Tag Archives: cell phones

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Yes, cell phones do have their purpose

Most members of my family and even some of my friends know that I have a love-hate relationship with cell phones.

It’s mostly a hate relationship, I must confess, particularly when I hear people flapping their yaps on them in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear them talking about nothing of importance.

However …

I have discovered that cell phones have at least one redeeming quality. I discovered it today on the road back from Allen, where my wife and I had just helped our granddaughter Emma — perhaps you’ve heard me mention her on occasion — celebrate her first birthday.

We were driving home on U.S. 287, blazing through Quanah when a warning message flashed on the dashboard of our 2010 Toyota Prius. It said, “Oil Maintenance Required.”

My wife was at the wheel. Given that we’ve owned the vehicle only a few months and we haven’t acquainted ourselves fully with all the bells and whistles that it contains, we were uncertain about what we were supposed to do. Do we keep going? Do we stop and check the oil level?

We decided to stop in Childress, but before we did my wife said, “Why don’t you call the Toyota dealership and ask them what it means?” Why not, indeed? I work part-time at the dealership where we bought the car; I know the phone number.

We pulled into the parking lot, popped the hood on the car and I called the service department using my handy-dandy cell phone. “Hey, what do I do when the message flashes that tells me ‘oil maintenance’ must be done on the car?” I asked the service technician who answered the phone.

“It just means you’re due for an oil change or a tire rotation,” he told me, assuring me the car wasn’t going to croak in, say, Estelline, Memphis or Hedley on the way home.

There you have it, the perfect reason to own a cell phone.

You won’t catch me blabbing about nonsense in a crowded restaurant. I like using the device when I need to talk to a family member about an urgent matter — or when I need an answer about the vehicle that’s carrying my wife and me home.

I got it. I’m grateful for it.

I still don’t like the thing.

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Trying to understand human behavior

I’ll admit readily to a lot of things that surpass my understanding.

A tale I heard today just might take the cake.

I purchased this fancy new cell phone a few weeks ago. It’s been giving me fits. The battery wouldn’t hold a charge; I took it in twice. The second time I visited the AT&T store up the street from my home, the young man replaced it with a new device, identical to the one I had.

Then the second phone began locking up on me. I would run a function on the phone and the touch screen would become non-responsive. I took the phone in twice more to seek some advice and counsel. I got it and went about my business.

Today it did it again. This time, though, I couldn’t get it unstuck.

I went back to the AT&T store. I was a bit steamed, but not overly so. The young man greeted me at the door with “Hi there, how are you doing?” “Not very well,” I snapped. I then explained to him what was happening with my phone and he directed me to a colleague who he described as “expert on Windows phones.”

“Oh, you mean, Kevin?” I said. I became acquainted with the expert during a previous visit.

But as I told the young man who greeted me about my troubles, I apologized for being so snarky and rude.

His response? “Oh, don’t worry about it. You’re just fine.”

Here is where I got a lesson in human behavior that totally baffles me.

“I’ve been slapped, kicked, called every dirty name there is, even been spit on — at least five times” by angry customers, the young man said.

“Spit on? You mean in the face?” I asked, incredulously. “Yep, right in the face,” he said.

He then told me about an individual who shoved him into a wall because he couldn’t acquire a certain device he was seeking. “Was this at Christmas time?” I asked, only half-joking. “Yes it was,” he said.

Well, Kevin came over eventually, talked me through my problem and then helped me phone the manufacturer’s warranty office. I got a live person after just two electronic prompts. I told the young lady of my problem — and they’re shipping me a new phone, which I’ll get in a day or two.

And to think I thought I was being rude. I’m not sure I even know the meaning of the word after what I heard this afternoon.

Bless all those retail sales staffers who endure that kind of abuse.

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FCC has lost its collective mind

I have drawn this clear and unequivocal conclusion about the Federal Communications Commission.

Most of its members have lost their minds. They need to be committed, institutionalized, given treatment. They need an intervention of some kind.

This news is horrifying to the extreme.

The FCC has voted 3-2 to consider lifting its ban on in-flight cell phone use by airline passengers.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/12/travel/fcc-cell-phones-on-airplanes/

I’ll concede right now that humanity has made plenty of terrible decisions. Enslaving human beings perhaps is tops. Going to war is right up there.

However, I’m thinking that the day we allow passengers to yap to their hearts’ content at 30,000 feet above the planet’s surface while sitting in cramped seats next to other passengers just might rank with the worst decisions in all of human history.

What might happen next? Beats me. The FCC vote means only that the panel will consider it. The Federal Aviation Administration has to sign off on it as well, given that the FAA regulate air travel.

I’ve said before that a decision to allow this kind of activity aboard commercial aircraft is likely to spell the end of my domestic air travel forever. I also know that I hardly am alone in this belief.

Flight attendants and their union leadership are adamantly opposed to allowing it. I daresay that flight deck officers are opposed as well. I also believe a majority of air passengers oppose this notion.

