Yesterday afternoon Andy came home around 4, we bought a picnic dinner at Subway (a sandwich place), and went up to the land to try out the new cell phone. Some of our calls and texts went through, but some didn’t, even though the phone said we had at least four bars. The nice thing about texting is the phone gives us a chance to retry if the message doesn’t go through right away. We sent the texts to Kaitlin, and it was fun when she responded right away. We also managed to leave a voice message on her landline and phoned our answering machine couple of times.
The quality of sound seemed to be fairly good. It turns out at one point I thought the call wasn’t going through on the west porch so I went through the house to the east, which seems to have better reception. I hadn’t realized the call had gone through and was chatting with Andy, not into the phone, and when we got home we could still hear some of the conversation. How cool was that!
After eating we walked down to see Andy’s fruit trees and over to Beate and Tim’s, and by the time we got back to the house it was starting to get dark and we could hear a big wind coming. We could actually hear bark falling from trees, then a few crashes of trees themselves falling. I tried once more to call (no luck) and text (didn’t go through right away so I canceled it), and we decided to head for home before too many trees fell across the road.
Three did. The first broke towards the top, so we tossed the top and some branches off the road and managed to drive around/over the rest of it. Another tree was easy enough to just drive around, and the third was blocking the road. It had been such a beautiful day we had decided to take the 4Runner instead of the Jeep, so we didn’t have Andy’s chainsaw or other tools. But we did have a strap, so he turned the car around, fastened the strap to the back of the car and to the tree, and pulled the tree out of the way.
Guess what he will be doing tomorrow!
The most interesting thing is when we were there I decided to try another text message. There was only one bar, so I didn’t expect it to go through, but it did. And Kaitlin answered right away. How awesome was that!
Me: Test
Kaitlin: Yes?
Me: Will xplain when home
Kaitlin: Okay. Drive safely! Love you!
Notice her keyboard is fancier than ours — she can use punctuation marks. We could get a phone with a fancier keyboard, but we like this one and are planning to get one just like it for Andy. We really need to check how reliable this method of communication is, and it seems that text messages have a better chance of going through. It was neat talking to Kaitlin, but we need to do a lot more practicing and it’s best if we can do it with one another.
Anyway, an adventuresome evening for this old folk, at least.
August 8, 2015
It does sound like an adventuresome evening!
And rather nice too. Very peaceful but with a dash of drama.
🙂
I’m so glad you got a cell phone.
I must say that I dragged my feet for quite a bit of time getting one.
(In my comment to your last post I explained why I did) but I have found having my phone has made my life so much better.
I no longer have a landline and I’ve never had cable so I feel that the cost is equal to those and therefore I can justify it to myself.
Of course my life is a bit different from yours but I’m able to take photos of things and send them in an instant. I have many times shot a photo off to Doc of something that’s been going on at the clinic with an animal so that he can see for himself. Once when my sister’s puppy got bit by the eye, we immediately snapped a photo so he could see and advise us.
Also when not at work, the girls can contact me and let me know what’s going on while they are working without being tied to a landline.
Another thing I like is the ability to message people back and forth on Facebook on my phone.
One late Saturday night evening I was able to carry on a multi-conversation with my friends in Florida, Wisconsin, Minnesota and locally at the same time. It was great fun to sit in my P.J’s with Saturday Night Live on and chat with all my friends and joke and laugh. Who would have thought we would ever be able to do that?
I know some people say they long for the old days but not me.
I’m excited to be living now with all the new technology.
The old days I felt alone in the world, but now I have friends all over!
I can use my phone or the laptop and come read my friends blogs and FB pages and feel connected to people I value.
So, I hope you have fun learning on your phone and maybe someday you will get one with more features?
xoxo
I’m afraid our phone already has too many features. We have unlimited text and 700 minutes of calls each month, but any data (e.g., pictures, going on the internet) would cost us $1.99 for each MB. We could accidentally hit a wrong button and get on the internet. I think tech support has fixed it so we can’t get texts with pictures, which could run into money, too. All we want is for Andy to be able to call or text me from the land and vice-versa. That plus being able to text or call the rare times we travel. I love the internet and email, and can take pictures and send them with my Wi-Fi iPads and iPhone touch, so that’s no problem.
