Welcome To The 21st Century

I'm frugal. I'll readily admit that. And I'm absolutely ok with that. It means that I don't need the latest and greatest thing. I don't need the biggest and best simply because it is the biggest and the best. If I need or want something, I generally have a reason for it. Generally. That's why I bought $19.99 running shoes at Costco hoping that they'd replace my long overdue for replacement $140 shoes that have the stuffing coming out the sides and have since the third week I owned them (thank you, Nike). Unfortunately, the shoes have essentially no support and are too wide, so they're going back until I find another pair of running shoes I'm willing to purchase.

Electronics are another good example. I have an iP*d, but I bought it not because "ooooo, look, an iP*d! Everyone has one!" but because when I travel and bring my laptop or go to PTO meetings and have to record the minutes, my laptop battery doesn't last long enough, so I'm constantly in search of an outlet. I do the same with my phone. We were one of the first to get rid of our landline amongst our friends simply because it seemed like an unnecessary cost to us. We've been happy for a decade without it. That said, I was one of the last of my friends to get a cell phone because I didn't see the point in being constantly available. Obviously, I've changed my tune since then.

I love technology, don't get me wrong. I have an awesome DSLR, I have a newer laptop, I have my iP*d, etc. But for me to purchase it, I have to have a compelling reason. Something has to make it so that I can't live without it - live being somewhat tongue in cheek, of course.

So when my Droid - the original Droid - started acting wonky back in August (that's over eight months ago for those of you counting), I lived with it. I called my carrier to see if I could negotiate a better or different contract - especially since neither my husband nor I texted, as I refused to pay the $150+ that would require with our carrier). The only thing they could do was knock $9.99 off my data plan, which would also sign us up for another 2 years. I passed, determined to get out of this contract and into something far cheaper - and yes, I did calculate the break even for switching carriers at that point and paying the cancellation fee. It wasn't quite worth it, sadly.

As my phone continued to go wonky more and more, I found creative solutions. My power button broke so I couldn't turn it off anymore? I carried it in my hand until it fell asleep or used my iGo to turn it back on when I had to pull the battery to stop it from spinning madly. I brought it to the carrier's store where they tried to fix it - repeatedly. It didn't help. Instead I dealt with it, counting down the days until my contract was over.

In February, my phone became utterly useless. It would unlock itself (a pretty neat trick, actually). It would call people. It would try to text them. It would spin madly. It wouldn't let me dial calls. I couldn't stop it, and finally it wouldn't even let me voice search my navigation or accept calls. Frugal me, I put out a call for help to Facebook - knowing that I have friends who upgrade their phones far more often than I do. Two friends offered phones that they had outgrown, and voila I had a new phone without having to renew my contract because I had upgraded my phone (eBay was also an option, but my friends come first).

Fast forward to now. I spent last week researching carriers - who my friends like, the costs, the coverage, the plans, the phones. On Monday, I walked into Costco and had my new phones and plans set up in under thirty minutes. I'm pretty sure I made the day of the woman making the kiosk. (Why Costco? Aside from deeply discounted phones, the rebate the activation, and provide a whole slew of extras from a bluetooth to a car charger for free. Oh, and since I used my Costco AmEx, I have a second year of warranty free - I used it with the Droid, and AmEx refunded my Droid purchase price to my card, no questions asked.)

My husband has a smart phone for the first time ever. Watching him try to use it sort of makes me giggle, but I'm nice and have been helping him. I now text for the first time ever, and my friends are thrilled - for the moment. I'm finally not the one who says, "Wait - can you call me instead? I don't text" and get the weird looks from everyone. I am even paying about thirty percent less with this plan than I did with the old one, even though we're getting so much more.

Welcome to the 21st century, Me. And Swype? I love you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go play with my new phone some more - and hope I don't break it before my $2.91 case (shipping included) arrives.

What is your relationship with technology? Do you always buy the latest and greatest, or do you have to justify your purchases some other way?

You Learn Something New Every Day

In the past few days, I've been learning lots of new things. Did you know that Almond Joy and Mound now use a Jamaican theme to sell their candy? Red Robin is now selling a really awesome looking burger with fried onions and other yummy toppings. And the movies that are coming out in the near future? Yeah, I'm probably not going to see a single one. The Toyota commercials with new customers touting how they still bought their cars even after the recent recall issues make me giggle, though.

