Kicking and Screaming

I'm being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the third decade of the millennium. In February, 2007, preparing to go on assignment to the FEMA Region VII Emergency Operation Center (Kansas City MO) for the American Red Cross, I stopped into the local Sprint store to buy a cell phone. Yes, I was ready to join the 21st Century. My trusty Compaq pocket PC had lost it's mind and, besides, HP (who bought out Compaq) had never seen fit to add phone capability to it. On a disaster, it had turned out in my previous (it was my first) assignment, a cell phone was darned nearly required. I bought a TREO.

The TREO had a lot to recommend it, to me, starting with the fact that its operating system (OS) was Windows. Many people don't care for Windows, and I've (over the years) had a lot of beef with it, but my familiarity with it and its ubiquitous presence on so many computers made it my choice of OS. Another factor was that I could pay for a service plan that was for phone service, only. I saw no need to get on the Internet, being quite satisfied with only synchronizing the phone with my desktop computer.

In 2009, in a fit of frugality, I dropped Sprint in favor of joining Hunky Husband on Verizon which he had been using for several years. I had to buy another phone, and opted for a TREO identical, physically, to the Sprint TREO (this was in the days before laws required that original service provider allow cell phone owners to jail break them for use at a different provider.) At that time, HH ditched his flip phone to buy a TREO like mine.

Over the years since 2009, HH has had at least three or four (or more) different models of cell phone, his most recent being an iPhone SE.

Verizon has told me for at least three years that they would be dropping service for 3G cellphones such as my TREO, but I held out. Finally, they set a deadline of 12/31/2022. Since HH is developing less and less capability of coping with his iPhone on his own, I broke down and bought a matching iPhone SE (with slightly more recent software), yesterday. Actually, HH bought it for me - he has wanted to do that for 10 years or so and my 84th birthday looms.

My hope and plan is to become proficient enough with the iPhone that I can actually be helpful to HH when he forgets how to do something on his - or, as happens not infrequently, when he can't figure out what happened and what he needs to do.

When I put my old TREO in with the other "dead soldiers", I was reminded that I should take a run to the Wichita e-Cycle yard.

One assumes that people recognize charging cords and batteries when they see them, so I'll skip right over them for comment.

The three identical phones are the TREOs: 1) mine from Verizon, Spring 2009; 2) mine from Sprint, Feb 2007; and 3) HH's TREO from Verizon, Spring 2009. In about 2013, I had dropped my Verizon phone (one more time) onto the concrete garage floor and it would no longer ring. I used HH's TREO from then until today, although I had to use my Sprint TREO for charging the battery because the power input plug to HH's TREO was broken. In addition, I scavenged the back closure from my Sprint TREO when I lost the back to one of the other TREOs.

You might recognize my HP camera that went belly up about a year or two ago, and which I replaced with a slightly newer, but used, version. The camera in the photo was purchased from Sam's Club in 2004. Next to it is the iPAQ H1910 PDA that I purchased in 1995. It served me well until after I retired in 2004. I loved being able to carry Excel, Word, and Power Point files with me.

Comments

[Joared]

Glad you're keeping up to date tech-wise. I'm quite content to poke along at a little rate as my life style and needs don't require I have the latest thing.

[bogie]

Last night I was wondering how you made out getting a new phone. Guess I now know. I am not fond of the iPhone I have for work, but it gets the job done for what I require from it. And hey, work is paying for it so who am I to complain.

I assume my issues with iPhone arise from my being an Android user for my personal cell phone - change is hard LOL

[Cop Car]

Joared--Were it not for HH, I would have gone with a much simpler phone; but, I can hardly expect to know anything about his phone since there is no time at which I have access to it. It's always in HH's hand (except when it is lost).

Bogie--As planned, I did get a separate line for the new phone so that we would have one phone (my TREO) on hand that one of us knew how to use. After a few hours it became clear that I could make phone calls and texts with the new phone - and not having the internet and texting enabled on my old phone I could not check into our account, online, with either phone - so I went in yesterday to tell them I had done a stupid thing. As it turns out, I can now get into our account, but I can't change any of the settings on it because, somehow in the process, I lost access to texting.

I used to think that requiring people to understand coding or machine language in order to operate a device was excessive - I kept saying that computers needed to be more user friendly. I don't see an improvement in making devices user friendly - they just use English (or other human language) to confuse us, now. I need a 4-year-old to help me, I guess.