Bringing the Museum Piece Out of Retirement

My wife had been having trouble with her mobile phone lately. It didn't seem to pick up the network of our provider and was always in roaming mode, but not working well and generally being ineffective. There are a lot of ways I could solve this dilemma, but I'd like to do it in a way that doesn't cost a lot of money and doesn't contractually tie me to any service provider for a longer period of time. Since we don't have a landline phone, getting my wife a working phone was the biggest thing I wanted to accomplish. And yes, one possibility might be to build some redundancy into our network by getting a landline again.

As for the possibility of spending money, just to run a diagnostic on the phone would cost $35. That should be free -- as far as I know, the problem isn't even with the phone. But apparently, mobile providers offer phone service for low prices and try to earn all their money on additional "services" like this one. Or, I could but a new phone from them for at least $150. Or, I could wait until August and get $75 off the price of a phone from them. Or, I could buy a phone on eBay.

But, as I said, my first goal was to get my wife a working phone. They'll switch numbers between phones for free. I was going to switch her number to my phone and then deal with the non-working phone in "Phase 2" of the solution. However, to transfer numbers between phones, a third "dummy" phone is needed. Enter old phone that we were lucky we kept. We got rid of that maybe 2 1/2 years ago because the screen no longer worked. I plugged it in and the screen worked. So, instead of having the non-working phone, I transferred my number to the ancient Samsung 8500. We'll see how long that works. I'm thinking eBay is the next option, if this one doesn't work out.

Athletic Road Trips With Sticks

Until Friday, it had been quite a while since I've gone on a road trip to participate in a team sport that involved the use of sticks. Previously, it was in my lacrosse-playing days. This time, the sticks are more correctly called "brooms" and the sport was curling.

It was an overnight "Mini-spiel", where 4 teams from our club played a game Friday night and Saturday morning against teams from the host club. It included a dinner Friday night -- choices were filet mignon or some fancy shrimp dish -- a reminder that I'm not playing lacrosse anymore. Friday night lodging was free and provided by members of the home club, and we had a cookout lunch on Saturday after the games. Another indication we weren't playing lacrosse was the sushi at the cookout.

All-in-all, it was a great time, and we got to meet some wonderful people. I hope to do it again, but not real soon. My current plan is that I might enter a full bonspiel in January.

Curling-wise we did OK. I played second. Going into the 8th (final) end of the Friday night game, we were up by 2 and had hammer. We somehow gave up 4 to end up losing, 9-7. Then, on Saturday morning, we were up by three going into the last end with hammer. This time we scored three more to make the final 9-3.

I didn't fully understand the tournament scoring. In terms of games, we lost, 6 games to 2. But then they also did something where points were totaled as well as ends won. (I'm not sure I agree with adding ends to points. Would you rather win two 1-point ends, or one 3-point end?) Anyway, there were three awards: The overall cup, which our club didn't win, as well as a small trophy to the highest scoring team for each club. We ended up winning that. Since we have no club trophy case for it, our skip probably should have received it. But, because I mentioned that I have never won anything before (which isn't really true) he let me keep it, at least for a while. See below. I'm so excited! :-)

Isle of Dogs by Patricia Cornwell

As I was in the library looking at the available audiobooks, I saw a woman who had the appearance of a frequent visitor to that section. I asked her for her advice. She said that her blind mother-in-law frequently listened to audiobooks, and she selected them for her. Two authors she suggested were John Grisham and Patricia Cornwell. Since I was familiar with Grisham, I went with Cornwell.

The book I selected was Isle of Dogs, and it turned out to be an abridged version. I don't know how long the actual book is, but I listened to 5 CDs whereas a "normal" novel might contain between 9 and 14 CDs.

After listening for a while, I noticed all the reviews for this book say that it is bad. Cornwell is apparently "America's bestselling crime novelest", though in this one, she tries her hand at dark humour. The book involves a state trooper and the head of the Virginia trying to track down a serial killer and a band of "road pirates" who board semi tractor-trailers. There's also the blinding and senile governor and a cast of characters with really strange names, such as Unique First, Major Trader, Windy Breeze, and others. Everything is such a caricature that there is a limited feeling of reality about the whole thing. When my recording malfunctioned and I missed the last 7 minutes of so of the novel, I didn't feel that bad about it. Everyone seemed so unrealistic that it was easier than normal to not care about missing the conclusion. Maybe I'll pick up a print copy and read the last few pages sometime. Or maybe not.

That said, it's not all bad. Maybe it's like cotton candy for the mind. It did hold my interest, though I may be slightly embarrassed to admit it, and when I missed hearing the ending, it was quickly forgotten. I still need some real nutrition.

Two stars (barely) out of five.

Biking in the Land of Plenty

It was about time for the kids to move up to bigger bikes, so my wife went garage sale shopping today and picked up a couple of bikes for a total of $17. They had the idea that it would be nice to paint them, so I spent a good bit of the day disassembling the bikes for painting and then putting them back together. I had nothing to do with the neon green colour selection.

It's amazing to me how cheap used bicycles can be purchased. Sure, they're not in the greatest shape, but they're ridable. The point I'm trying to make is that, compared to walking, a bicycle is a big improvement, and it's amazing to me that people are practically giving away that transportation upgrade. Sure, part of it is that bikes are more toys that transportation.

Along those lines, I'd consider getting new higher-quality domestic bicycles for the kids, but it's hard to make that $250 (or more) purchase when a cheap, used, imported model costs $8.50. Not only does it show the challenges domestic manufacturers face, it makes me think about the economy of the future. One would hope that, in future years, mankind will be able to meet more of individuals' basic needs like food, shelter, and bicycles. So, if you want to sell something as more than a commodity, you'll have to make it better than anyone else. It's not enough to sell a good bicycle. You'll need to sell a great one, to those specialized buyers that are looking to buy a great one.

Also, I always have trouble with photos with that fence in the background. I think the camera likes to focus on the fence and not the foreground.