Why do I know all this?

Wellll, on Friday, I sat down after the wee ones were in bed and turned on the tv for the first time all week. Funny - you'd think with me being off work I'd have more time to watch tv and get caught up on my computer, but oddly the reverse is true.

I immediately flipped over to the saved shows on my DVR and started to watch one from a couple weeks ago that I hadn't yet seen. Oddly, it had no volume. I sighed, as this sometimes happens where the volume goes out for awhile but then comes back partway through. No dice. I tried another one. Same thing.

Then I noticed that my husband had stopped the recording of one of my favorite shows earlier in the week so that only a single minute recorded. I sighed and decided to watch at least that one minute. Annnnnnd nothing. I received the error message "Sorry, no video data detected. Show not recorded."

Uh-oh.

I began looking at other shows, and they all had the same volume problem. I noticed other shows that had taped in the past week that also recorded only for one minute. Even shows that I had watched previously with no issues and saved no longer had volume.

I tried watching just the regular tv, but it wouldn't change to television and instead kept playing the silent recorded show. Worried, I flipped over to straight cable instead of the DVR feed, fearing that all tv was gone. Nope, that still works.

I went through my usual fixes of turning off the DVR and resetting it. I reset the cable modem. I reaffixed the little laser DVR readers to the cable box. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

My DVR has died.

I've lost three weeks of LOST now, two weeks of Grey's and Private Practice and other shows that I won't quite admit to - the last two were revelation enough. And nothing else can record until this gets fixed.

Our DVR is a Replay TV that offerd a lifetime subscription. I think we hit its lifetime (granted it's over seven years old and my husband has been begging me to replace it for years with a model that allows you to record one show and watch another and does so in HD).

We kept it all this time, however, as I had no interest in paying an extra $15 for cable for something I was essentially getting for free. I knew it couldn't last forever, but I didn't think it would just go like this.

Since Friday, if I wanted to watch something, I had to be home to watch it, and I had to watch it commercials and all. I couldn't rewind and rewatch something particularly interesting or something I missed. I couldn't pause to read details on the screen that are too quick to catch when watching live tv.

And I haven't been home much. I miss my shows. That's sad to admit, isn't it?

How did we live without DVRs again? What technology is now a required one in your life?

Sorry, People!

For Christmas this year, my husband bought me a neat present. Of course, I think it's neat because I specifically requested it (along with a number of other items that he couldn't figure out -- like BPA-free mugs I have since bought myself).

With the running that I do, I'm really intrigued to know how hard I'm working and how effectively. I'd like to track my workouts, too, but I'd like a tool to make it easier. That and it's always fun to know how many calories you're burning, isn't it?


Now I feel like a real exerciser. A professional, as it were. I have my own heart rate monitor!



And no, I won't model it for you. Thanks for asking. And no, I have no idea why the picture turned sideways when I loaded it. It was fine on my computer.

Anyway, I finally started using the heart rate monitor a couple weeks ago. It's pretty cool and relatively intuitive. I only scanned the directions briefly to figure out how to work it. I love technology like this!

I put it on and started out. A friend of mine was at the gym with me that day doing the elliptical while I ran. As usual, I had my iPod with me, phones in my ears, listening to my podcast while I happily ran. When I finished, she was on the ab machines, so I moseyed over there to talk to her.

As I cooled down more and stopped the podcast, I realized my heartrate monitor was beeping. Eh, it wasn't too loud. I waited for my friend to finish. When she joined me, she realized I was the one who had been beeping and had distracted her from her counts while doing crunches. Oops.

Apparently my monitor beeps unhappily and quite loudly whenever my heartrate goes above or below my target rate. When I'm on the treadmill, it's not a big deal since just about everyone is listening to their iPods anyway and can't really hear the beeping.

Today, I put the heartrate monitor on to go to my belly dancing class. Except that it wasn't belly dancing because the teacher was still recovering from her surgery. Instead they brought the Soul Grooves teacher in. No problem, it's still basically dancing.

Ten minutes into the class, a slower song came on and my heartrate dropped. I started beeping. I now realized how loud that beeping was. And I'm pretty sure others in the class did, too.

I tried putting my hand over the wrist to mute the beeping to some degree, but that wasn't feasile for long. I tried pressing various buttons to try to get it to stop, but that didn't work either. On the plus side, I figured out how to show calories burned during my workout. That wasn't at all distracting.

