Still Techno challenged

Having admitted that I am technologically challenged, yesterday was quite an adventure. The contract was up on our family cell phones, plus we wanted to switch to local numbers, so the day after Christmas Belinda, Jeff and I were the first customers into the AT&T store. My game plan was simple: Go for it. It was time to expand my horizons, to go from a 2 year old basic phone to some level of a smart phone; maybe not a Rhodes Scholar, but at least one that might make the dean's list. When we left 2 hours later, I was hoping my phone could dunk a basketball, because it definitely isn't going to go far with its smarts. In fact, it isn't all that different from what I went in with, except for a few updated features.

When it came time to make a two year commitment, I just couldn't get excited about paying all of that money for features I felt were unnecessary. I'm usually not far from a computer for more than a couple of hours, so the ability to access the internet or to receive e-mail didn't impress me. I see text messaging as an interruption. Honestly, do we need to be that accessible? (I was in a Body Pump class last year when a high school girl was texting between each exercise set. Was it really that urgent for her to know that Heather heard that Kevin might ask Julie out unless Britney breaks up with David?) I already have a 4 year old mp3 player with a whole 1 mb of memory. All of the really good songs ever recorded easily fit on that.

The only feature I was interested in was the ability to sync my calendar with my phone. But why pay $200+ for a phone, plus an extra $20/month added to my plan just for that? Besides, they're making sticky notes in some really cool colors these days. So Belinda and I got cheap, "buy 1 get 1 free" phones that make blurry photos and can be used for texting, if you don't mind spending 5 minutes to write a one-line message. But they do make phone calls, so I'm happy.

However, just to show that I do intend to stretch myself technologically on this blog, as promised, I will post the first photo taken by my new phone.



Now where are those John Denver albums?