Tag: technology

Phone Me

For Christmas Studly Doright bought me a new iPhone. According to him it’s the biggest, baddest iPhone available. I’m properly humbled and intimidated.

In my typically stubborn way I dove into setting up the new phone, heedless of Studly’s advice to let someone at the Verizon store assist me. “They said it’ll be easy!” Studly assured me. “Just switch out the memory cards and you’re good to go.”

It was not easy. I’ve lost all my contacts and have had to download all of my apps and remember the passwords and try to recall user names until I’m ready to scream. Plus, the navigation between pages is totally different. And all my contacts are screwed up. Argh!

It literally took me an hour to figure out how to get from the home page to my app icons. If you don’t hear from me again, it’s because I’ve been admitted to a psych ward–preferably one where no electronic devices are allowed.

Peace on earth and all that jazz.

To Xfinity and, well, not Beyond

Lately the speed of our internet connection at Doright Manor has been less than stellar causing me to grumble when playing my favorite online game, Design Home. Who knows how many perfect scores I’ve missed out on just because I couldn’t style a room quickly enough? The answer to that is none, by the way. Speed has nothing to do with how scores are tallied in this game, but still, it’s hard to keep up one’s inspiration when the right furniture refuses to load.

Studly Doright heard my grumbling from across the den last night and said he’d gotten an email from our internet service provider, Xfinity, saying that we were due for a modem upgrade. “Why don’t you head over there tomorrow and pick up a new modem?” he suggested.

So, here I am. Sitting in Xfinity hell with at least two dozen other people. The lines aren’t moving, and it seems that no one responds when their names are called. Buehler? Buehler?

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At least the place has great WiFi.

Peace, people.

Technology: Good or Evil?

Studly Doright and I drove to Nashville, Tennessee, to celebrate Christmas with our family. Playing games and writing future blog posts on my iPhone kept me occupied for several hours of the eight and a half hour trip. Yea, technology!

But somewhere northwest of Atlanta, right in the middle of the composition of perhaps the most spell-binding, sure-to-go-viral blog post in history, my WordPress app crashed. Boo, technology!

I didn’t want to delete the app and reload it because I wasn’t sure what I’d lose if I did so, instead, opting to wait until I returned home, so I could save any worthwhile drafts to my iPad. Yea, technology!

Of course, upon reexamining that world-shaking prematurely preempted post, I found it to be less exemplary than I’d first imagined.
If the app hadn’t crashed, I’d most likely have posted that article to my blog where it would have languished among similarly less than fascinating posts. Again, yea, technology!

Of course, now I’m woefully behind on posting. Boo, technology.

But, I beat level 670 on Candy Crush with all the free time not posting to the blog provided me. Yea! Technology!

I had way more important things to do this past week, anyway:

Our family at The Escape Game in Nashville:

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A trip to the Grand Ole Opry and Tootsie’s Famous Orchid Lounge:

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And indulging in Christmas gift-giving and birthday celebrating.

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Yea, technology for allowing me to share with each of you!

Long Distance Grandparenting

Studly and I live in north Florida. Two of our grandchildren live in Texas and three live in Illinois. Needless to say I don’t get to see them often. But thanks to this new-fangled invention called the Internet 😉 we manage to stay close.

This past weekend technology almost made it feel as though I was right in my daughter’s home in Illinois. She and the youngest grandchild, 2 1/2 year-old Harper, called me on FaceTime as they often do just to show off some new song or skill Harper has learned.

During this call I asked Harper about her new “big girl bed.” She got so excited and asked her mom if she could hold the phone. That’s when the adventure began. Harper carried the phone down the hall and into her room. She placed the phone on her pillow exclaiming proudly that Nana was in the big girl bed.

I pretended to be a baby and cried quite convincingly. So Harper told me not to cry and showed me her dolls and stuffed animals: Apple Dumpling, Hello Kitty, and a baby named, appropriately, “Baby.”

Harper read me a story about a puppy named Biscuit. When I asked to see the pictures she’d lay the book on top of the phone. We played and talked in this manner for at least half an hour, then Harper covered me up with her blanket and left the room.

A few minutes later her mom came in and found the phone. Apparently I was supposed to be sleeping.

Now to those of you who are fortunate enough to be able to hug and kiss your grandchildren every day this might seem kind of silly. I’d give anything for even 10 minutes of in-person time with my grands, but this interaction was incredibly sweet. Harper didn’t seem at all bothered that Nana was in the phone.

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Peace, People!