That Was Quick !

Things are moving so fast once our contracts are accepted that we simply head in the direction of the new assignment and work the details out on the road.  I got the iPhone and wireless Internet (Did you know that the word Internet should be capitalized?  That's what my spell check just taught me.) I got the iPhone and wireless Internet just for this reason.  The only problem is, sometimes calls and connections drop off passing from one cell tower to the next.  And, I learned the hard way, all that connecting and re-connecting can scramble the brains of an iPhone.  So, I get on the laptop wireless, find an AT&T store in the next town and tell Miss GPS where to go. (Oh!  Wouldn't I just LOVE to tell her where to go sometimes!)

I go in, and John goes window shopping.  That man can window shop or surf the Internet for hours and hours. John breaks a sweat if he has to write a check, getting cash out of his billfold is like pulling eye-teeth, and he never uses "plastic" without his blood pressure rising, so "shopping" for him does not mean "buying." Me?  I go.  I buy.  I go home.  This really works out wonderfully because John can tell me, from all of his research, just where to buy the best product at the best price.  I'm tellin' ya', we are the Team of all teams!

So, I go into the AT&T storefront and wait to tell my woeful story, expecting a time-consuming explanation and fix.  Not so.  In two seconds the guy holds down the "Home" button and simultaneously presses the "On/Off" button until the unit turns off.  That little maneuver is called a hard shock. He turns the phone back on and problem solved.  Why couldn't someone have told me to do that over the phone?

On the road again.  Lil' Miss GPS does have her advantages.  We can ask her to list all of the nearest restaurants to eat at, choose the one that fits our taste buds, and tell her to lead the way.  She can let us know when hotels are coming up and again we choose the one that fits us best.  There's a whole list of things she can do for us.  And I've discovered that if we know the town we want to go to but not an address, I just put in something-something Main Street (because EVERY town has a Main Street), and we can get more specific when we get to that town by asking directions.  If we could just get her to quit saying, "Make a legal u-turn ..." over and over and over.

If we have to sign documents on the road I have discovered that I can take a photograph of the document with the iPhone and send that photo via text message or email.  When we get to where we're going, John can fax the original from the hospital, or I can scan it with the printer and email the scan - but more often than not, the receiver is just as happy with the photo.

I have also opened a checking account with Chase bank because I can take a photo of the front and back of a check and Chase will accept that as a deposit to our account via iPhone.  Our sons used that feature to repay us when we had to spend money on the grandkids in Kauai that Granpa thought parents should cover.  (Granma's NEVER expect to be paid back.) 

And so we wend our way to Virginia.