What kind of plan do you have? How much data/month? Kaitlin and Torben love their smartphones and I can understand why, but we just don’t have that much use for one. A friend of ours with a smartphone up there says the internet is incredibly slow.
oh i loved this post and cindi’s comment too!
my cell phone paid for itself the first time i had car trouble and was stranded on the highway.
i can’t imagine being without it for that reason alone now.
and wow. that andy.
he can handle most everything that comes his way.
he’s like the marine in that.
i feel totally safe with him.
LOLOL! “see the hill. take the hill.”
Yes, they’re great for emergencies, and we’re thrilled we may have found one (actually two, one for each of us so we can text) that may serve the purpose up there. 🙂
I am surprised that there are no exclamation marks and other graphics on the instrument. There is usually an option on the left side that will give three alternative keyboards, one of which will be for numerals and one for other characters. Please read the handbook that would have come with the hand set.
I personally prefer the texting to talking and now that we have whatsapp group messages from family and friend groups too has become possible and since we can also share photographs it is almost like having a computer in the hand set.
What you’re describing is what we have on my iPads. I did look deeper tonight. The gal in tech support didn’t know how to do it, but I figured out how to insert symbols and to switch from number mode to letter mode or to symbols, plus a couple of other things. Using punctuation marks would be cumbersome and it isn’t necessary for our purposes. We don’t want to chat, we use email and blogging for that. We want Andy to be able to tell me if he needs help or if he’s fine but will have to spend the night because it got too dark to clear trees off the road. That kind of communication is priceless.
That said, I can understand why you love yours.
Here’s an article about how text messaging came to be. Our phone is black and weighs less than the one in the picture, but the keyboard looks like ours. Hit the 2 button once for a, twice for b, etc. When you’re in letter mode. In number mode hitting the 2 button gives you the number two. We could have gotten a basic phone with a more standard keyboard that slides out, but we like this one.
I can hit options and within it is all kinds of things, like spell, numbers, punctuation [probably not those exact words] – it’s over in my purse and I’m getting off the bed to get it…
also my * key is useful if predictive text gives me the wrong word…i.e. I used to get “cup” for “bus” all the time until a friend showed me that * – same with “good” = “home”
I quite envy the iphone with the camera – recently one of the f/b friends started putting up super picture and I asked her the camera brand? came back 🙂 iPhone 🙂
Our basic phone has a camera in it too, but we don’t have a data plan, so the camera doesn’t do us any good. We don’t want to spend $1.99/MB to send a picture. I agree, though, the iPhones have really started something if even a non-smart phone can do this now.
I’m back with the info on my phone.
$55 a month for the Framily plan (friends and family who are on the plan with me and one person I don’t know and one who I hate, plan)
and because all of us are on the plan, I get a $5.00 credit for each person so…
minus – $20.00
then plus + $20.oo so I have unlimited everything (talk and text and internet)
plus + $11. insurance
plus + $23.00 a month for purchase of the iPhone (which will be paid off next April) and of course tax
which is around $5 or so so that comes to…
$94. a month
but I can post on my blog, do Pinterest. take photos and post on Instagram.
I can do Facebook and set alarms to get up and timers for appointments and I read my email. I search the Internet. I order off of Amazon or wherever and it displays my coupons for Target and Michaels and Hobby Lobby on my screen for them to scan. I can Tweet from it and I can call people, and group text people and it has GPS which I ‘ve used several times and a voice comes on and tells you exactly where you are and where to go and…well, it can do a lot.
My niece uses her for music too but I don’t.
So, since I figure that I don’t really go out. I don’t go out to eat, I don’t spend money on clothes… I can have my phone.
In fact the other day while dealing with my credit union, I was able to do a transaction pertaining to my vehicle and just take a photo of my insurance card with my phone and send it to her. I didn’t have to take time out of the day to drive over here, it was done in mere minutes.
Another time my sister was at an estate sale and saw something and just sent the pic of the item to me for my opinion. I love that I can still “join” her while thrifting even if I’m at work. LOL!
Yep, my big extravagance in my life though if feels like a necessity anymore.
So $94. but worth it to me.
I think that’s a bargain! We spend about $90 a month for our landline and internet, now another ~$60 (?) per month for our two phones with unlimited texting, 700 minutes of shared calls but no data, e.g., pictures, internet, etc. We won’t know the exact monthly charge until after the activation charges are over.
I assume you have ATT? That’s what Kaitlin and Torben have. Here Verizon is better.