The New Phones

My wife and I changed cellular providers and both got smart phones. It’s a huge change from what we had before. Just last month we started texting. I know, I know others have done it for years. We were different. We had text blocked from our phones.

Anyway, when we started using the service it was on the old telephone keyboard and took forever to type a message. I saw the advertisements for the Cellular South android powered smart phone called “Hero”. After checking with people who used the service and who had experience with the phone, I felt it would be the right move.

So far it has been a good move. Switching from one carrier to another was almost seamless. It took about three hours for our numbers to be completely switched to the new provider. During that time, we could make calls on one service and received calls on the other service. Finally AT&T terminated their service and we were up and running with Cellular South.

We were able to have our phone books downloaded to the new phone. Now I have grouped the numbers into categories such as “family”, “church”, “work”, etc.

The new phone uses G3 technology which means I don’t have to be connected to the internet to use the internet. There are hundreds of web sites I can download to my phone’s memory such as Facebook, the weather radar, various news sources….BBC, AP, Reuters, CNN, and more. It will be nice having those sites at my finger tips since I’m a news junkie anyway.

I’ve found it rather easy to do text messaging using the querty keyboard. There are some things I still need to set up and email is the biggie. I can set up several email accounts to be serviced with this telephone.

I put in an external memory card to allow me to have lots of photographs, music, and videos at my disposal.

The touch is rather sensitive and I’m going to have to adjust that because right now I’m calling people just by scrolling through my phone number lists. Maybe next week, I’ll learn to actually talk on the phone. : )

I think we’re going to enjoy our new phones immensely. It’s a whole new chapter in our communication experiences.

Just A Phone Call Away

Today’s communication is amazing to me. When I was overseas in 1966, there were no cell phones, no internet, no email or text messaging. We had snail mail and generally it took about three weeks for a letter to get from my ship to my wife. I did get the chance to “call” her once using a shipboard ham radio that connected with a ham radio operator in the U.S. who agreed to make a collect call to my wife from his telephone and then connect the two of us.

I think I was allowed three minutes to say what I wanted to say and then I had to get off to make way for the next person. It was a different experience for a couple of reasons: the whole world could hear our conversation and when I finished a sentence I had to say, “over”. Then she could talk and when finished, “ over” which made it my turn. That’s alright. I had a chance to say, “I love you, over”. To which she replied, “I love you too, over”.

Right now my wife is in the country of Panama and literally has been from one end to another this week. I think we have talked to each other privately on our cell phones three times and have text messaged several times each day. As near as I can tell, it takes less than a minute for her text message to reach me.

When she gets back, we are changing cell phone vendors and getting new equipment. Our new phones will allow us to talk, email, and text each other. In addition, it will have internet capability, GPS capability, the ability to read and transmit Word documents, and goodness what else. It will be a huge step forward for us.

And just think, I remember when we didn’t have dial phones. We picked up the phones and waited for acknowledgement from a real live operator to whom we spoke the number we were calling (a four digit number) and she connected us or would tell us the line is busy or perhaps that they were at the store and would be back shortly. All of our phones were heavy, black and connected with thick wire.

I wonder what the next generation will experience as communication technology continues to advance.

Cars In My Life

Over my lifetime I have owned a number of cars. Who hasn’t? My first car was a red 1964 Volkswagen Beetle, which I traded for a VW Fastback. The Fastback was larger, more powerful and would reach speeds of up to 100 mph. That was a huge improvement over the Beetle’s maximum speed of 72 mph (downhill with a tail wind).

We traded the VW Fastback on a Plymouth Fury III. The Plymouth was my first American made car and the first I owned with automatic transmission and air conditioning. That was followed by a big solid black Mercury Grand Marquis.

Since then we have had a mixture of cars in both size and brand. Let’s see we have owned three Datsun/Nissan vehicles which were all good cars. I’ve had two more Mercury Grand Marquis, an old ’56 Chevy, a Chevrolet pick up truck, a Plymouth Reliant, a Plymouth Champ, a Dodge Colt, a Dodge Charger, two Oldsmobile Cutlass’s, and two Ford Taurus’s.

Currently we own a Honda Civic and a four cylinder Toyota Camry.

The most roomy and comfortable cars I ever owned were the Mercury Grand Marquis. The fastest car was the Dodge Charger. It had a speedometer that went to 150 and I believe it would do 150 mph. The fastest I ever had it was between 130 and 135. It was just me and a Pontiac GTO on the highway and we decided to have a little competition. At 130 mph, I left him in the dust and still had plenty of accelerator to call on.

But the best overall car we have owned is the Toyota Camry. It provides a comfortable ride, has a nice sized trunk, is quiet, and has a lot of pick up. Many people think they need at least a 6 cylinder to be fast enough for the highway. The four cylinder Toyota has plenty of pep and is the smoothest transmission I have ever encountered.

I know Toyota is currently having a huge recall. Ours is not in the recall. I think we have 170 thousand miles on it. We’ve changed the oil, put on three sets of tires, and two batteries. It still has the original brakes and has never (knock on wood) had the need for any repair. I’m seriously thinking about trading my Honda Civic for a Toyota Prius and I really believe we will replace the Camry with another. It’s just that good.