Fortunately, a faster song came on, so my heart rate went back up. Phew!

And then it wasnt down again. Lots more beeping.

Luckily, the lights were turned way down or everyone would have seen my bright red face. I kept trying to keep it quiet to no avail. Somehow, it never crossed my mind that I could simply turn the monitor off completely. My brain doesn't always work the way it should.

It finally dawned on me that I vaguely remembered seeing a settings function when I stopped my workouts the past two times. In the middle of doing plies, I found a way to turn the beeping off.

Hallelujah!

By the end of class, I think people had forgotten about the obnoxious beeping, so no one made an issue of it. I never claimed to be a techhie. Remember, I liked the heart rate monitor because it was intuitive.

The good news is that I don't think my beeping will bother anyone going forward. And even better? I know how hard my workouts are. That soul grooves class? It burns more calories than I thought! 503 calories in the hour I spend there. Not quite the 598 I burned running the day before, but I won't complain.

Maybe I should go back and read that instruction manual, huh?

Luddite or Cheap, Take Your Pick

I like technology. I've just never been an early adopter.

I was one of the last people I knew who got a cell phone. Ironically, I haven't had a landline in three years. The only reason I have a computer at home is because my husband bought me one (actually two in the last six years). I have purchased only one tv ever, and that was a flat screen my husband made me (ok us) buy almost two years ago. The Tivo I have is a Christmas present from I think five years ago. It doesn't record in digital, and you can't watch another channel when recording something. My iPod was a Christmas gift from my husband and is a first generation one from years ago.

I do realize that many of the technology items I have -- including my cell phone -- have newer siblings that have cooler features. I even covet some of those features, including the new Tivo type ones. But I can't bring myself to upgrade when my current versions work perfectly fine. You know the saying... if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I'm starting to have a problem with my iPod, however. I've used it for years to listen to music when traveling for work or hanging out at home when I need to be quiet due to the wee ones napping or while working in the office. It's always done what I need it to do, and that's all good.

This spring, I started running. I found a running program that would get me from HA! to actually running 5K (my goal) in nine weeks -- you'll notice that I didn't say nine easy weeks. It involved running increasing distances in shorter intervals. You had your choice of running a distance or for a length of time. Considering I was running in my neighborhood, time was the only real choice. But looking at a watch every five seconds to see if I was done didn't seem very productive to me.

I put off starting the program until I discovered that some brilliant person had created podcasts that told you what to do when and played music during your runs. Problem solved, and I quickly started my program. (Quickly being when I started doing it, not how fast I was running of course.)

About week 3, I noticed that my iPod would freeze in the middle of the podcast once or twice and then keep going after twenty to thirty seconds. I tried redownloading the podcasts, but that didn't help. Then the podcast started freezing with a few minutes left in my run. I'd guess at how much time I had left to run, but that was just not good.

In my research, I discovered how to reset the iPod because it got to the point where my iPod wouldn't turn off or anything -- for reference, turn the lock switch on then off, then hold down the up part of the wheel until it turns off. I can now do this without looking at my iPod while running at 6mph.

That's a skill I could do without.

I'm slowly beginning to realize that my iPod will need to be replaced. But when listening to music, it works fine. It's only those longer podcasts that cause the problem. And I will say that the people I hear about downloading their favorite tv shows and watching them whenever they have spare time or oh I don't know while running on a treadmill make me a bit jealous.

But much like my car (which also needs replacing), it's hard for me to just toss off something that's been with me a long time. I'm loyal that way -- to friends, to work, to my family -- and that's not a bad thing.

Then people go and throw this new technology in my face and make me drool. The SITS girls are giving away a new 4G iPod Nano in silver. Yep, it's that latest and greatest thing, and now I want one. I was doing ok until I actually saw the picture of it. Until I read the 4 hours of video and 1,000 songs, not to mention the 3,500 pictures. Until I realized that the battery on my iPod was again dead even though I charged it two days ago.

Maybe I'll slip a hint to my husband that I want a new one for my birthday. Of course, well before then I'm pretty sure that I'll have given up on Mr. Freezy and will be listening to the random music and commercials and "Will Liz Thomas please report to the childcare center. Liz Thomas, thank you" that feeds throughout the health club where I run.

Or a girl could always dream and actually win the iPod from the SITS girls....