So, how is it that the FCC even can consider this ridiculous notion?

Therein may lie the origin of the assertion I made at the top of this blog.

Three of the FCC’s five members have lost their minds.

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Clearing hurdles with new phone

I am going to suspend for a day or so any gripes, rants and raves and overall snarkiness about the state of politics and policy.

Hey, it’s Thanksgiving.

With that, I want to proclaim a minor victory today with operating my new smart phone.

I managed to send a blog item I had written for Panhandle PBS to my Twitter account. I tweeted it today — using my phone — to my network of friends and assorted contacts. And, because my Twitter account is linked electronically to my Facebook account, my 400-plus Facebook friends got to read it as well.

I had written about President Abraham Lincoln’s brief but poignant Gettysburg Address and noted how such a brief statement — it was just 269 words — wouldn’t be possible in the Internet/TV/Social Media Age. Today’s instantaneous communication makes it too tempting for pols to bloviate ad infinitum — not to mention ad nauseam. (OK, so I ranted just a little bit.)

The story for the day, though, is that I’m starting to get more comfortable with the myriad tasks this cellular telecommunications device can perform.

Do I have them all mastered yet? Pardon me while I laugh out loud.

Maybe I’ll become more proficient in all these tasks. I just hope that day arrives before one or both of my sons talks me into getting an upgrade. Then I’ll have to start over.

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Why is the land line so hard to cut?

Someone needs to answer a question that is bugging me silly.

Why is it so hard to pull the plug on a telephone land line when I really and truly don’t need it?

My wife and I recently purchased two “smart phones,” you know, the kind that do almost everything for you. It’d probably sing us to sleep at night if we had the right “app.” We’re trying to learn how these gadgets work. We’re figuring them out a little at a time as we go through our lives. Our sons are fluent in cell phone speak. One of them, who works as a computer tech, promises to give us a complete tutorial next time we see him; that “next time” is coming up very soon.

I have programmed my phone number into the 2010 Toyota Prius we recently purchased and have gotten the hang of answering the thing when it rings while I’m at the wheel. It’s rather fun, actually, to talk and drive at the same time without fumbling with the damn device.

But this land line issue is driving me batty.

We’ve had the same phone number for the nearly 19 years we’ve lived in Amarillo. We acquired it when we moved into our one-bedroom apartment in early 1995. We built our house in late 1996 and transferred the number over to the new digs as we settled in — three days before Christmas. It’s published in the phone book. Anyone who wants to call us can look up the number in the book — if they still have one — and dial it on their phone, land line or cellular. We had the same phone number in Beaumont as well in the three dwellings we occupied during our 11 years on the Gulf Coast.

I hate admitting this, but I have developed some kind of emotional attachment to having the land line available. It’s inexplicable, yes? It’s also nonsensical. I get all that. However, I cannot yet pull the plug.

Is there something wrong with me?

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Phone technology getting rather fun

I’m about to make an admission that might startle some members of my family and even a few friends.

It concerns some telephone technology to which my wife and I were recently introduced. It’s that technology that enables one to receive and make phone calls while driving a motor vehicle, and without having to fumble with a telephone.

My admission is that I’ve used it and have found that it’s easy and actually kind of fun.

We purchased a hybrid car, a Toyota Prius, recently. It has a lot of bells and whistles. It’s a pretty high-tech car. One of the bells — or maybe it’s a whistle — is this program that enables one to connect a cell phone with the car. You call my cell phone and the car radio speaker starts bleating a sound that tells me a call is coming in. I press a button on the steering wheel and start talking to whomever is calling.

I know this is old news to many of you. It’s new to my wife and me.

I’ve made a couple of calls from the car to people I’ve put on “speed dial” on the radio. I hit another button on the steering wheel, hit the speed dial button and it calls the number automatically.

Yes, this too is old news to those who’ve known about this technology all along.

But it is rather cool.

So I’m able to use the phone in the car while not getting busted by Amarillo police officers for talking and driving at the same time.

I’m really not afraid of technology. It’s all just something that requires some adjustment. I’m finding, though, that I am a fairly adaptable creature.

Texting, though, is an entirely different matter.

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Didn’t see the murder right in front of them?

This story renders me speechless.

A man was killed this past month aboard a San Francisco commuter train in front of several bystanders. They weren’t “witnesses” because they didn’t actually see the crime being committed, in some cases just a couple of feet in front of them.

Why is that? They all were consumed by their texting devices to the point that they didn’t see the killer pull out a gun, wave it around and shoot the victim in the back.

http://us.cnn.com/2013/10/10/tech/san-francisco-shooter-phone/?iref=obinsite

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon told CNN.com, “We’re seeing people that are so disconnected to their surroundings. This is not unique. People are being robbed, people are being hurt, people are being run over by cars because they’re so disconnected because of these phones.”

Justin Valdez is dead. A suspect has been arrested and has pleaded not guilty.

