New phone, sort of

So a new phone did arrive in the mail, but not a new battery. der!

After a call to customer service, we found out that before we could get a new battery, we'd have to go back to the Verizon store to get the battery tested. Don went over the weekend, but after being told it would be a half hour wait, then waiting for 15 minutes and not seeing any progress in the line, he left.

Oh well, on the bright side, Don says one of the problems he'd been having with the old phone isn't happening anymore. (The old phone wouldn't charge when it was off.)

A Visit to the Verizon Store

We dropped by on Saturday to see if someone could figure out what's wrong with Don's phone. The guy seemed pretty clueless (about everything), but according to him, Verizon if supposedly shipping a replacement phone. Then we'll have to mail the old phone back. And no, we can't just drop it off at the Verizon store. Lame. (I'm still not convinced we'll be receiving anything in the mail.)

And Tan, I don't know if Don tried removing then replacing the battery. Don doesn't exactly have a knack for electronics (scary, since he's an EE, tho admittedly now doing SW), but I try to leave him to his own business. Hmm. Hope I didn't just annoy him by saying that. Oh well.

Edited to add:
I'm probably just a pot calling the kettle black, since I'm also an EE, and I'd rather not have anything to do with the inner workings of a computer.

Death of a Cell Phone

Don's run into another cell phone problem. The phone powered off by itself, and he couldn't get it to turn on again. The battery indicated ~50% at the time.
When he plugged the phone in to charge, it powered up by itself.

Any ideas? It's an LG enV 2.

If this persists, we'll have to figure it out (and hopefully fix it) while he's at home next week.

AARRGGGG!!!!!!!! a.k.a. Missed Connections

That's a yell of frustration, not a pirate. Or maybe a frustrated pirate.

Last night, Don called. I was in the middle of trying to get the upstairs DVD player to work, so I mostly just muttered complaints. A few minutes later, the connection cut out. We tried a few more times, but could only connect for a few seconds at best. ARG! What a bonehead! (I guess Don's not the only one.) I totally should have dropped whatever I was doing to talk to Don! I guess I shouldn't be taking connectivity forgranted.

This morning, I got on the computer at around 6am. No text messages from Don, so I didn't send him any either. I tried calling at around 10am, but his phone wasn't on. So I went on with my day. When I got home at 2:45pm, I had missed his call! He had made it to Paradise Corner Cafe, and was using his calling card to call from their land line. How I wish I had been home for that call!

When I got on the computer this evening, I had a ton of text messages from Don received at 6:45am. Agonizing to find out I missed my opportunity to text him this morning!

I guess I got spoiled by the first few days. Will have to get used to maximizing my chances of somehow getting in touch...

Resolution... (I hope)

Thank goodness Don had cell phone reception this morning! He called customer service and added the 1500 text message bundle (for some reason, I feel compelled to abbreviate that as "txt msg," perhaps in the spirit of the 160-character cap). I think we should be fine with an average allowance of 50 messages a day.

He also added me as an account manager. I attempted to set up his online account, but couldn't figure out the correct username/password combo and got permanently locked out. Oops.

So hopefully this solves the phone issues. For now, anyway.

I should also note that we're now paying $70/month! YEEEOOUUUCCHH!!!!!!

An update of the previous calculations:
$50 phone + 24 months @ $70 = $1730
$280 phone + 5 months @ $70 = $630

I wonder if we should cancel the data package to get back to $55/month, but it's probably better to leave Don with the option of getting on the Internet to check his email.

I Hate Wireless Providers

Add this to the list of the many things to hate about cell phone providers.

Today, I received the first bill in the mail. Looking it over, I noticed that we were charged for text messaging. Odd, since I thought the $15 additional/month covered this.

So I called up customer service and discovered the following:
-The $15 extra/month covers unlimited data only (V CAST Vpak). So Don can watch TV and surf the net from his phone, but apparently txt msgs aren't data. Go figure.
-We'll need to sign up for an additional "text bundle," options as follows:
$5 for 250 msgs
$10 for 500 msgs, unlimited Verizon to Verizon
$15 for 1500 msgs, unlimited Verizon to Verizon
$20 for 5000 msgs, unlimited Verizon to Verizon
Unfortunately, the unlimited Verizon to Verizon messaging is utterly useless for us. And at the rate we're going, we'll use A TON of messages.
-I can't manage his account via phone until he calls up to add me as an account manager.
-I tried setting up his online account, but apparently it already exists?? But I'm pretty sure he didn't set it up yet... And the temporary reset password will be sent to his cell. D'oh! Foiled yet again.
-Oh, and as for Tan's idea of sending a photo of Don's hand-written journal entry, well, in order to do that, we'd probably need to sign up for an additional bundle that includes photo messages. SHEESH!

I hate to say it, but this is a total "I told you so" situation, except I'm the one that suffers for it. I had mentioned to Don that he better set up his online account before he started his hike to check if he was being charged for anything unexpectedly. But of course he didn't because he's not a paranoid worry-wort like me. *sigh*

Journal Update Suggestion

Tan suggested that Don write out his journal entry, use the camera built into his cell phone to take a photo of the piece of paper, then send the photo to me.
Sounds like a good idea, if the camera resolution is high enough.

Unfortunately, Don doesn't have a pen. He said maybe he could scratch it into the dirt.

Cell Phone Issues

We got Don a fancy (and expensive!*) cell phone just for his PCT thru-hike - the LG enV 2 in Maroon (so pretty!). It has a QWERTY keyboard and email, so we thought he could use it to update his journal.

The plan: The Postholer journal is updateable via email, so Don would write his journal entry each day and save it as an email draft to be sent whenever he got Internet connectivity.

The reality: It seems like you can only access the email program when you have Internet connectivity. We haven't found a way to save a draft without Internet access! So Don's been condensing his thoughts into 160-character-limited text messages, and I have to attempt to reassemble them into journal entries. PITA! Especially if a text message gets lost, like it did the other day...
Another possibility that we haven't tried yet is for Don to write and save a note to his phone, then attach that note to an email for me to post. Ideas for more efficient work-arounds are more than welcome!

On the bright side, I've really been enjoying getting unexpected text messages from him! He just sent me a few, and I plan to post the pertinent info to his journal. The only drawback to all this texting is that I'm now finding myself thinking in terms of 160-character limits. Now I know why those stupid acronyms and abbreviations are so widely used.

*If you choose to inflict a 2-year contract upon yourself, the phone is $50 after rebate. However, if you choose contractual freedom, then you get to pay a whopping $280 before tax. Ouch. But when you consider the monthly plan cost of $55, it works out something like this:
$50 phone + 24 months @ $55 = $1370
$280 phone + 5 months @ $55 = $555
I don't know which you'd choose, but month-to-month made more sense for us.