Les Jones

Waiting for ballet lessons

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | Home Life, Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

So much for the golden age of the mall

Sunday, June 28th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 3 Comments |

I was at the mall yesterday buying clothes. (Foothills Mall in Maryville, TN, FWIW). My four year old wanted to walk around the mall, so we did.

The mall opened in 1981 when I was in 7th grade. Back then it had two book stores, two record stores, one or two toystores, an arcade or two, and a Walgreen’s drug store, plus the usual department stores and clothing stores.

Except for the department stores and clothing stores all of that is gone. No bookstores, record stores, toy stores, arcades, nothing. Just clothes and worthless crap. With high rents and the competition from the Internet and big box stores I can see how some of those business can’t compete these days. There’s just no reason to go to the mall any more, even for kids, unless you want to buy clothes or you’re going to Sears for Kenmore appliances, Craftsman tools, or Diehard batteries.

Katie is four year old, so she didn’t notice the absense of anything worthwhile. We entertained ourselves with gumball machines, some frogs for sale at a sunglass kiosk, and massage chairs. Even as a ‘tween I can’t imagine her being very entertained as a mall rat in what’s left of the malls these days.

I imagine some malls will have to go through the same decline that many downtown business districts suffered. Once the rents get low enough someone will figure out a way to do something with the malls to bring back businesses and customers.

Know a good landscaper in Maryville or Knoxville?

Monday, June 22nd, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 2 Comments |

I need someone to plant shrubs, move railroad ties, and lay a bunch of mulch. My last few experience with landscapers were pretty disappointing, so I’d like to get someone who comes recommended.

Conversation about the fire department

Friday, June 19th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 2 Comments |

MELISSA: Do you know where the closest fire station is to our house?
ME: It used to be about a mile away, but they moved.
MELISSA: Where did they move?
ME: Not sure.
MELISSA: You’re not sure?
ME: Nope.
MELISSA: We should know where the closest fire station is.
ME: Why? It isn’t like we can plan when our house is going to catch fire based on where the fire trucks are parked.
MELISSA: I think it’s important to know where the nearest fire station is.
ME: Why? Once you know there isn’t anything you can do with the information. If the fire house is too far away we’re not going to pick up our house and move it closer.
MELISSA: So you don’t care?
ME: No. And neither do you. When you tell me about houses you’re looking at you never find out where the closest fire station is.
MELISSA: Well I would if we got serious about buying the house.
ME: No you wouldn’t. You’d buy the house anyway if you liked it.
MELISSA: Well if it was a nice house I would.

Tags: conversations

Recently made at home: ice cream

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 | Food & Drink, Home Life | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Melissa’s Mother’s Day present was a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, the ice cream maker attachment, and an ice cream recipe book. The ice cream maker attachment consists of a heavy bowl, paddles, and paddle head. The paddlehead goes into the mixer head. You freeze the water-filled bowl for 17 hours, then attach it to the mixer base, insert the paddle, and lower the mixer head. Freeze time is about half an hour.

The kids weren’t crazy about the ice cream at first. After we froze the excess and brought it back out the next day they gobbled it up. Note to self: our kids like hard ice cream, so harden it in the freezer for a few hours next time.

Is the KitchenAid ice cream attachment worth the seventy odd bucks? TBD. Our old-fashioned electric ice cream maker - the kind you pack with ice and rock salt - cost a third as much, doesn’t have to spend a day in the freezer, and makes ice cream that’s harder when it’s done. The KitchenAid solution can make sorbets, so if that’s successful I’d say it might be worth it for the versatility and the fact it’s quieter.

Li’l tip on what not to do. The recipe said to mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and pour into the ice cream maker. “Why dirty a bowl?” I thought, and poured the ingredients one at a time into the ice cream attachment, which had been in the freezer for days. Imagine my surprise when the ice cream paddles wouldn’t turn because the liquid ingredients had frozen up glacier-like to the side of the ice cream maker. So, yeah, mix everything in a bowl, start the mixer, and then add the mixture.

Natalie - 3 years old and never had a haircut

Monday, June 15th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Natalie, when you and your sister were born neither one of you had any hair. It’s taken a long time for your hair to get this long. Everyone loves your curly hair and asks if it’s natural.  You’re three now and you’ve never had your first haircut, because it’s too pretty to cut.

