 since it’s the same age as the S8).
Anyway, the other thing is that depending on the brand, you don’t always get the latest updates with older phones. Most of the time it’s not a big deal, but sometimes apps update to the newer version and no longer work as well on older phones (and new apps won’t work at all).
All in all, a frustrating two days, and now we’re reconsidering having a “land line” . . . I put that in quotes because these days you actually get VOIP (an internet phone modem) so if your cable does down, so does your phone. I don’t even know if they offer an actual “hard” line anymore. Certainly, I could not find it offered here. But, at least, it gives you a backup (although we currently are each other’s backups).
As for the snow, yeah, it was no sweat (well, a little sweat). I’m hoping that as it melts, I’ll have some interesting photo opportunities like I did for this post about melting snow: 2013 Snow and Ice
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I’ve seen lots of snow reports from the US, so I was wondering if it affected you. You seem to have coped quite well!
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Yeah, this was not a big burden and, surprisingly, they kept the roads fairly clear (I had one appointment that required a forty minutes drive, and while slower than usual, it was fine).
Depending on where we measured, it looked anywhere between eight-to-twelve inches, although snowdrifts were a thing because of the swirling winds.
Many other places had much worse than here. We also had the extreme cold (a few days in the -17° C) reported elsewhere, but, again, not actually affecting anything other than we didn’t go for our walks.
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Thanks for the EPCOT memory nudge. World Showcase was my favourite attraction in all of the parks.
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You are welcome. It’s where we spent most of our time whenever we visited.
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Favourite country?
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Hmm . . . difficult to pick as there are three areas for judging: the displays/movies, the shops, and the restaurants.
From what we remember, the Canada and China displays (which might have been changed) offered the most impressive movies (360° panoramic movies that can cause motion-sickness for some). Some pavilions have rides, but none worth remembering because . . . well, because we barely remember a few and obviously were not impressed.
Shops-wise, Italy’s, China’s, and United Kingdom made enough of an impression to be remembered (Italy’s likely because of the familiarity with some of the — overpriced — products). But, all the shops were interesting although we seldom bought anything because most of the stuff was barely over the typical tourist-traps offerings or were really high-end stuff that only someone with refined tastes and lots of money would buy.
Food-wise, three definite favorites; the Italian and French Restaurants, and the Fish n’ Chips kiosk in the United Kingdom. I also liked the funnel cake kiosk outside the US Pavillion, but those are more hit-and-miss as some get so laden with grease as to be unedible (something I’d not have thought possible, but experienced). None of the other food offerings impressed us much (we have no definite memories of them).
For outside entertainment, the Japanese drumming shows were always interesting.
All the above is what we (semi)clearly remember . . . but it’s been a long time since were there last (six or seven years) and even then, we were there with another couple, and that’s different than going there on one’s own.
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Great memories of the China pavilion at Epcot . . . sharing a great Thanksgiving Day meal with Louise and Eraldo in the early ’90s. It was a spur of the moment decision to take a ride down there for 5 days in late November but it proved to be very worth it since the parks (back then) were nearly empty and the weather nice and warm.
Glad to hear your phone situation has been remedied . . . somewhat. And that the snow shoveling wasn’t too much of a strain.
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Yes, it used to be that if you got there before x-mas, the parks were not as crowded as they are now. The best time was between Thanksgiving and x-mas week . . . but those days are no more.
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Did you notice there was a guy with slightly bowed legs taking a picture of YOU, in that second EPCOT picture? And, we are trying to imagine what they’ve come up with depicting our previous President in “The Hall of Presidents,” over in the Magic Kingdom! M 🙂
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I think he was shooting at the building in the first photo, but I supposed I could have been mistaken for Billy Crystal.
There is a President’s showcase at the US World Showcase as well . . . not sure if they had current presidents or not, but regardless, I figure they’ll just have some clown telling lies while trying to grope women who pass by (but only if they are “doable”, apparently). Come to think of it, that could also be Bill Clinton, although I’m not sure he was all that particular.
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Our lives are so tied into phones now. I need to use an RSA app on my iphone to login to work (used to be IT gave us a standalone RSA device). So if my phone was to do the paperweight thing, I can’t login to work.
Glad you got sorted in the end!
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Yeah, a bit of a pain . . . still fiddling with it so while it’s up and running, not quite fully sorted yet.
And, yes, I’m now revisiting all the sites I’m hooked into making sure that if I lose my phone I can still connect.
. . . perhaps it’s time to go back to pre-smartphone days . . . except landlines are difficult to get.
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My husband uses my old iPhone 5 and every once in a while he get a ‘carrier update’ message that disables features and he has to reset the phone back to factory settings. Anyway … colorful, catch-up post and funny you see Kevin Bacon. Years ago my friend and I swore it was him on our whale watching cruise … out of Cape May, the area where he is from! Yes, he’s everywhere. And we do get a lot of snow in Colorado and thank goodness we are getting the snowpack we need after a couple years of drought. You just have to like it if you are going to live here.
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We liked it more once I bought a dual-stage 36″ snowthrower.
What we didn’t like was the fires and the water situation (which, with more and more people moving there, will only get worse).
Loved Colorado during our time there, but it was time to move on.
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Just stopping by with a “Hey!” and some (((HUGS))) for you and Melisa!
Hope your weekend is going well!
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Hey!
Yesterday and today were great weather. Now and tomorrow, rain. At least it’s in the sixties.
As for how all else is going, pretty good. I mean, pretty good, like usual.
Hope your weekend is going great.
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