formatting

OK, so blogger now takes all the hard returns out of my text. Spiffy.

it's still just a phone

After well over the two year contract that came with my last phone, I finally decided to upgrade. The wife and youngster have had i-phones for a while now. The wife has had hers since last summer and the youngster got his for Christmas. Since then, I've been listening to the criticism.

My phone is so old.
My phone sucks for texting (only heard when the youngster forgot his and wanted to use mine).
My phone can't play any good games.
My phone can't (insert anything that involves an app here).

What my phone could do was make phone calls, which is all I really asked it to do, so I was OK with that. Then my wife had an accident on her bike (yes, she rides a bike now and yes, she's OK now) and I was stuck in the emergency room for several hours with very little to entertain me, and I started playing with her i-phone, games, web surfing and whatever. The next day I had the same experience in the doctor's office when I took her to get a follow up. It occurred to me that this entertainment device could come in handy. Of course, that just ratched up the criticism.

I thought, OK, maybe it's time. I went and got the i-phone, a little over a week ago. The first thing I did when I got it was text the wife, just because I could. then I went and got some apps, ESPN scores, PGA TOUR scores, local news and weather. I was all set...until Saturday morning, when I was going on a charity bike ride.

The ride was with and for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and I thought...I'll have this i-phone. I can take pictures, and I can put them out on the web. This will be so cool...until I got there and the phone was dead. Not an ounce of battery life and it was at about 60% the night before. I had done nothing since. So when I got home, I charged it and it drained to 50% in an hour. I went researching online, and turned off everything that I thought would drain it. Still, charged and it drained to about 50% within a few hours without doing anything. So I took it back to the store and asked. They were equally confounded, took the phone, gave me a new one and sent me on my way. The new one seems to be behaving so far, but I haven't tried much with it yet. We'll see.