Your third birthday was at the Children’s Museum in Oak Ridge. Your mom took you girls there one Saturday and liked it so much she booked it for your party. They had toys and a big electric train and a kid-sized doll house that you walk around in and can go upstairs. Katie liked the rocket ship the best.

Your cousins and your friends from preschool came to your birthday party. So did Grandma Ginny and Grandpa Charlie, Aunt Hazel, and Aunt Rene and Uncle Todd.

You had an Elmo birthday cake, ice cream, and Big Ed’s Pizza. Your favorite color right now is orange, which is the first color you learned. You wore an orange and white dress and had orange and white balloons and orange cups and napkins.

Some of your other favorite things right now are racing your sister, playing monster, having me swing you through the air, and getting your stuffed animals together in a class and pretending to be teacher. You’re in love with a show called Ruby and Max. You can watch their DVDs over and over and you like for me to be Baby Max so you can feed me and take care of me.

Your favorite foods are bananas, peanut butter and jelly, chocolate milk, and hot dogs. You just recently started eating sour cream and black olives, and you’ve always liked pickles, which not many kids do. You and Katie are crazy about shredded cheddar cheese. We can’t leave it in the refrigerator because if we do you kids will eat it all, so we keep it at Grandma Dorothy’s. You’ve started using the LeapFrog ClickStart computer Grandma Dorothy bought for you girls.

Your mom and dad love you a bunch, kiddo.

Things we’ve made at home: erasers

Monday, June 8th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

I like to imagine we bought the eraser kit from a  late night infomercial. “Tired of paying hundreds of dollars for erasers that    JUST    DON’T    WORK?    Worried about foreign-made erasers infected with swine flu? Try Eraser Wow! The disease-free eraser you make at home in your oven! Order now and we’ll include this free kit to make your own paper clips and staples!”

But, no, our four year old found it in the toy section at Wally World. The kit includes brightly-colored blocks of clay-like material, a spatula to cut it, and a colorful brochure with designs for making animals and cars. In the Japanse version you make sushi shapes.

After you make it you bake it. This turned out to be a nice rainy day project for my wife and four year old, and I think my wife liked it more than my daughter. The turtle eraser was the coolest.

And how do they work as erasers? They suck. Like they make a big mess when you try to erase pencil marks and the turtle’s feet fall off. But crafty stuff seems to be more about the creative thing, so no worries.

“No more tears” goggles

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

I like it. Our four year old has gotten past shampoo problems, but the two year old insists on a washcloth to cover her face when we wash her hair.

Dinner and a Movie: La Parigo and “Star Trek”

Saturday, May 16th, 2009 | A&E, Food & Drink, Home Life | Permalink | 6 Comments |

The Dinner
Melissa had been wanting to go to La Parigo in downtown Knoxville since they opened six months or so ago. It’s a small setting inside with a covered patio outside where we ate and watched the rain. Apparently they used to be in Bearden in Mango’s old building and Southern Living them named them one of the top three French restaurants in the South, which for all I know is like being one of the three best BBQ restaurants in France.

Everything we ate except the dessert was from the du jour selections. Salad was an ahi tuna tartar with blueberries. I liked it; Melissa was crazy for it. Soup was a creamy potato and leek. Melissa liked it; I thought it was delicious and would order it again. The entree was a white fish whose name I didn’t recognize with a caper sauce, tomatoes, and sauteed Brusell sprouts, which were better than they sound, I swear.

Our waiter was especially professional, unobtrusive, and likable. I wish I had asked his name so I could thank him here for his hospitality.

Dessert was a pistachio creme brulee. It was good, but not as Pistachio-ey as I expected (and it wasn’t green, either). I prefer the Northshore Brasserie’s creme brulee with its incredibly delicate caramelized top, and in general I couldn’t help comparing La Parigo to two other Knoxville restaurants we like, the Brasserie and Bistro By The Tracks. The former is explicitly French, while the latter has French as one of its influences and is my favorite restaurant in Knoxville for the sheer enjoyment of food I can’t get anywhere else.

Right now La Parigo is in third place. We liked it quite a bit, but it stopped short of being mind-blowing. Still, I’m looking forward to our next visit to have my mind blown.

The Movie
Star Trek on the other hand was completely mind-blowing. On the big screen its vision is enormous and overwhelming. The young actors inhabiting the rebooted Trek universe are brilliant and charismatic - you can’t help worrying about them when they’re in danger, which they are constantly. I’m not a big Star Trek fan and I’m ready to pay to see it at the theater again.

