This Week In Technology

Yep. You read that correctly. This post has nothing to do with fantasy roleplaying.

First - last Wednesday my grandson had my phone. He will listen to music and watch videos on a device and then drop it when the battery dies and go searching for another. Even with 2 iPhones and 2 iPads in the house, it's hard to keep one fully charged for his use. Anyhow on Wednesday he sucked the battery life from my phone and dropped it somewhere before grabbing my wife's iPad. Where was/is the phone? Good question. We've been searching for almost a week.

Second - I mentioned in February that I had spilled coffee on my computer (Coffee And Keyboards). I have been using a cheap keyboard and mouse to use my laptop ever since... until Sunday night. I sat down to the computer that evening and she was unconscious. I immediately began CPR (Computer Panic Repair) and opened the case, tried disconnecting the battery and rebooting. I had watched the technician do this to reboot her at the store two months ago.

I GOT A PULSE! Wait, no, lost it. CLEAR! Try again, and again. I thought I had brought her back. She booted up completely and I logged in. But no. She died again in less than a minute. I tried a couple of more times, but finally I had to pronounce the time of death at 10:59 PM. In lieu of flowers send me money. All denominations are welcome.

So there I was getting up early (for retired me) at 8 AM on Monday morning for a doctor's appointment at the sleep clinic. Without my phone or computer, I had missed the reminder email about their change of address. When I got there I find myself standing at the door of some women clinic. I could not call the sleep doctor without my phone, so I went home and searched the den again. Still no phone!

Luckily for me my wife is the smart person in the family. She has insurance on the phones and I got online with an iPad and filed the claim that we had delayed doing. The new phone should arrive sometime today. Then I took my computer to the shop and they confirmed that she was now a brick of aluminum with a 13 inch screen. My next stop was the Apple Store where I walked in and pointed specifically to this little beauty, whose keys my fingers are lightly dancing over at this moment.

Salesperson: Ah yes. You know we've just upgraded that model with a backlit Retina display...
Me: For the same price?
Salesperson: Er, no.
Me: Like I said, I want that one.

I came home with "that one" and kept a promise to my wife to spend less than $1000. Since yesterday I've been updating software, loading files from backup and at this moment UPS has dropped the new phone on our doorstep so I'll get busy setting it up. Oh, the joys of technology.

And now a little update: Tuesday afternoon our cable modem decided to quit functioning. How am I writing this? Luckily I got my new phone setup before that happened and I have been using it as a wifi hotspot today. The cable guy is coming tomorrow morning. This week in technology is not over yet.