I Miss My Flip Phone!

              There are so many things I miss about my flip phone.  No accidental butt dials.  Not that I can actually butt dial as my touch screen is so LARGE that it will NOT fit into a human pocket.  Often it is too big for the provided pocket that comes with totes especially designed for the cell phone.  NOT my cell phone.

         My last phone was an Easyfone which totally lives up to its name.  Turn it on and it is ready to go.  No waiting for the forces of nature to connect to cyberspace even though I don’t have all the so called cool features as apps and the internet.  Unwanted ads.  I already get that through texting – Thank you very much.  Never got the ads through my cell phone – not even Trump’s important message that went out to most cell phone owners.  Not me.  It was great.

        I did get the Amber Alerts – and the ones sent out of Oregon and not Utah (even though I still have a Utah area code).  I seriously thought about changing to an Oregon number – back in 2020 when I went through NOT ONE but THREE different cell phones.  THREE!!! Give me a break.  Initially I thought I’d just wait until the pandemic was/is over – though good I didn’t – as I would have been without for two years now. 

        My Easyfone still works – just no service with my current carrier – but that could change again.  Not looking to do that anytime soon.  But you never know.  The touch screen takes much more awesome pictures than does the Easyfone.  But then again – I use my phone for a phone and not a camera – but as I have that added feature, why not.  Doesn’t zoom in as great as my camera does – and my camera is easier to carry than the brick I call a cell phone (or is it the other way around?) and everybody in the neighborhood knows when I am taking a picture as it has the same click as those old time cameras – invented long before I was.   

        And let us not forget my skinny fingers turning into the size of hotdogs each time I try to press a button.  (Swipe a button?) I was never frustrated by the cell phone.  Time to stop my griping.  I need to get ready to go to the pool.

Don't Ever Buy a Doro 7050

            Who can keep up with modern technology?  You purchase any electronic item at the store and it is outdated before you even get it home – possibly before it even hits the showroom floor.  What’s up with that? 

             Once upon a time things were built to last.  Television repariman took pride in their work.  

 Vintage Magazine Book Be Your Own TELEVISION REPAIRMAN 1953 Greenberg Publisher

HD replaced anything from the 2oth century and Smart TV has outdated screens after that.  Less than 6 years ago Roland purchased a BlueRay DVD player with feature to add Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.  What a relic!  It no longer supports Hulu so if we should want to order Hulu for the TV, we have to purchase newer items which will become relics in less than four years and have to be replaced again!

             We are a throw-away society, inventive, updating that somehow believe in replacing the old SOONER than we can afford to.  Let’s all run out and get the latest because Everybody can afford it, right? Especially now that the economy has been shut down for over a month.  Hey, why not?

             My biggest complaint is the cell phone.  I had an LG that I loved.  Towers don’t support it.  I have to buy a new phone.  I purchased a Doro back in 2014.  It was a good little phone!  The company informed me that as of this year it would be a relic.  I guess I was having some issues with the last row of buttons not recognizing my fingers though not as frustrating as a smart phone or I phone or touch screen or whatever it is called.  Roland has one and I hate it.  He’s had three different models since we have been in Oregon – which hasn’t even been a full five years.

             So I guess it was the end of September that I was having issues.  I called Consumer Cellular – who I like as far as billing service goes, but except for the 2014 model of DORO (or whatever year it was) I haven’t been impressed with the phones themselves.  Before the Doro I had tried one called the Envoy.  Poor sound quality if I remember correctly, but I really didn’t have problems with my Doro until about September of 2019 – and then they were only minor compared to what was ahead.

             So the next phone I tried was called a Link – brand new.  Company had them on promotion as it was a brand new item and cheap.  I guess cheaply made as well as inexpensive.  I thought “You guys are crazy trying to get senior citizens to try and use this when I know that some of them have worse hearing than I do.”

             Not only couldn’t I hear the person on the other end.  They couldn’t hear me.  I wonder if that’s the kind of phone Biff has.  He always sounds like he’s calling from a different area than where his phone is.  I called Consumer Cellular to make inquiries about the phone, but since it was such a brand new product they didn’t have all the answers.  Switch me back to Doro.

             So at the end of October I receive a Doro 7050.  I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS PHONE.  During the time of pandemic is probably not the best time to call either because I am certain there are people who have taken jobs out of desperation and haven’t been trained.  I am so frustrated . . . but let me back up.  So one of the features that I really liked about my original Doro was 1) I could press the back button to turn on the clock without having to open the phone.  2) I could set an alarm that would go off weather the phone was turned on or off (never had that featured before or since;  I still use the old phone to set alarms) 3) I could see who was calling before opening my phone.

            The button on my new Doro 7050 – pretty worthless.  Never did anything when I pushed it.  What was the point?  By December the front of my screen appeared to be shattered to be shattered – though it wasn’t from the outside – the image was.  I didn’t know who was calling unless I answered the phone. But I dealt with that before back in the day of rotaries and calling the next county over was long distance.  It wasn’t that inconvenient. 