From reading Jason Kottke I knew going in that the movie made extensive use of lens flare. It’s as if they’re so close to the stars with no atmosphere to protect them that there is blinding light everywhere that the camera can’t escape it. Normally lens flare is something the director and cameraman try to avoid. But just as with distortion in musical instruments you can use that mistake, that input overload, to create new textures and background and that’s what they did here to good effect.

This morning I mentioned jwz’s take on time travel: “If your story is not about time travel, but it has time travel in it, then your story sucks.” The new Trek movie falls into the sucks camp by that standard. I don’t think the time travel here really makes sense since it’s of the going-back-in-time-to-change-history variety. (If that’s the case, someone should go back in time to undo the bad guy’s actions. Either events mean something or they don’t.) It also wasn’t strictly necessary. They could have changed the story ever so slightly to change the bad guy’s motivation and done away with time travel altogether.

Slight spoilerage - highlight the text to read. It’s almost as if they used the time travel conceit to shoehorn Leonard Nimoy into the movie. And if that’s the case that would be bad, except that I really, really enjoyed him here. It’s as if my favorite uncle came back from the dead and I just can’t get enough of listening to his gravelly but wise voice. So all in all I’ll take the time travel nonsense to see the original Spock better than ever.

Ratings

La Parigo - Magnificque

Star Trek - Mother Vulcan Awesome

Tags: dinner and a movie

Sinus Surgery: The Final Snip-Snip

Monday, May 11th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 2 Comments |

I went in for my follow-up visit early this morning. The doc numbed the inside of my nose, cut out the stitches, and put a metal vacuum up my nose to suck up the final junk out of my sinuses. (That last part was as much fun as you’d expect.)

And now I can breathe through my nose again. For the past week I couldn’t, which meant I slept with my mouth open. Every so often my would dry out and I’d wake up. I came home from the doctor this morning and went back to bed at 9:30. I slept eight hours.

I also slept without my CPAP for the first time in several years. I’m hoping the sinus surgery will help my sleep apnea and get me away from the CPAP.

Tags: sinus surgery, sleep apnea

Sinus circus

Friday, May 8th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

Still feeling pretty rough. It’s no fun trying to sleep without breathing through my nose. I breathe through my mouth, my mouth gets dry, I wake up. Last night I slept upright in a chair with my feet on an ottoman, which seemed to work a little better than lying down. At least I’m bleeding less now. I haven’t used the drip pad since Tuesday night.

Tags: sinus surgery

Back from sinus surgery

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 9 Comments |

A guest post by Les’s anesthesia

Here’s the anesthesia blogging I promised.

So apparently the bad old sinus surgery involved packing your nose with gauze afterwards. A week later the doc would remove the gauze - filled with dried blood so as to simulate concrete - from your nose. He removed it with a chain attached to the trailer hitch of a Ford Bronco in low gear. Same way you pull tree stumps.

In the new kindler, gentler sinus surgery they instead use a “drip pad.” It’s a 4″ X 4″ gauze pad folded into thirds and secured under your nose using an elastic band with ear loops. Picture a mustache made with a sideways tampon and you’ve got the idea.

(Remember, this is my anesthesia talking, not me. - LJ)

Because of the incredible absorbent qualities of gauze you change this very infrequently, like about every 10 minutes.

Even though you can’t breathe through your nose and you feel like Old Faithful has taken up residence in your sinuses the doctors and nurses are very insistent that you not blow your nose. Dude. If I hadn’t blown my nose where would all of the clotted blood have gone?

For the next few days I’ll be on the couch wearing a tampon moustache, hopped up on prescription goofballs, watching movies and intermittently posting on the blog. I’ll talk to you later, seven foot tall bunny rabbit!

Tags: sinus surgery, tmi

Gonna take a little nap, wake up better

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

Off to sinus surgery. If you’re good when I get back this afternoon I’ll blog while I’m still under anesthesia. That’s always fun.