Another key element of this story, though, is the distraction element. It kind of gets to a point I made in an earlier blog post about how telecommunications technology has changed society — and not for the better — by eliminating person-to-person contact in public places.

According to police, several passengers on the train were within a foot or two of the man with the gun. They didn’t see him or the weapon, which he reportedly brandished for several moments before pulling the trigger.

CNN reported further: “‘Just for our own safety, wouldn’t you want to know if somebody standing next to you is pulling a gun out? I think I would,’ Gascon said.

“The security footage of the incident is chilling. The man, donning a baseball hat and smile, lifts a .45-caliber handgun in plain view, three or four times. He waves the weapon as if choosing who he wants to kill. At one point, he even wipes his nose with the gun. But nobody seemed to notice until the blast goes off.”

I am trying to fathom this story as I write these words. This one is going to take some time to process fully. All that’s left to say right now is that this form of 21st-century technology became the death of one young man.

It sickens me.

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Where have privacy and etiquette gone?

I consider myself to be a fairly modern man.

However, I do find some aspects of modern culture more than a bit off-putting. I’ll give you an example of something I witnessed this morning. Maybe you’ll agree. If you disagree, well, too bad.

My weekday mornings usually start with a workout at the health club to which I belong. I am up before the sun rises over the Texas Panhandle Caprock and I head down the street, turn the corner and am at the gym in five minutes. I like to get my exercise in at that time of the morning because no one ever calls me; nothing gets in my way. I have no pressing business before the crack of dawn. I usually leave my cell phone at home.

I finished my workout this morning, was getting dressed in the locker room and I heard some young man blabbing on his cellphone — as he was sitting in the hot tub, presumably to relax or relieve tension or do something therapeutic. But he was chatting up a storm, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the locker room to hear.

It occurred to me at that moment that the young man had no sense of, shall we say, privacy. I cannot remember a single thing he said this morning on his cell phone, but it strikes that telecommunications technology has removed much of modern society’s sense of doing some things in private.

Having a personal telephone conversation used to be one of those things. No more. Now mundane, inane, profoundly meaningless conversations become everyone’s business — or at least the business of those who are within earshot in places, such as health club locker rooms, where one doesn’t necessarily need to hear these things.

You want more ranting? Here it comes.

This demonstration of the loss of privacy is just one aspect of cell phone technology that has coarsened society.

How many times have you walked into a restaurant and witnessed a table full of individuals in which everyone at the table is holding a device and texting someone who is not sitting at the table? No one is talking to each other. They’re all communicating with someone far, far away.

And I think at this point I’ll mention as an aside that many men no longer remove their hats when they sit down to eat. I always thought that was mandatory in polite society. Wasn’t it?

My wife and I recently spent some time at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., where we witnessed more than one young parent sending text messages on their devices while their kids were tugging on their clothes, trying to get their attention, seeking some assurance that their wait in line was about to end.

Ah, modern society is great. I’m trying to adjust to it. I’m getting a handle on a lot of what technology is throwing at me. I think I’ll cling to what I still consider “normal behavior.”

Yapping on a cell phone while sitting in a public locker room hot tub doesn’t qualify as normal.

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No conversational ‘texting’ will be done, promise

Now that my wife and I have joined the race to catch up with the rest of society in the Telecommunications Age, I feel an overpowering need to make this declaration.

At least one of our new “smart phones” — and likely both of them — will never become devices to be used for what I call “conversational texting.”

I can speak only for myself and will let my wife speak for herself. But I declare right here and now that “texting” will occur on my phone only for specific and pertinent reasons.

Let me stipulate as well that I detest the term “text” when it is used in the verb form. I almost without fail add a derisive inflection in my voice when I even utter the word. Members of my family and some of my friends know what I mean. I’ve actually gotten a couple of my nieces to follow my lead — at least in my presence. They are good enough to add that tone of voice when they use the verb-form use of the term.

I also detest the sight of people walking through the mall, or across the street, or in the grocery store — anywhere, if you want to know the truth — with their heads pointed down at their hands that are holding some kind of telecommunications device. These folks generally are oblivious to their surroundings and most likely are engaging in some meaningless conversational “texting.”

My wife and I recently returned from a week’s vacation in Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. We noticed — more than once, I should add — something quite galling. It was the sight of young children cavorting while waiting in line for an exhibit while Mom and Dad were “busy” sending “text” messages to God knows who. The parents were paying little or no attention to the kids, which made us wonder: Why aren’t Mom and Dad enjoying the moment with their kids?

But I digress …

“Texting” has many functional purposes. I can send a message to my wife asking her what I should get at the grocery store. She’ll answer with instructions. She can send a message telling me if she’s been delayed up at an appointment. I’ll acknowledge that message. We can “text” our kids to give them an estimated time of arrival if we’re en route.

You get the idea, yes?

None of this mindless cyberspace chatter for this old-timer. If I need to chat with someone, I’ll call whoever I need to talk to — on my new cellphone.