    

       

            I started a diary of every problem I had.  I’d call to explain the new problem and was told to take my battery out and put it back in.  Really.  They want me to open my cell phone and remove the battery every time it acts up?  This is not an easy backing to take off – though it seems to be getting easier as I have been removing it each time there is a problem.  What’s up with that? 

             When I couldn’t call on my phone, I used my husband’s which is under a different carrier. I am put through to another department for add on – uh, no. We tried adding him back but they messed up on the date and I’m not trying to activate his phone.  I’m trying to find a way in which I can use my own.

             Though texting has never been a great importance, it is convenient to have – more for receiving and not texting as the flip does not offer a full keyboard.  In all honesty I would just assume use email or facebook to send a message.  Besides, texting really takes a toll on the battery. 

             Anyway, the problems keep changing.  The last call was about my keys that don’t work.  This time I was told to reset everything – thus I lost all information that had been in the phone and now I can’t receive text messages.  I have family who send messages to multi-phones as the Coronavirus infects members of Joh’s family.  It would be nice to read the update on my own phone.  The more I try to use it, the more frustrated I am.

             My phone is under warranty and I asked to replace it.  I was given another number to call and a warranty number.  It didn’t work and I had a chat with another worker who was helpful until she told me to CALL CC – I had been chatting to avoid that.  I asked if we were being recorded and hoped that our conversation was being recorded.  And then I told her “Don’t just give me this number and the warranty because it doesn’t work” and guess what she did?  I told her I probably won’t be dealing with CC anymore and hung up the phone. 

 

            Earlier this evening Roland ordered me an Easyfone Prime A1 3G.  I won’t be receiving it until early June.  It’s got to be better than Doro.  My recommendation: DON’T EVER PURCHASE A DORO 7050!

Inconvenience

We had a leak in our pipes

right underneath the sink.

In order to fix it, Roland had  

to turn off the water to the

house. The water meter to

our house is not only in our

neighbor’s yard, it is in their driveway.

What’s up with that?

Agism - Where Do I Start?

Currently, I am taking a class called “Sociology of Aging”.  I know it will be a good class and look forward to these next three and a half weeks.  The course will end before I know it.

My instructor is quite animated and reminds me of my late sister-in-law except happier.  I enjoyed listening to the lecture yesterday as the happiness in her voice and arm movement (I have only had one other instructor record herself).  I know her teaching methods aren’t going to appeal to everybody, but I enjoy the bonus of hearing joy.

I tried reading the book but was becoming bored with the way it was written and turned to YouTube instead and found some informative videos on the subjects and some that came across even more boring than the reading.

I have also volunteered to test market a hotspot device through the school so they can monitor how much time I spend on research and study.  Only they won’t be getting an accurate reading.  My internet, WiFi, hotspot, whatever cuts out on me every day.  Every Day!  I spend more time going from one device to another or not being on the internet at all.  I’ll start assignments or posts (such as this one) on one device and post it on another.              Grrr . . .

          So now that I’ve finished this post, perhaps I should start on my assignment. 

Stay On Task - Don't Go Ahead!

I've been working at various schools substituting for aides who need the time off for whatever reason.  This week I observed two different classes react differently to the same set of instructions:

            "We will be doing these problems as a class.  Follow my instruction.  I will give you time to finish each problem.  Stay on task.  Do not go ahead of your classmates.  It's important that we do this together."

            The first group did not even make the attempt to follow the directions.  Each had a private race against the other classmates.  Most of them really did seem to understand what was expected on the worksheets but still lacked in following the direction of staying on task and not moving ahead.

            The second group stayed on task and focused.  Though many of the answers were displayed on the board, none wrote the answer on his or her worksheet until the class members were instructed to do so.  The instructor paused with every problem and asked if there were any questions or if anyone need more time to finish writing the answer.

            The children from the first class had raced ahead and run out of work.  They got bored.  There may have been some who were bored in the second group as well, but they understood that their boredom would only get worse by racing ahead.

            Sadly, I saw myself in the first class more than the second and felt ashamed because I had missed out on so much.  By trying to move ahead on my own, I had deprived myself of more learning as I was focused on "moving ahead" rather than "staying on task" that I had missed much of what was being taught.

            As I observed the second group, I was amazed at the metaphors that went through my head as I realized that it isn't just with written assignments in which we need to need to stay on task and not move ahead but we need to be aware of this in our everyday lives.  Perhaps if we all stayed on task and waited for everyone else to catch up and support one another, there would be less problems with crime and negative attitudes.   Instead of moving ahead, we could assist one another at helping all of us to stay on task.  No one would move ahead and therefore no one would get left behind. I think by following these simple instructions we could make this world a better place.