Tags: sinus surgery

Conversation about a shallot

Sunday, April 19th, 2009 | Food & Drink, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

WIFE: Have you seen my shallot?
ME: Nope.
WIFE: It was next to the sink.
ME: Yeah?
WIFE: It was brown. It looked like an onion.
ME: That was a shallot?
WIFE: Yes.
ME: I thought shallots looked like green onions.
WIFE: This was brown.
ME: Oh. I didn’t know that was a shallot.
WIFE: What did you do with it?
ME: Uh, I threw it away.
WIFE: Les!
ME: I thought it was an old rotten onion.

Turns out there are two kids of shallots, though what I was thinking of is usually called scallions. Oops.

Tags: conversations

More chainsaw advice

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 | Dear Lazyweb, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

In response to my bleg for chainsaw advice Richard Calderwood sent this, which I’m reposting with his permission. - LJ

I’m a Portland city slicker, but I own a couple hundred acres in NE Arizona and have been through more chains than most folks have socks. Here’s my $0.02, for what it’s worth. (About that, I reckon.)

I’ve owned several Stihls, and loved every one of them. Never had any other; never saw any reason to. Wait, no that’s not true; I had some p.o.s. electric(!) chainsaw when I lived in California. Fits, donnit?

If you’re going to cut more than an hour or two in a day, it’s worth it to have a more powerful saw. If you’re going to cut less, it might be better to have a lighter weight saw. Yeah, that sounds counter-intuitive.

The crystal meth heads recently stole my Stihl 046 (might be the same as the MS 460 – Stihl is GOOFY with their naming conventions). It was a bad mutha and murdered hundreds of trees very successfully and without incident. They also got my Stihl MS 200 T “arborist” saw; that one was a little beauty – very nice for overhead work, where the 046 kicks your butt by the end of the day.

Here at the Portland house, I have a Stihl MS 361 and it will cut all day long. Not as powerful as the 046, but also not quite as heavy.

Make sure your saw has the easy chain tightening deal. That’s a time saver.

Buy a LOT of chains. Wasting time on the job, sharpening a chain, is a TERRIBLE investment if you actually figure out the cost per hour. Keep a bunch of spares in the truck. When one gets dull, throw it in the truck, and pay some teenager to sharpen it after you get home. Or just throw it away.

My brother-in-law’s brother is a lumberjack in Alaska, and he showed me a really nifty trick. Tie a piece of good rope between the handle of a 1gal bar oil jug and a 1gal fuel jug, and you have ‘em both on a handle and in the right quantities. I met him when he was en route to hospital after severing a finger tendon on a not-in-use saw when he stumbled. When transporting your saw, keep the bar cover in place.

Set your bar oiler to use a lot of oil. Oil is cheap. Time lost to worn bars and chains is not. Sure, the saw will spit a bit more goo on your clothes over the course of a weekend, but that’s what overalls are for. Or junky work jeans.

Buy a good set of Kevlar chaps, and wear them religiously. Their purpose is to gum up the chain and slow/stop it when (not if) you brush your leg. I only brushed mine a couple times (with the flat side of the bar), and both times it was at the end of a looooong day of cutting at 6,000 feet (and I live at sea level). Physical fatigue leads to mental fatigue, and a moment’s indiscretion with a chainsaw can have life-altering consequences.

With the 361 I bought the dorky-looking (but super practical) Stihl combination helmet / face shield / ear muffs. Looks stupid. Works great.

The screen kind of face shield is FAR better than the plastic windshield kind. The screen is enough to keep the chips and sawdust from getting in your eyes, and it lets your face breathe so you don’t get as hot.

A good chainsaw motor mechanic can tune the motor by sound. When it sounds juuuust right when he burps the throttle, he knows he has the jets set just right.

Get a spare air filter to leave in the truck. Don’t forget to clean the filter out every few hours. The intake is a sawdust magnet.

If you let the chain get too loose, it’s dangerous and can jump the tracks. But if you keep it too tight, it overheats the chain and the bar. If you can easily pull the middle of the chain up, with thumb and index finger, high enough that the teeth exit the bar, it’s too loose.

New chains stretch a lot at first. Keep in mind when you have a new chain on, and stop more frequently to check and adjust the tension.

Don’t forget to screw the bar oil tank and premix fuel tank caps back on (the saw) after you refill, or you’ll spill both alllll down your pants and boots. DAHIK.

Steel-toed boots are a good idea. Loose sleeves etc are not.

