My friend John Vincenzo became another enthusiastic Nokia E62 user, but not entirely by choice. Forthwith, here is his tale of technology and daily life.
Day 16,720 - Water Damage: My cell phone saga
As you may know, during a particularly hot day this past September
while I was using my Blackberry the mouthpiece became damaged from profuse perspiration. The phone was rendered useless, so I swapped its SIM
card with one in another phone I use as a backup. When I finally had time
at the end of September (the 26th to be exact) I disassembled the phone, determined what was wrong (mouthpiece contacts were covered with
salt) corrected the problem and voila the phone was working again! But the battery was very low and I did not have the charging cable so I left
the spare phone SIM in the Blackberry and figured I would swap the SIMs
when I was comfortable the Blackberry was OK. Someplace between the office and home the Blackberry disappeared. I knew it was in my bag when I
left the office, but that night I could not find it. It could only be in the car, at the office, or at home, unless somehow it fell out of the bag on the walk from the office to the car. And of course I could not
call it because the battery was dead.
I looked everywhere. Tore the office apart. Tore the car apart. Tore
the house apart. Nothing. I know did not drop it while walking to my car.
I was convinced it was someplace in my house.
The phone is only a year old. I was ineligible for a discount on a
new one because I have too many months left on my account. I was not
about to spend $400 dollars I don't have on a phone I should not have lost, and most importantly a phone that I was convinced I would eventually find. So I have been sucking it up, using a phone without a full keyboard to send text messages and respond to emails, using abbreviated words like bcuz, cnt, hlp, ths scks, etc, not being able
to look addresses up in a cab when I am late for a meeting etc... you
know. All the things I couldn't do 10 years ago that I can't live without today.
Then on Thursday this past week something happened; I was caught in a downpour on my way to meet a friend after dinner with a client, stuck
on a block without any shelter and by the time I got to some shelter I
was soaked to the skin. And don't you know it, the phone I had been
using, my backup phone was soaked as well. It was like watching a mortally wounded soldier breath his last breath; it's screen flickering off
for the last time as I tried to call my friend to tell him I was going to
be
late. "Tell the phones back home I love them..."
No phone. Into the night I went to try to find this friend I was supposed to meet who is likely pissed by now in some obscure place I
did not know in Soho. I didn't know where the hell I was going and I soon gave up and walked leisurely home. If I was going to get wet I might
as well enjoy it. Back at home I disassembled the phone (I am pretty
good at that these days) dried the phone out but it was in vain. The
screen was damaged with water between the glass plates. Maybe someday it will dry out and work again, but not today.
So Friday morning there I am, the familiar face at the Cingular store who makes the 6thgrade dropout sales rep look like a genius as he notices that I did NOT get the insurance he suggested for an extra $5.00 per month on EITHER phone. "You know if you had insurance...", "Yeah, thanks I know. Can
we skip this part please?" I have no choice now, it's almost 10:00AM and there are probably 10 to 15 messages already waiting for me.
Now I had been eying the Nokia E62, and even considered buying one last week just because I was sick of writing "jst bcuz". I fought temptation believing the Blackberry would surface. Today my will was broken.
I was able to work out a deal where I retired my old analog phone I was resisting giving up in exchange for discounts. I got the E62 for less than $100 after rebates etc. The downside is I no longer have an analog phone, so I cannot pursue that get-rich-quick life of crime idea I had. On to plan B.
Saturday morning I spent getting my new E62 all set up, exporting my
old blackberry contacts from my PC into a CSV file, converting them to
the Nokia format, sucking them into the Nokia etc., looking for non- existent
Apple compliant software, selecting a pleasant ring tone that won't make me reach for the phone every time I am in a room with two or more people "Is that you, is that me, whose phone is that?", a decent wall paper, loading it with MP3s... the important stuff. BTW: it's a very nice phone. I like it much more than the Blackberry.
On Sunday morning yours truly the happy idiot is home cleaning and talking on the phone and as I move the bed to take a head count of
the local dust bunny colony, there it is. Sideways between the night
stand and the bed. The next few moments must have been very confusing to
the person on the other end of the phone as I exercised that colorful
part of my vocabulary I reserve for just such special occasions. After 52 frickin days I break down and buy a replacement. Now I find the Blackberry?
So now what? Return the E62, write a review on how much better it is than a Blackberry and move on, keep the E62 and sell the Blackberry
on Ebay? Or should I do what probably makes the most sense, keep both
and use one as a spare because I know this will happen again. And after
20 months it would be cheaper to do that than have the insurance!