I won’t give you any cutting or felling advice except this: stop and clear yourself an exit path often. Don’t stand in a tangle of cut off branches while cutting bigger branches or the trunk. Plan for a good fell, but assume a rotten one. Trees and wind have (evil) minds of their own.

Oh, and one more thing. Scratch the premix ratio into the fuel filler cap with the point of a sharp knife, so you always have it when you need it.

Tags: chainsaws, preparedness

Bleg: Chainsaw advice

Monday, April 13th, 2009 | Dear Lazyweb, Home Life | Permalink | 11 Comments |

Dear Lazyweb,

I’m ready to buy a gasoline chainsaw. I’ve only used one a couple of times so I plan to take a class.

Any advice to get started? Price isn’t the main consideration. I’m not looking to buy the cheapest or the most expensive, but I’m willing to buy what I need to get through a bad day.

About the only thing I know is that over the years my dad became a fan of Stihl chainsaws. Dad grew up poor during the Great Depression. He wasn’t the kind of guy who bought expensive things to impress people. He tended to take the cheap route first and only take the expensive route if the cheap route didn’t work, so I consider that a pretty strong endorsement of Stihl.

Tags: chainsaws, preparedness

Katie won the Food City Easter coloring contest

Sunday, April 12th, 2009 | Holidays, Home Life, Photos | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Katie won first place in an Easter coloring contest at Food City, a local grocery store. Those are the Easter baskets she won.

We’re proud of her for winning, but more proud that she told her sister she could have one of the Easter baskets. Way to go, kiddo. That’s a very big thing to do.

We love you, girls.

LATER: Pictures from our family Easter egg hunt…

Continue reading the rest of this post right here ›››

Les Jones as you’ve never seen him

Friday, March 20th, 2009 | Dancing Baloney, Home Life | Permalink | 7 Comments |

That’s nothing. Check out this video of my sinus CTI scan. I snagged the disc after the consultation was over. This is a series of image slices of my skull from back to front. The two big round things after the the first few images are my eyes, then my nose appears towards the end. The black areas are the sinuses where they’re clear.

Thing is, big areas of my sinuses aren’t clear and I’ve also got a deviated septum. I’ll be having sinus surgery next month. My doctor says this is the new kinder, gentler sinus surgery, as opposed to the old, unnecessarily cruel kind where they knock you out with a shovel, scrape your sinuses with a meathook and you bleed so much they keep your nose packed with tampons for a week.

Tags: sinus surgery, tmi

Katie and Natalie: small victories

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 | Home Life, Photos | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Natalie, you’ll be three in three months. This week you learned to cluck your tongue. You’re trying really hard to snap your fingers.

Katie, you’re four and a half. You learned to whistle this week. This past weekend was your award banquet for cheerleading. You had lots of fun cheerleading on Saturday mornings. Grandma Ginny came and watched you last week.

Let me tell you about a silly game you two like playing. We played it the other night with Grandma Dorothy. It’s hide and seek, but the hiders hide under a blanket. Then one of you goes out of the room, counts and comes back in to find the people under the blanket. You kids can play that game over and over and never get tired of it - finding your sister and mom and dad and grandma under the blanket right where you left them. And when you’re hiding under blanket you’re convinced you won’t be found, then you’re thrilled when you are.

Your mom just started you girls on swimming lessons at the YMCA. Natalie, these are your first swimming lessons. You can already stick your head underwater and look around. You aren’t afraid of the water at all. Katie, you had some lessons last year. You can swim underwater now. You’re turning into a great swimmer

You both got a pair of Skecher tennis shoes last month. Now they’re all you want to wear. You think you can run faster when you wear them, but you can’t. That’s just marketing, girls. Don’t believe the hype.

Grandpa Charlie bought tickets for you girls to see Dora the Explorer today with your mom and Grandma Ginny.

You both just started Spanish lessons at preschool.

We love you.

Snow!

Monday, February 23rd, 2009 | East Tennessee, Home Life, Photos | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Saturday was sunny and warm. The kids spent the day playing outside. I noticed the first crocuses blooming. Then snow moved in Sunday morning and covered everything in a white blanket. That’s East Tennessee winter for you. It’s enough cold to remind you it’s winter and enough warm to remind you that spring is on the way.

We wanted to see more snow so we took a daytrip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There seemed to be more snow in Walland than at home, but a few miles later in Townsend the snow level had dropped. Once we got in the park it was no better, but we drove to Sugarlands anyway.

Nope. The snow wasn’t any deeper there. We turned up 441 and made our way up the mountains past the Chimneys and Mt. LeCeonte to Newfound Gap, up in the spruce-fir zone. There was a little more snow there along with some impressive icicles from water seeping out of the rocks. It was definitely cold as all get out up on top. We only kept the girls outside for a few minutes before diving back inside the vehicle.

On the way back we stopped in Gatlinburg at Howard’s Steakhouse, where we had a good dinner served by a very nice Romanian waitress with a pretty accent. Howard’s is one of our favorite restaurants in Gatlinburg. It’s on the main drag near the park entrance and we can always find parking. The prices are reasonable and in warm weather we like eating on the back patio which overlooks LeConte Creek. Their pickles are delicious and their onion rings are colossal.

Photography notes: gray snow
Continue reading the rest of this post right here ›››

Tags: d40, gatlinburg, smokies, snow, weather

Why does being green seem to mean reaching for your wallet?

Thursday, February 19th, 2009 | Economics, Environment, Home Life | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Via Insty I found about this UPPAbaby Vista Stroller:

This comes with DNA consisting of 50% sports car, 50% super utility vehicle and 100% performance, the VISTA stroller system is ready to take you to a new level of enjoyment. UPPAbaby is an eco friendly company, dedicated to creating a better environment for our children. It comes with an eco inspired organic bassinet. This carrier is fully lined with a blend of organic soybean and cotton. The optional adapters are available for infant seats for Graco, Peg Perego and Chicco.

You can debate the eco-friendliness of the product, which is hard to measure, but you can’t debate the price, which is in fact $669.

Ouch. Our first Graco stroller was roundabout a hundred bucks. Our second Graco, a double stroller after our second child was born, was $125 used at a church sale. We’ve still got it in the attic. I reckon we’ll sell it at the church sale in March now that our kids have outgrown strollers.

Milo the cat

Sunday, February 15th, 2009 | Home Life, Photos | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Milo showed up at my house not long after I bought it. My roommate Josh and I were sitting outside and this fat and sassy cat just ambled right up. It was obvious he had been someone’s house cat.

At first I gave him some food outside. Then I bought him some actual cat food. Then I bought him an actual cat bowl. Eventually he got to come inside and much later I even put in a cat door. Growing up, my family had cats but I never thought of myself as a cat person until Milo showed up.

I’ve been taking pictures of Milo for years, but I’ve never felt like I captured his essence. These pictures of him sunning himself in a flowerbed are the closest I’ve come.

Continue reading the rest of this post right here ›››

Tags: d40, milo, nikon, pets

Katie reads her first book

Sunday, February 8th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 1 Comment |

For the first time Katie can read a book from beginning to end with a little help.

Katie, the first book you ever read on your own was Dr. Seuss’s Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? That’s really something for a four year old. I’m proud of you, kid.

Our 2 year old needs a new name

Monday, February 2nd, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 4 Comments |

What’s the Cherokee word for “one who eats frosting and throws away rest of cupcake”?

ATTN friends o’mine: cell phone number works again

Monday, February 2nd, 2009 | Home Life, Tech | Permalink | No Comments |

I’ve got a cell phone again. You can reach me at the same number as before. I lost most folks’ numbers with the cell phone, so if you’d email me your number that’d be awesome.

Before Christmas I was told I’d be getting a Blackberry after the new year, which worked out well when I lost my personal cell phone in Franklin over the holidays. It took longer than I thought, but it’s all good.

Not having a cell phone for a month was interesting.

At first it was incredibly frustrating. Then I realized that I had relied on the cell not just for calls, but as a phone book and impromptu planner. Writing phone numbers on pieces of paper and keeping in my wallet solved the first part. Making plans in advance solved the second.

I had noticed years ago that when doing things with people much younger than me that they often made really poorly-defined plans. I figured then that that they had grown up with the flexibility of changing plans on the fly with cell phones, and I’m more sure of it now. A cell phone is an amazing crutch until it’s gone.

I didn’t mind not having a cell phone as much as I would have thought. My wife missed my cell phone much more than I did. At the same time I’m not going to turn into some cellular Luddite. It’s an amazing invention. You can carry around a tiny little device that almost anyone can afford that lets you talk to people all over the world instantaneously. It’s easily one of the best inventions of my lifetime.